Gaming best linux distro ever.

[BedtimeGuy]

well, i want to know gbatemp's collective favorite distribution of Linux (or any other free OS like free bsd)! please give reasons and vote (in the +1 format). You may give a -1 but only if you provide a fair reason. you can also vote for more than one distro, but don't vote for them all...
Best Ever
ubuntu (3)
Debian (3)

Honorable Mention (2 votes)
Linux mint (2)
Gentoo (2)

Good (1 vote)
Puppy linux (1)
Slackware (1)
Slax (1)
Fedora (1)
Mandriva (1)
Arch (1)
Gentoo (1)
Exherbo (1)
kubuntu (1)

 

[FAST6191]

For me at least half the point was having a few distros able to a few things:

Something to customise in terms of apps and stick in my bag for running around with to give me a basic OS "on the go"?
Puppy linux
This also applies to the "something to use to fix a machine" if bartpe does not count.

Something to use as a straight up desktop:
Probably linux mint for while I have used puppy as a straight up desktop it lacks polish.

Sidebar at this point; both of the previously mentioned distros are there because they are willing to bend or outright ignore various things like software patents that hold many other distros back in my opinion. In the case of puppy linux it is designed to be modular so I can reasonably build a distro that ignores the GPL as well (giving me binary only drivers).

Something to use as a web/email server:
I am going with debian. This being said I have not deployed much in the way of servers with other distros lately so I can be swayed here.

Development machine: depends on what I am developing for (end user stuff, hacking tool, websites, backend for something, intended operating system) and with (language wise)

On top of all this you also have to consider that people are fans of different major versions, different window managers (and this goes well beyond the basic gnome and KDE) and even the stuff various distros pervert at this point (going back to gnome and KDE for the sake of argument they both with a whole host of "default" apps for various things and each of them can be replaced or tweaked extensively depending on the distro).
The end user also gets extensive customisation options once they get beyond the diving behind the sofa anticipating an explosion stage.

 

[piratesmack]

Slackware +1

Reasons:
-No dependency hell
-BSD-style init scripts
-No dirty hacks/patches were used to build the packages
-Comes with a very complete set of libraries, development tools, 2 DEs and like 4 window managers, and tons of other software.
-No branding

 

[boondoklife]

Server would have to be gentoo, but as far as a desktop ubuntu is really quite nice.

 

[Advi]

SLAX is freaking awesome. KDE is kinda ugly, but the USB mode works wonders. It's incredibly useful for school (although booting up and down causes command-lines to run down the screen, which can scare the hell out of faculty).

And I think personal preference dictates what kind of distro you need. Slack is obviously the choice for more experienced Linux users, but for easy use Ubuntu, Fedora and Mandriva are all great choices (I have a burnt disc for each.)

Of course, dual-booting with Windows XP is great.

 

[Maz7006]

Debian.

 

[BedtimeGuy]

W00t! keep up the voting guys! (please make it obvious as to whether or not you are actually voting for something by doing a +1 at the end...). i suppose i ought to go buy some CDs to test this out!

hmmmm... should i change this into a general "which OS is best" thing? the only reason i don't want to is that all the Microsoft fan-boys will take over and Linux wont do well...(even though it is better

)

 

[Splych]

Ubuntu. That's the only one I plan on using and already have used it before. I like my plain old Windows XP and 7 xD

 

[Cermage]

+1 for linux mint.
better than ubuntu imo, everything comes pre-installed. codecs, open office, firefox, pidgin e.t.c very simple to use off the bat.

+1 for Gentoo
Very customizable (and i mean very), a bit hard to set up and the set up period is quite lengthy. but once its setup well, its great.

+1 debian
kind of the inbetween entry distro's and distro's like gentoo or arch imo. just right for people looking for some fun setting up and get running.

 

[Arm the Homeless]

+1 for Arch
- Minimalistic (It's basically start-from-scratch with a few tools.)
- Probably the best package manager (Pacman FTW.)
- Great documentation (The Wiki will solve all of your problems.)
- User-operated repository (AUR, pretty kick-ass

)
- i686 optimized (Unlike i386 like other distros *cough*ubuntu*cough*)
- PKGBUILDs (Easy-to-understand format.)
- I'm using it now. (Yes I am.)

+1 for Gentoo
- More minimalistic that Arch (Doesn't have an installer, for the most part.)
- Compiling-from-source distro (Yayyyyyy.)
- Ebuilds (Format is pretty easy to understand.)
- USE flags (Fucking awesome.)
- Runs on many architectures (MIPS!)
- revdep-rebuild (Need I say more?)

+1 for Exherbo
- More minimalistic than Gentoo (Doesn't have an installer, overall pretty hard to set up.)
- Devs are awesome ("I want to install Exherbo." "No you don't.")
- Based off Gentoo (Yay.)

-1 for Ubuntu
- Bloated (Includes like, 5 web browsers and 10 text editors by default.)
- Slow (Not as slow as Windows, but much slower than above distros.)
- Noob distro (Booooring.)
- Users (They tend to think Ubuntu and GNU/Linux are synonymous.)

 

[piratesmack]

uh slackware +100

-2.6.29 kernel (tuzzzzzz)

 

[BedtimeGuy]

so... how about turning this into a thread about all OSes?... I would like a reply on that (i would probably copy this into a new thread if i did that though)