Sunday, February 20, 2005

Count Linux Distros

It seems nowadays a great number of geeks could take the Linux kernel and bundle it with different flavors of software and make their own distros. What distro should I grab to fit my next PC project?

  • Xandros - Do printer/file sharing just like Windows. It is used by Extremetech to build a home server. Great for beginners. Bundled with Walmart PC.
  • Gentoo - Features Portage (based on FreeBSD's Ports tool) that lets administrators acquire and update software by downloading source code and compiling applications to suit their particular system.
  • Fedora - Fedora Core 3 has a better plug-and-play and wireless networking support.
  • Mandrake
  • SuSe
  • Debian - Very hardcore!
  • Ubuntu - A derivative of Debian.
  • uClinux - For embedded systems.

The caveat of installing Linux is of course making sure that all the hardware in the PC system can be properly supported. Many hardware by default only ship with Windows drivers and there is just no way to get around. Try to put Linux on laptop is proved to be no small task.

3 comments:

Yung-Chang Tan said...

Or simply check out distrowatch.com

Yung-Chang Tan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Yung-Chang Tan said...

I gave MEPIS a test run the other night and got pretty impressed, mostly because it has a working MPlayer.

Skiing at Winter Park