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Choosing a Linux distribution

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Linux

Choosing a Linux distribution is actually a matter of personal faith. There are largely three kinds of people: the one who use one of the many distributions available as is, those who install an available distribution and customize it to their satisfaction and the geeks who go a step further and create and use their own distribution.

The major/popular distributions available in the world of Linux are: Debian, Ubuntu (Debian based), Fedora, SuSE, Gentoo, Mandriva to name a few. These distributions are largely categorised based on the methodology used for software packaging. These categories are: rpm based and deb based. 'rpm' stands for redhat package manager and rpm packages are the software packages created using Redhat package manager guidelines. Similarly, 'deb' stands for debian package and these are the software packages created using Debian packaging guidelines. For example, Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva are 'rpm' based distributions; Debian, Ubuntu are 'deb' based distributions.

You are free to use any distribution you like. But, in the long run not many distributions give you the satisfaction and comfort that you expect. This may be because of distributions going obsolete due to lack of maintenance and updates. So, it is suggested to keep in mind the following points while choosing a Linux distribution for long term usage:

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re: Distro Choice

The article gives way (WAY) to much weight to the following criteria:

# Frequency of updates available for installed packages
# Frequency of new version release

I'm not sure who, except maybe the diehard linux dabblers, that judges frequent updates to be a good thing.

For a server - it's one of the worse aspects of any distro (hence my choice of Redhat/Centos for servers).

For a desktop, some updates are good (and secure) but too frequent just means things get hosed up more often then they need too.

Most (desktop) users (not computer geeks) just want something that consistently works, and doesn't bork at the least little thing (like rebooting after a update only to find one or more apps are totally hosed).

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