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Time to try some non-Microsoft operating systems...

Wednesday, 18. April 2007, 10:37:03

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I've finally reached that point. Working with Microsoft software for most of the day as part of my job has made me more and more fed up with it. I've been planning on trying out some different operating systems for a long time.

So I've started doing some research into the range of open-source (free) operating systems out there - and discovered the range is pretty huge - here's an incomplete list - and here's the other list. Here's just a list of categories of free operating systems. I don't think that covers all of them.

I decided I would try out the ones that are designed to go "out of the box". I'm a 'nix newbie, so I need newb distro. Also I have plenty of people who I'd like to convince to try a non-windows operating system - so what I'm interested in first & foremost is an OS that allows you to do everything you want to do with a computer easily. With an absolute minimum of tinkering and geekery. :wink:

Here's the 12 desktop live/install CDs I've decided to test - and links to my impressions if I have already tested them:

Desktop BSD 1.6 - site - tested
Kanotix - site - tested
Mandriva Linux One 2007 - site - tested
Mepis 6.5 - site - tested
PCLinuxOS TR4 - site - tested
Ubuntu 7.04 - site - tested
Vector Linux Live 5.8 - site - tested
Dynebolic 2.4.2 - site - tested
FreeSBIE 2.0.1 - site - tested
Knoppix - site - tested
NimbleX - site
Slax - site

I hope this will help others who are considering the same move to free software.

Yes I've checked out OSX, and it's nice - hey, it's based on BSD - but I wasn't really that impressed with some of the limitations - the obvious one of course is being locked into Apple hardware. The other one is the limitations of the interface: for example I don't like the file browser, MS Explorer is not that great but the one for OSX is worse. Mac users get a raw deal there, and there isn't much you can do about it.

I've found some cool distros that people have made with these things in mind. What these developers are coming up with now is a CD you can boot from and have the OS instantly without installing it on your hard drive - AND you can install the OS from that same CD if you choose, without having to download anything else.

Of course the main reason - the catalyst, as it were - is that I'm fed up with Windows. At the end of this I expect I'll either be converted to the ways of some fantastic open-source OS and never look back - or at least I will have given it a shot and decided I'm lazy enough to stay with Windows.

Having said that, I'll try to keep an open mind, aware of the fact that Linux is not Windows.

Thanks to Opera community members who have recommended these to try, here and here. If you can recommend any others please feel free to do so.

Update

I've had a look around at the news and comments at desktoplinux.com and distrowatch, two very helpful sites for someone like me who's had a bit of a taste of Linux and wants to know more. I also recommend linuxquestions.org for a lot of user reviews on a huge range of distros. I've found some more distros I'm interested in trying at some point:

BLAG Linux and GNU - purely because it's the only distro I've found that's based on Fedora. It's also a singe installable Live CD. There are a LOT of packages available for Fedora and they all work with blag, apparently.

Berry Linux, also based on Fedora, also available as an installable Live CD.

Dreamlinux - based on Debian, Knoppix and Morphix, and quite popular right now by the looks of things. I think it means to be what the name says.

Elive - based on Debian and using the Enlightenment interface which is supposed to be groundbreaking in all sorts of ways. In fact elive stands for enlightenment live. Unfortunately they only offer it as a paid download, and don't seem to have any mirrors available anywhere (stating they are all down). Unfortunately, I can't really afford to donate anything to their project, and that's not really the point of this exercise anyway: I'm looking for software you don't have to pay money for! I found a torrent for it but this appeared to be corrupted, it wouldn't boot although the contents of the CD looked ok. The MD5 checksum didn't check out (using fastsum) so either the source file was corrupt or the download corrupted somehow. This is a first. Anway I'll keep an eye on their site for now and see if I can have another go later.

Freespire, the free cousin of Linspire and sponsored by the same company as Ubuntu: Canonical. It's based on Ubuntu and promises more applications, more hardware support and better usability.

Linux Mint - it's another distro based on Ubuntu. The site wasn't very informative but I've since checked the wikipedia entry and it advises it is similar to freespire in offering more hardware, software and media support, and it's also pretty popular at distrowatch.

Nexenta OS just because it's not Linux and it's not BSD! It's an OpenSolaris based OS compatible with many GNU applications. It's aiming to be compatible with Debian packages. They have a Live CD you can download and run. It's still in fairly early development stages, although there's already 12212 packages available!

ZenLive, the Zenwalk live CD. Zenwalk is built on Slackware. It looks like it has more software support for coders and developers but it's generally pretty full featured otherwise, so I'd like to check it out.

...my financial position currently means I'm unlikely to get that hard drive I need in order to have the spare space to start dual or multi-booting my laptop in the next couple of months, I'll probably get through all of these before then.

Throw out those old-fashioned HDDs, get a SSD instead.Desktop BSD 1.6: My first experience with a non-Windows (and non-Mac) OS

Comments

Klaus 18. April 2007, 10:46

Read my Blog and you know what Microsoft is -lol http://my.opera.com/eisbaer99/
Becauce I know how you feel Klaus

James 18. April 2007, 21:06

heh... I would liken Microsoft Windows to a house where none of the locks are secure and the power/water/utilities keep going off. You have to keep resetting the house to get power/water/etc going again, and Microsoft slowly develops and gives you locks for all the unsecured doors and windows. It also has a whole lot of gadgets and extra rooms you never use, which take up extra room so that your back yard is tiny.

I mean if it was a toaster, you're still able to use the toaster, it would just randomly burn it or swallow your toast or allow someone else access to your toast, right? :wink: Oh, and take up all the kitchen bench space of course.

Someone in the off topic forums kindly pointed me to a good page on just how bad Microsoft is. Try this link on for size.

Klaus 19. April 2007, 21:16

Yes Microsuck got the Idea

blackbelt_jones 21. April 2007, 16:00

Some of these distros you mention are not really what I would consider newbie distros, especially Vector Linux and anything BSD, but that's no reason not to try them. You get a great sense of what Linux is by trying different distros. If something doesn't work, try something else. It's how I got started.

I think that limiting yourself to one disk installations is sort of misplaced, but a netinstall of Debian Etch falls under that category.

Kanotix is my favorite Live CD, and it's especially made for a net install.

Mint Linux is essentially Ubuntu with essential codecs added.

You know I love SUSE, but that has extra disks.

blackbelt_jones 24. April 2007, 22:35

I've been thinking about this. Trying a dozen live CDs is a terrific idea, but if you're not going to install any of them to your hard drive, you're not going to get the full flavor, and you're not going to get a full comparison. When you're running a live CD, you're basically running the desktop and you're not going to experience the package managers and administrative tools that distinguish one distro from another.

But even if it's not going to be the complete experience, comparative Linux desktops is a great place to start. Trying on a live CD distro is always fun and educational.

Here's the famous LIVE CD list:

http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

James 26. April 2007, 00:17

Thanks for the link, yes I've seen it before. It's a big wide-ranging list but doesn't quite have the information I needed. I wanted to get the Live CDs that you can also install from without having to send for/buy/download another CD. That was the bit that captured my attention.

I'm planning on trying them Live first then seeing which tempts me to install. I will eventually try installing a dozen or so I imagine, but that will be over a fairly long timeframe as I don't have that much spare time to spend on wee projects like this.

blackbelt_jones 26. April 2007, 01:28

I guess distrowatch.com is the best place for that kind of information.

Try Kanotix. Classic old school Debian Linux ingeniously packaged in a live CD, and especially configured to install to the hard drive as Debina "Sid"

Some people don't even bother to to install Kanotix. If you've got enough RAM, and an extra CD ROM drive, you can run the live CD as the ultimate stable desktop opeating system, backing up data to a Linux partition on the harddrive. It mounts and reads and writes to a Linux partition easily, reads from a Windows partition easily, and in both cases,it puts an icon on the KDE desktop to give you easy gui access on the KDE desktop.

Also, look for CDs that will show you alternatives to the Gnome and KDE desktop.

blackbelt_jones 26. April 2007, 17:37

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/9985/snapshot1lq0.png

Here's a kanotix screenshot. Note the icons on the left side of the desktop-- those are partitions on my hard disks. I can mount them (connect them to the running operating system) with a single click, and read from the Windows partition, and read from and write to the Linux partitions. Some live CDs have this feature, some don't. I think Ubuntu may have added it to their newest release. It makes a live CD immensely more useful as a live CD.

Kanotix is a great all-round live CD. It has a great collection of applications, mounts the hard drive, and installs to the hard drive as real live Debian. It even has something called "klik" that allows you to add more applications easily.

When I have an emergency, kanotix always seems to be the disk that has what I need. A couple of years ago, I experienced hard drive failure just at the time when I had paid for some premium online content (cough-porn-cough-cough!) and with kanotix... plus a gigabyte of RAM, and an extra cdrom drive, I was able to download several gigabytes of pretty pictures, and burn them to CDs without any working hard drives!

For me, I think that this is the best part of embracing the Linux Lifestyle. You have a problem, you can usually figure out how to keep running, and technical snafus become valuble learning experiences. Once my motherboard had to go back to the factory, and it took a couple of months. I installed Slackware on an old Pentium with 32 mbs RAM, and I was able to all kinds of stuff, working from the console. I could surf the web with a text browser, chat, and send and receive email. I could write and exit text and html. If I used the gui, the system slowed down big time, but I could use it to view images, and as long as I used the console, I experienced no perceivable system lag. The latest version of Slackware. THIRTY-TWO MEGABYTES RAM! After about a month, I picked up a Gateway 2000 at a yard sale for 20 dollars. It had 192 megabytes RAM, and it ran pretty good with SUSE and a nice light Fluxbox gui. Played movies and ran DVDs. So what could have been two or three months without a computer became two or three months of learning and problem solving that I enjoyed immensely and look back on fondly.

James 1. May 2007, 02:43

Added kanotix to the list. :smile:

Had good experiences with DesktopBSD so far - yes it mounts partitions with a single click. Currently posting from a P3 866 with 256Mb running a DesktopBSD live CD... It couldn't have been easier to get running. See my latest blog.

James 4. May 2007, 04:29

Alright, my list of Live CDs has gone up to 9 since I've added Knoppix and Dynebolic to the list. Knoppix at the recommendation of tamil and GT500 on the forums (although apparently Kanotix is almost the same, just with more hardware support), and Dynebolic thanks to VS Prasad, and the Dynebolic website made it sound so attractive. "Shaped to the needs of media activists, artists and creatives" - yep that'll do me.

Klaus 4. May 2007, 11:46

I had thought this blog to go in the direction bitching about Micosoft but I guess talking about alternatives is as good even so I rather go for suse 10.2 becauce of easyer instalation and mor hardware support just changing the system or updating a part that does not come as an autoinstall package gives me grey Hair

James 6. May 2007, 23:59

That's one thing I should mention about each of these operating systems I test: what sort of support there is for adding hardware drivers and new software. I know Mepis and PCLinuxOS both include a package manager easily available from the kicker/taskbar, I'll have to go back and check the others.

At some point I'm going to have to decide which ones I want to try as an installed OS as well.

Added yet another couple of distributions! Slax and Elive. Slax both because it's so lightweight - 200Mb! - and because the "kill bill" edition comes with Wine, and the image is still only 200Mb. Also all the packages available from the site look enticing. Elive I'm interested in trying just because it's not KDE or Gnome or any other desktop gui I've heard of before, instead it's running "enlightenment" which looks intriguing.

James 12. May 2007, 11:31

added NimbleX to my ever-growing list... At first I thought it was just another small-footprint live CD like slax but having had a read of the site, I would be silly not to give it a go. According to the site it has automatic full read-write to NTFS (Windows) formatted hard disks which is a big deal for the Windows user planning to defect!

There was also a helpful list of Linux equivalents for Windows software linked from the extend NimbleX page. They are obviously targeting people like me! ...and those who I'm writing this blog for.

James 14. May 2007, 04:57

OK then... Yes, I've added one more to the list: FreeSBIE. It's another FreeBSD based distro, I figure I've only tried out one BSD OS so here's another one.

I just found a site offering a toolkit for making your own FreeBSD-based live CD really easily: http://livecd.sourceforge.net/ - there's another live CD available for download, but it's way out of date.

Anyway, that takes the number of CDs I'm trying to a baker's dozen. Hey I was born on the 13th, so I consider it a lucky number for me...

I was tempted to add Linux Mint but I found their site just lacked enough information to convince me that it's that much different or better than Ubuntu to be worth trying.

blackbelt_jones 30. May 2007, 15:24

I still think that when you're ready to get around to installing a Linux to the hard drive, you ought to try opensuse. Main reason why I think you'd like it is comprehensive and integrated gui-based administration, which you seem to value. True, I recently switched back to debian, but a big reason for that is that with Debian I can manage packages from the command line.

There's a live DVD for opensuse that you can download here:

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/iso/dvd/openSUSE-10.2-GM-LiveDVD.iso

The thing about suse is that it's polished. The beauty of it is in the details. Sudo is nicely set up. The zsh shell is ready to go. These are a couple of the details I've noticed, another user might notice something else. SUSE has been around, in one form or another, about five times longer than Ubuntu (even a little bit longer than Debian!) and it's the most polished linux desktop experience I've ever had. I moved back to Debian, in part because I wanted to be challenged.

James 31. May 2007, 10:14

thanks for the link, yep I'll put it on the list of distros to try. You're not the only staunch advocate as I'm sure you know - OpenSUSE has been mentioned by people on many forums I've visited (keeps popping up on digg all over the place) so it'd be a crime to not try it.

...and while a DVD will take me days to download on my "middleband" connection (throttled broadband in other words, I can do a CD overnight but not more) it's still free, and my budget is not going to see me getting that new HDD any time soon to try out that install I'm interested in!

blackbelt_jones 1. June 2007, 17:55

If I remember correctly, the suse live DVD is not that large, maybe about a gig, but that was a long time ago, maybe it's bigger now.

Try it, but remember that the main reasons why I'm reccomending it have to do with administration, and you're not going to experience that without a harddrive install.

I've decided to run openSUSE and Debian SID in a multiboot with the XP system that I haven't used in months.

Thruth Wang 23. June 2007, 03:44

openSUSE has liveDVDs...

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