Linux distributions

2005-04-11
, , ,
Linux logo - 'Tux'

Linux + Operating Systems >

(on Wikipedia)
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/

Linux is an umbrella concept/base from which free operating systems are produced.

These initially intrigued me because of fundamental philosophies of freedom. Free as in freedom (Libre) and free as in beer (Gratis). Now it's also about ease of use.

Note that you can remaster a distribution into your own customized one, with its own software, etc.

  • aka distro(s)

See also:



Distribution Last tested LiveUSB Package Management Rolling Release systemd? Ease
Slackware 2016-03-25 - 14.1 text installer partial + third-party security No (1, 2, 3) "other"
Lubuntu 2016-03-25 - 14.04.4 LTS yes yes yes yes easy, light

(I may get around to updating this table for other distributions, or expanding it.)

See also:



Table of Contents [hide]

My timeline ∞

These are not complete, and I have bunches of install notes which have dates which might eventually get added to this list.

Spoiler

  • 2017-07-07 - Devuan-1.0.0-jessie-i386-DVD
  • 2016-11-29 - Devuan 1.0.0-beta

  • 2016-03-20ish - Slackware 14.1

    • I had been checking out a bunch of distributions before switching
  • 2016-03-26 - Lubuntu, last version was 14.04.4 LTS
  • 2011-12-12 - I ran through a bunch of testing, but I think most things failed because the USB copies were all getting corrupted. USB is fucking unreliable.
  • 2011-? - I had another testing nightmare afterwards.
  • 2011-08-12 Linux testing nightmare
  • 2010-11-10 Linux testing nightmare
  • Unity Linux for a bit
  • 2005-10-17 - Ya know, after tweaking and some getting used to it.. KDE is really quite nice. I've had it at work for a little while now, and I'm really enjoying the experience of it.
  • 2005-09-09 - PCLinuxOS 0.91 - After having migrated the server to a remote host, I was able to move my main setup to a full installation of PCLinuxOS.
  • 2005-06-26 - I tried some more and it seems that nomatter what I try PCLinuxOS will eventually hang trying to set up a swap partition. A liveboot from the CD isn't working anymore either. I'm going to just give this up for now and try Debian. I resisted the temptation earlier, but this is a situation where it is said to shine.
  • 2005-06-25 - PCLinuxOS - Played with the CVS of The PCLinuxOS Installer (1.10). I can build what I need, but I can't figure out enough to get it booting, so it'll be dropped until there is a rewritten public beta.
  • 2005-06-25 - PCLinuxOS 0.81a - Experimentation with PCLinuxOS as a VMWare guest.
  • 2005-04-17 - Gentoo - Prompted by some weirdness, and also by some minor mentoring of a Linux newbie, I explored Gentoo linux and while I could install, I was frustrated at the purposeful complexity of reading through a doc which could be reproduced in a simple script. After trying it, I switched to PCLinuxOS 0.81a.
  • 2005-04-10 - Slackware (10.0) - I'm back in the arms of Slackware. God I missed it.
  • I thought about installing Debian, but the thought ran away screaming. It didn't scream for long because I hunted it down and repeatedly stabbed it with the memories of my last attempts.
  • FreeBSD - Played with installing FreeBSD. More of the same shit I had to wade through way back in the day. I can get it installed, but it "just doesn't do it for me".
  • NetBSD - I thought about installing NetBSD.. because I thought it could be an interesting birthday present.

  • 2005-04 - FreeBSD - Tried out FreeBSD under VMWare and then under a proper installation.

    • Was about to ditch Windows forever.

  • 2005-01 - Lightly researched some distros, although that didn't go very far. Not enough time.

  • 2004-11 - Slackware - Ended up back with slackware 9.1 under VMWare for my server needs.
  • Slackware 10.0 under VMWare. Hey, it works.
  • Debian 3.0 stable's text installer under VMWare was too slow to be useful.

  • GoboLinux 011. Played with liveboot editing and such. Nice project, but hasn't hit the big time yet.

    • I really played around with this one.
  • Various liveboot linces. Lots of horror.
  • Slackware 9.1 - Used for my server.
  • Slackware 9.0 - Another try and somehow it magically works. Hrm.

  • live-cd distribution research

    • God, they all suck.

  • Slackware 9.0

    • Failed to compile applications. Gave up after three tries. I did since figure this out, but boy is it frustrating.

  • BSD

  • Various mini-cds and liveboot stuff.
  • Slackware 8.1
  • Slackware 8.0
  • more research
  • Debian
  • Slackware 7.1 - became my full-time setup.

  • My Slackware story

    • Bigslack
    • Zipslack
  • Peanut linux (brief)
  • Misc. other failed attempts. Light research, no real followup
  • Debian - Debian first impressions
  • Mandrake Linux
  • Hardcore research

  • Redhat (5.1? 5.2?) - from a book.

    • It turns out that after all that reading and preparation that the CD had an unknown issue and didn't feel like installing. Bad CD probably. Sigh.
  • Light research

  • Yggdrasil via a nice little book.

    • It didn't work out.
  • Light research
  • Previous murmers from way back in the day. I kept things in mind because of my preference for the commandline interface (via DOS).

Resources ∞

Getting shit onto a USB stick ∞

linux ∞

isohybrid is a mandatory tool for those distributions which don't provide an ISO which can be directly burned to a USB stick.

\sudo  \dd  bs=4M  if=filename.iso  of=/dev/sdb

misc ∞

  • BackTrack Linux -- Penetration Testing
  • Tails -- Tor-focused

  • Gangbang -- many window managers on a bootable iso

    • This seemed cool when I checked it out probably in 2014-2015.

To check out ∞

Free GNU/Linux distributions ∞

Dragora ∞

Musix ∞

Based on Knoppix (Debian)

Last updated 2023-07-30 at 04:52:02

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