Favourite OS's

[Arnox]

Basically the entire Windows NT line from 2000 all the way to 8.1. All of them in that range brought at very least a few great things to the table for Windows. XP and 7 though are definitely the biggest highlights. XP was the penultimate version of Windows 2000, and Vista was a great OS and a much needed huge step forward for Windows, but it needed some more time in the oven, and that's what 7 was. For over a decade, Windows absolutely kicked ass in the OS space... But... Those day are over now.

And for Linux, I recently posted my list of Linux Distro Greatest Hits but I'll go ahead and post it again here.

MX Linux
(Best overall workhorse distro and the best TRUE Windows-like distro as well)

Q4OS
(The most Windows-XP-esque distro)

AntiX Linux
(Specifically designed for running on old computers)

BunsenLabs
(A great lightweight distro which also competes with AntiX)

AV Linux
(Content creation distro with an MX Linux base)

ElementaryOS
(The most simplified distro you can get)

Kali Linux
(Penetration-testing distro)

Tails
(Privacy-oriented distro designed specifically for running solely on USB drives)

Qubes OS
(Security and sandboxing-oriented distro designed to be installed to the system)

Fedora
(The distro with generally the newest stuff in the Linux world)

Debian (using the NetInstall CD version)
(A very good standard distro for servers)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(A very Debian like distro with full professional support for paying customers)

NixOS
(Raw customization, built on Haskell with a big bonus of reproducible builds)

Slackware
(Very customizable like NixOS, but with very, very, VERY tightly tuned and tested software packages, however, there is no dependency management and no reproducible builds)

Linux From Scratch
(Full manual make-your-own-distro)

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Oh yeah, also, Android was pretty cool back when Google was pretty cool.

[Artim]

WinXP was pretty much the last halfway decent Microsoft OS, and it was my first. But when it got sooooo sssllllooooowwwww and even multiple trips to the computer shop made little difference, I looked at a Mac and was instantly put off by the price! Now what?

A little Google search (before Google became evil) found "Linux for Human Beings®" and I was delighted with Ubuntu for awhile but quickly tired of that puke-colored desktop theme and tried the other "flavors," settling on Xfce. I was a Xubuntu fanboy for years until they started introducing beta stuff into the 'buntus. Who the heck puts beta software into a distro aimed at newbies?! Thereafter:

Mint (Xfce)
PCLinuxOS
LXLE
Linux Lite
SalixOS (Slackware-based, Xfce awesomeness)
antiX
MX-Linux.

After MX-Linux, Linux Mint is probably my favorite. But I always revisit SalixOS because it's a good one to really "learn Linux" on, and because it's Slackware, and because it's systemd-free.




Moderator: coloring and bolding removed, please keep forum posts easily readable, thanks.

[kobaian]

The only one distro I'm using now is MX-Linux. On my main machine I've got just MX-Fluxbox with some customization, and on my laptop I've got LXQT-DE over MX-Fluxbox. Before MX-Fluxbox I had MX-Linux XFCE on my machine and this one is still installed on my fathers computer. I know another distros, but I'm not sure if they are so good now, as they were at the time I tested and use them. So these are distros i have really enjoyed using and playing with:
1. MX-Fluxbox
I like it because it's a very universal system. I can use it as well on my main machine, but I can also install it and enjoy almost the same workflow on my old 32bit EEEPC netbook. I like it also because it is very customizable and modular. E.g. if I don't like Thunar I can easily change to another file-manager. If I don't like the default look and feel of the tint2-panel I can easily change it's look and behavior. The rofi launcher is much more flexible and customizable, than any launchers I know from another DE's. Because MX-Fluxbox is a base MX edition it doesn't install too many programs I don't use, so I can fully customize my system according to my own preferences.
2. MX-Linux XFCE
I think this is the best choice for beginners. It is easy to use, it has most of the applications already installed. Managing the system with MX-Tools is very easy and comfortable.
3. Sparky Linux
A really interesting Debian based distro, not as easy to use as MX-Linux, but still good for the average non-geek Linux users. It is lightweight, it has also 32-bit version, so you can use it on very old machines as well. It has some nice set of tools called (Aptus). It is very flexible, and has a tool that allows you very easy to install and change any desktop environment, you want.
4. Antix Linux
It is a great choice for old machines. I have used it on a one-core 1,03GHz Pentium Laptop, where using MX was problematic.
5. SolydXK
It was my distro of choice before I discovered MX. I'ts also a very stable Debian-based distro. It is something like a more user-friendly Debian, it doesn't develop the 32-bit version and it has less it's own specific tools as its predecessors. I think you won't rather discover anything new after moving from MX to SolydXK, so I don't know if it has really sense to try it now, but I must admit, it was stable and quite enjoyable.

[Acid74]

The first PC i saw was a Commodore C64 (ma father brought it home when I was a child) and I remember enjoying programming on it - though we had no floppy everything was gone, when you turned it off.
The time I got my first own PC it was the DOS6.2 / Win3.1 era... I loved it... Went on later to WIN95 which was also great at that time. That was probably the first time I heard of "other" OSes
Tried Knoppix at that time (can't remember exactly but I think it was a version 3.1 or something like that). Enjoyed tinkering with it a bit but fell back into the Microsoft universe (though never forgetting the fun part of escaping it).
From there on the experience went downwards fast... WinME, Vista, Win7... And finally Win8.1 which I tried to "maintain" and hold on to till it got so f*** up that it nearly bricked......
Time for some change!
I did it the hard way:
With NO experience in GNU/Linux whatsoever I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon and wiped Windows completely... I was really fed up with Microsoft (trying to push me to Win10 and stuff).
Got that running... Distrohopped quite a bit though MX was an early find that stuck with me.
Decided MX 19 was the one "just works" distro (I didn't like the Ubuntu branch for the same reasons I don't like Microsoft) I wanted to try a deeper connection with. It still runs on my main laptop to this day... I love it. I really do. It is THE distro i would recommend a Windows-runaway any time.
Learning curve was steep at first but I managed a few things to get around with.
NEVER EVER (!!! mark that !!!) switching back to Windows EVER!
Got some other distros running on some other machines:
Trisquel - on my Backup servers
Some debian stuff - mostly containers - on my proxmox server
obv. Kali and Parrot for tinkering around ^^
and some Armbian on my DeskPi (Raspi4) which is also great
oh yeah and some DietPi here and there on some standalones (Tor relay for instance)

Yeah... seems I am a debian / non Ubuntu - branch kid...

[AVLinux]

Hi,

Well admittedly I've only been drinking my own Kool-Aid for many years now but..

My first foray into Linux was MEPIS in about 2006 and it blew my mind, however it wasn't geared at all to multimedia production so I jumped to the first Ubuntu Studio based on Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 but the fun ended very quickly with Ubuntu's short support cycle for the '.10' releases and the next Ubuntu LTS release (Hardy Heron) had some major Kernel issues for mulltimedia work so I tried Debian Lenny and between it and Remastersys (whose developer I became friends with) I had a good run of years on pure Debian and Remastersys until Tony withdrew Remastersys due to some of the most toxic emails from entitled Users I've ever seen simply because he asked for donations... By then sharing my AV Linux setups had kind of become a 'thing' of it's own so I had to find an alternative and all there was that worked with Debian was a backup utility called Systemback which was a very kludgy way to distribute ISO's and I was just about ready to fold the tent and then I (re)discovered the incredible phenomenon of MX Linux and it's ISO toolchain. I can't even begin to praise this project enough, it's phenomenal for it's Users but it's also an incredible resource for Distributors! You're stuck with me now...

[richb]

@AVLinux
What a great testimonial for MX Linux. I have been watching your work from afar, (I am not an audio visual producer of any kind), but do admire what you are doing.

[AVLinux]

@richb

If you liked that, here's a snippet from my last release announcement which I would guess won't be read by most regular MX'ers..

First, the gratitude! I can honestly say that had I not made the move to MX Linux AV Linux would have withered and died by now. The excellent build toolchain, the patient and generous support of the Developers and Packaging teams and the camaraderie of the User Forum are the most amazing pillars of support you could ask for. This ISO was about 99% complete when a change in the Liquorix kernel broke the build system, MX does not rely on Liquorix even though they do provide it as an alternative, the development team (notably dolphin_oracle and fehlix) dove in and made some pretty substantial changes to the build system and made it work again within a week! Pipewire which is an emerging new Audio server is not currently recommended for Distros based on Debian Bullseye and dolphin_oracle has provided a working alternative setup of it in the MX Test Repo for those who want to experiment with it. Stevo from the Packaging team has been so accommodating and helpful that MXDE-EFL is named after him! Huckleberry Finn has saved my life on the Forum more times than I can count… Thanks so much MX folks!!

Full announcement here for those who may be interested in context: http://www.bandshed.net/2022/12/15/avl- ... -released/

...And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...