Choosing Between the Big Linux Distros
Source: OS News
I'm a web designer and a recent Linux convert who has tried several of the large distros. This article is the summary of my experience over the last few months. I decided to start using Linux a few months ago around the time Mandrake went to version 9 and Red Hat to version 8. With all the hype I figured I'd give it a try.
Mandrake 9 was my first distro--it gave me problems with user management from the first day. It didn't seem intuitive and I lasted about a week with it. At the recommendation of many linux users, I installed RedHat 8. I found it to be an easy transition from Windows (with the exception of networking and mounting drives). Not only that, it ran faster than XP and was more customizable.
Not one to be content with status quo, I decided to try other distros, looking for something even better.
Lycoris gave me easy networking (a HUGE plus) and found my windows HD and mounted it by itself, but that was about all I liked about it. It tried a little too hard to look like Windows. The default software selection was pitiful and there was no way to change what was installed. Overall, it was not only not geared towards a power user, but dumbed down just enough leave me wanting enough to not use it for long. I'd still recommend it to someone who just wanted a web browsing/office distro however.
SuSE was very pretty but I found it slower than RH and it didn't come with a lot of the software I'd grown accustomed to using with other distros, notably Gaim. Installing it via FTP was also a huge pain (I ended up having to do it twice because of some errors I made in the configuration). YAST and YAST2 seemed awkward and slow. SuSE wasn't bad, and I can't really put my finger on the problem, it just seemed that doing things in SuSE always took a little longer than they should have. It lasted a few weeks, and I'll admit, I missed its beautiful interface when it was gone.
