Monday, July 30, 2007

linux distro - which one I will choose?

I am in the bind of choosing a linux distro -- Ubuntu, Slackware or Fedora. It seems Ubuntu always failed to me, I tried to install Ubuntu to my thinkpad 130 which is of i1171, but I always failed on harddisk problems, I use the latest vesion 7.04, I don't know why grub-install always failed. and I am very dislike the start of X windows process through CD, that is toooo slow. And from the Web I see some people have some issues with this type of thinkpad especially for the current version - 7.04.

I can install Slackware on my thinkpad. The audio device need to re-configure with ALSA utilities, that's not big deal. There is one problem I still can not figure out, that is when I configure the xorg.conf, the ctrl-alt-backspace key will bring me a blank screen, it never return, the only way to get out of it, is hit ctrl-alt-delete to reboot. Should I set the start level at /etc/inittab to 4 instead of 3. I check /var/log/Xorg.0.log, the only problem seems DRI failed. Another issue is the fvwm setup, my workable fvwm2rc will not work in this version Slackware 12, the default fvwm in slackware is version 2.4.20(or 21), so I have to reconfigure my fvwm2rc or update it. Then is the issue that may not be a problem for an experienced linux user, I don't like the pkgtool which does not support dependences, the user will take the responsiblity.

Fedora Core 5 is installed on my working machine, it works fine and I never have a problem with it. And it also works fine on my thinkpad. The main reason to choose FC5 is Yum, which compared to pkgtool on slackware, it checks package dependences. I feel Yum is quite suit to me. With yum, FC5 find the most update package for me, for example, the fvwm downloaded by yum is "2.5.21". There could be network problem with one site, but yum can goes to the other site silently. Another reason is I like some scripts in FC5 - they are "system-config-xxxx", I can use these scripts configure my hard ware easyily.

The current version of Fedora is 7, I did not have a chance to use it.

As a result, the debian Ubuntu is beautiful, but I may not use it currently. Slackware is good for learning linux, but it is not friendly to a user, the user will take care too much things which may add a lot of pain. Fedora core 5, is quite suit to me, if the yum and system-config-xxxx work all the time.

The story is not end. Shake said "To be or not to be, that's a question". Slackware bring me both pains and pleasure. For FVWM, I can download fvwm 2.5.21 which supports "decor", build and install the new fvwm will solve my fvwm2rc problem I think. but it is not very easy to build xorg the x server. Even on FC5, will it be Ok if I am using a thinkpad R61?

Will I use Slackware or FC5? That is a problem of Linux.