Linux Distro advice :: Desktop Use

[slinky]

Evening folks..

I've got fed up with M$ and XP bloating my PC beyond what I feel is acceptable so have decided to start again with Linux..

My question is, what are your recommendations for Linux for a desktop o/s (with xwindows or equivalent installed)?

I can easily lay my hands on SUSE so am favouring that at the moment, but if anyone has a compelling argument for anything else, I'm all ears!

Advise away!

slinky

[xiphias]

I used ubuntu and quite liked it. I suggest if you want a try, download a knoppix cd, and boot it up. Gives you a good idea of how it is.

[CommanderJameson]

Ubuntu is nice. Autodetects hardware well, has a nice desktop.

www.ubuntu.com

[aldi]

Ubuntu! I use it on my work PC, no probs - most things work out of the box, great support forums.

[Bodo]

I've had a try with Ubuntu which comes with Gnome as default, and I've found it really nice. Suse imo has more graphical tools to configure stuff with, and offers the KDE, Gnome and other desktops to choose from.

I think you should try at least a Gnome and a KDE desktop before you decide for one to use in future

[hornet]

Vote for Kanotix (Knoppix derivative) here. Only distro that could handle my USB modem out of the box. Tried Ubuntu, but it has a nasty habit of booting to a password screen and neglecting to tell you what the password is, which is a bit silly if you ask me. I quite like the look of the lightweight stuff like Damn Small, Feather and Slax, as I prefer to start small and bolt on. Some of the distros are themselves starting to get bloated now, which sort of defeats the object if you ask me. I've already dumped a load of stuff out of Kanotix...who needs four text editors for crying out loud?! Still, all good geeky fun, and the penguin is kind of cute.

[Baconbonce]

Ubuntu for a Gnome desktop
Kbuntu for KDE

Best distro I have used by far.

[slinky]

Ubuntu now downloaded, I'll burn it to cd in the office and have a tinker tonight!

slinky

[Church of Noise]

I've been using SuSe 10 and find it rather easy to use, I use the KDE windows thingie.
"SuSe for dummies" can come in handy from time to time though (especially for configuring my wireless network dongle and other network related stuff)

[bga]

Abother vote for Ubuntu, the Live CD is pretty good & we've just installed it onto one of the PC's at work hosting a few wiki's

[_dobbo_]

I've been hearing lots of rumours to do with Google and Ubuntu, apparently google may be releasing a desktop OS in the near future, and if so it will be ubuntu based.

That being said, much as I'd love to move to linux I can't, not until it can run Photoshop and all my games. Trouble is it's a chicken and egg situation, Adobe wont port till more people move, people wont move till Adobe port...

[xiphias]

OS X then

[Mr E]

I'm quite a big fan of Suse.

[Plotloss]

Ubuntu

Come on in, the beard and sandals are lovely...

I hate to say it but I am (desktop look and feel annoyances aside) almost completely converted...

[Pigeon]

_dobbo_ said:

much as I'd love to move to linux I can't, not until it can run Photoshop

Gimp.

(That's "GNU Image Manipulation Program" or something )

[Zod]

Plotloss said:

Ubuntu Come on in, the beard and sandals are lovely... I hate to say it but I am (desktop look and feel annoyances aside) almost completely converted...

It's brown! (yes, I know you can change the colours)

[_dobbo_]

Pigeon said:

_dobbo_ said: much as I'd love to move to linux I can't, not until it can run Photoshop Gimp. (That's "GNU Image Manipulation Program" or something )

gimp is very good, but doesn't quite cut the mustard for the image editing that I do. Things like noise reduction, RAW image file editing and so on, are all present, but not as well evolved for my requirements.

[aldi]

Photoshop was top of the list in a recent survey of ´must have' apps that linux hasn got.. allong with autocad.

[Bodo]

Maya and Pro/Engineer were already ported to Linux