I have been a Linux user for around 10 years now and I have never had a problem with Linux before. My first Distro was Mandriva which was great and I loved it. Eventually I wanted to have an investigate and I ended up with Ubuntu…Standard choice really. Not too long ago I got so fed up with Ubuntu, especially with Unity.
I have been searching for about 6 months for a distro that will make me as happy as mandriva did whilst still being light enough to run on 2GB RAM and an old AMD core. I have tried: Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Puppy (good lord dont get me started on puppy again) and I even had a very short venture into BSD then ran in the other direction. Currently I am using Arch with fallback gnome 3, which is alright but I almost miss KDE.
The other issue is I am a Computer Science student at Reading University specifically interested in software development and I would really like to see some new tools for C/C++ and Java, however, I know from experience that they are far and few and that they do not work with all distro well.
So what I am looking for is a highly compatible, KDE Linux OS with some good developer tools.
Can anyone recommend a good OS? I am willing to go back and look at the DIstros I have already listed
If you were happy with Mandriva, why not that ? … or PCLinuxOS (which was originally forked from Mandriva)?
As for developer tools, I’m guessing (as I’m not a developer) that the distros that are more aimed at the server market would be the best place to start … Debian, or CentOS, or Scientific Linux maybe ?
Currently I am using Arch with fallback gnome 3, which is alright but I almost miss KDE.
I have been using Mandriva for a while and only the recent release with the Rosa labs modifications made me look elsewhere.
Tried Mageia which I found to be a lot closer to the original Mandriva, but as I was in the distro hopping mode come across Chakra
As you are already on Arch you could try this KDE centric rolling distro http://chakra-linux.org/
I am using this as a QT C++ development platform (just a hobby) and specially impressed by the tools already installed,
but on the other hand never had any trouble with any of the debian based distros either
Mepis Linux. Version 11.0.12. I’ve been using Mepis since early 2004. It is 100% Debian stable compatible, but there’s a lot of Community development going on.
Right, I have spent the last few hours installing each of these Operating System variants for something I like.
Mageia is absolutely great, I have never used RPM before but its not overly dissimilar to pacman so nice easy transition. It did feel a bit wrong though, It took a few attempts before I got it installed correctly but it is fairly good. - http://distrowatch.com/mageia
Next up I went back to my roots and tried Mandriva…good lord it is heavier than I remember. I appreciate that KDE isn’t the lightest of DEs but wow it is slow. Also, why would you have sudo installed but not configured as standard!!! - http://distrowatch.com/mandriva
I also gave chakra a go, It was ok but I don’t think I could live with the random moments of heavy processing. - http://distrowatch.com/chakra
I have just given Debian KDE a go and I have to be honest I have never been truly won over by previous Debian distros but I am actually impressed! It has aptitude so its nice and familiar, KDE runs smoothly even on my old laptop. It also has Sudo as standard which is good for me because SU drives me up the wall. Also all the lovely programs that install with .deb file is a big hit - http://distrowatch.com/debian
So it looks like I may be going Debian KDE for my next distro.
Cheers to everyone’s suggestions, if any one has got another option I would still love to hear it.
I might also give Gentoo a go as other forums have said it may be good for developers. - http://distrowatch.com/gentoo
I gave Gentoo a go, I quite liked it but it isnt quite what I am looking for.
Stumbled upon one of Mark Greaves comments in a different topic about Peppermint OS. OMG why have I never tried LXDE!!! It feels like KDE 2 but it actually works!
For all those interested in development and Programming the Software Manager has nearly 2000 packages for software development so there will always be something for someone there.
I seem to find myself recommending PeppermintOS quite a lot recently … I love it … it’s light, blisteringly fast, solid, unbloated, and has access to all the Ubuntu software repos (and PPA’s) … great little distro
For web development though, please be aware “PeppermintOS (Two)” does suffer from Ubuntu 11.04’s inherent issues with connecting to WebDAV shares through the GUI, but they do seem to be mountable from the CLI … so if WebDAV is something you’re going to be using, Lubuntu may be a better option (or wait for PeppermintOS 3), as Lubuntu’s most recent release is based on Ubuntu 11.10 which doesn’t suffer the same WebDAV issues.
For clarity … it’s Ubuntu 11.10 that I know doesn’t suffer the WebDAV issues … I’m only guessing Lubuntu will be OK
11.04 (and therefore Peppermint OS 2) may only have issues with secure WebDAV (https) … I’m not sure, but thought you’d better know.
Luckily I am not a web developer, (I am not some guy with a Mac HAHA) but I do understand what you are saying.
If anyone does stuble on this post and you are a web developer, Ubuntu based OSs may not be the best thing for you. Try Mageia, as it is much better for web development and things that arent programming
