Linux Users: What Distro would you recommend?

[JeffreyWilliamson]

I'm running Mandriva 2009 on one of my computers. So far I've only had one major hang-up with it, and that's when I turn it on without the monitor powered up, the desktop automatically resizes itself from 1280 x 1024 to 800 x 600. When I re-adjust the screen back to 1280 x 1024 the KDE panel shrinks, and for some reason Mandriva's ability to increase the width of the panel is broken. Strangely, when I log in as root the ability to change the width of the panel is there. When it happens I have to remove the original panel and open a new one, which involves replacing everything on it.

I want to find a good distro that I can run regularly on this computer, preferably with some version of KDE 4, that will be reliable. In the past Mandrake/Mandriva has always worked perfectly for me. SUSE and Kubuntu have been slow and foreign.

Any advice? Which distro do you prefer?

(Edited to more clearly state the subject.)

[RoyGBiv]

1. I dislike Kubuntu ...

I've used it for awhile now after previously using a bastardized Slackware/SuSE combo (Slackware with the SuSE kernel patches, modified and compiled for my machine).

Anyway, I decided to go "shopping" and wound up with Kubuntu. It's slow and has a number of issues in its KDE implementation which, interestingly enough, were the same problems I had using Ubuntu with me installing KDE on my own. I thought having done it myself was what caused the problem, but apparently not.

I digress.

The issue you are having seems like something that could be fixed. Since it works fine as root, off the top of my head I suspect a permissions problem. You might try to draw Tandalayo_Scheisskopf's attention over in the Computer forum. He runs the latest Madriva. I recall he had some issues with it initially that were worked out with some patches.

I keep meaning to try it, on Tanda's advice, but I've got myself so bogged down in other stuff at the moment, I haven't taken the time to do the install.

I'll end up back with Slackware eventually, I imagine.

[JeffreyWilliamson]

3. This is something that I will definitely do...

Thanks very much for the advice.

[JeffreyWilliamson]

4. I've started a thread per your recommendation here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=242x23210

Thanks again.

[Sebastian Doyle]

5. KDE 4 (in the latest Kubuntu) is still pretty buggy

It's almost as bad as Vista (and tries too hard to look like it, in my opinion)

[RoyGBiv]

6. Agreed ...

I've become increasingly annoyed with the KDE development team's apparent desire to be like Windows.

KDE4 was, I thought, working toward a good departure, but then something happened ... I dunno what.

It can recover, I think, but not at its present stage.

[JCMach1]

2. Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

Writing this msg on said distro now...

My 1998 P3 machine... which is faster than many P4 Dual/cores running various windows distros...

[crimsonblue]

7. Ubuntu Hardy Heron. n/t

[hunter]

8. Ubuntu.

Although I tend to run Debian at the bleeding edges, not recommended.

[NJmaverick]

10. That's my choice, it's the most popular

[mwooldri]

9. Give Gnome a go again...

... after all Linus Torvalds has given up on KDE and switched to Gnome himself.

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/24/1842218

I use Ubuntu 8.10 as my Linux choice. Suse was OK, I haven't given Fedora a run for a while though, since Ubuntu has been so well behaved.

As for that desktop resizing thing, if that's the only thing then as someone else upthread said sounds like a configuration deal. Plus the one thing I like about Ubuntu, no need to log in as root - ever - just sudo what you need to do as root.

Mark.

[Sebastian Doyle]

11. If you're a Windows (or even Linux/KDE) user looking to move to a Gnome desktop

I would go with "Linux Mint". It's a modified Ubuntu build, and it's great for beginners, because it comes with all the codecs and shit pre installed, so you can run all your streaming media and read PDF files without having to know how to download or install that stuff in Linux.

But then, installing software packages in any Debian or Ubuntu distro is so easy that you'll have that figured out in no time anyway