[ILUG] Which Desktop Distro?

[Pádraig Brady]

Conor Wynne wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I have decided that I'm going back to desktop linux after a long absense.
> I am not trying to start a distro war, although its been a while since
> we had one ;-0
> 
> Here are my options as I see them :...

I'd go for Fedora or Ubuntu.
The main differences between them are the packaging
but there really is no functional difference here,
just different names and options:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/packaging.html

I installed F7 (note it's not Fedora Core any more, just Fedora),
a couple of months ago, and reviewed it here:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/fc7.html
Also I installed Ubuntu Gutsy beta last week and
it annoyed me in different ways but just as much.

However they're both good solid usable distros.

Timing wise, F8 should be available around the start of Nov,
and Gutsy around the end of Oct.

I would advise you to install Gutsy beta
as I've found it quite stable, and also
you will get to learn debian packaging
which should only take a couple of hours.

Now if you're going to need to work with RPM packages
a lot stick with Fedora of course. Personally, I need to
work with both package types and find a chroot
to a parallel install perfectly adequate for this:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/chroot.html

Pádraig.