[H-GEN] Linux distributions

[gavin duley]

On 27/08/12 22:58, Thorne, Stephen wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 3:40 AM, Russell Stuart
> <russell-humbug at stuart.id.au> wrote:
>> Dare I say Debian wheezy (ie Debian testing)?
>>
>> Testing is more up to date the Ubuntu, and Debian has recently decided
>> to move its default Desktop from Gnome to Xfce4 [1].  As a bonus if it
>> works well, Wheezy will become Debian stable in due course.  So if what
>> want is a rock solid laptop that just works for 3 years or so without
>> any effort on your part, you will have it.
>
> +1 for Debian. After ubuntu decided to throw a halfbaked unity out the
> door instead of into the bin, I switched to Debian and haven't looked
> back.

Thanks! It looks like Debian testing might be a good bet. I've used it 
myself in the past and liked it then. The one thing that I remember 
having against it was that it consumed a fair bit of data keeping it up 
to date with security updates etc -- which is a bit of a pain if you 
have a low download quota from your ISP. Which I do ...

I might look at Linux Mint too -- thanks for the suggestion, Paul.

> -1 for Arch, they have some very strange release practices, including
> the 'make /usr/bin/python Python 3.1 and break every script on your
> system' thing they did a while back.

Sound like maybe not Arch then... I might install it on a VM in any case 
and see how I get on with it, for interest's sake. Though I won't expect 
marvels.

> I quite like Gnome3, but I once used xfce for a number of years, and
> that's not awful either.

I tried out Gnome3 recently and wasn't all that fond of it. Maybe it's 
just the way Ubuntu packages it, but I remember it as having an 
application menu closer to that of Unity than Gnome2. I prefer the old 
Gnome menu (because I frequently forget the names of programs, but not 
the submenu they're in).

Thanks again to all,

gavin,