Need Opinions on a *nix Distro

On my laptop I have a separate installation of Ubuntu 9.04 -- it is currently dual-booted, the other being Windows XP. I like it too much to put it into a dedicated Linux machine. From [this topic] I understand that Ubuntu is actually quite limiting in its power. Since I still don't know enough about it, can I get some opinions, please?

If I get any bickering about which is best from you guys, I'll request the topic closed.

Hey, if you're new to Linux, then by all means use Ubuntu. But once you've gotten the hang of how it works, you might want to move on to something less restricting.

Here's the general course I took:
Ubuntu -> Kubuntu (I hate GNOME) -> Puppy Linux (teaches some Linux basics through a friendly yet minimalistic GUI) -> Debian Linux (Great for server-related stuff) -> Arch Linux (Not for beginners but very versatile).

By the way, this might just be personal preference, but I wouldn't recommend Puppy Linux as a serious Linux distro (unless you just need something really basic to carry around with you on a flash drive you're using with old systems). It's got an awful package management system that's slow and handles dependencies poorly (no automatic installation of them), plus a very small package base. I would use Puppy for educational purposes, but not much else.

Half the fun of Linux is actually trying out all the different flavours! Have you tried out many ones other than Ubuntu? Really, while Ubuntu is a good start, often you'll find something that'd suit your preferences better. It's not like there's a best distro or anything, since what you'd like the best is different from everyone else.

On a weaker PC, I'd (personally) be glad to use Puppy as a main distro, despite what FoxBlitzz says - it's very snappy and I like the way it works :)
On a stronger PC, I like something Debian related generally, but my favourite distro is PCLinuxOS. Ubuntu is mediocre to me - good but seriously overrated.

As for Ubuntu being quite limiting in it's power, it probably is if you are a power user, but if you're not, I wouldn't worry about it.

Debian seems to be better than Ubuntu, IMO. Ubuntu is more user friendly, but after you get the idea on how to use the terminal, you should switch to Debian Lenny. Debian doesn't require upgrades to restart, and is a little bit harder to break(Altough all linux distros are easy to break, Ubuntu seems the easiest).

In my order of user friendly stuff, it goes Ubuntu>Debian>PCLinux>Arch Linux. PCLinux may or may not be easier to use than Arch Linux, so that's why you experiment.

Erm, have you even used Arch Linux? It's definitely not for beginners. At all. Compare that to PCLinuxOS which is meant to be easy. There is great reward to learning Arch Linux, however, because you get a customized system plus bleeding-edge packages.

Also, any Linux distro is going to require a reboot in order to apply a kernel update, because you can't magically switch kernel versions while the kernel is still running.

FoxBlitzz said:

Also, any Linux distro is going to require a reboot in order to apply a kernel update, because you can't magically switch kernel versions while the kernel is still running.

Click to expand...

That being said, any userspace updates can be done without a system restart.

You should use a variant of Ubuntu as your starting distribution, then slowly move in to the more advanced distros like Arch Linux. Working with Linux can be quite frustrating but very rewarding in the long run. There's a lot of work involved but the ultimate level of productivity is much, much greater than Windows or Snow Leopard.