Running problem-free in Kubuntu 9.10 / KDE 4.4. Mandriva looks really good, but with websites like appnr.com and getdeb.net/playdeb.net I'm spoiled to use a non-debian based distro.

I have Mandriva2010 downloaded though and will play next week. But will keep Kubuntu / Mint KDE installed as the OS of choice.

dequire wrote:Running problem-free in Kubuntu 9.10 / KDE 4.4. Mandriva looks really good, but with websites like appnr.com and getdeb.net/playdeb.net I'm spoiled to use a non-debian based distro.

I have Mandriva2010 downloaded though and will play next week. But will keep Kubuntu / Mint KDE installed as the OS of choice.

Yeah Mint has some pretty useful tools, but it loses to sidux for me for '.deb distros'. So how is KDE 4.4? Specifically I mean, since you said you haven't had problems from it.

I used Kubuntu before, but since KDE 4.X it has been lagging behind others. And I'm too cutting edge, and I can't wait 6 months to update applications I have installed. I believe openSUSE 11.2 to be one of the best KDE distros, but it's released every 8 months, so....
I'm using sidux, and I'm liking it a lot. It's faster than Kubuntu and rolling release, so very nice! People say it's risky to update, but I've been updating using synaptic since august in 2 computers, normally there are 100-200MB per day of updates and I never had any issue (but I can't post this in the sidux forums, or people will throw me into the fire, as "people should always update outside graphics mode in init 3 using apt-get dist-upgrade or you could break your system ).

Kubuntu for me...is more or less unstable. I know, I just KNOW, digiKam will crash on importing from USB's, Amarok will crash after two hours and the plasma system will crash on shutdown.

God....

@ luisfpg: with openSUSE you can be as cutting edge as you want: just enable the factory repos and you will have the last kde version the same day it is released

RGB wrote:@ luisfpg: with openSUSE you can be as cutting edge as you want: just enable the factory repos and you will have the last kde version the same day it is released

Ok, but one question: Once I used Mandriva with the cooker repos enabled, and ran into breakages several times. The idea is the same as openSUSE's factory repo: be the alpha, then beta, then RC of the next version.
Maybe suse is a bit different (maybe even Mandriva is better now)...
In sidux (basically debian sid) there's no such thing as "next version" (ok, maybe it's and eternal beta or RC ). However, it's very stable: I haven't had a single issue since I started using it (in 2 computers) back in august/2009.
Does someone has experiences to share about openSUSE's Factory repos? Or the current Mandriva cooker?

That's one of the best points in openSUSE: their repositories are "fragmented" and that means you can upgrade only the "blocks" you want: enabling the factory repo for kde will only change kde, not the whole system.
Last year I used kde from factory in 11.1 without big problems.

Hmmm....on a (somewhat) related note; has anyone tried using the OpenSUSE firefox intergration addon in another distro? How did it turn out?

I'm using it on Kubuntu (at work). Works great. There's a PPA for it: https://launchpad.net/~debfx/+archive/firefox-kde
Arch also has this integration in an AUR package: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=32598

KDE 4.3.4 runs beautifully on Debian Testing, very smooth & stable. I tried it on an Arch install and had more problems especially with the phonon backend (Debian uses xine) and continuous klauncher dbus problems. I've been thinking of trying Sidux again, I tried it briefly with Xfce, but the thought of 100-200mb of updates per day is enough to put me off.

Opensuse looks tempting, but I'm so used to apt based systems. Debian has always been almost perfect.

I vote for Gentoo. The fact that is a source based distribution allows the developers to provide software updates from upstream much faster than developers of binary distributions can. This allowed me to do an upgrade to KDE 4.4.0 within 24 hours of its release, something that users of many other distributions (e.g. Ubuntu) cannot do. This also allows me to get the latest bug fixes, security fixes and performance improvements sooner than users of binary Linux distributions.

If I want to live on the bleeding edge, I can also install software still in development (like GCC 4.5.0) from overlays and the package manager, portage is able to roll things back to how they were before if I do not like the stable versions. I even have the option (and exercised it at one point) of really living on the bleeding edge by going to kernel 2.6.33 (rc4 when I tried it, it is rc7 now) and using btrfs, which is something that wold require immense amounts of hacking with other distributions. It is also an endeavor for which users of other distributions would not support on their forums while users of Gentoo Linux do support such endeavors on their forums (despite Gentoo not officially supporting it).

Since Gentoo is source based, anything I want to install or develop likely already has the tools necessary to develop it installed on my system, especially when you want to develop a patch for a piece of software you installed via portage, Gentoo Linux's build system. This helps immensely with my work for my computer science degree.

Being a source based distribution, Gentoo only installs what you want installed and is therefore more secure than other distributions. The source based nature of Gentoo means that there is no need for the package maintainers to do as much work to avoid situations where updates break binary compatibility, so the latest sotware the upstream developers release is often available the same day it is released. The result is that bugs and security holes are patched much faster in Gentoo Linux than they are in source based Linux distributions.

Gentoo Linux also has the philosophy of avoiding making changes to the code that upstream developers provide unless it is necessary. This results in two things. The first is that any improvements are usually sent to the upstream developers for inclusion into the main tree, to the benefit of all Linux distributions after the patches make their way through the upstream tree back down to the package maintainers of other distributions. The second is that the package maintainers do not second guess the upstream developers like the debian OpenSSH package maintainer did not that long ago. This prevents the distribution from introducing its own security holes into software, which also contributes to security.

Lastly, Gentoo makes it easy for people running computer labs to make their own custom binary versions of packages for distribution to all of their computers. A person only needs to tell portage they want it to make binary packages, compile the software in one place (or across multiple computers with distcc if they want), tell portage on the various computers where the binary package server is and install the updates. This gives large organizations to the quick installation times of a binary distribution without the bloat.

Anyway, I think Gentoo Linux is awesome and I consider it to be the best Linux distribution out there. I know that some people do not like compiling their own packages, but whenever a major system update comes out for their distribution, they usually install the updates while they do something else (e.g. sleep, get lunch, go on vacation, etcetera), so it does not disrupt their work flow. I do not see what keeps them from doing the same with Gentoo, especially since Gentoo provides the benefit of being a rolling release so you really can schedule when you want your updates to be without facing the anxiety of running your programs on a dinosaur in the mean time.

Still...gentoo is advanced. I wouldn't say its the best, regardless of its feature set.

Not that I believe in all that global warming nonsense but for those that do gentoo is the distro with the biggest carbon footprint by far, my computer just burns for hours compiling kde4, now imagine 100 of 1000s or even millions of computers doing this instead of letting a central server do it once and then distribute the resulting binaries...

Ahhh....mandriva, how I adore thee...if only you were Debian based

Dante Ashton wrote:Still...gentoo is advanced. I wouldn't say its the best, regardless of its feature set.

How is Gentoo Linux advanced? It only requires you to setup your partition table, format your hard drive, compile a kernel, install a boot loader, do some basic configuration to get networking working (if it has not automatically been done for you) and then tell its package manager what software you want on the system. It is really easy to do and other distributions require you to do most of that as well.