A new guide on choosing Linux v2009.05.10

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I would say that OpenSUSE has my vote as the most desirable distro for both newbies and advanced users.

It was my first distro i used and by far my favourite: SaX2 is one heck of a powerful tool to force out a GUI when xorg refuses to play nice with certain graphics hardware. And on the whole, i tend to find openSUSE more feature-complete than any other distribution like the *buntus, Fedora or Mandriva.

The zypper package manager is also a good piece of software. i mean, there must be a very good reason why ArchLinux is adopting zypper as its package manager.

And personally, i think Novell's little agreement with Microsoft can only mean good thing for the end user. Somehow, I tend to get lesser driver issues in OpenSUSE as opposed to other distros.

But that does not stop me from tri-booting OpenSUSE 11.1, Fedora 10 and Mandriva 2009.0 😉
 
I took that distro choosing test just to see what would pop up for me, and I got Gentoo and Slackware. I suppose knowing what I do, it isn't quite fair because I had an idea more or less what answers would result in what distribution recommendations. Then again, I wasn't really trying to pick a distro, so I suppose it doesn't really matter. In any case, it seemed like a pretty useful tool, so thanks for sharing it!

In terms of Linux From Scratch, I think I am going to skip that step in my computer knowledge quest and move to something even more ambitious. When I started my engineering co-op job, I decided that over the next few years, as a side project I would create an entirely custom computing platform. I am doing this with the idea that if I can design an entire personal computing system from scratch, that I'd be able to really say that I understand what is going on inside a computer.

To that end, I will be creating my own custom ISA and implementing the processor on an FPGA using either verilog or VHDL. I'll have to make my own memory interface, keyboard controller, and VGA controller. The intent is to have a system that is 100% my own and that you can actually boot up and interact with using a keyboard and monitor. On the software side, I'll get to write my own operating system and my own C compiler. I could port GCC, but I think that would take some of the fun out of it!

Anyways, I figure this would be a good way to put my Computer Engineering knowledge into practice and would be pretty fun, to boot. I could even document the whole experience and perhaps help anyone who wants to understand at a fundamental level what is going on inside a computer. This system won't be super fancy (command-line only), but if anyone here will still be interested in a few years, I'd be willing to provide all the source.

I am aware this is a huge undertaking for just one guy, but I figure that if I do it for fun, it won't be too bad, and by the time I am done I will really be able to say that I know my stuff. Besides, I think it can be a pretty powerful feeling knowing that something is 100% your own.

--Zorak
 
Now that's what I call ambitious! I've tried writing my own OS, and that's hard enough.

But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Without people crazy enough to attempt this sort of thing where would we be? The very best of luck with your project.
 
Wow.. now that's a project. What sort of thing are you thinking of implementing? I know that http://fpga.sunsource.net/ has much of the SparcT1 available but there are no end of RISC options out there that can be built on FPGA. Whilst not wishing to scale down your ambitions perhaps interfacing an FPGA to an existing SoC solution might be a way to get things moving.

If you want a bit of inspiration then take a look at this:

Homebrewed CPU Is a Beautiful Mess of Wires - Wired.com

Steve Chamberlin



 
😀 Thanks for the positive feedback guys! I think I am going to make a 16-bit ISA as that is small enough to be manageable, yet big enough to support its own OS. I know this is possible because I wrote an RTOS for the Freescale MC9S12 processor last semester, so that will give me a good reference point. Also, one of the projects in my VHDL class this semester is implementing a processor on an FPGA, so I can take the experience I gain there and extend it. Additionally, I already have all the verilog source that I made for a kogge-stone high speed adder (that just so happens to be 16 bits wide) for a VLSI class that I took, so that is another thing in favor of a 16-bit architecture.

I suppose at some point I will want to look at the verilog code sun has posted online to see what a real processor looks like at the verilog level. In any case, it is going to be a while before I have anything to show for my work, but when its done, it is going to be exciting!

--Zorak
 
i cant believe that so many ppl are keen of fedora, i thought the public's choice was ubuntu, on the other hand most users here have good experience that makes them go fedora.

for me ive tried slackware 11 as my first linux/OS after that fedora was cake. after that i just had to try OPENsuse and ubuntu finally (cos of all the hype).
finally i set my mind to a dedicated fedora user, i would consider going back to opensuse but from what i remember YAST was too buggy (then i heard of YAST 2)

anyway, in my honest opinion ubuntu has been slowly and steadily transforming into an OS X-esque type of system that im not comfortable with, even though i know that its just GUI updates and user-friendly add-ons.
 
Too many people think Linux = Ubuntu, which is bad and an idea that needs to be changed. You see in article comments and forums "Linux sucks, nothing works on it. I had Ubunu installed..." and that's when I know that this person has been confused into thinking that Ubuntu = Linux.
 
I just use Ubuntu for simplicity. There's drivers, lots of updates, and it's an easy transition from Windows. I am willing to try new Distros, this just seemed like a good place to start (have tried Fedora and OpenSUSE as well).
 
Linux Mint is my current favorite Distro. I still get to geek out, but my wife can use it too without going crazy. Best of both worlds if you ask me!
 
Depends on what you're doing, I have Backtrack 4 running, but I'm also doing CEH & CHFI. my first linux distro was Red Hat 4 and Mandrake, I wanted to try both KDE & GNOME, but it's been so long since I've used any linux platform I am a noob again, so Im going to start back with Ubuntu 9 and work my way to Debian....although I recommend OpenSUSE and it's preety graphical and fairly simple to use...
 


Well said. I've spent many plane trips just reading through man pages. Writing your own man page is also quite fun :)

My vote is Fedora. It has come a long way, and I wouldn't trust anything other than it for controlling all 3 TB of my family's data on the raid 5.
 
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