[Lilux-help] Distro is not as important as we all think

[Pascal Steichen]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2004 at 03:05:55PM +0200, Patrick Kaell wrote:
> The distro is not as important as we all think. Much more important are 
> the applications and the whole environment. For example, I recreate on 
> every Un*x platform I work my favorite environment (shell profile, shell 
> aliases, window manager settings, etc). I even compile the GNU ls 
> (because of the colours) on every *BSD and commercial Unix I use.
> 
> In fact I use Yellow Dog Linux and MacOS X (also a real Unix) as a dual 
> boot solution on my iBook (Slackware is x86 only), Solaris 8 on my 
> SparcStation 5 and use RedHat and AIX at work. And guess what? They all 
> look and *feel* the same. I have installed the same tools, window 
> manager, applications, have the same settings and so on. I don't use the 
> distro's defaults.
> 
> My opinion: It may be difficult to find your optimal distro, but finding 
> your optimal editor or script language is far more important. As long as 
> you are *using* your computer instead of tweaking, upgrading and 
> installing all the time, the distro is not important at all.
> 
> You have extremely many choices: the base OS (*BSD, Linux), the distro, 
> the shell (bash, tcsh, ksh, zsh, ...), the editor (vi, emacs), the vi 
> derivative (nvi, vim, elvis, ...), the emacs implementation (GNU Emacs, 
> uemacs, xemacs, jed, ...), the graphical editor (nedit, scite, gedit, 
> bluefish, xvi, ...), the windowmanager (twm, fvwm, olvwm, icewm, 
> windowmaker, afterstep, ion, wm2, blackbox, fluxbox, openbox, ...), the 
> desktop environment (CDE, KDE, Gnome, xfce, ...) and so on.
> 
> For instance, here is a good page comparing the window managers:
> 
> http://xwinman.org

oh thanks for the link gonna check this out :)

> 
> Simply take the first distro you can get. Even if it is not the optimal 
> one it will not be bad. You have to use Linux, read articles, try out 
> many things before you find your optimal environment.
> 
> By the way, here are my favorites:
> 
> Shell:                   bash, (also like tcsh)
> Window Manager:          icewm, (also like window maker)
> File Manager (&Desktop): ROX http://rox.sourceforge.net , very speedy!

oh very nice, that's exactly what I was looking for, gonna give it a try !

> Programming Language:    C
> Script Language:         bash, gawk
> Graphical Tools:         xv, xpaint, bitmap, gimp
> Vector Graphical Tool:   xfig
> Text Processing:         LaTeX (yes, still better than all the WYSIWYG)
> Text Editor:             nedit, (also like scite)
> vi derivative:           elvis
> WWW Browser:             mozilla, dillo (very speedy!!!)
> Mail Client:             mozilla
> Small Database:          grok
> Calendar:                plan
> 
> 
> Patrick Kaell
> _______________________________________________
> Lilux-help mailing list
> Lilux-help at lilux.lu
> http://lilux.lu/mailman/listinfo/lilux-help

-- 
Pascal Steichen
pascal.steichen at linux.lu

Lilux ASBL
www.lilux.lu 

" Linux is like a woman, hard to understand  
  But very nice once you get under the hood. "