Best Alternative Operating System To Ubuntu?

[Kevin O'Gorman]

On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Robert Swanson <mapa-kettle at shaw.ca> wrote:

>
>         If you want the ultimate in configurability and speed, then I would
> choose
> Gentoo.  It is not conventional, in the sense that there are regular
> releases.  You keep your system up to date by using the command
> emerge --sync.  It is a portage based system and you can add programs to
> your
> system from a very large list by simply emerging them.
>        If you want to know more, just go to Gentoo.org
> I prefer Gentoo for all my other operations, but the family computer, this
> one, will run Kubuntu forever simply because my wife doesn't like to have
> to
> learn about computer programs, she just wants her email and browser to work
> trouble free.
> Bob
>

This is incomplete and slightly inaccurate: "emerge --sync" maintains your
database
of what's available.  Several different parameters are available to actually
install any
given package.  It also doesn't indicate how much time your machine will be
unavailable
doing complete compilation of some of the larger packages.  I was doing this
2002-2010
until it finally broke; I never really found out why but it appeared the
graphics on my
motherboard was no longer supported (I could be wrong) and the overall
effort no longer
appeared worth it.

This is not to say gentoo is in any sense "bad" but it is maintenance
intensive.  On my
2GB DDR memory, old dual P-IV Xeons (4 hyperthreads) it could take a week of
compiling
to install a working system.

I took it direct to Natty, which supported my video out of the box, but
would not
run Unity on it (happy happy joy joy).  Downloading the ISO, installing, and
updating to the
latest packages took all of one morning.

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD
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