I thought it might be interesting to hear why users have adopted certain Linux distributions and what they like/dislike about them.

Following my early exploration of Red Hat Linux c2000, I fully switched to Linux in 2008 when I considered it had "come of age" and I used Ubuntu for a few years. Then I switched to Lubuntu to avoid the "new" Ubuntu Interface and the increasing system bloat. All was good until 18.04 when I had lots of problems, so tried Mate before settling on PeppermintOS.

I've also played with other distros like Puppy, Arch & Raspbian,

Peppermint is quite a light-weight distro and was originally based upon Lubuntu. So its 'quick' even on a fairly humble computer, and a joy to use. One of the reasons I've stuck with it is because I like using SSBs (specific site browsers). Peppermint has a unique feature called "Ice" which makes it very easy to set up SSBs. This is handy for internet apps or for keeping your banking websites isolated from the general junk accessed via the web browser.


Unfortunately Mark Greaves (the lead developer) died early in 2020, so its not clear when/whether a new version of Peppermint will be released.

I have another laptop which I recently installed Lubuntu on, so I need to find some time to fully test this out, as it may be my best alternative if Peppermint is abandoned by the remaining devs.

My wife's laptop is running Mate which I really don't like. It won't run Peppermint due to a hardware support issue, and as it was originally supplied by Entroware with Mate, I put that back on.

 Your story has a very familiar ring to it. I started with Ubuntu around 2008, having tried various distros, and stuck with it until the change to Unity. Like a lot of other people who use Windows at work I wanted to keep the 'tradition' layout, so I moved to Linux Mint. I am not sure what desktop Mint had then, but I have used the Cinnamon desktop ever since it came out.

The Cinnamon desktop offers a fully featured and configurable desktop in the 'traditional' format with the Ubuntu stability and repo. The latest Mint also has 'Web apps' that sound very similar to the SSBs you mentioned. It's the little things I like, for example in Windows you can open Explorer (File not Internet) with [Win] + E. In Mint the same shortcut will open Nemo the Mint file manager. Nemo is based on Nautilus but has kept all the original features and has had more added.

In Mint you can now set up automatic updates and system backups, a 4 finger shuffle and the screen is being recorded, Warpinator is available for easy network file transfers…End of sale's pitch.

I am sure others will tell you why their distro is the best but at least put Mint on your list to look at.

The requirements for both Mint Maté and Mint Cinnamon are the same: -

System requirements:
    • 1GB RAM (2GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
    • 15GB of disk space (20GB recommended).
    • 1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).

For comparison the requirements for Ubuntu are: -

System Requirements for Ubuntu 20.04
    • 2 GHz dual-core processor.
    • 4 GiB RAM (but 1 GiB can work)
    • 25 GB of hard-drive space.
    • VGA capable of 1024×768 screen resolution.

 I tried linux on and off for many years but always gave up as couldn't even get a wifi dongle to ever work on them.

then at some point it all seemed to get better support for more devices.

Hated the change to unity and quickly found gnome Fallback as the layout we all know and love.
But then came MATE and i've stuck with that ever since i found it as it has that traditional feel i like.

as for distro i originally was a Mint fan as i think this was the one that first started supporting my wifi dongles.

but now i do not find a lot of difference in Debian / Ububtu / Mint and find they are all tops for packages

flavours like Fedora, Suse, etc just do not offer the variety of packages I want.

right now of all my different linux drives on my system (i currently have 10 different partitions with linux's and gambas for testing)  I find Debian 11 wins for speed hands down on boot up. it up in a shot.

So i'm currently flickering between Mint 20 MATE , Debian 11 MATE and Ubuntu 21 MATE

This is the gambas app i made that auto-lists all the gambas versions on my different drives…

Why I use Manjaro Linux …

I've started my career with a *tadaa* Sinclair Spectrum 48K with MicroDrive (!!!) and external keyboard (Programming with Z80 Assembler) then came a Commodore C128 (written a Assembler/Disassembler with dbase II with data on floppy) then there was a Atari Mega ST2 with a SH205 20 MB Harddisk, SLM804 Laser-printer and the beautiful SM124 Monitor (Programming with Omicron-/GFA Basic) … the misery started with my first pc a commodore PC 20-III.

I've gone trough every dos version and every windows version starting with Vers. 2 and then stumbled across SuSE Linux so '94/'95 i think. It was pure hell … to get and install each newest version (300Baud modem or mountains of disks) … waiting for the point 1 release to be able to start the system and then waiting for the  point 2 release to have (nearly) no errors … at this point the next major release came out … so starting over again  :shock:

With Windows 3.1 respectively 3.11 and at least Windows for Workgroups 3.11 i leave Linux and work with Windows on the client side (Serversytems were Novell Netware 3 and IBM Clones with AIX) and have lost sight of linux for many years.

Around 2000 i have begun to work with SUN Solaris based Unix Systems (E280, E450 'Tazmo' still in Love with, up to E10K/E15K) on the server side but still hang on to Windows on the client side and I confess I was in love with Windows 7 (SP2) until the week in which windows update sawed my complete installation twice in a row … full of anger i decided to turn my back on windows and use linux exclusively.
i looked in the list of the most common distributions and took the first non-ubuntu derivate: linux mint 17.0 (i think) cinnamon which i follow from 17.1 -> 17.2 -> 18.0 -> 18.1 -> 18.2 -> 19.0 feeling that with every new version it gets bigger and slower … and as 19.0 was so buggy i decided to change … i looked in the list of the most common distributions (again) and took the first non-debian derivate: manjaro linux … and since then I'm there and happy with.

 I have simply always used Red Hat/Fedora  since switching from Windows 98/XP in 2007 so that is just what I am used to. Never felt the reason to change.

Biggest shift was going from GNOME 2.x to Xfce after GNOME 3 came out. I do not hate GNOME Shell or anything, but XFCE just hits the sweet spot for being reasonably feature rich while being reasonably lean.

My brothers are all on Arch Linux though.

Using Ubuntu or a 'buntu derivative does provide a benefit to Gambas users in that the 'Gambas Team' maintain a PPA on Launchpad. So once added to your system, you are notified of updates and the update process is easy:-
 Gambas Stable Builds : “Gambas Ubuntu Maintainers” team

I don't know if there is anything similar for other Linux distros like Red Hat.

stevedee said

Using Ubuntu or a 'buntu derivative does provide a benefit to Gambas users in that the 'Gambas Team' maintain a PPA on Launchpad. So once added to your system, you are notified of updates and the update process is easy:-
 Gambas Stable Builds : “Gambas Ubuntu Maintainers” team

I don't know if there is anything similar for other Linux distros like Red Hat.

I wish there was
Gambas would be so much more popular i think if updating to the latest version was as easy on the other systems as it is on ubuntu/mint
I think it's a major problem for developers like myself who have the ability to sort out the compilation method (that took searching for packages as the wiki was outdated)
When I first updated from 3.12 (debian10 was my os) to gambas latest i suddenly realised many people would not have and will not be able to run my programs  (then Benoit told me of the GB_PCODE_VERSION trick)  but it's still a pain, i need a drive with gambas3.12 on it to test my apps have not got any code too new in .

It bothered me so much i made those gambas updater scripts / apps but still the initial setup for compiling can be a big download and on slow machines like PI's it's slow as hell.

I was wishing Benoit would see the importance of non-programmer users being able to update.

BruceSteers said

I was wishing Benoit would see the importance of non-programmer users being able to update.

reading this sentence i asked myself why should a non-programmer deal with a programming language?

furthermore i dare to say that a linux user (even today) should at least have heard of configure, make, make install. downloading files from the internet shouldn't be a big problem either (not even via git)
i claim that gambas is a toy and will remain one because there is a lack of useful documentation everywhere that deserves its name. (the only exception i know of is the gambas book by dr. Hans-Joachim Lehmann, but even he only scratches the surface and has problems with the interesting topics themselves and due to an existing real life time problems to continue the book, to deepen and also to keep it up to date)
as an example i would like to mention the comment of one of the developers, who said that he develops for himself and he doesn't care if someone else can handle it … at this point i don't need gambas in package management …

(deepl is my friend)

PJBlack said

…reading this sentence i asked myself why should a non-programmer deal with a programming language?

furthermore i dare to say that a linux user (even today) should at least have heard of configure, make, make install. downloading files from the internet shouldn't be a big problem either (not even via git)…

PJ, for "non-programmer" read "beginner".
We all have to start somewhere, and I agree that more people would start with Gambas on Linux if the documentation was better.

But I don't agree that all Linux users will be familiar with config/make/make install.

If I was starting out now with programming (…some say I'm yet to make a start!) I would look for the language that was easiest to install, and with a reasonable amount of documentation…and probably end up with Python.

PJBlack said

BruceSteers said

I was wishing Benoit would see the importance of non-programmer users being able to update.

reading this sentence i asked myself why should a non-programmer deal with a programming language?

furthermore i dare to say that a linux user (even today) should at least have heard of configure, make, make install. downloading files from the internet shouldn't be a big problem either (not even via git)
(deepl is my friend)

I compare Gambas to VB/.NET
On windows I'd used many many VB apps and auto-updated the VB runtimes as needed , zero vb programming knowledge needed and simple updating.
then I got VisualStudio and got into vb programming.
That's how gambas differs.
I think the fundamental difference between vb and gambas is vb has been considered in 2 ways, one for the end user who has zero knowledge of the os and just wants to run apps with no hasstle, and then for the programmers and money involved to buy the IDE so a big drive to get it to all the people not just coders.
where as gambas is more a programmers hand built development environment kindly shared to the world for free.

My thoughts are for the end users who have no programming knowledge or any wish to learn about configure or make.
This is why i release my apps, if everyone was a programmer then they could just make one themselves

All of you here are good with computers so i should imagine like me you know hundreds of people who know diddly squat about computers and have no intention to, but they want to use the software , to be fair most of them use Window$ but some don't.

stevedee said

some say I'm yet to make a start!

on that point i disagree