Every Flavour Beans

Suddenly people have started to publish their favourite operating systems in their blogs and I thought I too should have some fun by doing the same. Currently I have these operating systems installed on my computer:

• Ubuntu (Debian based)
• Zenwalk (Slackware based)
• Fedora
• Microsoft Windows XP

My favourite, as must be evident from the above list, is Debian. Because I use Debian OS as the main server for my network, I thought I should install a different flavour of it on my pc. I may try Mepis os the next time, but currently I have Ubuntu.

The best thing I like about Debian based distros is its package manager called ‘apt’. also there is a huge repository of packages ready to be downloaded and installed for debian. Two dvd full of software can be kept handy by those who need to install them on multiple systems or have a slow internet connection. Two step installation process of debian, where you can install only the base system in the first tier and then continue with the additional packages once the first part is successfully installed, gives a lot of flexibility to the user. Debian is also very secure and stable, more than any other gnu/linux distribution. This is also the reason why latest versions of many softwares are not included in debian, but the tradeoff has been utilised by ubuntu and you get the latest, cutting-edge versions of all the software by sacrificing a bit on security and stability in it. Because ubuntu is generally meant to be used on desktop only(all kinds of server applications can be installed on it, but I can’t convince myself to use it as a public server machine), the security issue is not critical. But ubuntu comes with a single dvd worth of software and any additional packages have to be installed from the Internet. For KDE users, there is Kubuntu.

Slackware is another interesting distribution that is best known for its simpilicity and efficiency. The operating system, as well as its packages, get installed in real quick time. Its package manager is also extremely simple to use but the repository of packages for slackware is not as big as that of debian. Because I use it for development purposes it suits me perfectly well and I have found it as the fastest of all the popular gnu/linux distros. Zenwalk is a flavour of Slackware and installs only one software per every category - i.e. one browser, one word processor, one email client only - saving a lot of disk space. Its default desktop XFCE is also sleek and stylish. Though the first thing that I had installed on Zenwalk was the KDE package, which took less than one minute, I still spend most of my time in XFCE.

I had installed Fedora to check out the Core 4 version of it, but i am already thinking about installing PCLinuxOS or some thing else over it.

I use Windows XP primarily for development on .NET platform and for heavy printing jobs. I also keep most of my partitions meant for storing data under windows file system and manage them from windows xp because its easy to access windows partitions from gnu/linux than the other way round. My testbed machine contains 6-8 operating systems on it and the list keeps changing every 3-4 days. My brother is very fond of Gentoo OS.
Final word? Debian as a server, Ubuntu for most of the desktop jobs(multimedia, internet etc), Zenwalk for development work and Windows XP for .NET and data storage.