On Wed, 19 May 2021 at 13:18, Tom Horsley horsley1953@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2021 12:06:56 -0400 bruce wrote:
So, I'm interested in thoughts for the group.
For things I want to be relatively stable, I've tended to use the ubuntu LTS release with long support times so I have no reason to upgrade frequently.
Ubuntu is very widely used around the world, but their LTS releases sometimes mean you have to go outside the core distro when you need a current version of some library. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu with simpler desktop environment that many users prefer.
I started using fedora because where I worked our software ran on redhat, and fedora was a good thing to use to get early warning of things that would break in future redhat releases. That got me used to fedora, so I've stuck with it for my main system, but it does become annoying to upgrade every 6 months (though I've just gone from 33 to 34 with relatively few problems).
I use Fedora for similar reasons, and have VM's for other distros. These are very useful when something doesn't work for a user with another distro.
Debian unstable provides an early warning system for Ubuntu.
Some of my current projects "just work" in Debian, then I have to work out what other distros got wrong. Many key libraries have a myriad of build-time configuration options, starting with compiler options that target low-end processors. Most distros build the packages with a default configuration that invariably omits a feature I need. All this means that I end up installing only basic things and rely on local builds of the libraries I'm using.