Title: Listing every system I used | |
Author: Solène | |
Date: 02 July 2021 | |
Tags: linux unix bsd | |
Description: | |
# Introduction | |
Nobody asked for it but I wanted to share the list of the system I used | |
in my life (on a computer) and a few words about them. This is | |
obviously not very accurate but I'm happy to write it somewhere. | |
You may wonder why I did some choices in the past, I was young and with | |
little experience in many of these experiments, a nice looking | |
distribution was very appealing to me. | |
One has to know (or remember) that 10 years ago, Linux distributions | |
were very different from one to another and it became more and more | |
standardized over time. At the point that I don't consider distro | |
hoping (the fact to switch from a distribution to another regularly) | |
something interesting because most distributions are derivative from a | |
main one and most will all have a systemd and same defaults. | |
Disclaimer: my opinions about each systems are personal and driven by | |
feeling and memories, it may be totally inaccurate (outdated or damaged | |
memories) or even wrong (misunderstanding, bad luck). If I had issues | |
with a system this doesn't mean it is BAD and that you shouldn't use | |
it, I recommend to make your opinion about them. | |
# The list (alphabetically) | |
This includes Linux distributions but also BSD or Solaris derived | |
system. | |
## Alpine | |
* Duration: a few hours | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: interesting but lack of documentation | |
* Date of use: June 2021 | |
I wanted to use it on my workstation but the documentation for full | |
disk encryption and the documentation in general was outdated and not | |
accurate so I gave up. | |
However the extreme minimalism is interesting and without full disk | |
encryption it worked fine. It was surprising to see how packages were | |
split in such small parts, I understand why it's used to build | |
containers. | |
I really want to like it, maybe in a few years it will be mature | |
enough. | |
## BackTrack | |
* Duration: occasionally | |
* Role: playing with wifi devices | |
* Opinion: useful | |
* Date of use: occasionally between 2006 and 2012 | |
Worked well with a wifi dongle supporting monitor mode. | |
## CentOS | |
* Duration: not much | |
* Role: local server | |
* Opinion: old packages | |
* Date of use: 2014 | |
Nothing much to say, I had to use it temporarily to try a program we | |
where delivering to a client using Red Hat. | |
## Crux | |
* Duration: a few months maybe | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: it was blazing fast to install | |
* Date of use: around 2009 | |
I don't remember much about it to be honest. | |
## Debian | |
* Duration: multiple years | |
* Role: workstation (at least 1 year accumulated) and servers | |
* Opinion: I don't like it | |
* Date of use: from 2006 to now | |
It's not really possible to do Linux without having to deal with Debian | |
some day. It's quite working when installed but I always had painful | |
time with upgrades. As for using it as a workstation, it was at a time | |
of gnome 2 and software were already often obsolete so I was using | |
testing. | |
## DragonflyBSD | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: server and workstation | |
* Opinion: interesting | |
* Date of use: ~2009-2011 | |
The system worked quite well, I had hardware compatibility issues at | |
that time but it worked well for my laptop. HAMMER was stable when I | |
used it on my server and I really enjoyed working with this file | |
system, the server was my NAS and Mumble server at that time and it | |
never failed me. I really think this make a good alternative to ZFS. | |
## Edubuntu | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: laptop | |
* Opinion: shame | |
* Date of use: 2006 | |
I was trying to be a good student at that time and it seemed Edubuntu | |
was interesting, I didn't understand it was just an Ubuntu with a few | |
packages pre-installed. It was installed on my very first laptop (a | |
very crappy one but eh I loved it.). | |
## Elementary | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: laptop | |
* Opinion: good | |
* Date of use: 2019-now | |
I have an old multimedia laptop (the case is falling apart) that runs | |
Elementary OS, mainly for their own desktop environment Pantheon that I | |
really like. The distribution itself is solid and well done, it never | |
failed me even after major upgrades. I could do everything using the | |
GUI. I would recommend like it to a Linux beginner or someone enjoying | |
GUI tools. | |
## EndeavourOS | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: testing stuff | |
* Opinion: good project | |
* Date of use: 2021 | |
I never been into Arch but I got my first contact with EndeavourOS, a | |
distribution based on Arch Linux that proposes an installer with many | |
options to install Arch Linux, and also a few helper tools to manage | |
your system. This is clearly and Arch Linux and they don't hide it, | |
they just facilitate the use and administration of the system. I'm | |
totally capable of installing Arch but I have to admit if I can save a | |
lot of time to install it in a full disk encryption setup using a GUI | |
I'm all for it. As an Arch Linux noob, the little "welcome" GUI | |
provided by EndeavourOS was very useful to learn how to use the | |
packages manager and a few other things. I'd totally recommend it over | |
Arch Linux because it doesn't denature Arch while still providing | |
useful additions. | |
## Fedora | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: hazardous | |
* Date of use: 2006 and around 2014 | |
I started with Fedora Core 6 in 2006, at that time it was amazing, they | |
had many new software and up to date, the alternative was Debian or | |
Mandrake (with Ubuntu not being very popular yet), I used it a long | |
time. I used it again later but I stumbled on many quality issues and | |
I don't have good memories about it. | |
## FreeBSD | |
* Duration: years | |
* Role: workstation, server | |
* Opinion: pretty good | |
* Date of use: 2009 to 2020 | |
This is the first BSD I tried, I heard a lot about it so I downloaded | |
the 3 or 5 CDs of the release with my 16 kB/s DSL line, burned CDs and | |
installed it on my computer, the installer was proposing to install | |
packages at that time but it was doing it in a crazy way, you had to | |
switch CD a lot between the sets because sometimes the package was on | |
CD 2 then CD 3 and CD 1 and CD 3 and CD2.... For some reasons, I | |
destroyed my system a few times by mixing ports and packages which | |
ended in dooming the system. I learned a lot from my destroy and retry | |
method. | |
For my first job (I occupied for 10 years) I switched all the Debian | |
servers to FreeBSD servers and started playing with Jails to provide | |
security for web server. FreeBSD never let me down on servers. The | |
most pain I have with FreeBSD is freebsd-update updating RCS tags so I | |
had to merge sometimes a hundred of files manually... At the point I | |
preferred reinstalling my servers (with salt stack) than upgrading. | |
On my workstation it always worked well. I regret packages quality can | |
be inconsistent sometimes but I'm also part of the problem because I | |
don't think I ever reported such issues. | |
## Frugalware | |
* Duration: weeks | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: I can't remember | |
* Date of use: 2006? | |
I remember I've run a computer with that but that's all... | |
## Gentoo | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: i love it | |
* Date of use: 2005, 2017, 2020 to now | |
My first encounter with Gentoo was at my early Linux discovery. I | |
remember following the instructions and compiling X for like A DAY to | |
get a weird result, the resolution was totally wrong and it was in grey | |
scale so I gave up. | |
I tried it later in 2017 and I successfully installed it with full disk | |
encryption and used it as my pro laptop, I don't remember I broke it | |
once. The only issue was to wait the compilation time when I needed a | |
program not installed. | |
I'm back on Gentoo regularly for one laptop that requires many tweaks | |
to work correctly and I also use it as my main Linux at home. | |
## gNewSense | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: it worked | |
* Date of use: 2006 | |
It was my first encounter with a 100% free system, I remember it wasn't | |
able to play MP3 files :) It was an Ubuntu derivative and the | |
community was friendly. I see the project is abandoned now. | |
## Guix | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: interesting ideas but raw | |
* Date of use: 2016 and 2021 | |
I like Guix a lot, it has very good ideas and the consistent use of | |
Scheme language to define the packages and write the tools is something | |
I enjoy a lot. However I found the system doesn't feel very great for | |
a desktop usage with GUI, it appears quite raw and required me many | |
workaround to work correctly. | |
Note that Guix is a distribution but also the package manager that can | |
be installed on any linux distribution in addition to the original | |
package manager, in that case we refer to it as Foreign Guix. | |
## Mandrake | |
* Duration: weeks? | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: one of my first | |
* Date of use: 2004 or something | |
This was one of my first distribution and it came with a graphical | |
installer! I remember packages had to be installed with the command | |
"urpmi" but that's all. I think I didn't have access to the internet | |
using my USB modem so I was limited to packages from the CDs I burned. | |
## NetBSD | |
* Duration: years | |
* Role: workstation and server | |
* Opinion: good | |
* Date of use: 2009 to 2015 | |
I used NetBSD at first on a laptop (in 2009) but it was not very stable | |
and programs were core dumping a lot, I found the software where not | |
really up to date in pkgsrc too. However, I used it for years as my | |
first email server and I never had a single issue. | |
I didn't try it seriously for a workstation recently but from what I've | |
heard it became a good choice for a daily driver. | |
## NixOS | |
* Duration: years | |
* Role: workstation and server | |
* Opinion: awesome but different | |
* Date of use: 2016 to now | |
I use NixOS daily in my professional workstation since 2020, it never | |
failed me even when I'm on the development channel. I already wrote | |
about it, it's an amazing piece of work but is radically different from | |
other Linux distributions or Unix-like systems. | |
I'm using it on my NAS and it's absolutely flawless since I installed | |
it. But I am not sure how easy or hard it would be to run a full | |
featured mail server on it (my best example for a complex setup). | |
## NuTyX | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: it worked | |
* Date of use: 2010 | |
I don't remember much about this distribution but I remember the | |
awesome community and the creator of the distro which is a very helpful | |
and committed person. This is a distribution made from scratch that is | |
working very well and is still alive and dynamic, kudos to the team. | |
## OpenBSD | |
* Duration: years | |
* Role: workstation and server | |
* Opinion: boring because it just works | |
* Date of use: 2015 to now | |
I already wrote a few times why I like OpenBSD so I will make it short, | |
it just works and it works fine. However the hardware compatibility | |
can be limited, but when hardware is supported everything just work out | |
of the box without any tweak. | |
I've been using it daily for years now and it started when my NetBSD | |
mail server had to be replaced by a newer machine at online so I chose | |
to try OpenBSD. I'm part of the team since 2018 and apart from | |
occasional ports changes my big contribution was to setup the | |
infrastructure to build binary packages for ports changes in the stable | |
branch. | |
I wish performance were better though. | |
## OpenIndiana | |
* Duration: weeks | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: sadness but hope? | |
* Date of use: 2019 | |
I was a huge fan of OpenSolaris but Oracle killed it. OpenIndiana is | |
the resurrection of the open source Solaris but is now a bit abandoned | |
from contributors and the community isn't as dynamic as previously. | |
Hardware support is lagging however the system performs very well and | |
all Solaris features are still there if you know what to do with it. | |
I really hope for this project to get back on track again and being as | |
dynamic as it used to be! | |
## OpenSolaris | |
* Duration: years | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: sadness | |
* Date of use: 2009-2010 | |
I loved OpenSolaris, it was such an amazing system, every new release | |
had a ton of improvements (packages updates, features, hardware | |
support) and I really thought it would compete Linux at this rate. It | |
was possible to get free CD over snail mail and they looked amazing. | |
It was my main workstation on my big computer (I built it in 2007 and | |
it had 2 xeon E5420 CPU and 32 GB of memory with 6x 500GB of SATA | |
drives!!!), it was totally amazing to play with virtualization on it. | |
The desktop was super fast and using Wine I was able to play Windows | |
video games. | |
## OpenSuse | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: pro workstation | |
* Opinion: meh | |
* Date of use: something like 2015 | |
I don't have strong memories about OpenSuse, I think it worked well on | |
my workstation at first but after some time I had some madness with the | |
package manager that was doing weird things like removing half the | |
packages to reinstall them... I never wanted to give another try after | |
this few months experiment. | |
## Paldo | |
* Duration: weeks? months? | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: the install was fast | |
* Date of use: 2008? | |
I remember having played and contributed a bit to packages on IRC, all | |
I remember is the kind community and that it was super fast to install. | |
It's a distribution from scratch and it still alive and updated, | |
bravo! | |
## PC-BSD | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: many attempts, too bad | |
* Date of use: 2005-2017 | |
PC-BSD (and more recently TrueOS) was the idea to provide FreeBSD to | |
everyone. Each release was either good or bad, it was possible to use | |
FreeBSD packages but also "pbi" packages that looked like Mac OS | |
installers (a huge file that you had to double click on it to install). | |
I definitely liked it because it was my first real success with | |
FreeBSD but sometimes the tools proposed were half backed or badly | |
documented. The project is dead now. | |
## PCLinuxOS | |
* Duration: weeks? | |
* Role: laptop | |
* Opinion: it worked | |
* Date of use: around 2008? | |
I remember installing it was working fine and I liked it. | |
## Pop!_OS | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: gaming computer | |
* Opinion: works!! | |
* Date of use: 2020-2021 | |
I use this distribution on my gaming computer and I have to admit it | |
can easily replace Windows! :) Upgrades are painless and everything | |
works out of the box (including the Nvidia driver). | |
## Scientific Linux | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: worked well | |
* Date of use: ?? | |
I remember I used scientific Linux as my main distribution at work for | |
some time, it worked well and remembered me my old Fedora Core. | |
## Skywave | |
* Duration: occasionally | |
* Role: laptop for listening to radio waves | |
* Opinion: a must | |
* Date of use: 2018-now | |
This distribution is really focused into providing tools for using | |
radio hardware, I bought a simple and cheap RTL-SDR usb device and I've | |
been able to use it with pre-installed software. Really a plug and | |
play experience. It works as a live CD so you don't even need to | |
install it to benefit from its power. | |
## Slackware | |
* Duration: years | |
* Role: workstation and server | |
* Opinion: Still Loving You.... | |
* Date of use: multiple times since 2002 | |
It is very hard for me to explain how much and deep I love Slackware | |
Linux. I just love it. In the date you can read I started with it in | |
2002, it's my very first encounter with Linux. A friend bought a Linux | |
Magazine with Slackware CDs and explanations about the installation, it | |
worked and many programs were available to play with! (I also erased | |
Windows on the family computer because I had no idea what I was doing). | |
Since that time, I used Slackware multiples times and I think it's the | |
system that survived the longest time every time it got installed, | |
every new Slackware release was a day to celebrate for me. | |
I can't explain why I like it so much, I guess it's because you deeply | |
know how your system work over time. Packages didn't manage | |
dependencies at that time and it was a real pain to get new programs, | |
it improved a lot now. | |
I really can't wait Slackware 15.0 to be out! | |
## Solaris | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: fine but not open source | |
* Date of use: 2008 | |
I remember the first time I heard that Solaris was a system I could | |
install on my machine, I started to install it after downloading 2 | |
parts of the ISO (which had to be joined using cat), I started to | |
install it on my laptop and went to school with the laptop on battery | |
continuing installing (it was very long) and ending the installation | |
process in class (I was in a computer science university so it was fine | |
:P ). | |
I discovered a whole new world with it, I even used it on a netbook to | |
write some Java SCTP university project. It was the very introduction | |
to ZFS, brand new FS with many features. | |
## Solus | |
* Duration: days | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: good job team | |
* Date of use: 2020 | |
I didn't try much Solus because I'm quite busy nowadays, but it's a | |
good distro as an alternative to major distributions, it's totally | |
independent from other main projects and they even have their own | |
package manager. My small experiment was good and it felt quality, | |
it's a rolling release model but the packages are curated to check | |
quality before being pushed to mass users. | |
I wish them a long and prosper life. | |
## Ubuntu | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation and server | |
* Opinion: it works fine | |
* Date of use: 2006 to 2014 | |
I used Ubuntu on laptop a lot, and I recommended many people to use | |
Ubuntu if they wanted to try Linux. Whatever we say, they helped to | |
get Linux known and bring Linux to masses. Some choices like non-free | |
integration are definitely not great though. I started with Dapper | |
Drake (Ubuntu 6.06 !) on an old Pentium 1 server I had under my dresser | |
in my student room. | |
I used it daily a few times but mainly at the time the default window | |
manager was Unity. For some reasons, I loved Unity, it's really a pity | |
the project is now abandoned and lost, it worked very well for me and | |
looked nice. | |
I don't want to use it anymore as it became very complex internally, | |
like trying to understand how domain names are resolved is quite | |
complicated... | |
## Void | |
* Duration: days? | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: interesting distribution, not enough time to try | |
* Date of use: 2018 | |
Void is an interesting distribution, I use it a little on a netbook | |
with their musl libc edition and I've run into many issues at usage but | |
also at install time. The glibc version was working a lot better but I | |
can't remember why it didn't catch me more than this. | |
I wish I could have a lot of time to try it more seriously. I | |
recommend everyone giving it a try. | |
## Windows | |
* Duration: years | |
* Role: gaming computer | |
* Opinion: it works | |
* Date of use: 1995 to now | |
My first encounter with a computer was with Windows 3.11 on a 486dx | |
computer, I think I was 6. Since then I always had a Windows computer, | |
at first because I didn't know there were alternatives and then because | |
I always had it as a hard requirement for a hardware, a software or | |
video games. Now, my gaming computer is running Windows and is | |
dedicated to games only, I do not trust this system enough to do | |
anything else. I'm slowly trying to move away from it and efforts are | |
giving results, more and more games works fine on Linux. | |
## Zenwalk | |
* Duration: months | |
* Role: workstation | |
* Opinion: it's like slackware but lighter | |
* Date of use: 2009? | |
I don't remember much, it was like Slackware but without the giant DVD | |
install that requires 15GB of space for installation, it used Xfce by | |
default and looked nice. |