It is well known that in GNU / Linux there are distributions for all tastes, and of all flavors. Even some users reluctant to use them, put this virtue as a defect under the pretext that they do not know which one to choose from among so many.
The readers (and friends) who usually visit FromLinux you know, that I have installed the same today Debian and tomorrow Archlinux, than vice versa. But this does not mean that I do not have well defined what I need. I am a user who likes to learn and I have a big flaw: versionitis. But I won't talk about myself, so let's get back to the initial topic
What should we do when choosing a Distribution? Very particularly I think that the first answer to this question is another question (forgive the redundancy): What do I need from a Distribution? For example, I have a friend who is a developer. When we talk about it, he tells me:
Use Linux Mint 9 because I need to optimize as long as possible. I can't waste it by setting up all the elements of the system that I'm going to use. And I need what it installs to work and be as stable as possible. Could use debian-stable, but the packages I need are not there, I could use Debian Testing, but I can't take the risk - as rare as it may be - that something will fail me after an update. Linux Mint it also has the PPAs of Ubuntu, where I find many useful things and at least in my case, everything works the first time.
He is definitely right. In my case it does not matter if I install today Arch o Debian and I spend a whole day setting it up, because my job allows it and it doesn't require that much time. My friend is a user who needs to work immediately and Linux Mint 9 (equivalent to Ubuntu 10.04) it gives you that possibility.
But I have another friend who is not a developer but a musician, and uses LMDE (with Squeeze repositories). But first, he pulled out the list of packages he needed from Ubuntu Studio which would have come in handy if it weren't for having problems with the sound card.
These are two clear examples of objective needs. So The first thing we have to do to choose a distribution is, know what we need it for. But there is another point, the resources we have. If we have 8Gb of RAM, an i5 and 500Gb of disk space, anything would be good for us, but the same does not happen when our computer does not exceed the 512 Mb of RAM True?
So the second thing would be find a distribution that gives us what we need in terms of packages, but that allows us to work comfortably without sacrificing the available hardware. That is where the eye candy across Desktop Environments.
And although we could filter the search for the Ideal layout, I will leave you a third and final requirement to take into account, two questions that are related: Do we have a good internet connection available to get the repositories? Do we need to constantly update?
I know people who still use debian-etch, and not for lack of resources, but because in that version they have everything they need for their daily work, they don't need to update anything and how everything works: Why change? And it is very true. Sometimes (those of us who suffer from versionitis) we want to have the latest in packages when in reality, what we currently have works perfectly. But we don't always have access to Internet, or a good connection to download them.
In summary, there are 3 most important factors to take into account:
- Why do we need Distribution?
- What resources do we have?
- Do we have internet? Do we need to have daily access to the repositories and keep up to date?
On second thought, I'm going to add a fourth extra requirement: Community and Documentation. But of course, to get to this one we will have to go through the third one 