linux distros

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I'm not trying to convert anyone your holiness.

What I am doing is stating my opinion as to what's the best distro for a media center PC someone new to *nix could handle. It may not be the easiest, but that isn't what the OP asked for, and IMO the extra time spent configuring stuff is outweighed by the bloat and lack of flexibility I see in other distros.

Is Ubuntu the most bloated distro? If so, it's still light enough to run great on any modern computer, so that's not really a very big deal. Ubuntu comes with more stuff working out of the box, making it ideal for someone new to Linux who doesn't have the knowledge or desire to spend a whole lot of time just getting the system set up. It may or may not be worth it to spend the extra time configuring stuff to get exactly what you want, but to someone new to Linux who doesn't necessarily know how to do that or what exactly they need in their system, it definitely is not. Baby steps.

The OP stated he was pretty new with linux. That implies that he is seeking a distro that is simple to use. Not a distro where he is going to have to sit around all day configuring stuff. I think his response to you should of made that clear. I'm not as holy as you, sorry

I still hold my position that Knoppix is the easiest form of linux to use. Although I agree with Dokken about FreeBSD. FreeBSD is made of win.

Why yes he is!

Sorry. I assumed you were puzzled by the meaning.

Arch is as simple to use as just about any other distro. Granted, there are different things that require more time, and in the case of Arch those tend to be a few things during initial setup as opposed to broken stuff down the road.
Arch is pretty simple as far as distros go. No additional software and broken packages/dependencies at least compared to my experience with Ubuntu. Configuration takes a bit longer, say fifteen minutes since X has to be installed separately and maybe hwd has to be run if they don't already have a specific Xorg config, autostarting X on boot, and grabbing their login manager of choice, but aside from that both require the same amount of configuration IME. They key difference is that Arch doesn't have as many bugs w/r/t/ package management most importantly, as well as in other arenas. Anyway, just about anyone who is computer literate can do that including the OP IMO. Just follow the instructions, and ask if there's trouble. They're both simple distros.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, his response was at best vague. Granted, I can just assume he's being a jerk since no one mentioned anything about Reading any F'ing Manuals, but the only thing I actually know about what he said was that it was vague or extremely rude, and for now I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

I was just giving my opinion. As the first one to mention conversion you are in fact holier than me.

The most bloated? Iono about that since I don't have experience w/ every distro, but it certainly has it's fair share of bloat compared to Arch. In terms of configuration I'm pretty sure they're more or less the same give or take the initial 15 minutes spent using hwd to generate an Xorg config, starting X at boot, and picking a login manager, or just using ~/.xinitrc to start openbox, FVWM, flux or whatever. Honestly, even if I overlooked all the package management (eg dependency hell) crap I saw when using Ubuntu, newbies using sudo before every command run as root would eat up the time savings, not to mention having all those additional packages requires more download and install time, so at best we could say that in this context a distribution like Ubuntu requires less user input at the expense of more time to install. Anyway, like I said before, outside of the initial stuff there isn't any difference in configuration AFAIK. Myth has to be fussed around w/ for both distros, the only difference has been bugs and bloat IME.

I was just giving my opinion. Why don't you try to convince the original poster that arch is easy to use, instead of trying to convince me . Just a thought. You come off as one of those linux snobs, in my opinion.


Freebsd is #1 actually it's #3. I'm basing that on my 3 computers and which ones get used the most. I have it on a laptop I found in the trash. I'm real proud of myself for finding a laptop in someone trash lol. I use Ubuntu on computer I using now, Debian Lenny on my desktop, and Freebsd on the computer I found in someones trash

Dude... I totally wanna find a laptop in someones trash! I've never owned one before... Anyways, for lack of a better way to say this... Knoppix is like... Debian++; It basically IS Debian but with a ton of added stuff.

Lies, lies and slander!
I wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything, only replying with my opinion regarding both the OPs stuff and the other posters who responded to me, like you just did.

It's no sweat, I was just trying to be tactful. I probably failed, but at least I tried!

"Rolling Eyes" smilies are always productive as a response!