[Cialug] New members looking for test laptop

[Matt Stanton]

Mr. Denner recently gave a presentation at a LUG meeting on the 
differences in the philosophy and setup of several of the most popular 
Linux distributions.  You may be able to search the LUG mailing list 
archive for an email with a link to his pdf/powerpoint(style) 
presentation.

Some basic comparisons:
-----------------------
Debian - Focuses on providing absolutely free (Libre) software 
packages.

Ubuntu - Based on Debian, but focuses on a user-friendly interface.

Mint - Based on Ubuntu, focuses on an even more user-friendly interface 
and includes commonly-installed license-restricted software packages by 
default (i.e. MP3 decoders/encoders and similar non-free licensed codecs 
that are popularly installed on Debian or Ubuntu after the normal 
install).
Fedora - a Redhat-based distribution that uses cutting-edge versions of 
software packages.  serves basically as a testbed for packages that are 
going to be released for RHEL once deemed stable by Redhat.

RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) - a Redhat distribution aimed at 
enterprise customers

Centos - A distribution based on Redhat... not sure if it is based on 
RHEL, but it is aimed at the same market

Arch - certainly not for the beginner! aimed at the Linux expert who 
wants a distribution that has a powerful package manager, but doesn't 
include a lot of intrusive configuration customizations.  all packages 
must be personally configured after installation, giving the admin the 
ability to set the install up exactly as he/she wishes.  packages can 
also be easily compiled from source, though Arch is aimed only at 
machines that use i686 or x86_64 hardware (I believe this consists of 
Pentium 4 chips or later)

Gentoo - Also not for beginners.  Every package that is installed is 
compiled from source code on the target machine.  If you want to get an 
extra 1% performance out of your software by compiling everything you 
install for a week straight, this is the distro for you.  (search Google 
for "Gentoo is for ricers"... an extremely entertaining read) ;)

There are hundreds of other distros, but these are the top selections 
that I can think of off the top of my head.

-- Matt (N0BOX)

On Fri, 24 Jan 2014 13:51:44 -0600, wdmtrader wrote:
> My son and I are new to the group so please gently correct me if this
> request is inappropriate.  We are looking for a cheap laptop to 
> experiment
> with various Linux distros.  We would like to experiment with Ubuntu,
> Fedora, and others.  Can you please recommend where we may find 
> something
> under $200 (free is even better)?  What specs should we be looking 
> for
> (RAM, CPU, DVD, DVI/HDMI out, etc.)?
>
> On a related note, is there a good resource that compares/contrast 
> various
> distros?  What are the trade offs for choosing Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, 
> etc.?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Scott Burklund
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