What's the best version of Linux OS?

[TransformX]

Elie,

Once you're done, see if RedCarpet works with your selected *nix for easy maintenence/patches/upgrades later.

[spadnos]

I forgot to mention 0 Mepis has apt (the debian command-line package manager), and Kpkg, which is a KDE front-end to apt, rpm, and whatever the slackware package system is. KPkg didn't work right for me, but apt is pretty easy to use anyway (I use the GUI to find packages in the pretty tree, then use apt-get to install them)

- Steve

[leech]

That's kind of odd that kpackage didn't work. It works great here. Though I mostly use Gnome and the Synaptic front end for apt.

As far as package management goes, debian takes the cake. Unfortunately the only 'almost' decent installer for it, is the one from Progeny. Which by the way is now the same installer RedHat uses (anaconda). There were just a few hitches with it (namely the NIC configuration didn't save...) But once installed, Debian is VERY easy to maintain, and just about everything you could ever want (and a billion more) is packaged for debian. It's just either a simple "apt-get install packagename" or just load up Synaptic (or Kpackage if you're a KDE guy.) and away you go.

I got sick of the RPM thing too, everytime I ever try to run an RPM distro, I have an issue of one sort or another with the dependencies. That and I know dpkg and apt so well now that it's hard to live without 'em.

Also for REALLY easy set up. I'd suggest taking a look at Xandros 2.

Leech

[Slougi]

I use gentoo. Sometimes I get fed up with the compile times, but it is the _easiest_ distro I have found till now. Oh, and it was the first distro I ever installed - with no *nix experience or outside help. If you want to really learn how Gnu/Linux works on a low level, I suggest gentoo. But definitely not for everyone, due to the compile times, and the fact that there are not any graphical setup tools to speak off.

[TnT]

I'll agree to that. If you don't want to sit around waiting for stuff to compile, then yeah, Gentoo could probably get annoying.

[Indiana]

I had Suse installed on my rig: the WinXP64 test-version crashed my HD boot-block and ironically I only had one bootable CD at hand - the Suse9.0 one. o Microsoft managed to get me install Linux

I did like the look and feel of Suse's standard installation (really no need of Linux knowledge needed) - but it felt a bit slow and it did crash every few hours for no apparent reason. I guess my hardware (AMD Athlon64 with K8T800 mainboard) wasn't really supported..