Candidate Distro List

The Candidate Distro List

About this list

Three key points for a candidate distribution:

1. easy to use
2. large hardware profile
3. acessibility

Note from Paul:

• Big five, and interesting others
•  List needs to be small and shrink

The List

Mint

Support Cycle: -Mint 12 and 9 supported until April 2013 -Mint Debian: rolling distribution from mint website

System Requirements: Recommended 1GHz 512MB RAM from wikipedia

Comments JP: -Mint 12 is based on ubuntu with a gnome environment. I installed and after a splash page comes up on the desktop that prompts you to download media and dvd codecs among other things like links to tutorials and other pages on the community website

-Mint website says Mint Debian is neat because it is auto-updating - you never have to upgrade versions. but it is also therefore more unstable. It also reqs knowledge of the command line to enable one-touch-click on laptops and other similar things. They also says it is like ubuntu but rough around the edges.

Ubuntu

Arch

Support Cycle: Rolling

System Requirements: not listed

Comments JP: -For advanced users familiar with the CLI and the layout of their system. Installation is robust and ncurses based; user must make many specific choices. Also, once installed, boots to CLI first, no GUI installed by default, must install and start x manually.

OpenSuSe

CentOS

Support Cycle: Version 5 - until March 2014 Version 6 - until November 2017 from centOS FAQ

System Reqs: Minimum v5 - 256MB Ram Minimum v6 - 512MB Ram

Puppy

Support Cycle: Wary and Racy puppy are both LTS (duration not stated)

System Reqs: (not listed) though Puppy is intended NOT TO BE INSTALLED TO HD it is intended to run off of a LiveCD AND the process to install to HD is long and obscure

Comments JP: website is hard to follow not much community support