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Comment by TallGuyShort | Hacker News Reader

I agree - it's really hard to tell the difference between a project that's an official derivitive of Ubuntu, and not a separate "*buntu" project.

I'm curious - how do you like Debian?

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I switched to Debian from Ubuntu (where I got my start in Linux) because I no longer felt like I needed the UI or install to hold my hand and wanted to be able to build up my own system from a minimal install. I chose Debian simply because my Ubuntu experience had made me very familiar with aptitude, and I wanted to stick with something popular so my chances of successfully Googling for help were higher.

My work's servers use Debian, and my home ISP runs an unmetered repository for it too.

I've tried Fedora in the past when I was still very much a newbie and found it intimidating. Given I know next to nothing about Red Hat derivatives of Linux it would probably pay to get familiar with them sometime over the next few months.

That's a difficult question. I like Debian because I can build it up piecemeal from a minimal install. A lot of that is down to the package manager. Fedora might have similar functionality these days - though I didn't have a great time the last time I used Yum.

I like to drive my computer with the keyboard. I tried to avoid Gnome on my last install, but it's keyboard config, theme manager and Nautilus won over other desktops. I use metacity, which is boring but good.

To be honest I'm not totally enamoured with any Linux distro. But I like the ones that try to remain free. Oh and the ones that work with my hardware.

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