Best Linux version?

G

Gotholic

Well-Known Member
I am interested in trying out Linux, however, I do not know which one to try out since there are so many. I got excited when I found out that many of them can be run off your USB thumb drive! I was wondering which one do you guys prefer installed on your system? Also, which one is great for running off your USB thumb drive? - Can some wear out your thumb drive faster?

Will Linux running off your thumb drive still work if you encrypt your whole thumb drive using TrueCrypt?

I am not sure if there is a difference but privacy/security is my preference.
 
imo, I like mepis, and vector linux, but
on vector I like the 5.9 better than the 6.0.

I don't like the new kde4. I'd rather stay with 3.5 or less.
Otherwise use a distro that has, or install xfce
http://www.xfce.org/

I've very head of wearing out a thumbdrive.
Mepis and knoppix both work well on a thimb drive, but
there again, on knoppix, I like a little older distro. 5.1.1 is good.
 
For a neophyte I'd suggest Knoppix or Ubuntu (Ubuntu is the flavor of the day). Most of the more popular distros will have a version that will boot from a thumb drive.

Cat, don't you think xfce is a little bare-bones for an habitual windows user? Maybe not.

I personally prefer Gnome to KDE but would have to agree that KDE is a bit more Windows-like. Be careful of older distros as some of them won't write to and NTFS volume. That may or may not be important depending on your situation.

Re wearing out a thumb drive, I don't think that's possible. It's solid state. I suppose you could wear out the plug eventually but I've never heard of it happening.

Just as a point of information, I use a thumb drive with Ubuntu on it to boot unresponsive Windows installations. I'm pretty sure Catocom does the same (with a different distro, maybe). How often is pretty depressing. ;)
 
xfce is sure enough bare bones, but that's what I like about it in some instances.
It's fast on older comps. and reminds me of 98.

I like gnome ok, I like my toolbar at the bottom, and it bugs me when it installs at the top. :p

mostly all I use linux distros with windows comps is to image backup, and
partitioning or repartitioning.

I've tried a few different flavors on a thumb. but use CDs mostly still...
again, because of working on reviving some older systems that don't boot good to usb.

I like the IceWM desktop too sometimes.
 
I use ubuntu for the desktop, I couldn't say there's something better out there because I haven't tried anything else in the past 2 years.

As for the distro not wearing your thumb drive, the moment you put an OS in there you should expect it to wear out fast. (chic, flash drives do wear out, there's a finite number of writes to a given location before that location fails to write again).

On installing truecrypt, I suppose it is possible, given that there's an unencrypted portion of the drive that can load all drivers and then mount the encrypted volume. I don't know the process but in the open-source community you are rarely (if ever) the first one to have a specific need.
 
Luis, is there ever a warning given to you by the thumb drive that it is about to die? Or does it actually happen where one day it is suddenly dead and you cannot access your data? Also, is it possible to plug in two thumb drives, one to host the Linux OS and the other to keep your data on it to extend the life of your thumb drive with the data?

chcr, yeah I was thinking Ubuntu but then I saw Slax and that looked really attractive being that everything is a simple module add. But the OS is maintained by one person on his free time. Thus, the updates are infrequent and I wonder if something should happen to him the whole thing goes stagnant. Ubunto looks good though and it seems it might be the best.

On a side note, I tried using Open Office and I notice that upon creating a new document then deleting that document, it still shows up when I click documents and it shows my recent documents. The document is still deleted since when I click on it it does not show up. Is there a way to permanently get rid of this trace of the document?
 
Gotholic said:
Luis, is there ever a warning given to you by the thumb drive that it is about to die? Or does it actually happen where one day it is suddenly dead and you cannot access your data?
Click to expand...

AFAIK, there are no warnings. You could set up the OS to not use a swap partition but you would need enough RAM to hold up all your programs and the OS. This would dramatically reduce the amount of writes to the thumb drive, keep in mind that configuration files, logs and such would still be written to the drive and they add up quickly.

Also, is it possible to plug in two thumb drives, one to host the Linux OS and the other to keep your data on it to extend the life of your thumb drive with the data?
Click to expand...

That is possible, provided that you have the ports needed for it. The easiest way to do this would be to just plug the data drive once the OS has booted and then save/load all your data from it and avoid using your "desktop" and home directory (those reside within the OS partition). This method would make it easier to use truecrypt.

The hard way, which involves having both usb drives connected at boot up and having the OS mount the other thumb as a home partition might be trickier, since the USB enumerator is machine dependent and the configuration file for mounts (/etc/fstab) is most likely static. I don't know if there's anything like that but as I said, one is rarely the first to come up with an idea.

The intermediate way, would be to boot up the OS and then manually mount the 2nd thumb drive in /home, this allows for truecrypt, transparent use of your home directory but has the inconvenience of being annoying.
 
Another vote for ubuntu. Truecrypt has debs on their site specifically for ubuntu, so I can't imagine it'd be difficult to setup.
 
Luis G;656701 As for the distro not wearing your thumb drive said:
I suppose but I doubt I'm going to write to one tens of millions of times. Also, from what I've read, when they do fail you can still read from them. You just can't write to them anymore. I can't remember where I read it now but the technical data was presented. When your using one as a boot drive, isn't the reading more important than the writing?
Click to expand...
 
yeah ubuntu/kubuntu is pretty cool and easy.

every linux nerd has his own opinion on which is the best. Had a classmate in high school who swore by Gentoo, and another friend now who loves FreeBSD. Last year, I did some research at a lab where every PC ran Debian.

but ubuntu is definitely distinct for being the easiest one to use. I remember back in 2005 it was first coming out and they were giving the CDs away at conventions and I thought it was sooo freakin cool.
 
chcr said:
I suppose but I doubt I'm going to write to one tens of millions of times. Also, from what I've read, when they do fail you can still read from them. You just can't write to them anymore. I can't remember where I read it now but the technical data was presented. When your using one as a boot drive, isn't the reading more important than the writing?
Click to expand...

The problem is that Linux isn't a read-only OS, there are logs, caches and configuration files that are updated, there's also the swap partition and the file system journaling itself.

I don't know for sure what is the number of writes before it fails, I seem to recall it was in order of tens of thousands per sector (not whole drive).
 
what's the best thing though is...it's small and fast, so you can re-use older
smaller HDs that cost basically nothing in many cases.
You can also revive older comps to some degree.
:cool2:
 
Luis G said:
The problem is that Linux isn't a read-only OS, there are logs, caches and configuration files that are updated, there's also the swap partition and the file system journaling itself.

I don't know for sure what is the number of writes before it fails, I seem to recall it was in order of tens of thousands per sector (not whole drive).
Click to expand...

Knoppix and Ubuntu Live write those logs and the swap file to a folder on the hard disk don't they? I know the Live CD does. I've actually never checked the thumb drive version for that but just assumed. In any case, I don't use it so often that it would be a problem but if that were your only Linux and you were using it constantly I can see where it could be an issue.

Cat, have you tried Deli-Linux? I loaded it on an old 486 I had laying around and it worked great.
 
chcr said:
Cat, have you tried Deli-Linux? I loaded it on an old 486 I had laying around and it worked great.
Click to expand...

I've got it D/Led, but I haven't burnt it yet.
I'm playing with different GUI vers of PClinuxOS atm, but I'll probably give it a go soon.
 
chcr said:
Knoppix and Ubuntu Live write those logs and the swap file to a folder on the hard disk don't they?
Click to expand...


Live distros by rule never write to your hard disk, they most likely do not use a swap and the log directory is mounted on a RAM filesystem.
 
Luis G said:
Live distros by rule never write to your hard disk, they most likely do not use a swap and the log directory is mounted on a RAM filesystem.
Click to expand...

I meant RAM disk. Got the creeping crap, not feeling too alert. AFAIK they all create a RAM disk. Doesn't it do the same thing regardless of media? I could be wrong. I've honestly never considered the maximum writes problem before.
 
chcr said:
Cat, have you tried Deli-Linux? I loaded it on an old 486 I had laying around and it worked great.
Click to expand...

I bunrt and started the 0.8.x
I thought it was live, but not.
I guess they haven't gotten the live ready yet...
http://www.delilinux.org/wiki/doku.php?id=devel:livecd

I don't want ti install just yet, so I'll hold the iso for a while.
I'm going to try DSL, and puppy on this old hp..piii 800mhz 128mb ram, and 30gb HD.

I tried xubuntu, and it's not very workable, although it does creep.
Mepis is slow but works.
It's got 'windows me', so I should be able to beat that. :D
 
well so far, on this old system...
DSLinux seems good, but the graphics need tweaking.
Puppy linux looks good on the graphics, but the nic will have to be manually
configures, so I say it's not as user friendly for the novice.

stay tuned if you're interested, I'll post more findings.
 
chcr said:
I meant RAM disk. Got the creeping crap, not feeling too alert. AFAIK they all create a RAM disk. Doesn't it do the same thing regardless of media? I could be wrong. I've honestly never considered the maximum writes problem before.
Click to expand...

Yeah, however if on such distros everything is lost the moment you turn it off. I believe Gotholic is looking for a portable Linux OS that he can customize, expand, upgrade, etc. Therefore at least the / must reside on the drive itself, while /var/log could reside somewhere in the RAM, /home could be in another drive (even encrypted) and swap could be removed if there's enough RAM.

I think everything is doable, is just a matter of how much time and effort one is willing to put on the table to make it work :D
 
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