I recently got a HP 6910P laptop (specs can be found here:
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" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false). It came with Windows XP installed but I would like to dual boot with Linux. However, I'm not sure which distro I would like to use. Here are my thoughts so far:

Mepis: The only negative I can think of here is it gets outdated too far before the next release comes out.
antiX: I would use this but I think I want something with a full DE by default...I upgraded the laptop to 4GB of RAM.
Debian Testing: I am thinking this is a possibility but am not sure how stable it is because I haven't run it for a long time. I want something that is safe to use on a production work system. Is this the case?
siduX: How is stability here?


I'm really not sure where to go with this. I want something that is customizable but also very stable and easy to keep up to date. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

You could always go antix + xfce. This would be stable for the most part. There have only been a few hiccups over the years. But then even the distros built on debian stable have had hiccups after updating. At least with antix, problems are fixed more quickly in the testing branch and even more quickly if you go for"sidux."

john

Jaws:

I faced the same decision a couple of days ago. I got a Dell Inspiron 1721 (2 G RAM; 250 G disk) with Vista installed, as a gift. I decided to go with AntiX and loaded the test v.8. I was conflicted about installing a test version and spending a fair amount of time loading programs I use just to have to reinstall the"real" release. However, I went ahead with the test version and seems to be working fine (except by usb mouse is not recognized).

I was sorely tempted to install Mint fluxbox edition. I have Mint Elyssa running in one of my desktops and I'm very pleased with how stable and reliable it is. It's far more bloated than AntiX (or DSL, or Puppy Linux), but it's faster and less bloated than Ubuntu. Also it works pretty much out of the box (or CD) so set up time is minimized.

Good luck with your decision! For the time being, I'm sticking with Antix.

Best regards,
Pedro

On a well spec'd laptop, I'd probably go for Mepis & work around bringing things as up to date as I'd need as and when required. This is if I wanted lots of stability.

If it were a laptop for messing with, antiX with whatever added on from wherever I could get hold of it would be the way forward I reckon. __{{emoticon}}__

My opinion:

Antix with XFCE. I have been using this on my laptop for some time now. Immediately after I installed I pushed into sid/sidux and it has been stable as a rock and fast. They say sid is unstable but i have had just as many funky apps from stable and with sid/sidux problems are fixed quickly. I find the *buntus just take up too many resources and they have a lot more breakage than just about anything I have used. I just really dislike gnome and KDE is just way too big for me. XFCE does everything I want it to do and sitting it on top of antix makes it all the better. /opinion

Eerie:

Let me ask a few newbie questions. I understand adding XFCE desktop to antiX (I also like XFCE), but what do you mean about adding sid/sidux? Does this just mean activating the repos in Synaptic? Why would this make the system more stable (or better) over the regular Debian repository packages?

Thanks.
Pedro

Yes I mean using the sid and sidux repos. I comment out everything else. I also use the smxi script to dist-upgrade regularly. I find the apps from the sid repo make my laptop more responsive. By using sidux and the smxi script everything is kept stable. The smxi script watches for version mismatches so you don't break a package and the sidux repos provide a lot of patches and fixes to keep everything stable as well as provide some tools.

My sources.list: Try it out.

Eerie:
Thanks for the suggestion. I've been running Synaptic manager rather than apt-get so I havent messed with my sources.list file. I did turn on the sid/sidux repos but also all the other ones in synaptic. I'll give your way a try.

I haven't messed with smxi at all. I have to read up on that. I presume it's a shell command?

thanks.

Pedro

Check this to start:


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Thanks for the replies everyone. Not sure what I am going to do yet.

Any thoughts on running siduX on it? How stable is it?

With everything I have done it's essentially sidux. The actual sidux is nice, it has some great tools and a choice of window mangers/de's. Their installer in great and fast. They also use a meta-package system that installs groups of packages for a particular purpose ie: education, server, old computers etc. It's well worth a try.

Jerry, thanks for the link.
I read that link and some other link I found, and right now I'm sort of confused. So, if I run smxi, I end up (potentially) not with antiX but with a sidux-debian system? I thought AntiX was Mepis based?

If I wanted to install sidux-debian, why not just install that?

thanks.
Pedro

If your going to stay with stable then no need for smxi. If you decide to go with sid then I would use the smxi script with sidux repos.

Pedro,

The smxi script, by default (though you have to run and set it), will keep antiX as it is when you run it ie Debian Testing plus MEPIS.
You have the option to use the Debian sid/unstable repos, which will make your antiX bleeding edge, but potentially prone to breakages, though I have been running antiX-sid since antiX-M7 was released without any breakages.
You also have the option to sidux your antiX install. This will automatically use the Debian sid repos as well as the sidux repos. You do not get a sidux system, but get some sidux apps/tools on top of your existing and unchanging antiX base and easy upgrade access to sidux kernels (sidux upgrades kernels very regularly).
antiX is meant to be a 'rolling release' distro that is you can keep it up to date through simply upgrading, and therefore no need to install a later version. This makes antiX a very dynamic distro.
Now if you prefer, you don't have to continously upgrade antiX. You can keep it as it is and run it fine and just upgrade individual apps and wait for the next release of antiX. This might be best for those on dial-up, slow connection or even no internet.

Personally, I run antiX with sid repos, but not the sidux ones.

JawsThemeSwimming428,
If you want stability more than anything, choose MEPIS.
For speed and more flexibility, but more work on your part, install antiX and whatever desktop manager you prefer. There are people at Mepislovers using antiX and kde4.