mhbell Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 I am looking for a fast stable Distro. I want one that is easy to install, easy to maintain, and one without a lot of Command line work. Possibly a slackware based or a arch based distro such as Zenwalk or Manjaro what do you recommend, and why? I use Linux Mint as my primary OS on all of my computers, but am looking for something faster for my laptop which is 4 years old and has 8 gigs of ram 750 HD and intel i3 cpu want to try something different than mint. I do not use any MS windows on any of my computers. What do you think. Mel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 If you want a lazy man's Slackware, I recommend Zenwalk or Salix or Vector... Zen is the lightest resource-wise, Vector the heaviest. Salix is a nice middle-of-the-road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted October 3, 2016 Author Share Posted October 3, 2016 (edited) If you want a lazy man's Slackware, I recommend Zenwalk or Salix or Vector... Zen is the lightest resource-wise, Vector the heaviest. Salix is a nice middle-of-the-road. I've already installed Zenwalk tonight and it is fast. So far I like it. Not sure how to install software. I don't know if I can install firefox and thunderbird. zen switched to chromium for their browser. wait to see if someone chimes in with manjaro. don't know if that would be less work than Arch or slack. BTW Vector is Crap anymore AFAIAC It won't recognize my old graphics card a ati radon 4200 2006 era card. I used vector on a old laptop before vector 7 and since 7 it has never worked on any of my computers.Mel Edited October 3, 2016 by mhbell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. J Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 Manjaro = Arch for lazy people (My current distro.) I haven't encountered any real problems with it. There's also Antergos, which I haven't tried, but seems pretty neat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 I've tinkered with Manjaro and like it alot. One of the cool things about Manjaro is all of the different "flavors" available out of the box. Something like Manjaro LXDE would probably run great on your system. Or even Manjaro Fluxbox; then install the lxpanels package and "roll your own" version of LXDE, but with fluxbox as the window manager. Manjaro is to Arch as Ubuntu is to Debian. Alternatively, I thought Salix was pretty cool, and that comes in a fluxbox favor, so my Manjaro comments could also apply to Salix. Â This is linux...try 'em both and keep the one you prefer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted October 3, 2016 Author Share Posted October 3, 2016 Thank you Dr J and Hedon James. Now For Eric Slacker, Eric, it is not Being Lazy. I want something that works right out of the Box with a minimum of fuss. I am sick and tired of these wanta be Distro's that are crap don't work, or are a nightmare to configure. Why do you think that Mint is the number one distro period. IT works out of the box the first time everytime on every computer I've installed it on which is over 100. Yes I like to try different distro's, but my main distro is Mint and probably always will be. Before Mint it was Ubuntu and before that it was the commercial versions of suse from version 5 something to version 10 as I recall. I have used or tried over 50 different Distro's since the early 90's. Over the weekend I downloaded and installed Watt OS, Antix, Suse 4.2, Zenwalk, Lxle, Pepermint, Robo Linux, Chapeau 24, Vector 7.2B and Linux Lite 30. Here are some of the problems encountered. Â Linux Lite has to have it's grub in the MBR or it won't boot. Vector Linux has not worked with my Graphics card starting with version 7 Supposed to be for older computers. I used Vector for years on my laptop before version 7, LxLe works great, but not much faster than mint cinnamon. Pepermint was OK, but not very fast and was very slow installing. Robo, was a Hybrid VM. Watt Os was so so. Suse was OK But Bloated and slow. Chapeau 24 installed no problem Have not had a chance to try it. I am not fond of RPM distro's. Zenwalk was the fastest of the bunch, but it's directions and Docs are sparse and not to clear. I was able to figure out how to install Thunderbird and Firefox. So far it is the best of the bunch. It is snappy and fast and recognized all of my hardware. Â Well I have vented enough. I just had to get it off my chest. Eric I am not lazy. Mel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 I think Eric was being tongue in check Mel. He often refers to himself as being "too lazy" to do something, so he goes with his own status quo, as in "I'm too lazy to reconfigure it, so I left it as is." Slackware requires tedious compiling of packages, or searching for pre-compiled binary packages. So when he refers to a "lazy man's slackware", I don't think he's referring to the user, but to the distro itself...someone has already compiled or included the packages...a curated version of Slackware that's ready to roll out of the box. I don't consider myself a lazy person, but I think I'd prefer the "lazy distro" when trying new things. I'd say Manjaro is a lazy man's Arch, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I prefer that! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 Umm... that lazy comment of mine wasn't meant to be offensive, Mel, just a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. Â I AM lazy and I run Slackware because IT JUST WORKS (for me). It may not be the cat's meow for other users. That's the great thing about Linux... you have choices. If you want a point and click type (a la Windows) Linux where everything is at your mouse paw tips and runs lots and lots of easy to install software, then Slackware is not a good choice... nor is Arch, in my opinion. I would suggest you stick with the popular distros like Ubuntu and Mint. There's going to by bugaboos and disappointments with those distros, too. **it happens. Â Oh, and as far as I'm concerned AMD/Radeon has absolute garbage Linux support. I spent two hours earlier this afternoon trying to find mobo chipset drivers for my Gigabyte mobo with AMD 890FX chipset. No joy at all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 I was typing the above message while Hedon James posted his. Hence the duplicate "tongue-in-cheek" comment. I wasn't plagiarizing his post. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 I was typing the above message while Hedon James posted his. Hence the duplicate "tongue-in-cheek" comment. I wasn't plagiarizing his post. Â Lazy bastid...looks like plagiarism to me?! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted October 3, 2016 Author Share Posted October 3, 2016 Hello Hedon and Eric I was not venting on Eric, I was venting about the distro's That I wasted my time downloading and installing. I downloaded and tried to install Manjaro, but for some reason part way through the install it would not let me type. The mouse would place the cursor on the blank that needed to be filled in but when I typed nothing happened. So I may have to scratch that one. so far ZenWalk and LxLe are the top contenders for my Laptop which has Mint 18 installed at the present time. My laptop is only 4 years old with 8 Gigs of ram and a intel i3 cpu. It is slow and the only reason I am looking for a lean fast distro. It has UEFI and GPT partitioning which I want to keep because I can have unlimited Primary partitions. I have know Eric ever since he first joined ATL. I have been a member since Apr 25th 2003, but have not been to active the past 2 or 3 years. BTW I was jobbing Eric, if you notice I called him Eric Slacker. LoL! Mel 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 Lazy bastid...looks like plagiarism to me?! Â BAAHAHAHAHAHA! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 Â Â Oh, and as far as I'm concerned AMD/Radeon has absolute garbage Linux support. I spent two hours earlier this afternoon trying to find mobo chipset drivers for my Gigabyte mobo with AMD 890FX chipset. No joy at all. Â These folks seem to have linux running on that mobo. Mebees you could ask them. Â http://www.overclock.net/t/730776/official-gigabyte-ga-890fxa-ud5-ud7-owners-thread-club/3090 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 I use and highly recommend MX-15. It's the most "just works" distro I have ever tried. Based on Debian so has the same apt packaging as Mint, with Synaptic and an update manager in the system tray. And it includes Firefox and Thunderbird in the default install. The MX custom tools and utilities are excellent and make lots of those tedious admin tasks a breeze. Try it live from CD or USB, you'll be glad you did! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted October 3, 2016 Share Posted October 3, 2016 Oh, and as far as I'm concerned AMD/Radeon has absolute garbage Linux support. I spent two hours earlier this afternoon trying to find mobo chipset drivers for my Gigabyte mobo with AMD 890FX chipset. No joy at all. Â These folks seem to have linux running on that mobo. Mebees you could ask them. Â http://www.overclock...hread-club/3090 Â This mobo is my old ericsbane05, currently ericsshop02-wifi. It runs Slackware fine. The problem is that my only video option is onboard video. The PCI-e slot is faulty, so no vid cards will work. Unfortunately, I need the AMD 890FX Northbridge chipset drivers to get any resolution higher than 1024x768. I can find those drivers everywhere for Windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted October 4, 2016 Author Share Posted October 4, 2016 I use and highly recommend MX-15. It's the most "just works" distro I have ever tried. Based on Debian so has the same apt packaging as Mint, with Synaptic and an update manager in the system tray. And it includes Firefox and Thunderbird in the default install. The MX custom tools and utilities are excellent and make lots of those tedious admin tasks a breeze. Try it live from CD or USB, you'll be glad you did! sunrat is that the Antix MX15 dated Dec 2015? if it is I may have that as I down loaded it over 6 months ago when I was checking Arny Extons Extix.Mel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted October 4, 2016 Share Posted October 4, 2016 Hm, not quite the discussion I was expecting when I saw the thread title. Â Fast, stable, easy to install and maintain, not a lot of command line work... Yeah, I'd say that MX might be a good choice. Or even BunsenLabs, if you're okay with Openbox. Although Debian Stable doesn't seem like all that much work to install these days, definitely easy to maintain, and not a lot of command line work unless the user prefers to use the command line. I have MX-15 installed but I actually prefer my installation of Debian Jessie with Xfce as MX ships with a lot of tools and stuff that I really never use. Maybe it all depends on how the distro likes your hardware. Debian's almost boring to me lately, all I really do is update via Synaptic and go on about my business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted October 4, 2016 Share Posted October 4, 2016 I use and highly recommend MX-15. It's the most "just works" distro I have ever tried. Based on Debian so has the same apt packaging as Mint, with Synaptic and an update manager in the system tray. And it includes Firefox and Thunderbird in the default install. The MX custom tools and utilities are excellent and make lots of those tedious admin tasks a breeze. Try it live from CD or USB, you'll be glad you did! sunrat is that the Antix MX15 dated Dec 2015? if it is I may have that as I down loaded it over 6 months ago when I was checking Arny Extons Extix.Mel  Extix is a good call, Mel! Most folks never heard of it, but it would appear you are somewhat of an adventurer?! I'd like to also suggest Arnie Exton's LFA (Linux For All)...a minimal Ubuntu, using Fluxbox as a window manager, with a Cairo dock. I loaded it into a VM when I was scouting distros for my home-rolled Mimetic-DE remix, and I was quite impressed at the polish on LFA. So I'll throw that out there and see if it is of interest to you...  http://lfa.exton.net/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted October 4, 2016 Share Posted October 4, 2016 sunrat is that the Antix MX15 dated Dec 2015? It would be easier to download the latest snapshot which includes all updates and a couple of small fixes. Latest is 16-Sep-2016 Â http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/?C=M;O=D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted October 4, 2016 Author Share Posted October 4, 2016 (edited) sunrat is that the Antix MX15 dated Dec 2015? It would be easier to download the latest snapshot which includes all updates and a couple of small fixes. Latest is 16-Sep-2016 Â http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/?C=M;O=D I am downloading it now. I did install the copy that I had dated Sept 2015 and installed the updates on my test drive. the updates were 415 mb I will use the one from the repos when I test it on my laptop. Thanks for the info. Mel Added a little bit. I downloaded and installed the distro from the MX repos and installed it on my Laptop. I made 3 Primary GPT partitions Root, Swap, and Home. It installed without a problem. Took me a minute to find the list of wireless connections so I could hook to my router. The small partly hidden Icon was hard to see. I finally found it and it is now a working distro along side of Mint 17.3 and 18.0 So far I like it. Thanks everyone for the info you have given. Mel Edited October 5, 2016 by mhbell 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted October 21, 2016 Share Posted October 21, 2016 Let me also put in my recommendation for MX-15 - Debian based, Xfce, GUI for updates. If you don't want the command line I wouldn't recommend Manjaro. AntiX is a cool distro for old machines but again you are into the CLI for updates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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