OS choice between: Debian, gNewSense, and OpenSolaris

Posted by penyuan on Super User See other posts from Super User or by penyuan
Published on 2009-10-09T04:01:02Z Indexed on 2010/03/18 14:21 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 671

Filed under:

operating-systems

|

debian

|

ubuntu

|

opensolaris

|

beginner

I am planning to migrate from Mac OS X and Windows to either a Unix or Linux distribution, i.e. I am a Linux/Unix beginner.

Right now the following caught my interest:

Debian: Well established with huge repository of 20000+ apps.
gNewSence: "Totally free" version of Ubuntu, so it should be more beginner friendly?
OpenSolaris: Also open-source, and built on "strong" Unix base.

I do mainly basic tasks such as web browsing, office work, maintaining big photo collection, and a little bit of programming.

Questions:

How "free" are each of these distributions compared to each other, is this whole freedom thing a big deal?
Will a binary labeled as for Ubuntu work on gNewSense?
What are simple IDEs for Debian and gNewSense?

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about operating-systems

Choice of operating systems for a Rackspace cloud installation

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I am planning to use Rackspace cloud services to host a java web application and also run apace for wordpress and trac. What would be a stable operating system to host such an application. My requirements are that the core OS bundle should be minimalistic (so I can install only what I want), consume… >>> More
Which operating systems book is good as a quick refresher?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I am preparing for a technical interview and need to review the basics of major operating systems concepts. We used Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems in school for our operating systems course, which is a good book, but too long to be reviewed in the course of a few days. For an example, I am… >>> More
Do different operating systems have different read and write speeds?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
If I have two different operating systems, such as Windows 8 and Ubuntu, running on the same hardware, will the two operating systems have different read and write speeds? My guess is that there would be minimal difference between operating systems and read and write speeds to the hard disk since… >>> More
Five Web Operating Systems You Can Take for a Spin

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
Is a cloud-based WebOS in your network's future? Here are five you can try out from your own servers or from public hosting. >>> More
mobile devices operating systems

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
what are the operating systems which run on mobile devices?On which language are these developed? >>> More

Related posts about debian

Trying to update debian not working

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
As root i type this command apt-get update and get these error messages. > Err http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release.gpg Could not resolve 'security.debian.org' Err http://security.debian.org lenny/updates/main… >>> More
Trouble with dns and debian update

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I tried to update my debian dreamplug server with the command running as root apt-get update and recieved these errors. Err http://security.debian.org lenny/updates Release.gpg Could not resolve 'security.debian… >>> More
Errors when installing Open Office

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I followed the first set of instructions on this page to install Open Office: How to install Open Office? However, the last step which says to change the CHMOD of a folder, I got an error saying that the directory does not exist. Open Office now appears in my Ubuntu start menu, but clicking… >>> More
Installing PHP4 on a Debian (lenny) 7 32bit box

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am trying to install PHP4 on a Debian 7 32bit box but I ran into the following root@php4:~# apt-get update Get:1 http://snapshot.debian.org lenny Release.gpg [189 B] Hit http://snapshot.debian.org lenny Release Ign http://snapshot.debian.org lenny Release Hit http://snapshot.debian.org lenny/main… >>> More
Debian keyring error: "No keyring installed"

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a Debian Squeeze EC2 AMI. On booting up an instance with it and trying to install packages with apt-get I get errors saying there is no keyring installed. Here is the error with apt-get update: root@ip:~# apt-get update Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org squeeze Release.gpg [1672 B] Ign http://ftp… >>> More