Linux distro for combination of home and work

Question

What is the best linux distro for me?

I am a web developer, but also i want to do some home stuff, like watching vids, editing vids, that stuff. I have a YouTube account, so that's why. Also a good photo editor should be available (or already included) for that distro.

I should also be able to SSH into my iTouch. (Now, you can tell me not to jailbreak, or you just answer my question) This is available in bash in OSX, but also in Linux bash?

Last but not least, i should have a lot of speed, and easy to use interface. I maybe want to code bash. (I know like all distros have terminal. (or not?)).

Thank you. I know there are actually a lot of Q's on this; but this is different, i guess.

Answer 1

Apart from Ubuntu, which is one of the obvious choices, I would suggest glancing at Xubuntu which is its small brother, or OpenSUSE as one of the alternatives. It also has a huge community behind it, matched only by Ubuntu's.

If you are a little more technicaly inclined, then however, I'd go with Arch - it is a nifty little distro, can be made into anything with a little work. Speedy too.

Answer 2

Ubuntu should be on your short list. It's one of the easiest Linux distros to set up and has a huge community behind it. A Gimp package is available for photo editing and comes with SSH and BASH as well (you'll find these on almost all modern Linux dists).

Answer 3

Pretty much any Linux distribution you can think of can fulfill all of the software requirements you specify. It will just be a case of installing them via the package manager that comes with the distro.

• Photo editors: look at GIMP, F-Spot
• Video editors: try PiTiVi

If you're new to Linux, you'll probably want to go with one of the big four distros: Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, or Mandriva. Ubuntu is probably the most popular, or has the most hype at least.

As you're interested in media, you may also like to look at Linux Mint, which basically respins Ubuntu to make it work a bit nicer with multimedia out of the box.

You can do ssh and BASH scripting on any version of Linux. You'll be able to ssh into your iPod Touch with no problem.

When it comes to speed and ease of use, it's more important to decide upon your desktop environment than your distribution. The big two are Gnome and KDE. They're both very capable and featureful, but I personally find both of them too bloated. Xfce is a good compromise between speed and ease of use. There are faster environments out there, e.g. fluxbox, but you tend to compromise somewhat on ease of use for speed. enlightenment (e17) looks sweet and runs fast, but isn't always easy to set up from your package manager.

Overall I'd say give Linux Mint or Xubuntu a go. They're easy to use and to install new software, and you'll be able to easily install a different desktop environment from the Ubuntu repositories if you're not happy with the one that comes as stock.

Answer 4

If you intent to use the system you want a modern, easy to use distro. The most prominent ones are Ubuntu (and its derivatives such as Mint), Fedora (using it myself both for work and home activities) and OpenSuse (never really tried this one). Ive tried also PCLinuxOS (based on mandriva) and it really is easy, but I fear you might have harder time finding packages for it. Arch is very nice but it does require some knowledge to set up. There is manual configuration, but it is well-documented, simplified and tend to 'just work'. Once you do it, it is very satisfying and low-maintenance. They have very active community, and you are expected to contribute more then in other distros (whining of the kind 'why wont you fix that package already' is often met with 'if its so important to you, contribute to the project by fixing it yourself' - unthinkable in Ubuntu).

Still, if you want least trouble I would recommend Ubuntu or Fedora.