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[Gabey8]

I see lots of discussion of different versions of Linux on these forums. XO Explosion is selling SD cards that would allow a user to boot Ubuntu or Fedora when the card is installed, or regular Sugar when the card is not present. There's a thread about DebXO, which I presume is an attempt to put Debian on the XO.

All I know of Linux is actually "all I know of UNIX" from a job I had in the late 1980s. None of the versions of Linux that are available today even existed then, as far as I know, so I don't know the nuances of one flavor of Linux vs. another.

So, I'm asking now: what would make one version of Linux prefarable over another? Why would someone pick Ubuntu? Or Fedora? Why would someone try to put other versions of Linux on the XO besides those two?

Suppose I got one SD card each for my XO, so I could boot Ubuntu and Fedora. What differences would I notice?

I'm just curious as to what makes different people opt to use one version of Linux over another.

P.S. Does anyone know if there's a particular version of Linux that would be easier to use with accesibility software or various assistive devices for disabled users?

[anna]

A glib non-answer would be, why are there so many different flavors of ice cream?

This question comes up a lot on Linux forums.  Which distro should I choose and why?  There are a dizzying array.  I know I'm kinda struggling with that choice on a box I'm rebuilding.

My first distro was Mandrake back in the day cause it supported my hardware after my Red Hat attempt failed.  Mandrake took forever to download (back in the dark ages) and it installed beautifully and I've used it for my main desktop since.  Mandrake (now Mandriva) feels like an old comfortable pair of those little things on your feet.  I'd like to install the latest Mandriva on my rebuilt machine, probably for more emotional reasons than I care to admit.

Other folks are the same way with their distros, too.  We tend to get attached to them.

Now, speaking of functionality, different distros have their own appeals.  Want to really make it difficult on yourself and learn a lot?  Slackware or Gentoo are a couple of possibilities.  Want to better translate your experience to the corporate world?  Fedora's probably the way to go.  Do you want a large user community from which to draw from and a relatively simple install/setup?  Ubuntu might be what you're looking for.

And don't forget the package management, which is a huge difference.  Debian/Ubuntu are deb based and Red Hat/Fedora are rpm based.  In many opinions, the Debian/Ubuntu system is superior.

On the XO, one might pick Fedora because Sugar already runs on top of Fedora and it's familiar.  Or one might pick Ubuntu because it's so easy to use.  Or Debian because it offers more administrative tools.  There's no one right answer for everyone.

As far as accessibility or assistive devices for the XO, I am not familiar with those, but if there are any in particular, this community would probably be willing to test.  I know I'd like to help out.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but this debate has been raging for years now and there's still no clear consensus.

[Jordan]

For most people, the choice of a Linux distribution won't really matter as long as it's sympathetic with their need.  For example: a first time Unix user who wants a word processor and a web browser wouldn't care about the difference between Fedora and Ubuntu, but would find Slackware somewhat less appropriate since Slackware is for experienced users or determined beginners (say people who want to learn about Linux internals for software development).

As anna said, a lot of people will just choose a version of Linux based upon what worked first or personal taste.

I used Debian or Slackware for years, since those distributions would install on just about any machine you threw at it.  The user-friendly distributions always seemed to have problems of one form or another for years, so I avoided them.  (Thankfully, that seems to have changed in the past few years.)

Those distributions also suited my tastes better, because I could better understand how to manage them.  Modern distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu always throw me for a curve because, quite frankly, I don't know or care how they work.  So I always end up breaking stuff.  (Incidentally, I'm trying to get Sugar's basic Fedora installation onto a PC because I can better understand how it works than a standard Fedora installation.)

[mavrothal]

For an extensive writeup (minus flames) look here http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=3900.msg26695#msg26695. In a modern computer most of the popular desktop/laptop distributions (Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora) will do fine and can be even customized to look and feel like your "previous" favored system 
However, with limited resources systems and some peculiarities in the hardware like the XO ,  the issue is how to you find the perfect balance between performance, features, looks and ease of use. Standard distributions will not do and must be customized for the XO. Thus the "search and discussion". For now we have customized Ubuntu,  Debian, Fedora10 and hopefully more in the pipeline.  As the others said, you see which one fits you better.  Eg for the case of the XO which set of compromises/limitations/annoyances you can live with... I'll go with Ubuntu for now (If you do not want to use Sugar of course that is perfectly fine for most ordinary daily uses)

[markhadman]

One of the key things to consider when choosing a distro is the kernel, the core of the operating system. The standard olpc kernel is missing features that you might expect to find in a standard distro, thus you'll find posts on this forum wondering about support for WIndows file sharing (Samba/CIFS), printing, USB to VGA adaptors, old X11 font rendering etc. Stuff that (it would seem) can't be easily user installed.

Now, there is a huge proliferation of threads and articles here and elsewhere about alternative OS installs for the XO-1, and I've mostly lost track of the state of play. But I do seem to recall reading that the original Ubuntu install (by Moocapiean) used a 'transplant' of the original olpc-kernel, presumably for simplicity and to retain support for the XO's hardware & power management.

Has that changed with the latest XO-ubuntu?
(Shall we refer to it as Teapot? I don't know, like I said I've lost the thread a bit)

What about Fedora 10's forthcoming XO spin? What's the kernel / hardware support like compared to olpc-sugar?

and XO-Debian?

My original conclusion (once I'd been convinced, right or wrong, that the original ubuntu install didn't change the kernel) was to just install the XFcE desktop environment on top of the standard install. Now after much hacking around and learning of Linux I've even gone back to using sugar, but I've got my eye open for something better. (my ideal being 'Fat' kernel with Samba/USB-VGA output, super lightweight Ratpoison window manager, realtime kernel option for audio processing).

[Jordan]

I think you mean "hardware compatability list" and not the kernel.  For example, I have printed from the XO using the base Sugar installation.  (The USB port on my printer looks like a USB to serial adapter to the kernel.)  The issues, quite frequently, is installing the appropriate packages.

Another question is: has anyone tried compiling kernel modules for additional hardware support for the base Sugar operating system?  After all, you don't need a new distribution or a new kernel to add kernel modules.

[anna]

Another question is: has anyone tried compiling kernel modules for additional hardware support for the base Sugar operating system?  After all, you don't need a new distribution or a new kernel to add kernel modules.

I tried the steps in these instructions:
http://grumbel.blogspot.com/2008/02/olpc-making-fuse-work.html

I couldn't get git reset to work for my kernel, though, so I just ended up downloading the author's fuse.ko module, which, happily, is functional for me on 714.