Arguments for openSUSE can be many. It’s largely based on much more stable software, but as a result, the software is much older too. You don’t get the bleeding edge stuff. The team has been spending its entire time focusing on the desktop. It’s engineered very well, and has a robust nature about it that some distros lack. In fact, I would likely run openSUSE as my desktop before running Fedora, because Fedora doesn’t seem to care much for their desktop.

But, overall, Debian is still my choice. I do run it as my desktop, server and on my laptop and netbook. It’s well suited for the desktop. It’s well suited for laptops and netbooks. It’s well suited for servers. Debian accomplishes everything important for me. And, if you’re already familiar with Ubuntu, you’ll likely feel at home with Debian.

Why Fedora is on the list, I don’t know: it’s a debug playground for RH enterprise, in other words just the same buggy stuff in RPM.

Any strong reasons for openSUSE?

First of all, you’re going on pure hearsay (what your students, etc. told you). Then you’re making assumptions (which don’t hold up – that Mandriva and PCLinuxOS are the same thing). After that you state that PCLinuxOS isn’t very stable, which couldn’t be further from the truth – and then you say that it’s “run of the mill” and ask what it has that no other Linux distro has, thus demonstrating faulty logic. (Implying that “A Linux distro ois run of the mill if it does not offer something unique”, which by the way would CERTAINLY brand Ubuntu as run-of-the-mill.) Finally you demand to have someone else prove to you that PCLinuxOS is worth something.

No. If you want to know about a distro, you download it, you burn it, and YOU TRY IT. YOU have the burden of proving you’re not a fool for posting opinions based on hearsay. YOU have the burden of proving we should listen to anything you say after making such a bunch of ridiculous statements. YOU have the burden of proof that anything you have said about PCLOS is true! We, apparently, all know better.

I have tried Ubuntu, even though my first efforts with it turned me off enough for me to decide it was garbage, back in 2006 I think it was. But I didn’t stop there – I tried it again, nd again, and again as new releases came out. I have used Ubuntu as my sole operating system, and I have put it through it’s paces – and I can tell you that Ubuntu can’t hold a candle to PCLOS except for having more users, a bigger budget and more packages available (many of which don’t work).

I have “tried them all” and more than once, and I keep coming back to PCLinuxOS because for most hardware it “just works” (running it from PCLinuxOS 2009 “Big Update” on a laptop right now, by the way… and I’m here to tell you it runs my laptop better than Vista does in almost every direction). That, and because it’s stable as hell, and because the dev team focuses on quality and getting it right over everything else – which is why we all waited patiently for almost a year for the updates to 2009. No updates for months while a small team worked diligently, and nobody had any problems, because they do such a good job.

Updates and upgrades almost never break anything… I just reinstalled today for the first time since 2007, and was unable to break the install with all those rolling updates. Ubuntu has never been able to last more than a few weeks on my macines without self destructing. It reminds me a lot of Windows in that regard, actually, but I know that doesn’t happen for everyone.

Anyway, next time, you should talk about what you are knowledgeable about, not what you have hearsay about.

And by the way, who cares if Mandriva doesn’t know what it’s doing as a company? Mandriva Linux still beats the pants off most other distros I have tried.

You rely on reports from “students of mine?” That implies that you are in a position of an educator. As an educator, you should know best to do your OWN research. Any educator who relies only on the words and testimony of his/her students, isn’t much of an educator. You should, by any and all accounts, try PCLinuxOS for yourself. Only then can you be in a position to make the misguided and mistaken observations you have made against (IMHO) the best and most stable Linux distro in existence.

Good luck

- Brooko gave a link to support what he is saying, where is your support?

- “show me what PCLinuxOS has brought to the table” What do you brought to the table? (aside of rants)

- I had Kubuntu for a year and it had many problems, fortunately I found PCLOS and has been my distro of choice for two years now, want to make a critic? it’s not cuting edge, it don’t have the last packages, but is the most stable distro out there.

- You’re talking without knowledge, I’m sure you never installed PCLinuxOS, but what am I saying? you said that already “Students of mine telling me of the instability on laptops as well as reading mailing list and and forums posts”

- Do you want Debian without troubles? use SimplyMEPIS, Ubuntu is ustable by definition, do you knew that is based on Debian unstable?

Nikkels is right “Next time you have a sleepness night, take a sleeping pill, instead writing rubbish as you did” no it do not “add a lot to the conversation” but it could be usefull for you.

I currently use Ubuntu but have used PCLinuxOS for several years, and plan to install the new release on at least one home machine. It’s ANYTHING but unstable.

Speaking of which, “unstable” is a pretty broad term. What specific problems did your buddies have with it?

In parting, here’s a clue: when you write reviews in the future, try actually running the distro, so you don’t appear to be a complete idiot.