I haven't done a number of Linux distribution evaluations for quite some time, so since I reached a point where I could take a lttle smidgeon of time to do so, I have begun trying out a few distros. I went for the most recent versions I could find this weekend. I tried mostly "mainstream" "most popular" distros, plus a few others off the beaten path.

I have been running the following distros for quite some time on a daily basis:

• Suse 10.2 retail DVD (on my HP dv9000 custom laptop)
• Gentoo 2007 (server)
• Redhat Enterprise linux 3 (server)
• OpenBSD 4 (server)

The distributions I am currently evaluating are:

• CentOS 5 x86_64 (unofficial free version of Redhat Enterprise Linux) http://www.centos.org
• Fedora 8 test 2 x86_64 ("official" branch of RedHat) http://fedoraproject.org/
• 64 Studio 2.0 amd64 (Distro for visual & audio artists) http://fedoraproject.org/
• Ubuntu 7.04 i386 http://www.ubuntu.com/
• Mandriva 2007 Spring Free Version http://www.mandriva.com/
• OpenSuse 10.3 RC1 http://www.opensuse.com http://www.opensuse.org/

Some others that I did not test yet, but will eval from within a virtual install will possibly be:

• Slackware
• Freespire
• PCLinuxOS
• Sabayon
• MEPIS (will try on older system(s))

The evals are being performed mostly on my main laptop. The specs and issues are detailed in other articles at:

• http://hawkes-haven.com/blahg/suse-10-2-on-hp-pavillion-dv9000-custom
• http://hawkes-haven.com/blahg/making-hd-dvd-toshibats-l802a
• http://hawkes-haven.com/blahg/suse-linux-10-2-on-hp-pavillion-dv9000

I will be listing my experience with each in separate articles coming up.

Ciao for now.