[Digikam-users] Best LInux distro for my needs?

[Gerlos]

Paul Verizzo ha scritto:
> You may recall that I'm going to probably use an old computer dedicated 
> to digiKam on Linux - that's how much I love this thing! - in order to 
> gain stability and faster updates.  I don't recall the specifics, but 
> it's an older, slower machine.  It runs Windows 2000 OK, but the USB is 
> 1.0, so that gives you some clue as to hardware level.  

It seems a quite old machine. I don't expect big performances from this 
computer... let us know how good it runs.
[CUT]
> Remember, my question is "What is best for me?", not "What is your 
> favorite distro?"

Any distro should be fine, as long you disable some things. I'd prefer 
an APT-based distro such as debian or ubuntu, mostly for its very good 
package management tools, that make a lot of things easier.

> And no, dual boot isn't the solution.  I want to be able to use the rest 
> of my computer while working in DK, to say nothing of the new partition 
> thing. 

So, you want to run gnu/linux as long as you run Windows 2000? Really? 
This means that you'll run two operating systems at a time - no matter 
how lightweight is the linux distro,  this solution will result 
obviously in a slow system: you'll need to run linux inside a virtual 
machine such as Virtualbox.

But maybe I misunderstood you. Maybe you just need to access your files 
on the windows partition(s). OK, so it's easy: any linux system nowadays 
can read and write any NTFS or FAT partition, so you can have a dual 
booting system and still read the files you have on windows.

> So, what's the best distro for me?  First, minimal overhead on the 
> computer.  I'm thinking one of the KDE based laptop or netbook distros.  
> Does that make sense?  Second, ability to do updates without compiling, 
> a Debian based program I presume.  I see even the much vaunted Ubuntu in 
> the latest version has it's issues getting the latest DK. 

If you want a really bleeding edge distro, with always the latest 
software, you could go with a rolling release distro, like debian 
unstable (or testing), but expect some little problems once in a while.

If you are just entering in the gnu/linux world, I suggest you to 
install any "normal" distro, such as Kubuntu, Mandriva or Suse. The fact 
that they're "freezed" for six months, ensure you that most of the bugs 
and configuration problems are already solved for you.
The "problem" with updates is that a lot of distros distribute updates 
every six months, and in the meantime they provide (almost) only 
security updates while the digikam team release a new version every 
month. So you it's quite unlikely that you'll have always the latest 
digikam from you distributor.

But you can setup your system to build digikam as soon as it is 
released, and install it from source. It's not as difficult as it may 
seem, and after the first time it's a lot easier, since you just need to 
copy the new source tree and run a couple of commands.
I do this for every release, with minimal effort. I just start the build 
process before dinner, and get the latest digikam installed after dinner.

good luck
gerlos