Best Linux Operating System?

Best Linux Operating System? 

Any hardcore Linux user (as in one whose opinion you would want on this matter) will tell you immediately (as some have) that your question its un-answerable.

it depends entirely on the person and the intended use. that being said...

Ubuntu is great for someone who just wants to "try Linux"; you get great out of the box functionality and hardware compatibility and all the eye candy you are looking for without ever having to delve into a shell prompt.

I prefer Fedora personally because it has good user support, it's always being updated, it works well with my hardware, and it just feels intangibly better than Ubuntu... to me.

Slackware is great if you want to get into the nuts and bolts of it; i.e. configuring hardware and drivers yourself from the command line, and going through an install without having your hand held. (i tried this one first but couldn't get it to install on the computer had at the time due to a broken HDD so i can't speak to the usability)

other than that, my best advice is to download a bunch and try them all via LiveCDs. no one can answer this question for you, you have to find out yourself. I've given you my two cents on three distros i have had contact with, but there are hundreds out there to choose from

try http://thecodingstudio.com/opensource/li… to see screen shots of all the different flavors, that's where i started my decision making process

1: Mint Linux: This should come as no surprise. Mint is an excellent distribution and my own personal favorite. Users have enjoyed and loved using it ever since Ubuntu started down the Unity path.

2: Mageia: And, number two is, "who?" I can hear some of you asking. Mageia is a September 2010 fork of Mandriva Linux, a commercial Linux distribution, which was once quite popular in its own right. In 2006, Mandriva suffered management and financial problems. Since then, while the firm has continued to have problems, Mageia -- freed of Mandrivia's business woes -- has continued on to become a wildly popular Linux distribution.

3: Ubuntu: What's that you say? Ubuntu: the darling of so many Linux fans only in third place? Yep. It's in third. Why? Well even though I like its relatively new Unity interface, a lot of other people really don't. I think that mostly it's because while Unity is great for new users who aren't especially computer savvy, a lot of Linux professionals find it gets in the way -- and, of course, experienced old Linux hands are exactly the kind of people who visit DistroWatch

4: Fedora: But while Debian isn't one of my favorites, I confess I really haven't cared for Fedora, Red Hat's community Linux distribution, in recent years. Well, it's not so much Fedora, it's the fact that it uses GNOME 3.x -- the desktop interface I love to hate.

5: Debian: I've never been a big Debian fan -- I much prefer Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu and Mepis -- but lots of other people are. Debian, which just turned 19, remains important not just because it is the foundation for many other Linux distributions, but because year after year it continues to be loved by its users.