> I would like some comment from your vast pool of experience as to what > this writer said. Most of my curiosity stems from the latter half of > this article. Pointers to articles, other distros, etc. are all > welcomed. If they come with your observations or opinions, so much the > better. >
Ubuntu has become the great desktop Linux hope. I've run various flavors of it over the years w. varying levels of joy/frustration. Ubuntu has always strived for the "it works out of the box" experience. Which I think most people want when the come from the MS Win world. As I became more Linux savvy I started running Debian (Sarge & Etch). I found it to be faster, more stable and w. a much larger software repo than Ubuntu. But because Debian stable could easily be 2 yrs behind the latest Ubuntu release some things were just not a pleasant user experience; audio subsystem, wireless connectivity, dual/external monitor setup. But I perserved and learned how to make these things work. I realize not everyone has the time nor inclination. Personally, I like Debian a lot. I like their belief in keeping things free and open, I like that they test the hell out of stuff. If I just want something that works, I reach for Debian. Does it take some time & effort to get it working they way I want it to? Sure it does. But I wouldn't want it any other way. If I did, I'd rn Win 7 or MAC OSX. In the end, the more hands-on experience I get w. Linux the better the user experience is and the less I'm affected/controlled by political and developler decisions. But you have to flexible and adaptable too. For instance I recently had to drop Thunderbird after happily using it for years because now it won't open URLs in an email with an external browser unless you intsall a plugin. It has tabs now and wants to open the URL in the mail cleint. This hogs my cpu and freezes up my laptop w. 3GB RAM. So, Evolution is my mail client now. Everything has it's flaws/problems. The trick is to figure out what you can live with and can't live without. For me right now that's 'Sidux', a distro built from Debian Sid/Squeeze. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
