On Sat, 26 Jul 2014 06:12:44 -0700 (PDT) Rich Shepard <[email protected]> dijo:
>On Fri, 25 Jul 2014, John Jason Jordan wrote: > >> I have looked longingly at distros that use a rolling release, >> because I agree that periodic dist-upgrades are a pain. But none of >> them offer the ease of use, the presence in the marketplace, or the >> great community resources of Ubuntu. >Now you've confused me: do you use the computer for your work/schooling or >as a end it itself? Nowadays it's a safe bet that all distributions >will run the applications you need and want and support the external >hardware you have sitting around. I spend most of my computer time searching the web. And, although I use it less for academic purposes, that use is more important. I also use it for monitoring medical issues and, although only a couple minutes a day, that use is most important of all. Occasionally I also use it for entertainment (streaming radio and occasionally viewing a movie). The academic issues require being able to write in Spanish, German, French and polytonic Greek - switching keyboards. Plus I need to be able to enter every character and diacritic in the International Phonetic Alphabet. The latter include "combining diacritics," special glyphs that can be added so they appear on top or below other letters. Not only do I need to be able to enter these glyphs but I also need them to be displayed properly in my mail client and word processor. In addition I need to run some programs for things like drawing phrase structures and analyzing speech. >What's ease of use? Germane to using the system or maintaining the system? >For the latter just about all window managers and desktop enviornments >run on every distribution. For maintaining the system -- including >keeping it secure -- there are probably more than the three approaches >of which I know: .prm, .deb, and .tgz. You've switched distributions a >few times but haven't explained why in terms of what you are seeking. "Ease of use" is a slippery term, because it is so dependent on the user's abilities and needs as well as personal taste. As for abilities, I have tried to compile apps from source half a dozen times, and succeeded only once. My most recent failure was due to the fact that the application requires QT5, which is not completely available in Xubuntu 13.10. And I took a bash class at Free Geek and learned a few basics, but otherwise I have no knowledge of scripting or programming. I don't even know what the kernel does. I am also fussy about the appearance of my desktop. I have a problem with distractions, which gets worse with age. I can't tolerate a screen full of icons or even wallpaper. My screen is solid white and the only thing visible other than the window I am working in is a single panel, which I keep on the left side in order to maximize available vertical space. When Ubuntu went to Gnome 3 and then to Unity I switched to Xfce because icons drive me nuts. >Presence in the marketplace? What has this to do with your using your >computers as a means to an end? If this is important, perhaps you >should take Ed's suggestion in his reply to this thread and switch to >Slackware; it is, after all, the oldest continuously-available >distribution, It's been present in the 'marketplace' for many, many >years. I fought with myself when I wrote "presence in the marketplace" because I knew it didn't express precisely what I was trying to communicate. Perhaps an example would make my meaning clearer. About a month ago I couldn't get my scanner to work. I normally use Xsane for scanning, but I knew there were others. Synaptic lists 40,000+ packages and has a search function, so it was easy to find programs for scanning. I installed a different one, but it couldn't scan either. So then I searched the web, including the Ubuntu forums, and discovered a free but proprietary app. The app's website had instructions for installing it on Ubuntu, but not for any other distro. This sort of thing happens all the time. And in this case the developers provided only 32- and 64-bit .deb packages; the source was not available. >Community resources? With mail lists, Web fora, and IRC channels I suspect >that all distributions have equal support from their community of >users. Take a look at the list of distribution-specific fora on >linuxquestions.org. Ubuntu has far more users than any other distro and its forums reflect that fact. I can post a question on an Ubuntu forum and within an hour it will have been read by hundreds of people. > ... But, I can tell you from our short >experiences with xubuntu versions on portables here that it was more >of a hassle trying to work with them than with my preferred >distribution. Perhaps at the next Clinic I will bring my old Thinkpad and take Slackware for a brief spin. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
