Gary L. Allen wrote: > Thanks, William! > > William Roddy wrote: > >> Gary, >> >> I don't need one of the sets because I have my own. But I second your >> suggestion that Ubuntu's top notch. Hope someone picks then up. Ubuntu's >> the only distro I know that gets their new versions out at precise >> 6-month intervals. >> >> > I'm not sure I would ever have envisioned becoming a minor evangelist > for Linux, but it has happened. Mind you, I'm not coming from the guru > perspective. But, like so many of this group's most knowledgeable > members, I can't help but get a little enthusiastic about this stuff. > Personally, I am fond of the easier, more automatic distros. That's > probably because of my background, and having become tired of fighting > PCs down to the metal every time I wanted to upgrade or install my > /old/ OS. Ubuntu is almost as easy as they come. But, unlike Xandros, > which I also like, Ubuntu is more configurable without the risk of > injuring the delicate configuration. > >> In so many ways, it's just a great distro! I like their philosophy, too. >> >> >> > Not only is Ubuntu a great distro, but the project gives back to > Debian- the bug fixes, advances and what have you are all shared with > the Debian project, rather than just "ripping it off." That in my mind > is one of the strongest testimonies to their philosophy. > >> Anyone who hasn't tried it? This is a great chance. They had Gnome 10, >> Xorg, and lots of stuff out months before Fedora. >> >> >> > Well, what can I say? I won't bash Fedora. It solves problems for many > companies and individual users. But, after installing and testing > cores 1, 2 and 3, I really don't prefer it. It runs slower on my > stuff, and it is a pain to get XMMS working with mp3. Like I said, > I've become lazy- I do not enjoy the process of pulling my hair out > and fighting an OS for days or weeks to get everything working (the > way I want it to) like I once did. Besides, I don't have that much > hair left. <grin> > > With Ubuntu, it's just easy. I can tweak it to death if I want, but I > don't have to. And, for a change, it is pretty much perfect for me > right off of the CD. I had to enable the file tree view in Nautilus > and add a couple of mount / links on the desktop for my Windows > shares, but that was really it. Naturally, I installed the additional > software I like to use, such as LyX and the science-based apps. > > Considering that I started with Linux in the form of Slackware in late > 1997, this stuff has come a long way! And I'm very pleased to > recommend Ubuntu for just about any PC user I talk with, especially > astonished Windows users, who are fed up with the lack of security and > general abundance of vulnerabilities. > > Take care! > -Gary > > I agree with everything you've written. Fedora has been a surprisingly weak entry, despite its parental connection. FC4 is the best of the lot, so far, but why wait; and why bother with four disks, when you get the same functionality of from one. And the blazing speed of the Ubuntu servers makes downloading and upgrading a real pleasure, instead of the guessing game it is with some distros.
The only other distro that really turns me on is Scientific Linux, which is RHEL4, but it is completely recompiled from source by some of the smartest people, for some of the smartest people on the planet. It may not be bleeding-edge, but if people need RHEL, it's free and well-tested on thousands of mission critical machines. Once again, their servers a lightening-fast and upgrades are so much faster than RH, it's funny. But I guess the bottom line is, since I came in to Linux, I'm guessing about 1998, things are as different as day and night. One could easily find quite a large number of distributions that are much better than Microsoft, which now seems so fly-weight when I encounter it. I'm way long in the tooth, but Linux excites me. And Ubuntu is the first company to put the three "P's" together: product, promotion, and philosophy. Take any one of those out and there's a "p" vacuum that immediately sucks in "plodding." And Ubuntu sure isn't plodding. Thanks, Gary. Great to read someone who's excited in a positive way. William _______________________________________________ RLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.rlug.org/mailman/listinfo/rlug
