Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ubuntu: Best Linux Desktop for Business?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the they're-all-better-than-the-alternative dept.

sebFlyte writes "ZDNet has been testing Linux for business, trying to work out what the best distro is for small businesses. After testing Mandriva Linux 2006, Novell Linux Desktop 9, Red Hat Desktop 4, SUSE Linux 10 and Ubuntu Linux 5.1. After installing them all from scratch to simulate a new business set up, and extensive testing involving Gaim, Evolution, OpenOffice.org -- as well as actually writing each review on each distro -- Ubuntu came out as the winner. They summed it up saying 'Ubuntu is a well integrated, practical and absolutely free' and dismissed worries about support. SuSE came a close second."

2 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Ubuntu Year.Month by my_breath_smells · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually its Ubuntu 5.10, not 5.1

    Ubuntu X.Y corresponds to the release year (200X) and the release month(Y).
    In this case it was October 2005 -> (10/05)
    The next release will be Ubuntu 6.4 (April 2006))

  2. Very low quality review by Freggy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I read the review of Mandriva 2006.0, and I have to conclude the review is of a really very low quality. Firstly, they are complaining about the lack of a tool to configure network printers. Was it that difficult to find the add printer item in the Mandriva Control Center, and check the two checkboxes for auto-detection of networked and Windows printers?

    They say that partitioning was difficult. Actually, first you have the choice to do everything automatically, choosing "use entire hard disk" or "use free space on Windows partition". Instead, they chose Custom partitioning, where again there is a button "Auto Allocate", which do everythinhg automatically once you resized the windows partitions. Now if they call this difficult, they should not have chosen the customized partitioning scheme in the first place. Actually I have heard of users having a lot more difficulties with the SuSE or Ubuntu partitioners.

    They say the Exchange connector for Evolution was not there. Did they actually bothered looking for it during half a minute? Then at least they would have found the package evolution-exchange!

    The real weak points of Mandriva 2006.0 are not talked about on the other hand. Not a word about the instabilities caused by the buggy beta X.org 6.9 included, by kat which makes kded eat all CPU time sometimes, and nothing about the old version of OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 which is included, and which is buggy (it crashes on SXI files it has created itself).

    Really, nothing to see here, move on people!