Ubuntu: Best Linux Desktop for Business?

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."

Comments

SuSE 10

[jurt1235]

I am using SuSE 10 with KDE. Hardware support is great compared to v9, configuration works great, and downloaded it all for free from the SuSE ftp website. So where does the non-free part come in? Support? Also for SuSE there are user forums, not much different than Ubuntu, or about any other linux distro for that matter.

Couldn't agree more

[DavidNWelton]

As a long time Debian user and contributor, it's good to see a system that has all the advantages of Debian, plus the financial backing and willpower to take off some of the rough edges that a volunteer-only structure isn't really suited to deal with. I installed Ubuntu on my new computer at work the other day. My boss was so impressed that he installed it himself on another computer, and he's not really a technical guy.

We love Ubuntu

[dskoll]

Here at Roaring Penguin, we've pretty much standardized on Debian for the technical staff and Ubuntu for the non-technical staff. It works very well for us.

We do have one holdout on Slackware, but that's fine with me as long as he administers his own box...

Re:One little additional remark

[hungrygrue]

That is one thing that has amazed me about Ubuntu, actually. I have run *MANY* distros over the last 10+ years, and have not run Windows since version 3.1 in 1995. I am used to having to do some work to get my X configuration correct, to get sound working at all, etc. I am now running Ubuntu, and have not had to touch a single configuration file. This is on a laptop, an eMachines M6805. The wide screen display (1280x800) was correctly configured - I had naturally expected it to choose 1024x768 and have to edit the xorg.conf to fix it. Sound works. It detected the wireless and built in ethernet, allowed me to select the wireless and enter my WEP key during installation, even the media keys (volume, mail, etc.) were properly configured. Later, I had to install Windows XP in order to load maps onto my GPS - since this machine is designed to run Windows, I didn't expect to have any compatibility issues, but *surprise*! The screen resolution was wrong, the wireless card was not detected at all, sound does not work. I don't know if it configured the media keys correctly or not as I have only had to run Windows twice, once to load maps and later to setup my DSL which unfortunately could only be done by running the Windows coaster which SBC sent me. I assume that all that doesn't work under Windows could be fixed by hunting around for drivers, but the simple fact that no such work was needed under Ubuntu whereas Windows is unable to make use of all of this Windows hardware was quite a surprise.

We do too

[landonf]

Here at Three Rings, we're migrating all developer desktops to Ubuntu. It works, it's free, and users can maintain it themselves.

Ubuntu has mixed Debian's solid packaging tools with a healthy dose of pragmatism and arrived at a distribution that Just Works. As a desktop operating system, I couldn't be happier with how Ubuntu is working out.

Re:Ubuntu 5.10

[ottothecow]

They also only review Mandriva in terms of GNOME and well...being a KDE centric distro, my experiances with mandriva gnome have shown that it always requires extra setup and tweaking.