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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."
Ubuntu 5.1 != Ubuntu 5.10. The first one doesn't even exist...
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))
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.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
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.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
They really explained all good and bad points of the distros they tested.
After reading the article I think my intelligence actually dropped.
And studies have found "best distro" studies to be the leading cause of flame wars on slashdot. Let the flames fly!
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
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...
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!
It's funny how different perspectives can make communication difficult. For example, take this casual comment from the article:
During the whole exercise, we only experienced one system crash...
To a Linux user, the idea of "only one crash" is bemusing. A modern Linux system, going down so easily? That's very serious. Surely the author isn't familiar with the territory.
Later, it becomes clearer, when the Mandriva review states:
Obviously, this is not what a Linux user would call a "system crash". I suppose it's just as well that Windows users would be asked to review Linux distros for the desktop, though. A Linux user might regard this as a minor problem, forgetting that to most people, this is indeed a show-stopper.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
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.
Yes, I second that. Xandros Business Desktop 3 (as the name suggests) should have been included in the comparison. Otherwise it is downright unfair. And believe me, since I am also their beta tester for sometime, it would have beaten everyone hands down in ease of installation to integration into existing Windows networks -- and the last point is *damn important* no matter what you may think!
A long time fan of Mandriva I decided to give the latest Ubuntu a try. I soon found out there is a problem with the 9.0 Citrix Linux client. True, you may be able to use an RDP connection to the server, but shadowing doesn't always work in this mode. I really should have given it more effort, but instead I moved on to try Mandriva 2006. The same thing existed there! In Mandriva I was eventually able to get it to work by installing the latest openmotif and using the 7.0 Citrix client. I'm sure the same solution probably works in Ubuntu...
Sure, Citrix may hardly be a requirment in most businesses. However, for those of us that do use it we're usually pretty dependent on it. Although this was a pretty serious problem I had with Ubuntu, it's still a great distro IMHO.
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.
http://plausible.coop
Until you need to play some WMV3 video.... then its a boot into windows. sigh
Have you installed the Win32Codecs?
I'm not familiar with WMV3, and I'm not certain that it's supported by the Win32Codecs package, but lots of non-free and Windows codecs are. Also, VLC comes with its own pack of codecs and can sometimes play stuff that other media players can't, so you might try that if you havn't already.
In addition, I'd recommend dumping Totem as your default media player, if you havn't already. It blows big time, and Ubuntu associating it with all audio and video is my only complaint about their default setup. Well, aside from the ugly-ass brown color scheme, but that doesn't affect usability.
Use VLC or Xine or Gxine or Mplayer for video, and XMMS or something similar for audio.
Ubuntu is very nice - no doubt about it. I've got it on my main desktop at home, and have been very happy with it since the first release.
I've also had a lot of joy with Mepis; a particularly nice feature is that you can boot off the CD, then install off the same CD. Ubuntu has separate discs for "live CD" and "install". I know it's a minor point to experienced Linux people, but having a single CD to boot and/or install from is pretty mindblowing for someone who's had to install Windows...
That said, being able to install a complete desktop with a full set of desktop apps from a single CD is pretty wonderful, compared to Windows. I know my parents were pretty impressed with that when I moved them off Windows; from past experience reinstalling Windows, I think they thought it'd take several hours rather than about 30 minutes.
I'm not sure if there's a GUI grub configuration tool or not, but you can install Webmin and edit stuff like that through your web browser.
/boot/grub/grub.lst
First, change your root password to something other than the auto-scrambled one that Ubuntu uses by default by typing:
sudo passwd root
It'll ask you for your password (the password for your user, that is), then ask you to type a new root password, then type it again to confirm. This is important because Webmin enables only the root account by default, and if you don't know the password then you can't log in, and it's a pain in the ass to change it after it's already been installed, as webmin keeps its own, separate password file.
Then open up your package manager under "Applications->Add Programs" (I think that's what it's called, doing this from memory). Wait for it to load, then go to "File->Advanced". Do a search for "webmin" and tell it to install the base package and any of the addon modules that you want for it.
Now you can browse to "https://localhost:10000" and log in as root. There's a graphical utility in there to change the Grub configuration file, I think.
Alternatively, you can skip all that crap and just do:
sudo nano -w
It should be well-commented and pretty easy to understand. There will be a line that sets the default OS to boot. Just change that, save it, and you're done.
But yeah, there probably ought to be a GUI editor for it. Come to think of it, you might be able to pick the default OS during the install process; I can't recall for sure.
Another little remark:
I've used Ubuntu since Hoary and I was always impressed at its quality over previous linux distros I had tried, FC4 most notably. I reciently installed it on a relitivily modern laptop and realised once I had done setting it up it had actually been easier to install and get up to date then Windows.
With Windows XP I have to install it, then find my SP2 cd and install that, download a heap of updates. Then I have to download drivers to get everything to work and so on. Now Ubuntu isn't much different its just the process takes a lot less time and is easier to do. As soon as you are done installing the base system there is a pop up that tells you you need to update. So you click that wait a while for it to download and your done, you do need to restart once because there is a new kernal out but that is understandable and is still much better then the 5 or probably more times Windows XP needs. And with Automatix the rest of your setup is easier still.
I could not be more happy with my ubuntu laptop. There are even ATI video card driver packages available making for a very slick install.
Ubuntu has started by locking the root account and making proper use of sudo (and it's various graphical equivalents).
This is increadibly handy. Not that you couldn't do this on other distributions, but it's nice to see this feature in Ubuntu by default. I'm partial to OpenSUSE myself, but their (and many others') handling of sudo is misinformed.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
"My distribution of choice is superior in every way to your pathetic distribution of choice. You are the lowest form of loser to think that your worthless distribution could hold a candle to the God-like superiority of my distribution.
"My distribution's superiority is clearly demonstrated by it's magnificent out-of-the box handling of my obscure feature of choice. Your pathetic distribution doesn't even support my obscure feature of choice without a course of action so complex that it's madness to even contemplate it.
"Clearly, my distribution of choice will utterly destroy your distribution of choice. This is so certain it is pointless for you to resist it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_digit
Oops, my anal retentiveness is showing.
So why doesn't Microsoft provide updated copies of its OS with new computers that come out, instead of shipping the exact same disk they've been shipping for the last 5 years? Why don't they go around collecting all the new popular drivers, and have a database of them so it can download them right off the internet, automatically, without having to search around for them?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I've also just upgraded my in-law's aging P2 300 win98 machine with ubuntu. They're very happy with it. Their needs are limited admittedly - web,mail,digital camera,chess,patience. Ubuntu passes with flying colours. I showed them round gnome in a matter of minutes and they were up to speed in no time. Now they keep saying things like - it's _so_ much faster. it looks _so_ much better. No surprise really since win98 is now 7 years old and ubuntu 5.10 is 1 month old. The point is that they would not have had the same experience had I tried a WinXP upgrade on that old hardware.
For a home desktop, I can recommend Automatix - that installs all that "other" stuff for a desktop system.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=66563