Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu 6.06 'Dapper Drake' Beta Available
Beuno writes "Ubuntu 6.06, aka 'Dapper Drake' has just gone into a stable Beta phase after 5 very successful Alpha versions. There have been a ton of improvements ranging from a new spiffy graphical installation, Gnome 2.14.1, Kernel 2.6.15.6, X.org 7 and a new and improved caramel colored theme. The server version has had kernel tweaks and an easy LAMP installation. A full list of new features and screenshots and be found at the official site. Downloads at the usual place, just try to use torrents please."
The package management has all the ease of Gentoo's 'emerge,' but without the compiling. Plus, you don't have to worry about something breaking as often. One thing I used to hate about the old RedHat/Mandrake package management was that you'd try to install an rpm, only to be told you don't have its dependencies, you'd get those, and then you'd have new dependencies to track down. I'm told yum has fixed that, but I haven't bothered to look. I know it's much better with up2date on the RHEL4 side, but it still feels less polished than Synaptic.
Before Ubuntu, I'd never really used sudo, but now I find it difficult to go back. To me, it's just a cleaner way to do system administration, and it certainly helps promote never logging in as root. All of the system administration is sudo oriented, whereas ini RHEL4 you still need to know the root password. On a machine with shared administration, it just seems more clumsy.
I know distribution choices can be a touchy subject, but I definitely prefer Ubuntu. The whole system just feels cleaner. As a more experienced user, I like it because it stays out of my way and lets me get my work done as quickly and painlessly as possible.