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The Well-Tempered Debian desktop
An anonymous reader writes "What happens when the editor of a popular Linux website attempts to install a Debian Etch desktop on an old ThinkPad? How does it turn out? Surprisingly well! The article comprises an entertaining account of the entire process, complete with lots of informative screenshots, from downloading the net-install to tangling with Wi-Fi and modem PCMCIA cards as the last step — and everything in between. A great primer for Debian newbies... Go Debian!"
Not another "how I installed and rated distro X." We are all doomed.
..end of rant..
"LINUX" will never go mainstream for the home and this FA proves it yet again:
1. Linux doesn't exist as on OS - its just a kernel.
2. Fragmentation - too many distros with few standards or cooperation
3. linux fanboys think their fav distro is the "be-all and end-all" of existence
4. Its too hard for users to simply run the apps they want
5. package management sucks
6. hardware support sucks
I could go on and and on. Whoop dee doo...so he got debian "kinda-sorta" running on an old thinkpad. Whoopie.
What OS do I run, you ask? MS Windows 2000 and XP. Because they are true standardized OS with software and hardware support.
What Linux distro for speed and stability? Slackware. Because it is faster, more stable and has the best hardware compatibility there is among distros, and package management is simple, if simplistic. And believe it or not, a motivated novice can figure out how to edit a few text config files.
So I see the FA (and the linked distro comparison) and raise him 2 thinkpads, 2 compaqs, 4+ desktops ranging from Pentium266MMX to PII400 to PIII900 to AMD64. The only hardware issue was the laptops' Winmodens and those infrared ports. Oh and a cheap Leadtek Winfast TV card with MythTV. Everything else works "out of the box," especially Firefox and Thunderbird.