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Is Ubuntu a Serious Desktop Contender?
Exter-C asks: "2006 was the year that a large amount of people started to talk Ubuntu as a possible contender for the Enterprise Linux desktop. There are several key issues that have to be raised: Is Ubuntu/Canonical really capable of maintaining Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS) for 5 years? I know this is not a new question but the evidence after 6 months seems to be negative. A case in point is the 4-5+ day delay for critical updates to packages like Firefox. Given that such a large percentage of people use their desktop systems on the web critical, browser vulnerabilities seem to be one of the core pieces of a secure desktop environment (user stupidity excluded). Can Ubuntu/Canonical really compete with the likes of Red Hat, who had patches available (RHSA-2006:0758) the day that the updates came out?"
While I am forced to use Windows in my work envirionment, while at home Ubuntu is my chosen desktop. I have never been one to insist on instant updates, so a few days delay in a patch does not concern me much.
Ubuntu (with some necessary updates and enhancements) is a perfectly capable operating system, and the Gnome2 desktop serves my needs just fine. I can do everything (and more) that my windows box can do, plus I get to use my choice of scripting languages to customize my experience.
Nothing is hidden away from me in cryptic registries, and I run only those things that make sense to me. On my Windows box, there are several programs that have installed themselves over the years, and seemingly cannot be uninstalled. I keep most of them disabled and beaten down, but can't seem to eradicate them entirely. Even tools from my huge international IT industry company don't seem to be able to keep the buggers off of my Windows machine. Number of virii or malware programs on my Ubuntu box? Zero.
So, yes, Ubuntu can be an effective and pleasing desktop.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Just a note for your point 1)
You can fix needing to run your cd burner as sudo by either:
easy way: SUID root your CD burner software (major security risk though - atleast in unix terms, no worse than always loging in as admin under windows)
slightly harder but much more sensible way: add group rw permissions to the CD burner device and make sure your user is a member of that group (I'm actually a little surprised and disappointed that that is not the default on ubuntu...)
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
Exactly no much doubt about the average reply here on slashdot. Probably the same level of objectivity as asking the same question on MSDN.
Some other insightful questions for the next 'Ask Slashdot':
"Is Microsoft evil?"
"Is OSX beter than Vista?"
"IE7 or Firefox on Mom's PC?"
I gave Windows XP Professional a try as my home desktop for 3 days a while ago, but switched back to linux finally for a number of reasons:
1) I got sick to death of having to install different programs to burn CDs correctly, with the drag and drop interface terribly annoying and confusing.
2) A lot of software I like as a programming hobbiest is not easily available with a simple command like apt-get install
3) I hate to say it, but virtual desktops and fluxbox leave my desktop a lot less cluttered and much easier to work with than windows does out of the box, and my computer is under load from its graphics a lot less often
4) Things like configuring wireless interfaces were endlessly confusing. Theres about 4 different places to enter a wireless key - but only one of them accepts my home key, as the rest claim it is too long! With linux I just typed it in and it worked.
5) Linux has far more easily accessible and non-crapware solutions available to be easily installed from a secure and trusted source.
The final thing which did it was when I wanted to play a video - WMP has gone through many funcitonality decrements over the years, and when I finally switched to mplayer it coped a lot better with partially missing files, keyboard shortcuts and general niceness than the MS equivilant.
Windows is a best a memory hog of a contendor at this stage, while linux is fast and nible, but with the true power of unix behind it.
#1. People who are already using Ubuntu (like me) as their desktop.
#2. People who are using some other Linux distribution as their desktop.
#3. People who are using a Mac or *BSD or whatever.
#4. People who are using Windows because of reasons A, B, C and/or D.
Whether X is a "serious desktop contender" really depends upon what YOU consider to be the requirements for a "serious desktop contender".
Do people ask the same question in other areas of their life? Do they go to a pizza place and question when pineapple and Canadian bacon pizza is "suitable" for dinner?
Do they go to a Ford dealership and ask whether a Ford is "suitable" for driving?
And so forth.