Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linux Desktop Distro Shootout

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the slow-news-day dept.

An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek has posted an open-source OS comparison. Linux Shootout: 7 Desktop Distros Compared pits openSUSE, Ubuntu 8.4, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva Linux One, Fedora, SimplyMEPIS, and CentOS 5.1 against each other. And the winner is ... Ubuntu. Author Serdar Yegulalp writes: 'Ubuntu 8.4 remains one of the best desktop distributions for many good reasons: it works with almost any hardware you throw at it, and has tons of features for both existing Linux users and prospective converts from Windows.' He also gave openSUSE points for ease of use on the desktop, and Mandriva kudos for ease of administration."

3 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. 8.4? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    8.04.

  2. Add free version. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here

  3. "Almost any hardware you throw at it" by loteck · · Score: 5, Informative

    I sincerely enjoy the Linux experience and appreciate the community, but this statement is positively absurd. Ubuntu's own help files contain extensive lists of wireless cards that have a big fat "No" listed under the "Works out of the box" column. And that's just wireless cards.

    One of the primary reasons that the average person abandons Linux is the frustration caused by these types of misleading claims. Somebody says, "Hey, virtually everything works out of the box!" and they think... wow, well, I buy my stuff at top retailers from top brands, surely then my stuff is supported.

    Unfortunately for them, their stuff may not work at all, or may work partially. Lots of gotchas for Video cards, scanners.. the list goes on and on. Nobody is well served by making statements that indicate anything except that hardware support is still a major obstacle for the adoption of Linux on the desktop.