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Linux Desktop Distro Shootout
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."
Fedora 9 comes out in two weeks, but we are comparing the nw born Ubuntu to 6 month old distros. Ugh. Let's compare apples to apples people!
I need to start out by saying that I am a web developer and other than very basic work deploying code to HPUX boxes at work I have had 0 exposure and no formal training with *nix Operating systems. I started playing around with Ubuntu during the Feisty release on my windows desktop with Wubi. Once I saw that I could get all my work done reliably and how stable Ubuntu was I knew that It would be my main operating system... someday. When I purchased a laptop with Vista preloaded on it I realized that Ubuntu was going to have to come to the rescue sooner than I was planning. Right about the time gutsy came out I put in on my no frills middle of the road laptop and haven't looked back. I had my fair share of issues and there was a learning curve for the administrative stuff but the. For day to day uses Its a rock and couldn't be more intuitive. My girlfriend who is not tech savy thought it was the neatest thing and demanded that I put it on her aging 6 year old laptop that came with Windows ME but had been limping along on Windows XP with a slim 128 megs of ram. Xubuntu loaded even easier on the old lappy and everything worked out of the box including a pcmcia wifi card. It brought new life to a machine that had been used mostly as a coaster for the past couple years. Then came the big upgrade to Hungry Hippo I mean Hardy Heron there were some hiccups but I reminded myself that windows has a similar trouble shooting learning curve that I had 10+ years vested in. The fact that I was able to upgrade to a new version of the OS with such few issues and trouble shoot the ones I had in a couple hours is really a testament to how Robust and friendly Ubuntu and the Ubuntu community has already become. Not only is Ubuntu becoming easier to use but with another few years of experience under my belt I'm sure that fixing the rare problems will be a snap.
Our bugs are smarter than your test scripts.
I'd be interested to know why debian was left out - it's widely used, and it's different enough from Ubuntu (despite Ubuntu being a fork of debian).
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
These kinds of articles harm practically everyone. They eliminate variety and here's how.
1. Focusing on a couple of winners. In Ubuntu's case they've got PR hucksters doing the shouting for them
2. Eliminating new features. These shootouts leave no room for testing new features, programs, etc. It's yay or nay and the nay's always win when something is -really- new.
3. There are a number of "What about distro X, Y or Z?" comments and they are, for the most part legitimate questions. Most of those non-chosen distros simply haven't made a good enough impression in media circles. Those aforementioned "good impressions" usually cost some money.
4. Eliminating new distros. There are -lots- of other linux distros who's first purpose is _not_ a desktop. The problem I'm pointing out is multifaceted and troubling. To boil it down: "Everyone knows that Linux is that other computer system they buy for less and put their stolen XP OS on."
My 2 cents: Debian Testing -still- manages to be completely ignored when it's a good apples-to-apples comparison to whatever new version Ubuntu puts out.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I recently installed Ubuntu on laptop (my 1st linux) and had problems with wireless as well. Thing is, the wireless card problem can be easily fixed, but for some strange all tutorials, manuals and forum posts offer long, non-working instruction lists, that involve "wget" and "make". It's like asking - please, go away. The real solution was to open synaptic package manager, configure it to use 3rd party repository and install ndiswrapper. That's it! Ndiswrapper found and downloaded the drivers automatically and everything was bright and sunny again. Why isn't ndiswrapper in standard installation I have no idea.