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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."
They threw seven distributions at five random computers and saw that most of it worked, what's wrong with reporting that again? Put another way, how is telling the truth misleading? Lying, like the Microsoft people did about Vista is a huge mistake but no one said everything works - that's a commercial software thing. The situation is worse for people who make the Vista mistake, so places like Inforworld are starting to recommend software that works.
Free software works with hardware people already own, Vista does not. Microsoft might be able to scrape five computers together that run Vista but it won't match free software or even XP performance. Vista probably won't run on any of a random collection of machines put together by Infoworld, except that T61 but even that will suck. Meanwhile, people are pleasantly surprised when free software actually runs. This is what people keep seeing and saying. Why can't you admit that this is a massive free software advantage? Are you afraid of success?