Re: Which Linux

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

 > From: "Mark ikswotulp" <http://www.gmail.com/~mark.ikswotulp>
 > Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 11:11:30 -0700
 > 
 > I'm looking for something compatible with widest range of h/w (laptop
 > peripherals, wireless)

My father claims that wireless on his laptop works flawlessly with Ubuntu.

I only have ethernet and external mouse, keyboard, and display; so my
laptop peripherals knowledge is rather limited.  ('Though I've found
Debian seems to find my USB stick on my USB hub with no problem.  I
haven't tried other devices, however.)

 > and so has a decent windowing UI.

It's relatively decent.  There are a number of applications, but I've
found (surprisingly) that the windowing system doesn't allow much
customization.  It's fairly basic ('though quite fast).

 > Which UI do you
 > prefer, KDE or Gnome?

Ubuntu comes with Gnome.  Kubuntu is KDE.  I've only ever used Ubuntu (and
the Redhat at So_ny was also Gnome), so I've never tried KDE.

As I said, the biggest problem I've found so far is gnome-terminal.  Drag
and drop seem to work just like Windows, as far as I can tell.

 > From: "Mark ikswotulp" <http://www.gmail.com/~mark.ikswotulp>
 > Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 11:34:42 -0700
 >
 > I've narrowed it down to Mandriva, Ubuntu, or CentOS (Red Hat clone). Thanks
 > for the WSJ article -- i'm looking for it to be a decent server & dev box
 > yet possibly also windows replacement.

I think any of those will work.  But, being a Debian-head, my bias is
towards Ubuntu since I like the packaging system and the particular
variety of packages.

 > I hope Firefox on Linux is more stable than on Windows -- Google spreadsheet
 > + >10 tabs can crash FF. Luckily it now resumes previous session.

The interface on Firefox is definitely different.  For example, you cannot
simply resize the print preview dynamically like you can in Windows -- you
must use page setup.  Also, the options are in a different place.  But all
of my addons (plugins) transferred directly from Windows (in fact, I just
copied my entire Windows firefox directory directly onto my linux machine
with no complaints) and I even have the "send page by email" working on
both my linux machine and Noelle's Mac.  Firefox rocks!

I did have Firefox exit suddenly last week once.  I don't know what the
heck happened and it didn't ask me to send the crash info, but it kept my
session so I never pursued it further.

Oh, and the Google Desktop Search doesn't encrypt the index, which sucks.
So, I set up a Truecrypt sub-filesystem and store my index there.  So, at
least if my laptop is stolen or lost, most of my vitals won't be easily
retrieved.  (Truecrypt is definitely not as easy to use as EFS, but it's
all that Linux has right now.)

What's interesting about this Dell laptop (Inspiron 1420N) is that the
price difference between Windows and Linux is $25.  It is really
mind-blowing what $25 will get you.

Finally, I should mention that, even if you end up with a Linux machine,
it's pretty easy (and cheap) to set up VMWare (or any other emulation
package) so you can run Windows simultaneously.  So, it's not like a
choice you've set in stone.  Because I'm now a Macrosoft employee, I can
get Windows cheap ($25) so, if it becomes necessary, I'll do that myself.