[clue-talk] Linux Desktop reliable ?

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:04:37 -0700 (PDT)
rex evans <rexfordevans at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I was aware that Linux had lost
> ground for desktop popularity,
> but recent posts (subject:Hello)
> cast doubt on the reliability 
> for desktops.

Always take complaints about distros with a grain of salt. Unless
you've used it yourself, don't take a complaint (or two, or three) on
the list as gospel. One person's nightmare distro is another's dream
distro. I hear people rave about Gentoo, for example, but I wouldn't
want to use it for my desktop or servers on a bet. I'm not knocking
Gentoo for other people, mind you, I just don't care for it. 

I did a review of Gentoo a few months ago, and had quite a few problems
with their new installer -- which should only be taken to mean that one
person encountered problems on a limited set of hardware, not that
Gentoo's installer is horribly broken. 

I've used Ubuntu since the preview releases of Warty -- I've had very
few problems with Ubuntu for desktop use, and I've installed it on
AMD64, x86, PPC, and SPARC. (I wouldn't recommend an Ultra 10 as a
desktop machine these days, though...) 

Someone mentioned video -- video editing on Linux in general is still
in a rough state, I'm sad to say. I spent quite a bit of time this
weekend futzing with video on my Ubuntu AMD64 machine, and ended up
using Kino to do some rough edits. It did the job, but the program is
not the best in the world. 

> It gets worse for a user who 
> prefers a laptop as the desktop.

Again, this depends on 1) your expectations, and 2) your laptop. I've
installed Ubuntu on an IBM ThinkPad, a Toshiba Satellite, an
unbranded laptop (x86), and an iBook. The iBook has posed a few problems
for Ubuntu with regards to wireless, but I've had no problems with it
otherwise. Ubuntu has "just worked" on the remainder of my hardware --
which is to say, the three laptops, an AMD64 desktop, and my brother's
brand-new Dell XPS.

I just got back from OSCON, and I saw quite a variety of laptop
machines. Some folks were running Windows, a LOT of people had Apple
laptops (a few running Linux on them) and a LOT of Ubuntu laptops, and
a handful of Fedora laptops. I didn't hear anyone complaining about
problems with Linux as a desktop... 

Best, 

Zonker
--
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <xonker at gmail.com>
Editorial Director, Linux.com
http://www.dissociatedpress.net/
Jabber: zonker at jabber.org