Andy Green wrote:
Ubuntu:
Yeah it's fine. I simply do not like the GNOME interface. Not anymore
at any rate.
After this, we come to what I think of as the first surprise in our
survey. Gentoo took fourth place with a total of 9.6 percent. Gentoo,
to me, is a Linux expert's Linux. I know many serious Linux users who
work with Gentoo to better understand Linux, but almost no one who
uses it as their first choice for day-to-day work.
I love Gentoo. It used to be the 'expert's linux', but I don't see that
as the case now. The new installer is is pretty good and they do not
advocate a stage 1 install anymore either as it doesn't give the
performance boost compared to the work involved. That said, my kids
laptop's and my Mom's desktop all run Gentoo and they can handle their
systems just fine. My youngest is 7, BTW, and she can emerge packages
pretty well. I personally find having the packages installed in their
default locations (at least according to the manual), makes life easier
on me. Plus I've found the performance boost of not having packages
compiled for every possibility (within reason) to be worth the time of
compiling.
In fifth place, we find Fedora, Red Hat's community distribution.
Fedora, while still somewhat popular with 7 percent of the vote, seems
to have lost some of its charm to users in the last year.
...''
I don't see that it's lost it's charm, IMHO. I have 13 other servers at
home running FC3/4/5 and all my systems here at work (barring my laptop)
are all FC other than my SGI systems. I much prefer FC over Debian
across the board. Debian package management has always been a PITA,
whereas yum and RPM's 'just work'. However, I do see two weaknesses in
FC. A lack of a LiveCD ( I use these more and more to promote linux use
in my family) and the fact that it's 5 CD's or a DVD to install. Sure
Ubuntu has a DVD version, but a good standard install is still only one
CD the rest you can apt-get. I've never managed to get a good base
install from one FC CD. The fact I need to insert CD 3 for one package
is a pet peeve of mine, but one I can live with as long as I have
broadband where I can ftp install from a mirror.
All that being said. FC is still the best linux version for general
desktop use for people who want the 'latest and greatest'. Ubuntu is
always slightly behind on that for stability's sake.
Just my $0.02
--
Ceterum censeo, Carthago delenda est.
Mark Haney
Sr. Systems Administrator
ERC Broadband
(828) 350-2415
