Linux

Linux on the desktop, revisited

It appears that a lot of my frustration about Linux on the desktop came from the fact that I tried to cross-grade a debian installation to an Ubuntu installation. Bad idea if you plan to use the Ubuntu desktop!

With the old system I could not get Gnome to work and the KDE 3.4 installation was plain ugly and used some fonts that I could not figure out how to change. The scrollwheel didn't work, sound playback was totally fnorked and things were generally messy and ugly.

So I decided to repartition one large partition that was going mostly unused, and then I installed a new clean install Ubuntu. Wow! What a difference! The install went smoothly and X was setup perfectly without it ever asking a question about how to set it up. It just worked. Truly a first for Linux.

The fonts look sharp, I didn't compile my own kernel and it even automatically mounts USB drives -- I was floored. This new and improved Linux system is quite usable -- its not OS X, but it will work just fine for now. (Until I can get another OS X machine for home. :-) )

Thus, I retract my previous post about Linux on the desktop. Mea culpa. I learned a few things:

• Don't cross-grade a debian install to Ubuntu if you plan to use the desktop. Let the Ubuntu installer do its thing -- its works really well!
• There is hope for the Linux desktop. It may never catch up to OS X's usability and coherence, but Ubuntu is doing good work in this area.
• Forget KDE. Gnome is more my speed. Technically KDE may be superior to Gnome, but user experience wise, Gnome is quite a ways ahead of KDE.
• A desktop like Ubuntu could bring Linux even stronger into less fortunate nations, like Brazil.

Now back to setting up the remaining server programs on my Linux box.

Posted by Mayhem at June 22, 2005 08:11 PM