It is definitely a stay-at-home and drink-hot-chocolate kind of day here in San Francisco. And I’m totally okay with that. Now if only I could get the 64-bit Windows installation disk to recognize my SATA controller, life would be good. I’m not a fan of Linux for desktop usage yet (I’ve tried it about once a year for 4+ years now) but I might be pushed in that direction, ironically, because of better hardware compatibility. This might be easier if I had a non-USB floppy drive, but I’m not inclined to go out in this weather just to get one.
The distribution/s of Linux one tries make a considerable difference. If a Mac OSX user hasn’t revealed any gains from Linux, then something must have gone amiss.
Try Ubuntu when you try a linux desktop this year. It’s a refreshing change and a professional distribution. It has good hardware support, and it uses apt. There’s guaranteed updates for 18 months, and there will be a new version of the OS released every 6 months. Its use of gnome makes things fresh from the user’s perspective, and I think it fits your UI philosphy (keep it simple) perfectly. Let me know if you’d like me to mail you the “official” Ubuntu CDs, which I got shipped to me for free. After trying linux desktop once a year, like you, I finally settled on this, and have everything running on it – home desktop, work desktop, and laptop.
I have the CD’s and I tried the live version. It was disappointing when it comes to the amounts of pre-installed software.
Yes, it’s fairly trivial to install and very hardware-compatible. A friend of mine failed to have his sound card recognised though.
See… I’m hooked on KDE and I could not compromise for less. Unless you play games or run experiments (and I do these remotely, via SSH, on idle machines), you should let the CPU use up its full capacity, for your comfort.
You can’t try Linux once a year. You have to adapt to it. If you try it for a day, or a week, or a month, you will not gain sufficient familiarity with it. You will then keep thinking: “I used to work more quickly with my old O/S”.
Do you mean to say that Gnome does not use the CPU to the fullest? It is just as resource hungry as KDE is. I use KDE. When I revisited gnome on the desktop, the first thing I though was, “Wow, Matt would dig this – this is what he keeps talking about – reduced options, simple look etc”. Honest to God I thought that. I run some pretty bad-ass experiments, too, and I use Kile and a few other KDE apps. Heck, I use KDE more often than not 🙂
Trying it once a year meant trying to see if the basic minimum stuff worked right – something that did not, till I tried Ubuntu.
But this discussion is not about gnome Vs. kde or Ubuntu vs. others. I just wanted to let Matt know that he might like it if he tried. I am sorry to know you or your friends have had issues with that OS – I’ve had no major problems, so thought it was neat.
So, going back to the topic of this item…. *ahem* “The Weather”… how’s the weather?
In other news, the 64-bit version of Windows is not going to work at all. Firefox won’t run, and my wireless card won’t work. Back to 32-bit land for me.
Weather is a lot better today. I should go outside. 🙂
Weather is better up there? We’re still getting hammered down here in Sourthern California. It was definitely a stay-at-home-and-relax day. That’s all me and my friends did. 😉
Firefox won’t run on 64-bit? And why would you need a wireless card on a desktop PC?
Basil: Some people have multiple computers at home and prefer to avoid the wires. Sometimes the neighbour wants some bandwith too… or you want his/hers…