[mdlug] Dell survey for Linux

[Jeff Hanson]

On 3/14/07, Ingles, Raymond <Raymond.Ingles at compuware.com> wrote:
>  Um, I'm not sure *any* distro is "geared to be everything for all
> purposes". I certainly can't think of one like that. That's pretty
> much the *reason* there are a plethora of distros. (Incidentally,
> I can't think of *any* non-Linux OS that's omni-appropriate, either.)

I tested out a bunch over the last few months.  Here is a repost of my
findings in response to a topic on the Penguicon list.:

Fedora Core 6:  Lots of packages available but the package manager is
primitive and slow.  Networking has lots of problems.

Mandriva 2007:  Many games and educational packages available but the
package manager is garbage.  It obviously wasn't ready to be released.
 Very good third-party support (EasyURPMI, PLF, and SeerOfSouls in
particular).  Very good installer with one of the easiest partition
managers available.  Very good administration tools.

SuSE 10.2:  Package selection probably adequate for business but not
for home desktop.  Very few third-party repos and adding them in Yast
is a pain.  The recent agreement with M$ isn't going to improve
package selection anytime soon.  Administration tools are very good.

Ubuntu "Edgy Eft" 6.10:  Very good package selection but many packages
in the Debian repos have not been updated to the freedesktop.org menu
entry standard so they don't show up in the menus when you add them.
A menu hack for the Debian menus is available but it's ugly.
Automatix is a good meta-package installer that makes adding large
groups of packages easier.  It can install the Debian menu hack and
closed-source stuff like Nvidia drivers, Picasa, and Skype.  There
have been problems with updates including a missing kernel image this
week which caused a lot of problems for me.

For desktop environments I recommend Gnome.  Ubuntu's Gnome theme is
the best.  KDE is comprehensive but complicated and has a cluttered
look to it.  Mandriva's KDE layout and default theme is better than
Kubuntu.  XFCE doesn't offer a lot feature-wise but it much faster on
old systems.  I've only used it on Xubuntu.

3D desktop support (Beryl and Compiz) isn't quite ready on any distro
yet.  Neither supports dual-head (multiple desktop) setups.