Subscribe Feed (RSS)Linux as your main OS
October 10th, 2005 by eyal | Filed under Techie. |
Print This Post
This weekend was Linux Project Weekend. After (not too much) deliberation I decided to give Linux a try and see what all the rage is about. A bit more research and I settled on Ubuntu, “the linux for human beings”.. or so I thought, but more about that later. Then came the Gnome vs. KDE research and I settled on KDE, mainly for visual look and feel reasons, so Kubuntu it was.
The installation went well, except that the network card wasn’t recognized, and still isn’t. Once you’re done with the install the real “fun” begins.. Let’s see what did we get, Firefox? No. Playing mp3? No. Playing mpegs? No. Java Runtime for those site that need it and for TWS? No. PCMCIA Support for the laptop? No. What DID we get? A nice looking OS, some Internet apps like RSS reader and browser, OpenOffice and that’s about it. Of course that’s simplistic, there are thousands of applications out there so all you need is a good installer (Synaptic beats Adept hands down in my opinion) and some Unix commands to run in terminal mode and monitoring of processes, compiling of source code and managing permissions and users (you didn’t think it’ll be as easy as just an installer did you..).
Right.. let’s roll up sleeves and get things that I actually need.. first, the network driver. Trying to install the ASUS P4P8X 3Com driver just didn’t want to work. Why? Did we get the kernel source with our installation? No. Is it on the CD? No. Were compiling essentials installed? No. Do we need all that, hell yeah.
To put a very long story short, the Java runtime still isn’t running. The network driver still doesn’t drive anything. On the laptop things went a bit better and the OS is up and running and is actually quite enjoyable to use. More than anything it’s the fact that you kind of semi-built it yourself, it looks slick, things that work work well and.. it’s not a Microsoft product.
Would I recommend others to try it? Sure if you want to have some fun playing around with things. Will I keep it on my hardrive? Yes and would enjoy using it for mainly web related stuff. Will I switch over entirely? Not in the near future. For one, trading applications mostly don’t work on Linux, secodnly games won’t run on it but mostly it’s just a lot of hassle as compared to Windows click and install. One thing I do plan on trying and which may tilt the balance towards Linux is running my charting app on it. I found out someone is already running QCharts on Wine HQ so will give that a go.
I wouldn’t recommend Ubuntu or Kubuntu though, most people would probably be better off with either a full Mandrake, Fedora or Suse or if they know they’re way around then something like Slackware or Gentoo.
If you want to try Linux without installing anything at all you can use a Live CD which basically runs the OS from a CD ROM without needing you to install antything. It’s a pretty slick way of testing out different distros too. A couple on my list for trying are PCLinux and GoblinX.
[...] Ever my faifthful guinea pig, Eyal has spent the last weekend installing Linux as a desktop OS for his laptop. After faffing around with Kubuntu, he discovers the charms of Kanotix in his post - Linux Reloaded, which apparently installs quite easily for a Linux distro. [...]
As a recent Ubuntu convert, I’d just like to say that it found everything on my Thinkpad T42. Wifi, sound, vga - it even found my webcam. I’ve had loads of trouble with other distros, but Ubuntu just did the trick for me.
Hi Mahangu, It is really hardware config specific. Hw-setup just has better hardware detection and support that covers more brands and models. I guess ThinkPads are well supported by Ubuntu libraries. My desktop 3com nic was not.
Other than the hardware it I find it unacceptable that a distro will not have the kernel source installed. It’s required for compiling heaps of things and takes very little space.. just bad decision making on what should go in.
In any case there’s always room for different distros to fit individual needs and preferences. Go Linux! :)