On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 13:28 -0800, Tom Jennings wrote:
> Windows is appropriate in places,
Yeah, the trash can. :P
> there's many good software
> packages for it,
Definately (spuhlyng?) true. But GPL apps *are* catching up - just look
at OpenOffice 2 betas... They're progressing very very fast :)
> I just sink further into geekdom, and after getting bamboozled by
> the increasing complexity and featuritis of linux (SuSE 9.2) (*)
> "went back" to freeBSD. (It's > 10 years old... :-)
I do not want to start a distro war. But I like the two deb-based
distros Ubuntu and, well, Debian :)
Kickass package management, you start with a base system and install
what you need. (apt-get install x-window-system build-essential gnome
openoffice-org gives you a good system) Ubuntu fits an entire desktop
system, with automatic updates, on *one CD*. And GNOME runs *fast*
nowadays. (though, not quite fast enough for me - a lot of my hardware
is ontopic here. I run Fluxbox, you should give it a spin.)
> I'm running fvwm2 (over KDE), gained 200 MEGABYTES FREE MEMORY!,
> and sacrificed *nothing* in the way of convenience. Nothing.
Well, you *are* a geek, remember... You don't need a big DE, newbies do.
My 73-year-old grandmother is very happy with GNOME.
Most of what KDE loads probably stands in swap anyways. Still quite big.
> I installed it with the three-floppy kernel and an ethernet to the
> world (at UCI.EDU, fat pipe to freebsd.org). Practically painless.
Ditto with Debian, though I think the floppy count is higher. But if
you've got a server running Linux nearby, netboot! One floppy, and you
have the full, semi-graphical installer. (The Debian installer is no
longer as horrid as the myth that surrounds it. Yes, at one point, it
truly was horrid.)
> Geek onward!
As if I intended to just stop? :)
> Big
> linux distros are getting more and more baroque as they try to
> "compete" with W$.
Absolutely. That's why I stay clear of them. But the one userfriendly
distro I recommend and endorse is Ubuntu, a newcomer, but wow... It's
beautiful both technically and visually. I suggest you give it a spoon.
--
Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe_at_ifi.uio.no>
The light at the end of the tunnel is Cherenkov Radiation
Received on Sun Jan 09 2005 - 16:26:18 GMT