Soliciting Input For a Linux Review
by Ryan Smith on February 6, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Ryan's Ramblings
One of the things we have been wanting to do for some time now is to do a proper review of Linux as an end-user operating system. We have done articles on Linux in the past relating to performance, but never a complete OS review.
A Month With a Mac, our article on the Mac experience was very well received and we would like to do this again for a Linux review. I, a Linux novice, will use Ubuntu Linux for a month as my primary OS in order to capture an idea of how the Linux experience stacks up, and how it compares to the Mac and Windows platforms.
Now the reason that we're soliciting advice first is due to a matter of timing. Ubuntu is on a six-month release schedule with the next version due in April. If we were to start our month-long experiment next week, our review would not be ready until the middle of March, only a month or so before the next Ubuntu release. On the other hand if we wait for the next version of Ubuntu, a review would not be done until at least the late-May/early-June time frame.
So we would like to hear back from our readers and Linux users. Would you rather see this kind of a review done sooner, or wait another 2-3 months for a review done with a newer version of Ubuntu? This isn't a straight-up vote, but we'd like to take your opinions under serious consideration, especially since we aren't intimately familiar with Ubuntu and what the next version may bring.
Please add your comments to this blog post, we'll get back to you next week to let you guys know if we're going ahead with our experiment or not.
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MadBoris - Saturday, February 9, 2008 - link
Maybe you can title it -Linux: The many distro's that killed the penguin. Or maybe
Linux: The penguin that steps on it's own foot.
hehe, yeah too controversial I know. ;)
I'm hardly a Linux guy and I don't dislike it, I just wish it could get out of it's own way. IMO too many distro's is what kills Linux from being a real competitor for common daily use and keeps mainstream from supporting it. People and their little personal preferences are keeping any one distro from rising and getting the full united support and full united backing. If people would stop messing around with umpteen different projects and distro's, maybe Linux would be much more refined and competitive in the desktop space having full commercial support.
It's open source stepping on it's own foot.
You are not going to get manufacturers, driver writers, software developers, etc. to QA and support multiple distro's to accomodate people's silly little techie preferences.
Everyone wants their own little distro and everyone wonders why Linux doesn't get supported. Maybe people don't wonder, cause it does seem kind of obvious. I'm sure some people would prefer Linux being some hidden black art, but it's unfortunate that it doesn't get the desktop support that it could realize if people would get unified behind a single project.
After all these years of hoping Linux would move to the forefront, it is still hardly something I would try and teach my wife to use for day to day, I wouldn't subject her to it. It's kind of a shame, because Windows needs some good competition and I don't like Apple's proprietary stifling nature, even though they do it well.
wetwareinterface - Saturday, February 9, 2008 - link
what i'd realy like to see is something different.every damn review site on the planet has already done a xx days with yyyyy distro article. do something new.
install around 4 different distros on seperate partitions and do some daily repetitve tasks on one distro then the next day do those same tasks on the next distro. then report on what you liked/disliked about the different distros and how linux is compared to windows or osx.
i am frankly sick of ubuntu reviews as if it's the only desktop distro out there. try ubuntu if you want but include fedora and suse and maybe even kubuntu or even xubuntu for low end/older systems.
Black Imp - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
I'd prefer to wait for the new release even thou I'm not interested in linux precompiled distributions that much. One of the most interesting linux features to me it's the chance to compile kernel and sw onto the target machine. This can improve performance and be an added value compared to windows. Otherwise I wouldn't feel so enthusiast to prefer linux to windows expecially for what concerning gui behaviour. Linux's tweakability and free tools for programming are to me the most interesting things so my dreams would be a distribution like Gentoo with some more intuitive (and working!) and logical procedure for installing SO manually that could be done via my netgear wifi card. What I can't stand of that distribution is you have to learn by heart the content of modules and there's not a clear list of them and what they are for. When you have hw that's not recognized during intalling you always have to ask some other to tell you what the hell of module, following no arguable stardard naming system, you have manually to load.Sorry for the offtopic, I hope it can be of some interest.
rbsrao79 - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
A few years ago, anandtech did a review of an asus board call a8n-vm-csm. The review was in my opinion fairly complimentary. However, when I bought the board I found to my dismay that linux support for the board (which had integrated hardware) was very little.The acpi hardware on the board was broken (bad dsdt tables), the nvidia integrated graphics chipset did not have proper support from nvidia (only specific drivers worked). A recompile was needed everytime the kernel was upgraded. Most distros at that time were failing to initialize the sata drivers. Essentially there was whole host of problems which I over time resolved with the help of the community.
I would like to see every non-gamer's motherboard (gaming motherboards would probably just be used for windows) to have a standard set of linux compatibility tests run against them.
Admittedly, I should have done my research a lot more before buying that board. Expecting integrated chipsets to work out of the box was a stupid expectation on my part.
rbsrao79 - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
I find that in most cases, depending on selection, hardware features are broadly supported, but there subtle nuances with which linux distros give problems. This is more exacerbated in notebooks. This would be an area that I would like the review to focus (assuming the review is for desktop/mobile distributions)1. Support for Extended desktops (multi-monitor setups) . Switching between, cloning, extended desktop and resolution handling (per screen) without having to restart X.
2. wifi support - Detection of networks, sorting on strength, switching to closest network. Support for turning off wifi to save battery (using a hardware or software switch)
3. acpi support (comparison of battery life between operating systems when the hardware idles). Access and ease of use of hibernation feature.
4. Volume controls (Can application volumes be controlled individually)
5. bluetooth support : (what exactly does that entails? supporting applications if any).
hurtstotalktoyou - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
I have to agree that you guys should wait for the review. April isn't that far away. If 8.04 were just another basic release, I'd be tempted to recommend doing the review right now, but since 8.04 is long-term support release, and thus will be a viable option not just for six months thereafter but several years, I think waiting is by far the best option.Kevin Day - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
I would like to see the review include aspects of using a linux desktop in the enterprise. Supportability, Asset Management, Deployment, audit and client health monitoring, etc. Migrating a home user from Windows to Linux is one thing. Migrating 190K clients in diverse geographic locations is another.MatrixVPR - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
Do it now with a mature/sound version rather than one that's new and has potential bugs that could have an adverse affect on your experience. You can then update your experience with the newer version and you'll have the opportunity to compare and contrast. I myself just threw together a Linux system that I use as second computer conjunction with my “Super Vista Rig”. It has all the pizzazz of Vista with the ability to run smoothly on a SFF 2.26 Northwood and 512 RAM!incognito9 - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
Some tips on a good review:DON'T compare different distributions. Everyone has their favorite (mine is currently openSuse) But if you want to do a "state of linux on the desktop" review then pick ONE distro and really put it through it's paces. A comparison of different distros is good idea for a separate article.
Similarly:
DON'T get into the KDE vs Gnome debate. Pick one desktop and stick with it. KDE vs Gnome is an age-old argument that you're not going to decide. A comparison of all the different desktop environments for linux, including Enlightenment 17 (which is pretty if a little buggy) would be a great idea-- again for a separate article.
DO
Get to know basic programs that come with the distro you go with, including doing presentations, spreadsheet work, document editing, programming...
DO
check out other "consumer" type apps-- video and music stuff, especially.
DO
Try out some of the great games available for linux. My kids love super tux and super tux kart!
DO
try to install it on different machines. Not all hardware is supported equally. nvidia cards are generally less buggy than ati ones. And some wireless chips work out of the box and others need you to hunt for firmware or supply a windows driver, which is awkward and cumbersome to say the least.
DO
install linux on, at least, a laptop. try to note any battery life and power management issues you have.
DO
take everything i've just typed with a grain of salt. Your mileage may vary.
VeyronMick - Friday, February 8, 2008 - link
I'd recommend going for it now.There are minimal changes between releases, most of the time they are cosmetic.
If you wanted to do a review on KDE4 the sure wait, but for the GNOME based Ubuntu there are minimal changes between versions.
Our company has 5k+ Linux workstations and we use a mixture of RHEL3/4, and we also support Ubuntu and Linux Mint for some of the advanced users.
Having a large Solaris community the move to Linux was painless for us and I've installed it for some of my family and they are reasonably happy with it.
Have fun with the trial, should be an interesting experience