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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Kougar - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
If measuring Ubuntu, then please be sure to include the ease of which common tasks can be done. With the exception of Linux Mint (Based off of Ubuntu) I don't know of any Linux distros that play mp3s and wma files "out of the box", let alone can play Half Life 2, IE, and other XP programs via Wine-Doors as easily as Linux Mint.PC Mech has a great deal of coverage on Linux Mint due to their successes with the distro.
kac77 - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
Right now Ubuntu is at version 7.10. A lot of things were added in this version. It is not a LTS version which means some features are not 100%. While I doubt compiz-fusion will be rewritten in time for the upcoming version it most definitely will include GIT version updates which will most likely be more feature rich and more stable.In addition 8.04 will include some significant changes to security as well as a new standard sound daemon (Pulse Audio) which will allow for individualized sound settings for each application. For it being a LTS version I'm actually surprised at just how many changes and/or additions they are making within this version (8.04).
So my two cents are for you to wait or if you decide to review the current version have a keen understanding that the current version is more of a vehicle for new ideas and features with stability being the focus with the later version.
As for KDE or using other distributions, I wouldn't recommend it as KDE 4.0 was just released, which is not feature complete either and further away from being what I could stable. Most other distributions I feel for average desktop users can be a little bit more complicated than Ubuntu.
Otherwise your choice of using Ubuntu is a good one. I currently use it and find it a joy.
R3MF - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
Below is a good example of popular end-user distro's:2008-06-19 - opensuse 11.0 (KDE/Gnome)
2008-04-29 - Fedora 9 (Gnome)
2008-04-24 - Ubuntu 8.04 (Gnome)
2008-04-02 - Mandriva 2008.1 (KDE)
2008-03-10 - Sabayon 3.5 (KDE) speculative date
2008-02-27 - Dreamlinux 3.0 (xFce) Mac0S look-n-feel
If you went for late March you could get Dreamlinux and the old versions of Ubuntu, Opensuse, and Fedora.
If you go for late May you can add the most recent versions of Mandriva, Ubuntu, and Fedora.
If you went for late July there is a very good chance you could get opensuse 11.0 with the first implementation of a KDE 4.1 desktop. KDE 4.0.x doesn't really count.
Personally, I would like to see you include opensuse 11.0 with a KDE 4.1 desktop, but i realise this may not fit well in your schedule.
regards
Vtan - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
I don't know if you have reviewed a MS based OS before but I want you to think about it as if you have. When you review an OS, what do you review and test?If you were to review Windows 7, how would you approach it? Will you test MS Office? Will you test apps in various fields or just the most common things that everyone is interested in?
Will you test connectivity? Gaming performance etc?
Whatever it is that you might want to do when reviewing a MS based OS, take the same ideas over to Linux - whether it be Ubuntu, Debian or whatever. Note that I say ideas, not exact apps to test. That way you are creating a proper perspective on which to evaluate an OS.
Where there are glaring differences that such a process doesn't quite illustrate, feel free to vary and explain why.
Decide on a suite of ideas first. Then evaluate.
alantay - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
I think that for reviewing purposes it makes no difference whether the release has Long Term Support or not. The experience of a new user will be the same with both versions (given that the hardware is not only supported by the newer version), so I don't see any reason for waiting for the next release.I would recommend using rather standard intel-based hardware. I think that hardware incompatibilities would just spoil the review. Given that MAC OSX only runs on Apple hardware and that ALL hardware manufacturers support Windows, it seems unfair to run Linux in not supported hardware and then complain about incompatibilities.
Looking forward to it :-)
DonB - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
As much as Ubuntu is probably one of the better Linux Desktop OS's out of the box it fails in one major area. “Commercial support” What I mean is many corporate products, such as SSL VPN Clients, Eng tools (Synplicity, Modelsim, MatLab, etc...) and many other "over the counter" tools are designed to run on RedHat EL4 (and many variants there of). Though most of these tools can be made to run on Ubuntu, this is not for "Newbie's".This coupled with the number of Distro's, X desktop environments, x86 vs. x86_64 simply makes Linux too thin to be a viable desktop platform for most - if not all - newbie's!
The MAC with a month was well received because people with accept the "pain" of OS X because their MAC makes a lifestyle statement.
However, I highly doubt that a generic x86 laptop loaded with Linux that suddenly refuses to surf at your favorite Starbacks make the same "Life Style" statement...
LemonJoose - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
I would like to see the Ubuntu review, since I toyed around with Mandrake about 5 years ago, but concluded that Linux wasn't really ready enough for me to want to use it on a regular basis.I think it would be great if you also did a review focusing on the 64-bit version of Vista particularly with regards to gaming compatibility and performance. SP! is done and will be available in the next few weeks and I bet there are a lot of people who have held back for the release of SP1. I am planning to build a new rig in the next month or so, and because of the memory limitation with 32-bit Vista I though I would go with 64-bit instead, but I am unsure about what the drawbacks (if any) might be.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
Look for a SP1 article next week.bongobear - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
Well for other Linux distros I'd like to stick my vote in for PCLinuxos as it is seems a whole lot easier to get up and running compared to Ubuntu.Might be nice to get an opinion on VMware (you can download a free version) from you too for running Windows within Linux.
Karl
PenGun - Monday, February 11, 2008 - link
I dunno it's too easy. Why not try for a more revealing and tougher test.Get Slack.
The install is lightning and you'll be up in KDE, if you so chose, in a very short time. The only hard part is creating and assigning partitions. The curses installer aint pretty but it does the job. Just say yes a bunch and select "install everything".