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Linux Business Software Linux

Ubuntu: Best Linux Desktop for Business? 282

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they're-all-better-than-the-alternative dept.
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet has been testing Linux for business, trying to work out what the best distro is for small businesses. After testing Mandriva Linux 2006, Novell Linux Desktop 9, Red Hat Desktop 4, SUSE Linux 10 and Ubuntu Linux 5.1. After installing them all from scratch to simulate a new business set up, and extensive testing involving Gaim, Evolution, OpenOffice.org -- as well as actually writing each review on each distro -- Ubuntu came out as the winner. They summed it up saying 'Ubuntu is a well integrated, practical and absolutely free' and dismissed worries about support. SuSE came a close second."
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Ubuntu: Best Linux Desktop for Business? More

Ubuntu: Best Linux Desktop for Business?

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  • Ubuntu 5.10 (Score:3, Informative)

    by the_g_cat ( 821331 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:18PM (#14109246) Homepage
    Ubuntu 5.1 != Ubuntu 5.10. The first one doesn't even exist...

  • Ubuntu Year.Month (Score:5, Informative)

    by my_breath_smells ( 762618 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:18PM (#14109247)
    Actually its Ubuntu 5.10, not 5.1

    Ubuntu X.Y corresponds to the release year (200X) and the release month(Y).
    In this case it was October 2005 -> (10/05)
    The next release will be Ubuntu 6.4 (April 2006))
    • See, this is why people find geeks so wierd. How do you explain to your Dad, upon finally getting him to agree to rid his system of Windows XP, and install a flashy new bug and virus free Ubuntu that the numbers "5.1" and "5.10" mean TOTALLY different things? My Dad would just stand there and shake his head at me: "We came to this country for you to get an education...". ... At least it's better than having to explain to my Mom that Microsoft Office isn't "where Google is". Or where all the "sexy pictures"
      • Don't get me wrong, I see your point, but I was under the impression that the numbers 5.1 and 5.10 are different things as the latter has more significant figures.

        I don't know if that equates to TOTALLY different, and I know that this is not really what you were talking about anyway, but at least you have a comeback to your dad...
        • Your dad is some kind of geek, if he thinks "1" and "10" are different because of their amount of "significant figures". My dad thinks that 10 comes after 1.

    • Re:Ubuntu Year.Month (Score:4, Informative)

      by Nermal6693 ( 622898 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:30PM (#14109576)
      Actually, the next release will be 6.04 :)

    • Re:Ubuntu Year.Month (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rtechie ( 244489 )
      A versioning scheme that is IN NO WAY confusing!

  • SuSE 10 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jurt1235 ( 834677 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:19PM (#14109250) Homepage
    I am using SuSE 10 with KDE. Hardware support is great compared to v9, configuration works great, and downloaded it all for free from the SuSE ftp website. So where does the non-free part come in? Support? Also for SuSE there are user forums, not much different than Ubuntu, or about any other linux distro for that matter.
    • Some, notably SUSE and Ubuntu, also worked well on our test notebook -- which might surprise those who think of Linux as purely a desktop or server OS.

      I have used several laptops with several linux distros (Slackware,Debian,SuSE), and they all worked OK. Definition of OK is: You are able to tweak your kernel and your X server, and you are totally OK. New versions of the distros pretty much install without a glitch on any of the systems I have standing around here (dual PII, PIII, PIV, laptop). So that re

      • Re:One little additional remark (Score:5, Interesting)

        by hungrygrue ( 872970 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:51PM (#14109382) Homepage
        That is one thing that has amazed me about Ubuntu, actually. I have run *MANY* distros over the last 10+ years, and have not run Windows since version 3.1 in 1995. I am used to having to do some work to get my X configuration correct, to get sound working at all, etc. I am now running Ubuntu, and have not had to touch a single configuration file. This is on a laptop, an eMachines M6805. The wide screen display (1280x800) was correctly configured - I had naturally expected it to choose 1024x768 and have to edit the xorg.conf to fix it. Sound works. It detected the wireless and built in ethernet, allowed me to select the wireless and enter my WEP key during installation, even the media keys (volume, mail, etc.) were properly configured. Later, I had to install Windows XP in order to load maps onto my GPS - since this machine is designed to run Windows, I didn't expect to have any compatibility issues, but *surprise*! The screen resolution was wrong, the wireless card was not detected at all, sound does not work. I don't know if it configured the media keys correctly or not as I have only had to run Windows twice, once to load maps and later to setup my DSL which unfortunately could only be done by running the Windows coaster which SBC sent me. I assume that all that doesn't work under Windows could be fixed by hunting around for drivers, but the simple fact that no such work was needed under Ubuntu whereas Windows is unable to make use of all of this Windows hardware was quite a surprise.

        • Re:One little additional remark (Score:5, Informative)

          by Frogbert ( 589961 ) <frogbert@gmail . c om> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:41PM (#14109614)
          Another little remark:

          I've used Ubuntu since Hoary and I was always impressed at its quality over previous linux distros I had tried, FC4 most notably. I reciently installed it on a relitivily modern laptop and realised once I had done setting it up it had actually been easier to install and get up to date then Windows.

          With Windows XP I have to install it, then find my SP2 cd and install that, download a heap of updates. Then I have to download drivers to get everything to work and so on. Now Ubuntu isn't much different its just the process takes a lot less time and is easier to do. As soon as you are done installing the base system there is a pop up that tells you you need to update. So you click that wait a while for it to download and your done, you do need to restart once because there is a new kernal out but that is understandable and is still much better then the 5 or probably more times Windows XP needs. And with Automatix [ubuntuforums.org] the rest of your setup is easier still.

          I could not be more happy with my ubuntu laptop. There are even ATI video card driver packages available making for a very slick install.
        • I hate playing devil's advocate for Microsoft, but when dealing with a laptop that came out in 2004, an OS released in 2005 (Ubuntu 5.10) should have better hardware support out of the box than an OS released in 2001 (Windows XP), when you don't have the CD that the manufacturer conveniently loaded all the drivers on to prevent this problem.

          • Very true. A slipstreamed XP SP2 disk, at least, would be needed to provide a fair test.

            Ubuntu has always been surprisingly good for me though. It doesn't work with my KVM switch, but then no OS but Windows ever has, for whatever reason.

          • Re:One little additional remark (Score:5, Insightful)

            by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @10:08PM (#14110426)
            So why doesn't Microsoft provide updated copies of its OS with new computers that come out, instead of shipping the exact same disk they've been shipping for the last 5 years? Why don't they go around collecting all the new popular drivers, and have a database of them so it can download them right off the internet, automatically, without having to search around for them?
      • I'm not sure it's so much about it installing OK on the laptops and coming up with an X screen, as things like automatic setup of sleep and hibernation states, good automatic (and out-of-the-box, no setup necessary) detection and mounting of flash drives and external hard drives and hotplug detection and setup of PCMCIA devices.

        Lots of distros still make you choose between doing some or all of those things manually, or setting up the automation of the tasks on your own. That's fine for power users, but it'

    • Re:SuSE 10 (Score:5, Informative)

      by tpgp ( 48001 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:30PM (#14109303) Homepage
      So where does the non-free part come in?

      Why do you say that? The review says "SUSE Linux is available as a free unsupported download,"

      That said, I don't believe Suse has any guarantees about prices of future products - whereas Ubuntu says on their front page: [ubuntulinux.org]

      "Ubuntu will always be free of charge, and there is no extra fee for the "enterprise edition", we make our very best work available to everyone on the same Free terms."

  • Xandros (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tiberius_Fel ( 770739 ) <fel AT empirereborn DOT net> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:20PM (#14109254)
    I'm surprised they didn't test Xandros - I interviewed with them a couple of months ago, and they specialize in business-oriented Linux...

    • Re:Xandros (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, I second that. Xandros Business Desktop 3 (as the name suggests) should have been included in the comparison. Otherwise it is downright unfair. And believe me, since I am also their beta tester for sometime, it would have beaten everyone hands down in ease of installation to integration into existing Windows networks -- and the last point is *damn important* no matter what you may think!
    • Why did the parent get moded Redundant for that? I like Xandros a lot. It's a great business distro for people coming out of Windoze World.

      I'd like to try comparing Xandros to Ubuntu. Haven't tried either of them on a laptop. That would be an interesting comparison.

  • Couldn't agree more (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DavidNWelton ( 142216 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:21PM (#14109261) Homepage
    As a long time Debian user and contributor, it's good to see a system that has all the advantages of Debian, plus the financial backing and willpower to take off some of the rough edges that a volunteer-only structure isn't really suited to deal with. I installed Ubuntu on my new computer at work the other day. My boss was so impressed that he installed it himself on another computer, and he's not really a technical guy.
    • I installed Ubuntu on my new computer at work the other day. My boss was so impressed that he installed it himself on another computer, and he's not really a technical guy.

      Bullshit...
      • It's no bullshit. Read my post here, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166472&cid=13 8 85558 [slashdot.org] it explains how I gave a 5.10 install disk to a man with brain injuries who was able to install it(By himself) without a single hitch. Everything worked out of the box.

        Honestly, can any other distro say that like Ubuntu can now? As for Windows, those morons don't even have a decent driver base that Windows Update can query and download from so it's their own damn fault you can't detect new stuff.

        Now, I know man

    • Re:Couldn't agree more (Score:2, Interesting)

      by afrank ( 532496 )
      I agree that it's great to see Debian-based distros get some press, but what about Debian? I recently put Ubuntu Breezy on my portable, expecting great advantages over Debian Sid, and was greatly disappointed. Instead of drastic improvements, I was stifled by not having immediate access to my "Run Application" button in Gnome, not being able to see kernel-loading messages, not being able to access the Login Manager in GDM, and in general not finding any improvements beyond the current state of Debian. I'm

  • Quite an extensive review (Score:5, Funny)

    by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:22PM (#14109267) Homepage
    They really explained all good and bad points of the distros they tested.
    After reading the article I think my intelligence actually dropped.

  • Ubuntu Bug day (Score:2, Informative)

    by maxx_730 ( 909644 )
    While we're on the subject: today (the 24th) is ubuntu bug day! Join #ubuntu-bugs on freenode and report all your bugs!

    • Re:Ubuntu Bug day (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ubuntu claims that "Each release is supported with free security updates and fixes for at least 18 months", but the Synaptic updater is now telling everyone who has 5.04 is to do a distro-upgrade or else it proposes to install a new kernel of size 21.8k.

      Is anyone at Ubuntu actually testing updates with 4.10 or 5.04? Either fix the update system or replace the claim by "Your Ubuntu installation will be supported if you transition from one release to the next."

      http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=93587 [ubuntuforums.org]
  • Not that I would ever allow ZDNet to choose my OS for me but I think they may be a bit confused. The first three distros were basically tossed aside because of "lacks Exchange support", however, the final page has this to say.

    "All five distributions come with a good -- and very similar -- selection of core applications, including OpenOffice for office productivity, Gaim for instant messaging and Evolution for email, contact management and calendar functionality."
    • Your quote proves they aren't confused, but that you are the one confused.

      "lacks Exchange support" does not equate to "lacks Exchange-like business utility support". Exchange is a well established office management software (and mail utility) with a built in client/server protocol that allows multiple users of Exchange to collaborate and share information.

      Whereas GNOME's Evolution is simply an email client, contact manager, calendaring software. This means it doesn't communicate with Exchange (data se

  • Great (Score:4, Funny)

    by thesnarky1 ( 846799 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:30PM (#14109302) Homepage
    And studies have found "best distro" studies to be the leading cause of flame wars on slashdot. Let the flames fly!
    • And studies have found "best distro" studies to be the leading cause of flame wars on slashdot. Let the flames fly!

      That and version numbering schemes...

  • Ubuntu 5.10 was the first debian distro I was able to get a GUI working for on my finiky AMD with ATI video card at home. I had to type a special boot parameter in, I think it disabled auto detection and installed with a more plain vanila video driver so it wouldn't hang before the install screens came up as it would do with any [Debian] Linux system I tried installing.

    I wouldn't consider it ready to plunk down on a desk at my workplace until I know a lot more about it, but it certainly shows promise. One
    • <smart4$$>
      Hit Alt+F2
      then type

      "gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst"

      type in your sudoer password and configure away!
      </smart4$$>

      Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Lord I apologize for telling the CLI impaired person to type something in a faux command line, and be with the starving Pygmies down in New Guinea.

    • Re:I think Ubuntu is ok (Score:4, Informative)

      by Fallingcow ( 213461 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:29PM (#14109569) Homepage
      I'm not sure if there's a GUI grub configuration tool or not, but you can install Webmin and edit stuff like that through your web browser.

      First, change your root password to something other than the auto-scrambled one that Ubuntu uses by default by typing:

      sudo passwd root

      It'll ask you for your password (the password for your user, that is), then ask you to type a new root password, then type it again to confirm. This is important because Webmin enables only the root account by default, and if you don't know the password then you can't log in, and it's a pain in the ass to change it after it's already been installed, as webmin keeps its own, separate password file.

      Then open up your package manager under "Applications->Add Programs" (I think that's what it's called, doing this from memory). Wait for it to load, then go to "File->Advanced". Do a search for "webmin" and tell it to install the base package and any of the addon modules that you want for it.

      Now you can browse to "https://localhost:10000" and log in as root. There's a graphical utility in there to change the Grub configuration file, I think.

      Alternatively, you can skip all that crap and just do:

      sudo nano -w /boot/grub/grub.lst

      It should be well-commented and pretty easy to understand. There will be a line that sets the default OS to boot. Just change that, save it, and you're done.

      But yeah, there probably ought to be a GUI editor for it. Come to think of it, you might be able to pick the default OS during the install process; I can't recall for sure.

  • How does Ubuntu =/==/!= Debian? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thegoldenear ( 323630 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:38PM (#14109326) Homepage
    So, for all intents and purposes, does Ubuntu = Debian or Ubuntu == Debian or Ubuntu != Debian?
  • Just to see, I installed ubuntu 5.04 (I'm waiting for delivery of 5.10) on a new kit I built. On a Ausus A8V mobo (S939) w/ K8T800 pro VIA chipset and Athlon 3500+ and a cheap Radeon 9250 the install went flawlessly.

    The box is earmarked for Scientific Linux [scientificlinux.org] (which doesn't seem to get any play time on /.), but, again, ubuntu installed flawlessly and boots much faster than my multimedia/web WinXP intel box, which takes a loooooooong time.

    • [...] Scientific Linux (which doesn't seem to get any play time on /.)

      Well, rule number one of PR: Tell us what you do.
      I spend more than sixty seconds on the SL.org website and I still don't know what SL will give me over a Debian.
      I do, however, know that its appreviation is SL and it is build on Enterprise Linux - which is another distribution I have no knowledge of.
      • You're right, it was negligent of me to state the distro gets no play while neglecting to provide any info. There's a newsforge article [newsforge.com] that covers the basics in short order.

        My post was a spur of the moment, rah, rah, me too, sort of thing, as, coincidently, I just installed ubuntu last night.

        cheers

  • We love Ubuntu (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:40PM (#14109333) Homepage
    Here at Roaring Penguin, we've pretty much standardized on Debian for the technical staff and Ubuntu for the non-technical staff. It works very well for us.

    We do have one holdout on Slackware, but that's fine with me as long as he administers his own box...

    • We do too (Score:3, Interesting)

      by landonf ( 905751 )

      Here at Three Rings [threerings.net], we're migrating all developer desktops to Ubuntu. It works, it's free, and users can maintain it themselves.

      Ubuntu has mixed Debian's solid packaging tools with a healthy dose of pragmatism and arrived at a distribution that Just Works. As a desktop operating system, I couldn't be happier with how Ubuntu is working out.

  • Very low quality review (Score:5, Informative)

    by Freggy ( 825249 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:42PM (#14109342)
    I read the review of Mandriva 2006.0, and I have to conclude the review is of a really very low quality. Firstly, they are complaining about the lack of a tool to configure network printers. Was it that difficult to find the add printer item in the Mandriva Control Center, and check the two checkboxes for auto-detection of networked and Windows printers?

    They say that partitioning was difficult. Actually, first you have the choice to do everything automatically, choosing "use entire hard disk" or "use free space on Windows partition". Instead, they chose Custom partitioning, where again there is a button "Auto Allocate", which do everythinhg automatically once you resized the windows partitions. Now if they call this difficult, they should not have chosen the customized partitioning scheme in the first place. Actually I have heard of users having a lot more difficulties with the SuSE or Ubuntu partitioners.

    They say the Exchange connector for Evolution was not there. Did they actually bothered looking for it during half a minute? Then at least they would have found the package evolution-exchange!

    The real weak points of Mandriva 2006.0 are not talked about on the other hand. Not a word about the instabilities caused by the buggy beta X.org 6.9 included, by kat which makes kded eat all CPU time sometimes, and nothing about the old version of OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 which is included, and which is buggy (it crashes on SXI files it has created itself).

    Really, nothing to see here, move on people!

  • "only one crash"... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Yath ( 6378 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:44PM (#14109354) Journal

    It's funny how different perspectives can make communication difficult. For example, take this casual comment from the article:

    During the whole exercise, we only experienced one system crash...

    To a Linux user, the idea of "only one crash" is bemusing. A modern Linux system, going down so easily? That's very serious. Surely the author isn't familiar with the territory.

    Later, it becomes clearer, when the Mandriva review states:

    ...an accidental combination of keystrokes -- experimenting around Ctrl-Alt-E to try and get a euro symbol -- crashed the system and dumped us at a $-prompt command line, with no obvious route back to our unsaved work.

    Obviously, this is not what a Linux user would call a "system crash". I suppose it's just as well that Windows users would be asked to review Linux distros for the desktop, though. A Linux user might regard this as a minor problem, forgetting that to most people, this is indeed a show-stopper.

    • A Linux user might regard this as a minor problem, forgetting that to most people, this is indeed a show-stopper.

      You're absolutely right. This is the problem with the Linux developers, they got so accustomed to it that they forget about their first problems and how they solved them. It's like learning a language and forgetting about your native language.

      We'd need an army of Windows Joe users trying to test Linux and reporting all the things they don't feel comfortable with. And we need to keep them fresh so
      • > About those commandline shortcuts, I'd say that these should be disabled by default.

        Please no - they are there for a reason.

        They are on obscure key combinations for a reason.

        The distros should document how to use the "compose" key to create other common European characters, and make sure "compose" is mapped to a key "out of the box". Heck composing foreign character is much easier under X than it ever was under MS Windows, I don't understand why Microsoft didn't just copy it, since I doubt anyone would
        • I agree that it's a great feature, but they should have a message on the command line saying "Use this key combination to get back to the GUI: " for the inexperienced who accidentely stumbled across the key combinations.
      • It's a double edges sword really. On the one hand if you ignore them the windows users will howl and cry like a baby. On the other hand if you try to replicate their windows experience they will howl and cry because you are not innovating and instead duping windows. What's more they will also berate you daily for not exactly duplicating every little nitpick too.

        I don't think it's possible to please them really.
    • ...an accidental combination of keystrokes -- experimenting around Ctrl-Alt-E to try and get a euro symbol -- crashed the system and dumped us at a $-prompt command line, with no obvious route back to our unsaved work.

      Obviously, this is not what a Linux user would call a "system crash". I suppose it's just as well that Windows users would be asked to review Linux distros for the desktop, though. A Linux user might regard this as a minor problem, forgetting that to most people, this is indeed a show-stop

      • [...]and then pressed Backspace

        Well, if they were runlevel 5 (which is the default for almost all distros these days), it would just respawn GDM/KDM/XDM - not drop them to a command line.

  • Citrix (Score:3, Informative)

    by Rinnt ( 917105 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @05:56PM (#14109401)
    A long time fan of Mandriva I decided to give the latest Ubuntu a try. I soon found out there is a problem with the 9.0 Citrix Linux client. True, you may be able to use an RDP connection to the server, but shadowing doesn't always work in this mode. I really should have given it more effort, but instead I moved on to try Mandriva 2006. The same thing existed there! In Mandriva I was eventually able to get it to work by installing the latest openmotif and using the 7.0 Citrix client. I'm sure the same solution probably works in Ubuntu...

    Sure, Citrix may hardly be a requirment in most businesses. However, for those of us that do use it we're usually pretty dependent on it. Although this was a pretty serious problem I had with Ubuntu, it's still a great distro IMHO.
    • installing the latest openmotif

      I didn't think there was such a beast. Motif went out with the Ark. That there says everything about the quality of Citrix software. Some flavour of VMWare is surely a better option?

      Bob
  • They didn't take into account having to administer a couple hundred or thousand of those desktops, which is a whole different ball game. Ubuntu is great for one personal desktop, but from a corporate point of view its not on par with Red Hat or Novell.
    Regards,
    Steve
    • They didn't take into account having to administer a couple hundred or thousand of those desktops, which is a whole different ball game. Ubuntu is great for one personal desktop, but from a corporate point of view its not on par with Red Hat or Novell.

      Please explain. I've not used Novell, but I'm currently an Ubuntu user and I've worked with Red Hat quite a bit, and I don't see how Ubuntu would present any challenges that Red Hat wouldn't.
    • How would the admin be worse? If one setup unattended or semi-unattended installs, in a similar manner to Kickstart, and allowed key-based SSH from a specific group of management servers, it seems like it'd be relatively easy. Setup your own apt repository, much like setting up a Red Hat Satellite Server, have the desktops use it for updates, and use scripts to spray out updates as needed. Make sure the user's data is stored on network mounts, use LDAP and/or NIS/Kerberos for authentication and managemen
  • As far as I know, installation time is also important when choosing the best software, so why Gentoo isn't first?
  • SuSE Professional comes with the best dead tree documentation available for a distro and has payed support. For any real business enviroment that is the selling point.

  • Would've like to see Mepis too... (Score:4, Informative)

    by darnok ( 650458 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:28PM (#14109564)
    Ubuntu is very nice - no doubt about it. I've got it on my main desktop at home, and have been very happy with it since the first release.

    I've also had a lot of joy with Mepis; a particularly nice feature is that you can boot off the CD, then install off the same CD. Ubuntu has separate discs for "live CD" and "install". I know it's a minor point to experienced Linux people, but having a single CD to boot and/or install from is pretty mindblowing for someone who's had to install Windows...

    That said, being able to install a complete desktop with a full set of desktop apps from a single CD is pretty wonderful, compared to Windows. I know my parents were pretty impressed with that when I moved them off Windows; from past experience reinstalling Windows, I think they thought it'd take several hours rather than about 30 minutes.

  • ...why? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by scott_karana ( 841914 )
    Really, who cares which distro is the best out of the box?
    I've always felt that one of Linux's strengths the fact that it's super easy to customize and deploy in that very sort of homogenous environment.

  • Useless (Score:2, Funny)

    by 4D6963 ( 933028 )
    Ubuntu is a cool distro, as long as you don't try to build/compile something in it, which makes it of hardly any use, at least for me. I like the nude wallpapers concept too, although I don't like the ratio 2 men - 1 woman too much.
    • sudo apt-get install build-essentials. go eat some turkey and have some fun with the womenly background and in just a few minutes you should have a perfectly viable build system.

  • Ubuntu's best "business friendly" feature: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pschmied ( 5648 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:51PM (#14109651) Homepage
    Ubuntu has started by locking the root account and making proper use of sudo (and it's various graphical equivalents).

    This is increadibly handy. Not that you couldn't do this on other distributions, but it's nice to see this feature in Ubuntu by default. I'm partial to OpenSUSE myself, but their (and many others') handling of sudo is misinformed [thoughtspot.net].

    -Peter

  • With a good IT department.. (Score:3)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @06:54PM (#14109667) Homepage Journal
    What flavor you choose is less important. At this point in time most unix flavor can be made into what your company needs.

    If they cant do that, then your IT department has no business making a change yet.
  • I have a copy of knoppix installed to hard drive and configured to my liking.

    At this point does ubuntu have anything to offer me worth the trouble of switching distros? Am I better off sticking with what I have and simply apt-get updating?

    Is the appeal of ubuntu an easily install with a lot of end user oriented precofigurations ( as opposed to customization crazy geek hobbyist )?

    • I've only tried the bootable live CDs for Knoppix (4.0.2) and Ubuntu (5.10) and I found them both excellent in ease of configuration, detecting weird devices (a 3Ware controller with 2TB of disk an ATI Radeon graphics card on one machine, a somewhat weird laptop with Atheros wireless and an Intel video driver on another).

      The big difference is the amount of stuff Knoppix puts in the menus -- it's overwhelming trying to figure out what app is where. Ubuntu instead has very clean and short menus of the apps yo

      • The big difference is the amount of stuff Knoppix puts in the menus -- it's overwhelming trying to figure out what app is where. Ubuntu instead has very clean and short menus of the apps you're likely to actually want as a desktop or typical server user.

        I have noticed over the years that Gnome has shorter menus then the KDE and much more shorter menus then icewm ( what a mess ). I am wondering if your experience is the result of Ubuntu or Gnome? Is Gnome much more polished in Ubuntu then it is in other

        • Re my comment about long menus in Knoppix vs Ubuntu Live CDs, beforewisdom writes "I have noticed over the years that Gnome has shorter menus then the KDE ... I am wondering if your experience is the result of Ubuntu or Gnome?"

          It's possible. I would have seen the default window manager(s) for the Ubuntu and Knoppix bootable discs.

          --Pat

  • Distribution of choice (Score:5, Funny)

    by DeathElk ( 883654 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @07:40PM (#14109890)
    The following quote from a slashdotter (who's name escapes me) kind of brings perspective to the whole battle for superiority amongst distros:

    "My distribution of choice is superior in every way to your pathetic distribution of choice. You are the lowest form of loser to think that your worthless distribution could hold a candle to the God-like superiority of my distribution.

    "My distribution's superiority is clearly demonstrated by it's magnificent out-of-the box handling of my obscure feature of choice. Your pathetic distribution doesn't even support my obscure feature of choice without a course of action so complex that it's madness to even contemplate it.

    "Clearly, my distribution of choice will utterly destroy your distribution of choice. This is so certain it is pointless for you to resist it."

  • The last time I installed Ubuntu, it came with no support for WPA encryption, and the guides to set it up didn't work. That's a showstopping flaw for anyone who uses a wireless network, IMO.

  • Where is Fedora (Score:2, Insightful)

    by camcorder ( 759720 )
    They didn't test Fedora and decided best distro for small bussinesses? Are they on crack?
  • It's nice to know which is best for the desktop but I'm not wanting to switch away from XP with outlook and office yet. I'm still at the stage of wanting to switch away from small business server 2000 which we use for SQL server, exchange, domain controller and file serving.

    Now I know that all of the features can be replaced for the file serving via samba, and I'm sure that we can set up a domain controller somehow, but will postgres or mysql directly replace sql server and allow my apps to work without c
  • From my personal experience, it doesn't actually matter what distro you choose for a project roll out. What matters is:

    1. Application/OS requirements (which might well stop the OS transition).

    2. Knowledge of the hardware on the floor.

    3. Understanding of the level of end-user experience (and amount of necessary hand holding that will be necessary).

    Once those three items are in place, it comes down to the IT cat.

    For a mixed floor, Ubuntu works great as it has absolutely beautiful hardware detection. Is that

  • Linux vs. OS-X (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jpalit ( 776862 )
    Very interesting conversation brewing up at:

    http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/forum/showthread.p hp?p=310 [linux-on-laptops.com]

  • news from the field (Score:5, Informative)

    by erinacht ( 592019 ) on Friday November 25, 2005 @01:53AM (#14111329) Homepage
    I run a business (admittedly I'm a one man band contractor). My server is ubuntu and my laptop is ubuntu. Both very nice and easy and quick to configure, it wasn't completely painless, but neither is a windows server/desktop solution.
    I've also just upgraded my in-law's aging P2 300 win98 machine with ubuntu. They're very happy with it. Their needs are limited admittedly - web,mail,digital camera,chess,patience. Ubuntu passes with flying colours. I showed them round gnome in a matter of minutes and they were up to speed in no time. Now they keep saying things like - it's _so_ much faster. it looks _so_ much better. No surprise really since win98 is now 7 years old and ubuntu 5.10 is 1 month old. The point is that they would not have had the same experience had I tried a WinXP upgrade on that old hardware.
    For a home desktop, I can recommend Automatix - that installs all that "other" stuff for a desktop system.
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=66563 [ubuntuforums.org]
    Capabilities:
    1) Installs multimedia codecs
    2) Installs all Firefox plugins (java, flash, etc) (except Adobe reader and mplayer)
    3) Installs RAR, ACE and UNRAR archive support
    4) Installs skype
    5) Installs Acrobat reader 7 and firefox plugin for the same.
    6) Installs Gnomebaker (CD/DVD burning s/w for GNOME)
    7) Installs gftp (FTP client for GNOME with ssh capability)
    8) Installs DC++ , amule and Limewire (file sharing progs)
    9) Installs multimedia editors (Audacity (audio), Kino (video), EasyTag (ID3))
    10) Installs DVD (dvdrip) ripper
    11) Installs Mplayer and mplayerplug-in version 3.05 for Firefox
    12) Installs totem-xine, VLC and Beep Media Player (with docklet)
    13) Installs Opera Browser
    14) Installs Debian Menu (shows all installed applications) (this kills and restarts your gnome-panel without warning u!)
    15) Installs Bittornado and Azureus (Bittorrent clients)
    16) Installs Avidemux (Video editing tool)
    17) Enables Numlock on (turns numlock on Gnome startup)
    18) Installs Programming Tools (Anjuta (C/C++ IDE), Bluefish (HTML editor) and Screem (Web Development Env.))
    19) Install GnomePPP (Graphical Dial up connection tool)
    20) Installs MS true type fonts
    21) Configures ctrl-alt-del to start gnome-system-monitor (aka windows)
    22) Installs Streamripper and Streamtuner
    23) Installs NON-FREE audio and dvd codecs
    24) Installs ndisgtk (WiFi configurator Graphical user interface)
    25) Upgrades Open Office to 2.0 (final version), installs openoffice clipart and installs OO2 thumbnailer. (no support for AMD64 and ppc packages)
    26) Adds 3 nautilus scripts (open any file with gedit as root; open a nautilus window as root in any folder; open gnome search tool in any folder (Right click in a nautilus window and look under "scripts")
    27) Installs SUN'S JAVA JRE and JDK version 1.5
    28) Installs wine (u need to run winecfg manually after installation)
    29*) Installs firestarter (GNOME firewall frontend) and adds firestarter to GNOME startup
    30*) installs gdesklets (GNOME eyecandy) and adds gdesklets to GNOME startup
    31*) Gamepads (Makes USB gamepads work)
    32*) Turns DMA ON on Intel and AMD machines (needs a restart)
    33*) NVIDIA cards (Detects Nvidia cards and installs drivers) (Needs a restart)
    34*) Adds midi capability to your Ubuntu box (test by playing a midi file with timidity or pmidi from terminal)

    * --> These options require manual intervention and clicking. Please stand by!

    PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL (23) IF YOU ARE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO SO.

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