Ubuntu Linux

Ubuntu Linux, everyone is talking about it. So why shouldn't I? Having struggled with hardware conflicts, I am not the best person to brag about it. And I of all people realize that operating systems must be compared without regard to the graphical interface. In addition to that, Linux distributions must be compared regardless of the underlying kernel, because that is consistent throughout them all (in varying degrees of conformance to the bleeding edge versions).

Take Slackware Linux. (my distro of choice) Slackware requires much command-line editing of configuration files for system administration. Everything is located in /etc unless otherwise specified by the readily-available man pages. All of the startup scripts are in /etc/rc.d not sorted into crazy categories under /etc/init.d as they are in Debian-based distros

Take Ubuntu now. The installer is a live-cd; their desktop manager of choice is Gnome, which is cute and decently functional. Regardless of that, I had some success doing some rescue work creating a new user from the command-line, using system text files in /etc, but other script-based config that I customarily do on my Slackware systems was necessary yet impossible on the Ubuntu box. The hardware support is wonderful, despite what I said previously. It picked up my volume controls on my laptop, and while it doesn't support the switch to disable the wireless card, there is a system tray app that allows just that. Overall, I think it is a feasible economy solution for a very functional desktop user (laptops, too) but not an ideal for any developers, unless they themselves are looking to learn from concepts deployed in Ubuntu Linux. I myself prefer Slackware over all others.

Registered Linux User #370740 (http://counter.li.org)