Moomalade

About once a year I get an itch to install Linux as a desktop machine. It never really lasts very long as inevitably I need to boot into Windows for some reason or another then end up forgetting about the Linux installation and eventually recovering the disk space.

Recently my laptop was screaming at my to dual boot it with a Linux distribution so I couldn’t resist.

I’ve previously been a RedHat (and more recently Fedora) fan for server installations but I wanted to try something different so I went for OpenSuse 10.2. Downloading it was a pain because the mirrors didn’t work and the torrent was incredibly slow. When I did manage to find a French mirror that worked with wxDFast I got a decent speed. After installation the desktop was slugish, the wireless network settings were hidden away in the control panel and the desktop font rendering looked decidedly dodgey.
So Suse stayed installed for a grand total of 20 minutes.

Not be deterred, I tried Ubuntu and Kubuntu.
Kubuntu is a repackaged version of Ubuntu with KDE as the default desktop rather than GNOME. Interestingly Kunbuntu is shipped on a DVD while Ubuntu is shipped on a CD. I didn’t look too hard, but I didn’t notice anything extra installed on the Kubuntu version by default. I tried Kubuntu first, then Ubuntu — I prefer the GNOME distribution. I may be influenced by the fact I have major gripes with developing on KDE (which I’ll get onto another time) and the annoying way everything on my desktop has to begin with K — as if I must be constantly reminded I’m running KDE.

When booting up I receive a rather unhelpful PCI memory resource error, but it seems to have no ill effect. The start up and shut down times are much slower than XP, as are hibernate and restore, which is a shame as I’m quite used to just hibernating XP on my Laptop and have it restore in about 10 seconds. Strangely setting muting the audio volume doesn’t actually mute audio output, it just makes it really quiet. VPN isn’t installed by default and once installed the default settings have to be twiddled to connect to a Windows Server 2003 VPN Server — for reference you need to set ‘refuse EAP’ and ‘require MPPE’. Connection error feedback is weak and you need to check the system logs to work out what is going on. Once connected to my work VPN the system refuses to resolve DNS address through the peer DNS even though /etc/resolv.conf is set correctly by the network manager. NSLookup functions correctly but nothing else does. Static routes fix this but it is really quite annoying.

All that said, Ubuntu has been installed for three weeks now and I’m still happily playing with it. I’m a fan of Vista too — with or without Aero Vista is a nicer experience than XP. Much more functional out of the box and I love the new metaphors in the interface. Dealing with media is a lot easier and the system is generally more responsive for me.
Ubuntu is not as slick or user friendly as Vista and it’s design is not as well thought out or as consistent but I think it is comparable to or better than XP — if you ignore some of the gnarlier administrative tasks that normal users might have to do. Visually I like the GTK theme with Ubuntu, it’s crisp, which is good because Beryl on Ubuntu isn’t really up to scratch yet — it feels like a shotgun of visual effects that just slow your computer down.

Ubuntu isn’t really competing with Vista yet and Rebecca will choose to boot into XP over Ubuntu every time on the laptop even though the only application she’s using is Firefox, simply because XP is more familiar and boots up faster. Perfectly good reasons.

All in all, I’m seriously impressed with Ubuntu. I can play with Linux and have a usable desktop at the same time!
I wrote this article in Firefox on Ubuntu, and I can check my work email using Outlook Web Access on Firefox.

Now all I need is a text editor that supports virtual space.