Re: Was OT--Win7 and disk partitions; now using Linux
- From: Raphael Tennenbaum <rtennenbaum@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:36:22 -0400
Paul Lagasse wrote:
2) the cooperation with manufacturers allows them to incorporate
proprietary drivers and codecs smoothly, and
I think things work better now than they did some releases ago (say,
7.10) but it still pays to buy a Linux distro preloaded on a laptop or
netbook -- that's the only way to guarantee that (almost) everything
will work (wifi and webcams tend to be problem areas). And as for those
codecs, well, there remain some intriguing legal issues....
now you mention it, I couldn't get my fancy webcam working on this
machine so I moved it back to the XP box. however the little webcam
built-in to the Asus netbook works very nicely under Skype & Ubuntu 9.10.
I defer to your expertise, though I was impressed because when I
installed 9.10 onto the netbook, all the third-party hardware-customized
features developed by hackers that I'd had to install manually under
8.10 had been incorporated into the distro. that users would put in this
effort and see their work so rewarded was something I'd never seen.
3) they've slicked up the way superuser works, which takes a big,
confusing step out of installation, and also makes day-to-day sudo-ing
easier. call it a pop distro if you want, but it happens to be the
best pop distro I've seen, better than Red Hat or Suse.
I'd be willing to call it a pop distro -- Ubuntu seems to be aiming to
produce a Linux distro that "just works" for a computer user who no
longer needs training wheels (out-of-the-box, though, I think Mint does
an even better job for the average user). And Ubuntu does do a pretty
good job -- my wife's been on Ubuntu for the last two years with no more
hiccups than she'd have in Windows -- fewer, probably. For the one or
two things where she really needs Windows, there's XP on VMware. But
"just works" is a tall order for Ubuntu with all the hardware and
Win/Mac-only proprietary drivers that are out there. With time, and a
little Linux critical mass, that might improve.
And I think Debian's massive contribution to Ubuntu gets overlooked too
often (though probably not by Debian fans). All those software
repositories, as well as the sturdy tools (dpkg, apt-get, aptitude,
synaptic) with which to install them, are part of the great debt Ubuntu
owes to Debian. I think it's fair to say that Ubuntu took Debian and
gave it developmental focus and drive, though the 6-month Ubuntu release
cycle is beginning to seem a touch counterproductive to me.
are you only using Mint, Paul? I wanted to check something: using
Xywrite under Dosemu under 9.04, when I switch to fullscreen, it looks
really nice, that is to say just like it did on my Leading Edge under
DOS in 1986. however, dosemu Xywrite under 9.10 on the netbook
preserves a border -- it basically looks like windowed dosemu that's
filling the screen -- quite useable, just not what I'm looking for.
my first thought was maybe it was a function of the netbook's display
driver -- which it may be, however, under 9.04, fullscreen dosemu
expanded to "true VGA." if you've got dosemu running under Karmic I'd be
curious what it looks like when you ctrl-atl-f.
-rafe
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