Re: Linux distro - Mailing list pgsql-general

On 8/4/07, Decibel! <decibel@decibel.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 08:22:24AM -0400, Kenneth Downs wrote:
> > Ubuntu: What Windows wants to be, what the Mac is w/o the $$$$ and with
> > more control.  I just replaced a hard drive in a dell machine.  A
> ...
> > Great graphics, great package management.  However, it is still Linux
> > and you still have to do some Googling here and there to find a HOWTO.
> > Perhaps the most annoying problem is lack of support for widescreen
> > monitors, you have to type tech data into an X config to get that
> > working.  Also, IMHO stay away from 7.04, I've tried it on two machines
>
> Sorry, couldn't let that pass. In 3 statements you just proved why
> Ubuntu isn't remotely close to OS X. OS X pretty much just gets the heck
> out of your way so you can do real work. Networking just works. Video
> just works. By and large, you just don't have to mess with anything. Not
> only that, but you still have all the unix tools you're used to (though
> for development you'll need to install Xcode, but that comes with recent
> versions so it's not a big deal).

I think you nailed it, but the situation is very fluid right now.  I'm
a recent convert to the desktop linux camp and here are some of my
personal observations about what is going as well as some predictions.

I've set up about 6 ubuntu desktop machines with feisty...about half
were relatively easy and the other half had time consuming problems.
It is virtually impossible to set up a high end desktop/laptop without
at least some X tweaking.  Most of the problems were display related
and the new version (gutsy) will have major overhauls of the way X
works and will be a big release.  I am betting the next LTS release,
the one after gutsy will be very successful.  ubuntu already has
tremendous momentum and it's looking pretty clear (at least to me)
that it is going to make desktop linux a reality where so many
previous efforts have failed due to the community and support efforts
that are organizing around the project.

On a very subjective level, I find the Gnome window manager (with
Beryl/Compiz installed) to be much better and easier to use than the
OS/X desktop.  I bet this is mostly because I basically used windows
too long and OS/X is a bigger departure.  For purposes of development
it's a wash,OS/X has some excellent tools (textpad, etc) but years of
server deployment have made me very used to linux and I since I will
probably never deploy PostgreSQL on OS/X (I have seen a lot of
circumstantial evidence that the linux kernel is better for the
PostgreSQL database) using ubuntu I get to work in a virtually uniform
environment.

I see big changes coming.  The real sexy market is corporate
workstations...if linux can crack this market, it will be a huge
victory for open source.

merlin