Linux Tried Linux? Share your experiance/thoughts/rants

G

Gaurish

Level F
Hi All,

If you have given Linux a try for first time or tried a new distro.then share your experience.It would be nice to know what are the common problem users face or what attracts people the most. or maybe a place to share your thoughts on a new distro you just tried.

Most important,

It does not matter is your experience is good or bad. just post it:hap2:

Let me start(you can copy the following format):

Distro: Ubuntu 10.4 Alpha 2

Previous Linux Knowledge :Experienced(knows how to use it)

What you Like:

* All my hardware is supported out of box.

* Theme and overall look and feel

* Installing Software is very easy via Ubuntu Software Center

What you didn't Like:

* Incomplete Hindi Language Translations. half of the menus are still appear in English

* Left side Placement of Close,Min, Maximize button of all windows.

Overall:

Ubuntu, Stop copying mac.

Rating:

3/5
Click to expand...
 
Distro: Ubuntu and Kubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) alpha 3 (updated to pre beta 1)

Previous knowledge: Experienced.

Likes:

* Clean simple GNOME UI and shiny KDE UI.

* Sanest choice of default apps in the install compared to other distros.

* Based on debian/apt/deb packaging which I like the best.

* Unrivalled community support and online docs and info.

* LTS (long term supported) releases makes it no brainer to get it installed in office :)

* They are also conservative with updates after releasing maximising on stability and follow an "SRU" (stable release updates) process for exceptions.

* Always seems to work well with my hardware compared to other distros and other users' experiences.

Dislikes:

* Ubuntu's manpower shortage results in some rough edges like pulseaudio problems and Kubuntu usually lagging behind fit-and-finish polish levels of Ubuntu releases. But things are improving.

* Do not like the latest theme/UI/colours at all! The new logo is very good though. Great to see plymouth/nouveau progress.

Summary: Ubuntu has the best chance of fixing their "bug number 1" IMHO, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1 and the 10.04 LTS release looks like it will be a blockbuster!

Rating: 9/10

-------------------------------------

Distro: Fedora 13 (Goddard) alpha

Previous knowledge: Sufficient.

Likes:

* Always on the cutting edge yet nowadays able to be stable enough too.

* Their philosophy of sticking to clear Free software only - avoid proprietary stuff in the default install.

* Their Redhat backing gives them considerable manpower to push the envelope and always have a nice set of early features typically beating Ubuntu by being 6 months ahead of time.

* Unique and early/stabler features like Virtualization (KVM/qemu stable), Presto, btrfs (snapshots)

* Regular and cutting updates even after release - things like kernel updates come more freely compared to Ubuntu.

Dislikes:

* RPM/yum etc. Even though there is Presto I always seem to have trouble running alphas due to package conflicts etc. Must be my inexperience with this distro.

* For me, Fedora always seems to have hardware problems/incompatibilities especially during alpha phases. So I end up having to wait for Beta/RC/final release before installing anyway.

* Their "cutting edge" approach makes it hard to convince office admins to install it - plus I have a cynical distrust being US-corporate backed (Redhat) vs. Ubuntu being backed by European Canonical so far not evil :)

Overall: Great for linux savvy home users and open source enthusiasts who can enjoy cutting technology early on and at stable levels.

Rating: 8/10

Distro: Arch

Previous knowledge: Beginner.

Likes:

* Excellent wiki pages for beginners to follow and learn.

* Highly customisable/configurable

* Rolling release model is quite nice concept.

Dislikes:

* Rolling release model again means more maintenance by me.

* Even other distros like "dumbed down" Ubuntu can be hacked if you know how and where to look and what to do...

* I didn't enjoy it even with 512kbps unlimited connection - with current 8mbps its decent IMHO.

Overall: Great option for those interested in rolling release model and those who want easy learning curve to tinker with their Linux :)

Rating: 7/10

---------------------------------

Others: OpenSUSE, Mandriva... bah I dont want to bother wasting more time with them :D Currently using debian squeeze but plain console based for compiling Qt/KDE stuff so can't really comment on the distro overall.
 
Distro: Ubuntu 10.4 Alpha 3

Previous Linux Knowledge : Novice but comfortable enough.

What you Like:

Nice look and feel.

Excellent choice of default fonts. Feels very very easy on the eyes.

Great colour & design choices.

Intuitive.

What you didn't Like:

Dependence on the internet for getting most things to work.

Dependence on other related installations. Standalone installations are few and rare in between.

Being alpha, obviously buggy for now.

Overall - Considering potential, 4/5.
 
Distro: Ubuntu 9.10
Previous Linux Knowledge : Novice

What you Like:
* Small install size, Decent GUI, Very Fast, Easy to use
* Installing Software is very easy via Ubuntu Software Center
* Somehow i am like listening to audio more on Amarok+ALSA than Fb2k+ASIO4all.

What you didn't Like:
* Skype installs, but the video is not showing via my logitech quickcam connect :huh: Can somebody pls help me?

Overall:
I really like Ubuntu and i fell in love more with it after i used openSUSE 11.2. OMG, that was a disaster for me, couldn't figure out anything in openSUSE.

Rating:
4/5
 
Distro: Ubuntu 9.10 (soon to be 10.04)

Previous Linux Experience: Zero, Zilch, Nada, None

Likes:

* No malware/spyware/virus crap. Better security out-of-the-box.

* Light and clean GUI. Aesthetically pleasing.

* Tweaking it to my taste and not having to go with standardized OS. Not to forget silly error messages

* Awesome and quick community support with a huge database of troubleshooting.

Dislikes:

* Incomplete hardware support. Webcam is not functioning with Skype or Ekiga, but works with Cheese. Realtek Audio hardware is not recognized, just the basic audio features work (I have a damn sub-woofer built into the laptop for God's sake! Which obviously doesn't get utilized). The WLAN didn't work with earlier releases, but works with 9.10.

* No support for iPod. No proper syncing app. It is the one thing that I have to boot into windows for. :(

Other thoughts: The day Ubuntu/Linux starts supporting the latest hardware and graphic accelerators, I will readily install it on my HTPC. Till then, unfortunately, Windows will have to do the job.

Rating: 9/10
 
yea @ phoenix8888999444xxxyyyzzz: ubuntu 10.04 (gnome) apparently has "smooth" ipodtouch/iphone "support" (without the need to jailbreak which i havent) which means i am TOTALLY free of windows now/soon no thanks to Apple (die apple die)! :D

see: Confirmed: Ubuntu 10.04 Supports iPhone / iPod Touch Out Of The Box ~ Web Upd8

note:

Update: thanks to Karl whom I am going to quote below, we find out that this is in no way thanks to Canonical:

It happened thanks to Marcan (and the other fellows) from usbmuxd. The libgpod and GNOME integration is mainly from Bastien Nocera of GNOME and Fedora fame. usbmuxd/gtkpod/libiphone etc. are the one who deserve credits for that.
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Ubuntu user here

what I dont like - Pushing bleeding edge stuff onto unsuspecting users as stable releases.

Examples?

KDE 4.0

Amarok 2.0

Pulseaudio (:@)

crash recovery handling not as good as windows ( it might do well for sysadmins with 99.99% uptime, but for those of us in india with powercuts and dying UPS's , it sucks :|)

too many thick headed devs who close problems saying that it is as designed, even though there are a majority of users crying otherwise :|

It was fun when you could curse microsoft for all your functionality issues. But who should you blame when its a fellow F/OSS developer?
 
Dark Star said:
ipod/iphones works 100% with Rythmbox :)
Click to expand...

Not for me it doesn't. Last I used Rhythmbox for syncing my iPod, it made me drag and drop mp3s into the iPod folder, totally messed up my carefully arranged tags and album art, and somehow deleted all those "synced" songs from my library! And this was with an old black and white clickwheel type iPod. God only knows what it will do to my iPod Touch.

vishalrao said:
yea @ phoenix8888999444xxxyyyzzz: ubuntu 10.04 (gnome) apparently has "smooth" ipodtouch/iphone "support" (without the need to jailbreak which i havent) which means i am TOTALLY free of windows now/soon no thanks to Apple (die apple die)! :D

see: Confirmed: Ubuntu 10.04 Supports iPhone / iPod Touch Out Of The Box ~ Web Upd8
Click to expand...

Vishalji, I hope 10.04 brings better support for iPod Touch. It would be horrible to lose most of the album art and tags again. One thing I didn't get, there won't be a need to jailbreak the iPod Touch to use it with 10.04, right? What if it is already JBed?
 
greenhorn said:
crash recovery handling not as good as windows ( it might do well for sysadmins with 99.99% uptime, but for those of us in india with powercuts and dying UPS's , it sucks :|)
Click to expand...

fsck checks giving you a hard time kya?

just, curious to know:D
 
no he must be talking about the ext4 delayed-write issue (write behind) causing file loss/corruption upon sudden power cuts :D getting a working UPS (or disabling write caching or upgrading to latest ubuntu) fixes that issue :P
 
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