News Item: : Decisions, Decisions
(Category: Linux)
Posted by Brad R
Tuesday 12 January 2010 - 10:43:18
The time finally came to upgrade my wife's computer. She's been running Xandros 4 Linux -- based on Debian 3.1 "Sarge," two releases out of date -- and it's been working just fine. But she now has a new HP printer, not supported by Xandros 4. And her old version of Firefox is starting to be rejected by some websites. Both Debian 3.1 and Xandros 4 are no longer supported -- they still have functioning repositories, but no new or updated programs are being added to those repositories.
Now, in the open source world it would be possible for me to get the source code for every program she needs, and compile it from scratch. But then I'll invariably discover that those programs depend on up-to-date versions of other programs. And those depend on still others being upgraded. It becomes quite a large project to rebuild everything from scratch! In terms of effort, it's much easier to upgrade to a newer Linux distribution.
For the first cut, I settled on three candidates.
Debian 5 "Lenny." This is what I'm using on my desktop, and our full-size laptop. Its advantages are that it's stable (new releases are infrequent), old releases are well supported, it has a huge software repository, it would make both our desktop PCs identical, and I'm familiar with it. Its chief disadvantage is that of all the distros I've tried, it's the most difficult to configure -- not a job for a new user.
Fedora 12. I considered this because we just put Fedora 11 on my wife's Aspire One netbook. Advantages: it's well supported, it seems easy to configure, and it would make her netbook and desktop very similar in appearance and operation. Disadvantages: it uses KDE 4 (a bit resource-hungry for her old 1.6 GHz Athlon, and disconcertingly different from the KDE 3 she knows), I'd have to learn to maintain two totally different systems (e.g. RPM vs. DEB package tools), and older versions seem to be aggressively retired.
Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala." I put Ubuntu back on the list since I found out that older repositories are still available. Advantages: really easy to use and install, and very well supported. Disadvantages: the KDE version (Kubuntu) is less widely used, it uses KDE 4, it demands a lot of resources, the repository is smaller, older versions are aggressively retired, and I've been disconcerted by some of the problems reported with 9.10 (which seems to have been rushed to release).
Before making the final decision, I asked my wife if she would have a problem using different environments on her desktop and her netbook. This was after she'd used Fedora 11 on her netbook for a week or so. She replied that she had no difficulty switching back and forth. So one big argument for Fedora 12 went away.
Ultimately, I realized that my arguments against Debian centered around the fact that it is more difficult to install and configure. Once set up, it's as easy to use as any other distro I've tried. This increased "up front" work is compensated by the fact that all of our computers, save two, will be using the same distro, so my ongoing maintenance tasks will be easier.
Debian it is.
This news item is from Goodbye, Microsoft®
( http://goodbyemicrosoft.net/news.php?extend.549 )
(Category: Linux)
Posted by Brad R
Tuesday 12 January 2010 - 10:43:18
The time finally came to upgrade my wife's computer. She's been running Xandros 4 Linux -- based on Debian 3.1 "Sarge," two releases out of date -- and it's been working just fine. But she now has a new HP printer, not supported by Xandros 4. And her old version of Firefox is starting to be rejected by some websites. Both Debian 3.1 and Xandros 4 are no longer supported -- they still have functioning repositories, but no new or updated programs are being added to those repositories.
Now, in the open source world it would be possible for me to get the source code for every program she needs, and compile it from scratch. But then I'll invariably discover that those programs depend on up-to-date versions of other programs. And those depend on still others being upgraded. It becomes quite a large project to rebuild everything from scratch! In terms of effort, it's much easier to upgrade to a newer Linux distribution.
For the first cut, I settled on three candidates.
Debian 5 "Lenny." This is what I'm using on my desktop, and our full-size laptop. Its advantages are that it's stable (new releases are infrequent), old releases are well supported, it has a huge software repository, it would make both our desktop PCs identical, and I'm familiar with it. Its chief disadvantage is that of all the distros I've tried, it's the most difficult to configure -- not a job for a new user.
Fedora 12. I considered this because we just put Fedora 11 on my wife's Aspire One netbook. Advantages: it's well supported, it seems easy to configure, and it would make her netbook and desktop very similar in appearance and operation. Disadvantages: it uses KDE 4 (a bit resource-hungry for her old 1.6 GHz Athlon, and disconcertingly different from the KDE 3 she knows), I'd have to learn to maintain two totally different systems (e.g. RPM vs. DEB package tools), and older versions seem to be aggressively retired.
Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala." I put Ubuntu back on the list since I found out that older repositories are still available. Advantages: really easy to use and install, and very well supported. Disadvantages: the KDE version (Kubuntu) is less widely used, it uses KDE 4, it demands a lot of resources, the repository is smaller, older versions are aggressively retired, and I've been disconcerted by some of the problems reported with 9.10 (which seems to have been rushed to release).
Before making the final decision, I asked my wife if she would have a problem using different environments on her desktop and her netbook. This was after she'd used Fedora 11 on her netbook for a week or so. She replied that she had no difficulty switching back and forth. So one big argument for Fedora 12 went away.
Ultimately, I realized that my arguments against Debian centered around the fact that it is more difficult to install and configure. Once set up, it's as easy to use as any other distro I've tried. This increased "up front" work is compensated by the fact that all of our computers, save two, will be using the same distro, so my ongoing maintenance tasks will be easier.
Debian it is.
This news item is from Goodbye, Microsoft®
( http://goodbyemicrosoft.net/news.php?extend.549 )