[NTLUG:Discuss] Dallas Ubuntu Team

[Robert Pearson]

On 9/11/06, Schpenke <schpenke at juicymumpy.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-09-11 at 16:47 -0500, Robert Pearson wrote:
>
> >
> > How would you characterize Ubuntu and Kubuntu?
> > Bleeding edge?
> > Trailing edge?
>
> Hmm... is there such a thing as a cautiously persistent edge?

Sure. If it is undefined it is "bleeding edge", and if defined, trailing edge.

>
> On one hand you're never going to be in the Alpha testing team with any
> Ubuntu distro unless that's something that you want and volunteer to do.
> Most application and driver installations will have been properly tested
> and given a thumbs-up after a proper alpha/beta lifeline before being
> made available.
>
> > I tried Ubuntu 4.?? a couple of years ago and it failed to recognize my
> > NIC and my monitor. I gave up after being unable to find updated drivers
> > for either. I will take the blame here. That is when I became aware I was
> > a "trailing edge" guy.
> > I am sure Debian and Ubuntu/Kubuntu are fine now.
>
> I have only run across a few devices that haven't been handled with
> Ubuntu 6.06.  One of them was a suspiciously cheap USB thumbdrive, one
> was a multipurpose USB webcam/speakerphone (too be fair, Ubuntu did
> detect the device via lsusb... it just didn't care), and the other is
> any WiFi chipset that uses a softMAC.
>
> Most everything else in my experience has had excellent driver support
> and was detected immediately.

What I was more concerned with was packages and updates.
SuSE has gotten better, and faster, about popular packages like Firefox.
There are still problems with synchronizing non-RPM add-ons updates,
and even some RPMs, with all the SuSE bells and whistles.
If you are a programmer it is a "challenge". If you are a guy trying to make
a living writing it is a PITA!
Basically what I do is this. If I read a rave review about an
application I will
look and see if SuSE offers it through YaST. If so I will download it and play
with it to see if I like it.
If SuSE does not offer it I have to try and make an intelligent
decision about whether I have any time to spare if there are problems
with, during or
after  install. Like the USB thing. I threw SuSE 10.0 on instead of 10.1.
I had not heard of any problems with 10.0 and there were some caveats
about 10.1.
I noticed the USB problem immediately but thought it was a motherboard
problem. I still have one 9.3 machine. The USBs work great on it.

I'm much more fond of PnP (plug-and-play) software than the alternative.
For hardware it should be mandatory. OK. That is a bit of a burden for
free software. Let's say mainstream hardware.
Nothing from MicroCenter. =:-;

I'm hoping to find the time to play with the first OpenSolaris kernel +
GNU/Linux + Debian Linux OS because the ZFS file system should be
an option if not the default.
Does Ubuntu plan to offer the ZFS file system?
Then there are all these virtualization options?