Re: Was OT--Win7 and disk partitions; now using Linux

[Paul Lagasse pglagasse@xxxxxxxx]

On 03/19/2010 10:02 AM, Raphael Tennenbaum wrote:
> I don't need Ghostscript or Adobe anything to turn any file, whether
> it's text or html, into a postscript file, that's built-in (three
> different ways in fact, from OpenOffice, the printing system, and the
> browsers) --
You might be overselling Ubuntu here, Rafe; Ghostscript is there, on my
system at least; it just happens to be preinstalled (or got installed as
a dependency somewhere along the line). In fact, it's integral --
uninstalling it will also trash CUPS and several other things.
> I would also mention three things about Ubuntu make it a viable
> end-user OS: 1) the software packages are tightly controlled as far
> as I can tell, so they're not just held to a reasonably high standard.
> but installation and maintenance are stable and clean, far more so
> than any other brand of Linux I've seen;
This may be true of Ubuntu's main repositories, but stuff in the
Universe repositories can be quirky at times, and other add-ons that I
find essential sometimes get trashed by new versions of Ubuntu. Still,
in terms of trying to expand what I can do with Linux and XyWrite,
having handy ready-made tools that may need some tweaking is fine by me.
> 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....
> 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.

Paul Lagasse