[linux] Fun with Ubuntu

[Doug McLean]

Hey all,

Not to fill up your INBOXes (too late), but I decided on a whim this 
weekend to take off Fedora Core 3 on my home computer, and put something 
else on.

I remember way back when I was asking for suggestions on a good distro 
for this computer (it is an Athlon64 with an MSI mobo) and heard some 
really good suggestions including Gentoo and Ubuntu.

So I had lots of fun downloading ISOs from my ultra-slow DSL connection 
(I got downgraded recently because I was "too far downstream from their 
network") and then installing them.

Out of all the ones I tried, I was really impressed with Ubuntu.  It was 
really solid, and fairly easy to install (it had the Debian-ish style 
install, but took a lot of guess-work out of it).

What really impressed me was that it worked so well out of the box.  I 
actually didn't have to configure anything.  It detected my screwy sound 
card (AC'97) and for the first time I could listen to CDs and such.  I 
couldn't do so on Fedora.

Also, I haven't used Gnome since RedHat 7.0 and since Ubuntu is 
Gnome-only, I was unsure at first if I would like that.  However, Gnome 
has really matured into a nice WM that is pretty solid, and at the same 
time, nicely uncluttered.

Best of all, Ubuntu, being a descendant of Debian, has the ever-so-nice 
apt toolset.

Incidentally, I really wanted to try Gentoo, but I had trouble getting 
past step 1 "Preparing the Media", so I wasn't able to even get a chance 
to install it.  :(  I would like to have spent more time on it, but the 
Ms. wanted to hurry up and use the Internet, so I had to try something else.

Once I get some time, I will give Gentoo another go.  There are folks 
here at work who love it and swear by it.  Apparently it runs nicely Mac 
G4s.  :)

Anyhow, big thanks to whoever recommended Ubuntu to me before.  :)  It 
was definitely a good choice.  I won't go back to Fedora anytime soon.

Later!
Doug