[linux] Fun with Ubuntu

[Doug McLean]

*flame*

Just kidding.  ANyhow, I understand your grievances.  One thing that 
really did intrigue me about Gentoo is the fact that, provided it works, 
  you will have a VERY optomized machine, and I am really eager to see 
what an AMD64 is capable of doing (at least in theory).

Still, the guy at work who uses Gentoo on a G4 has had apparently very 
pleasant results.  I am not sure if that reflects the norm (maybe not), 
but I guess if you're willing to put in the time, it could be really cool.

The only big steamy pile of poo out there in my opinion is WIndows 98.  ;)

--Doug

peter woodman wrote:
> this is flamebait, but gentoo is a big steamy pile of poo as far as i'm 
> concerned. it's not practical to use unless you have endless amounts of 
> time (i.e. you're still in high school or something and don't play 
> sports). it's a from-scratch distribution that takes most of the 
> learning out of from-scratch. oh, and portage gets broken fairly 
> frequently (for one weekend, X was broken. boy, was that fun).
> 
> i don't think it's worth your time...
> 
> -peter
> 
> 
> On Mar 7, 2005, at 5:16 PM, Doug McLean wrote:
> 
>> 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
> 
>