Maybe Linux Does Stand a Chance

This is a follow-up to my previous post, Linux Does Not Stand a Chance. I can almost hear Bush supporters cry, "Flip-flopper!":) My biggest pet peeve with all Linux distributions I have had is the awful clutter in the menus. A fresh installation comes with a myriad of little utilities which really should be integrated into bigger tools and hidden away.

As recommended by several people, I downloaded a distribution of Ubuntu. The distro has a simple installation, a very clean Gnome interface, and it runs well even on a hopelessly old box we’ve been kicking around the office. It has a healthy doze of utilities, a Terminal Services client being among my favorite ones.

Still missing is a meaningful Add/Remove panel to uninstall applications. I wanted to get rid of games (why do they keep installing them?), and had to guess which packages games were in. It then prompted me that games had a dependency on the “desktop” package and asked if I wanted to uninstall the “desktop”. How would you respond to this question?

Wait, there’s more. I didn’t know you could build web applications for Linux in Visual Studio.NET, but apparently you can. Isn’t it cool or what?

I use Ubuntu myself, it's a great Linux distro. A program that's pretty similar to the Add/Remove programs applet is called Synaptic. It's a GUI front-end for the APT packaging system. From the command line, type the following to install it

sudo apt-get update

this will update your package headers

then type

apt-get install synaptic

once it's installed you'll have a great GUI that categorizes all of the packages available to Ubuntu, and you can simply hi-lite programs and click Add or Remove and it will do it.

I was thinking about trying Ubuntu as my next Linux distro. I've heard good things from several people.

You should clarify that Linux as a Desktop doesn't stand a chance. Because Linux as a server is proving it does stand a chance already.

LJ: Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely look for Synaptic.

Brent: Linux *is* strong in the server space. I'm only scratching the surface of desktops here. :)

Very good articles. I see you've tried Mandriva. As you may remember, its Mandriva Control Center (under Menu, System Tools, Configure Your Computer or just typing mcc from a konsole command line) allows for VERY easy install & uninstall of software. Check out the latest version at http://www.mandriva.com/en/product/mandriva-linux-one that allows you to run the software off the CD without installing it on your PC or laptop and then just have to click the LiveInstall icon on the desktop to load it onto your system. (Do you want this version on a flash drive? They have that too.)

The Mandriva Online application keeps your system completely updated. Mandriva, and the major Linux distributions in general, are really great for desktop use. The fantastic KDE GUI just FLIES even while I'm running numerous applications at once (such as konsole, GIMP, 3 konqueror windows, Acrobat Reader, kate, mcc, vlc, and Firefox with 8 tabs) (on different cube faces). Have you tried the cube rotation of the Compiz Fusion desktop effects with [Ctrl][Alt]rightarrow or, with just the 1st 2 keys held, pressing the downarrow and then the left or rightarrow? For those not aware, [Alt][Tab] still works (even without all the fancy effects that can be customized with CompizConfig Settings Manager found under Menu, Tools).

While I've tried RedHat, Ubuntu, Knoppix & SUSE, I prefer Mandriva due to its ease of use. FYI, I'm a non-IT user that seldom uses windows except for at work where I often provide initial PC support and write our web pages.