[conspire] Ubuntu

[Bill Stoye]

I've been using Ubuntu <http://www.ubuntulinux.org/> for almost three
weeks and like it a lot; it's a pre-release but works well and if anyone
is looking to keep things simple, this is it. Gentoo, which I liked but
was over my head(all Linux is), is fast, I think everything about Ubuntu
seems faster. I don't know the technicalities that make one distribution
faster than another but I'm often startled by how fast something pops up
on the screen.

It's not quite bug free, the biggest problem I had was getting the
network and printer working(common problems), both had a workaround; I'm
sure that'll get fixed by their release date of Oct, 13th. Also after I
installed the correct 'nvidia' driver for my card, it won't shutdown
without holding the power button for ten seconds; this is still a
nagging problem. having a Knoppix CD on hand was handy to get on-line
for help.

It's uses Gnome, which I prefer to KDE(a Chevy vs. Ford thing); the only
thing I miss from KDE is 'K3b', which has been a very nice GUI for
burning Cd's; I've not had luck with any of the burners available for
Gnome. I don't yet have the skills to burn using the command line.

Packages seem to be updated at the rate of fifty a day (+/-); there is a
lot of enthusiasm in the email user-list and other than very rare
exceptions, everyone has been ladies and gentlemen. I've embarrassed
myself on more than one occasion and haven't been slammed badly. If fact
I've learning about Linux at a much better rate from trying to follow
the user-list.

Much like Red Hat, their handling of multimedia is a little difficult;
much for the same reasoning, concern over rights.

I had been using Libranet 2.8 for almost two years but wanted the 2.6
kernel for better support of some of my hardware and I liked the simple
offering and menu of Ubuntu, but libranet hasn't come out with their 3.0
release after an original target date of mid August... I may duel boot
to it when it comes out for grins.

Don't know that anyone is interested in yet another distribution but
being it's a Debian based, I put my thoughts out there.

Best regards;
Bill