[TriLUG] Best Linux Desktop and Desktop Apps?

[Carl Crider]

....side note. what are you going to do with that old powerbook?

On 3/10/06, Magnus <stinkfart at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Reply inline below, only the areas where I feel I have a solid answer.
>
> On 3/10/06, Tarus Balog <tarus at opennms.org> wrote:
> >
> > 1) What should I look at in terms of a nice, clean, powerful desktop?
> > I like KDE. Is there a distro out there that is stable enough to use
> > in a mission critical application (i.e. my desktop) that is current
> > enough to contain lots of cool, bright, shiny things? I think Debian
> > is out since I don't want to run sid. CentOS? Ubuntu? I doubt anyone
> > has duplicated the usefulness of Exposé, but one can hope.
>
>
> I run CentOS 4.2 at home and at work for desktop use.  I'm quite happy
> with
> it.  It's not got the latest bleeding edge stuff in it but I don't have to
> upgrade every six months either.  Simply adding Dag Wieer's yum repository
> to your yum configuration will get you a lot of nice stuff that is missing
> from CentOS (and by extension RHEL)
>
> For the desktop I prefer KDE and have been using it since almost the
> beginning of the project.  But when I'm in the mood for trying something
> new, I'll often log out and log back in with Xfce as my desktop instead.
> Xfce loads almost instantly on my AMD64 3700+ but KDE still takes awhile.
> Xfce is very snappy, very easy to use, and I really don't have a good
> excuse
> for not switching over completely by now.
>
> iTunes: xmms?
>
>
> I use and like xmms but it doesn't compare to iTunes.
>
> > Mail: Thunderbird
>
> Yup
>
> Browser: Firefox
>
>
> Yup
>
>
> > iPhoto: Gallery?
>
>
> Honestly this is one of the key apps that always gets me back on my crusty
> old Powerbook.
>
>
> > 3) Connectivity: How is the current support for wireless (I love the
> > "Location" feature of OSX) and bluetooth? iSync?
>
>
> Last I looked, SuSE was doing this a lot better than RHEL but I don't
> really
> use wireless anymore.  You might want to play with SuSE.  It's very well
> polished and might very well be a better laptop distro.  Given the state
> of
> my powerbook I'll probably be doing the same thing as you in a few months
> and I will give SuSE another good long look at that time.
>
> But I won't kid you.  Linux as a desktop is nowhere near as polished as OS
> X.  Yes, I use it every day.  I'm using it now at $WORK (a very very
> pro-Linux company that still issues WinXP laptops because of the
> shortcomings).  I think it works brilliantly as a server but as a desktop
> it
> still feels very raw, rough around the edges, and missing a lot of
> applications (that have reached maturity like what you're used to on OS
> X).
>
> I keep trying OO.o every few months and though it has gotten better, it
> still feels very rough and hackerish.  Firefox and Thunderbird are about
> the
> most polished/mature apps I've seen on Linux for the desktop.  Gimp is
> still
> suffering from a crude interface that is disappointing alongside of
> Photoshop.
>
> I guess I better put on my flame-retardant kilt now.
> --
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--
Carl Crider