Ubuntu "Hoary Hedgehog" Live: Beta be good

It is missing KDE. I have to have KDE. I will try loading it but if I have issues, sorry, I wouldn't use it myself.

Actually, I broke Ubuntu the two times I downloaded it within 20 minutes. I'm not keen on its hardware detection either...it doesn't pick up modems very well at all...especially winmodems. Overall, it's an ok distro...the Live CD rates about the same for me.

For showing distros off to my friends, I choose two...PCLinuxOS and SimplyMEPIS. Nothing else can compare...even knoppix falls short.

Same here. Although I run Suse 9.2 on my two machines at home, I am impressed with SimplyMEPIS and make CDs for other to show off Linux ease of usability, wealth of apps and flexibility. Installing from LiveCD with few clicks in 10 minutes is outstanding. I think MEPIS has a bright future as a desktop. Let us not forget that Knoppix is the father of all LiveCDs. Knoppix can be made as good as any and more if it has a commercial angle to it like MEPIS. I think all distros should have a little of commercialism to support themselves and progress faster.

I've been using Ubuntu since the first pre-release version of Warty. Hoary, which I installed yesterday, has a couple of annoying bugs - RealPlayer wont work, beep-media-player wont work, but, other than that it's awesome. Nvidia drivers working flawlessly with xorg - first distro I've had this happen with. OpenOffice2 stuff is available for hoary and includes some kind of Evolution/OpenOffice linking. The only problem with Ubuntu is it's so damned BROWN. The default desktop is flat and totally uninspiring. For people used to the XP ultra-glossy look the default Ubuntu look is a big let down. Warty was SO good I started to get bored - I mean you just install it, sort out the look and feel and then that's more or less it. It just works.

I tried Warty, but had hardware recognition problems and missed KDE. So I just stayed with Mepis, which I really like.

I think Ubuntu has a great future, but still needs work if it is to be a real winner. I have no problem (except for the time it takes) with installing non-free stuff like Java and Flash (ugh), but Mepis come with them ready to go and saves me the trouble. Ubuntu needs to get easier to appeal to the masses.

Salparadise,

Try MEPIS. Nvidia, ATI, Java, Flash, MPlayer, RealPlayer 10 all work flawlessly out of the box. Gnome, IceWM, and KDE all available out of the box as well. Kernel comes with Wine and Crossover Office precompiled. Believe me, most people don't know about MEPIS and would ditch Ubuntu if they did.

Maybe the link will help those who want KDE on Ubuntu

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/documentation/faq/kde/tal...

hmmmm kde! I don't really like KDE.

I'm sort of a bit of a gnome fan. It was a bit much of a muchness up to 2.4. But since 2.6 it's got really elegant and pleasant to use.

This is partly why I like Ubuntu, because it comes with Gnome as default.

Is Gnome available for Mepis? Does Dropline Gnome work with it (I've never tried dropline gnome before)?

Regarding third party apps and plugins... Vector Linux 4.3 also does all this "out of the box" and Mandrake 10 Official also does this (if you have the bought version).

I think the big attraction with Ubuntu (apart from the philosophy behind it) is that it seems to ship with stuff that's months ahead of all the others. It was the first (afaik) distro to ship with gnome 2.8 and evolution 2.

OK Well scrap most of that. Just been to the mepis and dropline pages to have a read and Gnome has issues on Mepis and dropline is for slackware.

I tried the Warty LiveCD and it was OK. I use ADSL and it didn't automatically update resolv.conf, so it took a minute for me to figure out why I couldn't browse any Web sites. The worst part was the lack of "non-free" apps, etc. No problem for an install, but not helpful on a LiveCD.

SimplyMepis is really impressive (although I have to admit, since I quit using RedHat a couple of years ago, I quit using Gnome). I did apt-get gnome using Mepis, but got some boot error and switched back to kdm. The best time to "play" with an install of SimplyMepis is right after the initial install. Since it only takes a few minutes to install, if you break something, it's quicker to re-install than fix it. So, if you wanted to use Gnome with Mepis, just install Gnome right after you install Mepis and see what happens.

The bad thing about the debian-based distros that use testing or unstable is security updates. My main desktop is Sorcerer, which updates within a day or so of security, or any for that matter, updates. Mepis security updates can take two, three or more weeks. On the other hand, guarddog seems to be a good iptables configurer, so with 1/2 intelligent users it's probably ok for a desktop, or Lan server, but outward-facing, eh.

Speaking of Evolution 2, did they drop the "Summary" page idea. Other than that, it seems so much like Outllook it gives me the creeps.

salparadise,

No problems in Gnome here...Using the soon to be released SimplyMEPIS 3.3...Been running for about 2 weeks now and testing the crap out of it.

I lack bandwidth and credit card at the moment but I'll keep it in mind for when I do have. Thanks.