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13 reasons why Linux should be on your desktop
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Comments (12)
http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/
I use plain-old CentOS (Red Hat) as my main desktop and also for software development.
I've even found the perfect Linux laptop -- a MacBook Pro running VMWare -- and I run it there as well!
The lack of all kinds of fancy features and controls makes it easier to use and probably faster too...
I've even found the perfect Linux laptop -- a MacBook Pro running VMWare -- and I run it there as well!
The lack of all kinds of fancy features and controls makes it easier to use and probably faster too...
I'm a fan of CentOS on the desktop. My only problem is that I never figured out how to use Up2Date and yum properly. Apt, Synaptic, even pkgtool in Slackware I get, but I could never figure out how to go beyond what's in the main CentOS repository. I should probably get a RHEL 5 book.
One thing I took away from my time with CentOS: The Anaconda installer is probably the best installer I've seen. Lots of explanation all the way through, the ability to customize the install ...
Just for security reasons alone, as well as ease of maintenance, I don't know why the corporate world isn't folding its huge arms around desktop-friendly distros like CentOS (or Debian Etch for that matter) for company-wide use.
At my company, we all have Windows XP, and while we don't all have "administrator" privileges, we do have the ability to download and install any apps we want -- even though that is not encouraged. It's great if you know what you're doing -- and you-know-what if you don't.
We've already been warned, "There are no backups of individual hard drives (although primary data for our custom publishing system is on a remote, well-backed-up Sun server), and if there's a problem, your drive will be wiped and reinstalled."
I don't know if Windows allows you to set up the user files on a separate hard drive, but you can certainly use a separate partition or drive in Linux and then reinstall a broken system without losing any data.
Back to CentOS. There's also Scientific Linux -- another RHEL clone.
One thing I took away from my time with CentOS: The Anaconda installer is probably the best installer I've seen. Lots of explanation all the way through, the ability to customize the install ...
Just for security reasons alone, as well as ease of maintenance, I don't know why the corporate world isn't folding its huge arms around desktop-friendly distros like CentOS (or Debian Etch for that matter) for company-wide use.
At my company, we all have Windows XP, and while we don't all have "administrator" privileges, we do have the ability to download and install any apps we want -- even though that is not encouraged. It's great if you know what you're doing -- and you-know-what if you don't.
We've already been warned, "There are no backups of individual hard drives (although primary data for our custom publishing system is on a remote, well-backed-up Sun server), and if there's a problem, your drive will be wiped and reinstalled."
I don't know if Windows allows you to set up the user files on a separate hard drive, but you can certainly use a separate partition or drive in Linux and then reinstall a broken system without losing any data.
Back to CentOS. There's also Scientific Linux -- another RHEL clone.
Quoting:I don't know if Windows allows you to set up the user files on a separate hard drive,
You can redirect My Documents to another location. We have it redirect to the drive map for the user on the server here at the college.
That's the way to do it.
Even better is to redirect C:Windows to /dev/null
Heh, the forum doesn't like backslashes and ate mine.
Heh, the forum doesn't like backslashes and ate mine.
Quoting:You can redirect My Documents to another location.
That doesn't really work, since half the Windows apps out there seem to insist to put some user data in the Program Files directory. Not to mention all the stuff that gets stored in the registery that is really user-specific data.
> ...since half the Windows apps out there seem to insist to put some user data in the Program Files directory...
techiem2 is referring only to the My Documents folder which Windows XP uses as the default storage folder for documents, music, video, etc. You can set it to be on any drive you want. Of course, if that drive doesn't exist, it can cause all kinds of problems, so it really only works for desktop machines which are always on the network. Laptops are another matter.
techiem2 is referring only to the My Documents folder which Windows XP uses as the default storage folder for documents, music, video, etc. You can set it to be on any drive you want. Of course, if that drive doesn't exist, it can cause all kinds of problems, so it really only works for desktop machines which are always on the network. Laptops are another matter.
jdixon: That still doesn't mean it will work. On Linux, I am sure that all my stuff is in the home directory. If I put that on a separate partition, throw away the OS and reinstall it again (plus the apps) I can be confident that everything is still around (unless I explicitly put things outside home).
Not so if you do the same thing with Windows. Granted, Microsoft's own apps put the bulk of your data under your documents&settings folder, but a lot of other apps do not, to say nothing of the registry. You'll loose data. Where do you think all the problems with roaming profiles on Windows networks come from? My company tried roaming profiles for a month, then issued everyone their own PC and disabled roaming.
Not so if you do the same thing with Windows. Granted, Microsoft's own apps put the bulk of your data under your documents&settings folder, but a lot of other apps do not, to say nothing of the registry. You'll loose data. Where do you think all the problems with roaming profiles on Windows networks come from? My company tried roaming profiles for a month, then issued everyone their own PC and disabled roaming.
> Granted, Microsoft's own apps put the bulk of your data under your documents&settings folder...
In this case, the Documents and Settings folder stays right where it was, on the C: drive. Only the My Documents folder is moved. I agree that trying to move the Documents and Settings folder doesn't work. And the solution to easily accessible applications isn't roaming profiles, it's Citrix and it's ilk.
In this case, the Documents and Settings folder stays right where it was, on the C: drive. Only the My Documents folder is moved. I agree that trying to move the Documents and Settings folder doesn't work. And the solution to easily accessible applications isn't roaming profiles, it's Citrix and it's ilk.
Yeah. It's just too bad that there's no Citrix Server for *nix. That was also my answer in the Linux Desktop Survey on what Windows applications I'd like to see ported. Citrix Server and Photoshop (to stop all the graphics people from whining about it).
I have just one reason to run Free Software on my computers : read the license and decide for yourself. ;-)
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