[nflug] Desktop Linux suggestion?

Sam Stern samstern at samstern.net
Wed Mar 28 19:54:33 EDT 2007


All,

Every year or so I give a go to trying to see if desktop Linux has what it
takes to meet my needs. With the recent maturation of Kexi (MS Access
replacement) I would like to try again. Here is my list of "must haves" when
I select an OS:

1) Easy access to proprietary tools like media codecs, Adobe Acrobat, Real
Player binary, ATI binary driver. Hint: My last attempt with debian failed
quickly when I found that their user supported apt reposities had
exceptionally poor QA and did not interoperate well. Both Suse and Redhat
simply need to point to a community repository.
2) Well maintained user repositories that are current (in userland, system
and kernel security patches) for at least one year after the version of the
installed os has been superseded. Example: Fedora core fails here Fedora
core 4 and lower are essentially abandoned. Suse succeeds here, the Suse 9.3
repositories via apt and smart are current (you can even get current
kernels!) and still updated with new user land tools.
3) Easy access to bleeding edge office productivity, java runtime and other
end user tools without compiling. Again Suse excels here, gentoo pretty much
requires way to much compilation for my tastes. If I cannot apt-get update;
apt-get upgrade (or the equivalent) without compiling it's not easy access.
4) KDE based window manager out of the box.
5) Uses or can be convinced to use latest ntfs3g ntfs tool set (to read and
write the data transfer drive)

Third party binary tools I intend to use:

1) Transgamining's cedega
2) Vmware workstation (not server)
3) Win4Lin 5.0
4) Oblivioun via cedega
5) EVE via cedega
6) Real arcade via Vmware Workstation

Native Linux tools I intend to use:

1) Openoffice
2) Kexi
3) Firefox
4) Thunderbird
5) NVU
6) k3b
7) mplayer
8) mdb tools

System that will be used:

Asus a7m266d smp motherboard
Dual AMD 2.8mp processors
2.5 GB of ram
Drive channel 1: 111GB UDMA-100 drive (70GB free for linux partitions)
Drive Channel 2: 111GB UDMA-100 drive (20GB free, data drive), 4x DVD
everything LG drive
AGP 4x card: ATI 9800 128mb all-in-wonder pro. NB: hardware limitations make
this the fastest available card. Nothing more powerful than this or a NVIDIA
4200ti will work due to hardware limitations. Just do not ask.
32/33 pci cards:
Creative Audigy 2
TI based usb2 / firewire 400 card
64/66 pci cards:
Adaptec 62044 4 port NIC


Current short list of OS's I'm looking at:

1) Suse 10.2

NB: I've left of Linspire and SimplyMephis as these seem to require payment
to stay current or some degree of jumping through hoops to use user sites to
stay current.

So based upon my needs can you recommend any other Linux distros to try out
rather than go with Suse? 

Concerns about specific distros:

1) How does kbuntu fare in terms of community support? Can I get the latest
versions of Open office, Kexi etc via a simple apt/smart/yum whatever
command for say 6.06 when 7.05 comes out? Will the current version (7.05)
die out when the next two versions come out leaving old version sans new
tools essentially forcing a once a 6 six month or once a year update? 
2) With gentoo, can you update it's binary packages for kde etc so I do not
have to recompile firefox, java, kde, etc to stay current?



Thanks for any insight you might have!

Sam S.




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