Richard Tindall wrote:
If you're talking about a replacement desktop for windows, I think you should really look at a package that you can use like windows. In a work environment, it is not usual to rebuild your system every 6 months. In fact, unless you're going to have some kind of stealth batch job that rebuilds unattended overnoght, then it's going to be both an admin nightmare and a huge overhead on the IT department ( or a waste of xxx hours of everyone's time ). And what about the users? They'll see change for changes sake.
No, I'm a great believer in muss-free defaults. Kernel is only one area
(where presumably desirable advantages do regularly surface); to show
Linux in best light is to have recent OOo, package tools, well-driven
hardware etc up & running, fast. For desktop comparisons, one wants to
see everything being renewed when possible, as quickly as possible.
Gentoo seems best at this. For Ubuntu as a classy current desktop, I
recommend a separate data partition (fat32), and replace the whole OS
every six months (disposable, like your smoke alarm battery). Treat
sufficient partitions as fully recyclable. :-) Unless uninstallation of
old software versions is guaranteed tidy. Any old FTP client, mail,
browser, etc may still be usable for getting real work done, but the
latest are better to have for a variety of reasons, including security,
experience, and just plain nice.
This may sound like heresy for classic *nix server work, but it is notI think that you're missing the point. The desktop is a means to an end in 98% ( made up statistic ) of all jobs. What does a secretary care about a 2% performance increase, or a carpet salesman, ...? They want reliability, ease of use, and availability of shared resources.
that. The desktop market works very differently, and the plethora of
Linux distros need to be navigated (ignored?) somehow. Selection and/or
re-selection seems the constantly challenging task at hand. What works,
and remains current (kernel included), is what will stand (out most).
Changing the whole distro install still seems a time-efficient upgrade
to me (with no loose ends / housekeeping to worry about). How else can
we gain from the rapid and diverse distro release cycles, when we're not
building servers every day?
Windows upgrades happen every 5 years or so in a M$ environment - 98 to 2000 to xp isn't every 6 months.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
More pluses for Hoary: This Evolution has a good spell check, and Dictionary app is under Gnome -Apps-Accessories. Handy. There is a live hardware compatibility interface feeding back to base. Updates have their own GUI & system tray notification now. Synaptic repository settings have been clarified & extended. Help is extensive. This Gnome has its Nautilus parent-child frame multiplication fixed by default. The Networking GUI is improved. ..All working great! :-)
oops!! drafting this message(?) crashed major resources then Evolution.
But it was auto-recovered. Cool.
...not quite ready then is it ):
Steve
