Linux in real life

[worker201]

Open Source Development Labs released an interesting survey about Linux on the desktop. Some of the results were really strange - or different enough from what you might expect that they seem strange.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/files/artic ... vey-11.jpg
Apparently, email is still the number one user application. And audio/video tools are not all that important. Which is weird, because the number of audio/video tools/apps out there is really high, and the number of email apps/suites is really low. I think the reaction to Microsoft formats and DCMA issues is responsible for this apparent imbalance.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/files/artic ... vey-12.jpg
Fedora seems to be incredibly popular among the Void's Forum crowd. But according to the survey, Ubuntu and SuSE have commanding leads over the desktop market. SuSE is the only one you can buy at a store anymore, and Ubuntu was giving away free cds to everyone, which explains that. It's still kinda shocking how poorly RedHat is doing in the desktop market.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/files/artic ... vey-21.jpg
Even though there are a ton of audio/video apps available, Quicktime and WMP aren't in the list. And apparently, that's what people want. However, I think this want is largely manufactured. WMP and Quicktime have been around for awhile, and they are popular. A move toward Linux, I believe, will be a move away from proprietary formats for the majority of media. Of course, there will still be those slobs who insist on some sort of DRM system for their content. But everybody else will eventually be using open formats.

[Master of Reality]

hmmm nobody uses Slackware

(Actually, I'm extremely close to switching to Fedora ....just as soon as i learn how to backup my slack data using FreeBSD.)

[Void Main]

Heh heh, I'm extremely close to switching from Fedora to something else. Probably back to Debian or maybe even the n00b Ubuntu distro (still Debian underneath). Maybe I should give Gentoo a go...

[worker201]

I have everything all set up in Fedora, and RedHat still has a pretty stable base among education and non-US users. So I think I will be using FC as my primary OS for quite some time. I don't want to use SuSE, since it is so KDE entwined (much the same way RedHat is Gnome intertwined). I'm probably going to try mucking around with some other distros for kicks, tho.

[ZiaTioN]

I have everything all set up in Fedora, and RedHat still has a pretty stable base among education and non-US users. So I think I will be using FC as my primary OS for quite some time. I don't want to use SuSE, since it is so KDE entwined (much the same way RedHat is Gnome intertwined). I'm probably going to try mucking around with some other distros for kicks, tho.

I would have to agree with this. However I recently downloaded and checked out the newest Knoppix and really liked what I saw. It had a much smoother look and feel then Fedora. If this is any indication of what Debian would be like I may be switching to Debian myself. However I run quite a few server applications and am somewhat lazy so it will take a really wild hair to motivate me to switch to a new distro and reconfigure everything.

[Calum]

Heh heh, I'm extremely close to switching from Fedora to something else.

that is shocking news! it's only recently i have stabilised to using fedora all the time (partially because void main endorses it!) and you're thinking about shifting your loyalties! very interesting. you'll have to give us your reasons if you do choose to switch, i have a feeling they'd give others something to think about too.

[Void Main]

Oh I'll probably stick with it as I am still very happy with it. I tell you what really has always put Fedora up as #1 for me is not actually Fedora itself but Dag Wieer's apt repository. Dag had always done a superb job of filling in the holes where Fedora was lacking. Dag stopped supporting Fedora starting with FC4 and RPMForge has been in a bit of disarray. I hate to be too hard on these guys (Dag, Dries, Matthias) because they have done so much to improve my Red Hat and Fedora Linux experience and they haven't asked for anything in return. These guys are my heros.

I was also disappointed that Fedora went with yum as the package installer. I think with FC4 things took a step backward as far as things just working. For instance, Xen is broken and has been for several releases. I have been unable to get the last several Xen kernels to work on any of my machines. I have to use the previous release of "xen" and kernel versions several releases old. This is just one of many examples. Then things like the latest release of OpenOffice.org are extremely crashy where I had to go back to the prerelease which was rock solid. I mean lately I'm left to wonder if the package builders even use Fedora or if they just build the packages and leave it to that. Hopefully the quality improves to what I am used to.

All that being said, I still think Fedora is one of the best desktop systems out there. There are so many things that are polished up to my liking that I do not have to configure after install. Way closer to my taste than any other distro when it comes to configuration. That and I'm just familiar with it. I've been using Red Hat since Red Hat came into existence so a lot of it is a familiarity thing. I do like other distros too though. I like Debian and some other Debian based distros like KNOPPIX and Ubuntu. It's just easier for me to stick with one as the primary as you get to know all the quirks and how to get around them quickly.

[Master of Reality]

Bah just make your own linux from scratch

I think i'm actually going to be switching to Gentoo or Ubuntu shortly. Gentoo seems like a very nice idea. I really like the ports system in BSD, so Gentoo might be whats right for me.