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Linux

 

This page shows some of the experiences I have had with the Linux Distributions that I have used, please note most experiences have been on the Debian side of the Linux world but are not necessarily limited to just Linux itself and may roll over to BSD distributions (Mac included) and Solaris.

 

Things I have done with Linux:

Since Linux is such a diverse system, I have used Linux allot for many different purposes, back in the days of Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04 and 9.10 I was only using Linux on all of my machines. I really liked the useability and speed combined with features that I had when using GNOME 2. Once GNOME 3 was released I found it was very sluggish and had gained allot of weight. One of the things I did back then was try and get "Beryl" now knows as "Compiz Fusion" to work on my system - Click here for the video. I have also used Linux to host various types of servers such as Web (Apache), FTP, Samba File Sharing (and some of the more advanced features of Samba 4), There are many other things that I have used Linux for but I can think of everything.

 

Command Line:

The command line isn't as scary as most people think it is however on a desktop operating system it would be nice to not have to use the command line at all unless a very strange process is being done. This is much the case of Windows and OSX, the command line does exist but unless someone is doing something completely out of the ordinary that most people never use. The command line is however not as boring as back in the old DOS days, some of the applications and tools will make the usability much easier than if it was just plain text. This brings me to the GUI's

 

Graphical Interface and software:

Linux's biggest advantage may also be its biggest downfall, Microsoft way back in the yesteryears when they decided to combine their home OS and Work OS into the same system allowed people to have a sense of familiarity when they went to work or came home from work. Most people would be using the same system. Having a large list of software to choose from does sound like a good thing but it can really just create more confusion when there are multiple pieces of software that perform differently, this makes almost every users system different to the next which is not good for a novice user who just wants to be able to sit down and use the system rather than having to re-learn everything. 

Having many software options for almost every aspect of the system certain packages just do not work together due to differentiating dependencies. Another issue is not all packages are being actively maintained and it becomes difficult to use two pieces of software that rely on different versions of a dependency. This is an issue that seams to always become a big problem for me in most of my Linux uses. This will lead me to updates:

 

Linux Updater:

This for me is the most amazing piece of software that anyone ever came up with. It allows all software packages to be updated through one main updater, so ensuring that everything is constantly up to date. If there is a software package that someone has downloaded off the Internet, usually that package will come with setting that can be put into the central updater allowing the software to be updated with all the other packages. This has many advantages such as software doesn’t have to sit around checking the internet for updates, when there is allot of software installed on the system this can mean allot of dormant software just sitting there performing update checks. (Yes I’m talking to you Java, Flash and Adobe Reader).

 

Distributions I have used:

  • Untangle- this is a dedicated router/firewall with a brilliant interface and an advanced set of filtering packages to go with it, setup and configuration for this system is very simple.

  • Puppy Dog Linux - Great for older pc's with not much ram and CPU power, runs quite happily on a Pentium 2 with 128Mb of ram

  • Zentyl - A dedicated Server operating system with a custom GUI to make setting up services very easy. This server has a few interesting features but is not hard to make it into a fully functioning server business server in a few hours.

  • UBUNTU - This is the bread I tend to stick to the most, as most of the forums on the Internet tend to have support for the UBUNTU system more than the others. There are also quite a few sub derivatives suck as LBUNTU, Edubuntu, Kbuntu, etc. that are optimized for the different uses and Graphical systems.

  • Linux Mint - A UBUNTU variant that uses the gnome interface, however lacks some fundamental features I like about UNUNTU such as distribution upgrades.

  • Fedora Core - I am not much of a Red Hat user anymore and tend to lean more towards the Debian breads as there is better support and software (that I have found) than there is for Red hat

  • Open SUSE - I’m not even sure if I should put this in here, as I haven’t used it in a very long time, I did however like the user experience on it when I did use it.

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