yellow dog linux

[bih]

i installed ydl 2.3 on my computer, and i really like it. jaguar is still better in some respects (it certainly looks better), but I'm pretty happy with linux.

heres how i think they stack up

jaguar
fonts, buttons, dragging looks nicer. file navigation actually seems faster (graphical file navigation that is), some cooler effects like transparency, etc. dragging windows is actually faster, which is surprising. i liked chimera.

ydl 2.3 (using gnome)
taskbar easier to use than the dock in my oppinion, multiple desktops are nice, easy to customize everything, FASTER SCROLLING, PDF viewing is smooth like it should be! it's easier to do a few things for school, like ssh to campus servers to use software.

i think if os x was improved in just a couple of areas i would use it instead. the thing that was getting me down was the need to view a lot of PDF files, osx preview scrolls/loads them really slowly for some reason. also i think the dock could be improved or given customization options. of course, when i buy a new mac later on I will use osx, my 2001 ibook though is a tiny bit to slow to do everything i need to do with osx.

what do you guys think, anyone use a linux distro regularly?

 

[bluehz]

I actually got a wild hair a coupla months ago after I was trying to figure out what to do with this ol' PC I salvaged from someones trash and installed Slackware Linux on it. I had never touched Linux before - but I have learned so much UNIX over the past year from learning OS X that it all came pretty easy. I now use that dumpster PC for a mail server, web server, imap server, spamassassin, and many other items for my interanl house LAN of 4 Macs. I am amazed at how stable that thing is. The reason I chose Slackware over some of the other distros is that it is known to work well with a small RAM footprint - which the dumpster PC has. I run it headless (without a monitor) and admin it completely through OS X and SSH. Works fantastic....hell I keep piling stuff on it and it keeps working!!

Then I started getting into XWindows and started wanting to use some of the network monitoring utilities available for XWindows - so I got another wild hare about a month ago and installed YDL on the 2nd partition of my iBook 2001 (1st partition is OS X). The installation process blew me away it was so simple. I kept saying "this is never gonna work, this is never gonna boot" damned if it didn't fire right up!!! So now I have a beautiful YDL/KDE distro running also. I would have to agree with you - in general everything in YDL is just snappier than OS X, I hate docks in general - but IMHO YDL is better implementation, and the multiple desktops is the bomb! Why can't we have that in OS X - and no I'm not talking about teh current incarnation of "Virtual Desktops" OS X addon! Kind of a shame isn't it - I mean a community-based distro has better performance than a mainstream distro (OS X) backed by millions of dollars of research money.

 

[strobe]

OS X: Carbon apps all behave the same

X11: Nothing behaves the same

OS X: cut/copy+paste without keyboard needs one button, less clicks

X11: copy+paste without keyboard needs three buttons, more clicks. Also can't paste over selection to replace (ugh).

No contest.

 

[cfleck]

to argue both sides....

x windows, is nice if you dont really care about your gui. there are many window managers out there for linux, and surely one can suite your needs. however, i feel none of them offer the ease of use that aqua provides.

linux is nice to the point where you dont mind messing around with endless text files using different syntax to modify the look/feel/settings of your environment. dont take this the wrong way. some people are really into this level of configurability. i used to be. now i can't stand it.

i'm not sure how copy/paste in linux takes 3 buttons, cuz it only takes one button on a 3 button mouse, or hitting both buttons on a 2 button mouse. regardless, there is a hole in that if you use ctrl+c to copy you cant use middle click to paste. there are a few holes like that in linux.

past that, here is my opinion of how linux is effectively used. if you are doing some scientific computation that requires maximum cpu and no gui, then linux is for you. if you are running a server that you dont want to have to mess with all the time, then linux is for you. if you are looking for a system to provide a backbone to a network of computers for printer/file sharing, etc. linux is a good choice.

if you EVER (even once) plan on using your computer for something "not geeky" like burning cds, chatting, writing papers, playing on the internet, listening to music, GET A MAC.

in short, linux is the glue. it can put everything together nicely, but once you put the glue on the paper, you dont what to touch it.