I Believe in Evolution!
Outlook has been driving me batty lately, so I took Evolution for a test run... and have decided not to look back! Evolution has the same basic interface as Outlook, so it was very intuitive... the only things it did not have were the things I didn't want anyway - like the buggy behavior I've witnessed over the last year or so - like having to input my email password EVERY TIME I opened Outlook EVEN THOUGH I checked the dang REMEMBER PASSWORD button EVERY TIME!!
ARGH! Okay, there's a little residual anger there.. it's alright.
Anyway, Evolution is an open source Linux-based program - and my husband has been asking me if I wanted to give Linux a go for a few years now. So, based on my recent experience with Evolution, I'm thinking of switching my OS from Vista (the bane of my existence, the source of all evil in the world) to either CentOS or Ubuntu... I'm testing them both on different computers right now and deciding which I like best... which brings me to a question... which Linux OS do you recommend?
10 comments:
I prefer Fedora Core for everything. For beginners, the best one I tried was Mandriva. I didn't try CentOS, but Ubuntu is great too!
I think CentOS is supposed to basically be just like Fedora. I'll have to check out Mandriva! Thanks!!
GO with Ubuntu and install as a window application using Wubi. You get the best of Windows and Linux. You can always uninstall later if you find you like Vista better.
Getting Ubuntu to work with Java and Flash on Web sites is waaaaay easier than using Fedora or Centos, especially if you are a new user. Centos is OK, too.
I use CentOS and other Redhat based systems at work and they are nice and stable. Fedora is a little more cutting edge, but may not be quite a stable, depending on which release you use. The Redhat installs tend to be a little bloated with software (5 CDs!), whereas with Ubuntu, you get just what you need, and have the option to install via the net later.
Good Luck!
I have been using Ubuntu now since version 6.06. It is far and away the best Operating System I have ever used. I have just moved my entire company over to Ubuntu 8.04 and there has not been even one hiccup with this. The software available is very broad and the systems worked out of the box on laptops and desktops. Driver support is outstanding and installation is a snap. Just make sure that when installing, you set up a separate partition for root and your user files.
Bob, that's cool.. it actually pretty much sums up everything I've heard about Ubuntu, and while there have been some pretty staunch CentOS supporters (you know who you are ;))- I have to say I'm pretty certain I'm going with Ubuntu at this point.
Not a dis against CentOS - just a personal preference at this point. :-) And I really appreciate all of the comments!!
CentOS is a copy of Red Hat Enterprise (even the version number is retained and the online documents are all Red Hat) but in the installable stuff "Red Hat" has been scrubbed.
To try live CDs the best performance solution is to use unetbootin (found at: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ ) Which will put the liveCD on a flash memory and boot from it. It will even download the ISO image and is available for Windows and Linux. If you wish to try a non-live CD/DVD then I would suggest VirtualBox (which is a software machine that uses a file as a fake hard drive on the virtual machine).
If you go with "Fedora" then you might want to look at the site:
http://www.fedorafaq.org/
Which has information on getting DVD to play other items related to Digital Rights preventing you from playing your Music, Dvd, etc. It also has how to use the power of the ATI and Nvidia video cars.
Also the site:
http://www.livecdlist.com/
Has links to lots of Linux, FreeBSD, and live CD sites and downloads. It identified the target market for the liveCD.
Anonymous - WOW! Thanks for all the info!! We have CentOS running on one of our older machines now - it's pretty cool.
As for my laptop - I have a contract editing gig and I found that I couldn't work if I was using Linux due to some kind of issue with their programs that they use. SO - had to stay with microsuck. I'm using an "evaluation copy" of Windows 7 at the moment... can't say that I like it that much better than Vista...
I have been looking at using a larger flash memory (partitioned so each liveCD would have its own partition) to hold more than one live CD via unetbootin but only have been able to boot the first. May get it work by also putting grub on in the flash memory (mbs) and having a two layer boot-menu as unetbootin uses syslinux in the partition where it puts the extracted kernel, initramdisk, and the actual CD image. May have to play with the unetbootin even with grub installed.
I have had three laptops all with Linux. The first was using Red Hat (1997-2002),
the second (2002-2004) ran SuSE, the current (running Gentoo with a networked "/usr/portage" drive). Been using Linux since 1993 (Unix user in 70's and from 1985 on). Never owned a machine that has had Microsoft Windows. I do use xterm rather than "Konsole", "gnome-terminal" or "Terminal" as it still honors the X mouse copy/paste/extend (no key presses) methods and I always change the KDE/Gnome desktops to "focus follows mouse" and "auto raise". The old days of X was "focus under mouse" ("mouse follows mouse" is nicer) and "auto raise". Best text editor is "gvim" (the X version of vim).
The X mouse copy/paste/extend are highlight using the left button, paste with the middle (or scroll wheel pressed) and the extend (or contract) the copy selection by the right button.
Us old Unix users never seem to have a window ever maximized and have many opened and on the screen at once. I also change the title bar double click in KDE/Gnome to "shade" rather than maximize.
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