Here's a topic guaranteed to start controversy. Which Linux distribution is best? It all depends on your criteria for judging. Even then the topic is highly subjective. Here are a few nominees for "best distro" in specific categories.
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Member since:2005-08-17
I have Ubuntu/Unity installed along with Windows 8 on my laptop and so far I only boot into Windows when I need to develop (ASP.NET). Otherwise, I am surprisingly satisfied with it. They definitely need to keep refining and adding more customization but, especially after what MS did to Windows, it is not so bad.
Edited 2012-10-22 11:20 UTC
Member since:2010-01-11
I was thinking the same thing. The article states:
I don't use Unity, but in my opinion it is very much a desktop friendly user interface. It certainly wasn't designed for tablets, phones, or servers...
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2009-07-08
I also find Unity great. As a matter of fact, I don't think there's an easier DE for newbies. At the same time, it's one of the fastests for powerusers (look ma, no mouse!).
It definitely needs polish, but I'd say it's been getting it at every new release. By the next LTS will probably be a very solid one. I'm only waiting for the end of the (very stupidly justified) forced hidden menu to declare it the best available DE.
I must say I haven't tried Gnome Shell but for a few hours. It looks very elegant (it's visually MUCH better than anything else, IMO), but hide and seek is not my favorite UI paradigm... GS has a SERIOUS problem of discoverability. I know it can be heavily customized with extensions, but the approach isn't solidly backed by Gnome developers (breakage and discoverability of extensions is a weak point). I'm surprised no distro is offering Gnome Shell customized yet (Mint doesn't count; Cinnamon is not just a collection of extensions.)
I expect Unity to allow for a less "colorful" launcher, an option to show menus permanently (it's been coming for two releases already) and much more customizability in general. I understand all of this is planned to happen at some point, so I'm strongly behind Unity.
The fact that a company is behind Ubuntu brings some peace of mind too, since I must install it to customers, not just friends. (The Red Hat desktop is a second class citizen at Red Hat. The company is clearly server oriented. That's why I don't even think about it.)
So Ubuntu is the best distro out there for me.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2008-11-25
Without a doubt, mine is Ubuntu.
Why? Unity.
It is the only desktop with unity, and unity is what I want.
The author claims repeatedly that unity is awful, with no reason as to why. IMO, it is the best thing out there for those of us who want to use the keyboard more, and the mouse less.
The HUD beats tabbing through a menu, or using the stupid mouse, and the dash allows me to quickly call up files from my highly organised heirachy with less than 6 keytaps.
I never did like using panels, docks or menus, and the konsole also does autocompletion for software names.
This seems to be the logical extension.