I keep falling back to Ubuntu

Posted by Johannes Stein on Apr 7, 2009 in Linux, Miscellaneous, OS-related | 0 comments

Yes, it’s that time of the year again where I try different linux distributions from distrowatch. My hardware is somehow special because my primary development system is an Apple MacBook 3,1 Core 2 Duo with Intel GMA X3100 graphics.

GNOME is a must for me. First of all, I really like the GNOME desktop environment (as long as I get to use a fast computer with a lot of memory) and I’m using DropBox which only works with nautilus. (Yeah, I know, I could start the daemon manually, but I don’t want to.)

On another note: I’ve been using DropBox for about two month now and it’s absolutely amazing. For those of you who doesn’t know what DropBox is: It is a tool which sychronizes data between different systems (Mac, Linux and Windows are supported). Before DropBox came along I used an USB stick and that was kinda annoying because I had to check which files where up-to-date and which were not. And DropBox does that automatically.

Allright, back to topic. This year’s candidates:

Ubuntu

Pros

  • Nearly every aspect of my macbook is detected out-of-the-box, there is very little (for example the iSight webcam which I rarely use) to configure manually
  • In my (humble) opinion Ubuntu is a really good distribution. I’ve been using it since about four/five years now, more or less regularly.
  • This is the distribution most of the Linux users are using
  • Debian-based

Cons

  • It might have something to do with intel drivers, but my self-made games run with 40 FPS if I’m lucky. Usually I get around 20 – 30 FPS. First I thought it’s the fault of my poorly designed framework, but then I discovered I get around 110 FPS with Debian and Zenwalk. As I found out this is linked to the new X versions (1.5 and above).
  • I really like manually configuring /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  • Last saturday I held a little presentation about gaming on linux at a local linux event, but Ubuntu just didn’t want to recognize the projector while I tested the equipement the day before with an external monitor and it worked just fine.
  • The Intrepid release didn’t seem stable enough for me. The java plugin bug really annoyed me and all the workarounds didn’t work for me.

Debian

Pros

  • Package management

Cons

  • Takes a long time to configure (not if have used other distributions before, but if you’re used to some comfort you don’t want to miss it)
  • There are some packages I’m missing which were present on a Ubuntu system

Mandriva

Pros

  • Package management nearly as fast as debian-based distributions
  • Stable, if you don’t use beta versions (actually same problem with other distributions)

Cons

  • Mandriva is often underestimated
  • I don’t like the Mandriva control center

Zenwalk

Pros

  • Slackware-based, no real package management (just netpkg which is not a real alternative to DEB or RPM to me)
  • Really fast
  • Specially designed for developers

Cons

  • Slackware-based, no real package management (just netpkg which is not a real alternative to DEB or RPM to me)
  • No 64-bit support (well, not officially)

Final result: I’ve installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and just installed the packages I needed. I’m using a lot of PPA packages and when I write “a lot” I mean more than a lot.

On a side note: I managed to compile LunarTower for all three major platforms without any access violations. I took care of some of the performance issues. You can count on a release within the next few days. It would make a nice easter present, wouldn’t it?

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