Nuke my Gentoo, Fedora for Ubuntu?

[Kent Frazier]

I'm pretty new to Ubuntu, but I'll see if I can answer some of your questions.


On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 01:05:48 +0000, Andreas Geske <ageske at kabelmuckel.de> wrote:

> 
> - How fast is Ubuntu compared to SuSE or Fedora. Mentioned distros are
> extremely slow on my PC (Athlon XP 1800+, 256 MB RAM). I know it's hard
> to measure, but maybe you can give me your personal "feeling" about the
> speed of Ubuntu Linux
I used to use Mandrake 9.1 on my older processor.  Ubuntu feels faster
than it did, but I haven't done a comparison with the same specs.  So
I guess I'm not really sure on this one.

> 
> - I'm one of these "bleeding edge guys". I want to have major version of
> software (e.g. Firefox 1.0) ASAP, that means 2 weeks after release.
> Ubuntu is based on Debian, which is not known as a "speed wonder".
If you use the Hoary Hedgehog release of Ubuntu, it seems to be pretty
up on things.  It is currently in heavy development, so things may
break occasionally, but that is usually due to an upgrade (exactly
what you are looking for) and they seem to fix those issues pretty
quickly.

> 
> - I don't like to search for third party packages throughout the whole
> web. Does Ubuntu Linux provide a reasonable software repository without
> having to edit yum.conf or other files where to pick up my packages.
> Maybe there's a list of packages supported out of the box.
Ubuntu's default repositories have a lot of software.  By default, the
universe repository (which contains applicatications which are OSS,
but are not officially supported by Ubuntu) is in
/etc/apt/sources.list (probably the equivalent of yum.conf), but it is
disabled.  You can enable it graphically in Synaptic.  Also, Ubuntu
has a multiverse repository, which contains other software which may
not be fully free, but is available to those who want it.  This is not
in the default sources.list file, but can be added through synaptic or
by manually editing the file.  You can also add other repositories
such as the Debian repositories or Debian Marillat, which has a lot of
windows codecs as well as DeCSS so you can play DVDs.

> 
> - Even Ubuntu Linux is Gnome based distro there are two KDE apps I won't
> miss: K3B and Krename. Are these apps available? (Note: I don't need a
> fully featured KDE desktop, just these 2 apps)
I use K3b regularly in Ubuntu under Gnome.  You can install KDE
through Apt pretty easily, but you can also run KDE apps under gnome
provided you also install all their dependencies (Apt will
automatically select and install them).  KDE apps may take longer to
start up under Gnome than they would have under KDE, because all the
unique libraries and such have to be loaded.

> 
> - Can I use Ubuntu Linux as a server? Not for production use, just for
> private testing purposes. In other words: Does Ubuntu Linux provide
> packages for latest versions of: MySQL, PostgreSQL, qmail+additional
> packages, Python, Perl+additional packages, PHP, apache2?
I believe so, but I don't really use them, so I'm not sure.

> 
> - Due to Ubuntu being a Debian based distro, I assume the package format
> is DEB. Is there a graphical tool for installing software, like
> synaptic? (or even better)
The package format is indeed DEB.  Synaptic is included with the base
distro, and I find it very easy to use.

> 
> - Does Ubuntu Linux provide goodies like
>       - automatic hardware detection
>       - autmounting CD-ROMs, digicams etc. (I love it to plug in my
>         digicam and use it *without* having to mount it manually)
>       - graphical configuration of the most important system settings
>         like network, X11, printer, mount points, boot options etc.
Ubuntu did a very good job of detecting most of my hardware.  It
automounts CDs and such automatically and places an icon on your
desktop (first distro I have seen do this, and I really like the way
it is handled).  Gnome's graphical configuration tools seem to be a
bit sparse compared to KDE, but the most important stuff is all there.

Hope that answered some of your questions.  I have been using Ubuntu
for a few weeks now, and I think it is my favorite of all the distros
I have tried (Mandrake, Fedora, Gentoo, Debian).  Also, I have been
pretty impressed by the Ubuntu community.  Seems like its a lot more
understanding and willing to help than many others.  Not that the
communities for those other distros were unwilling to help, but Ubuntu
users and developers seem almost happy to :).

Kent