the thpinfo.com blogger archives (2007-2008)

MacBook Linux Live CDs

Last week, Ubuntu 7.10 came out, and so I thought I might give it a try on my August 2006 MacBook (non-Pro). Today, I tried out the Fedora 8 Test 3 Live CD - the same thing Ubuntu provides with its "Live Desktop" CD (boot system from CD, try it out, if you like it, you can install it to your hard disk).

Guess what? Ubuntu 7.10 crashed with a distorted screen, while Fedora 8 booted happily with a very nice boot splash that even had mouse support. It also seems like Fedora 8 is more advanced, technology-wise with its PulseAudio (very cool) and NetworkManager 0.7, although I think the version of NetworkManager in Fedora 8 Test 3 isn't the NM version that will be put in F8.

Anyway, testing these "new" releases of the flashy, user-friendly Linux distros showed me some really neat things (PulseAudio is what I want to have installed soon :), but I'm perfectly fine with my Debian testing/unstable system, which is cool, dpkg-based, fresh and already set up to my taste :) I also like the way Debian keeps most things "vanilla" and doesn't try to brand the whole Desktop with logos of the distro, and a special GTK+ and icon theme, opposed to the fully-branded Fedora and Ubuntu distros, although I'd like to see the new Fedora GTK, Metacity and GDM themes available as a package in Debian, because the look is quite nice.

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Thomas Perl (thp at this domain); jabber: thp@jabber.org