[thelist] Developing in Linux

Paul Bennett Paul.Bennett at wcc.govt.nz
Tue May 13 21:13:45 CDT 2008


Hi all,

Interesting discussion :)
I switched my dev machine over to Ubuntu around 2 months ago (maybe less) for no other reason than I wanted to try it out.

Minuses
-----------------
- Had to hose my whole partition because I couldn't resize the default windows xp partition and was too lazy / anxious to bother with a proper resize tool
- video editing is apparently nonexistent. Home movie production has ceased. Wife is unimpressed
- lack of default codecs to play dvd's, mp3s is a PITA. Setup seems buggy (what may work once may not work next time)
- installing Java
- getting a dial up modem working was possible, but not without drama
- gnome desktop is *ugly*. Why do all the fonts have to be so big and all the icons take up so much space. Should I be looking at KDE? I remember that being better from experience with Red Hat
- default file browser to open files from within applications is a usability nightmare
- setting up Apache / PHP / Mysql was (ironically) easier on windows...
- there just aren't Linux alternatives for some things, so you have to run WINE which is a passable user experience at best
- file permissions are a pain to learn (this may be just me - I have no brain for things like regexp either)
- I hate the GIMP

Pluses
-----------------
- all hardware except modem picked up without error (including wireless network card)
- my wife has made the switch without any drama, although her needs are pretty simple
- apt-get is brilliant - all OS's should adopt something like this!
- wine runs most .exe's I've tried without drama
- Beryl is very nice
- Multiple desktops are way better than alt-tabbing through 15 running applications
- stability on a par with xp sp2
- sudo / root auth prevents permission slip ups and stops the kids doing anything untoward by accident

My 2c



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