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You can now see the result of all my hard work (and whining). The five Linux distros I reviewed are online and conveniently in one roundup, so you can see them all: What Flavor of Linux is Right For You?
Linux Mint earned the Editor’s Choice, as well it should, as it was my favorite of the five. Ubuntu was a close second. As I mentioned before, I am not partial to PCLinuxOS or Mandriva, and Fedora makes me want to never see Linux again. (This is especially sad because Fedora is the one that works best with the Samsung netbooks.)
Click on over to read. Maybe you will find yourself thinking about trying Linux. I am glad I did, despite everything.
The other day I wrote a story about people putting Android–the Google operating system for phones–on netbooks. I can’t say that it was my most exciting assignment ever. I put porting Android to the EeePC on a long list of things people do just because they can. Possibly because it’s cool. Sometimes because they want to stretch their abilities and test their own limits. But the end result for everyone is not always practical. Yes, you can put Android on some netbooks, but it doesn’t work all that well and won’t connect to the app store/market, either.
Perhaps I’m being a bit curmudgeonly. I use my netbook to get work done, so I need it… working. But for developers, figuring out how to port things to different platforms and hardware is work. Still, I always look at news of this type with a bit of skepticism.
Yesterday Brad Linder (of Liliputing) and Adam McDaniel put up instructions on how to create a LiveUSB of the HP Mi Edition version of Linux (which is basically Ubuntu with some semi-extensive tweaks). This is big news for anyone interested in the Mi OS because up until now you could download it but the install would overwrite everything on your hard drive. Most Linuxes have the ability to make LiveCDs or LiveUSBs so you can try a distro out and, as far as I know, all of them can install alongside an existing OS (in theory). But I don’t know if HP expected there to be this kind of interest in the Mi Linux.
Anyway, Brad and Adam spent some time figuring out how to tweak things, so now anyone with a lot of time who isn’t turned off by using Terminal can spend an hour making a LiveUSB of this (admittedly sleek) OS. Does this fall into Because You Can? Maybe not. After all, the OS is usable and meant to run on a netbook. On the other hand: look at all this tech speak!
I’ve already been promised that I don’t have to do it.
I’m writing up reviews of 5 Linux distros for work and it’s killing me. Linux is both wonderful and completely frustrating, and resolving those two things is hard. Especially when I am trying to be objective. One thing I am really enjoying about some of the Linuxes is their ability to run from USB thumb drives so you can try them out without installing. I really, really love that, with some, the OS can save changes to said USB drive, so I can add programs, tweak settings, etc., and it will be there next time I boot up no matter what computer I’m on. Pocket OS — score!
I also installed the PortableApps platform on an SD card I had in my Eee PC (before I gave it to my niece for Christmas). PortableApps is amazing — lots of great, useful software on an SD card that, again, retains settings and information and leaves no trace behind on the computer you’re using. It’s great for security and supremely useful for me since I test a lot of netbooks and notebooks and don’t want to always install the same core programs over and over.
PortableApps utilizes all open source software, so there are many things I’m not entirely familiar with. But I’m taking it as an opportunity to learn about what’s out there. Of course I know all about Firefox and Thunderbird (which, by the way, everyone should be using instead of MS Office) and Open Office. I’m trying to evaluate whether KompoZer is an adequate substitute for Dreamweaver. GIMP isn’t adequate for anything, alas. There is a dearth of open source photo editing stuff. Someone please correct this!
Anyway, I’m getting very much into my portable OS and apps. Maybe, maybe, maybe it will facilitate my eventual switch to Linux, but I’m extremely dubious about that at this point. Mainly because I’ve had to deal with installing, configuring, and testing five distros in the past month and none of them have been easy or without problems. But that’s a post for another day.
