This post will be much to the amusement of a certain grk3.
This is not the first time that I am changing my linux distro. In fact after umpteen number of changes, I had decided to stick to the set up that I currently have. I have a multi boot of OpenSolaris and Ubuntu along with Windows XP. I read a lot about OpenSolaris and the amazing features that it offers and I wanted to try it out and do all my development on that. On the other hand, Ubuntu was the distro that would help me give back to the community and be the mainstream linux distro on my PC.
As it turns out, things didn’t go as planned. OpenSolaris really needs some serious hardware. At least much more serious than my current hardware. The distro is way too slow to be able to get anything done. I still haven’t got around to registering my install, since the registration window never opens. Running an app takes ages and there seems to be some fault with the update system which always times out. Over all the distro is very inviting, has a good set of packages and an inviting desktop, but it just does not work on slower machines.
Ubuntu on the other hand is a mainstream linux and is the default choice for almost 50% of those who use or want to try out linux. The unfortunate thing is that Ubuntu has become very slow of late. Applications again take a very long time to start up and multitasking is a definite nono. Things are not as bad as in the case of OpenSolaris, but it is still not smooth enough for someone to be happy with it. The worst is the time that GRUB takes to initialize. I don’t know what Ubuntu does while starting up GRUB, but it is easily the slowest system to boot up by a factor of at least 4x. I wanted to stick to Ubuntu because of the great community, because of the vast array of software available for it and easily, and mostly because many of the great open source projects are built on Ubuntu.
But I have now come to realize that there is no point trying to use a popular or mainstream linux, or even an out-of-the-way distro on my PC. I need something that is fast and runs smoothly so that I can continue to use it without getting frustrated. Getting frustrated with something blocks all hopes of being able to accept something. So I will try and find a linux distro that ‘works’ on my machine and try and get familiar with it and try and use it for all that I want to do.
Linux Mint Fluxbox is one such distro that is supposed to be light on the system and it is also a fork of Ubuntu, so I suppose it has the same build and package system and will be compatible with the software and community that Ubuntu has. If this doesn’t work out, then I will be trying Xubuntu.
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Tagged: fluxbox, Linux, mint, open, opensolaris, solaris, ubuntu, xubuntu