[CALUG] Linux choices

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday 19 December 2007 12:16, Jason Dixon wrote:
> On Dec 19, 2007, at 10:33 AM, Eric Bassett wrote:
> > See, here's the problem with Linux...  this argument could go on for
> > days over which distro is the best... which one offers what, and so
> > on and so forth.  My suggested distro?  Windows, it works
> > fantastic.  Complain all you want about it, but it works 99% of the
> > time right out of the box with an immense amount of hardware
> > support.  I've built and run many Linux distros and each one has its
> > quirks that take a good amount of time to hammer out especially if
> > there are hardware gripes.  There's an old saying...  Linux is only
> > free if your time has no value.  Sorry guys, I have better things to
> > do with my time.
>
> Conversely, Windows is never free nor worth my time.  It shouldn't
> surprise me that someone at Tenable made this statement.  It almost
> sounds like something Marcus Ranum would say.  However, I suspect it
> has more to do with a general pattern by security experts to eat their
> own dog food ("if you can't fix it, make money trying to")
>
I just got a new Dell Latitude D430 yesterday.  It came with Windows XP, which 
I decided to go ahead and set up just for use when calling Dell tech support 
if nothing else.  I also installed Kubuntu 7.10.

I spent less time installing (including repartitioning the hard drive and 
formatting the new partitions) Kubuntu than I did setting up the 
pre-installed Windows XP.  I am including the time of installing anti-virus 
and other stuff I don't really need in Linux in the Windows setup time.

I chose, carefully, a laptop with Intel video and wireless because they are 
well supported in Linux by Intel.  Everything worked out of the box with no 
special configuring required.  Linux used to be hard to install, but on a 
modern desktop oriented distro, installs are generally easier than Windows in 
my experience.  For printer setup I had to know that I had a network printer, 
it's IP address, and the manufacturer/model number.  The drivers were all 
available.  I've spent hours futzing with various printer drivers to work 
with this same printer in Windows (it's an HP 3380 and a jet direct box).

I don't know a thing about Tenable, but I know which install/setup was easier.

Scott K