The distro hopper writeup.

[rm]

As promised, here is the full writeup about my experiences in testing the current top Linux distros on my ThinkPad T61:

http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2007 ... t61-part1/

Please let me know what you think. (But, do try to be kind please.)

[Paul Unger]

typo, 4th line: After tht > After that

[GomJabbar]

I enjoyed reading your review. It was interesting reading for me.
[I believe I saw a spelling typo in the third sentence on the first page.]

From there I moved to RedHat, Mardrake, Vector, and SUSE.

I see Paul Unger found another.

[Paul Unger]

Geez, all these critics! I read (and learned) from the article, rm. Thanks for your work! I'm going to finish a thesis and then go for a dual boot system (don't want to screw things up before the thesis is done!), so your sleuthing was quite timely.

[mgo]

As promised, here is the full writeup about my experiences in testing the current top Linux distros on my ThinkPad T61:

http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2007 ... t61-part1/

Please let me know what you think. (But, do try to be kind please.)

Thanks very much for your article. Interestingly, I have tried most of the distros that you mentioned. My results were generally good, and similar to your findings, but there were enough of those "little things" to make me realize that I sill think Windows XP and Vista are the most satisfactory for my needs at this time.

I really do like the idea of the full NTFS support now and the improved graphics. My hi res screens are happy with most of the Linux distros I tried and I even installed two or three of them on a hard drive for further testing.

My main gripe is the lack of power management for ThinkPads. My Fn+F4 and Fn+F12 attemps did not work, and in most cases locked up the machines. I'm sure there are some SUDO type command lines that would fix up some of those weakenesses, but Terminal is a little beyond my skill level at this time.

[rm]

Thank you very much for the comments and for the corrections. I hope it doesn't discourage anyone from trying Linux. I think it is better for people to know what to expect. Those that do and still go through will have a better chance of succeeding. Any way, I had a good time writing it.

[John H]

I stopped reading your writeup when I saw that it was white typeface on a black background, which is very hard to read. I don't have to struggle thru that painful experience, and painful it is as my tired eyes try to adjust to the reduced light level and ill-formed rasterized characters.

[rm]

I stopped reading your writeup when I saw that it was white typeface on a black background, which is very hard to read. I don't have to struggle thru that painful experience, and painful it is as my tired eyes try to adjust to the reduced light level and ill-formed rasterized characters.

Sorry John,

You know, I find that there is almost a 50/50 division between those than prefer black over white and those that like white over black. I know this because I have participated on debates about this and seen polls about the issue. The latter often complain about pages with black letters over white background as being too bright and they have to resort to using tricks, like selecting the paragraph they are currently reading, to make it less irritating. Since I am in that camp, I favored that group. But, I wonder if using the Ctrl+ key combination on your browser, to make the text larger, would help you.

PS: On the other hand, I could probably try and find a more neutral theme, such as the one this site uses. I just didn't see one I liked the first time around. I'll take a second look.

[whizkid]

From the awesome free book Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines Book at http://usability.gov, chapter 11:

Guideline: When users are expected to rapidly
read and understand prose text, use black text on a plain, high-contrast, non-patterned background.

Comments: Black text on a plain background elicited reliably faster reading performance than on a medium-textured background. When compared to reading light text on a dark background, people read black text on a white background up to thirty-two percent faster. In general, the greater the contrast between the text and background, the easier the text is to read.

Sources: Boyntoin and Bush, 1956; Bruce and Green, 1990; Cole and Jenkins, 1984; Evans, 1998; Goldsmith, 1987; Gould, et al., 1987a; Gould, et al., 1987b; Jenkins and Cole, 1982; Kosslyn, 1994; Muter and Maurutto, 1991; Muter, 1996; Scharff, Ahumada and Hill, 1999; Snyder, et al., 1990; Spencer, Reynolds and Coe, 1977a; Spencer, Reynolds and Coe, 1977b; Treisman, 1990; Williams, 2000.

[whizkid]

Thanks for the work on the write-up. I feel a need to add my two cents as a Fedora fan.

You wrote flattering things about Fedora with everything except 3D working just fine, yet your opinion seems to be swayed by the experience of others (who are trying to get help) instead of your own. People don't gripe when everything works.

On my T60, for example, everything worked just fine after the installation that one would expect of a distribution that doesn't use non-free software. At this point, it's what I stick with, but I did get 3D working using ATI's proprietary driver (since my T60 uses the X1400 chip). Unfortunately, that has a bug and I can't suspend and resume, which I do a couple times a day. So I live without 3D for now, and I know AMD is helping authors write open source 3D drivers for their chips since they bought ATI.

Fedora has had some issues with dependencies, but they really don't effect most users. In addition, the update process since F8 was released is usually much faster than it was. (Sometimes you find a slow mirror now and then.)

I think Fedora does a lot of things right, and I encourage more people to take a look at it.

[rm]

Alright, what do you think of this theme?

http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2007 ... t61-part1/

[John H]

Better, except for the fade from blue to white. Makes it distracting and difficult to follow the line.

On my Desktop I use a variety of very pale pastel backgrounds to offer a color cue, so that if I see just a corner of a window that's pale pink I know it's a CLI or DOS session, tan is a file browser, etc., for easier mousing.

Black typeface means that the intersticial spaces between raster dots are also black and help make fully formed characters.

Black on white results in greater light to the eye, which narrows the iris resulting in better focus and greater depth of field. If you require less light you can adjust the LCD brightness or wear sunglasses, but there is little one can do with a black background.

All this Human Engineering stuff goes back at least to WW2 when mobs of psychologists were set to work using psychometrics to determine the best way to design aircraft gauges, etc. In the 80s the Mac intro of GUIs inspired many interesting Human Engineering principles too, many of which, I regret to say, are unknown and ignored by todays practitioners.

[rm]

"I guess its true what they say about the squeaky wheel ..."

Alright, see what you think about this one.

[rm]

I think Fedora does a lot of things right, and I encourage more people to take a look at it.

I agree 100%, as long as you don't mind, and have time for, a little tinkering. I narrowed down the scope of this writeup to look for a distro that gave me out-of-the-box, automatic, no tinkering needed, as much functionality as possible. Of course, all distros are capable of doing just about the same thing, as long as you are willing to roll up your sleeves and do the work. Unfortunately, in this primitive stages of the 21st century all distros require some work, from time to time, but some require less. Fedora is a good one, but it requires a little bit more work than I want to put on it right now.

[amwus]

I think the problem is that the support is short for most of linux distro. For example , i'm using Fedora 7 at this time, but in about 6 months, when Fedora 9 will be released, F7 won't be updated anymore !
So, you configure your system, maybe for a long time, and a year later, you have to do the same with a new install ! That's a bit annoying (for me it is !)...

I plan to install centOs 6 when it will be released, because it's a free Red Hat, based on Fedora, and the kernel will be enough recent to support tickless and other things like that. And centOs has a very long support time...

So, you configure it once, and you use it for a long time... Why change when it works fine ?

(sorry for bad english...)

[whizkid]

CentOS is a fine choice if you value stability. I am starting a deployment for my home server. 5 years is a nice long time to not have to worry about upgrades.

OTOH, I am a Linux enthusiast, so I like to get the latest software. Upgrading Fedora every year or so is the price I pay for that. Of course, you could go with Gentoo or build from source if you want to pay your price that way.

[rm]

Several people asked me to do a follow up on this writeup. Well, here it is:

http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2007 ... -followup/