[Tfug] Ubuntu 7-04, firefox

[Jim March]

In defense of Ubuntu:

As many here know, I'm running a single-core Celeron 1.6 laptop -
basically an Acer as cheap as they come.  I've now got 1.5gigs RAM in
it - had two but am sharing with a friend with a similar rig.  I've
got Intel945 graphics.

I did some experiments in pushing this combo with Ubuntu 7.04 to the
absolute max.  Got Compiz Fusion 5.3 running, zero problems, good
performance.  Then got VirtualBox running a 512meg VM with WinXP,
complete with everything needed to take apart Diebold databases
(pirate copy of the Diebold central tabulator code plus MS-Office
2003).  Used the "not totally free" variant of VirtualBox from the
binaries on their site, so I have things like USB passthrough and
"networking" such that the VM can read /home as Z:.

Performance with all this running is exceptional.  I can run XP full
screen, demo various stuff there and mention "oh by the way, this is
all really running on Linux" and the instant they do "huh?" roll the
cube around to Gnome :D.

Now.  I don't deny Ubuntu has issues.  Just try removing OpenOffice
and watch it puke all over it's shoes.  But, by late in Edgy's upgrade
cycle and now into Feisty, stability is exceptional.  And I've yet to
see an auto-update in a release version do anything brain dead...can't
say the same for Fedora Core 6, as much as I liked it.

If I need more performance, Xubuntu is available.

If somebody has a better idea for a "Grandma Millie" distro (one that
can be supported among non-geek users) I'd like to hear about it.

Yes, I could get something like Arch or something else tuned for speed
working - for me.  And I did briefly just to prove to myself I
could...but it became obvious it wasn't going to fly in a pure user
environment.  Ditto everything else I've tried, with FC6 coming the
closest.  Even then, incoming auto-updates sometimes broke stuff
(happened twice in two months) which to me took it out of the running.

Jim