[Tfug] Latest weird distro tested: Zenwalk

[Jim March]

For the record: I've only come across two distros I'd call "bad".

Ubuntu Edgy was unstable.  And worse, if you erase the contents of a USB
drive and then properly unmount/eject it before emptying trash, the file
system comes catastrophically unglued.  Within hours you may find 3,000+
*system* files in the trash, and then things really go rodeo.  Apparently
somebody wanted to "protect" the contents of flash media but went about it
sooooo wrong...we're talkin' linebacker in a pink tutu wrong.  Cat chow mein
wrong.  Yeesh.

Sabayon was a freakshow.

Of the others:

Dapper is OK but outdated (Gnome 2.14 fr'instance).

OpenSuse 10.2 is stable but package management and repository access was
ugly.  Repos were all overseas and often down.  Could be made to work for
somebody not into trying lots of new crap.

Fedora Core 6 was pretty good but auto-updates sometimes broke minor stuff.
I could live with it just fine.  Great support forums, very flexible, good
choice for a geek :).  They may get the remaining bugs out next cut; I would
say it has more potential than Ubuntu unless Shuttleworth and company really
get their bleep together on Feisty.

Mandriva Free 2007: bland, not real cutting edge, "mostly stable" but small
things would break, not very flexible.  Boring, and once it was clear it
wasn't "the answer" I moved on.  Has a ton of potential though and may work
better for others.

Zenwalk: end of day two, still real impressed.  Stable as a rock, zero video
glitches (unusual with a Radeon 7500 laptop with 32megs and a 1400x1050
screen!) and the factory video settings worked like a charm.

The only remaining "issue" is that I want a better search system.  Installed
Pinot but that doesn't cut it - what I really need is gnome-search-tool,
which can search based on both filespec and file content string.  I've got
text files for miles I need to be able to churn through...13,000 old Diebold
internal EMails just for starters is a constant reference source.

There's a lot of Gnome pieces in here and I'm confident I can get something
going.

Jim

On 3/6/07, Earl <earljviolet at juno.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, I understood. Been there and done that. That is why the irony.
>
> Earl
>
> -- keith smith <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't think you read his post.  He compared a number of distros and
> not all was good.
>
> Earl <earljviolet at juno.com> wrote: -- "Jim March"
> <1.jim.march at gmail.com> wrote:
> <>
>
> >>So, the search for the "Grandma Millie" distro continues :).
>
> <>
>
> Well, Jim, this comes as a total shock. Most of the writers find every
> distro they review to be great.
>
> :0
>
> Earl
>
>
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