Re: [tlug] Gnome vs. KDE? BSD vs. Linux?

["Niels Kobschaetzki" <n.kobschaetzki@example.com>]

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 3:07 PM, Julien Feltesse <jfeltesse@example.com> wrote:
> The internet is full of gnome VS kde blog posts but I'd say it's just a
> matter of taste.
> As pointed out for an old laptop you'd be better of with lighter desktops, I
> personally like fluxbox.

I am now using Xfce and it fits me well but I think about trying some
other alternatives

> the big concern with gentoo on an old laptop is obviously the compilation
> time that one could call "The Never Ending Story", so as everyone said I'd
> advice you to go with a binary distro.

I'm using now FreeBSD and have to compile quite often stuff - that's
most of the time ok, the only problem I have is that it regularly
fails and I can't just say: "make install clean" and wait 'til it's
finished but have to have an eye on it.

<snip Arch>

>  I would say that Ubuntu and the likes might be a little bit too fat for an
> old laptop and the BSDs, well, they're cool but I don't see the point on a
> laptop. The brand new FreeBSD 7 shows off mad perf benchmarks that make you
> feel like switching but when you think about it you realize it won't change
> that much for a desktop use. If I were to build a 8 way server tomorrow I
> would consider FreeBSD but not for a laptop.

I'm using now FreeBSD7. There are still some quirks (don't have an
idea how to get the SD-card reader to work, DVD-playback doesn't
really work because of some failure that seems to be "introduced" in
FreeBSD 7) but overall it feels blazing fast on that old machine. It
boots damn fast and most of the applications I'm using are working
well and fast. But I needed two days of work to get nearly everything
set up -- part is my own inexperience, part is the fact that I have to
compile often and a part is that there is no bloat and therefore you
have to do a lot by yourself in the beginning.
Btw. they should mention before the install starts, that you have to
prepare an encrypted home and can't do it afterwards and not somewhere
in chapter 20 with the addition of "if you want to encrypt home then
you have bad luck here because it's too complicated that we'll discuss
it here".
But all in all the documentation is just great as mentioned before by others.

> It's been a while since I last tested these but when I used a sluggish
> laptop a couple of years ago I had a good impression from Vector & Debian
> for not been bloated from day 1.

Before I switched to OS X I usually used SuSE because it's quite
popular in Germany but nowadays I see everywhere Ubuntu and rarely a
Gentoo.

<snip bottom-quote>

Niels