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Just a brain dump of some thoughts in response to multiple posts.
I find it a little ironic that some users think Ubuntu/Unity looks stale. Whenever I begin to feel that way and I check out other distributions, I immediately compare it to Ubuntu and feel as though it's the other distros lacking. Font rendering being the obvious one. Having been on openSUSE, Debian, and a few others lately, it's night/day with the font rendering versus Ubuntu. There's no arguing that Unity simply hasn't seen any worthwhile changes lately, but it works well for what it is, and looks very decent in comparison to the majority of alternatives out there. I took a screenshot of Empathy when I was on openSUSE to highlight the difference in text when typing a message vs when it populates in the body above. I hate to speak like this about an open source project I support and really like, but this is just bad. http://i.imgur.com/ngim0Ey.png
Another thing I've learned is how frustrating some other desktop environments can be. Given the recent Plasma 5 news I checked it out. To my surprise, the 5 year old "cannot open files/stream media from a network share" bug on KDE is still not fixed. If you'd like to launch files/stream media from a network resource, you still have to utilize smb4k or manually mount your shares over terminal to make that happen. Even if you try opening a LibreOffice document on a NAS/file server, no dice. Third party smb4k or command line mounting is required. And yes, I'm aware of fstab. No, it's not a solution. Not for somebody who travels to other locations where other file servers exist. As a result, "fstab'ing all the things" on startup just won't fly. Of course, the alternative is to copy items locally before trying to open them, but who does that? Every other OS/DE known to man handles this. With KDE, it seems to be a struggle.
Elementary OS is a distribution I really like, but that honeymoon phase is fading. Fast. It looks great, it runs great, it's smooth and consistent, but I'm not all about running a beta OS at work, nor am I interested in running a 12.x base (their current stable) at work either. Maybe I'm a different target audience, and that's fine, but just talking out loud here. In this day and age, many distros seem to be focusing more on stability. Mint is working with LTS's only, elementary is working on their yet-to-be-released 14.04 build, Ubuntu is working towards Unity 8 that we won't be seeing for a bit yet so they're holding tight on refining Unity 7 as much as possible with various fixes and minor improvements, etc. I like this. I dig stability. But I also dig the ability to get some work done, which sometimes requires certain features. Elementary cannot bookmark network shares while KDE based distributions cannot open documents on network shares. So, they both strike out for me (keywords: for me). I'm sure I could make them work, but I'm beyond the stage of doing whatever I can to make a distribution work. There's enough quality distros out there, I'll just fire up one that flies with what I need.
Fedora is admittedly a distribution that's always been interesting to me. Gnome in itself is very attractive as well. If it weren't for Unity, Gnome would be undoubtedly my #2 choice. I still tinker with it occasionally, but I have yet to experience the Fedora/Gnome experience (at least not since about the F17/F18 era). Perhaps it's time. Gnome works nicely in recent versions, Fedora has the RPMFusion for additional stuffs, I can happily add network bookmark shares in Nautilus (hopefully they don't remove that feature, but who knows with how feature-removal-happy they've been in recent times). I do like distributions that are backed by some sort of company, or at least have a monumental community footing. A distribution ran by a small team isn't something I'd vouch for a few thousand systems in the enterprise. Something like Ubuntu, no brainer. RHEL (even Fedora), absolutely. OpenSUSE, Debian, yep/yep. This may not appeal to some people, but it's my every day work day, so it holds more water with me in particular.
Someone mentioned that they dislike how some desktop environments are catered to specific distros. I have to agree. This is one thing that I think Mint deserves some credit in. Both Mate and Cinnamon are widely available on other distributions. I saw Cinnamon in the list of available desktop environments on a Debian Jessie install last week. That made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Well done, Mint team. Pantheon is a little more forgiving than Unity, but the issue is packaging. Evidently Pantheon exists for Arch and openSUSE (in the build service), but of course that requires some interested parties to invest time in packaging, hence why (last I looked) Pantheon on openSUSE was still pretty dated. Unity in particular should become far easier to package for other distributions upon the arrival of Unity 8. Unity 7 and below are basically shells sitting on a bunch of Gnome libraries. Think back to when Cinnamon on Arch was a problem. Cinnamon was packaged on a specific version of libraries, so when Arch was updating to the latest that Gnome offers, Cinnamon was a headache given that it required an older build. Cinnamon breaking itself off from Gnome, thereby becoming its own independent desktop environment, alleviated this issue altogether. Now Gnome and Cinnamon can co-exist just fine. This is exactly what Unity 7 and below face, among other things like compiz etc. Unity 8 being based on Qt and being less dependent on Gnome itself should mark the start of it being an independent environment. I've heard Unity devs speak enthusiastically about it as this would allow Unity 8 to be more easily packaged for other distributions. Of course, Unity 8 needs to get here first, and it's not looking like it'll be tomorrow or next week, so there's that. Ubuntu devs have consistently said that their focus on mobile is not in vain to the desktop, and that nearly everything they are doing is foundation groundwork (even though today's focus is mobile), which will allow the desktop side of Unity 8 to be spun up considerably faster than what most people think. I know what you're thinking, and I agree - I'll believe it when I see it. But hey, we're all brothers and sisters of Linux here. Let's give them a golf clap and let them do what they do. I wish them success, regardless of whichever desktop environment/distribution/operating system I may end up on next week/next 5 years/etc.
Manjaro and Antergos are distributions I really like too. The AUR is undoubtedly nice. It really helps bind everything together. Of course, it's not perfect, and it's certainly not something I'd recommend to a new user. Love it or hate it, the Ubuntu Software Center is hands down the best we have for new users. It doesn't look intimidating with a bunch of packages listed. It just has the application with their name, an icon, reviews, and an install button. Again, every distro has a different target audience, so I'm not necessarily praising one while dumping on another. Just comparing them from a "what distro would I install for grandma" point of view. I mentioned that the AUR system is not perfect, however the PPA system isn't perfect either. If there was some sort of PPA manager installed by default to auto add PPAs to bring in new software, that would be great. Or, maybe, MAYBE, if the Universe repo in Ubuntu would actually be utilized as such, it would bridge that gap that much further. Antergos in particular I've tried a few times, but it's been a little fussy in my experience, with certain ISOs flat out not working. This seems to be a common issue unfortunately. If I get the Arch/AUR itch again, I'd probably lean towards Manjaro Gnome for a starting point.
I frequently test distributions on a spare laptop I have which specifically has a Broadcom STA based wifi card. This stands as a good test to me as I can see how gracefully distributions handle the proprietary driver installation for this wifi chip. To date, no distribution (I cannot emphasize this enough) has come close to handling it as gracefully as *buntu. To pull an Apple card out of the hat, it just works. I have my frustrations with Ubuntu, sure. If I avoided every operating system/distribution/desktop environment/computer manufacturer/brand of ketchup I ever had issues with, I'd have no choices to choose from.
Me personally? I tend to stick to Ubuntu. I get the font rendering, hardware support for proprietary chips, software I need, and the little odds-and-ends features I depend on, like quickly connecting to a multitude of file servers on a single click with ease. We have a few thousand Ubuntu based systems at work (both on Unity and XFCE). They work very well. We're several years in to the project and have been very happy with it. As much as I like System76, I can't lie, it's pretty nice popping on the Dell site and having a few Ubuntu based options to choose from as well. For what it's worth, I've had decent experience with Dell's customer support with my Ubuntu based Latitude. In my case, it was a hardware issue, but I expected to call them and they have no idea what Ubuntu is, but they handled it acceptably.
At the end of the day, let's treat distributions like beer. Nobody cares what beer you're drinking. The point is... you're here. With us. Having a good time. In terms of distributions/desktop environments/your favorite brand of cheese, just use what works for you. That's what matters.
Cheers.
I find it a little ironic that some users think Ubuntu/Unity looks stale. Whenever I begin to feel that way and I check out other distributions, I immediately compare it to Ubuntu and feel as though it's the other distros lacking. Font rendering being the obvious one. Having been on openSUSE, Debian, and a few others lately, it's night/day with the font rendering versus Ubuntu. There's no arguing that Unity simply hasn't seen any worthwhile changes lately, but it works well for what it is, and looks very decent in comparison to the majority of alternatives out there. I took a screenshot of Empathy when I was on openSUSE to highlight the difference in text when typing a message vs when it populates in the body above. I hate to speak like this about an open source project I support and really like, but this is just bad. http://i.imgur.com/ngim0Ey.png
Another thing I've learned is how frustrating some other desktop environments can be. Given the recent Plasma 5 news I checked it out. To my surprise, the 5 year old "cannot open files/stream media from a network share" bug on KDE is still not fixed. If you'd like to launch files/stream media from a network resource, you still have to utilize smb4k or manually mount your shares over terminal to make that happen. Even if you try opening a LibreOffice document on a NAS/file server, no dice. Third party smb4k or command line mounting is required. And yes, I'm aware of fstab. No, it's not a solution. Not for somebody who travels to other locations where other file servers exist. As a result, "fstab'ing all the things" on startup just won't fly. Of course, the alternative is to copy items locally before trying to open them, but who does that? Every other OS/DE known to man handles this. With KDE, it seems to be a struggle.
Elementary OS is a distribution I really like, but that honeymoon phase is fading. Fast. It looks great, it runs great, it's smooth and consistent, but I'm not all about running a beta OS at work, nor am I interested in running a 12.x base (their current stable) at work either. Maybe I'm a different target audience, and that's fine, but just talking out loud here. In this day and age, many distros seem to be focusing more on stability. Mint is working with LTS's only, elementary is working on their yet-to-be-released 14.04 build, Ubuntu is working towards Unity 8 that we won't be seeing for a bit yet so they're holding tight on refining Unity 7 as much as possible with various fixes and minor improvements, etc. I like this. I dig stability. But I also dig the ability to get some work done, which sometimes requires certain features. Elementary cannot bookmark network shares while KDE based distributions cannot open documents on network shares. So, they both strike out for me (keywords: for me). I'm sure I could make them work, but I'm beyond the stage of doing whatever I can to make a distribution work. There's enough quality distros out there, I'll just fire up one that flies with what I need.
Fedora is admittedly a distribution that's always been interesting to me. Gnome in itself is very attractive as well. If it weren't for Unity, Gnome would be undoubtedly my #2 choice. I still tinker with it occasionally, but I have yet to experience the Fedora/Gnome experience (at least not since about the F17/F18 era). Perhaps it's time. Gnome works nicely in recent versions, Fedora has the RPMFusion for additional stuffs, I can happily add network bookmark shares in Nautilus (hopefully they don't remove that feature, but who knows with how feature-removal-happy they've been in recent times). I do like distributions that are backed by some sort of company, or at least have a monumental community footing. A distribution ran by a small team isn't something I'd vouch for a few thousand systems in the enterprise. Something like Ubuntu, no brainer. RHEL (even Fedora), absolutely. OpenSUSE, Debian, yep/yep. This may not appeal to some people, but it's my every day work day, so it holds more water with me in particular.
Someone mentioned that they dislike how some desktop environments are catered to specific distros. I have to agree. This is one thing that I think Mint deserves some credit in. Both Mate and Cinnamon are widely available on other distributions. I saw Cinnamon in the list of available desktop environments on a Debian Jessie install last week. That made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Well done, Mint team. Pantheon is a little more forgiving than Unity, but the issue is packaging. Evidently Pantheon exists for Arch and openSUSE (in the build service), but of course that requires some interested parties to invest time in packaging, hence why (last I looked) Pantheon on openSUSE was still pretty dated. Unity in particular should become far easier to package for other distributions upon the arrival of Unity 8. Unity 7 and below are basically shells sitting on a bunch of Gnome libraries. Think back to when Cinnamon on Arch was a problem. Cinnamon was packaged on a specific version of libraries, so when Arch was updating to the latest that Gnome offers, Cinnamon was a headache given that it required an older build. Cinnamon breaking itself off from Gnome, thereby becoming its own independent desktop environment, alleviated this issue altogether. Now Gnome and Cinnamon can co-exist just fine. This is exactly what Unity 7 and below face, among other things like compiz etc. Unity 8 being based on Qt and being less dependent on Gnome itself should mark the start of it being an independent environment. I've heard Unity devs speak enthusiastically about it as this would allow Unity 8 to be more easily packaged for other distributions. Of course, Unity 8 needs to get here first, and it's not looking like it'll be tomorrow or next week, so there's that. Ubuntu devs have consistently said that their focus on mobile is not in vain to the desktop, and that nearly everything they are doing is foundation groundwork (even though today's focus is mobile), which will allow the desktop side of Unity 8 to be spun up considerably faster than what most people think. I know what you're thinking, and I agree - I'll believe it when I see it. But hey, we're all brothers and sisters of Linux here. Let's give them a golf clap and let them do what they do. I wish them success, regardless of whichever desktop environment/distribution/operating system I may end up on next week/next 5 years/etc.
Manjaro and Antergos are distributions I really like too. The AUR is undoubtedly nice. It really helps bind everything together. Of course, it's not perfect, and it's certainly not something I'd recommend to a new user. Love it or hate it, the Ubuntu Software Center is hands down the best we have for new users. It doesn't look intimidating with a bunch of packages listed. It just has the application with their name, an icon, reviews, and an install button. Again, every distro has a different target audience, so I'm not necessarily praising one while dumping on another. Just comparing them from a "what distro would I install for grandma" point of view. I mentioned that the AUR system is not perfect, however the PPA system isn't perfect either. If there was some sort of PPA manager installed by default to auto add PPAs to bring in new software, that would be great. Or, maybe, MAYBE, if the Universe repo in Ubuntu would actually be utilized as such, it would bridge that gap that much further. Antergos in particular I've tried a few times, but it's been a little fussy in my experience, with certain ISOs flat out not working. This seems to be a common issue unfortunately. If I get the Arch/AUR itch again, I'd probably lean towards Manjaro Gnome for a starting point.
I frequently test distributions on a spare laptop I have which specifically has a Broadcom STA based wifi card. This stands as a good test to me as I can see how gracefully distributions handle the proprietary driver installation for this wifi chip. To date, no distribution (I cannot emphasize this enough) has come close to handling it as gracefully as *buntu. To pull an Apple card out of the hat, it just works. I have my frustrations with Ubuntu, sure. If I avoided every operating system/distribution/desktop environment/computer manufacturer/brand of ketchup I ever had issues with, I'd have no choices to choose from.
Me personally? I tend to stick to Ubuntu. I get the font rendering, hardware support for proprietary chips, software I need, and the little odds-and-ends features I depend on, like quickly connecting to a multitude of file servers on a single click with ease. We have a few thousand Ubuntu based systems at work (both on Unity and XFCE). They work very well. We're several years in to the project and have been very happy with it. As much as I like System76, I can't lie, it's pretty nice popping on the Dell site and having a few Ubuntu based options to choose from as well. For what it's worth, I've had decent experience with Dell's customer support with my Ubuntu based Latitude. In my case, it was a hardware issue, but I expected to call them and they have no idea what Ubuntu is, but they handled it acceptably.
At the end of the day, let's treat distributions like beer. Nobody cares what beer you're drinking. The point is... you're here. With us. Having a good time. In terms of distributions/desktop environments/your favorite brand of cheese, just use what works for you. That's what matters.
Cheers.
Fedora has systemd and gnome shell. 90 % of linux user hate both. And you don't have decent repos/video drivers/video codecs/decent package maneger like synaptic... and is a beta for red hat. So...
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