Re: linux distro recommendations?

[Jonathan Kulp]

Graham Percival wrote:
> Dunno what version Ubuntu has, but Debian's at texi2html 1.78 and
> fontforge 20080429 and 20090408 (unstable).
That's the same texi2html version as Ubuntu has.  autogen.sh always 
complains that the version is too old.

> > I'm much more advanced now and am considering something like
> > Arch or Debian.  
>
> Given that Valentin is the only person in the world that uses
> Arch, use Debian.  You'll like it.  :)

Ok. :)

> > BTW I hear that Linux Mint (an Ubuntu derivative) is even more  
> > noob-friendly b/c it contains all the proprietary drivers and media  
> > codecs already and you don't have to go hunting around for them.  Grab  
> > the (indecent) Live CD and give it a spin. ;)
>
> That's only possible because Mint is small enought that nobody
> cares that they're breaking the law.  There's a reason that
> proprietary drivers and media codecs aren't included in the base
> system of (most) Linux distros: it's because it's illegal to
> distribute them in certain parts of the world, notably the US.
> That takes indecency to the next level!
Yes.  To be fair, there's a warning on the Mint site saying exactly what 
you did.  Users are free to ignore it, I guess.

> Gotta love the "shoot yourself in the foot" notion that makes
> hardware companies copyright their drivers.  "No, we do not want
> people using our products!  We only want consumers to *buy* them,
> not *use* them!  Video cards should be placed on a shelf and
> admired, not used to generate graphics in a computer!"
No kidding.  I spent 3+ hours recently trying to make the graphics card 
work right with Ubuntu on one of my student's laptops.  It still won't 
go to the right native resolution after trying the proprietary drivers 
and hacking the xorg.conf file, etc.  Stupid Nvidia cards...

Even so, the student is happier with a funny-looking Ubuntu install than 
he was with Vista. :)

Jon
--
Jonathan Kulp
http://www.jonathankulp.com