Debian-based distro adventures
Since my previous post I’ve tried:
- MEPIS 8; KDE 3, based on Debian 5;
- Ubuntu 9.04; GNOME 2, based on Debian 5;
- Linux Mint 7: GNOME 2, based on Ubuntu 9.04;
- Kubuntu 8.04; KDE 3, based on on Ubuntu 8.04.
I’ve compared MEPIS 8 and Ubuntu 9.04, in what was called an unfair comparison by some. I think some of the commenters even indicated that Ubuntu 9.04 would’ve come up tops; I beg to differ.
Since then, I’ve used Mint 7 and Kubuntu 8.04, which one may realize are using GNOME 2 and KDE 3 as well. So I guess a more appropriate comparison would’ve been:
- MEPIS 8 versus Kubuntu 8.04;
- Ubuntu 9.04 versus Linux Mint 7.
I must say that it wasn’t so much the particular distribution, source distribution or version number that impacted the snappiness of the UI, it was more the window manager, so GNOME or KDE.
GNOME 2 just seems… slow. KDE 3 is, snappy.
It doesn’t seem like there’s a discernable difference between MEPIS and Kubuntu – both use KDE 3, except perhaps Kubuntu uses Adept whilst MEPIS sticks to good old Synaptic. Either way, it’s fine.
I do miss Dropbox, available on the distributions that run GNOME. Apparently there is command-line instructions, though.
On the upside, network printing never worked for me on MEPIS or Kubuntu. I followed the instructions on the Ubuntu website, and I could print.
Kdesvn and Meld are nigh-interchangeable, unless you want to view svn logs of course (use the former).
So there you have it. If you’ve got a high-performance, dual- (or quad-) core laptop, Ubuntu or Mint will do fine. But if you’ve got a 2- to 3-year old laptop, consider Kubuntu 8.04 or MEPIS 8. Unfortunately, I can’t access mepis.org anymore – the site is down, why? – and Canonical maintains fast servers, so I’ll be using Kubuntu for now.