dwick.org

OK. Now that I've calmed down a bit after that last blog post, I thought I'd explain my recent experience with my work laptop, Linux, and desktop environments.

I got a Dell Latitude E6510 last summer. Initially, I had some problems with the newer hardware and Linux support, particularly the Intel graphics and Alps touchpad. But after a little research and hacking, all was well. So here is my current configuration, booting 3 OS's.

Linux Mint Debian Edition: I recently replaced plain old vanilla Debian testing with LMDE. It's a really nice and easy to configure OS that uses the Debian testing repositories. The default desktop is Gnome 2, and with the introduction of Gnome 3, I'm holding out here for continued Gnome 2 support. Debian testing has always been one of my favorites, particularly the rolling release nature of it.

Ubuntu 11.04: After having good luck with Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 on this rig, updating to 11.04 only brought the pain of Unity. But luckily for now there is still the fallback "classic mode" Gnome 2 version that is still useful to me. However, Ubuntu appears to be dropping support for this and is full steam ahead for Unity. I'll take a pass. I suspect this partition will be replaced with some other OS in the near future.

Arch Linux: While I would only recommend this to serious hackers, it is a wonderful OS experience. I currently run both KDE4 and XFCE4 on Arch. I used Arch/KDE for most of the academic year and was quite pleased. I've recently been wanting something a little more lightweight, and XFCE at this point fits the bill. It is a near drop-in replacement for Gnome2, and while not as configurable, is just as functional.

As I said in my last post, I'm not keen on Gnome shell or Unity. So I'll continue to use LMDE/Debian testing until support for Gnome2 is dropped (my 2 primary home desktops run Debian testing and LMDE). However, I'll likely never stop using Arch. It has all of the power of cutting edge, and even though support for Gnome2 is gone, I can live with KDE and XFCE. Arch rocks.