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ALT is not for schools yet
by Artem on Saturday 27/Oct/2007, @02:39
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ALT Linux was my second Linux distro (the first was RedHat 7.1 from LinuxInk), and I used several releases of it for a fairly long time. What distinguished ALT in my opinion from others was the "just works" factor - they ensured that most of the hardware worked out of the box and distributed non-free drivers and plugins with their CD for seamless experience.
However, on modern desktop Linux distribution standards, I wouldn't rate ALT Linux so high. I actually bought ALT Linux Desktop 4.0 (as I did with most of the previous versions), and it failed to displace Ubuntu Gutsy (dual-booted with Windows XP) on my laptop. I didn't even try to install it, just ran it in the LiveCD mode and it discouraged me from proceeding further. What I encountered was bloated, multi-level application menu with inconsistent, geeky localization, differences in font display (hinting) between GTK+ and Qt apps, sluggish, ugly and somewhat buggy (in its network-related part) ALT Linux Control Center, a sound of glass being smashed (ouch!) used as a system error sound, and the inability to connect to WiFi network (neither automatic connection nor a discoverable means to manually establish a connection was present). The documentation that come in the form of a brochure with the DVD was rather comprehensive, but written by techies for techies. That is not the kind of documentation that is usable at schools.
Therefore, instead of going with ALT Linux, I would take some other prominent distro and have it localized by a team of paid professional (!) technical translators and writers - not some volunteer geeks. (The current Russian localizations in all distros I tried leave much to be desired.) OpenSUSE and Kubuntu are strong candidates here, but Pardus is IMHO the most clean and consistent KDE distribution out there - if you prefer KDE. |
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Re: ALT is not for schools yet
by gvy on Sunday 28/Oct/2007, @10:49
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Well, if you ever supported any noticeable Linux deployment then you must know already that both initial package base (and overall distro) quality are very important, but being able to fix what comes out broken in yet another particular situation is even more important. That, in its turn, depends on the level of competence (or profanity) of those who would typically know the distro nearby and can provide the support needed.
So far I personally have varied experience with varied distro users with ALT users being mostly competent (or at least curious) and Ubuntaries (sorry!) tend to be dummies, way too often aggressively pushing their dummy agenda on others (just like sectants) but being unable to solve real-world problems. Of course it's just my own observation but I communicate with hundreds of different people weekly.
BTW your rants are partly OK (our menu currently sucks; wifi needs some serious work as well), partly invalid (I'd argue Ubuntu localization is way worse regarding consistency) and partly a matter of personal taste (like sound theme).
Those that are OK are known bugs in work ;-)
PS: I've done mid-sized migrations and projects (typically involving one to a few hundred systems), just in case you wonder. I also participate in ALT since 2001 and seriously considered Ubuntu in 2005 but had to reject it for they were *much* worse than ALT, technically, back then -- and they still generate more noise than result till now. I tend to avoid projects with bad SNR and faulty PR.
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