electric relaxation

… on my Thinkpad T42, as my primary OS. Second in a series.

Looking back through old e-mails from college, it’s pretty amusing to see how much of a Linux fanboy I was back then. My, how times have changed. I fricking hate Linux as a desktop now. It blows. And unlike most miserable snots who make such bold claims, I can actually back it up.

I use Ubuntu as my primary OS at work. It works fine. With NVIDIA’s proprietary drivers and the Beryl composition manager running, I think it competes well with Vista in the looks department - some things, like the new Start bar, look great in Vista, but Vista is quite inconsistent in appearance.

So, after being cajoled by my office mate, Mr. Langdale, I gave Edgy on the T42 a whirl. Here’s why it sucked (and please note that I care very little about who’s fault this is at the end of the day):

• Power management in Linux still sucks. My T42 represents the best-of-breed in terms of supported laptops, but suspend/resume was still flaky, succeeding only about 80% of the time.
• Docking stations don’t work. Linux’s docking station support remains mostly a joke. RandR 1.2 solves most of the problems, but it’s Intel-only at the moment, so it won’t help me until somebody implements this stuff in the Radeon driver. I’m sure it will happen, but I’m not holding my breath.
• Wireless support still blows. Red Hat’s Network Manager applet works ok, but it still wasn’t part of the default install in Edgy. Plus you have to constantly re-enter your password because people are retarded.
• Bluetooth support is confusing and the UIs suck. Bluetooth actually seems to be quite stable and useable, but I have no interest in compiling packages or patching scripts in order to surf wirelessly over my BlackBerry Pearl. Or to charge the battery, for that matter.
• Graphics hardware support is abysmal. I’m sure that five years from now, the OSS radeon driver will work great on the 9600 M10, and I’m even more sure that six months from now, I will have completely stopped caring.