This morning I researched and wrote an article for NewsForge entirely on my AMD box, which I built with parts from Fry's last year: it's running Red Hat 8 with the Ximian XD2 desktop. It's very usable: the screen is pleasant and non-obtrusive, font display is the best I've seen on Linux and things like cut-and-paste and dialog boxes are consistent and just work which I'm used to on the Mac but hasn't always been the case on previous Linux distro desktops (substituting the Control key for the Mac's Command key, of course).

With Ximian (and possibly some other recent releases, like Xandros and Sun's upcoming Mad Hatter), Linux has clearly matured into a desktop that non-technical users will be able to embrace.

In fact, the usability of the new Ximian desktop is so good that the real issues are the cute-but-harder-to-use Happy Hacking keyboard and 15" screen on the AMD box, vs. the Mac's ergonomic keyboard and 21" screen. I also miss NetNewsWire, Brent Simmons' excellent RSS reader and blogging app. Robin 'Roblimo' Miller chided me for writing my first NewsForge story in BBEdit on an 'expensive Mac' (even with its Open Source underpinnings); so we're over eating our own dog food on our 'cheap' AMD...
Comments 11:14:39 AM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures