[OT]Re: PPC Firefox/Thunderbird 1.0 builds

[Eric Dunbar]

<justinw> wrote:
> uhoh... here we go again..

You got it ;)

> --- Yellow Dog Linux General Discussion List
> <yellowdog-general at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com wrote:
> Having spent the entire
> evening attempting to install Ubuntu and being
> > left with a text installer
> that eventually dumped me to a command line
> > with no working root user and
> no XFree86, I can safely say that YDL is
> > pretty much the only choice on
> PPC, particularly for non-experienced
> > users - I've got numerous years using
> UNIX systems behind me. How and
> > why Eric assumes that Ubuntu is a better
> distro I'll never know.
> >
> > Cian

I guess we all have different hardware and different experiences. I
installed Ubuntu without a hitch. It worked out of the box, and all
the software worked out of the box. No configuration needed. Judging
by the horror stories that made their way onto the YDL lists about 4.0
I could just as easily conclude that YDL 4.0 is to be avoided.

I *don't* assume that Ubuntu is the better distro. Why do people like
to put words into my mouth?

It is an exciting and up-and-coming distro, yes. But, whether it is
better or worse than YDL I cannot say, especially given how green
Ubuntu still is.  What I do suspect, however, is that Ubuntu *will*
edge out YDL in the long term on the PPC (for people who don't really
care whether they're running a FC or Debian or Mandrake-based distro).
In the short term it seems to have picked up a lot of steam
(<http://distrowatch.com>), even edging out its progenitor (Debian) in
the popularity rankings. I am inclined to say that a (hypothetical)
rise of Ubuntu at the expense of YDL (on PPC) would be bad since
Terrasoft has done good things for Linux on PPC... but, I guess that's
the OSS environment.

Anyway, time to enjoy the cold (it dropped to -23 this morning).

Eric.