Last week Ubuntu 11.10 was released. I was running 11.04 and decided I would upgrade. I started with Ubuntu at 8.04 and have had successfull, pain free updates since that time. The streak died with 11.10. The specific issue was the nVidia driver. And in my case, it was made worse by my dual monitor setup. My laptop would only boot about a third of the time even if the additional monitors were not connected. I was not happy.
The other issue I am dealing with is Unity. Ubuntu 11.04 saw Gnome replaced by Unity as the X extension. I did not like Unity. I like a taskbar and want to be able to access my programs fast. It sure seems Ubuntu wanted to make their OS look like a Mac. If I want a Mac, I could buy a Mac. Why did Canonical change something that had been successfull and was not broken. In 11.04, I was able to revert to Gnome 2 Classic and keep going. I was annoyed, but it was not a deal breaker.
I made a valiant effort to keep Ubuntu going. I tried loading older versions and experimented with 32 and 64 bit installations. It is very important for me to stay on the latest release. I have been in too many work situations where old technology cannot be upgraded and for one reason or another. This is a pain to manage.
I probably could have lived with Unity, but I still faced the first issue, my laptop would not consistently boot with multiple monitors and a nVidia driver. I looked at a number of distros and decided to try Fedora. I wanted a widely used distro that is consistently updated and supported. I also wanted something dependable. I run Linux on my work computer because it helps me be better at my job. A hobbyist distro would not cut it. I thought about CentOS, but it really is best for servers. I've used OpenSuse in the past and was not a big fan of YaST. Fedora, here I come.
Fedora is available as a Live CD that can be installed to the hard drive. The install was straight forward and fast. I really liked the option to encrypt the entire hard drive instead of just the home drive. And it was nice to have yum as the package manager. I needed to use my Google stills to figure out how to get nVidia, Skype, Flash, and Virtualbox up and running. These were much easier in Ubuntu.
My biggest issue with Fedora was the look and feel. And that goes back to Gnome 3. It is cut from the same cloth as Unity and I do not like using it. It might be great for a new user or for a tablet. But for a power user doing multiple tasks at the same time, it slowed me down.
So where do I go next? The latest version of Ubuntu will not consistently boot on my machine. Fedora works, but it is very hands on. Gnome 3 and Unity both stink. I'm giving serious consideration to going back to Windows. I've used 7 at home and in a virutal machine and been very impressed. It is fast, reliable, and the user interface is consistent and can be customized for a power user. Granted Gnome and Unity can be customized, but it is not an easy process and it is time consuming.
My biggest gripe with Windows is the lack of a native SSH client. Putty works, but it's not as easy as Linux command line. So I think I'm headed to Windows 7 and a Ubuntu virtual machine.
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