Now that I got my wonderments out in the open I hope you noticed it as a diversion from the heavy construction in Linuxville. Yeah, Linuxvilles' got more orange barrels than anybody. Just when it was to where I might could have explained Linux big changes come to mess me up. Of course they had to let us know that change was imminent, but the funny part was the collective "Oh no you didn't!" Windows flew open and now the street is littered with stuffed penguins.
Ok kids, go out and get your stuffy toys, that panic was not cool. It is funny though that after all the request for change is really fulfilled, we just can't handle it. Ok, let's try to handle it. First the play by play.
Ubuntu the poster boy for "linux for everyone", decided to field a new "default" desktop called Unity. At the same time Gnome is unwrapping Gnome 3. On the new Ubuntu 11.04, Unity runs on Gnome 2's basic libraries. So if you try to run Gnome 3 on Ubuntu 11.04 it crashes, bad. Unity is met with mixed reviews and Gnome 3 is previewed in Fedora and Open Suse live-cds. I think Gnome 3 is very cool. What a mess, no wonder the panic. Hey, put the real bird down and pick up the stuffed bird, thank you! Linuxville you will recover!
What did I do? First I will wait for the smoke to settle, that is clear desktop choices with no confusion. Then I switched my laptop to use Mint Linux, a Ubuntu based distro that's minty fresh (still has Gnome 2). At the suggestion from a user in the Linkedin Ubuntu group, I repartitioned my laptop hard drive to have an OS partition, a /Home partition and a swap partition. This is so that when I get distro fever and must switch, my /Home folder stays intact, unharmed and available for the new install. I only have to format the OS partition. And I am making full use of flash drives and live-CDs to test things. Many of you use virtual installs, I commend you.
So when the desktop choices are ............ well, I am waiting for Gnome 3. In any case I now have peace to wait. And Mint is the bomb, I'm glad I installed it. I also heard Pinguy Linux is also cool.
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