Excuse me for being a bit distracted this time around, as I'm still getting to know my newest Linux install, SabayonLinux. After using it for a bit less than twenty-four hours, I have to say that this is by far the funnest distro I used yet. An excellent review of SabayonLinux can be found here. The only other one I found for this distro (version 3.3, that is) was here.
If you're thinking of downloading it directly, you can get it (includes mirrors) here. If you want the torrent, for this or any other fine distro, you can get it at LinuxTracker.
'Is Linux ready for the desktop' is a question that has been asked for nearly five years now. And I think, finally, the answer is yes.
The two things that have been holding Linux back, in my opinion, have been wireless connectivity, drivers, and lack of applications. Linux has been more of a boutique OS that held little chance of widespread adoption. I'll discuss this further below.
And since I want to spend the next few days playing with the 3D in my newest distro install writing my Master's thesis on Ubuntu, I'm going to try and cram as much as I can into this installment of an ongoing series, the rest which can be found here. No need to search, as it's apparently all I write about. Just on a side note: if you want to add certain features to your writing but are unsure of how to do so, this is an invaluable resource.
The biggest problem I've faced in using Linux is getting wireless support for my laptops. Oddly enough, the cards that have caused the most problems have been from the company that has been the most Linux-friendly, Ralink. Maybe not surprising, though, since they control ten percent of the world wireless market, or so they claim. The problems are so serious that a group of enterprising individuals have set up a Wiki to martial their Linux knowledge into creating dependable drivers for cards with the Ralink chipset. I practically lived at that Wiki for a couple of months before I got some wireless goodness on my older Compaq lappy. One other company whose chipset has caused some sleepless Linux user nights has apparently responded to users' petitions.
If you're using OpenSuse, Ubuntu (and variants), SabayonLinux, LinuxMint, PCLinuxOS, or MEPIS, then you're good to go with the more widely used wireless cards. I had problems with Debian (Sarge), Fedora, and Mandriva (One); in all fairness, I didn't spend that much time fiddling with them, so undoubtedly you could get wireless going on those distros with enough effort. Additionally, Debian was the previous release, so it's more than likely that under Etch (the latest release) that they've fixed wireless support.
And so I'm not accused of spreading FUD, let me make it clear that I was using a setup that was by far the hardest for a modern (or any) distro to handle; an older laptop with an external PCMCIA card. If you've got a computer with integrated (i.e., internal) wireless, then wireless connectivity is practically guaranteed. It may not come in all that GUI goodness you're so used to, and you may actually have to access the CLI, but apart from the ickiness factor, it's a lock. I say this with a fair amount of confidence, as I got OpenSuse 10.1 to work on my old, old laptop after numerous trips to the OpenSuse forums.
So, when we talk about wireless connectivity, we're really talking about it being there out of the box (i.e., when you first install), and I've tried to make a fairly representative list above of distros that will do that for you. Again, this is wireless connectivity to a local area network or wifi hotspot, either unencrypted or using the not-too-secure WEP security protocol, as well as the more secure WPA and WPA2 security protocols. Yuppers, a drop-down menu that lets you locate your network, type in the passphrase and you're good to go. None of that alphanumeric nonsense needed. If any of the points I made above caused your hackles to rise or were clearly absolute bs, feel free to point that out in the comments, and I'll edit the diary to reflect the new information.
And now on to the applications you will use under your new Linux distro. An inestimable resource for finding out more about just what Linux has to offer in this department can be found here. There are 19657 links for software alone! And yes, doubtless some of them are duplicate apps, but many are unique and can make your computing experience more productive and trouble-free.
The biggest name in the bunch is clearly Open Office; I do a ton of spreadsheet stuff, and I have yet to run into a problem with the official Microsoft Office suite app, Excel, not being able to read my work.
There's a wealth of choices for internet browsers, my personal fave being Firefox. You can also try Konqueror, a very nice browser that doubles as a file browser on your system. One I haven't used much but heard nice things about is Opera, which is also the browser of choice on the Nintendo Wii.
For email you can try Thunderbird, Evolution, (for the GNOME environment) KMail (now part of Kontact),used in the KDE environment. There are likely others that I have overlooked, so feel free to point out my ignorance in the comments.
For general tunesy goodness there's Amarok, MPlayer (also a movie player), and my personal fave, XMMS. While Amarok has countless adherents, and MPlayer has its fans, I think XMMS stands above them all as its the lightest weight, smallest and least obtrusive of the three. Amarok can download cover art, song lyrics, look up the Wikipedia page on the band, sync with your iPod (or MP3 player of choice) effortlessly, as well as throwing out a big honking window bubble as each new song in your playlist begins (luckily you can turn off that 'feature'). Mplayer can play just about every file format on the planet: FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, AAC, ulaw/alaw, WMA, and a slew of others. XMMS can play most anything but in a tiny form factor. Sadly, Gentoo (and by association) Sabayon no longer support XMMS.
For video lovers there's plenty to choose from: Linux offers MPlayer, Kaffeine, Democracy TV, Noatun, Real Player 10 (good for the online C-Span junkies among us), as well as the venerable VLC. No slim pickin's there, indeed. My choice is MPlayer, simply because you can queue up a bunch of shows/vids and then hit play. Plus it plays everything. Honorable shout-out goes to Real Player 10 and it's Mozilla (Firefox) plug-in, that lets you follow all the goings-on at C-Span.org, either through the built-in browser window, or a standalone player.
In the area of encryption, here's an interesting link. If you're looking for general file/email encryption, there's TrueCrypt, and GnuPg (aka Gpg) for starters; if you're looking for full-disk encryption (on the software side), there's TrueCrypt; for system wide (excepting the boot partition) Debian Etch has included in their latest release. No word as to whether Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu 7.04) will adopt this as well. The wiki entry is here.
If you enjoy chatting online, a decent client is Pidgin (formerly GAIM). Don't know too much about other choices in this area as I'm not much of an online chattist.
For getting the huge distro files onto your computer before you burn the ISO, there's Ktorrent, Azureus, and there are a compendium of links to both Linux and Windows/Mac OS clients here. While Ktorrent is a KDE app, it still runs OK under GNOME; Azureus is a JAVA-based client, so a bit of a memory hog; there's a new qt-based client named qBittorrent that can be found here. If you want a Windows-only client, you can look here. Just kidding!
I've been so busy playing with my newest distro that I haven't had time to test the latest and greatest Windows emulators; for Linux users there's Cedega (commercial), WINE, Crossover Office (Now with OS X support!), Parallels (virtualization, like Crossover), and finally VMWare. The latter three you can try/test-drive without altering your Windows/Mac OS install.
Some fun Hobbesian all against all action can be found at this link; a somewhat more even-toned article can be found here.
And lastly, because you've grown to expect it, some dazzling Linux (yup, Linux) eye-candy goodness for you (and on a triple boot -Sabayon, XP, and Vista, no less!):
Update: If 'unmoved' wins in the poll, this will be my last diary on Linux (channeling Lucius Vorenus). sniff! Currently with a sizable lead, btw.