Comparison of current Linux "Desktop" distributions, as described in Moving from Gentoo to ... SUSE, Ubuntu, or Fedora Core?
My original intent was to run all tests under both KDE and GNOME. However, a few things changed my mind:
- As the test set grew it became too time consuming.
- In the dual-testing I performed, I noted very few differences between KDE and GNOME (mainly in removable media handling).
- Since I prefer KDE, GNOME performance is really irrelevant (i.e. if app "A" peforms better in GNOME than KDE, that's not going to make me switch to GNOME).
Therefore, all the tests below were run from KDE. YMMV slightly when running under GNOME.
The distributions were installed per:
Ratings key:
- YES = Works perfectly
- PARTIAL = Works, with caveats
- NO = Does not work
- NO!! = Doesn't work, and crashes computer, Firefox, etc.
| Item | Kubuntu 6.06.1 | openSUSE 10.1 | Fedora Core 5 |
| Recognized all memory (1G) | YES | YES | YES |
| Network auto-config OK (DHCP) | YES | NO | YES |
| DVD Playback | YES | YES | YES |
| YouTube | YES | YES | NO |
| iFilm [using Quicktime] | YES | NO | YES |
| iFilm [using RealPlayer] | PARTIAL(4) | NO | NO |
| USB Thumb Drive ("Do something reasonable") | YES | YES | YES |
| Auto-Detect DC10+ Video Capture Card | YES | YES | YES |
| SSHFS & FUSE (without having to compile a kernel and/or kernel module) |
YES | PARTIAL(7) | SEE NOTE(1) |
| Live365.com | YES | YES | NO |
| SHOUTcast.com | YES | YES | NO |
| Reuters.com Video | YES | YES | NO |
| CNN.com Video (Windows Media) | YES | NO!!(8) | PARTIAL(11) |
| jEdit | YES | YES | NO |
| NVIDIA Accelerated OpenGL | PARTIAL(2) | PARTIAL(9) | YES |
| wings3d | YES | NO(3) | YES |
| Trailers @ Apple.com | YES | NO(14) | YES |
| Google Video | YES | YES | NO |
| Java Test #1 (KGS) | YES | YES | NO |
| Java Test #2 (Xiangqi) | YES | YES | NO |
| Java Test #3 (Crossword) | YES | YES | NO |
| Java Test #4 ("Java Web Start") | YES | YES | NO |
| wxPython demo.py | YES | YES | YES |
| Camera: Olympus D-510 ("does something reasonable") | YES | YES | PARTIAL(12) |
| Camera: Canon S3 IS (USB PTP) ("does something reasonable") [Using digikam Auto-Detect] |
YES | YES | NO |
| Passes MSTT Corefonts Test | YES | YES | YES |
| Open PDF files in Firefox | YES | YES | PARTIAL(6) |
| Play MP3 from Firefox | YES | NO | YES |
| Play M3U stream from Firefox (realplayer) | YES | YES | NO |
| Play WMA from Firefox (gmplayer) | YES | YES | NO!!(13) |
| Play MPEG-1 from Firefox | YES | NO | YES |
| Open Bittorrent in Firefox (ktorrent) | YES | YES | PARTIAL(5) |
| Open XLS file from Firefox (oocalc) | YES | YES | YES |
| Open DOC file from Firefox (oowriter) | YES | NO!!(10) | YES |
| Open PowerPoint file from Firefox (ooimpress) | YES | YES | YES |
| Open WAV files in Firefox | YES | NO | YES |
| Open WMV files in Firefox | YES | NO | YES |
| Open OGG files in Firefox | YES | NO | YES |
| Interactive Flash | YES | YES | NO |
Notes:
- I think this should be "YES". When I tested it, I got an error: "failed to exec fusermount: Permission denied". I later saw this same error under Kubuntu, and figured out the workaround. The same thing should work for Fedora.
- Had to hand-edit xorg.conf to get it to work.
- Had to manually install.
- Sound only, no video.
- Using Bittorrent GUI - ktorrent not available!
- Opens OK, but not embedded in Firefox.
- Had to "modprobe fuse" as root, didn't autoload for normal user.
- Crashes Firefox when closing video window.
- Had to run NVIDIA installer, driver not packaged. Have to re-run every time kernel is upgraded.
- Actually opened OK, but locked up Firefox when closing.
- Sound only, no video.
- "Safely Remove" failed to unmount camera.
- Crashed Firefox when closing gmplayer.
- Quicktime, as well as many other multimedia codecs had been working perfectly, until Packman updated to an apparently unstable version of mplayer plugin. So, these may change back to "YES" at some point.
Next: In Conclusion ...
Comments
Post new comment