A Blag About Graphics and Programming

I'm a Microsoft fanboy: I use Visual Studio, DirectX, Windows Media Player, I like Vista and I think that C# and .NET are great.
But there's a geek in me who wants to see how the latest and greatest Linux distributions look like. I have a 10GB partition just for that. I install Linux, play around with it for a couple of hours and never boot it up again for the next half a year until a newer and greater version comes out.

My latest evaluation checklist looks something like this:

• How difficult is it to access my NTFS partition;
  
• Connecting to my home wireless network;
  
• Setting up proper(1280x800) screen resolution;
  
• Does the headphone jack work;
  
• How hard is it to play "evil" (mp3, etc) multimedia files;
  
• Hardware graphics acceleration;
  

Naturally I want all of this "out of the box" (or at least with a couple of clicks of a button), without having to google stuff and type alien mumbojumbo in the console.
And it just so happens that this checklist is nearly impossible to pass (at least on my laptop)!

Old(7.10) ubuntu/kubuntu versions used to fail miserably, the only thing that worked was reading NTFS and sometimes- wireless. Yes, I couldn't even change the screen resolution to 1280x800!
Mandriva One 2008 and Linux Mint 4.0 looked half decent- headphone jack and hardware acceleration were the only things that didn't work, the default resolution was messed up, but it was quite simple to change it.

Mandriva Linux 2008.1
The new version came out a couple of weeks ago. I boot up the live CD and as it is loading, I sense that something is different: zomg! The resolution is 1280x800! I couldn't believe my eyes, and then the most incredible thing happened: a window popped up and asked if I wanted to enable Compiz! Whoa, it supports hardware acceleration for my cutting edge, super new HD2600 card! And the magic didn't end there- sound was coming out of the headphones, and no sound was coming out of the built-in speakers while the headphones were plugged-in.
The only problem was "glsl shaders not supported". But at least I can run Tux Racer at 50fps...

That was a historic day- not only a Linux distribution passed my entire checklist but it did it straight "out of the box".
Mandriva Linux 2008.1- certified by me.

I expect the next version to support multiple displays and maybe even the volume control thingy on the side of my laptop.

[rant]

Ubuntu 8.04 (<adjective> <noun>)
Yes, this is the one that came out today. The most beloved and popular linux distribution. It should give Mandriva a run for it's money!
No, not really.
No hardware graphics acceleration, no compiz, no sound from the headphones (uses the built-in speaker even when the headphones are plugged-in), half of teh internets is broken because "requires additional plugin" or "your Flash version is out of date", no mp3 playback without doing "stuff". And the fun thing: "your (graphics) hardware doesn't require proprietary drivers". OH RLY? Then how come it doesn't work?

I can understand not playing mp3 files, not including Flash and other hippie "free" software nonsense. I can understand when they don't support shaders or a webcam or an sd card reader, because, hey, writing drivers is hard.
But the thing that gets me, is when the dirty, tree loving hippies behind Ubuntu and other "free" software choose not to support my hardware just because they have personal issues with ATI or some other hardware vendor, I take that as a personal "fuck you".
"Humanity towards others" my ass.

And this bring me to my main point: the way I see it, there are two types of linux:

1. Corporate Linux: Mandriva, SuSe, Fedora. This is the good kind, because they have a corporation behind them and that means that they actually care about quality (and money);
   
2. Everything else: it sucks. An exception is Linux Mint. I have no idea how did this happen. Will have to investigate more.
   

[/rant]