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....soooooo lotsa noise, not much heat about desktop unix, at least from me, time to redress that:
In this test, I use two old notebooks and as many copies of desktop unix as I can get, to see whether they stand up to real-world conditions. The test simulates a typical real-world situation - customer has old machine, runs too slow, they are sick of Windows glitches, have seen the Windows 7 hype but know their machine won't take it .... so they ask me - should I throw this away, and buy a new machine?
The test below attempts to answer their question. Can a typical old notebook handle the latest and greatest alternatives to Windows? That is - can they reformat their hard disk and install a unix desktop, and fix their problem? Or, will they have problems with unrecognised hardware, slowness, bugs and other show-stoppers, that they would immediately spit the dummy about?
There's only one way to find out - try and install several unix desktops on several old machines, and see what happens. And that's exactly what I did below. Note that while many problems noted are no doubt fixable with a few shell commands, this need to fix stuff is exactly what users are trying to escape. It should "just work", in the typical user's eyes - and therefore, if it doesn't "just work", that's a fail of this test.
Machine A: install went fine, needed drivers for the PCMCIA wifi card and for the USB wifi adapter; these were available and installed correctly. Was able to use the web.
Machine A result: PASS
Machine B: install went fine, needed drivers for the PCMCIA wifi card and for the USB wifi adapter; these were available and installed correctly. Was able to use the web.
Machine B result: PASS
Machine A: install went fine, however did not recognise PCMCIA wifi card. Did recognise USB wifi adapter, however did not let me click the Configure button. Did recognise the internal NIC, however did not let me click the Configure button on that either.
Machine A result: FAIL - unable to connect to internet
Machine B: install got as far as video mode selection. Unable to select a driver that worked. Selection screen did not reappear atfer a failed attempt, meaning each attempt required a power-off, then power-on and boot from the partially installed system.
Machine B result: FAIL - unable to complete installation
Machine A: install went fine, however did not recognise PCMCIA wifi card. Did recognise USB wifi adapter, could see list of available SSIDs, was prompted for WPA/WPA2 passphrase, however it failed to connect - after a timeout period the passphrase dialogue box reappeared.
Machine A result: FAIL - unable to connect to internet (Ethernet not tested).
Machine B: install went fine, however did not recognise PCMCIA wifi card. Did recognise USB wifi adapter, could see list of available SSIDs, was prompted for WPA/WPA2 passphrase, however it failed to connect - after a timeout period the passphrase dialogue box reappeared.
Machine B result: FAIL - unable to connect to internet (Ethernet not tested).
Notes: