ROFL! That answer sums up the fight that I am in the middle of right now – sometimes it’s the admins that need a three day class to learn how to run M$-Word… Microsoft (in my situation) wins because of the automagic “it just Works!” that they have propagated over the years. This is a company of around 500 users and getting any FOSS in the door is like pushing an 18-wheeler uphill. GIMP barely made it into the image – it’s free so it can’t be trusted – I am only making progress with Redhat and SuSe because they offer (require) paid support models (so does Ubuntu/Canonical, but I DO NOT like Unity) – that means that they are good and wholesome, not some fly-by-night outfit…

 

Sometimes I think that the mindset has been formed by corporate drones that ‘if we can’t pay for it (and pay A LOT!), then it’s not good enough for us.’

 

I would love to share with the LUG the hoops that I had to go through to get a simple NTP server running on CentOS into the company – we were seriously going to drop $2k+ on a program that would synchronize 1 windows computer to the root NIST servers and then auto-configure the Group Policy so that all other computers would sync to the single server… $2k for something that any Linux distro does FOR FREE! I pissed off several people when I went ahead and set it up on a desktop and did the configuring myself and then just told everyone that it had been done. It’s still running, but the main proponent of purchasing the other software package will occasionally spit out that it ‘is not as accurate as the Windows program would have been’.

 

If my Linux-Fu ever gets strong enough, I will start applying for some of the sysadmin jobs that I see from time to time.

 

 

 

 

Joe,
Since you were asking about desktop Linux, and the system administrators on the list veered off into server land, let me bring this conversation back to your original question.  You said you wanted to install a desktop and wanted the most commonly used Linux version.  If you look at the vendors that are selling retail desktops, to consumers, they are using Ubuntu.  If you are looking for the more common business desktop, then use Windows, because businesses don't install Linux on their desktops, well damn few anyway.  Only smaller, smarter companies, do that.  The big boys are all stuck with Windows XP because it's too damn hard to change out 10,000 desktops of people who need a three day class just to learn how to run M$-Word.  I'm sure that some companies, more in Europe no doubt, are switching to Red Hat and SuSE desktops, but if you want the most commonly used *consumer* desktop, download Ubuntu here:  http://www.ubuntu.com/

I hope that actually answers your question and tip toes around the holy war that still rages within the Linux community.  ;-)

HTH,
Jim