Last week, I managed to get XGL running in Linux. (Given the infamous difficulty–at least in my personal experience–involved in successfuly implementing anything video card-related in Linux, I think this qualifies me as some sort of extreme hacker.) At the moment, XGL basically adds a number of nifty features and eye candy to the Linux desktop. It’s still a bit rough around the edges, but it looks really nice, and several of the features are right on par with the Mac desktop features they’re clearly imitating. Other goodies include some slick-looking window animations and assorted 3d-ish effects. Here’s a few screenshots, of the fancy desktop-switching eye candy and the OS X Expose-style window selector respectively:

I don’t think it’s going to have Mac users tripping over their discarded MacBooks in a frantic rush to embrace Linux–at least, not until XGL takes less than a days’ worth of tweaking to install and get running. But it’s certainly nice to have a Linux desktop that looks as nifty-keen as a Mac desktop for a change!

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So I’ve been hearing a lot about this upstart new Ubuntu Linux distribution. My curiousity piqued, I headed on over to the Ubuntu website to see if it merits further investigation, or even installation.
Upon arriving at the Ubuntu site, one is greeted with the following friendly introduction:

“Ubuntu” is an ancient African word, meaning “humanity to others”. Ubuntu also means “I am what I am because of who we all are”. The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.

Hmmm. Well, OK. Sounds friendly, I guess, but it does set off the “Diversity Group Hug!!!” alarm bell somewhere in the back of my brain. (And didn’t Bill Gates just warn us about Linux communists?)
Then, a little further down the page… this:

Oh no. Oh, no, no, no, no.
I’m sorry. I just can’t do it. I can’t use an operating system with that login screen. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to turn on my computer every day, and be faced with that nightmarish screen standing between me and my desktop. Life is depressing enough without my Linux distribution grinning at me and giving me a hug because I’m so special.
I’m sorry. I went with SuSE this time around.

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More discussion on that Fedora dual-boot problem. Sounds like it’s not limited to FC2, but crops up in other recent Linux distributions, too. Ah well–given the general pluckiness of the open source world, with any luck there’ll be fixes or workarounds available shortly.
I hope that when the problem is addressed, the Fedora Core people release an updated version of FC2 (as opposed to just a downloadable patch or something).
I did successfully upgrade my work laptop (dual-boot Win2k and FC) to FC2 on Friday without any subsequent dual-booting problems (although it did warn me during the install process about possible boot/partition problems). So far, I like what I’ve seen of FC2, but I haven’t yet spent enough time with it to come to any grand conclusions.

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