Over the past two weeks, I’ve gradually upgraded my existing installation from Gnome 2.6 to the shiny new 2.8, which brought Evolution 2.0 along with it. A few thoughts:
* Linux in general, and Gnome more specifically is getting better and better at the hardware support bit. Via projects and packages such as Utopia, DBUS and Udev the seamless support of devices is now possible. After upgrading my installation (and making sure the services were configured properly) my USB key and digital camera (Nikon Coolpix 775 – I know, I know), are picked up automatically and I can read/write to them with no driver fussiness, no complex setup. Sweet.
* I’m on record as being somewhat against the inclusion of Evolution in Gnome, but not the package itself. The new interface is better, it’s more stable (at least 2.0.2 is, 2.0 was a bit flaky), but the single biggest improvement for me has been the inclusion of my Evolution calendar into the calendar panel applet (pictured in the upper right in the screenshot). So when I’m on the phone and need to check my availability, I no longer have to tab over to Evolution and drop what I’m doing – I can call up the calendar easily and with no latency. Sweet.
* Wishlist? Well, I’m still pining for OneNote, although for quick hit items Tomboy has stepped in as a more than able replacement. But what I haven’t replicated yet is the offline, cached abilities that Outlook 2003 had. It’s true that that is due in large part due to our choice of Exchange as our messaging backend, but I’d love to see the exchange storage mechanism incorporate local caching so that I’d be better equipped for intermittent connectivity. I’m also still not able to use Adobe Acrobat Professional – which we use for our publications – b/c it’s not supported on Linux (hear me, Adobe?).
But overall, the Linux desktop migration for me is proving to be less and less of a challenge every day.
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