Ubuntu (Linux) Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Background on why I tried Ubuntu

I've been using Redhat / Fedora Core for some time with Gnome or KDE. Mostly I've used these in a server capacity, but I have installed these on some old macs and PCs to try them out from a desktop computer perspective.

I have never been terribly impressed with the UI, but ever time I tried I saw more and more progress. As a developer, I saw great potential in using Linux as a desktop as there are some great tools that exist for Linux. However, not all of them did so it was just an early peek into the future for me. With the Flex SDK including Flash being available for Linux, I can basically do my job as a pure developer on Linux now. I don't, but I could! haha. I'm keeping my eye on this free alternative as it interests me purely because it is free. Free AND good is good right?

As a designer, I still don't see Linux making much headway for a while unless Adobe releases their tools for Linux too. Linux advocates will point you to graphic design tools such as Gimp and so on, but most career professional designers will work with the tools they were taught on, or those that work on the most prevalent machines (mac/pc) and with the tools that their colleagues use because often files are getting worked on by a group or traded. Then you get into the whole print shop / service bureau compatibility thing. A friend of mine at ILM is in the creative dept and he is now using Linux a LOT because of the custom tools they use, and says they're unbeatable, so it's not like we can discount Linux. However, they've got a controlled environment over there, with an exclusive group that can all agree to be cohesive. That doesn't really work (yet) for the mainstream.

Lately I heard some buzz about Ubuntu being a great Linux distribution, that it was easy to install and use. That caught my attention, because in the context, I interpreted that to mean that it was easy for anyone, not just someone more technical.

My wife's PC is a few years old and she basically hated how slow and bloated it got, so I finally convinced her to get an Intel iMac. She loves it! I took the old PC, partitioned it and installed Ubunto on the second partition.

My conclusion with the one pc i tested which is a P4 with 256MB ram, is that the installer took so long as to be unusable. I had to cancel, and go and download the text-based installer – which was pretty easy and usable compared to other distros' I've tried, but still – not adequate for a novice.

Once installed, the OS booted up faster that the PCs. The interface is pleasant and fairly polished. It's pretty straight forward to use, and has some similarities to windows as well as mac. Some of the same keyboard shortcuts are the same. Ubuntu is by far the easiest distro I've tried to use once it's on the user's system. To add and remove programs is very easy if you're picking from the list of online software they've got listed in the add/remove tool. The browser is FireFox, email is Evolution, which seems pretty darn powerful and will even work with an MS Exchange server. It comes with OpenOffice which is compatible with Microsoft Office files.

The conclusion that I have come to:

If you know someone who needs a computer, but either can't afford one or won't bother buying one, and you have or know someone who has an older pc that they're willing to part with, Ubuntu is a great solution for someone who just needs email, word processing and web surfing. There are even some games on there. You might just have to install it for them, that's all.

One cool thing too was that the Ubuntu installer itself had an option for leaving the existing Windows install on the computer and resized the partition and created another one for me. When the computer boots up you get a text based menu for 6 seconds that lets you choose between Windows and Ubuntu. When the time expires, Ubuntu boots up by default.

If you use the text based installer, the only thing i found confusing was the partition size. It wasn't clear whether or not the size you set is for the old Windows partition, or the new Ubuntu one. For the record, as of today's date, it's the size of the Windows partition after resizing it. I chose to leave 3 gigs on there for windows (beyond what it was already using), and used the rest for Ubuntu.

Also, Mac OS X still blows Ubuntu out of the water, but for those types of simple home users, Ubuntu just might be perfect. It'll also let your recycle an old computer. If you're more of a hard-core Linux head or developer, this article's probably not for you and you probably have a lot more options :)