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9½ weeks with Ubuntu

Others/Miscelleneous by Bosw8er @ 2007-12-18

Alas support for my beloved Windows 2000 is going to stop and the longer the more applications are no longer compatible. Hey, we had a good time, but it is time to say goodbye and to look out for a new and sexier partner. Welcome Ubuntu!

9½ weeks with Ubuntu

9½ weeks with Ubuntu

Alas support for my beloved W2K is going to stop and the longer the more applications are no longer compatible. Hey, we had a good time, but it's time to say goodbye and to look out for a new and sexier partner.

I admit, I'm curious, I committed adultery a few times and tried different Linux distributions (1999: Caldera, 2005: Ubuntu 5). I had a short date with Vista and really got scared from it (apart from the HW-specs), after only one hour I got enormously fed up with this OS doing all kind of things in a very awkward way. Ubuntu 5 however was very user-friendly, native and stable. As most of my day to day work was easy to fulfill with Ubuntu, it was a viable option. I even installed Ubuntu on a notebook of a close, and almost computer illiterate friend and he adored it for its simplicity. But even with a lot of userfriendlyness i spent too much time looking up essential stuff like:

Mounting partitions to use them
Difficult upgrading/install options
Tiny things like installing fonts, codecs, ...
Could not get the mouse buttons / scanner to work correct
Too much free and excellent software options, but lots of study required for choosing a solution and than learning how to use it.
No time to learn all howto's, tips, tricks and tweaks of OS and the new software solutions

My time was too precious to spend with such a difficult partner ... and after some time I returned to my beloved W2K.

However I’m kind of forced to switch as W2K will be no longer supported and even some software or drivers are not W2K compatible anymore. So I showed W2K the door, cleaned the house and invited Ubuntu 7.04. Once Ubuntu was in, I locked the door and threw away the key ...

Is Ubuntu better in bed? YES
Am I going to switch? NO

Comment from wutske @ 2007/12/18

Quote:

To accomplish the same functionality with XP it takes 3 hours (fresh install).

If you fiddle around a bit with nLite, you can easily install a (more ligthweigth) version of XP in about 15 minutes. If you add some win-get batch-action to it you probably have a completely functional desktop in an hour (or two, depening on your internet connection

).

btw, bosw8er, are you frustrated or something ? Nice article

.

//edit; yaj, 1300 posts

Comment from jmke @ 2007/12/18

the time it takes to make a working automated XP install with all applications preinstalled is a lot more than 3 hours, including testing and verification

Comment from geoffrey @ 2007/12/18

Something different, I like it

So many different OS now, XP will be hard to beat though, I'm so used to it that I don't want to put time in exploring something new although that Linux does look adventureous en refreshing at the same time. Must... resist... temptation...

Comment from jmke @ 2007/12/18

very easy, just try to enjoy these games on Linux: http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/f...-2007-a-40465/
ooooh

Comment from geoffrey @ 2007/12/18

That's a very good point, although that in some cases you can trade in your 8800GTX for last generation consoles

Comment from goingpostale1 @ 2007/12/19

Nice article, I myself am still working up the courage to try Ubuntu again. Tried it and my Broadcom network driver problems were so time consuming I just went back to XP. After reading your article I am encouraged and I believe there is hope for linux in my future. I'm still sticking by my old adage of "Linux is only free if your time is worthless", simply because of all the time its going to take me to learn a new OS

. However , I envy the fact you forged through in dealing with Linux in places where I gave up.

Nice Job, bosw8er

Comment from Kougar @ 2007/12/19

Time spent learning to use a new OS is rather fun in my opinion. You learn different things.

Time trying to make the OS work for the simple little things that don't work but should is only worthwhile if your time is worthless and you enjoy bashing your head against the keyboard. I'll dink around with Linux, but until the day it works out of the box or inside 10 minutes I'm sticking to windows. Says the guy that mostly enjoys his black Vista, at any rate

Comment from jmke @ 2007/12/19

Quote:

Originally Posted by geoffrey

That's a very good point, although that in some cases you can trade in your 8800GTX for last generation consoles

FPS games are PC only, consoles suck for FPS :/

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kougar

Time spent learning to use a new OS is rather fun in my opinion. You learn different things.

I rather have a working OS with I can do things the moment I want to do them , without having to digg up another howto guide or troubleshooting tips&tricks

Comment from Kougar @ 2007/12/19

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

I rather have a working OS with I can do things the moment I want to do them , without having to digg up another howto guide or troubleshooting tips&tricks

Never had that issue with Vista anymore than I have with XP. That was my problem with linux however, it doesn't matter what flavor it always required a guide to figure out how to do the simplest things like play a mp3 or get a linux video player to correctly install the various required libraries to make it work.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/12/19

if you got Digg, spread the word: http://digg.com/linux_unix/9_1_2_weeks_with_Ubuntu

Comment from wutske @ 2007/12/19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kougar

I think most people share the same opinion, you don't need a big manual to start working with windows and it might not come with a lot of (productive) applications, but it can do most things straigth out of the box.

The main problem with linux is that there is too much of it, there's absolutely no standard for doing basic tasks; let's take the most important thing, installing applications. You have make-scripts, rpm-packages, slackware-packages, debian/ubuntu-packages ... and most applications are only available in one or two flavours

.
Windows is more easy, there are different kinds of installer (more like brands) but all of them work on (almost) every windows installation ! Now that's easy

.

Despite all the negative words I've just typed, I'll probably try out openSuse these vacations

. I've heard some good things about it and it's worth trying, if it sucks, I simple put the hdd back on the shelf where it's catching dust atm

Comment from Kougar @ 2007/12/20

Can't argue with free, so nothing lost except time spent. I've not tried the latest incarnations of Ubuntu, but one review I read mentioned that the reason it still doesn't play mp3, wma, or simular media out of the box is because they don't fall in the open source arena. Hence they'll never be included.

Jumping in headfirst into using a Mac OS X box was frankly easier, and that was with the Mac keyboard differences included! I only had to ask a person how to bring up right-click menus and after that I was doing my work on the Mac's in the school lab just fine, after about 10 minutes of trial and error with the interface. One-button mac mice are the worst invention ever...

Comment from Bosw8er @ 2007/12/20

http://www.linux.com/feature/122681

I don't mean to sound excessively negative. Ubuntu is much nicer than Windows in many ways -- the feel of the desktop, the built-in functionality, the available software through APT, the ease of working with certain aspects of the Windows office environment I'm in. Free software is also extremely important to me, and of considerable interest to my organisation.
But the integration just isn't as slick and easy as I had hoped. With each step I have had to spend more time messing around with settings, or just working around missing functionality, than I do in Windows XP. I'm sure some of my stumbling blocks have answers, but they weren't there by default, nor easy for me to find. This poses a problem for my organization: the only way to make a migration really work would be to switch the servers first to eliminate compatibility issues, and then to do a really comprehensive refit of the desktops with lots of retraining. This is certainly a possibility, but with the constraints of a charity IT budget (where funding for long-term investments is difficult to come by, and where software licensing is relatively cheap) it's going to take considerable political will from management to justify a wholesale migration.

Comment from Shogun @ 2007/12/23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kougar

Time spent learning to use a new OS is rather fun in my opinion. You learn different things.

Agreed!

I like how once you've learned some of the tricks behind Linux, the power you now control is rather... immense.

If you're on the lookout for thriving Linux communities, a large number exist these days.

I especially like Linux Questions, USA LUG, and the Ubuntu Forums (assuming you're running Ubuntu). Each major Linux flavor should have its own forums with lots of knowledgeable egg heads ready and willing to help you out with whatever problem you may be having with Linux. You must remember that whatever issue you're having isn't the first time a lot of these guys heard of it.

Linux has gotten to the point where some of my non-technical friends can sit down at a PC, browse the Internet to pay bills, check e-mails, whatever, and not even realize they are using something other than a Windows operating system!

Comment from Bosw8er @ 2007/12/24

excellent tips:
http://www.danielandrade.net/2007/11...ng-ubuntu-710/

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