Ubuntu

Well, I have pretty much exclusively used Ubuntu today. It really is not as bad as I was expecting it to be. The last version I used was 5.x and it still was very rough around the edges, but not horrible for a linux distribution as most of them are basically unusable by anyone with a sense of aesthetics. Now, keep in mind that I am speaking about linux in the context of a desktop operating system. I cannot really talk about the whole server aspect of what linux can do for you, because in the past I have just used it for setting up a LAMP server for webpage development.

Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of ubuntu was the fact that it pretty much worked out of the box. Since I installed it on my laptop, the ultimate benchmark was getting my wireless card working. This is a feature that has always suffered under linux distributions. Therefore, I was quite surprised when it worked out of the box…well, when I remembered what my SSID was.

My second biggest complaint was typically inconsistency of the interface. Granted, I know that if I were to go and start installing some apps, ubuntu would like a like patchwork quilt just like any other distro, but out of the box the apps seem to run together nicely. And, as icing on the cake, they all seem to use the same shortcut keys. That was something that always used to drive me nuts in the CSIS lab when I trying to use the crippled redhat machines (that are now crippled fedora machines).

I actually managed to get some class work done on it today. It was kind of bizarre actually getting work done in linux, not spending all my time trying to get some particular feature working (i.e. wireless networking). I have to say, OpenOffice does not suck too bad on linux, at least it is better than on a Mac.

Unfortunately, do to licensing bullshit and whatever else reasoning people have to say and do you cannot watch DVD’s or play MP3′s. Fortunately, this functionality and a boat load of other little things were taken care of by script bundle called “EasyUbuntu” that nicely polishes off the distribution.

I am somewhat eager for the XGL features to be implemented some time latter this year. I considered setting it up myself, but there are not really what I would consider “stable” releases at this time. But, basically they add a few features that I have grown used to in OS X.

Based on what I have seen so far, for an average computer user, ubuntu seems to be a pretty decent replacement for Windows. Granted, I would never give up OS X for it, since linux has a long way to go before it get to that point. But, for now, it accomplishes almost all of the functionality that regular computer users use, which happens to be the generic general purpose that I use this laptop for (word processing and chatting).

So, I guess if anyone has been as turned off by desktop linux as I have been throughout the years, you might want to checkout the latest ubuntu and give it a shot. Granted if you are happy with what you got, there isn’t really a whole lot of point to it, but I was bored/curious so I gave it a shot. I would say it is probably worth the time it took to set it up (practically none).