A first look at Ubuntu Linux
For the first time, I’ve tried a Linux Desktop which just seems to work. That’s
not to say that it does everything I need, or that I’m switching tomorrow, but a lot of what I need a desktop for is there.
The desktop I’m running is Ubuntu Linux, which is a free version of Linux, that is, you can just download and go.
As I just wanted to try it, I decided to run a "live CD" of it. For those who are unaware of this term, a live CD is one that runs without requiring any installation to your hard drive. It runs off the CD, and uses memory for its work. The upside is that it’s a lower risk install, the downside is that you need more memory, it’s slower (as the process runs off a CD, and not the hard drive) and that changes to configuration settings are not made permanent.
Bear in mind, this is a first look, not a long-term test. So, I tried a few things:-
- booting up
- getting on the web
- reading/writing from a USB key
- communicating with friends via instant messenger.
- sound
- printing
So, it’s not what you would call an exhaustive test. In these areas, it performed very well:-
- Booting up was successful, with graphics looking quite good. The sound was fine.
- Surfing the web with Firefox was just fine. This post is being written on Firefox on Ubuntu live.
- Communicating with friends required me to log onto the supplied Gaim software, and enter my MSN details, which was then OK, although I did have a few intermittent timeouts. But nothing to worry me.
- The USB key was detected just fine and I could write to it.
- Printing was OK, once I had selected the right printer. Ubuntu detected it as a PSC1300, which caused a crash. The PSC1310 driver was better and more stable. Having a HP printer is a good move, as they are very supportive of Linux drivers.
Also, I wanted to display the screenshot in smaller resolution, so I tried to shrink via GIMP. I don’t particularly like GIMP because of its interface, but it worked just fine under Ubuntu.
In summary, I’m very impressed. Enough that I’m putting a dual-boot on with Ubuntu to explore it further.
RSS
I’m glad you discovered it! I’m no Linux guru, and I love my Ubuntu, for exactly the same reasons. I use my wireless card and my USB drive without -thinking- about them. I don’t use anything else on my home laptop anymore.
Thanks for the comment, Catherine.
It certainly looks like a good base to work from.
I’m going to be putting it on a partition for dual-booting soon, so once that’s done, I’ll be posting more.
Tim
More and more people are discovering that Linux is not just a great server, it makes a really useful desktop system. When I configured my VOIP softphone on Linux the other day, I stopped booting my laptop into Windows entirely (except to view my website bugs in IE6**) I haven’t felt this excited about the computer at my fingertips since I downloaded the Mosaic browser onto my Windows 3.1 machine. I hope you enjoy using your dual-boot computer.
I agree about The Gimp - its interface is slick for photo-retouching, but it is certainly clumsy if all you want to do is resize an image.
** Internet Explorer: IE6 is actually a pretty decent browser; just not as good as Konqueror or Mozilla Firefox. I could get another Windows licence and run it under VMware or Xen, or get Crossover Office. Catherine - do you ever check web pages for IE quirks ?