So, I’ve finally taken the plunge into the linux world with Ubuntu, after countless hours of XP maintenance throughout the years and who knows how many restarts/spyware scans. I’ve been an avid Windows user since the start, back in the 3.1 days until now, and have never really been satisfied with the level of quality Microsoft provides its users. I’ve played around a little with Tiger as well, but haven’t yet invested in an apple computer due to the lack of software support currently available for my needs. What can I say, I love my games and I’ve got a great system to run them on, so there’s no use in me spending $1000+ on another great system, when all I really want is the security structure of the OS that Tiger provides. That’s where Linux comes in.

I’ve been hearing more and more about how Linux, specifically Ubuntu, is heading for mainstream use because if how easy it is to operate, and how secure it is as well. So I said to myself “Okay, so here is a completely secure OS with great bundled software and features, a great support community, and above all, it’s FREE! What am I waiting for?” Next step, I download both Kubuntu and Ubuntu LiveCD’s, as I’d like to check out both Gnome and KDE to see which I prefer as opposed to the Windows desktop. The Ubuntu online resources are great, and it took no time at all to find the correct build to set up on my 64-bit system. Other than the dead link on the Kubuntu LiveCD download page, it was fairly easy to get started. Hopefully they’ve fixed that, but if not there’s multiple sources for US downloads from their website, so it wasn’t a big deal.

As far as how easy it is to actually install, that’s exactly what it was. Easy. I was skeptical at first because I’ve heard in the past how much a mess the installation process can be, but to my surprise it was actually much more simple compared to an XP install. I put the disc in, rebooted, and within a few minutes I was looking at a nice clean desktop with an install icon in the top left. I played around with the desktop a little, and here’s a few things I noticed:

1. The desktop is simply beautiful with Gnome. I would definitely recommend it over KDE, but ultimately it’s up to the users choice. I couldn’t have asked for more (Xgl, anyone?). It’s easy to navigate and find what you need with no problems at all. I actually prefer the interface over the XP interface, with the top and bottom panels providing everything I need for easy access. Plus, it just looks better. It had a more ‘vector’ feel to it than anything I’ve seen in XP. Everything was shiny, polished and nice J

2. One problem I had from the get-go was the OS wasn’t recognizing my USB keyboard. In fact, neither Kubuntu or Ubuntu recognized all 4 USB ports on the motherboard, so I had to switch a few things around to get both the keyboard and mouse working at the same time. So, I’m stuck for now with only 2 USB ports. I’m not sure what was causing this, probably a driver issue, so I tried installing the OS at this point to see if a full install would give the necessary driver support for the USB ports. Unfortunately, it did not, so I’m only stuck with the 2 ports at the time. If anyone has any suggestions, shoot me an email. I’m running a Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI board, not sure if they have any Linux drivers but I’ll be sure and check later on.

3. After installation, the system ran smooth as silk. It’s amazing how slow you realize XP runs with all those pointless applications running in the background, compared to how Ubuntu was running on my machine. It really is like black and white.

4. I was surprised at how many applications were installed by default. Everything you need is right there, whether it’s word processing (OpenOffice) or internet browsing (Firefox). It’s all just there. And whatever isn’t there, you can usually find what you need in the repository. I would have liked to see some out of box DVD or MP3 support, but that’s not a huge setback since you can get that support elsewhere. Overall, I would recommend its built in software over Windows indefinitely. The only problem I ran into was installing software. It took a bit of work just to get the correct driver package for the display up and running on the machine. You might want to do some research on the different package handlers and how to go about installing applications within Ubuntu before actually installing the OS, just a heads up.

So, overall I would say that I’m not quite ready to give up XP, but I’m definitely on the way. Ubuntu has such a large community for support that if you run into any problems, you’re pretty much covered. Although the OS can be quite technical when you start to dig deep, it should be easy enough for the average user to stick the CD in and go. I’m looking forward to getting more familiar with Ubuntu over time, and quite possibly scraping XP altogether for daily use (except for games, of course), as it is such a robust OS with much more out-of-box features than what Redmond has to offer. I’ll be looking more into the security integration of Ubuntu in the future, as well as the desktop features that KDE has to offer, so stay tuned!

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- Roo