Just a recommendation for Ubuntu

Well, I've tried switching to linux. And it didn't work. Then I tried again... and it didn't work. And again. And again. And guess what, it didn't work.

It's not that I am confused by linux. I have quite a bit of experience with linux in fact, and feel incredibly comfortable with it. Thats why I always used gentoo, because I considered myself "advanced". And sure, half of my switch attempts resulted in a 90% functional desktop that I quite liked. However, that still left 10% of the time where I would want to do something, then find out that the required app wasn't installed or configured, spend 45 minutes trying to install it, getting a compile error, trying to fix it, compiling again, starting the program, having it crash, finding the cause, fixing the config file, running it again... you get the picture.

If I was going to run a server, I would use Gentoo because
a) I would only need about 5-10 apps working - no biggie.
b) I might actually notice the arguable ~5% performance increase you get
from compiling from source.

However, I don't run a server. So, I decided to give Ubuntu a try. Wow! This is the linux I've been searching for. I will point out now that like most people here, I have a lot of windows experience. I am the one the neighbors call to clean their virii and adware . I know how to keep a windows machine running for years problem free with no firewall, AV, or spyware scanners. But if I had to grade Ubuntu and Windows on a 1-10 scale, considering install time, ease of setup, stability, fun, and price, Ubuntu would be in the ~8 range, while Windows would be sitting somewhere near a 3 to 4.

Two weeks in Ubuntu and no booting back into windows. Anytime I need to do something, it is already set up or can be set up in about 15 seconds using synaptics. In Windows, I had to install drivers for my motherboard, video card, sound card, and both ethernet cards, as well as applications for all of the common tasks and a million codecs. The only driver I needed in Ubuntu was the NVidia driver. That's it. And if you run Automatix (Use only one a fresh install!), it does that, and every codec, plugin, and video player all in one quick step, which gets linux up and running every format windows can play, and then some.

And if you absolutely must have some application and are unwilling to run it under win (which is very buggy, and doesn't live up to the praise it gets, IMHO), then there is Parallels - the virtualisation app that OSX users are always bragging about. Just put a WinXP install on your 4'th workspace, and switch to it for all of your photoshopping, excel sheet slinging needs!

Seriously, give this a try. My laptop is being formatted next to me as I type this, and will be Ubuntu as well.

Pascal.

sweet, I knew I wasn't the only one in love with ubuntu around here! ubuntu is the only distro I have found in close to two years that completely replaces windows for me. I keep windows on my pc just in case but haven't booted into it in weeks. if I need to run a windows app wine for well for me most of the time or I just use vmware to run windows xp (haven't yet tried parallels).

With regards to windows apps I generally run crossover office which is fantastic and has served me well for a long time, just wish openoffice would have better excel import and then I could do away with it

Second rave review...

Wow! I just finished my laptop install. I didn't think I could be more impressed than I already was, but the bar has been raised once again. My desktop was dapper beta 7, while my laptop is the official dapper release.

EVERYTHING WORKS. Everything. Seriously. All of the custom media buttons, wireless, my NIC, sound, my touchpads (including scroll areas), everything. It actually does better than windows.

With no configuration, Ubuntu automatically dims the screen and powers down the CPU when I pull the AC out. As soon as I plug it back it, screen brightens back up. My volume keys control the volume as they should, and my sleep key works. And, with no effort, it goes perfectly into standby and comes out again. And I see and can connect tp with a single click all of the wireless networks in the area. Lack of sleep and wireless were the reasons I never used my gentoo installation. Think of all the time I've wasted!

From this point on, I am recommending Ubuntu to any and every person that asks. It just exceeds the usablility of Windows by orders of magnitude. One of these days, some random incident will thrust Ubuntu into the general public's view. The second it does, I just know it will become the new "cool" OS like OSX is right now. And when that day comes, MS better watch out...

Ununtu for All!

OK - I can't help myself. I should be in bed. I have school in 5 hours! lol. I'm just too excited. I had to post a screenshot.

Install time was about 1 hour (usually more like 15 minutes - had some issues with a rather comlex partitioning scheme). After being in the OS for 1 hour, even my remote network mounts for my webhost are working. The best part is, that type of thing is natively supported here - unlike windows...

Tomorrow, XGL/Compiz, which I already have running on my PC. It is stable enough for every day use now, and let me just say... it ROCKS!

The screenie:

Looks great-

Welcome to the Happy Linux Club.

I like the *buntus, ease of install, hardware support, package support etc, but I can't stand GNOME, and prefer KDE, therfore KBUNTU. Better yet PC-BSD, for me (FreeBSD) because of the package support, but mainly because of ports.

I've noticed for some time now,,,Gentoo the 'hip' distro, giving way to the *buntus

jajmon said:

I like the *buntus, ease of install, hardware support, package support etc, but I can't stand GNOME, and prefer KDE, therfore KBUNTU. Better yet PC-BSD, for me (FreeBSD) because of the package support, but mainly because of ports.

I've noticed for some time now,,,Gentoo the 'hip' distro, giving way to the *buntus

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I'm actually torn between Gnome and KDE. I like them both. KDE is soooooo configurable, something gnome is definately lacking with. There are so many things you can't do in gnome.

However, I find I get stuff done quicker with gnome. There was a lot of though put into getting as much done as possible in the most simple interface and it shows. I am quite comfortable in both. For now, I'm on gnome, because it was the default, and I can't be bothered setting up KDE the way I like - I hate the default setup. Yuck!

I also recently started an install of Ubuntu on a spare box for learner's sake. All I have to say is, neat! First install went bad, half the software didnt work... Second try, everything worked without any monkey business. If I weren't a gamer, and if the wife wasn't attached to W2K, I would switch completely.

Here is to a fine OS!

I hated Ubuntu 5.10 so much I didn't even write a list what my nitpicks were.

The new one is holding together pretty good.

I had the graphical partition editor in the installer clearly malfunction, but in the end a manual fdisk and ignoring the first partitioner screen led me to be able to select the right partitions anyway.

The only really braindead thing I found so far is that it runs 3D screensavers by default - on my notebook without 3D hardware. That is very much not healthy.

I just started converting all my Linux boxes (normally I have FreeBSD but I run Linux for special ops) from Fedora to Debian. With this I might settle for Ubuntu as the default install for i386 and only use Debian on amd64.

I Downloaded the new version of Ubuntu (not sure which one) and installed it on my laptop, went smooth with no issues. Everything works. Nice looking OS too.

Definately a distro I would use as I'm rather fond of the deabian side of things, although Ubuntu kinda strays from debian a bit

glad you had no probs. I actually had kubuntu somehow ruin my wireless . I booted into kubuntu, had trouble with wireless after I set itup, go bac kinto windows, and now my zeroconfig for windows doesn't work. Damn thing... I do want ubuntu on my desktop though.

Hmm ,regarding your wireless problem - I had similar issues with gentoo and my ethernet cards. After restarting from gentoo to Windows, it would just say that the cable was unplugged. I had to turn off the computer and unplug the power to fix it. Turns out, that the shutdown script actually "turned off" the card in some way with which windows was not familiar - I just commented the one line out of the shutdown script and the problem went away.

I can try that. What mine does is tries to connect to the wireles and then gets disconencted for some reason...

Hmmm, I installed Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) on my main rig about a month ago as a dual boot option with WinXP. I am a complete Linux n00b, so I learned a lot and enjoyed it, but TBH the install was a nightmare. This was mainly because my 7900GT was so new that Ubuntu 5.10 didn't have any bundled drivers that could support it. The result: no X server / GDM for me, which meant that I had to do everything via text mode with little knowledge of the common/useful commands. To make matters worse, after I downloaded the nVidia proprietary drivers, they couldn't even be installed before performing several steps that are way over the head of a Linux n00b. Things like getting the right compiler version, installing it, and setting it as active. Yeah, it seems simple to someone familiar with Linux, but for a distro that's touted as being extremely user-friendly, it's absolutely ridiculous. If it hadn't been for a second machine sitting right next to my main machine, some friends on IRC familiar with Linux, and hours worth of seraching the Ubuntu forums and various other Linux forums, I would have given up completely.

I know a lot of you will say "well the latest Ubuntu release has all the drivers you need and would be a painless install". That's all well and good, but what happens the next time I get some brand new hardware that isn't supported by the distro's built-in drivers? I'd be back in the same situation. Why is it that Windows can manage to give you a GUI even before your video drivers are installed, and an installation executable tht is guaranteed to work when you run it? Until a Linux distro can provide the same plug-and-play friendliness as Windows, I really can't see it being widely adopted.

Okay, sorry for the rant. Other than that, I had a lot of fun playing in Ubuntu. It was cool just to have something different, but honestly I haven't booted into Linux in over 2 weeks. The reasons? 1) With the games I play, even though some of them are natively supported in Linux, like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, I found that the feel of the mouse is just completely different, so it's like learning to play all over again. I decided to stick with Windows and retain my skill. 2) I use Outlook for my ISP email, and I don't know how to set that up in Linux and fear that it will be a struggle to maintain 2 different mail clients without losing messages in one or the other. 3) I keep encountering things in Ubuntu that just don't work out-of-the-box like they do in Windows, and I don't always have the time to search forums to figure them out. For instance, if I just want to search the net for some good ol'fashioned pr0n videos, I can't even get them to play in Totem... why? I did some quick searching, but didn't come across an easy 1-2-3 procedure for getting the codecs. It seemed like a very involved process from what I found.

KillrBuckeye said:

[...]This was mainly because my 7900GT was so new that Ubuntu 5.10 didn't have any bundled drivers that could support it. The result: no X server / GDM for me, which meant that I had to do everything via text mode with little knowledge of the common/useful commands. To make matters worse, after I downloaded the nVidia proprietary drivers, they couldn't even be installed before performing several steps that are way over the head of a Linux n00b. Things like getting the right compiler version, installing it, and setting it as active. Yeah, it seems simple to someone familiar with Linux, but for a distro that's touted as being extremely user-friendly, it's absolutely ridiculous. If it hadn't been for a second machine sitting right next to my main machine, some friends on IRC familiar with Linux, and hours worth of seraching the Ubuntu forums and various other Linux forums, I would have given up completely.

I know a lot of you will say "well the latest Ubuntu release has all the drivers you need and would be a painless install". That's all well and good, but what happens the next time I get some brand new hardware that isn't supported by the distro's built-in drivers? I'd be back in the same situation.

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You have to blame NVidia for this. Or yourself for getting hardware that resists decent OpenSource drivers.

Why is it that Windows can manage to give you a GUI even before your video drivers are installed, and an installation executable tht is guaranteed to work when you run it? Until a Linux distro can provide the same plug-and-play friendliness as Windows, I really can't see it being widely adopted.

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Windows is using the VESA routines in your video card BIOS. I think so does Fedora. I am surprised Ubuntu 6.06 doesn't.

Okay, sorry for the rant. Other than that, I had a lot of fun playing in Ubuntu. It was cool just to have something different, but honestly I haven't booted into Linux in over 2 weeks. The reasons? 1) With the games I play, even though some of them are natively supported in Linux, like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, I found that the feel of the mouse is just completely different, so it's like learning to play all over again. I decided to stick with Windows and retain my skill.

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Adjustments are available in the game and in X11.

You have to be fair here: if you switch between FPS games on Windows you have to calibrate every single one of them to your preferred mouse speed.

I won't comment on Outlook. Insecure piece of honk that have plenty of replacements that work both on Linux and Windoze.

Video codecs - all I can say is that I often find videos that my Windoze or Mac friends cannot play but that I can play in Mplayer and usually in Xine, too. (All of it self-compiled, and using 32 bit on 64 bit OS, another trick that isn't too easy on Windows).

I have Ubuntu installed, but it is the videocard drivers that are slowing me down... and my videocard is like 3 years old. Ofcourse it is a nVidia card

i like ubuntu 6.06. up to date firefox, up to date openoffice, it has so far installed very easily and quickly on two computers and i'm running the live cd on my ibook g4. everything works and even off of the cd it feels faster and more responsive then the ibook's native os x on the hard drive. plus i like the default burnt sienna color scheme.

Okay I spent a couple of hours tonight getting the functionality I wanted from Ubuntu. Streaming video and internet radio are now working. I didn't know about Automatix until reading about it in this thread and using it this evening. It seemed to do the trick! Thanks.

I would recommend installing things from Ubuntuguide.org instead of using Automatix. When I selected Frostwire in Automatix it couldn't install it, but when I just did it myself it worked much better, and I got a better idea for how to install things in the future.