Hey there. I was a serious gentoo user for many years, but health problems and other issues kept me from spending much time with linux for awhile. Heck I have only recently gotten back into the pc & hardware scene, much less had time to mess with alternative OSes.
But I finally bit the bullet and gave ubuntu 9.10 x32 a shot. Actuallt I tried several flavors and variations like Mint, NBR, Eeebuntu, kubuntu, ect; and stuck with regular plain 9.10 desktop version in the end.
Well, having used Gentoo and XP for many years, then the last 2-3 were spent on XP and then vista, and then Ive been on 7 nearly exclusively since release. I thought 7 was the best, really liked it, and did not anticipate on even giving linux much of another shot for at least the next year while I was enjoying 7.
But my netbook has been lagging a bit (win7 ult 32) and I really dont want to have to format it every 3-4 months to keep it feeling new and snappy, and I definitely do not have the free time to install and configure my baby Gentoo, so I went with ubuntu.
I hit some snags first, bluetooth and wireless net performance out of the box was terrible, and without the equivalent of asus power save programs for windows my batt life was not as good as win7. But I decided to really stick with it, and after a day or so of researching around the net & namely the ubuntu forums, I solved those problems and the result is something wonderful
First Id like to note the Ubuntu forums are an absolute amazing resource of info. I loved Gentoo because of its awesome forums, and now I love Ubuntu for the same reason. Every potential issue and problem I hit was already discussed and answered there. And the people posting are quite pleasant and friendly, immaturity seems at a minimum there; thats something that has been lacking on the gentoo forums lately.
So I discovered I needed to replace the out of the box wireless lan and bluetooth drivers with some newer better ones, called compat-wireless. They dont exist in apt but were easy to download and very easy to install once I found a nice guide in a post on the forum. So after a little bit of untarring and make'ing, they were compiled and installed. After installing the new drivers, both wireless and bluetooth work absolutely perfectly. My wireless network performance is totally stellar, just like it was on win7 (the asus 1000he which I use has awesome wifi!). And I havent had to re-pair my bt mouse once since updating.
Then the power management, I figured out that I needed to add Fewt's repository to my ubuntu install, then just use apt/synaptic to install it. It was rediculously easy, and fast now that my wifi is performing as it should.
The final result is batt life nearly identical to windows 7. I could not be happier.
Now onto the good stuff. Fonts look absolutely incredible. I imported all my fonts from win7 into my ubuntu install so I have a vast array of truetype fonts. But they look sooo much better rendered on ubuntu than they did on windows. I ended up putting ubuntu 9.10 x64 on my desktop too tonight, and the fonts look even more breathtaking on my giant 24". Clear, sharp, smooth. I overrode the default firefox fonts with the DejaVu ones too, and now firefox'es fonts also look incredible!
Compiz+gnome also look incredible. It makes win7 look absolutely dated! Not only do the desktop compiz effects look awesome, but they run fantastic on my lil netbook, and now on the desktop. I can enable everything withot a single hitch on the desktop in my sig too, it looks totally wild.
And a quick note, the ATI proprietary hardware drivers installed just fine, no issues, with the GUI installer even. I was expecting to need to hit the command line for that, but nope, they installed without a hitch and my 4870X2 (replaced the 4770 in sig) is running great with the newest catalysts.
Now I note all kinds of cool stuff, like every game i play (wow, supcom:FA. and several steam games, are all platinum rated in the free wine. Sweet, will I really be able to drop windows completely on my desktop & game on linux? Im so impressed that Ill gladly sell the 4870x2 and get a nvidia card if it would allow me to do that!
Performance is great. Desktop is as smooth or smoother than on win7 on the netbook, despite there being substantially more effects going on. And firefox can handle more than twice the open tabs before lagging in ubuntu compared to winxp or 7; and it uses way less memory. Oh, and a 64 bit flash plugin for firefox finally? Ive been trying to run 64 bit firefox for years on both linux and win, and now I stumbled right into it with no trouble at all an hr after installing ubuntu 9.10 x64 on my desktop. It works good too whoa!
So yeah, im absolutely astonished at how far linux and ubuntu specifically have come over the last few years since I seriously used linux. Ill be wiping my win7 partition off the netbook shortly, as ubuntu does everything win7 could do for me there, and more, and it does it faster and smoother (and easier!) than windows7. After using windows package manager for years (which is the complete lack of one), having a system like apt is such a breath of fresh air. No tracking down obscure programs and utilities, its all right there at the command line or in synaptic. No need to search for driver and program updates and patches individualy every now and then, its all automated and dead simple with debians package mgmt.
I could go on and on with how pleased I am. Ubuntu just became my primary desktop OS, I give it an A+, theres nothing wrong with needing a bit of tinkering to get it perfect. But once its done (I have the netbook totally perfect now, does everything I do in windows at least as good and mostly better, not even considering looking back) the result is something special heh. Anyone else been away from linux for years and just come back, are you as blown away as me? =)
But I finally bit the bullet and gave ubuntu 9.10 x32 a shot. Actuallt I tried several flavors and variations like Mint, NBR, Eeebuntu, kubuntu, ect; and stuck with regular plain 9.10 desktop version in the end.
Well, having used Gentoo and XP for many years, then the last 2-3 were spent on XP and then vista, and then Ive been on 7 nearly exclusively since release. I thought 7 was the best, really liked it, and did not anticipate on even giving linux much of another shot for at least the next year while I was enjoying 7.
But my netbook has been lagging a bit (win7 ult 32) and I really dont want to have to format it every 3-4 months to keep it feeling new and snappy, and I definitely do not have the free time to install and configure my baby Gentoo, so I went with ubuntu.
I hit some snags first, bluetooth and wireless net performance out of the box was terrible, and without the equivalent of asus power save programs for windows my batt life was not as good as win7. But I decided to really stick with it, and after a day or so of researching around the net & namely the ubuntu forums, I solved those problems and the result is something wonderful
First Id like to note the Ubuntu forums are an absolute amazing resource of info. I loved Gentoo because of its awesome forums, and now I love Ubuntu for the same reason. Every potential issue and problem I hit was already discussed and answered there. And the people posting are quite pleasant and friendly, immaturity seems at a minimum there; thats something that has been lacking on the gentoo forums lately.
So I discovered I needed to replace the out of the box wireless lan and bluetooth drivers with some newer better ones, called compat-wireless. They dont exist in apt but were easy to download and very easy to install once I found a nice guide in a post on the forum. So after a little bit of untarring and make'ing, they were compiled and installed. After installing the new drivers, both wireless and bluetooth work absolutely perfectly. My wireless network performance is totally stellar, just like it was on win7 (the asus 1000he which I use has awesome wifi!). And I havent had to re-pair my bt mouse once since updating.
Then the power management, I figured out that I needed to add Fewt's repository to my ubuntu install, then just use apt/synaptic to install it. It was rediculously easy, and fast now that my wifi is performing as it should.
The final result is batt life nearly identical to windows 7. I could not be happier.
Now onto the good stuff. Fonts look absolutely incredible. I imported all my fonts from win7 into my ubuntu install so I have a vast array of truetype fonts. But they look sooo much better rendered on ubuntu than they did on windows. I ended up putting ubuntu 9.10 x64 on my desktop too tonight, and the fonts look even more breathtaking on my giant 24". Clear, sharp, smooth. I overrode the default firefox fonts with the DejaVu ones too, and now firefox'es fonts also look incredible!
Compiz+gnome also look incredible. It makes win7 look absolutely dated! Not only do the desktop compiz effects look awesome, but they run fantastic on my lil netbook, and now on the desktop. I can enable everything withot a single hitch on the desktop in my sig too, it looks totally wild.
And a quick note, the ATI proprietary hardware drivers installed just fine, no issues, with the GUI installer even. I was expecting to need to hit the command line for that, but nope, they installed without a hitch and my 4870X2 (replaced the 4770 in sig) is running great with the newest catalysts.
Now I note all kinds of cool stuff, like every game i play (wow, supcom:FA. and several steam games, are all platinum rated in the free wine. Sweet, will I really be able to drop windows completely on my desktop & game on linux? Im so impressed that Ill gladly sell the 4870x2 and get a nvidia card if it would allow me to do that!
Performance is great. Desktop is as smooth or smoother than on win7 on the netbook, despite there being substantially more effects going on. And firefox can handle more than twice the open tabs before lagging in ubuntu compared to winxp or 7; and it uses way less memory. Oh, and a 64 bit flash plugin for firefox finally? Ive been trying to run 64 bit firefox for years on both linux and win, and now I stumbled right into it with no trouble at all an hr after installing ubuntu 9.10 x64 on my desktop. It works good too whoa!
So yeah, im absolutely astonished at how far linux and ubuntu specifically have come over the last few years since I seriously used linux. Ill be wiping my win7 partition off the netbook shortly, as ubuntu does everything win7 could do for me there, and more, and it does it faster and smoother (and easier!) than windows7. After using windows package manager for years (which is the complete lack of one), having a system like apt is such a breath of fresh air. No tracking down obscure programs and utilities, its all right there at the command line or in synaptic. No need to search for driver and program updates and patches individualy every now and then, its all automated and dead simple with debians package mgmt.
I could go on and on with how pleased I am. Ubuntu just became my primary desktop OS, I give it an A+, theres nothing wrong with needing a bit of tinkering to get it perfect. But once its done (I have the netbook totally perfect now, does everything I do in windows at least as good and mostly better, not even considering looking back) the result is something special heh. Anyone else been away from linux for years and just come back, are you as blown away as me? =)