I have been toying around with Ubuntu ever since version 5 came out and I must say “Feisty Fawn” or version 7 is now really a contender with Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS.
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution (distro) that is based lightly on the Fedora** core (I say lightly because Ubuntu takes a completely different path from Fedora). Ubuntu is focused on the new user and targets people looking for an alternative to Windows.
The install of Ubuntu is now flawless. When you boot your computer with the Ubuntu CD in your drive it loads a full version of Ubuntu right away. If you have an operating system (OS) installed on your computer already it will not copy any files on to your hard drive. Instead it will install right into your random access memory (RAM). Once loaded, if you like what you see, you can click on the install icon on the desktop and it will install with just a few clicks. Twenty minutes later you have a computer running Ubuntu.
The developers of Ubuntu have really gotten down and made this OS into a great working and great looking OS. The graphical user interface (or GUI) is just great. It is very simple. The only menus you see are “Applications, Places, and System”.
The Applications menu is what you would think it is – a quick access to all your programs. Oh, and did I mention? All the software is free that comes with Ubuntu. This is great as all the applications are just as good as you would find on Windows or Mac OS.
The Places menu is just like My Computer in Windows. It allows easy access to all your hard drives, memory cards, and disc drives.
The System Menu is just like Control Panel in Windows. The only drawback I would say to this design, and not a window with icons, is that you can easily get lost in the large menus.
Wireless connectivity is now available. In older versions of Ubuntu it has been hard to get Wireless cards and USB drives to work. I myself have a $20 ZyDas Wireless USB drive (not a widely known brand of wireless adapter) and Ubuntu never recognized it (however you could do a little hacking in the console, get the drivers for linux from the manufacturer website, and install it yourself – I wasn’t prepared to do that). Now you can connect to the internet via wireless connection.
I only had one real problem with the install of Ubuntu. When I restarted Ubuntu came up with the error of “xserver failed to start”. This means the computer was either unable to determine what kind of monitor you have or what kind of video card you have. If you have this happen heres what you type (minus the quotations):
“sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg”
This will take you into an application in Ubuntu that will walk you through setting up your drivers. The general rule of thumb here is that you make sure that when the monitor type comes up that you choose the option “vesa”.
Phew, that was a little hardcore.
The unfortunate drawback to Ubuntu is that there are no companies developing games for Linux. As most of you know (or may not know), I am a World of Warcraft fanatic. It doesn’t work on Ubuntu. So if your a gamer this is not a choice for you.
A positive side to Ubuntu is there is not one virus in the wild for Linux as of yet. The reason? It’s because there is a network of users that also work on the programming on this system. They don’t want viruses and make sure they don’t happen.
All in all, I am very happy with Ubuntu and I am moving my day-to-day operations to it.
Want to try Ubuntu? Click here.
**UPDATE: I made a typo above. I meant to say Debian instead of Fedora. They are close distributions but not the same.**
