A Month On Ubuntu 7.10

12/05/2007

For as long as I can remember, people have always called Linux hard to configure, hard to use, and incompatible with everything. There is the common stereotype that all Linux users live in a dark corner of their parent's basement, typing away at a command line, and they will never get a girl friend. Enter in Ubuntu 7.10. It's supposed to be so easy, anyone can use it. I put that to the test.

Overview

For the last 7 months I have been trying out distributions of Linux trying to find the ideal one for the common computer user. My goal was to find the distribution that was the easiest to install, configure, and use. Several of them came close, but I always had issues with one thing or another not working. These issues were generally the sound didn't work, the wireless didn't work, dual screens didn't work, I was unable to get to the correct screen resolution, or it was just way too much of a hassle to get it to dual boot with Windows. I came across several distributions that performed notably well, but fell short on one of the above criteria. Among the others I tried out that performed well were Sabayon, OpenSuse, Simply Mepis, and Fedora. Ubuntu 7.10 however was the first distribution to meet all my criteria.

Ubuntu is a debian based distribution and by default it uses the Gnome desktop environment. However, if you are not comfortable with the Gnome desktop, there is always the KDE desktop environment, which has more of a Windows feel.

Installation

Ubuntu in the past has proven itself to be not very user friendly on the install. Never once was I able to get it to install and boot automatically, failing the first part of my criteria check. With 7.10, this all changed. As in previous versions, 7.10 uses a live CD to get you into the installer. The theory being if you can't run the live CD version, you cannot run the operating system. While this takes a little more time to start up than other operating system installers, this made the installation of Ubuntu very easy.

With just a few clicks of the mouse, the installation started. It even offered to pull all the account information from my Windows XP install and use that as my default account. When it came to setting up Ubuntu to dual boot wih Windows, Ubuntu does everything for you. After installing Ubuntu, on reboot it automatically brought up a selection screen for choosing whether you wanted to boot to Ubuntu or Windows XP.

The install of Ubuntu took about 35 minutes, a little more time when it comes to installing the updates for Ubuntu. This install included a whole host of programs and all the drivers, a task that took well over an hour while installing Windows on this machine. I installed this on a newer laptop and I was pleasently surprised to find that with the exception of an easily fixed DPI issue that caused the title bar to be in an incredibly large font, everything worked perfectly, including the wireless.

Initial Thoughts

My initial thought was “Wow, that was incredibly easy to set up and get going.” As I kept using it, I found myself very impressed by the speed of which things opened and how fast the computer ran. Most applications opened up instantaneously without any lag or loading time, something unheard of on Windows machines. The default look is very nice, though I have found that having the task bar at the top of the screen throws many people off at first. Overall my initial impressions on Ubuntu were favorable.

General Usage

From observing the common reasons why most people use computers, I have found that they fall into 4 categories, internet/porn, media, office work, and games. Ubuntu works well for all but the games and even support for that is getting better.

By default, Ubuntu comes with about 35 applications pre-installed ranging from Firefox to OpenOffice. I like this because it means I don't have to spend a ton of time installing all the applications I need to work smoothly. If you want to install or remove programs, there is a very easy to use Add/Remove applications feature that contains a list of hundreds of applications that you can install, all for free just by checking or unchecking the box next to them.

For your internet needs, Ubuntu comes pre-installed with Firefox, Evolution Email Client, and Pidgin messenger client. Firefox is very well supported and you will find that on Ubuntu, it has a similar look and feel to its Windows counterpart. If Firefox really doesn't suit your style, then you can easily install Opera instead. If you are like me, I prefer to have at least 2 browsers installed, as you never know when you will need a second one. Opera makes a good second choice.

If you are into instant messaging, then Pidgin (formerly GAIM) is your default client of choice. With 15 different messaging protocols supported, you can talk to just about anyone on any messenger network. You can have several different accounts signed in on one messenger client, eliminating the need to sign into several different programs to talk to all your friends. I was very impressed with this program as I was able to easily get features that have plauged me on other messenger services, such as file transfers to work without any major hardships.

Playing media on Ubuntu is slightly more of an issue than I feel it should be, but it is fairly easy. By default, Ubuntu will not play most media formats. When you try to play any given piece of media, it will tell you the codec is not installed. However, it will then give you a dialog box that gives the option of downloading the codec and often you can be up and running within seconds. Even online media such as YouTube was up and running extremely quickly. The one notable exception to this being DVDs. The process for getting DVD's to play is definately not intuitive and may prove difficult to get working.

For those of you with iPods, there is a solution on Linux for you too. All I had to do was simply plug in my iPod and Rythmbox automatically found my iPod, all my songs, and I was able to manage my iPod with no issues whatsoever inside of a very easy to use interface. Ubuntu detected my iPod much quicker than any Windows computer I have ever used.

For those of you who use their computer in more of a business and academic oriented way, creating things such as spreadsheets, word documents, and presentations, Ubuntu has something for you too. By default, Ubuntu includes OpenOffice, which includes free alternatives to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access in the form of the programs Writer, Calc, Impress, and Base. These programs all look and perform similarly to MS Office 2003.

However the one thing you need to be aware of is that if you are going to be bringing these files that you are creating with these programs to work, school, or another location that does not have OpenOffice available, you may have to change the file format in which you save your documents to be compatible MS Office. MS Office will not open OpenOffice file format. Thus I would highly suggest going into the Tools > Preferences menu and changing these programs to automatically save in the Office 2003 document formats.

For those of you interested in running games, well Ubuntu may not be right for you. However, before you totally give up, with the Wine application I was able to get a few of my favorites running. There is also a paid service called Cedega that does a fairly decent job of running windows games. For those of you who just like games such as minesweeper and solitaire, Ubuntu has their fair share of those as well games like Tetris, Mahjongg, and Snake.

Updates, Upgrades, and Hardware

Ubuntu does an excellent job of handling updates. Ubuntu comes with an update manager, but it doesn't just update the operating system. It will keep you up to date of any updates for all the software on your computer. To make life even better, most of the time, these updates don't require a restart of the system, so you can install them and move on with your life rather than getting those nag screens telling you to reboot every 10 minutes in Windows. However, one thing I did notice is that when downloading the updates off of the Canadian server, things would get about half way downloaded and then hang there. So I would recommend sticking with the main server in your download preferences.

One of the things I have come to dread is upgrading hardware on the linux systems. Usually the tend to whine and complain at me, especially when adding things like wireless cards or a second monitor. Often times things just wouldn't work or the whole computer would freeze up on boot. This was not the case with Ubuntu.

Ubuntu handled adding new hardware exaclty like I would expect it to. I added two new pieces of hardware to the system while testing it out, the first was a Buffalo Wireless G PCI card. Upon putting this in, Ubuntu found all the drivers I needed for it and all I had to do was reboot and I was able to view all the networks in the area as well as connect to my own.

The second item I added was a second monitor. Having a dual head on my video card, I decided it would be pertinant to utilize it. Using the default utility for Ubuntu to get my second monitor working rendered me inside of a safe video mode. Not exactly where I want to be with a supposedly easy to use utility. To get the second monitor working it took an hour of working in the command line, google, and a text editor to get this working properly. To say the least, I was not impressed with the way this part of the operating system was handled. However, once I got it working, it has worked great ever since.

I found hardware support for Ubuntu to be some of the best I've come across. With the exception of a few nuances, everything I have plugged into Ubuntu has worked great without me having to configure a thing, something I have a hard time saying about Windows. The printer installed with minimal configuration and for the most part, Ubuntu did all the leg work to get all my hardware running.

There were a few things that don't always work as I would like though. The first one being an old spare linksys wireless B usb adapter. While Ubuntu was able to find this provided all the drivers from the start for this adapter, the performance was seriously lacking. I found myself unable to view the networks, but able to connect if I manually typed in the SSID, Passcode, and routing information. Then about every other time I would reboot and the internet wouldn't work. My recommendation would be to use a wireless card that you either know has support or that is fairly recent, but been around long enough to have support for it.

The other 2 things I have had intermitant issues with were my external hard drive and my flash drive. I found that with the first couple uses of Ubuntu, these drives didn't always get mounted and it took a lot of work to get them usable in Ubuntu, usually done by rebooting. However, as I've continued to use this OS, these issues have appeared less and less. I have not seen them in about 3 weeks.

However, one problem that is still persisting is that of the function keys on my laptop. Not a single one of my function keys worked on my laptop with the install of Ubuntu, including brightness. This is apparently a pretty big issue with newer laptops that have a Phoenix bios on them and I have not found a solution yet. I found myself having to do a Bios update in order to get it so I could use the brightness function at all on my laptop. The function keys are still dead in the water.

Other Things Of Note

Ubuntu provides many perks that are well worth looking into. The first among them is the visual effects. Ubuntu provides the option for a lot of very customizable visual effects. Most people who I have talked to say that the visual effects in Ubuntu look even better than those in Vista. However, the visual effects are not just for looks, the provide better productivity as well.

For example, there is an effect called Big Desktop, this allows you to have 2 desktops even though you only have one screen. With just a few touches of the keyboard or a mouse click, you can quickly switch between the two desktops, providing an extra level of productivity.

With Ubuntu you have nearly complete control over how your computers visual effects react. With the Compiz effect manager you can decide which effects you want to keep, such as the popular wobble effect, and which ones you want to get rid of.

Another great thing about Ubuntu is it has a huge list of screen savers. You can put them on random and it will pull up a different screen saver every time. This is great for those who like to keep their screen savers on for long periods of time.

When it comes to playing on a network with Windows, Ubuntu does a stellar job there too. With built in NTFS read/write support, I can browse out to any computer on my network and read and write to them.

Final Thoughts

There are so many parts to Ubuntu that could be talked about. I have tried to hit on some of the more important ones and some of the ones I don't always see talked about. Overall I think Ubuntu is a great OS. I installed it on my laptop and I will likely keep it on there as I am gradually becoming more comfortable in this environment than that of Windows.

However, there are a few things holding it back from becoming a main stream operating system. Ubuntu still suffers from lack of hardware support on certain features that are very important to the consumer, such as the function keys. Dual screens are becoming very popular in the workplace, and trying to get dual screens to work was a complete nightmare, that is not something that will go over well with an IT department. Power management tools are spotty at best. My laptop seems to handle it very well, but my other 2 computers suffer when it comes to power management and things like Suspend and Hibernate do not work at all.

Also if you do not have an internet connection, at least initially, Ubuntu may not function as well as you would like. Ubuntu relies heavily on an internet connection for things such as updates, installing software, and ensuring that the codecs for all your media work. Fortunately, most people have an internet connection so this is not too big of a deal.

Finally the lack of game support is a killer for it. Too many people I know have tried Linux and gone back to Windows because they couldn't play their games. Photoshop doesn't play nicely under Linux either.

These few things are very minimal compared to all the positives of Ubuntu. If they can work out these issues, then I think Ubuntu and other linux distributions has a good chance of making it in the desktop market. The combined stability, security, and low system requirements makes it a great choice for a college student or someone on a low budget. I would highly recommend to anyone who feels they are up to it, to get a live CD version of Ubuntu and try it out, maybe even install it.

Rating: 3/5


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