Fun with Linux on Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone!

I've been offline for more than a day, and haven't had time to blog, but yesterday I saw my old friend Dean Esmay. Among other things, he was installing, tweaking, and playing with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, and burned an extra CD for me.

Dean is pretty excited about Ubuntu, and as a longtime, off-and-on Linux user, I have to say that I was amazed at the ease with which it was able to configure itself on an otherwise useless old Compaq latop someone had given Dean because it wouldn't accept an install of Windows XP. This just seemed so effortless and so instantly user-friendly that I couldn't wait to take it home and try it. You can run it off the CD and do just that as an evaluation, or you can do a total install alongside Windows. I tried it out very briefly last night on my main computer, and it configured itself with no problem. But that was not surprising, as the computer is reasonably new. It was late at night and I didn't have time to get into heavy tweaking, but I figured as the real test I would try it in my old clunker of a laptop, a Dell Latitude C-600, which runs at 850 Mhz, and has 500 megs of RAM. It runs XP, but slowly, and I don't use it much, as I have a newer Inspiron 700m for use on the road.

Well, here it is, all fired up and running on the Ubuntu CD, and I'm writing this very post from the evaluation operating system on the CD. I didn't have to do anything except stick it in and turn it on! It did everything else, found the network, and is just incredibly FAST. This is almost like having a new laptop and not an old clunker.

I am very, very impressed, and I highly recommend Ubuntu Linux. The version/a> I am using is 9.10, and it can be freely downloaded here.

My thanks to Dean for turning me on to this and reiviving my interest in Linux, and I totally second what he says here:

All those years of saying Linux is "not ready for prime time?" I'm not sure I can even say this. Installing Ubuntu was easier than installing Windows, and this thing is fast and remarkably stable. And very easy to work with, so far.
Absolutely.

But remember, kids, playing DVDs on Linux is a felony! So I would never advocate that, and heaven forfend that I would I ever be an accomplice to such a thing.

posted by Eric on 04.04.10 at 06:03 PM





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Comments

I used for 5 years it since Breezy Badger, but dumped it earlier this year for Arch Linux.

And there are derivatives out there: Crunchbang for minimal installs, and Linux Mint, which is basically Ubuntu + media codecs.

j.d.   ·  April 4, 2010 06:28 PM

I have dealt a little w Ubuntu and other Linux sources. Can't play online Tetris with it, or at least I didn't know how to tweak it. I believe I had played DVDs all right on it.

I need MS Access for my work, and it is too much of a hassle to transfer stuff over.

So I will stay w XP.

Gringo   ·  April 4, 2010 11:28 PM

I know this has been beaten to death, but have you tried Open Office?

I like it as it just 'works' for me.

Ubuntu really is the camel's nose for Linux. I prefer straight up Debian, but for noobs Ubuntu is crack on a stick.

guy   ·  April 5, 2010 12:10 AM

I'm planning on partitioning my new 1.5 TB HD and my installed 1 TB Drive in about a week and was planning an Ubuntu partition. Along with an XP Partition and Probably a DOS/Windows Partition. There are some nice virtual machine suites on the 'net that I plan to use.

I will report on how it goes.

M. Simon   ·  April 5, 2010 05:40 AM

I have several flavors of Linux, including Ubuntu, running as VMs (via VMware Player) on my laptop.

Bagley   ·  April 5, 2010 03:27 PM

Good stuff. I should really get a Linux box going. Might have to lean on Dean.

It's funny, I do 90% of my work in HP-UX or AIX, but I've never installed any flavor of UNIX.

TallDave   ·  April 5, 2010 07:58 PM

"But remember, kids, playing DVDs on Linux is a felony! So I would never advocate that, and heaven forfend that I would I ever be an accomplice to such a thing."

Not always true. Only playing DVDs encrypted with CSS (copy protection) is a felony due to DCMA.

mirradric   ·  April 6, 2010 12:42 AM

Guy: I looked at Open Office for its database "capabilities." Not user friendly at all. It was set up for allegedly easy transfer for those who had a version of Access 2007, but NOT for previous versions of Access.

Not worth the hassle.

Gringo   ·  April 6, 2010 10:12 AM

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