Jumping out of Windows into Ubuntu
I’ve been considering it for a long time now, and this past weekend I formatted my Notebook’s HD erasing Windows XP, and re-did my system with Ubuntu Linux.
I’ve been using Microsoft Windows since the 90’s, although I’ve had a little experience in a series of Linux distributions (1 college course and a little e-mail server tinkering at work) I am far from being a Linux expert. So this migration was not that easy. There was a few factors that lead to my bravery; Ubuntu 7.10 (pronounced oo-boon-too) features a ‘Live-CD’ that allows you to boot your computer into it’s own operating system allowing you to test drive it, not affecting your system at all, so I gave this a whirl. I already have machines running Windows XP (my home & my desk at work) so there really wasn’t a need to have Windows on my notebook as well, although this is the computer I get most of my development work done on. My main argument why it was OK to wipe Windows off my notebook and install Linux was, I’m buying a MacBook in February (big-ups for Income tax) and then I’ll be able to test out Apple’s OSX.
For the most part, the Live CD .iso image install worked great. I got my hard drive partitioned and the system up in running all within an hour or two. I was surprised to find out almost everything worked right “out-of-the-box” and the majority of my hardware’s drivers & firmware were automatically installed so it didn’t require much out of me to get online. which was great, because it’s a lot easier to get thing’s running again with an internet connection.
The few problems that I did have however were with my sound and my system suspend/hibernate/restore. The sound problem was a really easy fix (although i spent a lot of time hacking around trying everything to get it to work) apparently all I needed to do was within the volume control settings/preferences, disable the external amplifier option by un checking a box. My next problem which I haven’t been able to find a solution for just yet and apparently is a common problem with Ubuntu running on certain laptops. When I suspend my system, everything appears to work fine, but when I attempt to resume from it’s once suspended state, I get nothing but a black screen. At first I figured maybe it was a video card problem, but after some testing I now realize that my system does never recover from suspend. I know this because while my system is halted I cannot ping the machine from another networked computer nor can I toggle the caps lock/num lock LED lights.
It hasn’t even been a week yet, and already I feel confident in my new system. Even when i run into a task i don’t know how to accomplish, there are many communities out there to help (i.e. ubuntu forums) and Google, as always, can be your friend. I will have to right a more in debt review for those of you considering making the leap from Windows to a real Operating System, once I get some more time in. In the mean time go download the latest release of Ubuntu (7.10) from www.ubuntu.com. I recommend downloading the .ISO Live CD, burning it as an image to a CD-R using Nero or some other burning utility, and booting your PC with the CD in the tray. Remember it won’t make any changes to your system unless you click the ‘Install’ icon on the Ubuntu desktop during your trial run with the Live CD.
One piece of software that I should mention is Wine, which is great open source software that allows Microsoft Windows applications to be run on x86 processor-based Unix-like systems, including Linux.
Keep in mind, Linux is NOT Windows, Linux is an Open Source OS, focused on free software and developers, not really ideal for gamers, and although Linux is developing quite rapidly and may even be equivalent to the usability of Windows one day, IMO it will remain geared towards the more tech savvy of the users. So before you completely wipe out Windows installation, do your research! Google.com -> is linux right for me? You should get a bunch of results, from here you can decide which distribution of Linux is right for you. I hear Mint Linux, is the closest to Windows XP (if thats what you are used to) but IMO anyone can use Ubuntu, after a little getting used to of course.
