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Ubuntu Linux
2010-02-04 13:52 |
Moderator |
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Hey all,
Just a quick question. Who other than me runs Ubuntu Linux? I made the switch yesterday after my windows system crashed. I've run duel boot for a long time so I'm quite familiar with the Linux OS. |
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Re: Ubuntu Linux
2010-02-04 17:41 |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 122 |
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Hi Jeremy, I also often use ubuntu linux quite often, and occasionally I've run hamsphere smoothly
on it A greeting Sergio 30HS142. |
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Re: Ubuntu Linux
2010-02-05 22:42 |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 64 |
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2HS415 Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > Hey all, > > Just a quick question. Who other than me runs > Ubuntu Linux? I made the switch yesterday after my > windows system crashed. I've run duel boot for a > long time so I'm quite familiar with the Linux OS. I've got Ubuntu running in a dual-boot config with Win XP on the other side. As Linux systems go, I'm extremely impressed with Ubuntu. I started fooling with Linux back in the pre-Internet Kernel 0.98 days, when you would download Linux floppy images over dial-up bulletin board systems, and when you could actually chat with Linus on the #linux channel on the wide-area IRC networks. Until Ubuntu 9.xx, I'd been invariably disappointed. Installation was a real hassle, unless you were running a very old machine, and even then, you needed some manual fine tuning. You had to tune Linux for every peripheral on your system, it seemed. My gripe, up until I installed Ubuntu, was that the learning curve was totally backward. You had to become a Linux expert to get your system up and running, well before you even knew how to use Linux, or for that matter, even what Linux *is.* And the application software reflected the state of the operating system development. For the most part, the available software was crude, unfinished, and mostly undocumented. For me, a Windows freeware author, that's the the sign of widespread lazy, undisciplined programmers. It seemed that the Linux culture encouraged poor software standards. Vastly different than my experience in the Windows world. I've been peeking at Linux every two years or so, hoping that it might mature. Always disappointed. Until Ubuntu. It was just about two years since my last peek at Linux, and I was ready for another look-see. I was just about to roll in Debian (in fact, I'd downloaded it...) when I casually mentioned my intentions to a fellow hardware experimenter with a lot of experience with Linux at the system level. He told me to forget about Debian, and go with Ubuntu. So I did. And to my surprise and disbelief, Ubuntu rolled in with absolutely no manual tuning required! The system found every peripheral on my system, with even the tough parts -- video, power management, and wi-fi -- coming up with no problems! My laptop even properly goes on standby. From my previous experience, just unbelievable. After looking around the current Linux environment, I was pretty impressed. A couple of programs on there, such as the Cinelerra video editor and K-Stars, *really* impressed me. And the fact that Linux can now reliably both read and write to an NTFS partition is a *huge* step forward, overcoming a hurdle that had to be overcome before Linux could be taken seriously. That just about blew me away. I hadn't heard that Linux had reached that point. That was such huge news that you'd think you'd be hearing about it every other day on CNN. But folks sure have been quiet about it. Very pretty, on the surface, and at first, I was really excited. But digging around, I'm afraid that, as good as Ubuntu is, it's still not ready for prime time. There's no decent newsreader yet (compared to Agent 5.0 on the Windows side of the box, and Agent 5.0 runs poorly at best under WINE), and there are absolutely no equivalents of the financial and investment software I use. Although there is a little bit of software in Linux that might be the equivalent of the stuff I use in Windows for my electronics experimentation, such as mcrocomputer development systems, hardware simulators, and CAD systems, Linux in in the kindergarten stage. Very crude and immature, poorly featured, unfinished, hard to use, and just about totally undocumented. Hardly worth the time to give that junk a thorough evaluation. Again, a surprise, since you'd think the tech stuff would be one of Linux' strong points. Lots of the general software is still unfinished and largely undocumented, although the general level of software quality is vastly improved over my last foray into Linux. There's a pretty neat software development IDE and editor available, though. In my spare time, as the mood strikes me, I'm trying to transition back to C++ and learn something about Linux programming. Maybe one of these days I'll release a kindergarten freeware Linux app, just to see how it goes. Ubuntu is about an order of magnitude slower than Windows when writing to my 1 TB RAID backup drive, and none of the Linux gurus in the Ubuntu forum have been able to point me to a solution. Not a big deal, since writing to the drive is nice and fast in Windows. It's still slow after a number of Ubuntu updates, so I've given up on solving that problem. It's not worth my time or effort. I'll continue to do all my backups from Windows. (Ah, yes... backup software. Another glaring Linux deficiency. Which comes as a real surprise, since with Linux' rich system legacy, you'd think backups would be one area where Linux shines. Not the case. Compared to even the free version of Paragon, Linux is in the Model T stage of backup software development. And Paragon isn't even the best backup utility on my Windows system.) So, as pretty as Ubuntu is, I still boot into Windows unless I have a specific need to do something over on the Linux side of the box. And those needs are very few and far between these days. But the Linux environment has really come a long way since my last Debian look-see. I'll bet the next time I look at it, in maybe another year or two, it might just about be getting ready for prime time. But right now, as my old high school football coach used to say, "Close, but no cigar." Very 73! Tom |
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