What is Digg?346 Comments
- pampusik, on 10/11/2007, -13/+142The review is missing the description of his guts spilling to the floor when he turned Beryl on...
- fuzzynyanko, on 10/11/2007, -6/+75"Why does MS still ship Paint??? Why god Why?"
I dunno. There's just something about MS Paint...
I kinda like this reading. It's not the usual "OS #1 is supperior to OS #2" post. - coolspray, on 10/11/2007, -3/+68http://duggmirror.com/linux_unix/Windows_Guy_Tries_Ubuntu_7_04
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -6/+49I thought this guy was a die hard windows fan .. does he know what Vista looks like?
- Izacus, on 10/11/2007, -5/+45Maybe it's because they get their asses sued off every time they put something useful in Windows.
- kurtkraut, on 10/11/2007, -1/+41It is so frequent to see sites hosted in bluehost being blocked by 'CPU Quota exceeded' that I do not trust in this hosting anymore.
- skyshard, on 10/11/2007, -6/+46Quick summary: He likes it, and will keep it installed, but he still likes vista
I’m Live Blogging my first attempt at the newest version of Ubuntu , version 7.04. Let me get this out of the way first - I am a hard-core Windows fan. Say what you want about Microsoft, it powers the world. I can use any hardware, play any game and use nearly any software ever written. I can do it securely, and with little frustration. Every attempt I have ever made at using Linux has left me disappointed. I am a geek, but I do not relish spending 3 days to get a wireless card working when I can do it in 5 minutes in Windows. There, is that enough of a disclaimer? OK then here we go.
7:41 - Insert Ubuntu CD into my Dell Latitude 620. I’m using the Live CD because I cannot wipe out my Vista install. Monday I have real work to do, and we kind of frown on end-users (even us admin type) wiping out their systems and installing rogue OS’s.
7:43 - I’m in Ubuntu. The desktop is a nice tan color. It has a vague Vista look to it, though my task bar is on the top, not the bottom. I see my battery life indicator, sound card indicator and the correct time. I also see a weird icon saying Restricted Drivers are in use. Is this my first Ubuntu roadblock? (Yes I am willing to cut some slack given the fact I booted off a CD, and I did it 10x easier than trying to boot windows from one).
7:47 The restricted drivers messages says it is using an unsupported Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945 Network Connection driver for Linux. Hey that’s a plus first time out and it found my wireless card. It also says it is not using the NVIDIA graphics driver. I can click Enable if I want.
I want! I can use the card in Vista; I should be able to use the card in Ubuntu.
Click
7:48 I have a warning that the NVIDIA driver is needed to “fully utilize the 3D potential of NVIDIA graphics cards.” Well, no kidding Skippy. Click enable driver and hold my breath!
7:50 “An error occurred” Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com. Well of course, the machine is not configured for my wireless network. Guess we should go their next.
7:52 Notice an icon in the system tray (apologize to any Linux person if it’s called something else. To 90% of us it’s the system tray) that says No Network Connection. It looks like my Vista icon when I’m not on my network. I click it and see my home wireless network. Folks this is a MAJOR plus. I threw away Ubuntu 6 because of this. I click on my network and now have a spiffy wireless network window. I can enter my passphrase. Now, at this point I only see an option for WEP. I’m not sure if that’s because that is what I’m running (yeah I know about WEP being about as secure as Baghdad, but blame a Linksys Xbox Wireless adapter for that) or if it will not do WPA authentication. That is a big issue. I’m positive there is some way to do it, but I hope it is out of the box support and not some driver that I need to download. WPA is a big deal. Anyhow I type in my key and watch the spinning icon that says waiting for Network Key from wireless network. Hmm I typed in the wrong passphrase I guess. Let’s try it again. There is a neat option to actually see the phrase I’m typing in and not get stuck in typo hell. Great move since I don’t really worry about my 6 year old jacking the password over my shoulder.
7:57 I make a dumb discovery. The default wireless setting was for a 128 bit passphrase. I thought that’s what I used (vs. a Hex string). Nope - I used 128 bit ASCII to connect to my D-Link DI624. Even though it is a phrase and used in the same way, I guess it is different. Well live and learn. At least I figured it out. I also notice that the D-Link stores the ASCII password in clear text. Why does that not surprise me?
8:04 now I’m connected to the network. I have a window on the screen that says “Choose password for default key ring.” Is this for some sort of digital encryption? The description isn’t very helpful, but I’ll type in the password none the less. One cool feature is that it shows you relative password strength. Mine is somewhere in the middle. Cat is not. I’m surprised it didn’t laugh at me when I tried that.
8:06 I’m not up and running. What I am going to do I have no clue, but I have a desktop (still no NVIDIA driver, that dialog box is gone and I don’t know where to go to retrieve it) but I do have Firefox installed by default. That’s a nice touch. I never liked the old default browser in other Linux versions. I like Firefox. It feels like home. Me very happy man now.
8:08 I open Firefox. It takes a little longer, but that’s because I’m using the Live CD I’m sure. I go to CNN and sure enough it’s there. The screen quality is not nearly as sharp as Vista. I need to adjust the graphics or this will drive me nuts. I wonder if I right click on my desktop if I can do that.
8:10 Nope. But I do change to a nice background called “smooth chocolate.” Now I’m hungry though. BRB
8:11 I’m back. Thanks for waiting. I find the place to change my screen resolution. It’s under the “System” menu. That’s not as easy as right clicking, but it isn’t hard. What is hard is living with the fact my laptops screen resolution is not supported (NVIDIA driver better fix that). I can only show 1280×800 and the laptop is higher than that. Everything is readable but blurred.
8:14 I find the Restricted Drivers menu. It’s under the System, Administration menu. I appreciate the logic there. I click the button to install the NVIDIA driver and…Hey it’s downloading!! Success. Now it’s installing. If this works I’ll kiss my screen!!
8:15 well it works, sort of. The driver installed but now it says it needs to restart the system. I’m betting dollars to donuts that as soon as I do that, the changes I’ve made will be lost since I’m not actually installing it. Had this been a real install and not the Live CD then this would have been great. The download, install and config took about 1 minute, 30 seconds. The “same” download on Vista took about 3 minutes (I have a fast connection) but 5 or 6 minutes to install. It was a much fatter package too…. Anyhow let’s reboot just to see what happens.
8:18 A pretty closing sound plays and the Ubuntu reboot shut-down screen comes on. It pops out my CD and starts rebooting my machine. That’s a nice touch except that I need CD. Shove it in and reboot.
8:20 The laptop has rebooted and the services are firing up. It looks like I’m back where I started. If I want the proper screen resolution, I’ll have to install it on my laptop. Hmm for the first time I’m actually intrigued enough to do so.
(Note - I’m sure there is a way to create some sort of storage on the machine or a USB key to hold my settings. I’d be shocked if there isn’t - but the OS never offered that option to me, and I am not going to go hunt for things. That is not the point of this install.
8:24 I’m back on the network (much faster now that I know that passphraseASCII thing)
8:25 Time to look at what Apps are installed by default on the CD. I click on Applications and start looking. Under accessories I see the usual Calculator, Character Map, and terminal stuff, as well as some cool little programs like Dictionary (just what it says - I really like that) a screen shot program that I wish was in Vista, and something called TomBoy notes. It looks like a little yellow Outlook Note combines with One Note. Interesting, but I not something I need.
8:28 I look at the Games menu. Other than Sudoku, I don’t see anything I want to play.
8:29 Things are way more interesting under the Graphics menu. Two programs jump out at me F-Spot Photo Manager and GIMP Image Editor. Totally cool. It’s like getting Adobe Photoshop Essentials thrown in for free (though, in my opinion, less polished and harder to use). I have not used the other 2 programs - gThumb Image Viewer and Xsane Image Scanner. Still, between the 4 programs, my graphics needs would be met for the most part. I like Windows Photo Gallery better, but having GIMP installed by default is light-years ahead of Paint. Why does MS still ship Paint??? Why god Why?
8:33 No answer from God or Bill Gates to the last question, so it’s time to look at the Internet Menu. Ekiga Softphone looks like some sort of VOIP application. I fire it up but it wants me to fill out 10 pages of stuff. Maybe later. It looks like I need to go to ekiga.net to get some sort of account anyhow. Ubuntu also includes Evolution Mail and the Gaim Internet Messenger client. No need to go without IM just because you’re using Linux. I know it works well too because a dear friend of mine has been telling me about it for the last year. Over, and over and over.
8:40 OK EKiga curiosity gets the better of me. I follow the prompts to set up an account. It reminds me a lot of Skype, though not as pretty. I don’t think I can make a call to a real phone either, but I might be wrong. Wait I am wrong, but just like Skype, I have to pay for that. Not really useful for me, but I guess as an Open Source alternative to Skype, it’s pretty interesting.
8:44 My experiment with VOIP done, it’s time to turn to the Office menu. I knew OpenOffice was installed by default and was anxious to see how well it worked. It’s not Microsoft Office, but then again, it’s not Microsoft Office. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. All of the things that 95% of people would need are there. The Word Processor is solid, the Spreadsheet program is very very good and it even comes with a Power Point type application called Presentation. They do not have the bells and whistles of the MS products, but they are free. Free is a huge bell and whistle all on its own. Hell, it’s a brass band playing on the Fourth of July.
8:50 The last Application menu is Sound and Video. There is a Movie player, music player an audio CD creator and a CD extractor. Oh there is also a sound recorder if you need one. For fun I fire up the Totem Movie player to see if I can watch any of the movies on my network. I see all of my machines on the network and can browse to the server that holds all of my movies (yeah I’m that kind of person) I see the list of movies, all in .wmv format so that I can stream them to my Xbox 360. It says that I cannot open them because I do not have permission. That may be true. At least it wants to play WMV files (a quick look shows that I may need to download a codec package to do so. That’s beyond the scope of this, but still that’s not a big deal I have to install codecs all the time on WMP 11.
9:01 Click on the Places menu. It looks like the standard Windows My Computer view. I see my laptops hard drive and click on it. I forget I have to mount it in Linux, but after a second I see that it has done so for me. I click it again and can see my files. Native NTFS support is nice (though I think I read that it is read only. Well read-only is fine by me frankly. I don’t need to screw up anything. When I install it (yes you heard me, when. It’s a when now) I’ll go for write support too. As it is I’m pumped I can get to my files.
11:11 PM. I’m writing this on my newly installed version of Ubuntu. I can honestly say it was a piece of cake getting it up and running. I had to do a few things first, like create some partition space on my hard drive to install Ubuntu on. Lucky for me, Windows Vista has a handy new “Shrink” command to shrink the size of your partition. Thanks to that, I was able to free up about 9 Gigs to devote to Ubuntu.
After restarting from the Ubuntu Live CD, I clicked on the “Install” icon on the desktop. I had to answer a few questions (time zone, keyboard layout, user account and password) and then sit back. I spent the next 15 minutes watching my laptop install the OS, configure the applications and finish the various setup tasks. Before I knew it, I was logged on, surfing the Internet and downloading the latest updates for my software. Total time between the start and the finish was 30 minutes (10 of which were Vista).
So far it is working well. I have all the basics I need to work, including my NVIDIA driver and correct screen resolution. I will start to dig through the slew of optional software packages that can be installed using the Package Manager. I also need to setup a PPTP connection to the office so that I can work from home. From what I can see, it should be possible, if not simple.
So, what are my final thoughts? I’m impressed for the most part. This is the first Linux desktop OS that I think could be used by just about anyone. The basic needs of most computer users are handled out of the box, and there are thousands of programs you could install to fit about any other need you might have.
Of course the major downside is that my Windows programs are s.o.l.. That’s not a big deal for most things, but for games it is. The level of support just isn’t there. Sure there are some fun games that are Linux compatible, but by and large it’s just not the same. For the time being I’ll have to use Vista for my gaming Jones.
Ubuntu 7.04 lives up to the hype. I doubt it will replace Vista for my day to day use. I admit that’s probably personal bias more than any functional deficiencies with Ubuntu, but it is the truth - I like Vista, warts and all. That said I’m looking forward to delving into Ubuntu further. Even if it’s not my primary OS, I think it just earned a permanent place on my PC.
I never thought I’d say that. - tempusrob, on 10/11/2007, -7/+41"Is Linux finally ready for the desktop?"
If you have to ask... - mwsource, on 10/11/2007, -3/+36Post was owned by bluehost:
"This Account Has Exceeded Its CPU Quota"
I know what host I'm not going to ever use =] - petereality, on 10/11/2007, -21/+49i never understood users who are only predisposed to a specific operating environment. personally, i triple boot osx86, feisty and vista because i believe they have their specific nuances and perform tasks each in their own unique way. fanboys of any OS pipeline are the equivalent to my mentally stunted closed minded grandpa.
i'm in your bash scripts owning your dos prompt? - tinucoman, on 10/11/2007, -14/+42Tried ubuntu on my laptop - sony vaio vgn-a317m - and I wasn't able to start it. However, I have used other linux versions, and I have to say that if I could make adobe dw and adobe photoshop work on it, I would really consider using it instead of windows.
- Dunadan, on 10/11/2007, -2/+29Although I continued reading the article, I agree with your sentiments. Something inside me cringed a bit when I read that line.
- nathanwalker, on 10/11/2007, -10/+34Grammatical and spelling errors abound. "Guess we should go their next." Ug.
- adolfojp, on 10/11/2007, -8/+31Why are you getting Dugg down? Ubuntu IS a nice operating system. However, its lack of software is hindering its adoption regardless of whoever fault it is.
- petereality, on 10/11/2007, -4/+25that's because, like most of us, you're more familiar with the tools we've all grown accustomed to within a windows workflow. at risk of being dugg down, anything xp can offer, ubuntu has an equal answer to. unfortunately, the interface that those tools exist within lack the familiarity of the windows GUI.
- ryodoan, on 10/11/2007, -3/+23Beryl made me a switcher. Up until I tried it I had the same exact mentality of this guy, but as soon as I saw my windows do a glide into the background and wobble around when I moved them it made me use Ubuntu on my laptop 24/7.
- insanebrain, on 10/11/2007, -0/+18rtfa
- thebellmaster1x, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17Why do they still ship Paint?
Because hell if I'm going to spend three minutes opening Photoshop just to save a freakin' screenshot. - ers35, on 10/11/2007, -2/+19170+ People do.
- ISVDamocles, on 10/11/2007, -3/+20When you actually get into the guts of the operating system, though. The UNIX way of doing this is superior, and Windows' primary advantage is all the third-party developers willing to fill in those gaps for marketshare.
An example: I recently graduated, and to do so I had to work on a team of 3-4 people for two semesters on an engineering project. In our project, we needed a computer to be able to communicate with our custom embedded networking protocol. We could have just written a command-line interface for sending commands and receiving data, or we could have written a web application to do the same graphically, but then we would have needed to trade off between ease-of-use for those new to the system and power-usage for those who would have to deal with it constantly.
Instead, I wrote a FUSE ( http://fuse.sourceforge.net ) application that represented the network, its configuration, and data as a virtual filesystem on Linux. So now newbs could use Nautilus or Konqueror to point-and-click and manipulate the embedded network, and power-users could use bash or perl scripts to automate commonly performed tasks.
And for Windows users, since it wasn't really processor-intensive, we could put the whole thing on a Gumstix computer ( http://www.gumstix.com ) and then provide the user interface through a CIFS (Windows Network) share, or through the previously mentioned web interface, which now, instead of having to be a bizarre C application used by Apache, it only needs to be a PHP/Perl/whatever script that reads and writes to files on the server.
Windows couldn't do that easily because you can't write your own virtual filesystem without writing a kernel driver, you then couldn't rely on an extensive set of command-line utilities for power users to manipulate your work or to build simplified interfaces for normal end-users, you wouldn't be able to get Windows working on a micro-computer like the Gumstix unless you went with Windows CE/Mobile (and would have to learn a different development environment), and if it went commercial, we definitely couldn't afford a Windows license for each one of these network interfaces.
If you're interested in my project, you can view the results at http://solarmonkeys.riskyenterprises.com (but I'm not submitting it straight to Digg because we couldn't handle the load. Four comments deep is fine, though). - crazedgremlin, on 10/11/2007, -7/+23not everyone plays video games 24/7 on their computer. Want games, get a console.
- Lick, on 10/11/2007, -1/+17Bluehost. Sigh.
- nga911, on 10/11/2007, -1/+17this site runs linux too ...
- bigtomrodney, on 10/11/2007, -6/+21Being ready for the desktop and working on desktop hardware are two completely different issues. But for what it's worth, Linux was desktop ready a few years back.
- jejones, on 10/11/2007, -3/+18Good article--an honest and fair assessment.
- oirvine, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13Don't read them then.
- javaroast, on 10/11/2007, -1/+14Pagemaker? You don't really use the programs you mentioned either do you. You can tell the truth because the Pagemaker thing kind of busted you.
- archiesteel, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12Right, because it's the Linux community that can provide Photoshop or iTunes or Word? Your criticism should be directed not at the Linux community, but at Adobe, Apple and Microsoft for not making their apps available on Linux.
Oh, and BTW: Amarok > iTunes... - chris9902, on 10/11/2007, -2/+14Just for the author of this story I've included a picture of Vista and Ubuntu since he has no idea what they look like.
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/5/55/Windows_Vista_Desktop.png
http://www.zen-architect.com/zenblog/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/2006.07.12-06.00.38.png - gboning, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12I disagree. This was a different way of writing the article. For all those who don't know about linux, this may help prove that it is actually fairly quick to get set up and running.
Everyone else is just like... "It was good" or "it was bad", and you have no idea what they did with it.
Although, the line about vista like made me cringe. - webmonk, on 10/11/2007, -3/+15Pfft. Haven't you played Beryl yet? Best game going...
- armandgunerio, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10what's more pathetic is that you probably never tested ubuntu fully...
- bharless3329, on 10/11/2007, -3/+13Airplanes aren't made in the sky.
- Fartag, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11and Google too..
- maybeway36, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10sudo aptitude install kolourpaint
- cdmarcus, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11The point is that you cannot remove IE, you cannot remove the built in search, and that is what's anticompetitive.
- selrahc, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9Master Boot Record boot record?
- talan64, on 10/11/2007, -4/+13I have to agree. I have two boxes on my desk at home, 1 with Linux and 1 with XP. There is really nothing that I can't do on my Linux box that I do on my XP box. I use the 2 of them almost equally now, but still tend to lean toward XP only because it is more "familiar".
At work is a different story. Most of the machines I work on (semi conductor manufacturing equipment) is Unix based, but the diagnostics for the systems were written and developed on Windows. So, Windows it is @ work.
Anyway the point is, that anyone who is not willing to at least try out some "flavor" of Linux is close minded. The best thing for any market is competition, and with the advances Linux has been making in the last several years, there is finally some valid competition. Unfortunately, in the US, most companies are going to stick to Microsoft no matter how much they are charging for their software. - Fartag, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9But this is actually one of the big benefits of OSS software, it can run or be ported to _anything_ with sufficient resources. It isn't forcibly or negligently restricted like closed source software is. So if a platform you're moving to someday has all of the programs you like to use already and are familiar with then when the next Microsoft-pay-for-upgrade comes around (or other platform issue) the transition away from it will be that much easier. The greater OSS adoption the faster it spreads from forked projects, reused components, familiarity, etc.
Suppose one day all things are equal enough in application level software on all platforms, but in one corner there's a vastly superior OS at free cost vs. other ones that still try to control you at cost, the one on top is obvious. - Fraff5, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Linux has Tux Racer though.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9> my first comment on digg:
:(
why did you have to bust your cherry in such a horrible, horrible way? - alexforcefive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9My favourite thing about that question is how he waited four minutes for an "answer from God or Bill Gates"
- scalebane, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8Why? Because he values certain features differently than you do? To each his own.
- leszek, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10from google, search ndiswrapper site:ubuntu.com
-->
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper - archiesteel, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8Yes, it's quite easy.
- digitalunit, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8Nice.. Your name is Ubuntu Fedora and you use Vista every day huh?
- bradleyland, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9Vista's implementation is no where near a carbon copy of OS X's Exposé. You can actually use Exposé for something useful, like dragging and dropping between windows. Vista's little show is just that, a show. You can click on anything, you can't drag between windows, you can only switch. Oh boy.
- Matt2k, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8> Crappy Internet host!
Right. Because all shared hosting providers should provide you with a dedicated server for your $7.95 a month - PatrickBrown, on 10/11/2007, -2/+9@adolfojp
"Illustrator, Photoshop, Visio, PageMaker and AutoCad"
I do not know of "most people" that use these. "Most people" use their computers for word processing/business and the internet and Linux is certainly capable of that. -
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