To Ubuntu or not to Ubuntu; that is the question.

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DaveH:
LibreOffice - now that I do use :D
:beer:
DaveH

cwelkie:
Okay - it's time.

Spurred on by this thread I installed the latest version of Ubuntu on my Dell XPS last Saturday. It worked ... I'm writing this from within Firefox and Ubuntu!
I did a parallel installation (Win7) because I use Alibre and CamBam and frankly wanted the security of still having a working laptop.
I'm no modern IT genius. Sure I was using and building PC's (in the dark ages) alongside many of you ... Altair 8080's, CPM, ZCPM, custom bios's and all that. At some point I just turned into "a user".
The only hiccup I had was having to shrink my WIN partition to make space for Ubuntu before the installation would prompt me to install in parallel.

Why am I sharing this? ... just so as a real-world example for someone reading this thread that it really is as easy as advertised. I have a feeling that I'm going to leave my laptop set-up this way for a long long time.
It takes about the same length of time to boot up but it sure shuts down and goes to sleep faster! It's been a short time but everything I've tried or used seems to work very well. I know it's a very suggestive opinion but the machine seems much less "stifled" and spends a lot less time accessing the hard drive. (First guess is because the huge overhead of MacAfee is gone!) One huge surprise bonus (to me) was being able to access all my old documents already on the hard drive!

In the end it's gone well and I can recommend trying it out ... you might enjoy the sense of accomplishment.
Cheers
Charlie

mattinker:
My personal experience with Linux operating systems has been six years of running Ubuntu on old computers that have cost me nothing. Three or four year old machines outdated by the armaments race and built in obsolescence being given away. Recently, I splashed out and rebuilt two machines, cheaply. I have one machine that is office type stuff and Video and the other which is my Juke Box, music and radio. I am running Ubuntu Studio on both PCs, a distribution that is relatively light which has the relatively light Xde desktop that is not too RAM hungry. In the current Ubuntu distributions there are two families of desktop, the light Xde and the more complex Kde desktop, which has more "eye candy" and uses more Ram! I think that there is an interesting "happy medium" in Ubuntu, it is sufficiently large to have a lot of people working on it which leads to a consistent product. There are a lot of small distributions that can have innovative ideas, which if the core programmers move on risk collapsing. As all of this is open source, the good ideas can circulate freely and are available for the common good. Most off the Linux world is free and doesn't cost anything to the non commercial user. Linux is free in that it can be used and modified by all, it is not free like a free beer, if you was to work on something specific you can pay for the development of your product.

At the moment I have one machine running really well, and the other I have a material hardware compatibility problem, not a Ubuntu problem, I have to update the Bios!

The only thing that is difficult for a beginner is that you have to be able to go into the Bios to set the startup to the CD/DVD player or the USB device that has the system to be installed. A Linux distribution burnt to a CD or DVD is the easiest way to start, once you have a system running, you can use the "Start up disk creator" in the system menu to make a thumb drive or USB disk to install future systems from. If you follow the instructions, it is relatively easy to install a distribution of Linux, extremely similar to a Mac installation. I have never installed Windows on anything, so I don't know how it compares.

Regards, Matthew

Pete49:
I've been following this for a while now and d/l the iso for mint. BUT now to decide and the problem I have is both the desktop and laptop have the win os in a protected section of the HD which is fine IF I decide I don't like Linux and want to revert to windo$e XP so I do I go about it. I also have an older laptop with '98 on it which I was toying with a light version as Matt linked to just in case It can be useable as a learning option. :scratch:
MMMM I also found my old TRS 80 and tapes ....still works too) an old com 64 and oh look an Atari that needs a tv :D
Time to throw out stuff?...Nah my heirs can deal with it :lol:
Pete

mattinker:
Pete,

Start your Linux experimenting with a live CD or DVD, that way, you can decide whether you want to install Linux. A live CD will allow you to startup and use your computer under a Linux distribution without changing anything!

Regards, Matthew

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