Good Morning Ubuntu
October 22, 2007 Home, Technology
The switch is almost complete, and now I’m running the latest and greatest release of Ubuntu as my primary Operating System. Sorry Microsoft … we had a great run, but the time has come for something different.
For the past fifteen years I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Microsoft, but at the same time I had defended them whenever possible. Was this because I’m a bit of a Microsoft fanboy? Perhaps. But I find the anti-Microsoft people to be quite comical when riled up. That said, after learning about some of the less-than-acceptable Windows updates “features”, I decided it was time to look elsewhere for my computing needs. I’m sure that Microsoft will not use the unknown backdoors to Windows for malicious purposes, but if someone else were to gain access to some of my past customer files, then I would be in some very serious hot water.
But, all that aside, I’d like to tell you just how simple it was for me to install Ubuntu on my 4 year old HP Pavilion zt3000 notebook. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the best, this install was a solid 8.
After downloading the 7.10 .iso file from the Ubuntu site and burning it to disc, I swapped my notebook’s Windows harddrive with a faster 80 gig and prepared myself for a solid 10 hours of configuration after a relatively easy install. However, my estimation couldn’t have been farther off. Less than an hour after booting the notebook and starting the install process, it was already fully operational and I was busy setting up my email, downloading the Opera browser and setting up the Transmission BitTorrent client. Unlike previous versions of Ubuntu, this install was even able to recognize my Broadcom wireless card and download the necessary firmware and software to activate it.
That said, if you happen to have a Broadcom wireless network card and you’re having trouble getting it to work in Ubuntu, do yourself a favour and plug yourself into the network with a CAT5. If you try to set up the wireless card without being connected to the net first, you’ll be in for a world of frustration (I know first hand, as I’ve made this mistake a few times in the past). So long as you have a line to the internet, you can usually find the information you need at the Ubuntu Forums.
So if everything went so well, why the 8 out of 10?
Well … I’ll admit that I made that CAT5 mistake at first, thinking that I should be able to use the drivers found on the CD or using the Windows drivers that came with my notebook, but no. Aside from that, there’s a slight bit of an issue when importing my old Outlook data into Evolution.
In order to bring the last 12 years of emails with me to Ubuntu, I need to convert Outlook’s .pst file in Windows. I chose to do this by downloading Thunderbird and importing my files to there first. Afterwards, you can take that Thunderbird file to Ubuntu and import it into Evolution. One word of caution, though. If you have several folders to store your emails like I do, make sure you remember how they were nested. This is important because you will lose the nesting during this import process. That said, once everything is in Evolution, you’ll be able to move the folders however you’d like.
So those were the two things I had trouble with during the installation and migration process. I’ll still keep a Windows installation around as it’s a little hard to write .NET software from Linux, but unless I need to do something that is completely Windows-specific, I think I can say that Ubuntu will be my primary OS for the next little bit. It has the features I need, and it’s simple enough that my family can pick up my notebook and use it whenever necessary. Unfortunately, Solaris and FreeBSD could not fit this requirement.
That said, Solaris and FreeBSD are best for servers, so it’s all good.
Have you ever used Ubuntu for any real amount of time? I’ve used it on and off for the last two years, but never for more than a few hours at a time. I’m curious to know what you think about the operating system.
Comments (14)
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptThat said, if you happen to have a Broadcom wireless network card and you’re having trouble getting it to work in Ubuntu, do yourself a favour and plug yourself into the network with a CAT5. If you try to set up the wireless card … [...]
[...] Good Morning Ubuntu » This Summary is from an article posted at Jason’s Random Thoughts on Monday, October 22, 2007 [...]
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Keep us posted on how Ubuntu works out for you. If it’s all plain sailing, you might tempt me to make the switch.
You’re just saying that because you live less than a kilometer away! My tech support rates are pretty steep. Reiko and I still have that wedding ceremony to pay for this May
Seriously, though … I’ll let ya know if it’s worth the hassle of switching over. There are still a few things that I really want to know (printer/scanner support, webcam support, etc.), so if there’s something that just can’t be done, I’ll be sure to complain about it until either someone lets me know of a solution, or I code one myself. Either way, it’ll be fun
I’ve used Linux for a few years now, but only Kubuntu (KDE is a lot better than GNOME. Not just my opionion, but a fact.
) since Fiesty first came out. I love the simplicity of Ubuntu combining the power of Debian (apt!) with what I truly love, KDE.
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
Ubuntu has been my operating system for years. Both work and home.
I’ve been using Ubuntu for over three days now, and I must say that I’m enjoying some of the nice features. I’ll need to set this notebook up so that it can properly port video to the TV, but that’s the only issue I’m having at the moment. That said, I’m sure 30 seconds on the UbuntuForums site would provide a solution.
What do you think of notebook battery life? I’ve noticed that Ubuntu can only give me about 1h 10m with a full charge, while Windows is good for 1h 40m. I’m not sure if this is due to settings or an overly pessimistic battery life expectancy
While I’ve never spent much time playing with Ubuntu, I have been a big fan of Debian for quite some time now. Oh, and i use the Gnome desktop rather than KDE.
I do agree with keeping a Windows install around for some things, but I do about 98% of my computing on Debian.
I used Gnome with Debian on a few workstations a little while ago and it was pretty nice. The reason I went with Ubuntu was ease-of-use for people other than me. I’d be perfectly content with a DOS prompt or a bash and some text-based applications.
Do you use Debian on a notebook? If so, what kind of battery life do you get? Ubuntu seems to be a pig on power. WinXP could give me an hour and fourty minutes on battery with maximum power savings, whereas Ubuntu is good for a meager hour and ten minutes on a good day
[...] Good Morning Ubuntu [...]
[...] from that, I came across an article written by Jason titled “Good Morning Ubuntu” that I thought was an interesting read, although I might be a little biased because I am a [...]
[...] been using Ubuntu Linux since mid-October and, while I’ve been please with it’s operation for the most part, it’s starting [...]