February 3rd, 20088 Reasons Ubuntu Aggravates Me
While it was great in the start, the honeymoon has ended and I’m seeing more limitations than benefits with the human-friendly flavour of *nix. I’ve compiled a list of 8 things that aggravate me the most, not all of which are the fault of the Ubuntu team.
8. The Constant Updates
Enough, already! Don’t tell me every single day that updates exist. I don’t want to update every 24-hours, nor should people find this constant release cycle tolerable. I’ll admit that it’s great that so many people are working hard to make Ubuntu better, but if people bitch and moan about a regular Windows update every Tuesday, then a daily update cycle should be tolerated even less.
Sure, Windows updates are just for Windows itself, while the Ubuntu updates are for every application you might have installed, but it should still be staggered a little better. Heck, a staggered release would probably afford the testers more time to bug hunt.
On that note, before you tell me to change the update schedule to something longer, it’s not just the frequency of the updates, but the amount of updates. I can appreciate the amount of time and effort that the developers put into their work, but seeing so many itty-bitty updates here and there just screams “work in progress”. If Ubuntu wants to be taken seriously as a contending OS, they should at least try to tone down the appearance of WIP-development.
7. The Shoddy Multi-Display Support
If I want to connect my notebook to the TV via the 15-pin D-Sub connection and watch a movie, I need to boot Windows or live with a fixed 4:3 aspect ratio with low quality. I’ve followed every instruction on the Ubuntu Forums regarding modification of the display driver’s resolutions, but I still can’t get the darned display to look right. On top of that, adding a display is hardly one of those Plug-and-Play situations like you’d have with Windows. I’m always forced to restart just to get the 2nd monitor displaying properly.
6. Poor Wireless Network Utilities, Ugly Interfaces
Yes, there are some decent 3rd-Party network utilities for Ubuntu, but when the default Windows wireless network screens look better, you know you’re going to run into trouble with the non-savvy crowd. I wanted to have my entire family switch to Ubuntu because of the “ease of use” and security it offered. But with such confusing screens such as the network connection drop-down, my in-laws will not be able to make heads or tails of the default screens unless I’m there to do it for them.
5. Poor Application Designs
Is it just me, or is every application for Ubuntu ugly as sin? This was supposed to be the human-friendly OS that I could sell to my in-laws to get them to switch from Windows rather than complain about viruses, missing files, and slow start times. On top of that, it would have afforded me the ability to repair any one of their problems remotely, even when they can’t log in to the system. Instead, they’re seeing the poorly crafted screens on graphics packages, video editing packages, word processing and spreadsheet files, as well as personal finance apps. I didn’t even want to show them how ugly some of the utility programs were after seeing their less-than-impressed expressions for their “full time” apps.
4. Inaccurate Battery Readings
While I’ve been impressed with the ability to squeeze a full two hours out of my 5 year old battery, I’m still not impressed with the poor battery life meter. It’s consistently wrong and should be revamped to take into account past run-down cycles. In my less-than-professional opinion, this is the only way to get around the problem of differing battery configurations and life expectancies.
3. 120+ Second Startup Cycle
The first month of using Ubuntu saw my system boot up and be ready for use in less than 30 seconds. Now it’s over 60 seconds before my background appears, and a full 60 seconds afterwards before the first applications can be opened. Aside from the occasional update, I’ve installed no software and haven’t messed with the configurations in over two months. What the heck is causing this slowdown? The repository checks? Some background fsck? Either way, it’s not cool when Windows Vista can boot faster on a notebook than Linux.
2. No Major Applications
While not a fault of the Ubuntu team, there are absolutely no professional applications available to help ease the transition from Windows to Ubuntu. Adobe Photoshop and Premier, Quicken, ActiveSync and a plethora of smaller applications will not be ported to *nix anytime soon, leaving us to use the ugly apps I had briefly mentioned earlier. If I could get my hands on some Linux-flavoured major apps, then it would be much easier to get others on board with an OS switch. Instead, I’m left fighting with Wine on any system that happens to need something only found on Windows, anfor the masses, or d no two PCs are the same. On top of this, the crap I need to do just to get the major applications working not only voids any warranty that I might have had when buying the software, but makes the program less reliable.
And the number 1 reason Ubuntu aggravates me …
1. The 3-Month Slow Down Is Not Going Away
When I press Alt+Tab, I expect instant results. Not a 2 second delay. When I’m scrolling through HTML-heavy emails, regardless of whether HTML should be used in email or not, I don’t tolerate display lag. When I click the button to launch the Opera or FireFox browsers, I don’t like waiting 15+ seconds. When I’m loading Evolution mail, why am I waiting 30 seconds? All of these things took less than an instant when I first started using the programs back in October. There is no excuse for such a blatant decrease in performance and quality.
If I wanted this kind of disappointment while working at home, I’d use WindowsME.
So there’s my list. Flame away if you must. But with all these problems standing in my way, and with my need to get some .NET and SQL programming done in the next few weeks, it looks like I’ll be ditching Ubuntu and going back to Windows XP. I may not be a fan of Microsoft’s recent practices, but at least I know what the heck to expect after using the system for any amount of time. That, and there’s much less resistance from the locals to use it, regardless of the interface language.
It’s a shame, too. I had such high hopes for the penguin.
8 Reasons Ubuntu Aggravates Me…
I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux for close to 4 months now and, I’ve got to tell ya, it’s not something I want to use full time anymore. While it was great in the start, the honeymoon has ended and I’m seeing more limitations than b…
You really ought to try KDE (possibly with Kubuntu, but over great distros exist as well).
And of course, I won’t say anything about things I never mess with. I don’t ever use commercial software (and didnt’ really except pirated Office when on Windows) and have never even touched multi monitor setup in my life… no clue why.
#1: On a P4 with 1.5GB of RAM I never seem to notice this. On my laptop with an AMD Turion 64 X2 processor though, I can load Firefox in 2 seconds and most stuff in less. This is PCLOS though.
#3: There are tons of great tutorials if you search around. I have my boot down to 12 seconds from when I press the power button to when I reach kdm.
#4: I’ll live with it as long as it considerably higher than on Windows.
But really, it works on the three laptops we have in the house.
#5: I agree with you here. GTK applications are butt ugly, which is why I use KDE + Qt.
#6: knetworkmanager for KDE (you can install this on Ubuntu) works great and is better than the XP and Vista tools in my opinion.
8: This is one thing where Ubuntu is just plain different than XP. What I do is disable the update notifier and just make it a once a month ordeal. To me, this is a lot easier than my old method of keeping current: keep a spreadsheet with all of my installed software and the version installed. Then check every so often to the websites of each application to see if a new version exists. Then again, maybe some people just don’t care.
If Ubuntu doesn’t work for you, no one is requiring you to stick with it. Ubuntu and other Linux distro’s work great for me and how I work and I’ve converted several people, but some people have more trouble with it. And remember, there are tons of Linux distro’s out there besides Ubuntu.
I’ve been using it about as long, maybe longer, and I agree the updates are a lot, I just don’t ever click the update button but once a week or so.
The video drivers and support DO suck though. I have a Dell laptop that sometimes wont switch between resolutions for a widescreen laptop and an external monitor that I want to use.
As far as the slowdown though, I haven’t experienced that at all AND I run a Windows virtual machine at the same time.
I’ve noticed that slowdown too. It’s been driving me nutts and I can’t find a fix for it anywhere. I just tried the alt+tab like you said and it too 2-3 seconds to pop up
If you’ve heard of fix let me know.
Actually I agree about some of the stuff you mentioned. Ubuntu is nowhere near it’s big daddy Debian, when it comes to reliability, which is why I made that switch. Ubuntu is overhyped and to be honest.. It’s not a good distro to start with if you’re coming from Windows.
However, complaining about updates? Are you mentally sane? You should be glad that there’s fixes coming for all the bugs that are found in software, no matter which OS. That might, however, have something to do with the speed of your internet-connection. If you, like me and a lot of other Swedes, got 100Mbit of speed, the updates take a couple of seconds to download.
And, I have never ever had one single plug-and-play-experience when it comes to screens on Windows.
So, ditching Linux because of Ubuntu is just plain lazy. Try Debian or SUSE out, and go with KDE, and you’ll have something far better suited for you. That’s my guess at least.
You should try PCLinuxOS IT uses KDE and has a intuitive and full featured control center for setting up your hardware. I began running PCLinux in april 2007 and havent had an issue or complaint in all that time.
@Jake - I might just try Kubuntu. With over 400 flavours out there, I’m sure there is a great distro that will consistently work well on older and Japanese (a.k.a. Celeron-only) PCs. I don’t plan on giving up on Linux as an OS, but Ubuntu as my flavour of choice.
That said, until I can get a distro installed along with another VM to host Windows and a development environment, I might just have to switch back to MS.
@Mike - I don’t click the update button very often either. Maybe once every two or three weeks. But I find that within six hours of updating, I’m often informed of even more updates. I know that the update settings can be changed to check every few days, or disabled completely, but if there are critical fixes, I’d rather know so I can do an unscheduled update.
@blackvd - I’m typically at work for 12+ hours a day, six days a week, so I haven’t had much time to look for a solution to the slow-down. But as soon as it’s discovered, I’ll be sure to let everyone know. I’ve checked to see if a particular software update is responsible, as well as other considerations like hardware failure. From what I’ve seen on forums and other blogs, this seems to be quite elusive for some of us while others have not noticed anything over the last few months/years.
@Johan - I agree that Ubuntu is not a great OS for those coming from Windows, but after reading so many positive reviews about it, I thought that it might be a solid alternative for my family as they’ve often complained about Windows and their problems with it. I had used Slackware back in the late 90’s for some time, but switched back to Windows after entering college. The whole Linux community has grown quite a bit in that time.
I don’t think I’ll be completely ditching Linux, as there are quite a few versions out there that command a huge market share (so they must be doing something right). My primary issue was with Ubuntu only, and my frustration when it comes to switching the other PCs in the house
Greg - I might just give that one a try, along with Debian and Kubuntu. I like a lot of what Linux offers, and I look forward to using it over the coming years
Some thoughts:
On updates - I actually kind of like having updates often. It’s the feeling of “a bunch of bugs have been squashed, and your apps are improving.” On top of that, there’s Microsoft’s once-a-month release schedule, which means that if a major security hole is found the the second Wendesday of the month, it’ll be an entire month before there’s a patch available (if they get it written in time).
I agree with you about many things, particularly the mutli-head problems and battery readings. But as for the slowdown in general, perhaps you should take a look at what’s running on your system. You mention a general slowdown, and an increase in boot time - it’s likely that you’ve added a bunch of daemon processes to the mix that weren’t there before. Some you probably don’t need - deactivate them, and maybe you’ll notice some improvements.
@Nemilar - I can appreciate the number of updates, and I like that the Linux community has so many active members who contribute regularily. The benefit of having updates released so often and so quickly when a security hole is found is one of the best selling features of all Linux distros, but how often are security holes found in the OS or other applications? Once … twice a month? The smaller “Recommended Updates” are the ones that bug me the most.
That said, yes, I can shut the notifications off. But that kind of defeats the purpose of using the feature. I wonder if it’s possible to have the update package notify me only if there are critical updates, and once a week for everything else ….
I second the previous comments. Try KDE (not KDE4 yet). One thing you have to be aware of: Kubuntu isn’t among the best KDE distros. You’d better try Mepis, Mint or PcLinuxOs.
Rather than going with kubuntu, I would say go with sidux. It is debian sid with extra scripts for usability and friendliness and uses KDE (the most up to date stable 3.5 branch available). It has its own custom upgrade script, which you run when you want. Also its install time off the cd is in under 9 minutes (on my laptop, with a 5400 rpm drive). They have a seperate repository for daily kernel builds, so you can keep the kernel as up to date as possible, without compiling.
If you want to use KDE 4, it won’t have kde4 until kde4 is placed in the debian unstable repositories, which will be at 4.1…
Or if you don’t want sidux, go with PCLinuxOS as it much more stable than Kubuntu, and is probably the top rated kde distro
Thanks for the info, Satchmo and Nick. I’ll be sure to check both of these out. I have some spare HDDs lying around that can easilly be swapped with my current main, so it shouldn’t be much of a hassle to test out both of these for a week or two
I tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu from the Canonical people and finally I returned to Debian (testing and unstable, no experimental). my ideal setup is plain vanilla KDE 3.5.8
I still think Ubuntu is a viable alternative to the expensive and bloated MS Vista though and I think the Canonical paid employees are working hard to attract Windoze users. From what I have read the KDE music player Amarok is superior to iTunes. You should try it
My personal blog is served on Ubuntu.
I choose it because it was the first distro the installed on the first try without having to google a bunch of forums to figure crap out.
It’s reliable and stable. I haven’t bounced it in maybe 8-9 months and then only because there was a power outage. I like it because it just works for what I ask it to do.
I think the key is simply this - *nix in all of it’s variants (except for one distant cousin) was never meant to be a desktop workstation. It was meant to expose highly available and robust services to 1,000s of clients.
I haven’t even logged on to the desktop of my server in a long, long time. But, I tried the route that you have gone, using it as my primary environment, and that too ended in frustration.
Oh yeah, that distant cousin distro of unix that does works so well as a personal workstation environment?…it’s a totally hacked-up version of BSD with a brilliant desktop…I’m not sure what fruit and predatory big cats have to do it
but I’ve been using it for a while now and I haven’t looked back once…
@Montreal Man - Music players are the least of my concerns as I no longer use PCs for listening to music … there’s just very little time for that indulgence. Instead, I use my PDA and have very little choice about the player or the sound quality. While it might not be half as good as the 7.1 surround system I had enjoyed a while back, it gets the job done
@Rob - I have never used BSD on a workstation as that OS has proven itself over and over again to be the best server platform hands-down. That said, I might just go back to having a system with three or four OSes installed so that people can choose whatever one would best suit their immediate needs. It’s not perfect, but it seems to be the most cost-effective solution.
On #8: not only that, but the past 2 months I’ve seen twice updates with a bunch packages that couldn’t be authenticated. Of course I don’t accept those. A bit later those packages are authenticated, but it clearly shows quite some sloppiness from people preparing updates. Either get it right, or drop the whole signing thing.
I’ve never read so much crap in my life. Was a good laugh, thank you
Oh 1 more thing: QUITE HONESTLY NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU AND YOUR 8 REASONS.
It is a shame that Kubuntu is such a distant cousin of ubuntu as it a better transition distro for a Windows user. Many of your complaints about Ubuntu would be mitigated using a KDE3 distro as several others have suggested.
As to the slow boot up. Take a look at the dmesg file. Two biggest problems are fsck being called and executed every time you boot the other is a flaky ethx or you have multiple eths and one is not connected andnot disabled.
I HATE the network mgr provided by KDE and Ubuntu. The only one I recommend and install is Wicd. No it does not have a radarscope or wardriving fancies. But it works. It’s dirt simple. But it covers both wireline and wireless networking, does its job, then gets the hell out of the way.
Major apps? Open Office is not major? Just because you have to load it should not be a complaint. You would have to have done that with a Windows box as well. MySql/PHPmyAdmin for Db work. Or if you want Kexi a MS Access clone. DTP - Scribus. Camera/Photo mgt - digikam. Internet - Firefox. MP3 - Amarok.
PDFs, yes this is a sore point. But it is one lacking in ALL distros. The Free Software Foundation has recognized that fact and is endeavoring to develop a look alike of Adobe Professional. They are currently at the draft phase. Recognize of course that the Open Office tools can export to a PDF as output. The other area that is lacking in Linux is a good VoIP tool. It had one, OpenWengo, till last November. But the developers have been disbanded to pursue other opportunities. Download is still available.
@John - I haven’t noticed an issue with authentication, but I could see how that would be a bit of a hassle.
@Michael - I’m glad I added a glimmer of comedy to your obviously very important life. Nobody forces you to read my random thoughts or gripes, so I’ll consider it my personal high-point in life that I could garner your attention long enough to have a comment left
@JohnMc - Open Office is major, and it’ll do what I need it to do for the most part. My issues revolve primarily with graphics and video editing packages, but then, most would tell me to just shut up and get a Mac. Either way, it’s all good. I’ll be testing out a few flavours of the OS with various software packages that have been suggested to see which one would fit my needs the most.
Thanks for the info on Wicd, too. I’m not looking for anything super intrusive or for wardriving, just the basics with a cleaner interface
Total nonsense.
A typical windoze user, who is too dumm to use linux. A typical situation.
Guess what? Its not your gripes but your target that made me read through your post. I expected something really worth the title but failed to find any. Just to honor the time you sacrificed to write the 8 points, I am leaving you with a comment.
8 - Constant updates promise stability round the clock. If you are not experiencing any problem at a given time, many others might be. Isnt it great that Ubuntu team is vigilent?
7 - Default drivers bundled with Ubuntu are problematic at times but ‘envy’ solves the problem in case of NVIDIA or ATI GPU. Display cards are so versatile and large in number that generic drivers dont come up to the mark.
6 - You cant call interfaces ugly. They are just simple. Get some decent Ubuntu theme and spice up the UIs you see.
5 - Is it application design that is poor or you who is skeptic? These apps are open source. Grab the source code and remove the faults. Although you are annoyed of constant updates yet you want application design to be improved. Updates address minor / major bugs; as far as I know. They make the app better. Isnt it?
4 - Battery meter isnt responsible for correct readings when your battery has completed its advertised life span. Check from your bios battery meter and notice this discrepancy there.
3 - Get abundant RAM and reduce your startup cycle. With 768MB DDR RAM and 4GB of loop mounted UBUNTU volume (installed via WUBI), I dont find startup cycle slow. Off course better machine shall perform better. A certain machine cant be a benchmark of an OS.
2 - Most of the major applications are there. You need to run a google search. Such applications are developed for a LINUX platform without specifying any distro. If you cant find an app, this isnt fault of Ubuntu but of LINUX/LINUX developers.
1 - If you have multiple applications open but are using only 1 or 2 mostly, OS put the idle ones on disk to create room for active tasks in RAM. If you happen to access an idle application [alt+tab thing], off course you shall be waiting till it is loaded back in physical memory. Again, LINUX kernel is responsible.
Firefox itself consumes a lot of system resources especially when it is loading dynamic content and images; whether it be Windows or LINUX. Why are you blaming Ubuntu then? Get seamonkey.
The more you have on your disk the more it takes an OS to locate data. Keep it defragmented. Enable SATA mode if you own a SATA drive. If not, get one.
P.S. If you are not going to publish my comments, drop reply in my mailbox. It wont be public then. Cheers
@Nauman - Thanks for the well-written comment. My rant about Ubuntu and the problems that I’ve recently experienced was just that, a rant. Unforunately, they don’t always result in clear directions or ways to make something better for the masses. I also welcome (almost) any comment that people make here. Just because someone doesn’t agree with me doesn’t mean I’ll censor their point of view. That said … I can certainly comment on some of your points.
I don’t have a problem with updates, per se. Instead, I have a problem with how often they’re presented. Of course, I also understand these things can be controlled on my end and the point rendered moot.
As for the graphics drivers, this is one area I would like to see manufacturers take a stronger role. There are enough people using Linux part or full time that it could be used as a great marketing tool. There are some drivers available for the newer cards, but it doesn’t really help those of us that can’t quite justify upgrading a perfectly good video card that just doesn’t happen to carry a $400 price tag.
The interfaces are functional, but not much else. I don’t need eye candy to get the job done, but I would have liked to find something I could use to sell Ubuntu to others in the family. It would be nice to have everyone use the same platform, as this would make my tech support role much easier. I had tried a few other themes and skins, but some applications just can’t keep themselves contained on a WSXGA+ monitors. This isn’t true for all apps, but most don’t really appeal to the general market.
My battery meter is usually pretty accurate in the BIOS. I’ve tested this out thinking it was a hardware fault, but when the BIOS says I have X amount of capacity remaining, it’s typically accurate plus-or-minus 10 minutes. That said, I feel this could be improved with a software solution, where the system monitors and records the data from the battery to determine a more accurate reading of remaining time. The more a person uses the battery, the more accurate it would become. Just a thought.
RAM’s no problem. 2 Gig installed and it’s running at optimal. That said, I do have limitations as this is a notebook with a 5400 rpm HDD. That said, the system was very snappy up until the new year, when it suddenly started to slow down. I have yet to determine the cause of the issue, but a few commenters here have given me a place to look on my next day off.
Apps, you’re right. There are tens of thousands of them out there that could likely have replaced everything I had loaded from the repositories. The problem isn’t really with not having any big-names, but with finding the best package that will solve my needs. The reason I had pointed out the lack of major software vendors was because these companies often build so many functions into their software that most of us are rarely even aware of what these programs can do. I’m not saying this is necessarily a good thing, but having a versatile application such as Adobe Photoshop available would have gone a long way to shutting me up. I had tried to use it through Wine, but it would either be unstable, or just plain refuse to work. Gimp was alright as a MS Paint replacement with layers, but couldn’t do what I needed to accomplish 90% of the time.
SATA? I wish. My notebooks are just a bit too old for that. It’s in the plans for the next round of upgrades (currently scheduled for late this year), but it’s just not an option at the moment. Firefox is really only used when I write posts on this blog, as Opera (my browser of choice) seems to disagree with the backend of WordPress more often than I’d like. But the point I wanted to convey was that these applications were incredibly snappy during the first three months of operation, but suddenly started to take a turn for the worse.
Please understand that my gripes aren’t against Linux, but against Ubuntu. There was quite a bit of hype surrounding the OS, and almost every review I had read before making the switch said just how great it was. I have used Slackware, Debian, RedHat, and SuSE extensively in the past, but mainly on servers. Heck, my home server is FreeBSD and it’s as rock solid now as the day I built it.
Could I write the software or make the changes myself so that Ubuntu would better fit my needs? Given enough time, yes. That said, time is in short supply lately. Perhaps in a few years after my wife and I have settled in to our new lifestyle and the kids are in school, but until such a time, it’s work, study and scribbling notes on napkins to later post on this blog.
Excuses, excuses ….
Unlike Windows, Linux offers a wide variety of choice in which distribution you employ. Even within the *buntu stable, there are options which may help to resolve your problems.
Both of the main *buntu distros, Ubuntu and Kubuntu are pretty basic. This makes them highly adaptable, but means they often require more tuning than say, SimplyMEPIS, OpenSUSE, Sabayon or more precisely configured *buntu variants such as Mythbuntu or Linux Mint. As most offerings today offer LiveCD functionality, you can test before you invest.
Personally, because of the strength of the Ubuntu repositories I’d recommend first trying Linux Mint and Mythbuntu. Like others who have posted, I’d recommend KDE for appearance and functionality, but be aware there will be a learning curve, as with any new software.
My approach is to turn off updates. There will be a new Ubuntu every six months, let that be the update. The constant update is a carry over of Windows habits and worse Window users’ reasons to fear OS flaws. Any computer connected to a public network is at risk so the main concern is to keep personal data like tax returns off the PC.
Updates can do harm themselves. My wife’s PC updated the Linux kernel and the new kernel would not start. Letting the kernel and video driver get out of synch can kill the GUI.
Looks like you’re going through that “It ain’t Windows” stage. But you seem to have passed it and want to keep trying Linux. Enjoy!
I have not tried it, but Mint has their own “Mint Update” in which updates are tested first before being released to make sure they don’t cause any problems. Also they are categorized by importance and you can filter out what levels you want to be notified of. Sounds like this might be what you are looking for.
On the boot slowdown: That shouldn’t normally happen. Have you looked at /var/log/messages to see if there are any errors occurring during bootup?
Gnome vs. KDE: People tend to have a strong preference for one of the other, so definitely try both before deciding. I think Mint offers KDE now, otherwise Mepis or PCLinuxOS are popular choices for Windows transitioners.
you expect a world from premature/rookie/amateur os,like ubuntu see,MS (xp)and apple’s Mac osx they took years to get stable and perfect,which they are not still,but as a user u find them good enough.ubuntu does believe in improvement that they are doing so,what the point in grinding it for nothing.
Jason, what kind of graphics? bitmap/gifs/jpegs?. SVG/Vector? Multimedia?
For bitmaps, try Gimp. Its an old standby and takes some getting use to. But it can do most of what Photoshop can. But you will have to go search for add-in tools to get it to that level. But I do most of my Web graphic morphing using Gimp. Need to do a bunch of graphic morphig? Gimp can do that or you can use the Pythion PIL package.
Vector stuff. Inkscape is the best I have found.
Audio - Audacity is the king of the hill. A few quirks but it is a good tool.
Video - Cinerella is probably the top application right now. But it can be overwhelming. I find this best if you have a dual monitor setup. Another good one is Open Movie Editor. Its a recent entrant but for doing home movie edits it is more than adequate.
Your first hurdle with Linux and Video is getting the drivers right. If you require anything other than a USB connector you may have to futz with ls mod installs and tweaks. Not hard just something a linux newbie does not encounter in Windoze.
Have fun!
Wow, you did well with this post! It’s great to hear an update on your Linux adventures. With all the hassles you’re having, I’m glad I went with Vista. Despite what everyone says, Vista has been good to me.
Thanks, Nick. I’ve been testing out a few other versions of Linux over the last few days inbetween my insomniatic power-naps. I’m thinking that I might just use one of the more powerful flavours of Linux and leave the family on Windows … which means leaving them disconnected from my terabytes of storage (I outright refuse to introduce any possibility of viral infections to my data, even though I’d grant them read-only access to existing files).
From there, I could easily use a virtual machine to fire up Windows and get some .NET programming or SQL Server work done when necessary. I do really like what Linux allows me to do with this notebook, but Ubuntu was not the flavour for me.
Oh well. I’m glad I had the opportunity to test it out as long as I did, anyways