Many already know that I've been a Linux fan for some time now, primarily using the Ubuntu distribution on both my server and my desktop. Well I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10 and I noticed a noticeable slow-down on performance. I've been noticing a bit of sluggishness from Ubuntu over the last several versions, but nothing really noticeable. Well that changed for me with the install of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ipex. System performance was sluggish, and I realized that there was a little bit too much bloat than I cared for, not as bad as Vista, but still more than I feel a Linux desktop should have. I decided I'd move to a different distro.

My first choice was Debian 4.0. Ubuntu is Debian-based so I figured going back to Ubuntu's base might be a good place to start since I am most familiar with the Debian system. The install went smoothly and within an hour I had the Gnome desktop in front of me. The thing that impressed me most was its bootup speed, loading speed, and responsiveness. It put Ubuntu to shame in all of these cases as it was incredibly fast. The only thing that I didn't like was that it seemed to be behind on a lot of key software and updates. Iceweasel, its browser (a port of Firefox 2.0) was the browser installed and me of course wanted Firefox 3.0. I download it, try to run it and it says I need to have GTK+ v2.10 or higher. Apparently the Debian repositories are somewhat out of date with some key software versions as the latest version in Debian's repositories for GTK was 2.08 and when I tried to manually compile and install GTK+ 2.14, its dependencies were all libraries with versions greater than the Debian repository had. Now I realize that I could try harder to find some good 3rd party repos or work through the massive dependencies, but at the same time I'm looking for a distribution that does not require massive amounts of configuration. It might also be worthy to note that a lot of the key applications that I use on a regular day basis were not installed nor were they available for download from the repositories. I liked Debian, but it was missing too much to become a working Linux desktop distro for me. Now server wise, Debian would be great for its speed and stability, and maybe one day if I feel adventurous, I may very well switch over from Ubuntu 8.04 Server to Debian, but as it stands now, as good a distro as Debian is to many people, it just didn't match what I wanted in a desktop distribution.

My next choice was CentOS 5.2 which I'm currently installing. It'll be a change from Ubuntu since its most definitely Red Hat based and not Debian, but a co-worker sings its praises and since its an offshoot of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I figure I'll give it a try and see how it goes. I'll let you all know later.

Tags: ubuntu, debian, linux, opensource

Look closely at the product this review is for: Ubuntu 7.04

Tags: ubuntu, humor

I was recently reading this artcle [lockergnome.org] and this article really annoyed me as I am a rather large supporter or open source, free software, and of course Linux. Linux is still of course behind Windows and OS X, but over the past couple years, it has truly become a viable operating system for the desktop and even the laptop.

My main complaint about this is that it's filled with all these half-truths.

It first starts off complaining about application compatibility with Linux. The truth of the matter is that many applications have a very good open-source alternative. And if you ABSOLUTELY need to run a Windows-only piece of software, wine does a decent job of running most pieces of software. Yes, there are some truths in compatibility problems, but the author of this article over-exaggerates the problems to the point where he makes it sound like EVERY piece of software can't be run under wine. I would've really chewed him a new hole if he complained about Microsoft Office not working on wine with OpenOffice gaining stock value in my eyes.

The second thing he complains about is the command line. Yes, Linux is still heavily based on the command line, but at the same time, more and more tasks can be easily done without even opening a terminal. GUIs and point and click functionality has been increasing in Linux distros to make configuration tasks simpler for the novice user to understand and use, and for the more advanced user, the terminal actions aren't removed, just hidden underneath the surface.

He talks about hardware support and lack of official vendor Linux drivers. Hello? Linux has such a great community that many produce great drivers for multitudes of old and new hardware that may very well end up being better than anything the companies could produce themselves. I myself have had very few hardware problems on any of my computers running Linux, most of the time, all hardware was found and installed just fine under Linux.

DRM. One word that pisses off many upon many a tech user. Yes, sometimes Linux has problems reading DRM'ed content, but so do Windows and even OS X. Problems with DRM are the root of an inherent flaw associated with DRM, and one of several reasons why I hate DRM. Saying Linux doesn't work with DRM is like saying Windows Vista doesn't work with my Pentium 2 processor, its absurd because DRM may not work period, with ANY operating system.

He complains about the saying "Ubuntu just works". I can partially agree with him on this one as Ubuntu may or may not work out of the box. But I will say that he again overexaggerated his point. With the exception of my latest desktop, EVERY computer I've tried to install Ubuntu on has worked right out of the box, with the only thing needing to be done is to install the official nVidia drivers which just took a couple mouse clicks. In fact, Ubuntu recognized all my hardware, whereas Windows XP and Vista needed at least a half-dozen drivers to be installed separately. I was even able to get Ubuntu running on my old Dell Inspiron 4000, wireless and all. My latest desktop does show that sometimes there are hiccups, but at the same time, all problems I had with it were solved with Ubuntu 8.04.

Making the switch to Linux is not something that one can expect to do in an hour, but it does not take months to set up either. In maybe a couple of days, I think even a new user could learn his way around. I would reccommend it to anyone, but at the same time, pushing it on someone is not the best way to spread Linux. If you do want to help someone switch to Linux, make sure you help them as best you can, but also let them do things on their own, that's how people learn, from hands on learning and experimenting.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to bash Microsoft or any other operating system for that matter, I just think that articles that spread these half-truths aren't helping anyone or anything.

Tags: opensource, linux, ubuntu

It's been a busy week for me, busy with work and doing internationalization support. It's challenging, although a little annoying that every solution continues to breed new problems, although things are looking much better now, so hopefully that will maybe speed things up a little come next week.

I had a barbeque tonight, burgers came out well, but I got a lot left over...cheeseburgers all week!

I think one of my projects for tomorrow and Monday is going to be a SLIGHT overhaul of my server. I think I'm going to switch over to Ubuntu 8.04 64 bit. I've had good experiences with 64 bit Linux, unfortunately there were a few applications that gave me issues under 64 bit, most notably, flash. Well since its my server, that is a non-issue as I don't need flash to work as I'm not using it to watch the latest YouTube videos, I'm simply just using it to host files, and serve as a web and database server amongst other things. Such is the beauty of Linux, all my data will be safe as I just need to go over the system drive. Yes Windows can do it too, but I always found it to be simpler under Linux.

So far I like where my new project is going, not gonna say much more than that, but when its closer to being finished, I think it will be pretty nice.

Happy Day of the Jedi!

Tags: ubuntu, linux, server, bbq

So many people can get caught up in the operating system war that they may forget that multiple operating systems can coexist side by side. Many times people are so pro-Windows, or so pro-Linux, or even pro-Mac that they believe that their operating system has to be the end-all winner in the computer world.

Ubuntu just 2 weeks ago released their first version of 2008, Ubuntu 8.04 keyed Hardy Heron. I now have it installed as the primary and only operating system on my file server and have it set up for dual booting on my desktop along with Windows Vista. So far I have nothing but kind words to say about it as it has run very smoothly for me. In fact, it's the first version of Ubuntu that installed properly and just worked on my new Desktop hardware that I got back in December for Christmas.

My server since switching over to Linux from Windows has only ever really used Ubuntu starting out with 6.06 and then 7.10 and now 8.04. For me, it is stable, efficient, fast, and properly integrates with my entire home network pretty much flawlessly. It is the only operating system to date that I've worked with that can reach 30 days of uptime without a restart and still work without hiccups. I've even got it up to 100 days before and it probably would've lasted longer had my hard drive not died and my need to get into the box. And now that whatever issue my desktop was having with Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10, has been fixed in 8.04 so it now "just works" on my desktop too. In fact, as I've said earlier, if it wasn't for games, I'd be booted into Linux a lot more than I am now.

This gets me to my point, Ubuntu, whether you like it or not has catapaulted Linux into somewhat of a mainstream operating system. Yes, it will probably never get ahead of Windows, and with how Mac OS X is growing, it will probably stay behind Apple as well, but does it really matter what percentage of the market share Linux gets?

Open source advocates and the Linux fanboys would say that it does, they tend to want Linux to win completely. They want to see Microsoft pretty much rot in hell. They end up so caught up in things that they fail to see that both Windows and Linux can coexist. And what would these fanboys say to those who want to play the latest and greatest computer games? Yes there is Cedega and Wine, both of which can do pretty decent jobs at running a lot of Windows games, but not all. And to get some of them to work can require a significant amount of tweaking and careful configuration that some users may not have time to do, or simply may not be saavy enough to do.

While I would love to see Linux gain market share, I realize at the same time, that at this point in the game, Linux can be very tricky for many to use. Yes, Ubuntu makes the setup and installation quite simple that a lot of people could have success in doing it, but what about trickier issues that may arise? For the most part, I have had a good deal of success with driver support out of the box for my hardware, but what about those that may have some hardware that doesn't have proper driver support? The "easy" to set up, just got a lot trickier, even on Ubuntu. Sure, the Linux gurus and even those with only moderate experience would probably be able to solve those issues, but what about the "even you mother could use it" crowd? And this is where Linux still has its pitfalls, on the surface, Ubuntu is very easy and very smooth, and a lot of people may never have to get into the nitty gritty of the operating system. Even most configuration will work fine using the GUIs that now exist. But not everything goes that smoothly which is what can make Linux tricky.

Ubuntu and Linux in general need to be able to improve upon its base and allow for those trickier situations to be handled in a more "ease-of-use" manner so that more of the general users can figure it out. Linux has a good group of followers and many I've found when going to message boards and forums for support to be very friendly and helpful to help me solve the problem, but not everyone wants to have to go there because a lot of solutions can require some heavy terminal useage that may scare the non-geek crowd.

In the end, as much as I hate to say it, Linux is not for everyone, at least not yet. It is becoming a better alternative to Windows than it was say 5 years ago, but it is still not completely ready for mainstream useage yet. Us Linux fans can only hope that it steadily improves, where maybe one day, it will truly become a viable alternative to the ever-prominent Windows operating system.

Tags: thoughts, linux, opensource, windows, ubuntu