Nu-Buntu
May 20th, 2005, 05:28 PM
Here is a little essay I wrote about my path to Ubuntu bliss. Yours may be similar, but I figured I'd share it here.
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My Road to Linux - One User's Experience
Computer operating systems are like religions. They all have their fundamentalist zealots as well as their more moderate adherents. Unbridled zealotry in any form goes beyond the realm of reason and into blind faith. You can talk to many proponents of Microsoft Windows, Macintosh OSX, or Linux, and you will find those who think there own choice is perfect and all others are pure evil. Linux or Mac users deride the Microsoft product as "M$ Windoze",
"M$ Winblows", and other less than complementary names. As long as they dominate the market, Microsoft will continue to be the target of such disdain.
Yes, I know about the security issues, the questionable marketing practices, product activation and the many other issues surrounding Windows. Even so, one must recognise that Microsoft is a company in business to make a profit. There is nothing wrong with that. Secondly, the de facto Windows standard has no doubt helped the penetration of personal computers into our business and personal lives. The product works with a wide variety of hardware, and for many users, the simplicity it offers is reason enough to stick with it. As for me, I always am looking for more.
I started using PCs when MS-DOS was the market-leading OS. There was no multimedia, no web browsers, and every program had its own user interface. The slash menu of Lotus 1-2-3 and the F-key combinations for WordPerfect were burned into the genetic makeup of my fingers. The mark of a true DOS Jockey was the ability to use the Edlin line editor to edit text files and create batch files.
Early versions of Microsoft Excel for Windows eventually hit the market, complete with a limited "run-time" version of Windows 2.0 to allow the spreadsheet program to run on any DOS computer. Few people actually owned a full copy of Windows back then, with its klunky MS-DOS Executive text interface and crude icons. The Macintoshes, Lisas and Amigas of the day were far ahead in their implementation of graphical computing.
Despite the quirkiness of DOS programs, there was something very satisfying about DOS computing. Things like mastering autoexec.bat and config.sys; loading ansi.sys to create colorful, customized DOS prompts; and using batch files to create a menu system. Working with the computer at that level is something I enjoyed, and Windows hides all of that deep within its innards.
Those DOS skills and knowledge are, for the most part, still within my head. What I hadn't realized was how much they wanted to get out and be used. I still enjoy working a bit at the C:> prompt. DOS is still as good an operating system as it ever was, but it lacks native support for such modern niceties as USB devices, network servers and other tasks routine to modern computing.
In using Linux, I have found a great amalgam of command-line and graphical computing. Learing the Unix equivalents of familiar DOS commands and remembering to use a forward slash in path names rather than the DOS backslash, and I find I can do a lot of system maintenance from the Linux prompt. Yet at any time, I can use any number of graphical desktops, including the K Desktop Environment (KDE), Gnome and other more lightweight options. Oh, the power! Guys who like cars enjoy tinkering under the hood. Geeks like me enjoy tinkering with our computers at a lower level than Windows typically allows.
I first tried Linux about six years ago, and was impressed at how a team of geographically-separated developers could put something as complex as an OS together. It was particularly impressive that they were sharing their work freely with others. I started with Mandrake Linux 7.2, and found it a little frustrating trying to get Linux to work appropriately with my hardware. I kept checking back on Linux (more properly GNU/Linux) as new versions were released, and gave Red Hat, Corel Linux, Turbo Linux, Storm Linux, Caldera OpenLinux, and a few others a shot at becoming my OS of choice. I have intermittently used Mandrake through versions 9 and 10, but only very superficially, and usually through KDE or Gnome. After rebuilding my system last year, I didn't bother to reinstall Linux, but always having the intention to do so.
Recently, I found out about a new distribution (distro in Linuxspeak), known as Ubuntu, sponsored by a South African company named Canonical. Based on the Debian distribution, Ubuntu is free to use, free to copy, and no clubs to join. Although it shows its newness by a few rough edges, this is one great Linux distro. It comes as a downloadable CD image, and as a bonus, the CD contains some Windows versions of some great free, open source programs. Canonical will even mail you a premade CD at no charge!
Ubuntu Linux is available as a single CD to install on your hard drive, a Live CD which runs Ubuntu without installing it at all, or a DVD that will do either. The standard Ubuntu Linux uses Gnome as its desktop, but you can either install KDE (easy to do in Ubuntu), or download the Kubuntu variant which uses KDE by default. The Ubuntu version I downloaded is the "Hoary Hedgehog" release. The previous version was Warty Warthog, while the next one is to be named Breezy Badger.
The Ubuntu install routine lacks the polish of the latest Mandrake or Novell/SuSE intallers. Eschewing graphical eye candy, Ubuntu installs from text mode. After setting up your hard disk partitions, it asks a few simple questions, then loads the OS and a nice variety of application files onto the system. At the end of this part of the installation, Ubuntu told me it found Windows XP on my system, and reassured me that I should install the bootloader (GRUB) into the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the Windows partition. I have done this with Mandrake in the past, causing no end to trouble getting back into my Windows installation. Since no other distro had ever given me any reassurance on this in the past, it was with much trepidation that I agreed to let Ubuntu proceed.
After it had done this, Ubuntu rebooted my system, and as the BIOS screen went by, I was nervous. Suddenly, a GRUB menu appeared, with Windows XP as a boot choice. I select Windows, and to my surprise, I was back on my XP desktop! Success! Now, back to Ubuntu.
I told Windows to reboot the system, and this time selected Ubuntu from the Grub boot menu. I thought I would be going directly to Ubuntu, but unlike other distros I have tried, Ubuntu went into a text-mode process, doing initial configurations on the software it had installed. Once it was finished with that, I found myself at a graphical login screen. Logging in with the user ID I had created for myself during install put me at an attractive Gnome desktop.
Quickly searching through the menus, I found I had a fully business-ready Linux machine. OpenOffice.org, The GIMP, and other useful tools were ready to go to work.
This first installation was on a Dell CSx laptop machine that has a D-Link 650+ wifi card. Mandrake and SuSE could not find this device. I opened up the Network configuration in Ubuntu, and the card was there, ready to configure with my WEP key and network SSID. Just like that, I was on my LAN and on the Web!
Opening up the Mozilla project's Firefox browser, I head over to ubuntuforums.org. There I learned about enabling extra repositories of software available. Having used RPM-based distros, and the accompanying dependency nightmares associated with them, I found that all I needed to do was to open a terminal (command line) and type in "sudo apt-get install" and the software name. Ubuntu took care of the rest. Apparently, this is how Debian-based distros all work, but this was my first experience with it. All library dependencies were taken care of automatically. If one wants to go the graphical route, Synaptic is included, which lets you browse for software in the repositories, as well as install and uninstall them from a graphical shell.
A word about sudo. Ubuntu doesn't set up a root account by default. Instead, one uses the sudo command and their own password to perform system maintenance. I like this setup, but if one wants greater security in a multiuser environment, it is a simple command to set up a password for a true root account.
One way that Mandrake has Ubuntu beat in a dual-boot environment, is that is mounts your Windows drives automatically. In Ubuntu, you have to futz with the /etc/fstab file and create directories in the /media directory for each device. This is not difficult, but I had to do a little reading at ubuntuforums about how this is accomplished. Once I figured it out, it wasn't that difficult to do, but for a newbie, it would have been nice if these were mounted by default. The good news is that performing this configuration taught me a bit more about my system and Linux. USB thumb drives and flash media card readers seem to work in the default installation.
This is where the old DOS jockey started coming out. The more I experimented and tried a few simple script files, the more success I found, and the more fun the Linux command line was becoming. I am finding out that the BASH Linux shell is far more powerful than the DOS equivalent, command.com, or cmd, its Windows cousin. I am starting to feel less like a Linux noob and more like an intermediate Linux user. I am actually having fun just playing around with the system and the OS again. Some people just want a system that they can do certain tasks on, and if that works it is fine. I am not that kind of person. I enjoy digging into the system and learning how things operate. I am starting to wonder what took me so long to make the dive into Linux. Since the success on my laptop, I have also installed Ubuntu on my primary desktop machine with equal success.
I still boot into Windows occasionally at home. I love to play SimCity 4, and use Adobe Photoshop and Acrobat. The Linux equivalents are still not up to their standards, in my opinion. I also must use Windows at work. However, I am finding that well over 90% of the time, I am happily using my Linux installation and getting real work done while learning valuable Linux skills.
Things I like about Ubuntu:
* WiFi works
* The sudo apt-get software system
* A single CD image to download
Things I dislike about Ubuntu:
* Windows drives are not automounted
-----------------------------------------------------------------
My Road to Linux - One User's Experience
Computer operating systems are like religions. They all have their fundamentalist zealots as well as their more moderate adherents. Unbridled zealotry in any form goes beyond the realm of reason and into blind faith. You can talk to many proponents of Microsoft Windows, Macintosh OSX, or Linux, and you will find those who think there own choice is perfect and all others are pure evil. Linux or Mac users deride the Microsoft product as "M$ Windoze",
"M$ Winblows", and other less than complementary names. As long as they dominate the market, Microsoft will continue to be the target of such disdain.
Yes, I know about the security issues, the questionable marketing practices, product activation and the many other issues surrounding Windows. Even so, one must recognise that Microsoft is a company in business to make a profit. There is nothing wrong with that. Secondly, the de facto Windows standard has no doubt helped the penetration of personal computers into our business and personal lives. The product works with a wide variety of hardware, and for many users, the simplicity it offers is reason enough to stick with it. As for me, I always am looking for more.
I started using PCs when MS-DOS was the market-leading OS. There was no multimedia, no web browsers, and every program had its own user interface. The slash menu of Lotus 1-2-3 and the F-key combinations for WordPerfect were burned into the genetic makeup of my fingers. The mark of a true DOS Jockey was the ability to use the Edlin line editor to edit text files and create batch files.
Early versions of Microsoft Excel for Windows eventually hit the market, complete with a limited "run-time" version of Windows 2.0 to allow the spreadsheet program to run on any DOS computer. Few people actually owned a full copy of Windows back then, with its klunky MS-DOS Executive text interface and crude icons. The Macintoshes, Lisas and Amigas of the day were far ahead in their implementation of graphical computing.
Despite the quirkiness of DOS programs, there was something very satisfying about DOS computing. Things like mastering autoexec.bat and config.sys; loading ansi.sys to create colorful, customized DOS prompts; and using batch files to create a menu system. Working with the computer at that level is something I enjoyed, and Windows hides all of that deep within its innards.
Those DOS skills and knowledge are, for the most part, still within my head. What I hadn't realized was how much they wanted to get out and be used. I still enjoy working a bit at the C:> prompt. DOS is still as good an operating system as it ever was, but it lacks native support for such modern niceties as USB devices, network servers and other tasks routine to modern computing.
In using Linux, I have found a great amalgam of command-line and graphical computing. Learing the Unix equivalents of familiar DOS commands and remembering to use a forward slash in path names rather than the DOS backslash, and I find I can do a lot of system maintenance from the Linux prompt. Yet at any time, I can use any number of graphical desktops, including the K Desktop Environment (KDE), Gnome and other more lightweight options. Oh, the power! Guys who like cars enjoy tinkering under the hood. Geeks like me enjoy tinkering with our computers at a lower level than Windows typically allows.
I first tried Linux about six years ago, and was impressed at how a team of geographically-separated developers could put something as complex as an OS together. It was particularly impressive that they were sharing their work freely with others. I started with Mandrake Linux 7.2, and found it a little frustrating trying to get Linux to work appropriately with my hardware. I kept checking back on Linux (more properly GNU/Linux) as new versions were released, and gave Red Hat, Corel Linux, Turbo Linux, Storm Linux, Caldera OpenLinux, and a few others a shot at becoming my OS of choice. I have intermittently used Mandrake through versions 9 and 10, but only very superficially, and usually through KDE or Gnome. After rebuilding my system last year, I didn't bother to reinstall Linux, but always having the intention to do so.
Recently, I found out about a new distribution (distro in Linuxspeak), known as Ubuntu, sponsored by a South African company named Canonical. Based on the Debian distribution, Ubuntu is free to use, free to copy, and no clubs to join. Although it shows its newness by a few rough edges, this is one great Linux distro. It comes as a downloadable CD image, and as a bonus, the CD contains some Windows versions of some great free, open source programs. Canonical will even mail you a premade CD at no charge!
Ubuntu Linux is available as a single CD to install on your hard drive, a Live CD which runs Ubuntu without installing it at all, or a DVD that will do either. The standard Ubuntu Linux uses Gnome as its desktop, but you can either install KDE (easy to do in Ubuntu), or download the Kubuntu variant which uses KDE by default. The Ubuntu version I downloaded is the "Hoary Hedgehog" release. The previous version was Warty Warthog, while the next one is to be named Breezy Badger.
The Ubuntu install routine lacks the polish of the latest Mandrake or Novell/SuSE intallers. Eschewing graphical eye candy, Ubuntu installs from text mode. After setting up your hard disk partitions, it asks a few simple questions, then loads the OS and a nice variety of application files onto the system. At the end of this part of the installation, Ubuntu told me it found Windows XP on my system, and reassured me that I should install the bootloader (GRUB) into the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the Windows partition. I have done this with Mandrake in the past, causing no end to trouble getting back into my Windows installation. Since no other distro had ever given me any reassurance on this in the past, it was with much trepidation that I agreed to let Ubuntu proceed.
After it had done this, Ubuntu rebooted my system, and as the BIOS screen went by, I was nervous. Suddenly, a GRUB menu appeared, with Windows XP as a boot choice. I select Windows, and to my surprise, I was back on my XP desktop! Success! Now, back to Ubuntu.
I told Windows to reboot the system, and this time selected Ubuntu from the Grub boot menu. I thought I would be going directly to Ubuntu, but unlike other distros I have tried, Ubuntu went into a text-mode process, doing initial configurations on the software it had installed. Once it was finished with that, I found myself at a graphical login screen. Logging in with the user ID I had created for myself during install put me at an attractive Gnome desktop.
Quickly searching through the menus, I found I had a fully business-ready Linux machine. OpenOffice.org, The GIMP, and other useful tools were ready to go to work.
This first installation was on a Dell CSx laptop machine that has a D-Link 650+ wifi card. Mandrake and SuSE could not find this device. I opened up the Network configuration in Ubuntu, and the card was there, ready to configure with my WEP key and network SSID. Just like that, I was on my LAN and on the Web!
Opening up the Mozilla project's Firefox browser, I head over to ubuntuforums.org. There I learned about enabling extra repositories of software available. Having used RPM-based distros, and the accompanying dependency nightmares associated with them, I found that all I needed to do was to open a terminal (command line) and type in "sudo apt-get install" and the software name. Ubuntu took care of the rest. Apparently, this is how Debian-based distros all work, but this was my first experience with it. All library dependencies were taken care of automatically. If one wants to go the graphical route, Synaptic is included, which lets you browse for software in the repositories, as well as install and uninstall them from a graphical shell.
A word about sudo. Ubuntu doesn't set up a root account by default. Instead, one uses the sudo command and their own password to perform system maintenance. I like this setup, but if one wants greater security in a multiuser environment, it is a simple command to set up a password for a true root account.
One way that Mandrake has Ubuntu beat in a dual-boot environment, is that is mounts your Windows drives automatically. In Ubuntu, you have to futz with the /etc/fstab file and create directories in the /media directory for each device. This is not difficult, but I had to do a little reading at ubuntuforums about how this is accomplished. Once I figured it out, it wasn't that difficult to do, but for a newbie, it would have been nice if these were mounted by default. The good news is that performing this configuration taught me a bit more about my system and Linux. USB thumb drives and flash media card readers seem to work in the default installation.
This is where the old DOS jockey started coming out. The more I experimented and tried a few simple script files, the more success I found, and the more fun the Linux command line was becoming. I am finding out that the BASH Linux shell is far more powerful than the DOS equivalent, command.com, or cmd, its Windows cousin. I am starting to feel less like a Linux noob and more like an intermediate Linux user. I am actually having fun just playing around with the system and the OS again. Some people just want a system that they can do certain tasks on, and if that works it is fine. I am not that kind of person. I enjoy digging into the system and learning how things operate. I am starting to wonder what took me so long to make the dive into Linux. Since the success on my laptop, I have also installed Ubuntu on my primary desktop machine with equal success.
I still boot into Windows occasionally at home. I love to play SimCity 4, and use Adobe Photoshop and Acrobat. The Linux equivalents are still not up to their standards, in my opinion. I also must use Windows at work. However, I am finding that well over 90% of the time, I am happily using my Linux installation and getting real work done while learning valuable Linux skills.
Things I like about Ubuntu:
* WiFi works
* The sudo apt-get software system
* A single CD image to download
Things I dislike about Ubuntu:
* Windows drives are not automounted