Success stories w/Ubuntu

[Paul Bramscher]

I wanted to start a positive thread here. What are your successes with Ubuntu? I must say I'm quite pleased with it:

* Got onboard video, sound & NIC working happily.
* Got MP3 & MPG playback working.
* Got both Gnome and KDE looking like I want them to.
* All my apps are well-behaved and fully patched.
* Got a full LAMP setup with SSL on my Apache.

What's not to love about that? So far, it's been both a great server & desktop for me.

This will date me, but what the heck -- my first computer was an Apple //c. I bought it with my own money, before I bought my first car. First modem was an Apple Personal 300/1200 baud which set me back $500. Lot of money for a 16 year-old in the mid-80's.

Compared to what was considered "mature" back then, linux today is way, way, THERE. :grin:

[Lord Illidan]

At work, I managed to use Ubuntu to create a very small script which solved a problem I had been working on for 1 month in 5 minutes!! Big success, no?

Also, I have everything important working, and I like it... especially as no other distro managed to get this good...

[maruchan]

Well, here's a smaller segment of a big success story with Ubuntu:

I needed to render a 6-second long 3D animation. All told, it took 14 hours to complete because of the visual effects I used. I started the animation in Windows XP (this is on a fast system with a lot of RAM) and realized I couldn't multitask while the render was going. The system was completely unresponsive.

I booted into Ubuntu, knowing Linux handles these issues much better, started the render, and was able to multitask, listening to streaming audio, watching NASA TV, using the Gimp, using Opera with 25 tabs open, etc.

Next, I thought, "why not start another render?" So I started another 12-13 hour render on a different desktop. I was still able to multitask like a dream. No noticeable slowdown. TWO incredibly resource-intensive renders going on at once, plus all that other stuff.

This is very important to me since I do this stuff for work and can't be out of commission for 24 hours while I render. But the fact that Windows XP throws a fit on *one* render is amazing, compared to this free system.

If it weren't for the popular Adobe applications (CS 2 suite) and software like Reason, I'd be using Ubuntu full time.

[Lord Illidan]

6 seconds take 14 hours? I cannot believe it!! What pc do you have then??

[aysiu]

My success with Ubuntu is modest, but I think it's worth mentioning. I now have an operating system that:

1. Doesn't take too long to boot.
2. Has nice-looking splash screens.
3. Has nice-looking icons and window decorations.
4. Is stable.
5. Has quality free programs I use often (GIMP, Gnomebaker, OpenOffice, Gnocatan)
6. Works.

Sure, my Windows XP hit the mark on a lot of those, but it didn't have anything free that matches Gnomebaker or K3B, didn't have Gnocatan, and wasn't as customizable in terms of eye candy (without shelling out extra cash or dealing with nagware).

[maruchan]

6 seconds take 14 hours? I cannot believe it!! What pc do you have then??

It's not the PC, it's the effects. This animation uses Monte Carlo Global Illumination, so even with low settings, it was taking its sweet time :)