What do you use Ubuntu for?

[dtrot55]

I have installed Ubuntu 8.04 x64 on my machine. I also have a install of windows xp pro. I pretty much do everything in XP but I installed Ubuntu because I heard good things about it, better performance and some cool features. I'm just curious, what does everyone use Ubuntu for? It took me awhile to get all my drivers working...still havent got my printer working...installed wine to play CSS and its choppy. So im just curious...I'm not ripping Ubuntu it is a great product and once i get another SATA drive ill prob install on my extra dell i have sitting in the closet and make it a dedicated ubuntu computer. Just looking for more reasons to switch from XP because im sure im not touching everything Ubuntu can do.

[halitech]

Personally I use Ubuntu for everything. I do my websurfing, email, IM, printing, watching movies, burning all in Ubuntu and have for over 2 years now. On my main desktop I don't even have windows installed and if it wasn't for my crappy Lexmark printer/scanner, I'd be installing linux on my laptop as well and getting rid of all windows products from my house (laptop only has a 10 gig drive so no point in dual booting it cause wouldn't have any room to do anything)

[martrn]

[..] ...I'm just curious, what does everyone use Ubuntu for? ..[..].. So im just curious..[..].. Just looking for more reasons..[ ..] ..beause im sure im not touching everything Ubuntu can do.

I can program in C++ using KDevelop and Anjutu, use gPHPedit to edit php/html/website, program in pascal with Lazures, make CDs/DVDs using KB3, there are tons of CD/DVD and multimedia players, there is blender/gnupaint/gimp/digikam/kooka/mtpaint/Kpovmodler plus other I havn't used yet, for graphics editing. Internet utilities I have Ephipyny/Firefox/FileZilla FTP/Akregator/Pidgin Chat Client/3 IRC clients including XChat IRC/Many office utilities.

You can do anything with ubuntu, I haven't even touched on using massive amounts of stuff in the repositories yet. Its not got a lot of choice with games though are many of them.

[Dylnuge]

I use Ubuntu for everything I do. This includes the basic things, like checking email and such.

I also use it as a development server for my website, as a LAN host server, and to program with. Programming wise I pretty much exclusivly use Eclipse and jEdit. Server wise, Apache with Django, Rails, TG, and a bunch of AJAX libs installed. Oh, and PHP/MySQL.

Of course, that isn't exactly mainstream stuff. But if you want to get into programming or databases or networking, its beautiful.

[iSplicer]

Communuity support, and ease of use. It works fine for everything I do, so why use a paid OS?

[dtrot55]

Do any of you know of a program that is like Dreamweaver in Ubuntu? I am a web designer and if I could find a program just like it that would prob sell me on it..because i use photoshop a lot which gimp is basically.

[PeterJS]

Well gee if we're all going to brag about our cool linux programming projects, I'm currently waist deep in pyGTK code working on an activity for the olpc. Like a lot of the posters have said, I've got a single boot ubuntu box, it's my daily machine web browsing, school work, games. I've got a game of Warcraft III open on another virtual desktop right now, and I'll go back to getting pwnd after posting this. Another big thing is theming, I'm a vain fickle man when it comes to my desktop and change my theme once every couple of weeks if not more often.

You mentioned css in wine was slow, I'm not sure if that's a 64 bit issue or not but I've got TF2 running like a dream under wine. You might look in to trying to setup DX9 with wine-doors.

[NightwishFan]

For everything which is mainly about music, and learning to program.

[dtrot55]

I am noob when it comes to wine...i might be either moving back to 7.10 or going to 8.04 32bit version...but im giving 64 a try before i totally kill it. so if you could explain a little more with wine that would help.

[halitech]

Do any of you know of a program that is like Dreamweaver in Ubuntu? I am a web designer and if I could find a program just like it that would prob sell me on it..because i use photoshop a lot which gimp is basically.

there is Nvu and Kompozer, both available in the repos and probably more. Personally I never cared for Dreamweaver (I like hand coding stuff) but just check the repos for html stuff and I'm sure you'll find more then a few to choose from.

[PeterJS]

Like I said it might be a 64 bit issue, I didn't do anything too special to wine on 32bit. I installed it, and then steam, which ran well enough aside from being DX8. I ran in to wine-doors by accident, installed that, and used it to install DX9. Now it's just like windows, except better because it isn't.

[doorknob60]

Do you have proprietary drivers? Try running glxgears in a terminal and post your results. It might be you're using drivers with low performace or something.

[dtrot55]

I know i just went to the device manager and enabled my nvidia drivers and restarted..thats all i did for my video card

[shad0w_walker]

I use Ubuntu for everything that isn't mainstream gaming, though I can game quite happily if I wish (Have the full Orange box working without issue along with a fairly impressive list of games, both windows and linux native)

The main reason I use Windows for my gaming is that I often have a difficult time finding a server (TF2) with a decent team and tend to switch to another random game for a while (Which lately has been assassins creed, which I need to give a shot in Wine sometime) but aside from the gaming there isn't anything I can do in windows I can't do just as well (If not better) in Ubuntu.

[LeoSolaris]

Well, I can't really help ya with wine, though thee are quite a few tutorials to help ya out on the forums, as well as on wine's homepage. Wine-doors is a separate program that you have to download, it's not in the repos. It's a front end to help configure and set up wine. Just Google for wine doors and you should find it.

As for how I use Ubuntu... I photo edit with Gimp to amuse myself, I web-surf only from Ubuntu, simply because it is a lot more secure, I use BPMx to listen to the radio, and I do all of my college work with open office. I am actually currently writing a novel that I will start sending out to publishers this summer, and I am just taking a break from it to post.

I do game on my Ubuntu. I downloaded the newest Alien Arena (7.0.1) and it is a blast. I do occasionally download wine and install Guild Wars, but I am still not sure if wine is actually able to get viruses, so I tend to remove it after I am done playing.

Leo

[ProPyro]

I've recently switched over from XP after running for almost a year and a half on the same install and having no legit way of reformatting and reinstalling it I decided to give Linux a try.

I gave up on playing games a long time ago, and all I use my computer for is playing music, internet, email and typing up documents. Ubuntu dose all this very well, and according to some friends of mine who are long time Linux users it's very stable and rarely gives them any flack. I'm still trying to learn how things work here, but so far I'm liking it.

[theorganloft]

I have 2 custom Ubuntu systems: Ubuntu Studio 8.04 and MythBuntu 8.04. Both were recently upgraded. I run ******* XP and Vista in Virtualbox (www.virtualbox.org). I have wine installed too.
******* (in VirtualBox) is only used to access my Job because I do not want my company to scan my personal files. I shut it down when I am done. I laugh at their attempts to read my drives. :lolflag:

For my church, I built a Ubuntu ZoneMinder video surveillance system that supports 16 analog CCTV Cameras. It runs 24/7 and beats any Windows and Hardware based solution. www.theorganloft.com

I really enjoy Ubuntu and do not see where I need ******* at all. I have been running Windows free for 6 months.
Everything that I try to do, I find that I can do it with Ubuntu. Yes there are other distributions and I like them too. But, Ubuntu is just good stuff. Never had a crash, never had a lockup. If a process acts crazy, just restart it or shut it down.

[lazyart]

It's better to ask "What do you use your computer for?" Because in the end, that's what it is.

I've been running Ubuntu for about a year and a half now, on both my desktop and laptop. My main rig runs 64 bit Gutsy. It hosts Citadel mail server in a VM (prepackaged CentOS). My machine is also joined to the Windows domain that I run at home. I telecommute mostly, using Terminal Services Client to connect to client networks and troubleshoot issues. From my desk I also connect to a datacenter which houses a couple of physical servers that I administer, running an assortment of VMs. Some run Exchange, one is an FTP server running ubuntu.

My laptop runs 32 bit Gutsy. My (windows) domain controller runs OpenVPN and my laptop connects to it for when I need to administer my own network from afar. It's kinda fun to see the $$$ Windows apps out there and realize there is almost always an open source linux alternative.

I'm about to install a RAID array in my domain controller and want to check out Flyback or TimeVault for storing backups of my main rig. Stuff works quite well. Grab your apps from the repositories whenever possible, and always wait a few weeks before upgrading your distro. Though I did download the Hardy .iso today (via torrent in about 15 minutes) and threw it on a VM to take a peek.

I'm not a big gamer, and many people are disappointed when they find that their favorite Windows game doesn't quite work with WINE. It's kinda like putting a Chevy transmission in a Ford-- It might work.

Enjoy what it has to offer... and there is a lot!

[Tatty]

Ill just add my two cents. I use Ubuntu for pretty much everything these days. It does everything I need except play some of the few PC games I like, but i have an XP install for that.

I currently have two main ubuntu machines, one laptop which i do almost everything on, and one media converge box (with a sweet widescreen monitor) that I use to watch/record/stream tv, listen to music, watch DVDs, etc...

Sure I can do all this with windows, but often it would require me to pay a lot of money for all the software. The great thing about ubuntu and GNU/linux in general is the ability to say "that looks interesting, lets try it out" without having to worry about wasting money.

[dtrot55]

Nice...and interesting to see how many people use Ubuntu as their main OS. Coming from a windows background I am looking forward to getting into Linux. I do agree with those of you who only web surf in Linux...it makes sense...If i get into it more i will probably use Ubuntu for webdesign, web sufing and IMing

[SlappyPappy]

Doing research on the internet, editing photos in Gimp, watching DVDs and ripping them for research as well. Also writing a lot. Really like FreeMind which I'm using in Linux as well as in Virtualbox on W2K. Listening to music of course. Need to take advantage of organizing programs, not sure what's out there yet in that department. I'm still a noob.

I need to setup a database though, something like Filemaker Pro, that or run FP in Virtualbox. I have a lot of "stuff" that I need to remember for the future.

Love Ubuntu, the people in the forums here, just amazing! :guitar:

[Saint Angeles]

ubuntu is an operating system for PCs and macs. its used for making your hardware useful. without an OS, we'd be left with black screens.

[Dylnuge]

Do any of you know of a program that is like Dreamweaver in Ubuntu? I am a web designer and if I could find a program just like it that would prob sell me on it..because i use photoshop a lot which gimp is basically.

I love Aptana for coding, but if you're looking more along the lines of a WISIWYG editor, then try Nvu.

[Fenris_rising]

Sufing the web, research, playing music, movies, and streaming movies to my xbox which i believe also now runs with a flavour of linux. this is day 7 for me XP has gone from my lappy and PC its great and im still finding so many apps on here its amazing, long live linux!!!!!!!

regards

Fenris

[swoll1980]

everything except my work software