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Dragonbite
November 16th, 2005, 05:29 PM
I've just received my Ubuntu CDs in the mail the other day and look forward to trying it out! I've heard a lot of good things about it so far.

I've been fooling around with Linux for a few years now and has gone through Red Hat 8 & 9 (http://www.redhat.com), Gentoo (http://www.gentoo.org) and a little SuSE 9.1 (http://www.suse.com) (while waiting for the Ubuntu CDs to come in).

I am wondering what kind of Linux experience you have and how does Ubuntu compare to other distros you have used?

I'm not looking for a "love-fest", I'd like to hear the good and bad points. Going from Red Hat to Gentoo was a significant change in thinking (I have to compile everything MYSELF 8-[ ) but each has their strenght, their weakness and their place.

Thanks
~Drew

uberlinux
November 16th, 2005, 05:35 PM
Welcome!
The wway I can best sum up my experience with Ubuntu is that I spent the 2 years before the first release going between MANY different distro's (about 30-40), but along came the first version of Ubuntu and I've been here ever since. Ubuntu has 'settled me down'.

GeneralZod
November 16th, 2005, 05:50 PM
It provides a good out-of-the-box experience, except that proprietary apps/ codecs/ drivers (e.g. MP3 support, Windows media codecs, Java, Flash, nVidia drivers, etc) are not provided by default which appears to be a big "minus" for a lot of people. There are plenty of guides to help you get this sorted, though, and also an unofficial program for doing it for you!

Brunellus
November 16th, 2005, 06:10 PM
The good: Hardware detection and initial installation are excellent. Most things seem to work on most set-ups. GNOME is a surprisingly satisfying desktop environment. Single CD installation means less time downloading, easy redistribution, and few redudnant applications. Well thought-out choice of applications. Excellent, friendly community. Good support cycle. Automatic dependency resolution via apt. Almost infinite tweakability.

The bad: No proprietary drivers or codecs installed by default. Really a two-CD distribution (although this will change for Dapper, with live and install merging into a single CD). No compilation or development tools installed by default.

More general comments: Ubuntu gets a lot of press as a "newbie" distribution, but I hesitate to call it that, if only because most "newbies" stumble quickly out of the gate with the lack of multimedia support. A fair degree of post-install tweaking may be necessary, depending on hardware. Most press coverage seems to dwell on the default brown theme rather than on legitimate software/hardware issues--grow up, people.

Overall: My preferred OS. I hate having to go to work to use MS Win2000.

Kyral
November 16th, 2005, 06:16 PM
I'd say the Community is a VERY big plus. I mean, you ask a question here or on IRC and you'll have a response within hours if not minutes. I know I scan the Forums almost every hour for unanswered posts and if I can help (even if its just to point you to someone who can help) I do it.

I don't know if anyone here was at Ubuntu Love Day at the beginning of Ubuntu Below Zero, but I was and it kinda revitalized me. I mean Mark Shuttleworth is a very cool guy, as is everyone else. I know for one that I felt very "good" (no other way to describe it) after that.

"Humanity Towards Others" is more than a phrase, its a way of life.

Random Quote from Ubuntu Love:
"How many U's is that?" - Jeff Waugh

Master Shake
November 16th, 2005, 06:23 PM
My #1 gripe with Ubuntu the first time I installed it was the lack of a user-friendly partitioner.

However, not a week afterwards, I found a doc on the web that explained how to use it properly. Live and learn, I guess.

As far as the codecs and stuff goes, I didn't pay that much mind. When I reinstalled XP (after my Ubuntu partion fiasco), I had to install the DVD codec for that as well.

Kyral
November 16th, 2005, 06:25 PM
I think that the partitioner will be solved when the LiveCD and Install CD merge into UbuntuExpress.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuExpress

Dragonbite
January 17th, 2006, 07:27 PM
I finally did install Ubuntu (5.10) on the family computer (having the LiveCD detect my graphics tablet helped me make the plunge)! :p

So far I like what I've see. In about 5 hours I had it re-partitioned, installed, online, installed Scribus, Kino, NVU and DIA (downloaded over dial-up) and had verified the Printer and Scanner was working properly. Even my graphic tablet was detected and operational!

I've been wrestling with Gentoo moreso this time (2005.1) than in the past (2004.2) and after 3x the time Ubunutu took and I only got the OS and KDEBASE installed and couldn't get on the internet at that point. What did not help was that the Package CD did not include all of the necessary packages to installing and had to manually download (in Windows) 2-3 packages to plop into Gentoo so it could finish installing. :confused:

Synaptic has been making installing very easy and I'm reading through the (Ubuntu Guide (http://www.ubuntuguide.org)/ (http://www.ubuntuguide.org/)) which is answering a number of my questions.