Ubuntu Redux
July 4th, 2006
Since my posting yesterday, I’ve spent a bit of time configuring Ubuntu. I had to manually set my DNS server in Ubuntu because my D-Link DSL-G604T resolved stuff all wrong - it resolved messenger.hotmail.com to images.google.com (I don’t know why).
I also decided to emerge X-Chat which provided a decent IRC client (xchat-gnome isn’t worth trying; it sucks) and I gave aMSN a go as Gaim was segfaulting. I got rid of aMSN and went back to Gaim (seems to work now).
If you are setting up, Easy Ubuntu is really, really good. It’s 4 lines of code which you simply paste into the terminal. It downloads some files and gives you an interface where you can install proprietary and restricted codecs for multimedia such as MP3 and DVDs, can download and install drivers for your graphics card (ATi, nVidia), browser plugins such as Flash and Java, extra repositories and Microsoft fonts.
Web pages looked a lot better after installing these fonts and the system works so much better. This program has saved tons of time and I’ve got a decent working system in a lot less time than it took me with previous distributions.
A few friends suggested Automatix which is a bit like Easy Ubuntu. Opinion is divided over Automatix - some people said it can harm your system or can be a security risk. I decided to go with Easy Ubuntu as it did everything I needed and it did it well.
With my extra codecs, I opened up RhythmBox and added my Windows "My Music" folder. It worked beautifully; not as pretty as Windows Media Player or as featureful as amaroK but it worked, and worked well.
On all of my previous Linux installs I’ve used KDE and most often used aRts which was a real pain. I was really glad that Ubuntu had a decent sound system out of the box which allowed multiple sounds to be played and it even supported my Multimedia Keyboard buttons out of the box!
Updating the system was also a lot easier than in previous distributions I’ve tried - I updated about 120 packages and it was a flawless update and a ton faster than Gentoo’s emerge. And it didn’t break anything 
I also decided to try multiple desktops and it was really nice - much better than KDE’s implementation.
At the moment, I’m hooked. When it works, Ubuntu is a beautiful operating system which looks fantastic and is usable. The installation wasn’t as smooth for me as it could have been but once those issues were ironed out it was fantastic. By far, my favourite linux distribution.
Whether it’s good enough to replace Windows, probably not. It still lacks hardware and software support:
- My PC is connected to 2 printers (LPT + USB) which are shared over the network. When I’m in Linux, these don’t work so I’ve got to switch to Windows just to allow someone else to print. Perhaps CUPS and SAMBA might be able to allow me to do this but it’ll take quite a lot of work.
- It doesn’t support MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger. Sure, Gaim allows you to chat over them but it doesn’t let you play games, share files at a decent speed or send sounds.
- My TV card doesn’t work (AFAIK).
Application wise, apart from "Windows Live Messenger" and perhaps Office, there is nothing that’s stopping me from switching to Linux full-time. Hardware wise, there’s a lot of reason to stay on Windows.
Quite a U-turn in a day.
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Interestingly though you had hardware issues I had absolutely none with ubuntu on two separate puters. The install was smooth both times. Everything other than the codecs thing just worked out the box.
Of course that’s purely anecdotal. I don’t know what the more general experience is. Conversely though, when I first went to windows xp some years ago I had horrendous issues of hardware with no drivers.
The problem I have is favoured applications/games. However that does work both ways. Some linux software i prefer.
As for MSN messenger that’s only a huge issue for you because your a MSN nut (no offence.) For me personaly as long as i can use gaim to IM MSN folks they have MSN messenger covered. Playing games in MSN messenger is important?
Voice well, I’m not saying it’s unimportant but with skype available (Though not packaged by default of course or available through synaptec.) the biggest base in voip is covered and there are other options like Gizmo or wengo.
I’m not saying your wrong in anything you say just that perhaps your experience is as anecdotal as my own. I know plenty of people who had modem/router problems with windows for example, where as I never have.
I certainly agree with your overall assesment that there’s not much keeping me from a complete switch. Ubuntu is very solid and not to hard to get to grips with when comming from windows. I am very impressed. There are issues though and probably allways will be unfortunately.
I can’t compare it to too many other distro’s I have to say though. Not tried many.
I guess it’s different for me as I don’t play many games but I spend a lot of time on IM (and I freely admit to being an IM nut - I have a mess patched, WLM with Messenger Plus!, a few hundred sounds and often play Games). The games I do play tend to be open source as I don’t want to spend money on something I might use for a while and get bored (and I don’t game for much more than an hour a day) so more or less all the games I play are available on Linux.
Whilst there aren’t any big factors stopping me from switching, there aren’t any big factors which are causing me to switch either - Ubuntu is certainly as good as Windows XP but certainly when you’ve invested three years in setting up XP, hardware etc. you don’t want to give it all away.
What was wrong with aMSN? My wife video chats with her family all of the time with MSN, so rather than make all of her family switch to some other app/protocol I needed something that would allow webcam usage over the MSN protocol, and aMSN works great. It does suck that not all of the rest of the features are available, but M$ will obviously never release a Linux version of their messenger, so any app for Linux, Mac, etc. will always be behind.
It would be nice to get people to stop using these proprietary IM protocols, and use for example jabber or some other open protocol. Of course most users won’t switch without a really good reason, so the real solution would be if there were a free/open source IM killer-app then everyone would switch (like a Firefox for IM, that’s extendible, etc). That’s what I’d like to see.
Hi - Thanks for commenting!
I used aMSN once but I didn’t like it - it didn’t look great and it doesn’t really support any of the cool things like Games (as far as I know). I also never use webcam. I would like to use open protocols and I’ve tried asking people to join other networks such as Jabber before but it’s never taken off. Besides, there is no way I can convert 200 people to use Jabber for selfish reasons.
The new Yahoo-MSN interoperability is exciting however. There is an official Yahoo! Messenger for Linux and it may be possible to use a client supporting Yahoo! to connect to MSN sometime soon.