Ubuntu Review
October 3rd, 2008I’ve been trying out Ubuntu as I need to use Linux for some work related things. Here are my impressions so far.
Things Which Rock
- Having a real Unix Shell
- Its a bit faster than Windows for things like SVN
- Install was quick
- Wifi works better than Windows I think!
Things Which Suck
- Fonts suck big time on Linux still. Even will all the tweaks (Installing MS fonts, turning on autohinting, etc), they still just don’t compare to Mac OS X and Windows. I have a hard time looking at them all day.
- Dual monitors seem to require a lot of extra set up
- Docking/undocking my T60 doesn’t really work
- Skype on Linux isn’t as good as Skype on Windows
- Bugs: X & Java, Rhapsody in the browser
- No desktop Rhapsody client
- Verizon card doesn’t work out of the box
- UI is extremely inconsistent in Gnome
- Webex doesn’t seem to work out of the box (I installed the Java browser plugin, but still no go - it just froze up)
- OpenOffice…
Let me know if I’m wrong on any of these accounts or did something ridiculously stupid.
Verdict: still not ready for prime time.
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Things Which Rock:
- Shell scripts, aliases, one-liners like “svn update && mvnci -o && test && beep”
- Package managers (apt-get, synaptic), being able to say “sudo apt-get install foobar”, wait 45 sec. and have foobar installed and running
- No viruses, trojan horses, worms, spyware, or any of that crap
- Startup time much quicker than Windows
- True multi-user FS/privileges
- No “Windows Registry” with residual black magic in it even after uninstalling a program
- JACK for audio recording/mixing
Things Which Suck:
- Peripheral devices never work
- Anything out-of-the-ordinary never works OOTB and takes time, research, + perseverence to fix
- No decent games (important for wife + kids)
- Lots of software only works on Windows + maybe Mac (e.g., WebEx, some websites)
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
The lack of games point is just FUD. My wife uses Transgaming and has access to a very wide selection of games which perform very well. Transgaming built on the Wine core, but have made it completely transparent to the user and tuned per game. They don’t recommend a game unless it really works.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I’m amused that you seem to think there’s hope for fonts or UI to ever be good on LInux.
Also, OpenOffice is doomed to mediocrity: it’s an MSOffice clone!
October 4th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Agreed: Linux is not ready for prime time, yet.
I might switch when mounting an SMB share becomes as simple as on Windows (with a GUI and the SMB share is back up after a reboot). I hate fiddling with text config files that you only find out about after hours of searching the net, especially if it’s something simple as mounting an SMB share.
However, I don’t agree on the OpenOffice point. I’ve been using it for years and I’m happy. Why should I pay for a word processor that regularly likes to crash on documents with a dozen pages or more? A mechanical typewriter is more productive. No such problems on OO.
I feel really bad about saying this, but: Windows XP (not Vista!!!) is still about the least of all evils for me. But hey, this is all about personal taste. No real arguments possible.
Looking forward to the day when I can switch to an OS I’m more comfortable with…
October 4th, 2008 at 8:19 am
It depends on what you want to use it for.
I’m running Ubuntu on my work laptop; I do java enterprise/mobile development. Ubuntu is faster, more stable and has more tools available. I can do pretty much everything I could do in Windows in Ubuntu.
The only issues I have is that some j2me toolkits (phone specific) only run in windows and we run SQL Server in our datacenter. I have a win xp vm setup for the occasions that I need to have access to a windows environment.
I won’t go back to windows fulltime…ever. In fact, I just ordered a new t400 from lenovo and the first thing I’m gonna do is wipe vista and install Ubuntu.
October 4th, 2008 at 10:22 am
I switched to Ubuntu 8.04 about 6 months ago from windows XP for work. I am a sysadmin/architect/jee software developer and I was at the command line too much. I tried cygwin and it just was not quite good enough. The windows command line is just laughable.
I’m definitely not sorry I switched. I have a VERY stable platform with a wide array of tools in which to do my job. It’s true that if you want to do anything fun on Linux, it’s, maybe 65% at best. Some things work. Other things work *sort of*. Some things just don’t work.
Before win xp I was on a mac. Can I just say that mac + java = no love. I know, I know, I know…. “mac…it just *works*”. Right? Wrong!
So, DEFINITELY not mac for my work. I would make windows work with a little pain but it’s not worth the trade off just so I can “fun stuff”. For me, Linux is the way to go. But…that’s just me. You need to examine what you are going to use your computer for and then choose the right OS for what you want to do. Use the right tool for the job.
October 5th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I agree with most of the points from comments. I have a Macbook Pro from work, and honestly after a year of really trying to like OSX, I just don’t. Some people love it.. live it. I find Linux MUCH better than OSX with the exception of dual monitor support. Being primarily a Windows person most of my computer life, I find that I could live with Ubuntu if it did two things MUCH better. First is audio/video… and by this I mean kernel level sub-millisecond drivers. I have heard of JACK, but from most feedback I’ve read about it, it’s got a long way to go to catch up to Mac and Windows in terms of working with soft synths, midi controller keyboards and such. So that is the primary reason I am stuck with Windows. The other one, the biggest of all for most is video games. But surprisingly, this is less of an issue for me these days. I commented on another blog the other day about more and more people switching to consoles and away from PCs. I am one of those people. As the author of that post said (sorry, no link) consoles (primarly ps3/xbox 360) have comparable hardware and capabilities to a pretty high end system, and you know that with either console every other player has the same setup. With PCs, I constantly have to upgrade my video card every 6 months… and at a price of about $200 for a decent mid-range card that wont even come close to playing the very best games at good quality, I could buy a Ps3 every year.. and that’s just for the video card. I figure my quad-core 2.4Ghz cpu and 4GB ram should be plenty for another year or so… at least until 8-core cpus come down into the $300 or so price range and worth upgrading.
But thus far, I find that Ubuntu is very good for java development, like other posts said, plenty of tools available, and Open Office, Gimp, and other tools easily replace the big Windows/OSX tools for most things. And the stability and virus free… is very nice!
October 8th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Dave B. and I have both had Ubuntu upgrades go horribly, data-was-lost wrong. Our upgrades were to two different versions, respectively, so it’s not a one-time glitch. Until you can upgrade without fearing for your life (or having a backup on hand), it’s definitely not ready for prime time.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:48 am
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