Linux has never appealed to me, partly because I use my PC for playing games, but mainly because of a bad experience with it when I was at university. However, Linux has come a long way since the version of X-Windows I was using in 1997.
The Linux of 11 years ago was near impossible to install unless you knew the right commands to enter at the prompt, and getting drivers for your hardware was only possible if you had mainstream components. Anything even slightly obscure was highly unlikely to have a Linux driver.
Recently, though, I jumped on the netbook bandwagon, and got an Asus Eee PC 900. The trouble with being an early adopter, though, is that you inevitably end up with a flawed product. The 900 has several flaws, including its short battery life and tiny keys. The big problem, though, is that Windows XP is too big to fit onto the 900's 4GB solid-state disk. A fresh install is fine, but start installing service packs, or .NET Framework updates and 4GB simply isn't enough.
So, I decided to see what the fuss about the latest Linux distributions was all about. A brief search of forums confirmed my suspicions that Xandros – as used by Asus for its Linux Eee PCs – wasn't up to much. Ubuntu, however, seemed the most popular, and has one of the largest communities, and it didn't take long to find a specific version of it for the Eee PC.
Amazingly, it was possible to download the files straight onto a 1GB flash drive and install Ubuntu 8.04 directly from there. Apart from a couple of initial mouse clicks to select where to install it, installation was automatic and swift.
Instead of using the standard Ubuntu interface, the Eee version runs a simplified version on top, which was as easy to use as Windows. Impressively, despite the download being just 700MB, a decent selection of applications had been installed, including OpenOffice, a photo viewer, a music player, FireFox, and even a hard disk partition tool.
After just a day or so, it became clear that Ubuntu had plenty of advantages over Windows XP, the primary one for me being performance. Unlike XP, Ubuntu was incredibly responsive on the Eee PC 900's low-powered hardware. Plus, the entire installation used up just 2.4GB, leaving ample room for my files. Windows XP's battery meter – on the Eee PC 900 at least – could only show capacity to the nearest 10 per cent, while Ubuntu's can report it to a tenth of a per cent. Not only this, but it can accurately estimate time remaining, and even charging time.
Another advantage is the package manager, which lets you search for software to install – all open source, of course. Just select what you want, and it's installed in minutes. Then there's the update manager which works in similar way, and can even update the entire operating system to a new version.
There are too many exciting features to mention in this blog post, but suffice to say that if you're fed up with Windows, give Linux a chance. Even if you don't ditch Windows entirely, at least dual boot Windows and Ubuntu. You'll be surprised just how good it is.
Jim Martin
8 comments:
Thanks for this - I dipped my toe in the Linux waters around 5 years ago, and still had configuration problems. But i tried an Acer Aspire One, with its Linpus Lite. As a Linux distribution it was underpowered and not configurable. And when I read about Ubuntu Netbook Remix, the magic lightbulb moment happened. Unfortunately it doesn't install easily on the Acer netbook without some command line tweaks; so I'm thinking about another netbook. This really makes me want to give Ubuntu another chance, and the fact that performance is fast and that the GUI is tasteful is a massive bonus. OS X will have to work hard to maintain its lead as the most usable OS...
Thanks! I dabble a bit from time to time in Linux - I actually have Fedora on a seperate hard disk and boot it up occassionally and try out new installs - will be buying another hard disk soon just to play with Ubuntu - as it sounds the easier Linux to use and no doubt will be the most popular. Would be great to see some sort of graph of popularity for the Linux Distro's I know there is a site that I saw that on once.
I expect your next article will show everybody just how easy it is to 'ditch windows' and install a linux distro...
Hi guys. Thanks for your comments. Having found the benefits of Linux on netbooks, I wouldn't be too surprised if I get asked to write a feature on it in the near future, for sure.
As for the Acer, it's certainly frustrating to have to do all the command line stuff, and not have a hassle-free install. I've just upgraded the Eee 900 to Ubuntu 8.10, and the WiFi stopped working. That was a massive hassle to fix, requiring at least 30 mins of command line hacking (and plenty of help from forums).
It's all good fun, though!
Great article and how I would so love to switch to Ubuntu. But the only reason I am not is because im rather sad and have a lot of purchased music from iTunes. The fault is Apples of course because there is no Linux version and this is frustrating. I have thought about dual boot but it is alot of hassle just to load iTunes. I so wish they would port it.
If the only thing stopping you moving from Windows to Linux is that you want or need to run one particular program, there are at least two ways to solve this problem.
1) Run a virtual machine like VMware on your Linux system. VMware Server 1 (www.vmware.com) is free and will let you run a full Windows system within a window on your Linux PC.
2) Use WINE to install a Windows program on a Linux PC. According to this blog (http://www.wine-reviews.net/wine-reviews/applications/itunes-73-on-linux-with-wine.html) you can get iTunes running this way.
Hi Simon thanks for the advise. The problem with either of those two methods is that they can be buggy. And when iTunes updates it usually becomes unstable as I have read elsewhere. I just wish Apple wuld support the Linux platform, then everything would be sweet.
I wonder if Computer Shopper should contact Apple about this, or it's plans for the future.
Mark - funny you should mention the problems with iTunes updates. I've had no end of problems with my Touch each time I stupidly install another iTunes version.
This latest time caused the perennial 'unknown error' message when trying to sync, and this had the unexpected side effect of requiring a restore.
The restore wouldn't work the first three times I ran it (I thought that the iPod was permanently bricked), but mysteriously went fine on the fourth attempt. However, it's still refusing to sync properly, coping about a gigabyte of music and then bombing out...
This might possibly be the subject of my next blog post! Argh.
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