Weekend project
Old computers can end up becoming little better than oversized paperweights - an old desktop in my room needs to be wiped and then given to a recycling company, and I’m now on my third laptop. I had been waiting for a while to try out Ubuntu, a Linux-based operating system which provides a free, open source alternative to Microsoft Windows. Windows is a necessary evil for me and most people, it’s what normally comes on new computers, all wrapped up and preinstalled with a bunch of mediocre applications whether you like it or not, and everyone uses it so it’s what everyone ends up using.
After seeing some impressive examples of Ubuntu running on YouTube videos, and with the recent arrival of version 8.04, dubbed Hardy Heron (Ubuntu releases are given cool alliterative names - previous versions have been called things like Gusty Gibbon and Dapper Drake), I decided to install it onto a laptop that, while a few years old and way too heavy to carry around the place, still has some guts. It was simple enough - I downloaded the installation files from Ubuntu.com which I then burnt to a CD, and just put the CD in my laptop. Then I restarted the laptop and Ubuntu ran from the CD to show me what it was like. The CD let me install Ubuntu alongside Windows so I can boot my laptop up into Ubuntu or Windows, and managed the process of splitting the hard drive up. One reboot and it was installed.
And Ubuntu is beautiful. A simple, uncluttered desktop, highly customisable, and some graphical features that make Windows (even Vista) look pathetically clunking in comparison. Below is my new Ubuntu desktop, with Firefox 3 open:
The clock on the top right shows the weather and pulls appointments from Google Calendar, the top left menus give links to applications, files and settings, and the dock at the bottom allows me to launch my favourite programs quickly. When I grab a window to move it, it flaps gently as if made of paper or silk. I have four desktops and swap between them by rotating them around a cube, so I can split up email, web browsing, web editing and word processing and don’t have a clutter of windows.
And this all works fine on a five year old laptop (try getting Vista to work on a five year old laptop) - and it’s free. All of it. The operating system, word processor, spreadsheet, image editors, all of it. If you want to install something new you just open up a program, search for what you want, it downloads and installs, and that’s it. The office software, Open Office, opens and saves Microsoft formats and can output to PDF. Firefox extensions run the same on Ubuntu as anywhere else. Ubuntu can browse and open files from Windows file systems.
OK, it hasn’t been completely simple. Getting some stuff to work has still involved searching Google, some command-line tweaking, but the basics are easy, and so far it has been much, much more enjoyable to use than Windows. I’d definitely recommend making a weekend project out of setting up Ubuntu and giving it a go. Maybe a weekend when it’s raining.
Quite Random is the blog of Nathan Nelson, a human male who lives in the UK and is not entirely sure what he's going to do when he grows up but is interested in international development, photography, secularism, technology, music and movies and other things anyone of his age would be.
My Eee PC came preloaded with Linux - you can install XP to it but that would eat up most of the meagre storage capacity. Any problems I have had appear to have been Eee based rather than Linux based too.
I’m loving it - have been using my Ubuntu laptop much more than Windows. Computers are still essentially irritating to me but this is a lot less painful.