Quick question: In non non-technical terms, what are the benefits to using this? I have a Mac Notebook with 250+ gigs of free space and am trying to find really cool ways to use all that. Any insight on the Ubuntu side of things is appreciated.
Benefits: Free operating system which allows you to have total control to everything about the system; access to thousands of free, open-source Linux software programs, some of which are amazing; the GUI can look and work however you’d like it to, so if there’s a feature from a Mac and a feature from XP, you can probably make it happen with a little tinkering; internationally developed by people who want to share information, meaning stuff like proprietary codecs and formats stop being a problem; doesn’t give money to corporate software giants; outstanding user communities.
Downsides: To make use of a lot of the custom features, you’ll need some moderate or somewhat advanced computer skills; some compatibility issues with hardware that doesn’t support Linux-based systems (less and less all the time, though); lots of options means trying a lot of things out to see what works for you; Windows and Mac programs have to be emulated, which can be a pain and slow performance; little formal user support, which means a lot of figuring stuff out on your own; you’ll become smug and arrogant once you install it.
“Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.”
Ubuntu in particular is one of many types of Linux, an open source operating system alternative to Windows and Mac OS X. Ubuntu has become very easy to set up and use, and was the first Linux “distro” to take aim at gaining wide acceptance by the everyday computer user. They have really started to succeed.
The fact that Dell offers many of their desktops and laptops with Ubuntu as the default OS is a sign of how succesful it is becoming, and how it is starting to be a competitor to Windows. In these times, many people are liking the sound of “free” much better than “Buy Windows, then have to buy all the software to fix it and keep it safe”.
Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention—although willc touched on it—that Linux systems in general are more secure by their very nature than Windows or Mac. Not that a Linux system can’t get some kind of malware or virus, but it rarely happens because of the way the system works. And when there is a security flaw, patches happen almost immediately because of the way the community works. It’s rad.
I ended up playing with the OS for awhile and removing it. It’s not quite up to all the uses I have like running movies on my TV. There is no way, at present, to change the screen resolution. I am using a flat screen HP monitor and must back the res. off to 1024 over 768 to get it to register on the TV then change it again to match.
Anyhow, the whole thing is my wife has business stuff on here that is only compatible with Windows IE 6 or 7 neither of which can be loaded on Ubuntu. So I’m back on Vista using Firefox and Chrome but mostly fox.
Anybody have any opinions about Windows 7? You can again download it but again I’m fearful it would mess the “business stuff” up and then what happens next year when it must be paid for? Is IE 8 attached?
I’d be willing to bet that your resolution issue could be fixed with some tweaking, but at least you tried it. Never hurts.
As for Windows 7, so far I’ve been rather impressed with how well the betas and RC released perform. I have it installed in a virtual machine and it runs almost in real-time, even fullscreened at high resolution. From power-on to login prompt takes about 15-20 seconds. However, it’s still based on Vista so desktop elements are still kind of ugly and certain features are in weird places. Overall there’s not enough to make me want to upgrade my XP partition so far.
I’d be willing to bet that your resolution issue could be fixed with some tweaking, but at least you tried it. Never hurts.
As for Windows 7, so far I’ve been rather impressed with how well the betas and RC released perform. I have it installed in a virtual machine and it runs almost in real-time, even fullscreened at high resolution. From power-on to login prompt takes about 15-20 seconds. However, it’s still based on Vista so desktop elements are still kind of ugly and certain features are in weird places. Overall there’s not enough to make me want to upgrade my XP partition so far.
I read the resolution could not be changed back and forth as it is on Windows so never tried.
Now, if the resolution you want isn’t in the list, you would need to edit your xorg.conf file to include whatever additional resolutions you want as mentioned in that article.
Now, if the resolution you want isn’t in the list, you would need to edit your xorg.conf file to include whatever additional resolutions you want as mentioned in that article.
You’re too late. I removed the OS a month ago. You’re also talking a bit over my head which basically is why I abandoned the experiment. I consider myself to be only moderately PC literate. My quest was to be able to change the res. to one which my TV would recognize, then change it to the optimal setting for that screen. My HP monitor and my Samsung HD/TV don’t have the same optimum settings. What I would really have liked is a system whereby I could leave both monitors plugged in and set but, as you might guess, a simple Y connector would not do the job. Any ideas on that score? This family has two geeks in it and neither has been of any assistance.
Right, I saw where you removed it. I’m just engaging in completely unpractical semantics at this point. Hope you don’t mind :)
Question: is this a reasonably modern laptop? If it is then you could set up a dual-display configuration—one of my customers does that at home w/ his laptop where he works off his LCD screen and watches MLB.com games on his big-screen. Most laptops have a feature to be able to toggle video output destinations: LCD screen, external, (often) both or (in some cases) neither.
If it’s not a laptop the only way to do this would be to set up a dual-monitor configuration (not the same as what I described above; multiple-monitor configs require that your video card support them).
Right, I saw where you removed it. I’m just engaging in completely unpractical semantics at this point. Hope you don’t mind :)
Question: is this a reasonably modern laptop? If it is then you could set up a dual-display configuration—one of my customers does that at home w/ his laptop where he works off his LCD screen and watches MLB.com games on his big-screen. Most laptops have a feature to be able to toggle video output destinations: LCD screen, external, (often) both or (in some cases) neither.
If it’s not a laptop the only way to do this would be to set up a dual-monitor configuration (not the same as what I described above; multiple-monitor configs require that your video card support them).
It’s a new Compaq Presario. I did acquire that suggestion from another source but I have no clue about video cards. It’s got what it came with except I added 2 gigs of Ram.
However, you would still need to manually set the resolution any time you switched outputs.
What model of Presario is it?
Cool, order is on it’s way. Thanks. The PC is SR5601P. Got a great deal on it at Office Depot but it had only 1 gig of RAM, barely enough to run Vista.
