How I learned to love Ubuntu... (tales from a Linux newbie)

Okay, so it's not the most original start to a blog post, but I'm loving my Ubuntu at the moment. I've been researching distros and quietly trying them out for around a year. I was initially prompted to try them because of the onset of M$ Vista. I wrote this on my MySpace blog at the time. As this is password protected, I'll paste it here in full:

26 Nov 2006

Get ready for Linux... (I'm next in line)

Just read a really interesting article about Microsoft's new Vista operating system (replacing Windows and available to all from next January). One of its central wheezes is that you have to "activate" with their website to use it indefinitely. This is even if you've bought it legally. If you don't your whole computer (not just the program) will lock.

This post isn't about the freedom of information implications about this idea, although that might form the subject of another post. This post is to explore how wrong headed this kind of approach is in the 21^st century.

In the old-school "Command & Control" model, you can see how this makes sense: make everyone register = wipe out of piracy in one fell swoop.

Right I suppose, but I don't think it'll take Microsoft where they want to go.

In today and tomorrow's web, to quote my friend Erich Ludwig at Calabash Music, "obscurity is more dangerous than piracy". Windows' easy-to-crack-and-circumvent security has made it THE choice of software everywhere I've been in the world – from Israel to South Africa, Nigeria and Senegal. How many of the copies of software I've worked on in these countries are kosher, I don't know. But what's for certain – most of these developing world countries' users won't be able to afford to pay Microsoft license fees unless they get a global pricing structure right. Getting this structure right would bring problems of its own – geographically splitting the world in a way that other industries (the recording industry for instance) is finding impossible.

So from Windows being a de facto "free" operating system (because of the prevalence of piracy), much of the world – including fast growing markets like India and China – will have to choose between paying for and "activating" Vista and finding an alternative.

I think this will open up people's appetite for free alternatives. Enter Linux.

I for one will be looking for free alternatives to Windows before January. I hope you'll join me.

From today I can finally say that (on desktops and laptops at least) I've kicked the Window$ habit. If I can remember rightly the steps went something like this:

1. Tried my ancient Gateway laptop (a.k.a. "The Tripewriter") with Dreamlinux. Wasn't much of a dream, more a bit of a nightmare. It didn't recognise the soundcard, wifi card or much else.

2. Tried with Xandros. This is kind of a half-way-house. It recognised everything, but partly because it was such a compromise (what's the point jumping in the deep end if you go in with water-wings?) and also because it wasn't free - therefore not community maintained, I decided against it. The search continued.

3. Dual booted The Tripewriter with Ubuntu Dapper Drake. Still no sound or wifi, but I was getting cocky, so I erased the windows side and stopped farting about with a live CD. There was method there - part of the reason why the machine was so-called was because it was basically a typewriter. I had a smaller laptop (a Vaio TX-3) for travelling, so this computer was going to stay at home and get acquainted with OpenOffice. So, although it was crippled, I had one of my two laptops running Linux only.

4. Dual booted the Vaio. This is how it is now.

5. Once Gutsy Gibbon came out, The Tripewriter recognised everything (after a little tweaking) - wifi card, soundcard, video the lot. It works faster than the Vaio running Windows XP Pro. The last problem was syncing to my phone.

6. Missed my iTunes for a bit, but got over it. The sound quality of downloads is generally dire. I now run RhythmBox.

7. Sorted the sync problem with ScheduleWorld running via Evolution and Google Calendar - visible with a button on the desktop via Prism

Sorted!!

So there you are. Not massively exciting if you know about Linux already, but hopefully useful if you're about to (or even tried to) dip your toe into the not-so-murky waters of the Open Source community.