Hello again boys and girls,
Being that yesterday, October 18, 2007 (the day before my Bday (coincidence? I think not)), is the release date of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, I just wanted to take the time to give props to my operating system, which is coincidentally (or is it?) Ubuntu Linux. If you haven’t checked it out, and you are tired of screwing with Microsoft Windows, then try out Ubuntu. There are a lot of ‘flavors’ of Linux, many of which are GREAT, but none are as simple to get into as Ubuntu. Over the years I have used several of the popular flavors, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. Most often the problem with these distributions was the demand to configure and fix as much or more than actually using the operating system – not that I am complaining, this difficulty helped me learn a lot.
With Ubuntu you have an easy to install, configure and customize operating system with pretty much any program you need or want at your fingertips – ALL FOR FREE. Office suites, graphical suites, games, programming tools, internet applications, you name it, Ubuntu’s got it… again FOR FREE. Being based on Debian, one of the best, more streamlined distros to date, Ubuntu is just as stable as Debian has been for all these years, plus it has the benefit of the additional support, tools and utilities provided by the Ubuntu community.
I know that operating systems should be transparent, that users should be able to use the OS to accomplish tasks without noticing they are using it, but I can’t ignore the blissful simplicity that is Ubuntu… its just too much to overlook. Throw Compiz and Emerald on top of it all, and you have the prettiest OS on the market (yes, prettier than Vista and prettier then OSX (yea, I said it)). My newest notebook came with Vista and after a week of frustration I was pushed from casual Linux tinkerer to a 100% Linux user – thank you Ubuntu for making that so easy!
For the apprehensive reader: One of the great thing about Ubuntu (and many other popular Linux distributions) is that you can download the CD for free, burn it to a spare CD you have laying around the house and run it from the CD (put cd in tray and reboot computer) without having to install it to your hard disk if you don’t want to. By doing this, you can check out the OS and make sure that it works ok with your computer before deciding to install – the only down side is you don’t really have access to ALL of the programs you would on a disk install and it runs a bit slower than it would from the hard drive because it has to load everything off of the CD. As far as being able to try it before you install it though, its great!
