So earlier today I wrote a post about switching from Microsoft Office/Exchange to Google Apps and OpenOffice.org for my email and office document processing.  This moved helped free me from the clutches of the evil Microsoft empire and allows me to test other new and interesting avenues for software.  So I decided to download and try Ubuntu, a Linux distribution, to use for my operating system rather then Microsoft Windows.

Linux has been around for several years and I have tried using it as a desktop platform many times in the past.  Each time having the system fail in one way or another.  Sometimes these failures were technical and other times they were simply because the platform was not user friendly.  Either way it has been at least a couple of years since I last tried to switch to a more open source platform like Linux.

For those of you who don’t know, Linux is a operating system that is an alternative to Microsoft Windows or Apple’s Mac OS.  There are many different distributions of Linux each with their own setup, but all based on the same underlying system core called the Linux kernel.  What makes each distribution different is the philosophies of system setup, software to include and update/release schedules.  For the most part though you can get the same software on all versions of Linux with a few exceptions.

Like I mentioned previously, I recently decided to give Linux another try.  This time I decided to go with a new distribution that I have never used before called Ubuntu.  The idea behind the Ubuntu distribution is to create a user friendly desktop platform for the masses based on the gnome desktop manager.  HUH?  That’s probably more then you wanted to know.  The important part of that is “Ubuntu” and “User Friendly Desktop Platform”.  So Lets see how they did…

During the install I was prompted with a few basic questions such as my timezone, keyboard layout, default language and my name.  Seems simple so far.  The install process also asked about how I wanted my hard drives setup/partitioned and being a advanced user I set them up manually.  For the beginners there was a simple “use entire hard drive” option they could choose.

Upon answering all the questions and giving the system a password for my login, it proceeded to format the hard drive and install the Ubuntu system.  There was a total of five screens that asked questions during the install and it worked very similar to a wizard setup screen in Windows.  This is great to help make it easy to convert the less advanced users from Microsoft.

Once the installation was complete the system rebooted and I was prompted to login with the user name and password I setup during the installation.  When I was finally able to enter those correctly (too many passwords in my head), the system dropped me to my new Linux desktop.

After the desktop loaded I looked around and was very surprised to find that all of my hardware was configured and working perfectly.  At this point I took a couple of minutes to poke around the system and menus to familiarize myself with the platform.  I was amazed at what I found.  All of the software a basic home user would need was here pre-installed on the system.  This is what I found:

• Calculator Application – Not a great program but it’s invaluable when missing.
• CD/DVD Creator – CD and DVD burning software ready to go.  Burn data or music directly to discs.
• Screen Shots – Allows you to take a picture of whats on your screen and save it.
• Text Editor – Equivalent to notepad in windows.  Stupid program but I use it everyday.
• F-Spot Photo Manager – A photo album program to organize and keep track of digital images.  The rise in popularity of digital cameras make this handy.
• GIMP Image Editor – Much better then Microsoft’s paint program.  More between the Paint Shop and Photo Shop programs.
• OpenOffice.org Drawing – Another image editing software.
• XSane image scanning software – Scan pictures and documents and save them on your computer.
• Dictionary – A computer based dictionary software.  This will be handy!
• OpenOffice.org Office Suite – Word, Excel & Power Point equivalents.
• Movie Player – A video file player.
• Sound Recorder – Record sound into your computer.
• Firefox – A web browser.  Better then Internet Explorer.
• Evolution – A email client similar to Outlook or Thunderbird.
• Pidgin Internet Messenger – A instant messaging client that can connect to Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, IRC and Jabber networks.

Wow!  Look at all that.  It’s everything a normal person would use for day to day activities.  This is great!  From this point I starting setting up my personal options for software I have used before such as Pidgin and Firefox.  Once I was done I continued to play with the system and use it for my day to day work activities.  In fact I am writing this post using Linux right now.

I must say I was very skeptical about moving to Linux when I starting thinking about it a week ago.  After all I have tried many times in the past and it never turned out good.  However this time it doesn’t seem so bad.  So far I have been able to find everything I need with a couple of clicks of the mouse and everything seems to be extremely user friendly.  I have installed a couple of extra pieces of software such as TweetDeck and Adobe Acrobat and even those installed with no issues.

At this point I can see no reason why I couldn’t continue to use this as my work desktop.  Really I can’t see a reason why I couldn’t load this on my home desktop that my wife and I share.

For those of you that want to try Linux on your machine but are too scared to make the jump, Ubuntu has a nice live CD that you can use to demo the OS.  Download the installation CD for Ubuntu from their site and record it to a CD.  When you reboot your computer with the CD in the drive select the option that says “Try Ubuntu with out installing on my computer”.  It’s certainly worth taking a look at.

What are your thoughts on using Linux as a desktop platform?  Do you think its close enough that the masses could easily use it as a Windows replacement?  Leave your comments below…

Post Tagged With: Open Source, Ubuntu