6 months with Linux (Ubuntu)!
This week’s Linux Wednesday is a very important. Last Sunday, 22nd June marked for me 6 months with Linux! 6 months with an entirely new operating system. This article will be about my experiences with Linux over the back 6 months!
Switching from Windows to Ubuntu was a huge step. New operating system, knew very little about it when I made the switch. I was concerned that it wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t be able to use it, I wouldn’t be able to do the things I could do in Windows. However, my worries were mostly gone as soon as I spent the first few hours with Ubuntu. Most of my hardware worked. The user interface was very easy to understand. There were great applications which I started to enjoy using as well as familiar applications which I have used in the past. I was happy with my move from Windows 98 to a modern operating system. However, my switch to Ubuntu was not as easy I wanted it to be.
My first issue was hardware. Like most new users, hardware can be huge hurdle. My first major issue was my printer. It was not working with Ubuntu, after searching through the Internet I did find the drivers I was looking for. I have already explained in a pervious post how to do it. My next hardware issue was my graphics card. I have an ATi card, which worked fine on boot up, but later I discovered it had no 3D support enabled. So again, after searching the internet I found the tutorial I needed to get 3D support to work. Again, I have posted about this in pervious post. These issues I had was thanks to a great thing in Linux, the Community!!! The Linux community, but especially the Ubuntu community is fantastic. The forums are great place to get help and talk about Ubuntu, in my case. At the start I relied heavily on the support of the Ubuntu forums for any help I need. I could easily post a thread and get a reply in a matter of minutes. Even the IRC is a great place to talk to people from your country if you have a problem. Now, 6 months later, I am helping the community by posting replies to users thread helping them out. Even on my blog, I am offering tips to help you out.
I am very happy with the Ubuntu user interface and the whole experience of Ubuntu. During my 6 months, I have changed to a Xubuntu, so my PC is even faster. The features on Ubuntu which make me so happy that I switched are as small as built-in compression and changing the tags on music files. The software support has been great. Before on Windows 98, I had no update support, but now with Ubuntu there is a new release every 6 months and many updates each week. The software for Linux is brilliant. I was already a user of OpenOffice.org and Firefox. Now I am enjoying using Rhythmbox, VLC, Thunderbird, FileZilla. Synaptic Manager is a brilliant piece of software, making really easy for me to install and uninstall software. Not having to waste RAM by having security software in the background has been great. Not needing to defrag has been great. Basically the whole Linux experience I am really enjoying. It has turned out that I am doing more than I could with Windows!
Finally. The learning curve. It is hard to use a new operating system, especially Linux. However, the UI is so simple and enjoyable to use it has not been much of a challenge. The terminal has been very hard though. Over the past 6 months I have learnt many commands, which I have saved in a text document. I have just recently learnt how to install from source code. Now I am happy to use the terminal, sometimes prefer to over UI. I have even now start tweaking Ubuntu using the terminal to make even faster!
My first 6 months have been brilliant with Ubuntu. It has been very enjoyable using Ubuntu as well as being part of the community. Talking, asking for help and giving help out. I have reported bugs and I also have my own open source project! I want to thank friends, such as luxus, for helping me when I having problems, the Ubuntu community and Ubuntu-Uk community for making my first 6 months easier than it would have been. Hopefully I will be using Ubuntu for another 6 months!
Glad you like it.
Thank you