I’ve been giving Ubuntu another go on a Desktop. Last time I tried it my intention was to see if it really was a viable switching target from OS X and it turns out for that specific task It sux, this time I was more looking for a desktop fit for a Unix knowledgeable person so have had more tolerance for some stupid things like not being able to play popular content out the box.
Here is a random list of things that was worth noting to me:
- I got Beryl and XGL going on my little Acer 12″ laptop, it’s really nice but unfortunately I can’t get it going on my desktops because they have ATI cards. I will be buying some Intel based cards for these.
- Laptop support in general is really good, it hibernates and everything works. Getting the Acer buttons for things like enabling Wifi was a right pain, I had to tinker with some kernel modules etc.
- Wifi support has a long way to go, the UI for configuring keys, choosing networks and types is totally useless and I hope it’s something on their list to fix real soon
- GAIM has taken a turn for the worst, you should try Kopete for a good IM client
- Changing the behavior of something as simple as the Backspace key in Firefox can really spoil your day
- They push out a silly amount of updates and like with OS X they’re pretty big, I’m really glad I am not on a modem in the 3rd world using Ubuntu or OS X.
- Easyubuntu is pretty good, Ubuntu needs to take this and put together a paid for package, I’d pay for it.
- Crossover Office is really good, I’ve been running MS Office 2003 using it and been very happy with the results, MS Word is fast, stable and full featured, blows OpenOffice away, currently on the Demo but will buy soon.
- Wine isn’t too bad either, it runs Digiguide without a problem, this was one of the big things that kept me on Windows.
- I do sometimes boot into Windows, I do this via VMWare for simple stuff, I’m booting the the physical NTFS partition inside VMWare and its ok, but my AMD 2600 is pretty crap for this, soon I’ll buy a nice Core 2 DUO machine for this and it will solve my speed problems.
So it seems I’ll be moving off a Windows desktop now, I might still get a 2nd Mac instead of the Ubuntu machine that will be the perfect setup for me – 2 x iMac – but till then this will do well enough.
