the Ubuntu Experience
I have been using SuSE 9.2 for about a week, but am pestered by a little voice inside my head saying ?BLLOOOAAAATTTWWAARREE!!! BLLOOOAAAATTTWWAARREE!!!? Therefore, i started to look for alternative distros that, as a rule, would fit on 1 CD. First, i looked at Yoper. It seemed decent, but it had such a small user base that i nixed it. Next, i looked at SimplyMEPIS. It also looked like a possible, but the download was taking FOREVER. Finally, i looked upon a distro that I had never thought of as an installable- only as a liveCD. I downloaded Ubuntu Hoary RC in about 15 min (VERY fast), and then burned it to a CD. then, i went on the #ubuntu IRC channel and was informed that Hoary final was being released in about 20min from then. Obviously, i waited until it was released, and then hopped on the Torrent. That download took a few minutes longer, but was still very fast. The next day, i did the install.
First, i backed up the /home/ben/ folder of the SuSE install onto a Jumpdrive, and prepared to abandon my SuSE partition. I would have done a dual boot, but in my few weeks experience with Linux, dual boot brings trouble. If i decided to bring back SuSE, i could just replace the /home/ben/ folder with my backup and be back on my way.
Then came the actual install. It went very painlessly. I put in the CD, selected all the default options, and let it begin (Tip: Don’t be scared by the ?text based? install; I was and it turned out to be just as easy to use as SuSE’s graphical YaST. It is text based, but it is not command-line based). The install took about 15min, then called for a reboot. I took out the CD, rebooted, and entered a username and password into the (still text based) window. Then, i watched as a few hundred packages decompressed and installed themselves. After it was done, i was presented with a nice looking login screen with the Ubuntu-brown style to it. I logged in and was presented with a horrible looking GNOME 2.10 desktop. It looked horrible because the theme included with Ubuntu as default looks, in my opinion, like digital puke. Of course, my first order of operation was to head over to http://www.gnome-look.org and get a nice theme and background.
As for the configuration, i haven’t done any yet. I haven’t needed to. Everything was detected PERFECTLY!
I enabled the online apt repositories, and went into Synaptic to get the packages i wanted. Everything is there. With the exception of Skencil (hard to find anywhere), every package i wanted was there.
My next task is to enable the middle scroll button and forward/backward buttons, but i’m sure it will work soon enough.
Ubuntu is a great choice for those who are looking for a distro that is Newbie friendly, but leaves some room for growth. This one’s staying.
