karmic koala; linux proselytising
So a few weeks ago, Ubuntu 9.10 (or Karmic Koala) was released. I waited a little bit before upgrading, mostly because the servers and mirrors are always slammed in the first week, and also to have a little time to let any latent bugses get sorted out. A few days ago, I backed up /home/ to my external, and let the upgrade run overnight.
Apart from the font hinting in the Firefox 3.5 upgrade, everything ran perfect right off the bat. And then a couple of days later, I got used to the font hinting. Sure, it still looks a little odd, at times, but it really doesn't interfere with my work.
Looks good.
Anyway, what is ubuntu? For everybody who've ever griped about how they dislike their computer, I like to lightly recommend ubuntu. Ubuntu is an operating system (two very common operating systems are Windows and OSX), one of many linux distributions.
Why use it? So many reasons. Apart from the fact that it's free and open source. Free as in beer, and open source as in you can do whatever you want with it. Free is enough to get me going though; I'm not enough of a programmer to tinker with the source code (of course I wish I could, but that's another hobby..). But it's also light, it runs on computers that don't run Windows XP very well anymore (I'm not familiar enough with Macs to say anything useful about them), it works, and you don't have to pay a single cent for anything you want to use on it.
Like Firefox, to surf the net with. Or Open Office - word processing (with ability to save in any format AND export to pdf!), spreadsheet, presentations, database, etc. Free, free, free. Free to use, free to change, free to burn and distribute without feeling slightly shady.
Peeling the the Windows XP stickers off my laptops was one of the most exciting moments of my mousy little life. No logo! (ok, except for the Intel Centrino Duo and the IBM ThinkPad ones).
I also use it to be free of all the proprietary software that inevitably comes with paying for operating systems like Windows and whatever it is Mac calls their OS (maybe I'll call it OS n). You don't have to use their products, which usually comes with some kind of price tag. I can build a new computer system without having to go out and purchase some kind of operating system (or its CD-key), and have it run from scratch, and it just works, only having had to pay for the hardware.
Ubuntu - it just works, and you don't have to pay anything for it.
Apart from the font hinting in the Firefox 3.5 upgrade, everything ran perfect right off the bat. And then a couple of days later, I got used to the font hinting. Sure, it still looks a little odd, at times, but it really doesn't interfere with my work.
Looks good.
Anyway, what is ubuntu? For everybody who've ever griped about how they dislike their computer, I like to lightly recommend ubuntu. Ubuntu is an operating system (two very common operating systems are Windows and OSX), one of many linux distributions.
Why use it? So many reasons. Apart from the fact that it's free and open source. Free as in beer, and open source as in you can do whatever you want with it. Free is enough to get me going though; I'm not enough of a programmer to tinker with the source code (of course I wish I could, but that's another hobby..). But it's also light, it runs on computers that don't run Windows XP very well anymore (I'm not familiar enough with Macs to say anything useful about them), it works, and you don't have to pay a single cent for anything you want to use on it.
Like Firefox, to surf the net with. Or Open Office - word processing (with ability to save in any format AND export to pdf!), spreadsheet, presentations, database, etc. Free, free, free. Free to use, free to change, free to burn and distribute without feeling slightly shady.
Peeling the the Windows XP stickers off my laptops was one of the most exciting moments of my mousy little life. No logo! (ok, except for the Intel Centrino Duo and the IBM ThinkPad ones).
I also use it to be free of all the proprietary software that inevitably comes with paying for operating systems like Windows and whatever it is Mac calls their OS (maybe I'll call it OS n). You don't have to use their products, which usually comes with some kind of price tag. I can build a new computer system without having to go out and purchase some kind of operating system (or its CD-key), and have it run from scratch, and it just works, only having had to pay for the hardware.
Ubuntu - it just works, and you don't have to pay anything for it.