Today, I am running Ubuntu 9.04. It isn’t my full-time OS, but I use Ubuntu on my laptop exclusively. Wireless networking used to be my biggest problem with Ubuntu in its earlier days, but since version 7.10 or so, it has been smooth sailing in that department. Fortunately, today that is no longer an issue.

However, my problem with Linux today is in the distribution of applications. Practically every application on my machine is acquired from Ubuntu’s servers. The only exception in my mind is the Adobe Flash Player. With Flash, you can actually visit Adobe’s website and click to install it. Why aren’t other applications working in a similar manner? That is the missing piece of the puzzle in order for Linux to act more like Windows or Mac OS. Novice users will expect it to work this way.

The two major applications that never upgrade are Firefox and OpenOffice. Every time there is a major update, Ubuntu does not offer an upgrade until the next entire OS release. Ubuntu is great about pushing security and point-release updates. I give them high marks for that. But not so for complete new versions of stuff.

For example, Firefox just updated to 3.0.12 on Ubuntu, but you still cannot get Firefox 3.5. I know they are probably waiting on the next OS, 9.10, to “include” the new Firefox. Why? OpenOffice behaves the same way. Version 3.x was out months before Ubuntu released a new OS version that included it. This is stupid and it gets on my nerves. I should be able to visit Mozilla.com and click to overwrite my installation of Firefox 3 with the new one.

I am aware that I can do this in a manual way and get Firefox 3.5 on my system. But it won’t overwrite the version that is tied to the OS. Plus I don’t want to jump through hoops to get the latest programs. The relationship between Linux the operating system, and its applications needs to change. This isn’t only true for Ubuntu, but also Fedora and SUSE, which have the same behavior.

In the long run, I would like a future Linux OS to handle applications in much the same way that Mac OS X currently does. Is that too much to ask?

• Ubuntu Christian Edition
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• blitzcraig.com/linux

I took the computer, wiped the drive, and installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 8.10. It is relatively speedy, despite it’s age. It runs Ubuntu with ease. This is my first computer which will run Linux full-time. My only hiccup during installation was that my Linksys wireless card didn’t work on its own. This problem righted itself when I connected to a wired Internet connection. The proper proprietary driver was automatically installed, and my wireless connection has been problem-free ever since. I am able to do everything I want with this little computer.

Above all, I love the Thinkpad hardware. It’s rough and tough, like a tank. It has a 14″ screen, and it is the perfect size and weight. I’d be happy to buy a new Thinkpad in the future, based on how solid this machine feels. I’ve also come to love the pointer stick! I’m thrilled with my new toy!

I reviewed three possibilities for my approach. First, I’m a Mac user and looked into the FileVault encryption that is built into OSX. That solution is very easy, but it wants to encrypt my whole account user folder. In that scenario, logging into the OS decrypts all of the data. I worry that may slow down my computer, and that isn’t what I was going for in the first place.

Second, I researched the popular PGP encryption solutions. Their products all appear to go above and beyond my needs. PGP adds email and instant message encryption to their desktop offering. I don’t need any of that, and PGP’s products are all pretty costly for my taste, ringing in at $99. I’ve heard good things about PGP overall, but I am not looking to spend that kind of money on my project.

Third, and my favorite solution, is a free open-source application called TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux! It’s free and easy to use. You create an encrypted volume that is stored as a single file on your computer. That file can have any file extension you want, or none at all. You can hide it anywhere you like, and the program won’t memorize locations if you ask it not to. Opening the contents of your volume is achieved by mounting the volume, which allows you to use it with a drive letter of its own. Dismounting the volume encrypts all of the data again. I’ve had a wonderful experience using this program. One downside for me is that I wish the program was faster at dismounting my volume, though speed will most certainly vary depending on your system. On my Windows PC, dismounting was nearly instant.

TrueCrypt was definitely the way to go for my needs. The program can also encrypt an entire drive as well. It does exactly what I want it to, with ease. It’s fast, secure, and completely free!

Fedora:

I tried Fedora. I’ve tinkered on and off with Fedora since version 2. The latest, version 10 was released in November. Fedora’s best quality is its clean, polished interface and visual theme. It is very attractive. That said, under the hood it doesn’t seem as refined. Boot time is very slow, and it was generally slow during general use in comparison to Ubuntu 8.10. There were many pauses in boot and execution, which several moments of no hard drive activity of any kind. What was it thinking about? I don’t know.

Fedora is committed to free open-source software, and doesn’t provide easy access to extras like codecs, Flash, and Java. In Ubuntu you can install Flash directly from Adobe’s website. Not the case with Fedora! Also, no proprietary graphics drivers are available for NVidia cards in Fedora 10, period. In addition, system sound was disabled by default at install, and Fedora admits to this. Huh? This all makes for a difficult setup to me. OpenOffice is not provided by default, with AbiWord installed instead. Attempts to add extra software from repositories was both complicated and confusing. My efforts to add OpenOffice made no sense at all, with the system showing literally dozens of packages available, ranging from converters to fonts, etc.. Why isn’t there a single package to install? This extreme difficulty, lack of out of the box offerings, and general slowness has turned me off of Fedora.

OpenSUSE:

I tried OpenSUSE 11.1, which was just released last week. I’ve used past releases of SUSE with pretty good results. The new Live CD worked well on my PC and the OS felt polished and smooth. Scrolling and window switching was remarkably smooth on my old PC. However, attempting to install the OS to the hard drive from the Live CD resulted in a failure. It complained that I had only 768MB of RAM. It froze while installing GRUB. I tried twice with the same result. Frustrated, I went to my Dell laptop and ran the Live CD from there. Again, it booted quite slowly, despite my laptop having much faster hardware. The Live CD functioned for a while, but not long after connecting to a wireless network, the whole system froze. I have never had this happen with any past Ubuntu release. My limited test concluded that OpenSUSE is not very reliable for my taste. A command line installer of the OS on the CD would have been a nice addition.

In closing, this non-scientific experiment has reinforced my belief in Ubuntu being the best Linux for the desktop. I highly recommend it head and shoulders above the competition. Granted, Ubuntu’s default theme is not as pretty as either Fedora or OpenSUSE, but the raw mechanics of it are unmatched in my mind.

That said, I’m disappointed that the new OpenOffice 3.0 is not included, and to date, Firefox still sits at version 3.03, despite the fact that 3.04 was released nearly a week ago. I don’t understand those decisions, but the operating system as a whole is fantastic all around. Try it yourself.

The coolest thing about Ubuntu 8 is that you can install it from inside Windows with the new Wubi installer! I tried this method of install, and it worked flawlessly. I can’t tell you how much better this is compared to partitioning your hard drive. That said, I have never had a problem with Ubuntu installing the “old way” where it partitioned my drive on its own. Not everyone is going to have Windows installed, but if you do, the Wubi installer is the easiest way to go.

Ubuntu immediately found my WPA-protected wireless network and communicated flawlessly. In the past, I’d often had issues with wireless cards and Linux. I was pleased to see this work right out of the box. Once online, I checked for updates. Ubunu 8.04 has only been out for a few weeks, but there were already 78 updates to download. Holy cow.

Ubuntu 8 has cured another of my Linux pains in the simple way that it downloads extras such as Flash Player, Java, and proprietary graphics drivers. While browsing with Firefox, I went to a Flash site and it told me I needed to install plugins. I did so within Firefox (as you would with Windows) and it worked perfectly! This is the first time I have seen that work properly. Ditto for Java. It installed the same way.

I looked in the Hardware Drivers settings of the OS to find that 3D acceleration was not enabled for my ATI graphics card. When I clicked the box to turn it on, it immediately prompted me to download the necessary proprietary drivers. This was painless. After a reboot, I enabled the desktop effects. I didn’t turn the effects on full blast, but chose the light setting. Every so often, the effects have been little choppy, but they are nice overall. The chopping only occurs when restoring a minimized window, I should add. Overall, the smoothness of the desktop effects will depend on your computer hardware.

I’m not crazy about the fact that Ubuntu chose Firefox 3 beta 5 as the default browser for this release. I wish they would have stuck with version 2 for now. Perhaps that is because Ubuntu 8 is a long-term-support release and it seems foolish to have a beta browser as the default. That said, I’ve had no negative issues with Firefox 3b5. Foxmarks, one of my favorite extensions for Firefox, does not yet have a version compatible with Firefox 3, so I couldn’t sync my bookmarks as I normally would. That will be resolved in time. For now, I had to manually import my bookmarks.html file from my other computer.

In the past, when installing Ubuntu on a separate partition alongside Windows, it would automatically mount my Windows NTFS drive partition. This was not the case this time. Perhaps it is due to the Wubi installer and how I chose to install Linux. I could probably get this working, but I don’t really care to at the moment. I thought it was worth noting that it didn’t do this automatically on my machine, as I would have expected. Your results may vary.

I wish that the folks at Ubuntu would create a more attractive default theme for the OS. While the orange and brown look isn’t terrible, it could be a lot prettier than it is. Still, you can change themes in the system preferences. There are some subtle new visual pleasantries in this Ubuntu release, such as the selected text box on your page has a highlighted glow, as one example.

I have read some complaints about the implementation of PulseAudio within Ubuntu 8, but I don’t know enough about that to comment. I’m not entirely certain what those issues are about, and they haven’t affected me. If that is something that concerns you, know that rumor has it that Ubuntu is going to eventually release version 8.04.1 with fixes for PulseAudio. Perhaps in that release, Firefox 3 will be finalized as well.

If you are interested in Linux, Ubuntu 8 is the one to try. I have had no problems at all, and haven’t once had to resort to the command line to get something done. Hooray! I’d suggest booting to the live CD to check that your Internet connection is going to work before you install it outright. If you use an Ethernet cable, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

As a footnote, I should mention that Fedora has just released version 9 of its Linux distro, which graphically has the prettiest interface, in my opinion. Also, OpenSuse will release version 11 of their distro in about a month. I have found past versions of Fedora and Suse to be a little harder to manage (espeically Fedora), so I have decided to stick with Ubuntu, for simplicity and ease.

In reality, I don’t know how often I’ll need to use a program such as this, but Handbrake works incredibly well, and doesn’t cost a cent.

Today, I decided to actually install Ubuntu on my laptop. This is as easy as booting the CD and clicking “install” on the desktop. I was only asked a few simple questions, such as language and time zone information. Installation was a breeze. It didn’t take long at all. I am using it now to write this blog entry. I hadn’t used Linux before on a processor any higher than an old Pentium-III. My Dell laptop is much faster than that and Linux is surprisingly snappy. Even the external media player buttons work, without any setup at all.

My only complaint is that it isn’t easy to choose between Ubuntu and Windows for the default operating system. This should be made clear and simple during installation. It knows I use Windows, because it had to resize my Windows NTFS partition to make room for Linux. I wish it would ask me which OS I want to boot to. If nothing else, make it an easy option in the system preferences. The only way I could configure this was using the Terminal and manually editing the menu.lst file in the Grub folder. It took me a couple of tries to get it so that Windows booted automatically after five seconds. Still, that is small potatoes compared to Linux from years past.

Ubuntu 7.04 is awesome. I am very happy with it. The new desktop effects are really cool. I have only been using it for a couple of hours now and I am very happy with it all around. I think the Linux community has a clear winner. Thanks to Ubuntu, I think Linux may finally be a true desktop contender.

The next Ubuntu release is slated for April 2007. I don’t think I’ll be trying out any new distros until then. This one is simply the best there is, in my opinion.

I know that video drivers from nVidia and ATI have been tweaked for Windows for years. Windows has more direct hardware support than Linux does, but I have always heard of Linux as being touted for older, slower PCs. Supposedly, it has fewer system requirements than Windows or Mac OS does. This makes no sense to me, because my PC is an old Intel P-3 933 mhz, with 1 GB ram, and a 128 mb video card. My system is surely outdated, but I have seen even new releases with memory requirements as low as 128 mb! No way.

When compared to Windows XP Pro, jumping through applications, dragging onscreen windows, and video playback in Linux is way slower and more sluggish. If it can run on an even slower PC than mine, I wouldn’t want to be there to see it. I have found this to be true in Fedora, Ubuntu, and SuSe. The most obvious example is dragging open windows on the desktop creates trails and tracers all over the screen from start point to finish.

This weekend, I wiped my Ununtu partition. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is the best available today, as I have said before in this blog. But I like to test out some other releases, so I installed the just-released Fedora Core 6. It has newer programs, libraries, and visuals, but the root of the above problem remains unchanged. Web browsing is fast and IP connections are surely speedy. But when I played flash videos on YouTube, the video wasn’t quite keeping up with the audio. There was a slightly noticeable delay on the screen. Granted, this may be due to the crappy Flash Player version 7 for Linux. I know that there is a new beta of version 9 available, but I did not try this. Besides, since that just came out a few weeks ago, so does that mean everyone watching web video and playing flash games in Linux for all this time has been tolerating slow, sluggish performance? If so, then why use it? When I tried playing a locally installed pinball game in Fedora, the system response was so delayed that I had a hard time hitting the ball with the flappers because there was a half second delay from when I hit the button and when the flap actually moved!

In the end, Linux is going to need some more tweaking and optimization to eve bring it close to the speed of Windows. I think it desperately needs some direct hardware driver support, especially in the video card arena. The system boot time has surely decreased over the years, but actual running performance for anything other than email, documents, spreadsheets, and the web, has got to improve if Linux is ever to be a real desktop contender.

Fedora is very barebones. You have to do a lot of tweaking and manual labor to get it the way you like it. That said, it is a solid OS. Suse is easier in the sense that it takes a lot of that work away during the installation, even automatically mounting Windows partitions. It tries to be more user-friendly. Ubuntu, however, out shines them both. It is the slickest, easiest version of Linux I have ever installed. I am running v6.06 (Dapper Drake). This new 6.06 has been billed as LTS (Long Term Support), with updates and patches for three years on the desktop.

Instead of downloading five CDs worth of programs, all I needed was to download and install a single CD. It is a “live” CD where you can boot from the CD and use the operating system to try it out before it ever writes to your hard drive. After that, installing the OS is dead easy. There is a link on the desktop to install. The single CD has most of the tools you’ll need to be up and running. If you want more, you download them via an interface much like the Windows “add/remove programs”, but this pulls all of the software from online servers. I found the software and libraries to be shockingly up-to-date when I first installed the OS, even though it supposedly came out in June of this year.

The update icon on the desktop actually works! Unlike the other distros, this one actually reports and updates correctly from the taskbar without any command line entry. Finally! In fact, I haven’t needed to use the command line hardly at all. Everything is pretty much perfect as-is. Adding to my amazement, when I put the Ubuntu Live CD into my Dell laptop, the wireless net connection worked instantly with no questions asked. I was stunned! Never in any other Linux distro was I ever able to get wireless networking to actually work.

To make life even easier, some folks have put together a package of goodies to install to your Ubuntu system in a single swoop. It is called Easy Ubuntu and installs things like java, flash, acrobat, audio/video codecs, etc. It is awesome!

I am very satisfied with this Linux build. I have been reading about how a new version is supposed to be released this October. This is my first experience with Ubuntu, and from what I’ve seen, their slogan “Linux for Human Beings” actually holds true. If you want to try Linux, this is the one to get, hands down.

Links: Ubuntu, Easy Ubuntu, Ubuntu Guide