The complete newbie Ubuntu Linux review.

Inspired by a WordPress blog today, I decided that it was high time for me to have a look at Linux.

First, I’ll tell you a little about myself, so you know where I’m coming from in this review:

I’ve been a computer user since I was about three, starting on the ZX Spectrum 48K, then the Commodore VIC-20, through more consoles than I can count (I genuinly do believe that I owned every console ever released up until the PS3, including the Atari Jaguar and the NeoGeo), the Amiga 500 and then the Amiga 1200, through probably dozens of PCs. Once upon a way-back-when, I could just about manage to code in Pascal and C++ (but I haven’t so much as looked at that kind of code in about a decade) and I can still code simple XHTML when I need to (though I prefer to cheat and use Dreamweaver). I’ve always (not suprisingly, considering Microsoft’s global dominance) been a Windows user, however I did pride myself back in the days of DOS 6.0 that I could use it to more than just launch windows 3.1! I’ve never had any difficulty using Windows; in fact, I’m considered the office “go-to guy” when my colleagues are struggling with their XP installs and getting no answers from the Fujitsu Siemens helpdesk. I’m so used to Windows, in fact, that it only took me two or three days to find work-arounds for the infinite variety of bugs in Vista (which I’ve been running since launch).

So, that’s me: a home PC user, but a pretty tech-savvy one.

What I do not know how to use is Linux. Up until this morning, I’d never even seen it. I don’t know how the console works, I don’t know any of the commands to use it, I don’t even know what format they should be in. That said, I think that lack of Linux experience puts me in the ideal position to write this review: If Linux is going to take over the home PC market in significant numbers, its coders need feedback from people like me – actually, what it really needs is feedback from people who are much more PC noobish than I’ve ever been, but people like that are unlikely to try Linux in its current forms, so I’ll have to do!

Let’s start at the begining, then. My first tax was to decide on which of the many versions of Linux I wanted to use (these are called “distributions” or “distros”). Linux, being Open Source, comes in a variety of forms. A lot of them are designed for running servers, but there are a few out there which are designed for desktop PCs. I’m not going to list them; Google it yourself if you want to know! What I’ve settled on is reputed to be the easiest, most intuitive of the desktop distros, Ubuntu Linux (specifically build 8.04, Hardy Herron).

The download was easy to find, and I was pleased to note that it would let me run a Linux Kernel from the disk (note: the download is an ISO file, a CD image which you have to burn onto a disk – there are dozens of free programs which do this for you, in fact my PC came pre-installed with Roxio Creator which did it for me). The importance of this was obvious: I could play with Linux without installing it or playing with my PC too much – Brilliant! This I duly did. Except… It just felt half-arsed. There were things I couldn’t do that I wanted to do, and it annoyed me, so I bit the bullet and…. As it turned out, made mistake number 1!

I assumed (correctly) that Linux was going to need its own partition on my Hard Disk Drive (HDD), and (incorrectly) that I would have to put it on there myself. I dutifully downloaded EASEUS Partition Manager, and set about slotting a 60Gb partition on the ample free space on my HDD (in fact, Ubuntu only needs 4Gb, but I figured what the hell, it’s not like I’m short of space). I then popped my newly burned Ubuntu CD into the drive and restarted the machine to boot from the CD (note to noobs: Most machines will look at the CD drive first and boot from there if there’s a disk in it – if yours doesn’t, you’ll need to go into your BIOS and change the boot order. It’s not difficult, so Google it, it would take too long to explain here).

Ubuntu promptly fired itself up and asked if I wanted to run from the CD, install Linux, or boot from the other drive (i.e. Windows). I clicked install. And here’s where I discovered my error: The very first thing which Ubuntu did was guide me through setting up a new partition on which to install Linux. At this point, I quit, fired up Windows, deleted the partition I had already created and started again!

The installation process was fast and seemless – anybody who’s ever restored their Windows Vista loadout will tell you that it takes hours, so I was pleasantly suprised at the five or ten minutes it took. I was presented with a desktop in the familiar “Windows, Icons, Mouse Pointer” (or WIMP) theme that is by now familiar to the entire Western world. So far so good. My next task was to get the drivers for my graphics card installed – this was the part I was dreading! I had no idea how to do this, so it was time to find out how intuitive this interface really is! Hmmm, there’s a button on the task-bar called “System”, that’s promising… Aha, a little picture of a gear with “Administration” next to it, okay, let’s go there… A button labelled “Hardware Drivers” – surely it can’t be this easy? Well, it is! A click on that button showed a list pane in which sat my nVidea 8400GT, without a tick in the “enabled” box. I ticked the box, and Ubuntu promptly downloaded and installed that drivers, before restarting my rig and bringing me smoothly back to where I was, only with graphics acceleration. Kudos!

A short side note on rebooting: Without the CD in the drive, the first thing my PC now does when I fire it up is to ask me which partition I’d like to boot from. Turn on, choose Windows or Linux, carry on. That really is a very handy feature, so full marks there.

Now; after a little experimentation, I found that Linux doesn’t run .EXE files (in my view a major failing if it’s trying to attract home users). A little bit of Google love, however, led me to Wine for Linux, a nice little program that – guess what? – runs .EXE files in Linux. Happy day! Putting Wine on the machine was not a task I’d ask my parents to complete, though. It does involve using the console (the Linux equivalent of the DOS or Command prompt), but thankfully the Wine website gives complete instructions, including lines of code which can be copied and pasted into your console window. At this point, I have to say to the makers of Ubuntu: For the love of God, bind the CTRL+C, CTRL+V and CTRL+X as well as the right-click functions the same way that Windows does! It’s the standard which the whole planet is used to, it’s simple, it’s practical, and I for one do not like having to look to find the copy and paste buttons! Also, put Wine in your OS as standard! Anybody who doesn’t want to use .EXE files is going to be savvy enough to know how to remove it, but a lot of people who do want to use them aren’t going to be confident in their ability to add it!

Anyway, that done, I decided to run a .EXE file. Through the “Places” menu, I found the folder containing X3:Reunion on my Vista partition, and ran the .EXE using Wine. And it worked! Not flawlessly, it was missing some sounds, but there can be no doubt that it did work – Considering I was running it from the wrong partition, I was impressed. I decided to go one better: I had the CD backed up as an ISO – could I re-install it to the Linux partition and see if it was better here? No, is the short answer. While I’ve found virtual drive mapping programs for Linux (like Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120 for Windows) through Google, what I have not found is a newbies guide to installing them.

This, I have to say, is a major criticism I have of the Linux community: If you’re going to publish your binary and you want people to use it, please assume that some of those people are, like me, going to be complete and total newbies to Linux! It’s the first rule of selling a product (okay, they’re giving it away, but the point stands): If you want to sell something, make it as easy as possible to buy. So tell us how to download the code and what we need to type in the console to make it do stuff!

A short test soon revealed that most of the games on my PC won’t run in Linux, even when I have the disk. That’s dissapointing, and it’s a point I’ll come back to later.

Features wise, Linux comes with Pidgin, a simple IM program that can interact with pretty much any other IM program (such as Windows Live or AIM). It has Firefox, which should be intuitive to anybody who’s used any tabbed browser before, and it comes with OpenOffice – which I’ve always used because I’m buggered if I’m paying the prices Microsoft charges for the MS Office suite when I can get a better one for free that will work in the same file formats if you ask it to. Firefox prompts you to download plugins as you need them, as do the inbuilt media players. All in all, I have to say I’m liking it. Ubuntu is not bad at all.

Except… I have a Linux partition now, which I intend to keep and to use – but I still can’t get rid of my windows partition. There are too many programs and games which just won’t run in Linux. This is a massive advantage for Microsoft: Got Windows? Then you don’t need Linux. Got Linux? Well tough, you still need a Windows partition.

Another note: It’s great that Linux lets you choose how to run it, I fully aprove of that mindset – It’s my PC, I paid for it, so Bill Gates can ram it up his hoop if he thinks he can tell me how to run it. Top stuff. BUT. And it’s a capital BUT. Linux needs a simpler method of installing programs other than the console. It won’t attract home users until it has one. Yes, I know about the Add/Remove applications tool, which is very good as far as it goes, but if there’s a way to get it to add an application which isn’t in its pre-determined list, I haven’t yet found it. What I’d ideally like to be able to do is to download an archive or pop a disk in the drive, tell Linux it’s there and let it get on with installing it for me – without me having to learn what is essentially a new programming language! I was hugely frustrated that I couldn’t find a simple instruction set for putting the Linux equivalent of Daemon Tools on to my Linux partition, and gave up on it as a bad job. Okay, so I know that I’ll end up going back to it later and figuring it out, but still…

So that’s me, the Linux noob, starting my Ubuntu adventure today.

Obama’s Birth Certificate FOUND!

Right here: http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate

Just to clarify, that’s a certificate of LIVE BIRTH, not naturalisation, LIVE. BIRTH. Quit your pathetic smears about “vault copies”‘ - He was born in HAWAII, YOU STUPID, RACIST *£$*S! NOW SHUT THE *£$* UP!

Edit: Pay close attention to the BOTTOM of the certificate, by the way: “This copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of the birth in any court proceedings”. Shove your “vaulted copy” up your… Nose.

Mandatory Voter and Candidate IQ testing.

An idea I had to improve the state of US politics today:

No person with an IQ below 130 should be allowed to stand for public office.

No person with an IQ below 110 should be allowed to vote.

No journalist etc. with an IQ below 150 should be allowed to make political comment.

No person with an IQ higher than an amoeba should miss an opportunity to smash Rush Limbaugh’s brains out with a blunt object.

It’s like this, America: You guys seem to think it’s okay to be stupid, with you’re flag-worship and your (HIGHLY selective) worship of your Constitution, with your incredibly myopic yet utterly unshakable belief that your own (mostly atheist) founding fathers would want everybody to have “good Christian values” even though what you think of as “good Christian values” and what Jesus would have thought of as good values are about a billion miles apart, with your unfaltering way of answering the question “What would Jesus do?” in any given situation with the predictable response “The same thing that I’d do!” without ever considering how stupid an attitude that is, with your people in positions of power who claim to have divine and supernatural visitations and powers (something Europe got out of the way about 600 years ago, by the way), and finally (and this one’s the kicker), with you society that is SO mentally deficient that you’d allow a lying, under-educated, charmless, offensive, bimbo who believes that the world is 4000 years old and that we’re in the last days before “rapture”, to run for Vice President.

America, you are the world’s biggest international joke. The measures which I’ve suggested might, with the help of MENSA and the immediate cessation of your RIDICULOUS military spending in favour of funding education instead (5% of the world’s population, 50% of the world’s military spending, yet also the richest nation on Earth and consistently the worst educated, it’s fucking pathetic) might JUST bring you back into some form of respectability.

The other alternative is a new civil war, where the Democrats kick the republicans back down to Texas and let them get on with their in-breeding where they can’t bother anybody. You choose.