Ubuntu Who?
Dell currently has a Black Friday deal on the Inspiron Mini 9. Me want, but it runs on the Linux-based, open-source operating system Ubuntu and I am used to Windows and Apple.
Ubuntu (oo-BOON-too), however, is a foreign beast to me. What to do, what to do?
I installed it! I’m currently running Ubuntu on my laptop right now—the laptop I’m using to write this blog entry. It was a bit tricky at first. Installation took a while, and then there were several long updates to the installation files, and then I couldn’t get wi-fi to work until I found a forum posting about forcing updates and the downloading of drivers to support my wireless card. After all that, I was sure that I’d end up hating it, but you know what… it ain’t bad at all.
I’ve been having problems for nearly a year now with my laptop and Windows XP. It was slow to start, slow to restart, and gave me the blue screen of death often. I kept getting errors that a new driver was causing issues and to uninstall it, but I haven’t installed any new drivers! I figured I’d give Ubuntu a try since I didn’t have anything to lose; I did a dual install so I still have Windows and my files on this computer just in case.
Right now though, I’m liking how fast Ubuntu has been, I like their dual workspace/desktop option, and their panel system. I also like the cool though unnecessary effects as I drag and resize my application windows. I was also pleasantly surprised by all the software it came with, especially Pidgin and GIMP, though I’m not sure if I can settle for GIMP when I’m so used to Photoshop. Is there a Linux version of Photoshop? Well, first things first, I downloaded all my must-have Firefox extensions (Colorzilla, SearchStatus, Download Statusbar, Web Developer, Forecast Fox, and of course, AdBlock Plus), customized my Firefox theme, and loaded my bookmark. Now it’s time to go find my software programs and hope they run on Linux.
Fingers crossed.
Next: Shopping for a Netbook
Tags: ubuntu
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