Several months back, I built a new computer because the one we had was extremely slow, especially for the photo-processing and drawing programs that Anya was trying to run. The computer that I was replacing was a cheap $300 computer which I had purchased just after my mission. To say the least, it was time for something new. Well, being a computer geek, I wasn't about to get rid of that old computer.
What did I do with it?
First off, I installed a fresh blank copy of Windows XP. I put a few programs on there, and that was that. I also put a couple of games on there (Diablo and Starcraft). For a few weeks I was playing a lot of games but I got tired of that after a while.
Next I put on a copy of Ubuntu as a dual-boot. What does that mean? Basically, I could start my computer into Ubuntu or Windows. If you don't know what Ubuntu is, then you are like a lot of people out there. Ubuntu is a free Operating System that is based off of Linux. Linux is that ugly command line:
Fast forward several months to today and you'll find that I have booted Windows on that machine for at least 6 months and I've been thinking as of late that I really want to just get rid of Windows on it completely. Here are just a few of the things that I love about Ubuntu:
- It's fast. I mean it is really fast compared to any of my windows machines.
- It's lightweight. You can run Ubuntu on practically nothing. You can actually boot Ubuntu up from a thumb/usb drive and not install anything. Obviously you lose any changes or customizations that you make, but it is a fun way to try it out.
- It's got cool graphics. That's right. Check out this video of some of the fun things that Ubuntu does:
- Recognizes everything and gets everywhere. I can plug anything into it and it always recognizes it. I don't have to install any drivers and watch any annoying balloons. It just works. Not too mention the fact that I can get anywhere on my network. With Windows I can't find anything (a printer on my network for example doesn't show up half the time in Windows, but is always found by my Ubuntu machine).
- It just feels more natural to use it. I can't really explain this one. You just have to use it.
- FREE! And FREE programs for everything.
If you have never used Ubuntu, you definitely need to check it out. There are two ways to do so.
1. As I mentioned above, download a copy of the latest version and put it on a CD or USB drive. You can then restart your computer and work from that without even installing anything on your computer. Obviously this is kind of a pain because you can't save anything.
2. Install it as a Virtual Machine. This is actually really easy and something that I recently did on my work laptop as I needed a linux environment to test some different commands out on. Here is the quick run down:
- Download VirtualBox.
- Install VirtualBox.
- Download Ubuntu.
- Run VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine.
I know it sounds scary, but it's really not and really easy. Here are the instructions I followed.
The next computer I have for myself will have Ubuntu as it's base operating system with Windows as a virtual machine. I would much rather work in the Linux environment than in the Windows envrionment. Definitely check it out.
Oh yeah, the biggest downside of Ubuntu is that there are some things that don't support it. The biggest thing is my Nokia phone. Nokia is a Windows shop. I blame them.
