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Goodbye Gentoo, Hello Ubuntu

I think I’m officially switching from Gentoo Linux to Ubuntu Linux.  Despite having what can only be described as one of the dumbest names imaginable, Ubuntu (that’s oo-BOON-too) seems to have largely achieved the holy grail of Linux computing: it just works.

I downloaded its single-CD installation file, booted a system with it, and within an hour had a completely up-to-date Linux desktop.  Checking the "sync with time servers" box on the Date/Time dialog actually works, with no need to manually install/configure any NTP nonsense.  It comes with Firefox, Gaim, and OpenOffice right out of the box, and you can install new packages from the GUI with automatic dependency resolution.  It even auto-updates just like Windows and OS X.

I’m sure I’ll be writing more about this, but for now I’m in shock and had to put something up quick.  It’s just so exciting to see a Linux distro that is both simple to install and simple to maintain.

Posted by Anthony on Jun 2, 2006 | 8 replies
Filed under: Linux, Neato, Tech

Comments:

01. Jun 2, 2006 at 09:59pm by Kim:

This is fantastic...
I’m happy to be your oo-BOON-too guinea pig. (Anthony: "it’s an African word. It means... something really gay.")

Ubuntu operating system comes with a lovely tree background (other accessories sold separately). I couldn’t find the paper, though (my trusty text editor).

"The Paper, come on down and meet your new brother! Come on! It’s okay!... Ubuntu’s not going to bite you or tear at your perforated edges!"

02. Jun 4, 2006 at 02:04am by Kev:

So does that mean that you are going to run this site with Ubuntu?

03. Jun 4, 2006 at 03:02pm by andy:

darrin (guy i work with) put unbuntu on his powerbook, it was pretty slick even running on mac hardware... too bad linux will still never run nuendo, or ANY good audio software... windows 4 lyfe?

04. Jun 4, 2006 at 06:15pm by Anthony:

Yours is a sad, sad fate.

Kev: I’m still in the process of moving this site from Bytemark(.co.uk) to Dreamhost; on Bytemark it runs Debian, and on Dreamhost I don’t have control over the OS.

05. Jun 5, 2006 at 03:31pm by andy:

sad fate? not really... i choose to be a zealot about my music, not about my operating system.  given either of the 3 most popular i would still find a way to make and do what i want, windows just happens to be the most applicable environment right now.  os x would work as well if it didn’t try to pretty everything up with antialiasing, thus making the application run slow doing routine zoomin-zoomout operations.  THAT is just aggravating.

i’m sure ardour development is coming along fine, among other apps, but not nearly as fast as the rest of the software i use on a daily basis, much less support for the PCI DSP i use will _never_ see the light of day in a linux environment.

windows doesn’t give me problems really, a lot of what makes my audio apps crash are freebie probably-not-coded-so-well plugins and instruments i download.  but then, that’s just asking for it.

06. Jun 5, 2006 at 04:42pm by Anthony:

It’s a sad fate not because you’re a zealot, but because you have no choice; your hardware has chosen for you.  But if Windows doesn’t give you problems then I guess it’s not that sad.

07. Jun 7, 2006 at 10:27pm by andy:

it’s worth any trouble for how this pci dsp card sounds =D  (aka, amazing)

08. Jun 8, 2006 at 02:15pm by Kev:

Based on this article, and a few other reviews, I installed Ubuntu 6.06 and the install process went very well. I installed the ’desktop’ version, but installed PHP5, MySQL and Lighttpd, and it was smooth.  I guess if you are familiar with apt, you’ll have no problem. It’s definitely easier to install and configure than the stock Debian.
So... thanks for this post! It convinced me to try Ubuntu (again)!

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