taken from : http://www.skunkworks.ro/?p=19
I am a proficient Windows XP user and more, but after seeing what’s Vista going to be with all the issues in relation to implementing security and the way Microsoft wants to license it, I decided that it is time for me to try to find an alternative. This was happening around a month ago after I attended a Microsoft Techday dedicated to Vista. So in the past month I used exclusively Ubuntu Linux 6.10 on my laptop. Below is the journal of what happened.
I’ve wiped out Windows XP from an IBM Thinkpad R51, selected boot from CD and started the install. Installation went smoothly, everything got recognized including the wirelles network card and I realized that in this particular case Linux installation was easier that a Windows XP installation. I didn’t had to manually install drivers for everything: motherboard, video card, soundcard, network, power management etc….
Then I had in front of me the standard Ubuntu desktop and it took me around 30 minutes to realize that I can delete and recreate panels the way I want it. You know as long as you are going after the windows users why don’t you give them an option during install to select a panel layout which is similar with the taskbar in windows?
Then I went on the net and following instructions from their site I installed Automatix which allowed me to install audio and video codecs (including standard windows codecs), Adobe Reader, Skype, windows fonts, gaim 2.0 RC and VLC. I understand why you are not including these in the distribution and I see that you are planning to allow some easier integration of these binaries and licensed codecs in the next release.
Everything so far took me around 90 minutes from the moment I started the installation.
Then I realized the fonts are not as pretty as the windows fonts with cleartype enabled. I tried to play with the settings but I still wasn’t happy. I had to read some forum, install an Xserver patch which because of apt-get and copy paste went fine and again playing with settings and choosing standard antialiasing and to LCD antialiasing. At this stage the fonts are looking ok, but still not as pretty as in windows. Now jumping a little bit ahead in the story: After using OpenOffice, Abiword, Gaim, Firefox, and some other Gnome applications I saw that in some applications the fonts are looking better than in other applications. I really don’t care why, but it is important to me that fonts should look the same in all applications and at least as pretty as in windows without being forced to achieve something like that using the command line. Ubuntu still has some work to do here. Fonts part, is usable but a little bit annoying.
After that I installed my standard firefox extensions, again everything went smoothly
I opened Openoffice and I realized that the icons are bigger than in the windows version. I had to go into settings and reset the icon dimensions. Again why this is different on linux I do not understand. It took me 5 minutes to make Openoffice look like the windows version, but ubuntu could have done that at build time.
I had other minor annoyances:
* I am used from windows that when something goes wrong with a program to right click the taskbar and kill that program. Because I had issues with Firefox 2.0 (which could have been related to extensions) it took me 3-4 minutes until I discovered system monitor. Maybe Ubuntu guys will implement the right click shortcut in the next release.
* I am not able to understand why only some software is in add remove programs and the rest of it is in synaptic manager. Can you guys integrate more software from the synaptic manager into add remove programs? I know that maybe there are some packaging issues, but it is awkard for a guy coming from windows.
* I like the desktop integration, but you could add some bits like new open office document. Also maybe I would like not to use send to mail using Evolution because I am using webmail. I wasn’t able to remove Evolution without removing the desktop functionality. So I just hided the evolution from the menu. Again usable but a little annoying
* I have an Sony Erricsson K750i, I tried to connect the phone to the laptop using bluetooth and an Asus bluetooth adapter. The bluetooth adapter was recognized, and I was able to pair the phone with the laptop. I wasn’t able to transfer files or syncronize the phone with the laptop using Gnome Phone Manager. I would like to be able to achieve this using only the mouse and not going into command line
* I am a happy webmail user for both my business Exchange account and for my gmail personal account. I used firefox before on windows, but it still annoying that nobody was able to come up with an extension or a greasemonkey script which could render the OWA interface in firefox the way it looks in IE6. Not really an ubuntu issue, but maybe guys you can do something about it.
* The last issue that I had was that I wasn’t able to connect by CDMA modem. Is recognized by the operating system but the guys in the support center from the telco are plain stupid. Again not really an ubuntu issue.
I really like the way ubuntu deals with running things as an administrator (root, sudo). Much easier than Vista. After a month of using exclusively I am a happy user, but I know I could have been a little happier. I know that if I start to learn command line syntax, I would be able to become a little happier, but I have no intention to learn another script (command line) syntax. I was able to do everything that I was doing on windows: browsing, email, IM , office work, watching movies (all possible formats, including in a flash player in browser), burning cds, listening to podcasts, downloading using bit torrent, updating my blog, connecting using remote admin to a windows server that I have under control, connecting using to other computer using vnc protocol.
I still have 2 things to achieve connecting to a windows domain and sharing files using samba (I didn’t had to do that yet) and printing again I didn’t had to print anything (I am against printing, but this is another discussion). For the time being if I will solve the issue with the CDMA modem, Ubuntu is going to become my main OS.
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