Ubuntu - The Human Face Of Operating Systems (Ubuntu 6.06 LTS)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Ubuntu 6.06 LTS
Date:	11/01/07 (283 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free - easy to install - easy to use. Doesn't need a fancy machine

Disadvantages: Not totally comprehensive in the field of availible applications but getting better

If there’s one name that evokes more under-the-collar heat in the computing world than anything else it’s Microsoft. Seemingly, Bill Gates & Co won’t be satisfied without world domination, and if I read it right, the next Windows version coming down the pipe, i.e. Vista may well be a kiss of death for hobbyists like me who build their own PCs, or maybe just evolve their PCs with a stage-by-stage upgrade.

The reason for this fear is that the registration process for the new system is thought to allow for only three ‘major’* changes to the system hardware before requiring a new copy of the operating system to be bought.

*Microsoft’s definition of ‘major’ no doubt.

Therefore, anyone upgrading their CPU, and maybe starting from scratch with a new larger hard drive will only have ‘one life’ left (with no option to ‘phone a friend’), which leaves little scope for something actually failing.

And if you think Microsoft has been underhand and draconian in the past, wait till you see what Gatesy’s successor has in store when young Bill stands down!

Maybe this is the point to jump ship and look elsewhere for an operating system.

Well, of course, I could always switch my allegiance to Apple Macs, but this wouldn’t satisfy my need to tinker, upgrade and evolve my PC, since Apple’s are specifically designed for those who don’t want to ‘lift the bonnet lid’.

In the past, I’d toyed with an older ‘Redhat’ version of Linux, and if my memory serves me correctly, I even wrote about it. Linux is actually a FREE operating system, but up until recently, you’d still end up paying say 40 quid for it (OK, still peanuts compared to a Microsoft offering), courtesy of the fact that there’s no use having an operating system with no software to run on it, and thus this is how ‘proprietary distributions’ of Linux like Redhat or Suse could justify it actually costing money, say for instance by adding in a productivity suite like Sun Microsystems’ StarOffice to rival, or at least do a similar job to MS Office.

However, you can now get utterly free versions of web-browsers, e-mail clients and even productivity suites (see OpenOffice 2.0 which is based on StarOffice but now even contains an ‘Access-like’ database).

This leaves the door open for some altruistic person or persons to launch a truly free version of Linux and this is where UBUNTU comes in.

UBUNTU IF UWANTO – KOZ UKANDO MORE EEZILY THAN U USEDTU

A visit to the www.ubuntu.com web-site reveals that ‘ubuntu’ means ‘humanity to others’ or thereabouts.

It also reveals how to get hold of Ubuntu. Downloading is the easiest way, but please do be warned that it’s nearly a CD-ROM-full so unless you’ve got broadband, opt to be sent the CD-ROM through the post - I'm tempted to say that this would be quicker than using 'dial-up'!.

When it comes to choosing a version of Ubuntu, I was naturally timid about taking on

a) a totally new system and

b) the very latest beta-test version

all in one go so I opted for the slightly older version 6.06 LTS known enigmatically as ‘Dapper Drake’; the LTS standing for Long Term Support (i.e at least 3 years). No doubt Worldy Wildebeeste and Zenophobic Zebra* may figure in future version titles.

*(No sillier than some of the code names given to forthcoming Microsoft projects, and just don’t get me started on ‘Bluetooth’!)

The download arrives as what is known as an ‘ISO file’, that is to say a single ginormous file with a ‘dot-ISO’ extension. You then need to create a CD-ROM maybe by fiddling with something like Nero - presumably while your “ROM(E) burns” geddit?. Ahead Nero is one of the many CD-burning tools capable of taking an image file (that’s what an ISO file is) and turning it into a CD-ROM of unpacked real files.

If you haven’t got anything like Nero, the Ubuntu site can even point you to some free image burning software.

This stage went surprisingly easily since I’d no real notion what I was doing (when all else fails, I suppose I could always have read the instructions!). I must have done something right because I ended up with a bootable CD-ROM of Ubuntu version 6.06 LTS, all dapper and drake-like.

I’m not silly enough to forsake all my current PC contents in one frenzy of ‘de-Bill-Gatesing’ myself, but I do have a second PC into which I was able to jack an alternative c:drive.

The reason for my caution is the lesson learned with the older Redhat Linux, which I found to be less than satisfactory in so many ways.

Quite apart from the almost complete lack of any instructions beyond the initial ‘how to install it’ booklet, it wasn’t, to my mind the slightest bit intuitive, which I think you’ll agree, coupled with the lack of instructions is pretty bad news.

Likewise, although my internet connection via my router just somehow ‘happened’, finding drivers for the likes of printers and other kit was nigh on impossible. Despite having printers that were neither the latest thing nor decrepit, getting a peep out of Redhat Linux proved beyond me and came back to the Windows fold, tail between legs. At that stage, my forays into any kind of Linux ground to a halt. Anything that left me dependant on Windows just to seek my salvation was, well, a bit too much like sleeping with the enemy. Sure you could find a forum somewhere and some nerd would no doubt set about writing you the drivers for an Okikoki 2000 printer, but this was hardly the way ahead for a mass escape from the clutches of Microshaft.

Ubuntu, by contrast, seems to come with a sizeable drivers library, rather like Windows XP does, and like Windows takes its best stab at a plug-and-play process during the install period. It had no trouble spotting obscure items like my TV Tuner card (mind you, I’ve still no software with which to run it as yet!), and any printers attached directly to the PC were no trouble to set up, once you found your way around Ubuntu’s equivalent of Control Panel. Indeed any shared printers only remotely accessible via my Windows network also worked once I bit the bullet and had a go at adding the Ubuntu machine to my home network. This went extremely easily once I’d overcome a problem with the network settings on my other PC – hardly Ubuntu’s fault.

WHAT ELSE DO YOU GET?

As I mentioned earlier, there’s now a totally free productivity suite in the form of OpenOffice 2.0, which is ‘Office compatible’, being able to accept familiar .doc, .xls and .ppt formats as well as having an Access looky-likey database. It can also save back to those formats for almost 100% compatibility with others still using MS Office. I use the word ‘almost’ as I’ve found some obscure Excel functions that I still use, which don’t work any more on OpenOffice’s spreadsheet. – BUT you have to dig hard to find them. Anyone new to computing is going to find OpenOffice every bit as useful as MS Office.

Then of course you also get the very popular Firefox browser, and an e-mail client.

You can even start to wean yourself away from Microsoft is easy stages, as you can find a Firefox and the Thunderbird e-mail client to run on Windows all for free.

Where Linux’ offering starts to try your resolve is when you realise just what else you’ve started to rely upon in Windows, like a bank-account management software package (e.g Quicken or MS Money). You do get CD burning software and a graphics package called GIMP, which I do find a little less easy to wheel and deal with than Photoshop, but hey, it’s free!

In fact all through this process, just keep reminding yourself of that – it makes some of the less satisfactory aspects easier to swallow.

INSTALLING

Really, this couldn’t be much easier, and it’s easier, dare I venture to say than any Windows system I’ve put in recently. The CD-ROM is bootable, that is to say, even if your c:drive isn’t yet formatted, the PC will boot as long as you’ve included the CD-drive in the boot up process. Most modern PCs can do this.

You get clear indications of how much progress is being made, until you suddenly notice that your PC is now managing to run from c:drive. You can actually opt to use just some of the hard drive for Ubuntu, keeping a certain amount set aside for Windows too*, as a ‘dual boot’ machine. Ubuntu lets you decide how much space to give each system. I’d heard it said that Ubuntu Linux wouldn’t ‘see’ files on a Windows formatted drive (i.e NTFS) but this proved to be pessimistic. Once able to use my home network to the full, I could wheel and deal my Windows ‘docs’ and ‘ex-ell-esses’ with the best of them!.

(*This isn’t my main PC, so I opted to erase the previous contents and use the whole drive for Ubuntu.)

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Well, it’s a GUI-based system, i.e like Windows graphical user interface. However, it’s not at all cluttered with icons that it ‘thinks’ you might want, like sign-up wizards for Microsoft products.

The top left of the initial screen just has three drop-down menus, one for applications, one for ‘places’ (Drives, network connections etc) and the other for system settings.

The Applications menu, drops down to show you, as you’d expect a list of the installed software, such as OpenOffice and GIMP. The Places Menu is like a combination of Windows Explorer/My Computer and ‘Network Places’

‘Settings’ is really a repository for anything to do with configuration. It’s from here that you’d add a printer or join a network – I suppose it’s a bit like Windows Control Panel

WHAT ABOUT SECURITY?

It may come as a surprise that security doesn’t seem to be much of an issue. Whether this is because Ubuntu is an altruistic affair, and therefore less prone to a ‘Robin Hood-style’ assault from those intent on bringing down Microsoft, or maybe its code is superior leaving less loop-holes for ‘nasties’ to worm their way in, I couldn’t say. It could of course be a matter of a bit of both. You can certainly get a Linux version of the admirable AVG Anti-Virus software for free that’s one thing for certain.

In fact this whole experiment has had me thinking “I wonder if there’s a Linux version”, every time I visit a software house’s website these days.

I couldn’t see a Linux version of the Zone Alarm firewall, but anyone nestling behind a router like I am has a certain degree of firewalling anyway – a further search turned up a firewall that was ‘free’ subject to a Paypal donation, so it’s all starting to look favourable as a serious contender, rather than something only for hobbyists.

ROUNDING UP

Someone told me that the City of Munich’s local government has thrown their lot in with a Linux-based system. The savings in operating system costs and office application licenses must be staggering. The only downside would be retraining of IT staff, but in my experience they’re more interested in a challenge like that than actually dealing with their users! Users used to MS Office wouldn’t need much retraining at all, in fact you have to pinch yourself to remind yourself that it isn’t MS Office. Besides which, the capital and ongoing savings must outweigh the down-sides, or so at least the mayor of Munich thinks so!

The advances made since Redhat version 5.0 days are enormous – not only is the ‘plug and play’ every bit as good as that of Windows (is it me or is that what they mean by being damned with faint praise?), but the selection of software bundled makes it useful from day one.

I’d certainly recommend giving it a try on an old machine – oh yes, I forgot to mention that its system requirements are somewhat less haughty, being capable of running on a ‘486’. This is another point where Ubuntu scores. Not only is it free, but it can run on most of the second hand PCs being recycled to the third world, giving the users a modern graphical system to get to grips with, rather than messing around with DOS 6.0 and WordPerfect!

It also goes without saying that any machine capable of running Windows XP reasonably quickly will ‘fly’ when running Ubuntu, thereby absolving the poor of having to buy expensive and possibly obsolescent upgrades just to get it running.

“Humanity to Others” the man said – they got that bit SO right.

Summary: A free Linux version with applications supplied too

Variety of features:
Reliability:
User friendly: