Ubuntu is Pretty Darn Cool

Much respect to the Ubuntu folks for their fine distribution. With too much delay, I have installed Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy something or other) and I am so pleasantly surprised. I have been such a strong follower of the Red Hat & Fedora initiatives that I never stopped to check out Ubuntu.

Today after I broke my FC8 install and installed Ubuntu instead. Incidentally, it broke after I decided to check out KDE4 on Fedora Core 8. I was foolish to think that my process would go well. On a side note, I did get it KDE4 working and it was a nice change. Reserved for a different day, but KDE4 is too much like Windows for my taste. I just couldn't keep from fooling around with the install and I eventually broke Xorg in the process. My laptop being a mobile test bed, I decided to simply re-install. I don't keep any actual data on my laptop, so it tends to get rebuilt fairly often or at least when a new version of Fedora arrives.

Enter Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. Yes, I looked it up. It was so easy. I consider myself a Linux desktop expert and this was a dream. To clarify, I don't really care about proprietary drivers. I consider them necessary. When I tried to visit files or webpages that my system was not setup to handle, I was always greeted with an option to 'install the necessary' software and the install always worked. Amazing to me, because I am so accustomed to linux simply failing on mp3, java, flash. Of course, I always know where to go in Fedora to setup proprietary support and it's easy to do. To have Ubuntu take care of it for you it a real treat. On the flip side, the few differences that I had to modify back to Fedora-wise, were also very easy. Ubuntu still keeps all things Linux, for the most part, traditional. I still have my familiar Gnome desktop with all the same tools and I am using the same desktop layout I used before; out of the box. Ubuntu does great things for Linux on the desktop.

It's re-assuring to move distros with such ease. It speaks quite loudly toward all the desktop distributions out there and shows how well they've co-existed over the past 10-12 years. All this comes at a very interesting time when Vista and Leopard are pushing their own boundaries on the desktop platform. Linux is still my favorite, with Ubuntu pushing first place. I'm afraid to buy a mac....