Windows or OSX does not excite me like Ubuntu Linux does
You know that thing that happens on your computer, when you are using Windows? When you ask it to do something, and it thinks about it, and then it keeps thinking, and then you go off and make a cup of tea, and it’s still thinking, and you want to headbutt the wall, again and again, until gets all smeared and red and bloody and bits of your brain are raining down on to your shoes? Yes? Well, there’s a way to stop that happening. Stop using Windows. Use Ubuntu instead.
Ubuntu is an operating system. If you don’t know what one of those is, Google it, and then come back. The latest version comes out in April 2011. If you work on a desk, these are the environs are our worlds. Mine used to be Windows, and now it isn’t. And, as a result my life is better.
Ubuntu is a Debian-based distribution of Linux. If you are feeling a powerful urge, already, to recommend a different version of Linux, then let me stop you right there. Is it easier to use? Is it prettier? No? Well, not interested. Move along. Actually, I recommend Ubuntu on the corporate level and Linux Mint for the home users.
But then came Windows Vista, the OS world’s answer to the Austin Allegro. All across the world, sleek expensive machines were sitting on desks, blinking little green lights and doing little else, for hours. Netbooks and smartphones came along at around the same time, helping people to realise that it didn’t really matter what language your computer spoke, as long as you could use Google and Hotmail. And into the void swooped Ubuntu. Finally, there was a version of Linux that was actually pleasant to use. “Linux for human beings,” they called it. See? Some IT jokes are actually quite funny.
My Ubuntu setup is faster than a PC and prettier than a Mac. But best of all, when you ask it to do something, it does it. Or, at worst, it doesn’t do it. It doesn’t think about it, for hours, and then mysteriously go off the idea. It doesn’t crash. It doesn’t break. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t use it.
“But will I still be able to use Word?” you cry. Well, no. But you will be able to use something almost indistinguishable (OpenOffice), or Google Docs, which is far more useable anyway. You can mess around with it in all sorts of ways, and make it look however you want. I gather that Windows 7 is perfectly serviceable, but I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t see the point. It would be like moving into a generic hotel room, when you’re used to having your own house.
On the big Dell tank that sets under my desk, it’s Ubuntu all the way. Now the next newest version is coming out, you should try it, too. Download it, put it on a disk, stick it in the drive and see what happens. You can run it from there, if you want, or you can tell it to install alongside whichever OS you’ve got on there already.
Mainstream media is adopting Linux now and is becoming more prevalent these days in corporate and home use.
- http://jet-computing.com/linux/examples/
- http://jet-computing.com/broadcom-joins-the-linux-foundation/
- http://jet-computing.com/prediction-google-chrome-os-notebooks-will-be-introduced-at-under-100-in-mid-2011/
- http://jet-computing.com/will-microsoft-repair-its-image-as-russia-moves-to-linux/
- http://jet-computing.com/london-stock-exchange-smashes-world-record-trade-speed-with-linux/
- http://jet-computing.com/good-bye-windows-enterprise-linux-is-taking-off/
Often times, when a debate ensues regarding Linux and Windows, people start complaining how not-user-friendly Linux really is. Before saying such far fetched statements, one thing they all need to consider is that Linux is NOT Windows and thank GOD for that.
It is not the friendliness factor, it is the user familiarity factor that is giving a lot of bad name for Linux. Most of the Linux users are those migrating from Microsoft Windows and it requires a certain amount of time to get familiar with the new OS.
I have my own experience to substantiate this statement. I was not much of a computer user at all till I bought my laptop 4 years ago. I installed Ubuntu as dual boot with Windows XP. I instantly started liking Ubuntu, it was fun to use and all the compiz eyecandy was just overwhelming. To that day, I considered linux as an outcast or never really though about it at all.
But even a guy like me with minimal Windows experience took 2-3 months to get fully familiar with Ubuntu. But once I got familiar, their was no looking back. To this day, there was not even a single instance where I had to go back to the Windows era.
That is probably the issue. Most of them are so too familiar with Windows and so are they, in a way, expecting everything in Linux to be just as like in Windows. That has to change.
Another good example of this ‘familiarity factor’ is the IT@School project introduced in Kerala, India in 2002. Kerala government completely shut down windows, and made schools to use only Linux. Students or parents didn’t protest, they just went on with it. And now Kerala is among the states having the highest e-literacy rate.
Here is another guy proudly proclaiming Ubuntu is NOT user friendly and that he is going ‘back’ to Windows. He never ‘came’ to Ubuntu to go ‘back’ to Windows.
All I have to say to those who say Ubuntu is tough to use is, spend some more time on it before quitting. It is worth it. I can’t even think about using Windows now, partially because I am all too familiar with Ubuntu and Linux. So please do bear that in mind always.
“I get paid to support Windows, I use Linux to get work done.”
