Ubuntu

[George K]

I guess there's a new build of Ubuntu Linux out there. Version 20.something.

I downloaded it today, and I played with it, a bit, using Parallels virtualization, on my Mac.

Snappy, easy to use, and quite capable for simple stuff: email, web browsing, word processing, etc.

I'm impressed.

I remember one of the first iterations of Linux that I used, I think it was Fedora? Just a PITA to get working. I remember being told that it was an OS designed by geeks for geeks.

Ubuntu seems quite polished.

[Larry]

Ubuntu woman in the wild...

[Axtremus]

I have always thought that the personal computer would be perfect if I could have both the user friendliness of the Macintosh and the stability/power of the Unix operating system in one box.

I used to do the less geeky productivity stuff (e.g., work processing, spreadsheet) on a Mac (OS 9 and earlier), and the geeky stuff (coding, scientific computing, preparation of scientific papers using LaTeX) on Unix machines (SunOS/Solaris, Silicon Graphics/Irix). When I had to work on Windows machines, I almost always installed Cygwin where I could.

I suppose, because I always had ready access to good Unix machines, I never got too much into the various *BSD and Linux distributions for personal computing. Nevertheless, I still run into various *BSD and Linux distributors from time to time, and every time I would marvel at how much closer they mimic the latest iterations of Windows or Mac.

Once OS X came out, installing any *BSD or Linux distribution on my own computer became rather pointless for me -- with OS X, I get the user friendliness of the Macintosh and the power/stability of Unix all in one box, giving me the "perfect personal computer" that I always wanted. All praise the Steve Jobs!

[Larry]

Gad.. You probably try to find your little pee pee so you can play with it while you tinker with that stuff.

[Klaus]

Ubuntu itself is pretty good. It’s the small things that are annoying, such as getting Netflix to work, or connecting to a wireless or projector, or having to edit obscure config files for mundane tasks.

[Doctor Phibes]

I installed Ubuntu a few years ago on a partition just out of curiosity. Then one day while it was updating itself, it crashed so hard that I could no longer dual boot - couldn't run it, or update, nothing. Basically, unless I decided to reformat the partition, I'd lost a chunk of my drive for absolutely no gain.

In my totally uneducated opinion, it's an OS designed by assholes for people with a lot of time on their hands.