#5, Ubuntu

For many people the words PC and Windows always come hand in hand. The reality is a little more complicated than that. Personal computers were smaller simpler alternatives to mainframes and mini-computers that started in 70s by Kenbak-1, Xerox Alto, Apple Macintosh, and finally IBM PC. Since the release of IBM PC (and then PC XT and PC AT), the term Personal Computer (PC) was used not for any "personal computer" but those compatible with IBM PC architecture which itself evolved through time. This hardware architecture generally used Microsoft operating systems, i.e. MS-DOS and later Windows which made the term PC synonymous to a DOS-based (and now Windows-based) personal computer. Such computers use an Intel or Intel-compatible CPU, hence the term Wintel. But even at the old DOS times, this was a rather over-simplification. Back in 80's and early 90's, while PC's were running DOS/Windows, Unix machines were usually servers, mini-computers and high-end workstations such as SUN SPARK station. But due to popularity of PC architecture, Unix community (which had many different versions, BTW) started to release PC version of their operating systems. One of the relatively successful ones was Xenix, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T in the late 70's, and later owned by Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) who released it in early 80's. But the best known version of Unix for PC is Linux, created by Linus Torvalds in early 90's as an open-source project. Linux is now freely available through many sources and companies, one of the most successful ones being Ubuntu.

Although I started my blog to mainly compare Windows and OSX, no comparison of OS choices is complete without considering Linux. That, and the fact that I didn't have time to do much testing this week, made me install Ubuntu 10.04 on a laptop and add that to my evaluation. I chose not to install it on my MBP for a couple of reasons: (1) I'm not sure if I could install it as another boot option, (2) I didn't want to test it in a virtual machine, and (3) I wanted to have a separate laptop with Linux on it (I have Linux on my media centre at home). I will probably install Ubuntu as a virtual machine on my MBP later, though.

So here are a few preliminary observations about Linux/Ubuntu:

1- It's free :-)
2- The installation is pretty straightforward and there was no problem with drivers. I installed it on 3 different machines.
3- The installation is not particularly fast. But the start-up and shutdown are faster than Windows.
4- It doesn't come with popular audio/video codecs and you have to install 3rd party components (that are available through Ubuntu Software Centre, one of the system tools)
5- I installed Eclipse. It came as an empty IDE and you had to install components for different languages. I had problem setting up those through Software Centre. I tried downloading directly but couldn't add them to Applications menu.
6- Customizing desktop (e.g. the Application menu that I just mentioned and adding shortcuts to system tools) is not very clear and easy. I couldn't set a shortcut (Launcher) to My Documents!
7- It comes with a text editor but not a good paint program (just like OSX). It does have sound recorder and video editor though.
8- Games are not good :-( I installed a couple of 3D games from Software Centre but they are rather primitive.
9- Ubuntu comes with OpenOffice which is handy.
10- Ubuntu has built-in OpenGL support.

Next week, I'm going to be on vacation so I don't expect to have any serious post till June. Till then, hope you have fun!

I'LL BE BACK