My Ubuntu Experience

I have been wanting to write for a while now on our blog and talk about my experience switching over to Ubuntu. For those of you who aren't too familiar with Ubuntu, it's like Windows in that it is an operating system for your computer. I spent about a year in it and found several advantages to Ubuntu over Windows or even Mac.

I could go on about Linux forever, but I'm gonna keep this short.

Advantages

• Ubuntu does everything you are used to and more!
• Ubuntu is free and almost all of the software is free as well, forget about paying for advanced CD/DVD burning software, data recovery software, photo editing tools, and even office software.
• Ubuntu is HIGHLY customizable! There is so much eye candy for the way the system functions it is unbelievable. You can draw animated fire on your desktop if you wanted to or even have rain fall into your desktop environment. There are a ton of other features too and this topic alone could really take its own post. Some of the more less crazy features involve animated minimizing/maximizing/opening/closing, etc of windows.
• Ubuntu comes in 64-bit and is even available as a server OS.
• With the proper research or know-how, you can literally customize EVERYTHING. You can make everything interface together.
• Ubuntu is extremely secure. Virus protection? No need for that (at least yet). Ever hear about the hacking competition held a few years back when 3 laptops were loaded with different OS's? Ubuntu, Windows Vista, and OS X? The OS X computer was hacked immediatley --practically within a minute (thus, the OS X running laptop was won first by the contestant). Next the Windows Vista computer was hacked. Didn't take much longer to hack either. I don't think the Ubuntu machine was ever hacked.
  
• The final advantage I want to discuss in using Ubuntu is that you are personally contributing to the demand for Open Source Sofware. This means that more OSS will be developed and eventually, maybe someday we won't have to pay for basic software anymore. Everybody contributes to making the sofware (--OSS, that is!) world a happier place.

Disadvantages

• There is still a ways to go before OSS is ahead of software we pay for. Open Office is still really good, but maybe not quite as good yet as MS Office. Likewise, GIMP is freakin' awesome, but still not quite as amazing as Adobe's product, Photoshop. For me, AutoCAD, Revit Architecture 3D, Suretrak, MS Project, Onscreen Takeoffs, and all other construction related software doesn't exist in the Linux world.
• While WINE allows you to install and run Windows sofware in Linux, there is still a lot of tinkering one must do to get it working.
  
• Updates to the sofware sometimes make things stop working and you have to be really good with Linux to be able to diagnose and fix the problem.
  
• Ubuntu and other Linux distros are not the types of OS's that game developers are eagerly developing games for, so don't count on it being a real gaming platform anytime soon.
  
• I found a lot of difficulty in getting my sound to work with recent updates.
• I also had a hard time getting PDF's to load.
  
• Blackboard for school didn't like to load quizzes b/c of some problem with Java support on my Linux machine.
  

Problems can disappear just as quickly as they appear. Ubuntu is quickly changing and gaining on Miro$oft. For me, I just I don't want to wait for Ubuntu to be the best OS solution for me. (I'm sure it is best for other people out there RIGHT NOW.) I will wait for it to become so much more common and consequentially, less buggy, that it is clearly the right choice for me.

As for now... I'm enjoying Windows Vista (I don't know what everybody's fuss is about security and everything else) and find absolutely no problems. Except that I do wish it was free and all of the sofware I would be loading on it. :) I hear Windows 7 even in it's Beta form is pretty awesome. That might be my last OS before going back to Ubuntu.