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Ubuntu 9.10 impressions

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When it comes to Linux, I have two distinct opinions: for servers, scientific or academic applications, it’s great. For desktops/laptops, it sucks. It’s that bad in our workstations because usability is a big issue. Not everyone knows (or wants to know) how to deal with configure files, shell command lines and other things that are usual when it comes to Linux. This time, though, Canonical came up with a very good solution to address all of this – it’s called Ubuntu 9.10.

I’ve been a Linux user for the past 12 years, so I came across the most user-enemy distributions during this time. In fact, I still use one of these user-enemy distributions in all my Linux virtual machines: Gentoo. But as a proficient and experienced Linux user, I have no problems at all using and maintaining Gentoo (mostly because I programmed a script to do all the maintenance for me). But ordinary human beings hate programming or configuring computers, so they won’t get close to Gentoo. Or Slackware. Or any other thing that requires more work than, let’s say, Windows. Ubuntu 9.10 is in a different league, though. It’s easy to install and easy to use.

My test system is a pre-historical IBM ThinkPad T60. It’s has an Intel CoreSolo 1.67 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, on-board Intel graphics and 100GB of HDD space. So, nothing fancy.

Installation was very straightforward: put the CD on the drive, boot the machine and click “Next” a few times. Using the system feels a bit like using my Mac. The GNOME window manager reminds me of MacOS X in some aspects, and the eye-candy Compiz effects make things really clean and beautiful. But GNOME (or even KDE) window manager usability never was a real issue. The problem was in simple tasks, like connecting to a wireless network.

This is real simple in Ubuntu 9.10. The Network Manager simply works – detected all my wireless networks and connected with no problems at all. Better yet, it even works for VPN connections, which is great. Another simple task that was always kinky on Linux is hibernate. Now when I close the laptop lid, it hibernates with no problems. And when I open it again, it resumes. No weird graphic problems or black screen. Very neat! Other nice feature was the support for multiple monitors (or a projector), which never worked properly. Now when I plug anything on the video port, it works like in any other terrestrial operating system. No more xrandr command lines or tweaking/etc/X11/xorg.conf.

A couple of new stuff that caught my eye: installing new programs is now easier due to the new Ubuntu Software Center. The interface is clean and easy to use, unlike those user-enemy things such as YaST or Yum. The backend is still Synaptics/apt-get, but what the user actually sees is the front-end, and that has improved a lot. Another cool thing is the Ubuntu One service, which is pretty much the same as Apple’s iDisk, found in the MobileMe service. Very useful!

My final words are: if you’re looking for a decent Linux distribution to install in your workstation, I believe Canonical’s Ubuntu 9.10 is the best product around today. It really closed the gap between older Linux distributions and more popular OS like Windows and Mac OS X when it comes to looks and usability. As for me, I won’t use it. I think Windows 7 and Snow Leopard are better fits for my needs. I’ll keep it installed on the ThinkPad, as I still need a Linux laptop for work, but I won’t use much more than the bash shell and SSH.

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