Got Ubuntu ?

I have always admired the open source attempts, especially Linux. I have tried my hands in installing different flavours of this operating system on my machine often leading to disastrous results that would sometime require a complete wipe out of the disk and reinstallation of windows. But try I did many times, starting with Redhat 3.0 or something like that to the latest Fedora version and Mandrake and SuSe etc.

But I never felt very comfortable using them. There are many reasons
1. I don't know any command line commands.
2. Installing programs is just so much hassle (what with ./configure and make and make install etc)
3. Absence of programs to burn data on CDs so I can back up
4. Absence of printer support
5. Unfamiliar file system
so on and so forth. I think linux would be a success when ordinary folks like me can install it on a computer and be able to never think of needing windows machine. I don't need the computer to run the latest game or the latest application builder. I just needed it to some basic things, wireless, printers, java programs, money management etc.

But of late, I began to hear a quite murmur in the linux community about a distro called ubuntu. This distro has been quitely creating some ripples in the linux ocean. I do not know why but I am reading about ubuntu more nowadays even though it existed before quite long. So I decided to try this ubuntu thing as my latest technology intrusion.

Last Sunday I downloaded ubuntu, partitioned my Dell Inspiron 6000 and installed it. I first ran it using the live CD and was instantly hooked. I was able to connect to my wireless router and was able to surf the internet just using the live CD. Although I had to downgrade the security setting from WPA-SK to WEP on the rMy tryst with Linuxouter, I was quite happy that it was able to connect to the wireless.

Emboldened by this success I decided to go ahead and fully install ubuntu in the laptop. The ubuntu software came up with an impressive array of programs and its control center is quite well organized. It came with Firefox browser. I downloaded Opera and installed it (was a gui install I think) and opera immidiately appeared in my Applications menu system.

I had some trouble installing a good media player. But now I have both mplayer and VLC installed. While VLC is very stable mplayer is quite unstable. When I play chandramukhi the video lags audio by quite a bit while VLC plays it good. Installing Java was a good adventure. I need java so I can run the trader webstation from Interactive brokers. If I could get up in the morning and start trading on my linux machine, that's my definition of luxury.

After quite a bit of false starts and numerous read of wikis on installing java, I finally did install it and was able to run the TWS successfully (with a bit tweaking that will probably be quite boring to explain....). And so far I've not logged on to windows in the past 3 days and I have not found a need to. I installed Samba and was able to connect to the windows network that my other computer is on. Ubuntu even comes with a Terminal Services Client that allows me to remotely logon to my windows desktop. Way to go folks.

Things to try before I can completely chuck windows out of my life are to install GnuCash and port all my money details to it, test out printer support and burn CDs and backup DVDs. If everything works then I'll just uninstall windows and be a full linux convert. May be I'll start learning application development on Qt after that. Needless to say that this post was created in Opera running on Ubuntu....Now the question Can U-buntu ???