BillyBen.com

I’ve always been into alternative operating systems. I mean come on, there has to be more to computing than Windows. Linux has always fascinated me. It has this hacker/geek stereotype but offers more freedom than most commercial operating systems and is largely free.

Anyway, long story short. I decided to install Linux on my desktop computer. My distro of choice was Ubuntu for which I have five LiveCDs which they sent me for free. It was simple to install. I popped in the LiveCD and restarted my PC. It booted up and ran the full OS from the disk albeit with limited usability. I clicked the Install icon on the desktop and answered a few simple questions, most of which were just confirming things the OS had already detected such as my timezone, language (I guess when you pick your timezone it sets the language as the default one for that location), and then just my name, desired username and password, and desired computer name. It then asked me where I would like to install.

This bit was incredibly important, as a first time Linux user I did not want to have just Linux installed on my computer for two reasons. Firstly, if anything went wrong with Linux I still need a computer and secondly it’s a family computer and other people need to use it. I also have a lot of stuff on my computer which I didn’t want to get rid of by reformatting.

The installer had a built in partitioner. I normally have three partitions but I needed another two for my Linux installation. A small 512mb swap partition (I don’t know what that is but I would guess it is sort of like additional RAM or something) and then my main Linux partition. I decided I would need about 20gb for this partition. The minimum you can have is 2gb for the system files. Anyway, I didn’t have free space on my HDD so I had to resize the other partitions which I was reluctant to do as it may damage them but I decided to try it anyway and everything went smoothly.

After making a partition the install process took about 15-20 minutes and then I rebooted my PC. It launched a program on the boot screen asking which operating system I wished to use, the default being Ubuntu Linux. The login screen came up almost instantly, a far cry from booting up a Windows OS, even on a high end system. After putting in my user name and password I was welcomed by the Ubuntu desktop. Straight away it asked me if I wished to install system updates which I accepted. The 127 updates took about 5 minutes to install which was very impressive.

Then I played about for a bit, changing my wallpaper and the likes. Then I needed to address a serious issue. As I was the only person who would be using Linux and the rest of the people in my house would remain on Windows I thought getting asked which OS they wanted to run every time they booted the computer up may get a little annoying. I wanted some way that I could press a key to launch Ubuntu and if this key wasn’t pressed Windows would load up instead. This is where Linux’s flexibility really became useful. Opposed to Windows in which system files aren’t very friendly and they do not want you to play around with Linux provides documentation on editing system files. The file I needed to edit (’/boot/grub/menu.lst‘) opened in a text editor and was full of comments on how to change the variables. A couple of button presses later I was all sorted.

Something that really impressed me when I was changing the system files was the way that although Linux encourages you to customise your system unlike Windows, it also prompts you for a password before you make any major changes. This gives you time to think about what you are doing and consider whether or not your actions will harm the system’s stability.

Next was something I was concerned about, installing software. This is notoriously hard to do as a beginner and I didn’t really have a clue where to start. I wanted to download the only two programs I really use, Firefox 2.0 (v1.5 was included in Ubuntu anyway) and Flock. Both simply download as a tar.gz which is like the Linux equivalent of a .zip file. After extracting the folder I was confronted with loads of files. None of which said installer or anything similar. After looking around it became apparent that these programs did not need ‘installing’. They ran as soon as they were extracted. I placed them in ‘/usr/lib/’ which I guess is the equivalent of ‘C:/Program Files/’ and they run fine.

As Ubuntu came with everything you could possibly need I can’t even think of something I could download to actually try installing software properly. It has everything I can think of. The only thing I haven’t yet figured out how to do is play my MP3s which are in my ‘My Music’ folder in my ‘C Drive’ as Windows refers to the drive. The media player says something about needing a required something or other to play the file. I guess I’ll figure that out eventually.

So far my impressions of Ubuntu and Linux are extremely good. It’s a bit less user friendly than most OSs but it’s different and I like that about it.

Anyway, I’m off to go urban exploring. I’ll leave you with a screenshot of my desktop.

Click here for the screen shot

technorati tags:linux, ubuntu, geek, os, pc, windows, computers, noob

For those of you who are ‘visually impaired’ and haven’t noticed, the site has changed it’s look to a much more personal design.

Working along side Andy from Skins for Wordpress I’ve managed to put together the design I’ve been working on for sometime now. Well, when I say working alongside I mean he did most of the work and I just added bits and peices.

The new style is packed full of features, so many that I haven’t yet had time to put them all in. I have feeds from Flickr and Last.fm with a Twitter feed on the way. There are also things like a downloadable buisness card and links to add me to your MSN Messenger contact list.

It’s still not totally finished. I still need to make a credits page and add one or two things but this is what it will look like for quite some time.

Anyway, in the next week I may officially launch the site. Not that that will mean anything will probably change. Just means it’s finished.