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Written from Ubuntu
Aug. 6th, 2009 11:30 pmWith the weather miserable this week and having been prompted by the Lifehacker link to software for installing Ubuntu on a memory stick, I decided to have another go at trying to get a Linux distro working on my computers.
I've been seriously impressed at how straightforward it's been so far. I decided to try both Ubuntu and Linux Mint, as I'd seen both mentioned as being easy to get started for a newcomer. After a couple of false starts generated by my desktop's inability to burn a CD accurately enough, I had Live CDs for both, and decided to try Ubuntu on my desktop and Mint on the laptop.
Both of them pretty much just worked - no hardware problems, connecting to my internet connections (wired and wireless) straight away and with fairly clear desktop layouts, with a useful selection of software pre-installed. The Ubuntu didn't have a driver for my printer built in, but it identified it correctly and took all of a couple of minutes to find and install the correct driver.
I was happy enough with both of them to take the first step towards installing them - a method included with both distros, which installs it from Windows and then uses the Windows boot controller to give you the option of which operating system to boot into. It's not as final as proper dual booting, as you can just uninstall the distro from inside Windows, but it's easier to set up all your preferences and ways of doing things than booting from the CD every time. I was a bit disconcerted to be unable to see my c: drive - I need access to those files - but a bit of reading soon gave me the location I could find them in under the Linux files system (look for host).
I'm not really in a position to give up Windows altogether at the moment - I know there are alternatives to iTunes for my iPod, but the ebook reader is still Windows only, I'm pretty sure. But I haven't found anything yet that I want to do with the laptop that won't work under Mint, and if that continues to be the case, I'm seriously considering attempting proper dual booting at least, and maybe just going the whole hog and ditching Vista completely. We shall see.
I've been seriously impressed at how straightforward it's been so far. I decided to try both Ubuntu and Linux Mint, as I'd seen both mentioned as being easy to get started for a newcomer. After a couple of false starts generated by my desktop's inability to burn a CD accurately enough, I had Live CDs for both, and decided to try Ubuntu on my desktop and Mint on the laptop.
Both of them pretty much just worked - no hardware problems, connecting to my internet connections (wired and wireless) straight away and with fairly clear desktop layouts, with a useful selection of software pre-installed. The Ubuntu didn't have a driver for my printer built in, but it identified it correctly and took all of a couple of minutes to find and install the correct driver.
I was happy enough with both of them to take the first step towards installing them - a method included with both distros, which installs it from Windows and then uses the Windows boot controller to give you the option of which operating system to boot into. It's not as final as proper dual booting, as you can just uninstall the distro from inside Windows, but it's easier to set up all your preferences and ways of doing things than booting from the CD every time. I was a bit disconcerted to be unable to see my c: drive - I need access to those files - but a bit of reading soon gave me the location I could find them in under the Linux files system (look for host).
I'm not really in a position to give up Windows altogether at the moment - I know there are alternatives to iTunes for my iPod, but the ebook reader is still Windows only, I'm pretty sure. But I haven't found anything yet that I want to do with the laptop that won't work under Mint, and if that continues to be the case, I'm seriously considering attempting proper dual booting at least, and maybe just going the whole hog and ditching Vista completely. We shall see.
