Recession Tech: Ubuntu 10.04 - what I like and don't like (I mostly like!)

Hey all,

Another in my series of recession tech blog postings. Previously we have looked at:
Deciding on Ubuntu
Installing it on my old Dell E1505 laptop

Now after using it for a week or so, I want to relate how it is working for me.

I like it. So far, everything has been picked up by Ubuntu. My wireless card, my video card. I even like that I have circular scrolling with the touch pad.

And seriously, I use webby tings for almost all my functions - I use gMail , and FireFox for email and browsing. And for the few times when I am word-processing a document, I can use OpenOffice, no problem. There is even a HULU client for Ubuntu as well as a Boxee client, for those times when I just want to veg around.

And a super bonus is that things are much snappier - things just pop open in seconds. Even the reboot is faster.

The only down side is that there is not a Netflix client for Ubuntu/Linux. I get around that because I have an old subscription to PlayOn.TV, and it streams the Netflix as a MPEG2 stream which I can pick up in the media player Totem.

I do cheat a little. I have a nice multimedi alaptop that I run some old Windows App that I paid for to create slide shows.

So here is the rundown of tasks and Ubuntu applications:
email - Gmail
regular browsing - Firefox
Adobe Flash - Firefox w/ flash installed
Hulu - native Hulu desktop client for Ubuntu
music - I still really like MediaMondey, and have not found a reasonable replacement. They have a player, but nothing with the full flexibility of MediaMonkey.
Videos - Totem
UPNP Client - Totem with Coherence UPNP plugin
Word processing and other office tasks - Open Office
Facebook (well, I don't really do Facebook, but it just takes a browser) - Firefox.

So seriously, for 99% of things done on the web, you just need the flexible and secure Linux.

I like this!

Recommended.

Lyman

Recession Tech: Ubuntu 10.04 install

Hey all!

Continuation of the Ubuntu investigation as part of my recession tech phase.

I wanted to install Ubuntu 10.04 on my Dell E1505 laptop. The last time I wanted to try Ubuntu on this laptop, I had problems with getting the Dell wireless minicard working (Dell Wireless 1390 WLAN MiniCard). Using the Ubuntu Live CD for 10.04, it looked like this was going to work better.

So Ubuntu released 10.04 a couple of weeks ago. I have waited for a few weeks to let things shake out and reduce some of the traffic on the server.

I plugged my laptop into my network using a cable - I wanted to make sure that I if anything went wrong, I could download what I needed without having to worry about drivers for the wireless card. Then I went to the Ubuntu site.

I downloaded the 10.04 .iso file and burned it to a CD.

I popped it into my CD drive and made sure my BIOS was set to boot off the CDROM drive, and I hit reboot.

After a few seconds of churning on the CD drive, I was presented with a few options from which I selected the default and then let it rip.

After a few minutes, I got to a Ubuntu screen and miracle of miracles, it found the Dell wireless card and offered to install the Broadcom wireless drivers and I was online!

This version of Ubuntu is sweet. It comes with Open Office, Firefox and a number of other standard application installed. I popped my SD card into the slot on the side of my computer, and it found the card instantly.

I had it check for updated drivers and it even installed some drivers for the ATI video chipset on the machine.

I launched my iGoogle applications and I was instantly checking my Gmail, visiting my usual sites and even watching a few videos on the Hulu website.

Next post will tell what I like, what I don't like and what is missing.