I have been trying to use the latest version of Ubuntu, version 8.04, and I have come into a few serious issues. I know it is still in beta form but if these errors are not corrected there is no way I can fully switch over on my laptop. First off there are few new things that I like, for one Wubi integration just makes too much sense not to do and the installation takes under 30min and is a real joy to do. Also on of the things I really like is the new sense of polish I see throughout the system, its still not pretty but it has more of a continuous fell about it.

Ok now to the biggest issue I faced.

My laptop has a Dell 1390 wlan wireless card that up to 7.10 was a hassle to get running but with the integration of the new restricted drivers I was able to get it to run with two clicks and a reboot, but not so much now. Ubuntu still finds the card and installs the drivers, I think, but before it lets me click the “use” checkbox it tells I need to restart, which I did but it keeps telling me to restart, a never ending loop of restarts is never fun to run into. The only I did with Ubuntu was install it via Wubi which may lay my problems because the wireless light was already one during the installation and first run, unlike with 7.10 in which the light didn’t come on until after I installed the drivers. I will be testing this issue later in the day with Kubuntu and will update this post if anything is different.

Hopefully this issue will be fixed before its released this later this month.

Looking for a good place to learn more about Ubuntu or meet other Ubuntu users? Here are some websites that are dedicated to the use of Ubuntu.

-Loco about Ubuntu
-Ubuntu Forms
-Matt Hartley’s blog
-Official Ubuntu website
-Distro Watch

There are tons of other websites out there dedicated to Ubuntu and Linux in general, I am sure you have some other ones so please leave them as a comment to share with the community, and yes you can spam your Linux blog :)

One of my previous posts about the things I don’t like about Ubuntu made it all the way into the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is huge for me because this is my first time getting recognized for my blog. This is the kind of thing that makes me love blogging, along with the great comments that I receive.

Since this is the night of the Oscars, I would like to thank the readers of my blog — thanks, guys! I would also like to thank the downfalls in Ubuntu 7.10 for giving me something to rant about.

In other news I will not be writing much this week due to family being in town, so please don’t think I have stopped writing on DIGGED.

As I have made mention before on a few occasions, I hate the default look of Ubuntu! After a few hours of research I have the theme used on a version of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Studio. Ubuntu Studio is basically Ubuntu with a new theme and some great multimedia and graphic programs that come preinstalled. I have never heard of this distro before today, probably because it’s not offered from the Ubuntu site, but it gives you a nice dark theme for Ubuntu, and finally some nice looking wallpapers! You can get the entire theme, including wallpapers, a screensaver, and the general theme, by typing the following code into the terminal:

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-look

Here are some screenshots so you can see what it looks like before you install the theme.

I have made the decision to move to Ubuntu away from the world of Windows, which I have been with for over 10 years. There are a lot of great things with Ubuntu Linux and a few things that well I don’t like. Here are the top 5 things I think should be fixed/changed in the next few releases of Ubuntu.

5. The default themes. As I have mentioned before the themes and wallpapers that come with Ubuntu are just ugly! How about some adding in some wallpapers with color and some nice looking Gnome themes that don’t include the colors orange and brown.

4. Combine some items together. Why is the screen saver selection and the wallpaper selection in two different places? They should be in one easy to find menu.

3. Innovate file management. While there is nothing wrong with the current setup there is nothing special about either. I love how in OS X they added some new features like QuickLook and the Coverflow view, how about something similar to this in Ubuntu.

2. Ubuntu for some reason doesn’t find my iMac on the network and it’s kind of an annoyance. I do a lot moving files between my computers and it seems like the Ubuntu machine is isolated between my computers.

1. I hate having to use the terminal so much! Make it easier to do things and maybe be able to do it with a GUI. I hate having to go into the terminal and type some code to fix something, in the modern computing world this should be handled via the GUI. This is one thing that keeps people away from Linux, because they see it as too “Geeky”.

Update:

All of my problems have gone away since I have switched to KDE 3.5 with Kubuntu. The menu layout is just as I like and the overall looks much sharper than that of the Gnome desktop. It includes some great themes and seems to run smoother than Gnome.The “start menu” isn’t the greatest, but that’s probably the Mac user in me talking. I have grown to learn and use the terminal on a regular basis and its growing on me. I can’t wait for Kubuntu to feature a much more stable KDE 4.0, because that looks years ahead of Gnome.

To counter-point this I wrote a new post about the Top 5 Things I love about Ubuntu

As I was writing my latest post for this here blog Ubuntu decided to log me off for no reason! I lost my entire article and an e-mail I was writing. This is the second time it has happened to me and I must say, its not cool. This seems to be the only problem that I am having with Ubuntu right now and its annoying to say the least. I was just wondering if any of you out there have had or are having this problem right now? I am sure all of the Linux lovers out there are going to leave me a comment saying that its not Ubuntu’s fault but my own or the systems, either way this seems like a big bug to me.

Also on Ubuntu I will begin to beta test version 8.04 sometime this weekend and I will update you on all the things that I see as important. So if you would like to know any thing about the new version please leave it as a comment and I will make it a point to check it out!

As I made mention before I am interested in diving into Ubuntu Linux full time, which I did once. As I said before a few things happened and I switched back to Vista on the laptop. Today I decided to bite the bullet and try and dual boot Vista and Ubuntu and see if I could get it to work. I used this guide here and prayed during the entire process. It sounded to simple to me but behold my luck it actually worked!

I have been using Ubuntu on a partition for a few hours now and I really like it, except the ugly Human theme. I would love to make the jump to Ubuntu but now I am doing a series of Vista Tips via a blog and a Youtube channel so I am going to have to dual boot for now on. This time around I am going to be more careful in what I do. I am not going to try and hack things and change the interface too dramatically and I am only going to use the software that is used with the Installer application.

I will be posting more on my experience with Ubuntu and who knows maybe I can make the switch!

As I posted before that I was thinking about moving to Ubuntu 7.10 away from Windows Vista, well I made the change. I spent a few hours backing up all of my files and finally installed Ubuntu. The insatllation was great! Only took about an hour and I could surf the web while I waited. After the installation all was great.

So what went wrong?

Well for starters I spent an entire day getting my wireless card to work, and I could only get it to work around 70% of its true speed, very annoying. After that I had a lot of fun with using the text editor to do some HTML projects for school, I really like how all of the code was colored and stood out. I also started to play around with Compiz and had a blast showing that off to people. Of course Open Office worked like a charm and I even got my DVDs playing on there.

So why am I not using it now?

After trying to see what it would look like on my nice 1680X1050 22″ monitor the screen refused to go back to my native resolution. I tried several fixes and after restarting I couldn’t boot back into Ubuntu! I mean nothing would work for me. So eventually I ended up uninstalling Ubuntu and installing iAtkos 10.5, google it.

Sorry Ubuntu but you are best used in a virtual machine.

For the past year I have been playing around with Ubuntu Link as a hobby just for fun, but recently I have started to seriously think about using it as the primary OS on my Dell Laptop.

Right now my Dell is running Vista and the only reason it is running a Windows operating system is because of the fact that I have a Zune, but recently I have used my iPod Touch even more. As I mentioned for a about a year now I have used Ubuntu inside of VMware and even on a Wubi installation, unfortunately its not very stable.

I like Ubuntu as a whole. While the default look isn’t very pleasing to me it is very customizable and my only limit is myself when it comes to customizing the experience. I also like the free software but like the overall look some of its just ugly, I am a sucker for pretty things, though it is very powerful. Probably my favorite thing is that my laptop, 1.66 ghz solo-core, 1gig of ram, and built in intel graphics card, runs Ubuntu about 10 times faster than Vista. In Vista I had problems with the 3d effects and the “Aero” experience, but with Ubuntu I have their 3d effects turned all the way up with no issues.

So here’s my question to you, should I just leave Windows behind and jump on board to the Linux train? Have you made the switch? If so let me know via comment.

Also here are some things that might hinder me in my switch,

My wireless card, Dell mini-1390, doesn’t seem to work(which leads me to my next problem)

I am not very good with the terminal codes and commands.

I use Windows Live Writer, is there any good blog posting software available in Ubuntu?

I have been a computer user since Windows 3.1 and since then have used many different types of Operating Systems. Its been a little over two years since I started to adventure into different OS’s like Linux and Mac. I have used many great OS’s and some really bad ones but here are my 5 favorite of all time.

 5. Ubuntu 6.04- The first Ubuntu version I ever used. I loved everything about 6.04 except for the fact that my wireless card was not supported in my laptop. When I built a computer for my senior project in high school last year I made sure to install Ubuntu 6.04 and Beryl to show off the machine. 

4. Windows 98- I used this OS longer than any other. From games to writing school reports I basially lived with 98 for 3 years and didn’t use any other operating system. 

3.  Windows XP- One of the greatest releases of all-time to me. It was the first Windows operating system that had a great slick look and was powerful enough to handle anything at the time. With its built in Internet features it was so simple to connect online. Also with the later release of Windows XP: Media Center Edition it changed the way I watched movies and TV. 

2.  Ubuntu 7.10- This release got everything right! My laptops wireless card was picked up instantly, the installation was fast, and the desktop effects are amazing. I am still not a big fan of the brown and orange look but of course with Linux you can change what ever you want.  Right now I would suggest Ubuntu over Windows for a first time computer user.

1. OS X Leopard- Its only been a week but its been the best week of my computing life! If I was to give a computer to someone who has never used one before it would be Mac running Leopard. Everything is simple and fast. There is no better way to install software than just dragging and dropping an icon into a folder called “Applications”. Need to upload pictures? No problem iPhoto will do it with ease and no looking for drivers online for your camera.  

So what’s your favorite OS of all time? Do you think my list sucks? Do you agree with it? Let me know via a comment here at the bottom of the page.