Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Background
I think it's impossible to offer a purely objective review on an operating system – qualitative data like the GUI and nebulous concepts like “ease of use” can't be measured. There is a degree of subjectivity in such a review, and I believe it's important to relate that in this article To that extent a bit of background on myself is probably going to be helpful on relating my point-of-view on matters, before jumping into Ubuntu. This section is being written prior to my even touching Ubuntu, so that it doesn't end up reflecting my experience, rather than my expectations.
Based on the computers I have owned and the operating systems I have used, I would best be classified as a Windows user. Like many of our readers (and our editors) I have lived the Microsoft life, starting from DOS and going straight through to Vista. I have clocked far more time on Windows than anything else, and it's fair to say that's where my skills (troubleshooting and otherwise) are strongest.
With that said, I am by no means limited to just a single OS. As was customary for most American schools in the 90s, I had access to the requisite Apple IIs and Macintoshes. But to be frank I didn't care for Mac OS Classic in the slightest – it was a remarkable OS in 1984 and even in 1993 and the age of Windows 3.1, but by the time Windows 95 rolled around it was more of a nuisance to use than anything else. It's through a cruel joke that when starting work in IT in 2001, I was tasked with using the newly released Mac OS X 10.0 “Cheetah” full-time to gauge its status for use on the organization's Macs.
Apple didn't ship Mac OS X as the default OS on their Macs at that time, which should tell you a lot. Nevertheless, while I abhorred Mac OS Classic, Mac OS X was far more bearable. The interface was better than anything else at the time (if not a bit too shiny), application crashes didn't (usually) take out the OS, and the Terminal was a thing of beauty. Sure, Windows has a command line environment, but it didn't compare to the Terminal. Mac OS X was a mess, but there were nuggets to be found if you could force yourself to use it.
I'll save you the history of Mac OS X, and we'll pick up in 2004, where Apple had improved Mac OS X a great deal with the release of 10.3 “Panther.” At this point I was a perfectly happy Mac user for my day job, and I probably would have used one at home too if it wasn't for the hefty price of a Mac and the fact that it would require having an entirely separate computer next to my gaming PC. A bit later in what was probably a bad idea, I convinced Anand to try a Mac based on the ease of use and productivity features. This resulted in A Month With A Mac, and he hasn't left the platform since.
Finally we'll jump to the present day. I'm still primarily a Windows user since I spend more time on my desktop PC, while my laptop is a PowerBook G4. I would rather be a Mac user, but not a lot has changed in terms of things preventing me from being one. To replace my PC with a Mac would require throwing down money on a workstation-class Mac Pro that is overkill for my processing needs, not to mention my wallet.
I also am not a fan of dual-booting. Time booting is time wasted, and while I am generally not concerned about boot times, dual booting a Mac would involve rebooting my desktop far more often than the occasional software installation or security update currently requires. It also brings about such headaches as instant message logging being split in two places, difficulty accessing documents due to file system/format differences, and of course the inability to simultaneously access my games and my Mac applications. In theory I could game from within Mac OS X, but in reality there are few native games and virtual machines like Parallels and the Mac branch of Wine are lacking in features, compatibility, and performance.
I also find the Mac to be a weak multimedia viewing platform. I'll get into this more once we start talking about multimedia viewing under Ubuntu since much of the underlying software is the same, but for now I'll say that libavcodec, the standard building block for virtually all *nix media players, is particularly lacking in H.264 performance because the stable branch is single-threaded.
So while I'm best described as a Windows user, a more realistic description would be a Windows user that wants to be a Mac user, but can't bear to part with Windows' games or media capabilities.
As for my experience with Linux, it is not nearly as comprehensive. The only time I ever touched Linux was in college, where our department labs were Dells running Linux and the shell accounts we used for assignments were running off of a small Linux cluster. I never touched the Red Hat machines beyond quickly firing up Netscape Navigator to check my email; otherwise the rest of my Linux usage was through my shell account, where I already had ample experience with the CLI environment through Mac OS X's terminal.
My expectations for Ubuntu are that it'll be similar to Mac OS X when it comes to CLI matters - and having already seen screenshots of Ubuntu, that the GUI experience will be similar to Windows. I am wondering whether I am going to run into the same problems that I have with Mac OS X today, those being the aforementioned gaming and multimedia issues. I have already decided that I am going to need to dual-boot between Ubuntu and Vista to do everything I want, so the biggest variable here is just how often I'll need to do so.
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Guspaz - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
"Not that it would necessarily be of much use, the last time I saw any statistics for instant messaging network usage, the vast majority of North American users were on AOL’s AIM network."IM use is highly regionalized. As such, AIM is clearly the dominant IM in the USA. However, Canada is dominated by MSN Messenger, and has been for many years (most of us migrated from ICQ to MSN around the release of Windows XP, I believe, due to the bundling of then Windows Messenger).
So, if Canada is dominated by MSN, while I can't speak for Mexico, it's misleading to claim that "the vast majority of North American users". As a Canadian, I can't think of anybody I know in person that uses AIM. They all use MSN or Google Talk without exception.
Aclough - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
For myself, the thing that most bugs me when I have to go back to Windows is all the missing features from the window manager. I've come to rely on having multiple workspaces on my desktop, but I can adjust to having just one fairly easily when I'm not working on a lot of different stuff at once. What really bugs me, though, is how much more effort it takes to move or resize windows in Windows. On Linux I can press ALT and then click anywhere on the window, but with Windows I have to carefully click the title bar or the very edge of the window and that takes a noticeably longer time once you're used to doing things differently.Oh, and I find that the Linux scheduler seems to be noticeably better than the Windows one in preserving responsiveness when the system is under load.
fumacapena - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Great article!How about some benchmarks of "minimal" distros (like Puppy, Tine Core, ...)??
I like the idea of "ressurect" an old PC, but I would like to see benchmarks in Quad Cores, i7 too!
Anandtech is great, Bench(beta) is awesome!!
(sorry by bad english)
Thanks
InGraphite - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
A few months ago most major trackers unbanned Transmission, but it still doesn't seem to be universally accepted on private trackers.I remember offhand (I could be wrong) that the main gripe was due to the fact it made excessive queries and thus flooded trackers with requests, or had the ability to.
chomlee - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I think you really need to mention the big picture here.I myself just tried Ubuntu for the first time 2 months ago and although I will admit that I have spent up to 8 hours trying to figure out how to install a specific program (before I found out there was a way to get the package manager to find the install), and I wanted to smash my computer at times. Now that I have learned quite a bit more, I realized that the few things I have installed worked great and flawlessly.
Anyhow back to the big picture. I can understand some of your concerns with how the OS will work with specific programs but what I have found is that most people I know use their computers for 2 things email and web browsing. Most of these people are constantly having problems with the system running too slow and cant seem to get rid of hidden viruses/malware. So I think that those people could easily be much happier with a simple OS like Ubuntu just for email and web browsing (And I would get a heck of alot of less calls from my dad asking my why his computer is running too slow). Lets also not forget that everything is moving to be browser compatible (like you mentioned).
Also, for people like myself, I use my Ubuntu system for a file server as well as a media center (XBMC is Awesome).
So, yes, for burning DVDs/CDs/Playing Games/Microsoft Office, I see no reason why you wouldn't use windows, but I think 95% of the users would be perfectly fine with ubuntu which is something that Mr Bill would not be very happy about when the public realizes this.
Keno - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link
I think you have missed one small but important part.I am Ubuntu user since 8.04. I came to Linux because of the constant treat of viruses.
Last month I have installed 7 and it is very user friendly and I think it is very user frinedly but after Avira Antivir got crashed by virus I installed Kaspersky INternet security 2010. then it took almost twice as long to boot. Then I gladly returned to Ubuntu 9.04. Because MIcrosoft can not exist without Antivirus I think you should do some real benchmarking and test windows WITH Antivirus.
On Ubuntu I have ClamWin just in case i get some files from Windows users:)
Thanks
ioannis - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
just wanted to point out that you can install software under the LiveCD. Of course it does not install on the hard drive. It remains on a ram-drive, so when you reboot, it's gone. It's still useful, if you wish to test out some package or perform some task with a tool not installed by default on the LiveCDstrikeback03 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Even more useful (and not mentioned) is that Ubuntu can easily run off a flash drive, and more recent versions even include a GUI tool for installing it to one. Then all installs and other changes are saved from session to session, and everything runs much more quickly than the LiveCD.Mr Pearce - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
It would be great if you could do more articles on compiler and especially driver performance differences. That was the most interesting part of this article.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
This is what Part 2 will look at. I can compile some stuff by hand to see if it closes the Windows/Ubuntu gap, and I have plenty of video cards on hand to test what I can when it comes to graphics.