{"id":402,"date":"2010-01-11T12:56:55","date_gmt":"2010-01-11T12:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/?p=402"},"modified":"2010-01-12T13:37:47","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T13:37:47","slug":"switching-from-windows-to-ubuntu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/2010\/01\/11\/switching-from-windows-to-ubuntu\/","title":{"rendered":"Switching from Windows to Ubuntu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, after a long time grumbling about how <a href=\"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/2007\/08\/03\/windows-vs-ubuntu-why-switch\/\">Windows gives me hassle<\/a>, I&#8217;ve switched to Ubuntu on my work PC.<\/p>\n<p>I had originally planned to dual boot both WinXP and Ubuntu whilst I figured out stuff like Active Directory domain membership, but in the end I got so fed up of Windows getting in my way, one day I just decided to switch. (Our IT team recognises that the developers in our group need administrator access to setup our tools and servers so, on the understanding that we don&#8217;t put our machines or the network at risk, we&#8217;re allowed fairly free reign.)<\/p>\n<p>It took a while to get set up as I like it, but I think I&#8217;m there &#8211; so here&#8217;s a little overview&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>NB: I&#8217;ve had only a little exposure to Windows Vista (where I found the continual &#8220;security&#8221; confirmation dialog boxes incredibly annoying), and to Windows 7 (where the window tiling function looks genuinely useful), so maybe MS have these newer versions of Windows would compare better than XP does.<\/p>\n<h2>What&#8217;s good?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;ve installed (and use) software for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mozilla.org\/\">web<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/projects.gnome.org\/epiphany\/\">site<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opera.com\/\">browsing<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openoffice.org\/\">word processing<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inkscape.org\/\">vector drawing<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gimp.org\/\">image editing<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/git-scm.com\/\">version<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/subversion.tigris.org\/\">control<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openssh.com\/\">remote<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tsclient\">access<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gnu.org\/software\/screen\/\">sessions<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.geany.org\/\">programming<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/live.gnome.org\/ProjectHamster\">time tracking<\/a>, and countless utilities &#8211; all with a few clicks from the built-in repositories (at zero purchase cost). The wealth of software available is amazing, for which the free software community is justifiably proud, and has my admiration and thanks \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<li>Easy access to remote files. I can browse Windows shares (without needing AD integration), and even better, I can browse our Linux servers via SSH (really not very pleasant on WinXP), all integrated with the Gnome desktop via <a href=\"http:\/\/live.gnome.org\/Nautilus\">Nautilus<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Virtual_desktop\">Virtual desktops<\/a> &#8211; I&#8217;m amazed that Windows still doesn&#8217;t support this. I know there are hacks and 3rd party extensions, but the ones I&#8217;ve tried were rubbish in comparison to Gnome&#8217;s default configuration.<\/li>\n<li>Using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.virtualbox.org\/\">VirtualBox<\/a> virtual machines I can use multiple versions of IE in virtual machines, and my old suite of Windows apps if I have to handle proprietary file types.<\/li>\n<li>Software updates are smooth and rarely interrupt me.<\/li>\n<li>Startup and shutdown are a lot quicker than Windows, never leaving me with <em>x<\/em> updates to install before the machine will shutdown (which is good as I like to switch off the machine at the socket).<\/li>\n<li>No slowdowns due to a virus scanner.<\/li>\n<li>All the little things which seem to happen because of Free Software. Simple useful integration that just works, like that Nautlius&#8217; file property dialog shows size and codec information for media files.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What&#8217;s bad?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Evolution is supposed to be able to connect to MS Exchange for email and calendars, which it <em>sort of<\/em> does &#8211; unfortunately the MAPI connector doesn&#8217;t seem to work at all, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/bugs.launchpad.net\/ubuntu\/+source\/evolution-exchange\/+bug\/34199\">Webmail connector is slow and tends to disconnect often<\/a>. It&#8217;s ok for light use but, if I&#8217;ve got a lot of mail to deal with, I&#8217;ll often open Windows in a virtual machine and run Outlook.<\/li>\n<li>OpenOffice.org doesn&#8217;t have seamless compatibility with MS Office files (arguably Microsoft&#8217;s fault).<\/li>\n<li>Connections to Windows file shares have crashed on occasion.<\/li>\n<li>The video is a little unstable, crashing very occasionally, but I&#8217;m chalking that one up to the Nvidia closed-source binaries. I&#8217;m glad that Nvidia provide a driver at all, but believe they&#8217;d end up with a better product if they were more open-friendly.<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/bugs.launchpad.net\/ubuntu\/+bug\/299330\">task switcher (ALT+tab) is slow<\/a> if desktop visual effects are on. This used to be fine, and I guess it&#8217;s the Nvidia driver disagreeing with the kernel about something.<\/li>\n<li>A few cosmetic issues like <a href=\"https:\/\/bugs.launchpad.net\/notify-osd\/+bug\/446427\">notifications appearing at the wrong position<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>There are other areas I&#8217;ve bumped against at home that are also worth a mention: The lack of decent video editing software, the ongoing transition to <a href=\"https:\/\/bugs.launchpad.net\/ubuntu\/+source\/libsdl1.2\/+bug\/203158\">PulseAudio<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/bugs.launchpad.net\/ubuntu\/+source\/portaudio\/+bug\/360590\">JACK<\/a> for regular\/pro audio use. These aren&#8217;t a problem at work though.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Overall I&#8217;m happy &#8211; my day to day workflow is much smoother, and &#8211; at risk of becoming a FLOSS advert &#8211; I get warm fuzzies from following the progress being made in various parts of the Free Software environment &#8211; like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mmiworks.net\/eng\/publications\/2009\/06\/gimp-squaring-cmyk-circle.html\">a non-destructive editing version of GIMP<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/zeitgeist-project.com\/\">desktop activity awareness<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.novopia.com\/emerillon\/\">local map applications<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/ardour.org\/\">pro audio<\/a> &#8211;\u00a0 there&#8217;s too much to mention it all! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, after a long time grumbling about how Windows gives me hassle, I&#8217;ve switched to Ubuntu on my work PC. <a href=\"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/2010\/01\/11\/switching-from-windows-to-ubuntu\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,35,68,27,32,38,30,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-software","category-freebies","category-linux","category-open-source","category-security","category-society-online","category-tech","category-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409,"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}