Thinking of installing Ubuntu 10.10

I have an HP 6510b running Windows Vista Business (64-bit).

Specifications are:

T7100
2.5GB of RAM
80GB hard drive
DVD Writer
Card readers
Fingerprint scanner
No webcam
WiFi
Bluetooth

I use the following software:

Chrome Browser
Open Office
Paint.net
Yahoo! Messenger

I was thinking of installing Ubuntu 10.10. I downloaded and run it from a USB drive. Everything seems to work fine. I have no serious complaints about Windows Vista, but I am not a power user. Can anyone give me the pros and cons?

 

Well you can install a Dual Boot of both Vista and Ubuntu... That's what I'm doing. The pro's and con's are neutral really. All the software you use pretty much runs on Ubuntu, except for, and you'd have to double check, Paint.net

 

Thanks, which do you use more? Windows or Ubuntu?

A question about Ubuntu performance. Will it run faster once I install it on the hard drive. Right now I run it from the flash disk. I think I can replace Paint.net with GIMP. I use to run Linux on my desktop with the simplified Redhat Bluecurve. When Redhat got out of the free desktop OS business I tried Mandrake but I found the whole thing too complicated. Ubuntu looks nice and simple (the way I want an OS).

 

I run Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows XP Professional.

Ubuntu will run great once installed on your HDD. Out of 2.5GB of RAM, it only used about 270MB of it, on average, with Skype, emesene, Chrome, VLC, and Open Office running.

Ubuntu is definitely simple, and make especially like that for the simple reason that they want people to use it, even non-tech people. If they make it easy, people will recommend it to their friends, then they will recommend it, etc etc.

 

Yes, it will run much better once it is properly installed.

I split my time between the two on my primary laptop. I use windows 7 for MS Office 2007 (Powerpoint mostly--Open Office's equivalent for Word is quite good!) and for gaming (Steam!). Otherwise I'm almost always in Ubuntu.

My HTPC and Netbook run Ubuntu exclusively.

I will echo the suggestion that you dual boot for a while. If you install with ext3 filesystem, windows can read your linux filesystem and vice versa. You will eventually see the pros and cons of migrating to linux, and whether or not you will want to ditch your windows partition entirely. Everyone has different needs and one size does not fit all!

Ubuntu is a great place to start primarily because its forums are such a great resource for the neophyte.

 

Thanks all.

Last. I remember before that once you install Linux on a drive, Windows cannot see the Linux partitions, so it is pretty hard to reinstall Windows? Is still this the case.

 

If you're familiar with RedHat try Fedora!

I guess I'm not more up to date than you are, but until Vista Windows was not able to access any other file systems out of the box than fat, ntfs and udf.
There are ext2 drivers which work pretty fine as long as you don't have any problems, but they tend to be very unstable if you have a corrupted file system which can easily happen if your computer crashes while your ext3 partition is mounted as ext2. And don't even ask for ext formatted removable drives.

 

I think I will.

 

Now running Fedora 14 on USB. I do see the differnces between the two.

 

I hope so!

 

Not necessarily in a good way

 

Try Mint Julia, maybe you'll like it even more than Ubuntu.
It's based on Ubuntu, more user friendly, very polished and uses Gnome (no Unity crap).

For dual-boot you can also adopt a simple partition setup as in;
Primary - Windows - NTFS
Extended - Mint partitions; / & /home - Ext4
Primary - Data (docs, music, pics etc) - NTFS

 

... ... ... ...

 

^^ ROFL.

@ral If you aren't diggin' Fedora, and your hardware is old enough to be supported, try CentOS maybe.

 

Yes, per above. I use Sabayon x64 because once it's set up properly it's a rolling release and it's been very stable for me. It's a liveCD so you might want to give it a spin for grins and see what you think. Multimedia and everything needed related is already in the repo, most of the codecs will install with the distro. Just another option but it's Gentoo based, so takes a little getting used to for some things.

 

I have both Ubuntu and Windows XP installed on my laptop. Now I only use my Windows to play WoW. Yes, WoW can run on Ubuntu through Wine but why use an emulator when I can use Windows directly.

From Ubuntu, I am now learning to use Centos which is the os on my servers. If you are heading into the direction of web hosting and servers, Ubuntu would be a good migration entry point from Windows because Ubuntu has gui and good community support. Also Firefox runs much faster in Ubuntu than in Windows.

Hope this is useful.

And welcome to the world of Linux, the land of free, working and supported software.

 

Let me explain...

I love the blue look... But for some reason or other, when I scroll a webpage it seems "choppy". No problem with Ubuntu.

Fedora did not come with OpenOffice... so I decide to see how to download a copy. Fedora has a utility after all. Open it, cannot figure it out. Read up on the web and found out how to do it.... OMG.

I have read that Fedora is the more powerful of the two... but it feels like Linux Linux. What I liked about RedHat's Bluecurve was its simplified polished UI. Ubuntu seems to offer that (even if I do not dig orange). Let me get my feet wet on Ubuntu first and try the others later. Have decided to dual boot (on an 80GB hard drive with Vista).

Mint Julia looks good. Will download that tonight and try it on USB.

 

Fedora comes with only free software. This means you might need to install a proprietary graphics driver manually that's already installed in your Ubuntu installation.

I'm not sure but I guess Fedora might have already switched to LibreOffice.

Maybe some virtual machines would be more comfortable for early testing. You won't have to reboot all the time, can easily delete an installation if you don't like it and will save a lot of space on your HDD, since it will only occupy the actually needed amount instead of having an extra partition that's half-way empty.
The only downside is that you can't actually test your hardware.

 

Good move. You have taken the first step into a Brave New World. Eventually you will be able to face a blank screen without falling into a coma, like some people do when they had their first encounter with a Linux terminal.

There are plenty of tutorials available. Google is your friend. Ask here if you need more help.

 

Ubuntu 10.10 on hard drive.

Thanks all.

 

My desktop:



Ubuntu 10.10 with a Fedora twist.

 

I have my 3G USB modem running. Was easy to do.

I do not have my fingerprint reader working yet... but I have not spent much time on that, Read a few posts... no go. Never used that much even with Windows. Find typing a password to be easier.

 

LOL, once a Ubuntu always a Ubuntu putting a Fedora Wallpaper doesn't make it a Fedora...

 

To get full 3D either run the Nvidia Binary or take the kmod from RPMFusion.

Fedora still using ooo

 

When I tried Fedora, I just had to have the wallpaper. Actually, its going on Mac too.

 

Fedora is not about Wallpaper, it is about the cutting edge, package breakages and the powerful performance, a world without noobs.
Frankly speaking package breakage is quite tiring might retire to CentOS based after RHEL 6 because it is expected to be based off Fedora 13 a very good release.

 

Am a bit of a noob... will settle for the wallpaper right now. I have Fedora 14 on a USB, and thinker with it from time to time.