Why would I want to install Ubuntu?

I thought I'd take the initiative and make the thread to ask the question - Why would I want to install Ubuntu?

I've been a windows user for as long as I've used computers. To me, it's pretty efficient, and I get done what I need to get done. Right now, the only reason to make a change and learn a new OS would be if I could get things done more effectively and efficiently. Does Ubuntu do that?

Also, when I look at some of the programs I download, I never see a Linux version so I'm under the impression that Linux isn't widely supported. Where do you linux guys get your programs from, and are they more or as effective as their windows counterparts?

For things like Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, and CAD programs such as Rhino and Solidworks...will I have to run WINE, or are there linux counterparts? If wine is required, what percent slower to they run as opposed to a native windows environment?

As far as drivers and getting my computers components working, is it really as painful a task as I'm assuming it is?

The reason I ask is because I've heard some great things about Linux, and if the user interface is better than windows and if I can get things done more efficiently, then this is something that I'd really like to learn.

Thanks,
Arvin

 

Well, there are tons of reasons that I, like others, have chosen to set up camp with Ubuntu. Efficiency and stability are but a few of these. It is very easy to keep a simple Ubuntu system running. But by the same token, it is very easy to hose a Linux system by doing things that aren't meant to be done. Since nobody tells you what you can't do with a Linux system, there are tons of articles and how-tos on the Internet telling you what you can do, but not all of these help make a more stable or efficient system.

One thing that you will notice immediately with Ubuntu is its efficiency. It will take about the same amount of time as Windows to get to the login screen, but once you login, you're at the desktop and ready to go in seconds, opposed to Windows which will send you to a busy desktop for more than a minute. In addition, a freshly installed system will use about 2% processor usage on a Core Duo, and around 100MB of memory. The great thing is that this will never go up by much. Five years later, the system will likely still be as fast as today, and consequently there should be no need for random reformats because you've accumulated too much junk. And as long as you don't go around messing with the internals of the system and installing a bunch of unsupported applications, the system will be very stable and secure. About 98% of Linux users don't run antivirus or anti-malware applications.

Linux is not as widely supported as Windows or Mac, mostly because it's hard for people to latch onto an idea like this where there is no company involved and no large amounts of money being tossed around. In a sense, there's really nobody to blame either. So if you're used to a lot of obscure Windows applications from the Internet, there may or may not be an equivalent for Ubuntu. The beauty of Ubuntu is in it's Synaptic Package Manager, and the utility on the menu known as Add/Remove Applications. Using these two utilities, you can find a ton of software to do nearly anything you need to do. And even better, all you have to do is click a check box, then click Apply, and the rest will be taken care of for you, simple as that (in about 95%+ cases). That being said, I don't know if SolidWorks or Photoshop have Linux versions, but I've never seen them. If wine is required, you may or may not get them to work correctly, but if they do work, they should be pretty close to native speed.

Drivers can be a bit of a problem, but Ubuntu is pretty good about this. Wireless will usually work out of the box unless you have a Broadcom or some other strange card. In Ubuntu 6.06 things usually worked immediately, but it seems that in 6.10 you need to install network-manager-gnome, which is simple enough from Synaptic Package Manager (or 'sudo apt-get install network-manager-gnome' command from a terminal). Video drivers will likely be the hardest thing to do (and the least supported thing), especially since you have an ATi card.

Switching to Linux is not an easy task, and I always recommend a dual-boot situation first. I don't believe that Linux is an inherently difficult or more complicated system as many do; rather, I believe that it suffers from poor hardware and software support that make it hard for people to switch. Distributions like Ubuntu and PC-BSD (which is not Linux, it's actually BSD) have shown that you can have a system that is in many respects easier to use than Windows if only it had the same vendor support. So it's really up to you if it's worth it; you're going to encounter problems, and I can nearly guarantee it. However, once you get used to it, things become second nature it seems like. I can have an Ubuntu computer up and running in 45 minutes, as opposed to a Windows XP system that will take me all day (and has taken as much as an entire weekend before). It's definitely worth it, but not for everyone. It's the nature of things at this point. But we'll be here to help you through it if you decide to make the plunge.

 

I don't really think you would. I made another post in some other thread, the topic being reasons people liked Linux... I thought the reasons were price (cheap/free), open source as a philosophy, hatred of Windows, geeky satisfaction, and maybe the need/want for Linux-specific applications.

You won't find Linux versions of most Windows programs. Wine can be limited sometimes in its ability to make Windows programs run. Often you'll find roughly equivalent programs in functionality, but it's hit and miss as far as specific functionality and interface niceties. Compatibility across file formats is another issue to watch for.

Probably not. Hardware support is increasingly very good in the Linux world.

Linux can be great. It's not a panacea. Since you're using specific, highend Windows programs, I don't think you'd benefit from the switch. Maybe try Linux out, but don't expect to stop using Windows.

 

l33t_c0w, notebook_ftw - Thanks for all the help. I gotta do more research. The main thing holding me back is the lack of support for adobe suite and solidworks.

 

I've always been a Windows/Tiger(for like 3 months) user, I've recently started trying Linux(Well I have the .iso on a disc...). Trying to dual boot, but its midterms right now, so I gotta study, but once thats over.

Pretty much Sam(AuroraS) indirectly convinced me to try it, I've always heard and known good things, but change to me is often a bad thing. But hey, I won't know til I try

 

Yeah, Adobe's unwillingness to support Linux/Unix annoys most of us. However, I have Photoshop CS2 running perfectly using WINE. I just double click the desktop icon, and away i go at native speed. I haven't tried any 3D modelling stuff though.

 

You want Adobe software and the benefits of a Unix-like OS? Why not try out OSX? I'm not a big fan of it, because I like tweaking the swappiness levels of my machine, but overall it's very good for people who want something that Just Works (tm) and has decent industry support (especially the graphics industry, which is what it sounds like you do)

 

I would try OSX, but I simply can't afford an apple right now. And to be honest, I've grown a little disdain for the eliteness/arrogance that a lot of the apple culture has brought here in studio. I thought I'd try something a little different.

 

well, Linux would definitely brand you a rebel...

although then they might accuse you of your Linux arrogance.

 

Well, we do all we can to help our brothers trapped behind enemy lines, but sometimes the prison camps are too well guarded.

 

I would say you should only install it if you want to try it out as a matter of personal interest - and only as a dual boot system. The reality of it all is that running Linux makes you a constant tinkerer, and a constant searcher for obscure documentation files. There are such great open source and/or free applications now for Windows that there's really no need to switch to Linux (you can literally do all the computing you need to on Windows and never buy any software at all, or pay for any upgrades). I've switched and switched back many times. I don't mind playing with Linux just to be different, but when it comes to my real work, I'll stick to Windows. If you really want to tinker, tinker with a programming language rather than the OS. Or you could download and install Powershell, or AutoIT3, Python 2.5, etc. There's almost nothing in Linux that can't be had for Windows - at least nowadays. Why? Because anyone or any company that bothers to make good open source software is not going to ignore the overwhelming numbers of the Windows community.

 

I'm an Ubuntu user. I tried Linux 3 years ago and it was too raw still, so I step back that time. But last year I installed Ubuntu and.. wow, they have work hard this last years, cause now it's a very friendly OS, many of the programs have their counterpart for linux and most of the question you could have are already answered already. the only real problem to me has been photoshop. Ubuntu has a photo edition program GIMP, wich it's very good, but been a photographer I use many functions in PS that are not available in GIMP by now, besides I like photoshop so I really don't want to change. there are some tutorials of how to run PS in ubuntu, none worked for me, so I had to install a virtual machine and run XP on it to use photoshop. I'm going to buy a laptop now and probably I would use windows (or OSX maybe) to run photoshop but I will continue using Ubuntu when not using photoshop, because its superior in many points (in my experience)
- no antivirus running or needed
- doesn't crash
- if any aplication doesn't work properly you can always close it without affecting the rest of the running aplications
- the PC runs much faster all the time (with XP the first weeks was fast and then during the next weeks started to work slower)
- the interface it's better than XP
- almost all the softwares are free
- the ubuntu community it's big and very friendly with the newbie.

so for me probably if macs weren't so expensive for my budget, I would go for them and work with OSX and Ubuntu, but since my budget it's not enough for a nice MacBook Pro, probably I'll be stuck with windows (when using photoshop illustrator and some other photo editing programs) and Ubuntu the rest of the time.

regards.
Nicolas

 

Thanks for all the feedback, guys

 

Also realize there are many native apps like Blender and the Gimp that work quite well in Linux. The issue is that many companies just don't support Linux for their applications, so you'll probably end up running many applications through Wine if you need the Adobe stuff. It's usually pretty well supported, but by no means is it guaranteed to work. Stick in a LiveCD, and see if you like it. If so, make a partition, and install it. You can install it on as little as 10GB, and it'll resize your Windows partition for you.

 

As far as accessing music, should I make a third partition so that both operating systems can access it?

 

That'd be a good way to do it. You could also mount your windows partition as read only, if you don't want to add music files from Linux. There're ways to get it to read and write NTFS too.

PS. Pita, what's a "swappiness level"? It sounds like something fun.

PPS. Starling, I think I've had the exact opposite experience. Sort of. When I was playing with Linux, I was a little annoyed because everything seemed to just work and I didn't feel like I was learning anything, which was, at the time, the entire point of the endeavor.

 

l33t_cow: http://kerneltrap.org/node/3000

I tend to keep it at about 30 in my laptop (2GB of RAM), and about 50 in my desktop. I believe it's set to 60 by default in Ubuntu.

 

actually... NTFS-3G just went 1.0 recently, so NTFS read/write should be totally ready to rock.

http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

 

Sweet.

 

I just installed Ubuntu, and so far so good. Wifi worked out of the box, and my next endeavor is to get my ATI x1600 working


Edit: I got it working with generic drivers, and now I'm trying to install drivers from ati.com from help.ubuntu.com.

It says to disable composite extension by changing the last lines of xorg.conf to:
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

I do that, however, I'm unable to save the file because I don't have permission to change it. Apparently i am not the "owner" of the file and the permissions options are greyed out in the permissions tab (in the properties of the file). Is there anyway I can save the changes in the file?

 

You'll need to edit it as root. xorg.conf is a system file and Linux prevents you from editing system files as a standard user as an added measure of security. What you can do is go to a terminal and type

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

This will give you administrator access to the file and allow you to save it. However, before doing so, I suggest you back up your current file by using the following command:

Code:

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

If something does happen to go wrong with the driver install, you may find yourself at a terminal, and hopefully you'll be able to just revert to your original xorg.conf file.

 

Can I just skip the generic drivers altogether and just install from ati.com?