More love for Ubuntu
It’s only been about a week since I got fed up of windows crashing and decided to switch over to Ubuntu.
I must say, It’s been a good week. It feels like I’ve inherited a brand new PC. It’s fast, it’s stable and nearly everything is free for it.
There are a few things I was worried about; how would I get by without Photoshop for example? I’ve never been a GIMP lover (an opensource graphics package) but help was to hand with a programme called Crossover Pro which allows you to install support windows applications such as Photoshop, Microsoft Office and Dreamweaver.
The desktop search add-on is great and I’ve even rediscovered my love for Monopoly with an opensource linux based multiplayer (online) version of it!
As a normal desktop user my wife is also happy - she’s able to do everything she could do previously in windows without much hassle and hasn’t really noticed a big difference (apart from the fact it’s faster).
So what’s the catch? Should everyone run and switch over? I’d say that the answer is that it’s not ready for everyone yet. I think that you still need to have an understanding of linux (or at least a general technical understanding and be able to operate google) as some of the extra packages are activated via command line in the terminal). It’s also not too simple to mount your windows drive.
I’ve been tempted to sign up to World of Warcraft again too since I cancelled the payments (as I wasn’t playing it enough) and apparently you can get this working though Wine/Crossover and the graphic capabilities seem to be better than in Windows.
Overall I’d encourage people to give it a go - you can out it on duel boot and you may even decide to ditch windows completely and go opensource if you find it as reliable as I have.
You should also checkout Lifehackers Article on the top 10 Essential Applications