So I installed Ubuntu Linux on Jackie's PC the other day... For anyone reading this, I highly recommend it. Actually, that's not strong enough... Ubuntu is the greatest thing ever! =)

When Jackie's computer crashed (for about the 5th time in as many days), we made the decision to wipe it and reinstall everything. Everything, originally, was to include Windows 2000, MS Office, Adobe Photoshop, etc... The problem with Win 2000, to me, was that it doesn't support wireless encryption, so if there happens to be a hacker within about a mile of our house, we're broadcasting all sorts of personal information, just because Jackie doesn't want me to drill a hole in the wall to run a cable to her computer. That, and the fact that I can't with good conscience say that our copy of 2000 is legal...

Anyway, the first thought was to get a copy of XP - but I certainly wasn't up for paying for it, and I wasn't sure that I could get a copy in some other way. And then I thought, "hey, why not Linux? That'll really screw with her." So that's the way I went. When I first downloaded and burned the installation image, I had visions of sitting up all night at a command prompt typing ls -this and make -that, and occasionally sudo rm -rf *. I figured I'd have to get all sorts of drivers and fight with stuff to finally make it work. Then I installed Ubuntu. And it just worked. *Snap* Just like that. It asked a few questions about what time zone I was in, what format keyboard, whether I would like to manually partition the drive or let Ubuntu do it for me in what it considers an optimized manner... And then the login screen popped up and everything worked. No drivers to install, no "would you like a tour of Ubuntu", no shortcuts to AOL on my desktop like Dell/Gateway/Compaq users are used to whenever they do a reinstall... no problems whatsoever.

Well, I guess I can't lie, I had one problem. Jackie's wireless card didn't work "out-of-the-box". When that happened, I went and downloaded a utility, starting typing make this and make that, and was upset when it didn't work. I tried all sorts of complicated tricks until I finally decided to try it the easy way. Go into the Add/Remove programs dialog and find the program I needed, without having to compile it myself, and Ubuntu installs it for me. Easy as pie. Or cake. Or cake with pie on top and stuffed in the middle is cake-pie. So it was a problem more because I thought it would be, and immediately tried doing things the hard way. Once I made peace with the idea that it should be easy to fix... it was!

Quite possibly the best part... most of the software you need can be installed just by going into the Add/Remove programs dialog box (or Synaptic, which is the same thing but with more options) and looking for what you need. The "repositories" are full of useful software including replacements for most of the windows stuff we used to use. Not that you need to download that much of it, because bundled in Ubuntu (all on 1 CD with the OS!) are Firefox, Open Office, Gimp, and random other useful programs.

So then I installed it on my computer, and I have a lot of what you would call "non-standard hardware". It took me a night to get my video resolution right on my widescreen monitor, and to get drivers for our old-ass printer. And for some reason, the bootloader didn't recognize my Windows partition, but I think that's more a function of how screwed up my Windows partition is than anything else. As is, I'm dual-booting now, but I yearn for the day I can finally get MS off my computer. Sure, I had some minor problems, but that's nothing compared with the problems I've had with Windows over the years. And this is free.

All-in-all, I can't say that Ubuntu Linux is perfect, but it's the best. At least of what I've tried. IMHO. And so on... but I like it. Goooooooooo Linux! =) Yeah, that sounded like a sales pitch, but I swear I'm not on any payroll. Well, I mean, I have a job and all... so I'm on someone's payroll, but we use Windows at work.