Ubuntu after One Week

August 7, 2008 Mark Williams 12 comments

Note: Those reading “The Keys Are In It” may continue to Part Ten, where the scene finally changes and a familiar character returns.

One of my works from college art class (see relevance below).
Click to enlarge

In my quest to run exclusively Ubuntu Linux (a free alternative to Microsoft Windows) at home for one month, I have completed the first week.

So far:

Learning curve — Many of my favorite free applications for Windows are available in Ubuntu. So, my web browser, audio editor, traditional e-mail program, FTP client, and photo editor required no learning curve. I installed them using the included Synaptic Package Manager, rather than visiting each developer’s site, finding the right download, and then installing it. Ubuntu wins this round.
Simple video editing — My non-free video editing program is not available for Ubuntu (or any other “flavor” of Linux) and those available for free are difficult to use. The free Windows Movie Maker gets the average user into editing video within minutes. Windows wins this round.
Multimedia — The various media players, video editors, audio editors, and the system sounds themselves worked without my intervention, but could not agree on which of my sound cards to use. I found myself swapping out my speaker wire depending on which program I was using. Disabling the on-board sound card upon the next reboot fixed that problem. For the average user, Windows wins this round because it’s simple to tell the system which sound card to use for all applications. For me, Ubuntu wins because I don’t like using integrated sound, anyway, and it was free.
Audio ripping, burning, and conversion — Audacity, my sound editor, works the same as in Windows, but the free applications designed for specific tasks are simpler to use than their Windows counterparts. Ubuntu wins this round.
HTML code editing (web development) — BlueFish, a great free HTML code editor (web development) beats similar apps available for free in Windows. Ubuntu wins this round.
Offline dictionary/thesaurus — TheSage, my favorite and free Windows dictionary/thesaurus application, is not available for Linux yet. However, I found StarDict, a free and very powerful program that allows me to choose from several sources that it can search individually or all at once, either from dictionary files I’ve saved to my hard drive or from the Internet. It, too, is installable from Ubuntu’s included Synaptic Package Manager. Ubuntu wins this round.
Video capture — Getting my firewire card (used to capture video from my miniDV camcorder) working was a hassle. It included copying and pasting complicated text-based commands. I found the solution quickly on the wonderful Ubuntu online forums, and since then have not had a problem, but the average user is not going to like the extra effort required. Also, while editing small videos worked fine, editing the DV content I captured so far has proven impossible, with the video and audio out of synch. This PC handled such tasks fine in Windows. There might be a fix for this, but I haven’t had time to search for it yet. Windows wins this round.
Printer support — I downloaded software that detected and setup a driver for my networked HP PhotoSmart printer. It was simpler than in Windows. Ubuntu wins this round.
User interface — Ubuntu is, simply put, beautiful. It features, for free, an experience like none I’ve seen on a Windows desktop. I haven’t had time to record my desktop to show it to you, but a YouTube search for Ubuntu Beryl should bring up many results.
USB devices — Ubuntu immediately recognized my card reader, USB key, and external hard drive. Instead of popping up 15 choices like Windows, it merely displayed the contents in a file browser window. In fact, for my card reader, it denoted the media type of each of its virtual drive letters, unlike Windows, which leaves me no idea which one is compact flash, SD, etc. After a simple driver download (which Windows requires, too), it also saw and utilized my HP flatbed scanner (see artwork at top of post). Ubuntu wins this round.
Stability — This is a big one. As long as I leave Ubuntu alone, it’s rock solid. Throw some proprietary ATI video card drivers in the mix, and I get at least two lock-ups per night. I mean the kind from which there is no CTRL-ALT-DEL. I had to use the case’s reset button or power button for a reboot. This one’s a tie, because it was my meddling that caused the problem, and Windows XP has been extremely stable for me.

Stay tuned for more.

Related reading:
Sit, Ubuntu, Sit
August Under Ubuntu

Technology none

Comments

Written by Simon on August 7, 2008.

See, I’m an average user, and have neither the inclination nor skill to be fiddling with stuff to see if it works the way I’d like. At least with
Windows, I KNOW it’s not going to to work the way I’d like, so there’s the comfort factor going in. The freeze-ups and slow performance are like old friends by now. Annoying, free-loading friends, yes, but long time amigos none the less.

Seriously, I’m getting a Mac the first chance my budget allows.

This is a very intriguing analysis of your time with Ubuntu though, Mark. Keep it coming!
Written by Jamnjazzz on August 7, 2008.

I was ready to decommission an old P3/Win98 machine and figured I give it one last life by turning it into a torrent machine. Win98 is problematic for this and the machine will not support XP (easily), so last night I installed Xubuntu.

Still need to get some sort of Wifi working for this (thinking USB wireless g adapter) but installed the OS in less than an hour and it and booted right up. On top of that it recognized my added on CD burner, USB 2.0 card, and network card. I’m hoping it does the same with the wireless adapter tonight.

So far Xubuntu is 2 thumbs up.
Written by Mark on August 7, 2008.

Simon – That’s the thing — I was doing everything that most home computer users would ever need, right out of the box (although there was no box). Admittedly, however, if you do more than the average user and don’t like tinkering with computers, then Linux probably isn’t quite ready for you. I’m thinking that the video editing performance had more to do with the RAM in the machine. I have only 512MB of RAM in it, and was thinking I had 1GB.

I still don’t understand why you have so many problems with Windows XP. Oh well.

A Mac would be cool to have if I had the budget, too. There, because of OS X, you can either use it out of the box or tinker — best of both worlds!

Jamnjazzz – Hey, glad you wandered over here. I just checked out Xubuntu, and it might be the perfect thing for the machine I’m now using to run Ubuntu, because it’s made for machines that don’t have quite as much RAM or quite as much CPU power. I’m about to install Ubuntu on my main, more powerful system, to see how it does on a 64-bit CPU and 2GB RAM (I think I have 2GB, but I can’t check it right now because it isn’t turned on).
Written by Freevideoman on August 8, 2008.

Hi Mark – I was intrigued to read that you couldn’t find any free video editor to work with your Ubuntu Dist (or rather you could but they were difficult to use)

I’m wondering which ones you tried.

You might want to head over to http://www.free-video-editing.com/fve where there is a list of numerous free tools that work on windows/ linux/Mac OS etc.

You may find one there that suits you.

Best of luck with this and keep up the good work on Ubuntu!

Freevideoman
Written by Dave on August 8, 2008.

Mark,

As you know I’ve been using Ubuntu for quite some time. I have it running at work in a VM (Virtual Machine), and at home on a dedicated HDD on a PC that I experiment with.

Yeah, the text based SUDO stuff is annoying at times, but it still beats Windows in many ways.

Oh, have you tried yet running Windows in a VM under Ubuntu? That’s my next project.

You forgot to mention Revolution, the email client. Very easy to install and get connected to your email accounts, full featured and just plain works.

I don’t know if I could ever switch completely over to Ubuntu though… that takes guts! *LOL*
Written by Mark on August 8, 2008.

Freevideoman – Your comment seems like an advertisement to me, but I’ll think about checking it out. But, compared to Adobe Premiere Elements, which is not a beginner’s tool in my opinion, the free editors for Linux are complex. Like I mentioned, however, I haven’t given up yet. It might just take a little learning, and that’s why I gave myself a month to try Ubuntu.

My test is to see if I could live Windows-free (at home, anyway), so even if I have to boot into Windows only to edit video, that’s still not Windows-free.

Dave – I haven’t tried Wine or any kind of VM to run Windows under Linux. The computer I’m using right now doesn’t have the horsepower for that with straight Ubuntu. Xubuntu, maybe.

I don’t use Evolution (not Revolution – ha!), because I was accustomed to Thunderbird on Windows and it looks exactly the same in Linux. I’ve heard it is excellent, though.
Written by Dave on August 8, 2008.

*LOL* Did I put an R on there??? Sorry… you’re right, EVOlution!

I’m going to have to try Thunderbird… hmmmmm
Written by Greg A on August 8, 2008.

BTW, to save yourself reaching for the power button if Ubuntu locks up, you can press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. This usually works for me.
Written by dd on August 8, 2008.

For video editing there is an excellent “OpenMovieEditor” for Linux – just try!
Rgds,
-dd
Written by ArtInvent on August 8, 2008.

Agreed, video is not there quite yet in Linux. I use Cinelerra because I need HD support, and I’ve had a lot of figuring out to do, especially with input and output formats. Cinelerra works quite well once you learn to work the way it wants to work. Kino is a pretty great low-end app for DV and firewire capturing. I’ve also used Kdenlive which is very promising, but whose output formats I could not get to work well for HD at this time. Watch for Kdenlive 0.6 coming out imminently, it could be the start of some very good things for Linux video editing.
Written by devnet on August 8, 2008.

I always find it odd that everyone tries Ubuntu as the “new user” distro of choice. I find that assumption that Ubuntu is the best distro for a new user contrary to actual experiences.

For new users, Mandriva is probably the easiest transition from Windows XP period.
Written by Mark on August 10, 2008.

Greg A – Thanks, but in my text I wrote, “I mean the kind from which there is no CTRL-ALT-DEL.” So, I had tried that already, with my mouth held open in various ways.

dd – Thanks. That particular application never ran when I clicked the shortcut for it, so I removed it. If there’s a secret to running it, let me know.

ArtInvent – I appreciate the encouragement. I know there will be a bit of a learning curve and I’m just going to have to spend some time with it.

devnet – I have been trying Linux distros for several years — starting with shell-only Slackware in the ’90’s. I have tried Suse, Mandrake (now gone?), RedHat, and a few others. None had near the hardware support I needed without someone saying, “Just write your own driver.” Well, I’m not a developer, so that wasn’t an option.

I have not tried Mandriva. Besides the video editing part, I have had no difficulty making the move from Windows XP to Ubuntu, so unless Mandriva offers a video editor that no other Linux distro does, I don’t know that it would make it any easier for me. Maybe for the first-time Linux user, it would be better. I wouldn’t be a good one to test that theory because I’ve installed and messed with several distros and the first product I worked with at my current employer was Unix-based — which resulted in total immersion and a high comfort level with the shell.

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