Ubuntu - A Fantastic Free OS

Ubuntu is the new big thing in the world of operating systems. Not everyone has heard of it yet, nor seen it or used it. But I have and it is a fantastic operating system you can use on your computer.

It originates from South Africa, from a company called Canonical Ltd, run by a billionaire called Mark Shuttleworth.

There are two famous billionaires in the world of IT: Bill Gates (the richest man in the world, surely have you heard of him) and Mark Shuttleworth (not so well-known). One charges lots of money for an operating system that has bugs, crashes, is unstable, comes with spyware and is prone to being infected by lots of spyware and viruses, and if you want to do office work you have to pay out a lot more money, and it is a popular OS and people are willing to put up with paying for a faulty system. The other billionaire is giving away an operating system that can do pretty much the same as the first, but with less bugs, less security holes, no viruses or spyware and lots of free applications for the office and graphics, that come with it, that allow for good productivity.

So which one do you prefer?

I used to use the former, the one sold by the mighty Bill Gates empire (Microsoft Windows) until I got so fed up with the constant crashing, spyware, errors, expense and the need to continually reinstall the OS every year. Then I decided that it was time to switch to an alternative. The main alternative that people think of first would probably be Apple Mac OS X, but that is more expensive than running Windows (need to buy a whole new computer). Of course, to run the Windows Vista, I would also have to buy a whole new computer due to the heavy system requirements it has. But I chose the cheaper alternative: Linux.

I had used Linux many years ago, I dabbled in Red Hat Linux in the late 1990s, but it was not really ready at that time for the masses or to take over from Windows, but it showed promise.

I also tried Xandros 1, but it was not quite ready either.

But in 2006 I decided to try Xandros 3 (Open Circulation Edition, free), and really liked it. The only things it really lacked was the ability to write to NTFS paritions (necessary as most of my data was on NTFS partitions from using Windows 2000 and Windows XP), but when its successor arrived, Xandros 4 Home Premium Edition (paid for, but cheaper than Windows), it had the ability to write to NTFS, so I bought a copy and used that for a while.

But then I decided to reinstall Xandros 4, onto a new hard disk, as the old one was having problems. But the new installation had a few problems and a graphics driver that caused the system to freeze. So I tried Ubuntu, which I got free on a DVD-ROM with a Linux magazine (I could have downloaded it for free from the Ubuntu website at www.ubuntu.com).

I was pretty amazed with Ubuntu. It worked very well and recognised all my hardware correctly, and even now had the ability to write to NTFS (something that most Linux distros could not do just a few months previously). Xandros is also a very good OS, but I liked Ubuntu more when I tried it, and so I installed that and decided to make it my main OS on this computer.

I just love the special eye-candy graphic-effects, using Compiz-Fusion and Emerald, giving wobbly windows, bendy and flexible windows, transparency, zooming out to see all desktops, zooming in on any part of the screen and the small preview windows when pressing ALT-TAB (most of this eye candy is missing from Xandros).

You really have to see it to know what I mean, but it really does have a great WOW factor. Microsoft, in promoting Vista, kept going on about its WOW factor. But having seen Vista in action and Ubuntu, I am certain that the WOW factor in Ubuntu is greater than that of Vista, and more productive. I love having multiple desktops (as in all Linux distros) and being able to zoom out and see them all at once, updating in real time, is more of a productivity boost than the 3D-effect when switching applications in Vista.

If you are considering a new OS, look at Ubuntu. It is free, it does not require you to register or enter any serial numbers. It does not contain spyware that reports back to the manufacturers (at least I don't think it does) and it comes with genuinely useful software like OpenOffice, the Gimp (for graphics), Firefox (web browser), Thunderbird (email), various games, video and music players, and in the online repositories much more software that can be installed with just a few clicks (so long as you have a broadband Internet connection).

I am very happy since switching to Ubuntu and will probably stay with it for a long time to come; I recommend it to all computer users. At least try out the live CD/DVD and boot from that, it will not alter anything on your hard disk and lets you see what the OS is like without installing it.

Xandros

I am still using Xandros Linux 4 on my PC for my main operating system, it is still a good system and works well.
However, as it has a cost, this will put off some people from using it. Personally, I believe that the Home edition should be free and the Professional edition (and other business software they make) paid for. Xandros will never be popular amongst home users until that happens.
Earlier in 2007 Xandros released a free version called Xandros 4 Open Circulation Edition. They did this with previous versions, a version that did not have all the full features, but was free to download, usually via bit torrent, and fully working and functional, which then gives people an idea of what Xandros is like and how good it is.
But if you look today for the Xandros 4 OCE via bit torrent, you get nothing. Xandros ceased that free edition earlier this year. However, I found it hosted on a Xandros fan site at http://bryantrv.com/misc/, from which you can download the ISO file, to burn to a blank DVD.
Linux is so popular because so much of the software is free. It is the best way to compete with Microsoft. But maybe that is why Xandros stopped the free version, as they did a deal with Microsoft earlier in the year. The MS deal may produce some benefits for Xandros users, but stopping the free version means that the user base can only ever grow slowly (which Microsoft would want). So is the MS deal really in the best interests of Xandros?

Too good to be true

A few minutes later and the Internet is slow again on some of the sites I want to use (listed previously). This is not good, and when the Internet is not functioning well like this, it is really annoying. Maybe I should just go to bed, it is 3:15 after all.

Update on Internet Problems

40 minutes later and now it all seems back to normal. Wonder what caused the problem. Maybe just some maintenance work by the ISP.

Internet Problems

I was able to use the Internet a while ago perfectly well, but now, all of a sudden, things are going slow on some websites, although others, including this blogger site, are functionig normally.

At first I suspected I had lost my broadband connection, but a quick check of my router's status revealed that the connection was still active. I was having problems accessing anything on Flickr.com, despite being able to load several pages from there one minute, the next minute nothing was working on that site. Also ebay.co.uk is now slow and Google Picasa claims it has an internal server error.

Maybe someone pulled a plug out somewhere at my ISP (Freedom2Surf), or maybe a terrorist attack on the Internet has brought certain sites down. We have had lots of flooding in the UK in the past weeks, maybe that has something to do with, such as a main relay station on the Internet being flooded with water and thus unable to operate, or a power station is not working that powers an important Internet company. The BBC News site is functioning but no news on there of any Internet problems. I turned on the TV and Sky News mostly has news about the flooding, nothing about an Internet problem. I also check the System Status page of Freedom2Surf and it does not list any problems.

The only other thing I can think of is the problem is being deliberately caused by my ISP. I requested my MAC number last week and signed up with a different ISP called NewNet. They had good reviews, on sites such as www.thinkbroadband.com and DSL Zone UK, and as the owners of F2S, Pipex, are selling us out to Tiscali, I decided it was time to choose a new ISP for my broadband of my own choice, not one imposed on my by Pipex. Tiscali have been consistently rated as one of the WORST ISPs in the UK, and there is no way I want to be with them. So maybe F2S are deliberately reducing my access to my favourite websites as a punishment for leaving them. I have also had random times of no connection at all to the Internet through broadband with F2S, not recently, but in the past it has occured too often. Resorting to dialup instead of using broadband is extremely painful and expensive.

By Friday I shall be with NewNet and surfing the Net again without problems, in theory.