Personal Blog

I've been a Linux user for about 4 years now, but only on servers. I have been putting off familiarizing myself with Linux on the desktop for a very, very long time now, due to laziness and complacency. However, finally, I have the motivation needed to switch. And switch I have. A big thanks to Microsoft for making Vista the steaming pile of manure that it is. Had the prospect of having to eventually use it not been so horrifying, I probably would have just ignored Linux yet again and stuck with what I know. The chasm between what I expect my computer to do, and what Windows can actually deliver has been growing over the years, but with Vista, I am no longer able to build a bridge between the two, although my growing list of discontents is the subject of a whole other blog entry.

While this has been happening, Linux distributions have really grown in leaps and bounds. After a short selection process I have settled on Xubuntu as the first distro to try, and wow is it sweet. It's Ubuntu, configured to default to the excellent and very lightweight Xfce desktop system. Most of the hardware works out of the box with no hassles. The only exceptions have been the hardware volume controls (this is a ThinkPad T61p laptop) and the microphone, but those are minor and I think a little more tinkering should get them up and running. I've also got an issue with hibernate, but suspend works fine and I use that most of the time anyway. I think these issues will likely get fixed with the ThinkPad drivers are updated for the hardware in the new models.

Notably, the only windows app that I didn't want to switch away from, UEStudio, was able to run just fine under WINE, and getting it to work proved to be a snap. Moving my Thunderbird email files was as easy as copying the files across and things like USB flash drives, the ThinkPad light and even my Huawei E220 HSDPA modem work fine (although I haven't managed to get it to connect to my Optus service as yet). All in all, it's been a fairly painless process, with minimal tinkering required. I'm going to try the latest version of Kubuntu, with the new KDE4 desktop, just so I can try the alternative but I think I'll skip Gnome, as I've done that before back when I tried Fedora 5.

The other benefit of Xubuntu is its lightweight design. It's perfect for running on low spec hardware, and a full install is under 2gb. That means I can put the same desktop system on an eeePC as I have on my main PC. Perhaps I've spent too much time in the Microsoft world, but I find this amazing. It can run KDE and Gnome apps, so you get the best of both worlds; lightweight desktop with the availability of all the full features, should you need them. And with WINE running most Windows apps these days and approaching a 1.0 release, I don't think there's any reason to even bother setting up a dual boot system to go back. There's just no need.

For me, this really is the year of Linux on the desktop.