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Ubuntu 9.04 is the best OS I've ever used

robotfire

By robotfire
in The Tailgate

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SkinnedAussie

SkinnedAussie

Posted
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I run ubuntu on my daughters computer.

If you need itunes for ipod it's not for you.

No need for iTunes. I have a first generation iPod shuffle, and have never used iTunes. It all depends on what music player is used.

I have used Songbird since v0.2, and the latest versions now have iPod support, but I now prefer Rhythmbox when loading my iPod.

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Larry

Larry

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We had an old laptop that had a dodgy hard drive, so I tried exactly what you have been wondering.

I changed the BIOS to read from the disc drive, and used a Live CD of 9.04. I also plugged in a 4GB memory stick, thinking I should be able to write to that instead of the HDD.

Would you believe that it worked! As a test, I connected to the internet with the Live CD and downloaded a picture, which I then saved to the stick. I did the same with a text based file, one with a mix of text and graphics, a song, and a web page. All saved directly to the stick. I then shut down the laptop and plugged in the same stick to my 9.04 desktop, and I was able to retrieve everything I saved.

Good luck doing that with a Windows based system.

Oh, the specific use I was thinking about (a user-proof, walk-up, internet browsing only, system) was to specifically have a system which had no writable storage of any kind. (OK, maybe a RAM disk to store things like web cookies. As long as whatever it is gets wiped out by a power down.)

My whole purpose was to give a user a system where he can visit any web page he wants, and no matter what the user or the web page does, it can't affect the read-only computer.

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Toe Jam

Toe Jam

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lol @ wasting time hating on MS

No Microsoft OS should ever be a problem for someone with half a brain that knows how to install virus protection and perform simple maintenance.

I don't get the hate.

People are mad because they can't take common sense steps to make their computer run okay?

The hate for Vista is especially laughable. It's actually a pretty stable OS if you put it on a computer that can handle it.

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Larry

Larry

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No Microsoft OS should ever be a problem for someone with half a brain that knows how to install virus protection and perform simple maintenance.

The reason why your web browser and your email program both have the ability to run programs is . . . ?

(I'll give you a hint: It's so that Microsoft can lie to a judge in their antitrust trials.)

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robotfire

robotfire

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No Microsoft OS should ever be a problem for someone with half a brain that knows how to install virus protection and perform simple maintenance.

I don't get the hate.

People are mad because they can't take common sense steps to make their computer run okay?

The hate for Vista is especially laughable. It's actually a pretty stable OS if you put it on a computer that can handle it.

The hate for Vista is warranted. An improving operating system should either provide features or be faster. Vista accomplished neither of those things. The blind hate for MS is silly, but most of the comments people have had on here have been correct. I still love XP, and I always will.

The "half a brain" requirement is what I believe will be Ubuntu's future winning point - it is heading in the direction of requiring NO brain. It never seems to get bogged down (XP would get bogged down after a month), and it never gets viruses (admittedly, I never got them on Windows, either, but my mother-in-law managed to get them all the time).

Here's why I made the switch: Ubuntu is free. Most of its programs are free. It feels like a superior operating system. I have no reason to stick with Windows anymore, and neither does the average computer user anymore.

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drums and skins

drums and skins

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Have you thought of just running the OS on a VM? I hadn't seen anyone mention this yet, but it seems logical. On iPhone, can't go into more detail now.

Good call. Simply lock in a VM to the machine.... Get a virus? Revert to a clean fresh install snapshot!

Actually, I know quite a few people who do this at home and use VM for most of their programs and internet surfing, but use the host OS (xp, usually ;)) for Gaming, for obvious performance reasons. Tthough, VMWare does support directx stuff now, IIRC. So, you can play games on a VM using VMWare, but unless you have crazy resources to allocate for that its probably not worth it.

But yea, I agree with SPR here... A VM would be idea. Virtualbox may be a good solution.

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PokerPacker

PokerPacker

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for Larry's system he wants, look into Puppy linux. Its small enough that it loads entirely into the RAM meaning after the system loads it up, it never has to access a disk drive again. Everything is lightning fast because everything is loaded into the RAM. The GUI front-end isn't bad, either.

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Larry

Larry

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BTW, folks,

This isn't a current project I was talking about. I set these systems up some time ago (they originally ran Win2K), and thanks to taking care of Mom, I haven't worked at all for two years.

I simply mentioned it as a way of saying that if you're looking for a stable system, and your needs consist of web surfing, email, and word processing, then Linux is a viable choice right now.

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  • 2 weeks later...
chipwhich

chipwhich

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I'm installing it now in Virtual Box.

I'll let you know what I think of it.

Ubuntu is no secret.

It's UNIX.

It's been around since before windows.

It's biggest negative is it wont run microsoft office, internet explorer, and other stuff like itunes. Even more negative is it takes a UNIX experienced user to install most things and it's wireless USB support SUCKS.

I run it on my daughters machine. It is great for her. I never could get her Linksys USB wireless adapter to connect to the net. And I am a UNIX guru.

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Toe Jam

Toe Jam

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Ubuntu is no secret.

It's UNIX.

It's been around since before windows.

It's biggest negative is it wont run microsoft office, internet explorer, and other stuff like itunes. Even more negative is it takes a UNIX experienced user to install most things and it's wireless USB support SUCKS.

I run it on my daughters machine. It is great for her. I never could get her Linksys USB wireless adapter to connect to the net. And I am a UNIX guru.

Yeah. Seems fun to play around with. I have a sneaky suspicion it wouldn't have picked up my internet access (wireless USB adapter) if I wasn't running it on a virtual machine.

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Toe Jam

Toe Jam

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Nice TJ, although I am not sure why you would ever want to run Ubuntu virtually. An optimal system would run Ubuntu and then allow you to run Windows virtually.

Yeah. I just wanted to see what it was about, really. Not looking to use it as a primary OS. I love Windows 7 way too much.

Although when I eventually get a Mac, we'll see if that changes.

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PokerPacker

PokerPacker

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Yeah. Seems fun to play around with. I have a sneaky suspicion it wouldn't have picked up my internet access (wireless USB adapter) if I wasn't running it on a virtual machine.

I could be entirely wrong, but I don't think running it as a virtual machine in windows will do anything to make it work better. If anything, running it as a virtual machine will only make it worse because you now have to deal with the problems with Windows to go along with any Linux problems.

If you wanna see if it'll run without being in virtual machine, just run it off a live CD.

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Toe Jam

Toe Jam

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I could be entirely wrong, but I don't think running it as a virtual machine in windows will do anything to make it work better. If anything, running it as a virtual machine will only make it worse because you now have to deal with the problems with Windows to go along with any Linux problems.

If you wanna see if it'll run without being in virtual machine, just run it off a live CD.

That would be an option. Except, though, for two things:

1. My internal wireless card has completely crapped out on me. There is no hope for it. Only access I have to the internet right now is through a wireless connection. Wouldn't make much sense to run Ubuntu without having any internet access on it.

2. My CD/DVD drive doesn't work anymore.

Slowly but surely, my computer is dying bit by bit.

This laptop is old. I'm sure the death of the hard drive is coming shortly.

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chipwhich

chipwhich

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Yeah. I just wanted to see what it was about, really. Not looking to use it as a primary OS. I love Windows 7 way too much.

Although when I eventually get a Mac, we'll see if that changes.

Personally if you are a windows guy, not sure why you would get a mac. Get nice hardware, run ubuntu, run windows in VB.

The only reason in my mind to not run windows totally is like it or not, it's security features will always leave it open to spyware/adware/viruses based on how and why it was architected.

Unix wasn't architected to be managed remotely, hence why it is virtually free of the bad stuff.

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PokerPacker

PokerPacker

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Personally if you are a windows guy, not sure why you would get a mac. Get nice hardware, run ubuntu, run windows in VB.

The only reason in my mind to not run windows totally is like it or not, it's security features will always leave it open to spyware/adware/viruses based on how and why it was architected.

Unix wasn't architected to be managed remotely, hence why it is virtually free of the bad stuff.

personally, I just multiboot. How well does the virtual machine actually work? Will DirectX stuff actual work if running Windows in a virtual machine?

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Toe Jam

Toe Jam

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Personally if you are a windows guy, not sure why you would get a mac. Get nice hardware, run ubuntu, run windows in VB.

.

I'm taking an advanced college computer class in the spring and I have to be able to run Windows, Leopard, and certain Linux distributions.

Unfortunately, running Leopard on a PC is difficult (from what I've heard) and impossible on computers with AMD processors.

This laptop I'm using is about to crap the bed. I figure a Mac will be the solution I need for this class.

Sigh.

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PokerPacker

PokerPacker

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I'm taking an advanced college computer class in the spring and I have to be able to run Windows, Leopard, and certain Linux distributions.

Unfortunately, running Leopard on a PC is difficult (from what I've heard) and impossible on computers with AMD processors.

This laptop I'm using is about to crap the bed. I figure a Mac will be the solution I need for this class.

Sigh.

they make you run Windows, Leopard, AND Linux? What the hell kind of class is this?

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chipwhich

chipwhich

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personally, I just multiboot. How well does the virtual machine actually work? Will DirectX stuff actual work if running Windows in a virtual machine?

Not sure if DirectX and stuff will work virtual.

One of the biggest things Ubuntu does is by default you dont login as "root" or the admin user which disallows bad stuff being installed without "sudo" privs and a password. Ubuntu forces you to create a user without root privs and doesn't allow you by default to login to the console as root (although you can override that). Unless Windows 7 has gone this route, for home use Windows always by default puts you in as the root or admin user hence all of the security holes.

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chipwhich

chipwhich

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I'm taking an advanced college computer class in the spring and I have to be able to run Windows, Leopard, and certain Linux distributions.

Unfortunately, running Leopard on a PC is difficult (from what I've heard) and impossible on computers with AMD processors.

This laptop I'm using is about to crap the bed. I figure a Mac will be the solution I need for this class.

Sigh.

You have to run all? They paying you to buy Windows and Leopard licenses? I would be surprised if a college course forced you into buying all OS's. Ubuntu is free. Leopard and Windows are not.

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Toe Jam

Toe Jam

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they make you run Windows, Leopard, AND Linux? What the hell kind of class is this?

It's not a required class. It's an elective. Should have mentioned that.

I signed up for it because I like to know everything I can about, well, everything.

I just sigh because Macs are expensive. Although I could get one refurbished for less than a thousand bucks.

And as for the price of the operating systems.. lol. I usually don't have to worry about that one.:)

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