Last night, after a couple weeks of frustration with my PC with what seem to be driver issues (high CPU from Interrupts and DPCs), I decided to give Linux another shot. The last time I ran Linux as a full time OS was 4 jobs ago - just a little while before I went to work for Microsoft. At the time I used Red Hat versions 6 through 7.2, usually with Gnome. As someone who makes a living in IT, I felt at the time that the amount of pure Microsoft stuff I had to do was limited enough that I could get away with IMAP connectivity to Exchange 5.5 and use Citrix for any other Windows tasks. I figured everything out pretty easily and ran Red Hat at work without major issues for a couple years. After that job I was dedicated to the Microsoft world and then in fact began working there, and though I've kept up with the goings-on in the Linux world since then (largely through Slashdot and similar sources), I haven't had the opportunity or motivation to run it as my OS again.
I know a lot of people are thinking about trying the same thing, so I thought I'd document my endeavor for the benefit of others. I'm not an average user, but my wife is, and this is a shared computer in our house. As a result, I'll be posting about both average user and advanced user items, and I'll try to make accurate distinctions between these two. For the most part, I'm evaluating this as something the average user might want to do. I'll also compare and contrast many aspects of Ubuntu to Windows (primarily Vista).
My Computing Environment
I want to give a brief overview of how my computer is used to set the stage for how I'll need to use Ubuntu. As I mentioned, both my wife and I use the system. I work from home, so during the day I'm pretty much on it non-stop. During work hours I use Office 2007 (Mostly Outlook, Word, and Excel) constantly. Outlook connects straight through the internet using RPC over HTTP, aka Outlook Anywhere, so I don't have to VPN to work for this. Most of our other business applications are web-based (Sharepoint 2007, CRM, and Changepoint are the major ones I use). I use Office Communicator 2007 (release candidate) for corporate IM and Windows Live (MSN) Messenger for a mix of personal and business IM. The other basics such as a PDF reader (I use FoxIt rather than Adobe for a number of reasons), Flash player, mp3 player (WinAmp), RSS Reader (Sharpreader) and graphics software (MS Digital Image Pro) are all there. I also use Live Meeting frequently, which runs via a Windows client.
In the evenings the PC is pretty much for non-work use (though Outlook is always running in the background) and is used by both my wife and I almost exclusively for browsing the web. I also have a Logitech Quickcam 5000 that I occasionally use for video communication with MSN Messenger and Office Communicator.
My hardware is a Dell Dimension 8400, 3Ghz HT, 2GB RAM, 256mb ATI X550 dual headed video card. My righthand monitor is rotated 90 degrees into portrait mode, and I expect difficulties with this configuration as I move forward.
Getting and installing the software
As expected, this was very easy. A visit to ubuntu.com and I was downloading the ISO in just a few clicks. 7.04 is the current release. I burned this to a CD and was good to go. However, both my hard drives were formatted using NTFS, which is not a valid drive type for installation. Using Vista's disk management capability I was able to easily shrink the free space on one of the drives to allow adequate space for installation. Since I knew that I would be able to access NTFS partitions after installation I only set aside up 10gb for the Ubuntu installation.
Once this was complete I put the CD in and rebooted. The installation was very similar to Vista in that only the most basic of options were required to install (time zone, keyboard layout, username/password, and disk selection). The installation was very quick, and by the time I walked back into the room after Craig Biggio's grand slam, the logon screen awaited.
Initial Setup and Software Installation
Interestingly, one of the first screens that appeared was the Update Manager, which is similar to Windows Update. I already had 100 updates to install! I acknowledged the installation and it went about downloading and installing these updates. The major difference from Windows is that the updates installed a heck of a lot faster and did not require a reboot.
At this point I should mention that all my hardware has been installed and configured without any intervention from me. Network, sound, display are all working as expected, which is to say that my display is duplicated on both monitors. As a result the right-hand display is rotated clockwise 90 degrees. Windows does the same thing before you install the ATI drivers, so I do a quick Google search and find the ATI Catalyst drivers for Linux. This is where I hit my first snag.
I download the package (ati-driver-installer-8.39.4-x86.x86_64.run), selecting the option to run it straight from the browser. This is unsuccessful, and the following error is reported:
"gedit has not been able to detect the character coding.
Please check that you are not trying to open a binary file.
Select a character coding from the menu and try again."
Fine. GEdit (a text editor) is clearly not the right app for this, so I decide to run it from a command line. I copy the file to my desktop, double click it, and select Run in Terminal. It starts to process the installation, and then I am notified that I need to run it as super-user. Sudo su, password, and then I try again. This time it's successful. After the installation I have an aticonfig command line tool that is not very clear on how to work with monitors in portrait mode and an ATI Catalyst Control Center application that doesn't launch when I click on it. I decided to tackle this another day.
E-mail (Outlook replacement) was the next order of business. Though I know much progress has been made on connecting to Exchange in the last 6 years, I'm worried that this will be the deal breaker. However, I plow ahead by opening Evolution. I am prompted to configure an account, and among the types of accounts is Microsoft Exchange. I select this and am asked for my username, password, and Outlook Web Access server address. It connects to Exchange and downloads all my messages. This looks promising, but the Global Address Book doesn't function, presumably because I'm not on the corporate network.
I decide to knock out a few other apps before I head to bed. I come across Automatix, which initiates a very Vista-like security screen requiring a password before I can continue. Interesting. I enter my password and am presented with a number of applications to download and install. I start with aMSN for IM and throw a few others in there to investigate later. That's enough for now. Tomorrow I'll go deeper into e-mail and some other apps.
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