Silicon Shecky

Windows 7 is coming later this year. Ubuntu is on 9.04 with the next version due out later this year. Mac has Snow Leopard coming out later this year. Then there is Red Hat, SUSE, and many other Linux flavors around. Has the day of the OS come to an end? The obvious answer is no, due to software that is written specifically for certain OSes. The answer is also yes because so much of what people do is done through Web Browsers and e-mail clients.

The OS is always going to have some relevance to the world, especially in the business world, where apps have to be created to run on the OS. Windows has different API calls than Linux or Mac. Most software companies will only write a piece of software for Windows, which limits peoples choices on what OS to use. Of Course, Linux has WINE and Mac you can load Windows in a virtual machine (same on Linux). So, unless the OSes all start using the same API (Which Mac and Linux are getting closer on cause of Mac’s Unix underpinning) calls, there will always be fragmentation and less choice.

The answer is more toward a yes on the home front though. Most home users are basically doing e-mail (Webmail can be used), Surfing the Web, and doing Word Processing (There are web things such as Google’s word processor). Course the gamers will have to watch out on what OS they use, but overall, all of the above items can be done on any OS rather easily.

So the real answer is that the OS choices will still be around, but for those who don’t need a lot, you can get a free OS that will do what you want. For the corporate world though, the OS still does matter, at least until all the apps become web based. Then all bets will be off.

So, its been around a week that I have had the latest version of Ubuntu installed on my lappy and I have more thoughts and a couple of gripes on it.

The new version of Gnome that comes with it is slick. Doesn’t look all that different, but some of the small changes are nice, plus it is definitely more stable. I”m still playing a bit with the package manager and installing and removing software to see how that works and what is available. I did notice that Postgres is not available through the add/remove software feature, which did disappoint me a little, but not as bad as the following problems, which show it is not really ready for prime time yet.

First issue is the automatic search for updates when you log in. At one point in time on 8.10 it worked, and was done with its check rather quickly after logging in. Then some update came down and all that changed for the worse, and it is still that way. When I log into the machine it takes 10+ minutes for it to finish the update search and during this time frame the machine works like a slug. Yes, its a 4 year old laptop, but considering that the updater is the only thing that consistently slows my machine down, I have to say that there has to be some issue with it.

The biggest issue I’ve found so far has to do with Wireless Networking. Oh, don’t worry, it will find your card, and you can connect to a network, provided it is not using WPA for security. I did try to set the machine up to connect to my WPA Secured wireless network, and it will not connect to it. Of course the fact that the built in wireless software for Ubuntu does not show you a list of available wireless networks is a big drawback in its own right. Yes I can get a 3rd party scanner, but if Ubuntu wants to compete with the big boy’s (Microsoft and Apple) Then it needs to have that scan functionality out of the box and enabled by default. Even if they only gear it for businesses, or netbooks, when you travel you need the simplicity for the average Joe.

Of course that brings us back to the problem with the Average Joe and the Linux community. One day maybe those geeks on the Linux board will realize that the only way for them to be accepted is if they stop putting down non-tech people. Only then will Linuxx truly be ready for the Desktop.

Yesterday was the release of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. I had been running 8.10 on my laptop for a while and felt that I really needed to do a fresh install of it, since the last few releases I used the upgrade option. I had prepped the night before by transferring all my documents and any files I didn’t want to loose to one of my desktops. Then, once I got home, I started the install.

Now mind you my laptop has some overheating issues at times, is on its second hard drive, and can be a pain, which is why I don’t keep important items on it for very long. Upon starting the installation I found the initial screens to be simple, and informative, allowing for you to breeze through this portion of the setup. Then comes the first of the cosmetic changes, the loading screen, which instead of just dots going across, now reminds me more of a Cylon eye bouncing back and forth.

Considering I did not choose the advance install, the next thing to deal with is the 7 questions. This is the area that I either was impatient on time, or my machine really did lock up(and I could not tell you if it was my machine or the installer that caused the problems) but it took me 3 times of going through the install to be able to get through all the questions to do the setup.

Simple items such as time zone, how do you want your partitions, do you wish to keep your prior version, all nice simple and easy. So far things were going overall smooth, and the experience was one that most any user could deal with, even the nontechnical. Total time with the small issues I had to get the system loaded up was about an hour, but if I hadn’t had the locking issues it should have only taken around 30-45 minutes. Once loaded, there were a set of initial security patches, but again it was nothing compare to what we deal with in the Windows world.

I’ll go into software, installing, networking (including Wi-fi), and other things I find out about it in a later post.

Ubuntu, and Linux in general, have come a long way in ease of use, ease of install, availability, and whether or not a normal end user can use it. Desktop Linux’s biggest drawback to becoming mainstream is honestly the community. They do a great job in maintaining the OS, but seem to be overzealous when it comes to helping out end users, which I might add is one of the low to no cost things they brag about. This sort of intimidation is one of the biggest reasons why Linux as a whole is not accepted in the mainstream. The easier experience we can give the nontechnical with Linux, the more of them that will consider using it, and thereby the more chance that the software companies will write more software for it. Course more mainstream brings other problems, which I’ll cover again at a later time.

So Linux mavens, start flaming me if you wish. I’m just giving an honest opinion.