aaron c beals

(k)ubuntu / easy linux for the desktop… finally.
my buddy Brant recently installed kubuntu and has been getting started with it. it’s his first foray into linux and i was psyched to see him take the plunge — with a full install! talking with him about the experience got me thinking about how far linux has come as a desktop OS…

i run kubuntu on my work laptop and it’s been my sole development environment at GHD. with the exception of a few small quirks, i’ve been incredibly happy with it, mainly because it’s allowed me to get my work done without spending hours/days noodling with config. any configuring i do is solely because i want to make my life even easier.

i’ve been using UNIX since 93 and linux since ~95, when i first played around with Slackware. most of my college years were spent running a RedHat server, though i did have a Debian box and even an OpenBSD (not linux, i know) box for a bit. one thing that was common in all these experiences was how much of a struggle linux was with hardware, most notably in a desktop environment. generic, dumbed-down modems, network cards, video cards, and monitors were about the only things that worked flawlessly. have a cutting-edge card? write your own driver (honestly, never my strong point). have a sound card? better get used to the dulcet tones of the pc speaker, because that card’s useless. the time from installation to issue-free daily use was measured in weeks, not hours. linux on a headless server? outstanding. linux on your desktop? too much overhead.

at some point during college, the project known then as Ximian came out, and gave me a ray of hope. the idea was that you’d install programs through Ximian’s graphical installer, and when they needed to be updated, they’d pop up a notification and you could choose whether or not to upgrade/patch/etc… automatically! package management was available through RPM, but this was a whole new level, and definitely went a long way toward lowering the maintenance overhead on a desktop machine.

post-college, i took a break from linux for a while (at least as a desktop OS), until i took the big plunge and installed…er, compiled Gentoo. i thought i missed hacking around and tweaking, Gentoo is the ultimate linux distribution for that. big mistake. the overhead i mentioned above is multiplied when you’re compiling all your own stuff. and i mean EVERYTHING. who cares if software packages run 10% faster when most of your CPU cycles are dedicated to re-compiling? so Gentoo got the boot and i returned to *shudder* Windows.

now i’m running kubuntu, and i haven’t been happier. it detected almost all of the hardware on my Lenovo T61 automatically, and the crowning moment had to be when i booted up for the first time and was greeted with: 1680×1050 resolution, a network connection (wireless!), and sound! the only real challenge was to get my dual-monitors working properly (which required some hacking of xorg.conf). from there, it’s only gotten better — the ubuntu package management (employing Debian’s apt-get) is amazing, thanks to a well-maintained repository and simple management tools.

granted, this is my work machine, so i’m not hooking up my iPod or managing my digital photo collection, but word on the street is that these are easy, too. as a small point of proof, hot-swap device management has definitely improved — plugging in a USB key didn’t require using mount, so that’s a first.

the last big hurdle that kept me Windows-bound was documents — no open source software could interact well with MS Office. sure, there were open-source packages, but when everyone else at work uses Office, you’ve got to play nice. recently, two changes have rendered this obstacle obsolete — the prevalence of web-based documents (Google Docs) and the improvements to OpenOffice. now when i send out or read a document, i’m 99% sure that others are seeing what i am.

overall, i can’t say enough about (k)ubuntu. whether you decide to go the GNOME or KDE route, you’re not going to be disappointed. i think it’s about time to declare linux desktop-ready.