The colourful name "Ubuntu" refers to the South African indigenous Zulu-culture and means "we belong together", to avoid the today rather tainted phrase "united we stand" what possibly would be more appropriate. Already in 2004 the name popped up, when Andy Fitzsimon released his first Linux version as an appendage to the so-called Gnome Debian OS-project. From this achievement and with help from the South African businessman and holiday-astronaut Mark Shuttleworth "Ubuntu" positionned itself in a record time at the top of the popular Linux distributions for desktop and portable computers. That is history already. Microsoft's marketshare and position has shrunk from nearly 70% a decennium ago to perhaps some 50% these days, Mac OSX covering a fixed 15% and Linux at least 10% of the personal desktop market or even more, what is unknown because of its free distribution! Ubuntu played a crucial role in the rapid development and acceptance of the Linux desktops.

Although I knew about earlier Ubuntu versions I preferred to go a different way precisely a year ago. Since then I kept an open eye for what Ubuntu distributor Canonical Ltd. produced, having recognized the vast potential of this Linux based system. Preferring GNOME on my computer screen I recently decided for the Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04.1 LTP DeskTop edition to see where we actually stood with Linux. When I worked for Apple Inc. many years ago on its LISA and Mac desktop with mouse, an intuitive computer environment was something one could debate about for weeks. Since those 20 years hardly anything has changed as if the current mouse and menu-driven user interface is the non-plus-ultra, like the wheel of a car. Windows, making a total caricature of that principle, creating a complete mess on-screen, has set the tone eversince. The PC for productivity-enhancement almost went under in incomprehensible installation procedures, cluttered screens, inflexible programmes, numerous warning-pop-ups for idiots, DRM limitations, and highly problematic networking possibilities. On the Windows desktops reign chaos, greed, mistrust and anger. Ubuntu in contrary comes with an empty desktop, multiple screens for various simultanuously running applications not cluttering but one screen and a complete ready to go and no hassle work-system. It offers the same conveniences as VISTA, but far more mature, reliable and fast. It requires far less disk space as well. Google uses Ubuntu, which tells another story!

What a delight to find a nice cover with a LiveCD for Ubuntu 8 inviting me to -please- copy it for friends, inclusive all software on it. Not nothing, then having loaded the LiveCD one can work right away on 'casual' desktop tasks, such as writing, making calculations or scans, emailing, burning CD's and web browsing, listen to music and see movies. Still not one single byte touched on your hard drives, nothing installed or changed at all. Having said so, the startup screen reveals that Ubuntu is serious business: would you like to get rid of Windows altogether, use the LiveCD to experience the Linux environment, or install Ubuntu upon Windows! The latter I consider a breakthrough of sorts... In that case Ubuntu is automagically installed upon the Windows version, reserving disk space for itself and creating a dual boot computer where you choose the Operating System when starting. A process that appeared to go without any hassle at all. In good half an hour you can work with Ubuntu fully installed.

The point is, upon finding yourself in a dual boot system with a clean and very fast Ubuntu desktop, you would prefer not to use Windows anymore. Unthinkable however for people using very special software or 3D-games only. The main attraction being that Ubuntu filters and closes all communication-ports that need not be open. Virusses that look for Windows-driven computers haven't the slightests chance! Automatic updates are securily presented to be installed with the click of a button, without peeking and prying by others in your computer. An effective password protection at boot-time is but the front-end of a sophisticated security system that is operational. You need not be afraid of using Linux-based Ubuntu!

Another point is the tremendous amount of software that is available for Ubuntu that can be installed mostly for free and with ease. The Synaptic installer works flawless for selecting, downloading and automagically installing extra packages. So, before concluding that your software is not available for Ubuntu, you'd better take a thorough look first. Running WINE on Ubuntu can make a difference, like it does for me running Adobe's Photoshop as usual but under Linux. The problem being the "Windows-experience". One tends to start collecting as much free software as possible without realizing that in fact all really important and relevant things are standard available from the LiveCD. The GIMP is a fullblown alternative for Photoshop, but (too) full of extras. OpenOffice elegantly replacing Microsoft's Office. A few parts must be loaded separately for incomprehensible reasons of "copyrights", like Macromedia's free Flash Player plug-in. Ubuntu assists to get it via its installers. Some specific older graphic card drivers (ATI and NVidia) suffer from the same American disease and may not be delivered with the LiveCD. One feels the presence of Microsoft for this utterly strange behaviour.

The fireproof however came when trying to set-up audio for Ubuntu, having a 5.1 stereo set. Standard 2 channel stereo is offered and works brightly. To make the difference I had to copy a few lines of code to a textfile, that had to be called via the Linux Terminal. Many are afraid of this, although Windows has the same tool! The solution is looking for the correct Help-page and copying from there the few lines into the Terminal's window. That goes this way:

Open the Terminal from the Applications > Accessories menu.
Then copy there: sudo gedit .asoundrc
A screen appears where you copy the following lines:
pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm “surround51″
slave.channels 6
route_policy duplicate
}
Save and make a restart.

After a restart you'll hear 5.1 stereo and accordingly by changing some of the above parameter 6 or 7.1 as well. A very bright sound that can be adjusted completely with the Systems > Preferences > Sound utility. In fact the biggest "challenge" I encountered after installing Ubuntu!

Can YOU work with Ubuntu? This version is to my opinion a real challenge for Windows and less so for (Unix-like) OSX. Having an older computer with but 512 Mb memory (RAM) and a slower processor (750 Mhz) with 20 Gb hard disk would suffice already. The more RAM the better, the faster as well. You could run Ubuntu from a USB Pendrive if you prefer an even swifter start-up than the about 30 seconds it takes usually. It makes Ubuntu portable as well. Have you been working with Windows the change requires little if any adjustment-time, whereas data from Windows can be imported with ease. I tested my installation with assistance of a total novice who hardly had any Windows-experience. She could work with Ubuntu on the fly... So why couldn't you?!
Using Ubuntu is like drinking your first beer. You must do it once to get the hang of it.
And that is in fact all!

John