What do you all think about Ubuntu?

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GreatBigMouth

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I've heard it's basically a free version of Linux. Is there anyone here who has it? Also, is it compatible with all programs and games? I'm seriously considering it for use with my new PC's, since it's free.
 
It's ok, in fact, it's fine, BUT...

You won't be able to play any windows games - which pretty much rules out about 95% of available titles.

Ditto for a good 90% of windows software, without GREAT effort, you can't run any of your favourite windows apps.

However, Linux has a vast amount of applications free to use. Some of them are of quality as high or surpassing that of windows apps.

Linux is great for:-

Servers
Programmers
Office Users
Web Browsing
Multimedia - video and audio

If you require any windows apps or games, then you'll want to keep windows installed on your PC, but...

You can dual boot into Ubuntu if you wish, however, first I'd recommend a Live CD.

That is a CD bootable version of Ubuntu. It doesn't run anywhere near as fast as a full install, but it will give you a good idea of whether Ubuntu is for you or not.

Personally, I've given up on Linux for the Desktop and concentrate solely on it's server potential, which is just fantastic. As soon as native versions of the software I use daily is available for Linux (ubuntu), then I'll make the transition away from windows.

However, pigs may fly first and it's looking increasingly likely, given the fact that Vista is so restrictive, that I'll be switching to Mac in the near future...
 
You can visit ubuntuforums.org to see how to install window programs and games like half life and WoW using WinE (WINdows Emulator), Linux is not as straight forward as windows, but has greater rewards in some areas.
 
I think Ubuntu is a great, stable OS. There are equivalents for most Windows apps, most of which are open source. For those that you cant find equivalents for, there's wine to help you out. The only problem is games. I dont play games, so its not a problem for me.

I run Kubuntu on my desktop (Ubuntu with KDE GUI).....I kissed Windows goodbye about 2 years ago and never looked back.
 
I gave it a try but it wasnt for me. I guess being a mac user I've got a bit used to polish.

I wont rule it out for future use though.
 
Isn't there some way that to enable Windows games to run on Ubuntu? Surely the game delelopers can do it?
 
GreatBigMouth said:
Isn't there some way that to enable Windows games to run on Ubuntu? Surely the game delelopers can do it?
Click to expand...

Most modern games' 3D graphics are written using the Direct3D graphics library. Direct3D (DirectX) was developed by Microsoft and thus cannot be used under Linux.

It represents far too much extra effort for programmers to create an OpenGL (the non-MS graphics library) engine for a game, for the very few people who want to play their games under Linux.

So basically they can do it, but it's not worth their while.
 
linux is not for:

YOUR EVERYDAY CUSTOMER WHO BUYS A NEW COMPUTER

its not user friendly like windows and ppl will come back to buy windows


alot of hardware is a problem and takes amazingly good linux knowledge to get it working :)


windows FTW

what does linux do that windows does not?
 
linux is not for:
YOUR EVERYDAY CUSTOMER WHO BUYS A NEW COMPUTER
its not user friendly like windows and ppl will come back to buy windows
Click to expand...

I don't really think that is the case anymore. The UI is very easy to learn. Infact, it's a lot better thought out than windows, in some regards. For instance, all your applications are grouped in categories such as Internet, Imaging, Office, etc.

Sure, for the advanced Windows user crossing over to Linux, they may get frustrated with not being able to do things the way they did in Windows, but for someone learning how to use a computer, I think an Ubuntu setup is just as easy as a Windows setup.

I'd be interested to know if you think otherwise :)

Cheers, Nick
 
What people also need to understand is that linux has no aspirations to be windows. Therefore if you switch over you MUST be prepared to learn to do things differently.
 
Last edited:
Isn't there some way that to enable Windows games to run on Ubuntu? Surely the game delelopers can do it?
Click to expand...

When there isn't a native Linux version, use wine. There's also cedega, but it's not free.

Most modern games' 3D graphics are written using the Direct3D graphics library. Direct3D (DirectX) was developed by Microsoft and thus cannot be used under Linux.

It represents far too much extra effort for programmers to create an OpenGL (the non-MS graphics library) engine for a game, for the very few people who want to play their games under Linux.
Click to expand...

Some games do use OpenGL, because MacOS has no DirectX either. Warcraft 3 and WoW both have support for it, you give them the -opengl switch on the command line.

wine has very good DirectX 9 emulation nowdays, it even recompiles Direct3D pixel shaders into OpenGL equivalents. While wine probably won't play the latest games, it does play many games from a year or more back perfectly. Check wine's application database for the games you're interested in.

The current 0.9.x wine series is made of pure GIT snapshots (no testing), so things break a lot. If you do run wine, you should always be running the latest version: compile it from source, if not from a GIT checkout. Please report any bugs you find, and if something doesn't work, try the next version.

what does linux do that windows does not?
Click to expand...

A lot. Taking networking as an example:

Try get any Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, or XP box to do IP routing, it's undocumented and unsupported and involves using the registry. On Linux, you write a 1 into /proc/sys/ipv4/ip_forward, eg. "echo 1 > /proc/sys/ipv4/ip_forward", and some distro's even configure this graphically.

Can you set up ethernet bridging in Windows? AFAIK it only works in XP. There's a utility to do it somewhere on the internet that took me an hour to find, and half an hour to install (had to edit the registry and create a service...). On Linux, it's nothing like this extraordinary amount of effort.

On Windows, the select() API is limited to 64 sockets, while on Linux it's 1024 (and if you use poll(), there's no limit). There's a way to increase the limit, but Windows's select() can't handle sockets from different providers, so Microsoft recommends using WSAAsyncSelect() instead to get an event. But events have to be polled using WaitForMultipleObjects(), which is again limited to 64 events.

Windows may be more popular and user-friendly (where Microsoft chose to make it so), but Linux is light years ahead in terms of technology. Ever wonder why wireless access points never use Windows?
 
GreatBigMouth said:
I've heard it's basically a free version of Linux.
Click to expand...
The way you say that makes it seem like most "versions" of Linux are not free :rolleyes:

Like Jongi pointed out, most Linux distros are free....

Essentially Linux is free and always will be.. nobody can turn Linux into propriety software (without violating the GPL)... the "paid for" Linux distros that exist basically just add support and sometimes some portion of closed source propriety software...

Linux in itself is always free and open. :)
 
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