Kubuntu
Microsoft Free – One year later
In May of 2007 I wrote a post called Open Source and Microsoft Free. Little did I know that this post would show up on Digg, Slashdot, Craigslist, and several other popular web sites and become a platform for both the Linux and Microsoft camps to wage yet another flame war.
This whole “Microsoft free” experiment started when a colleague of mine challenged me to eat my own dog food after reading many of my posts about my dabbling with open source technologies. The next day, after a few blue screens of death and various issues with Outlook, I grabbed a Ubuntu CD and installed it on my laptop….at work! From that day forward, I have not used a single Microsoft product at work. It has been one year now and I have survived with Thunderbird and Evolution, Open Office, Firefox, and many other open source replacements for Microsoft products.
I put “Microsoft free” in quotes because there are a few exceptions. First, I did install IE 6.0 under wine for that rare occasion that I stumble across a website that only works on IE. Second, there is no answer for Visio. Most of the Visio diagrams that I needed to read were embedded in design documents in Word which I can read with Open Office Writer. But for those that I needed Visio for, I opened them at home on my XP box (I have 1 XP, 1 Vista, and 5 Linux boxes at home). I also used Visio at home when I had to create Visio diagrams. The issue is Visio’s proprietary format is not available for developers to write a translation utility for.
With those two issues aside, which represents about 1% of my overall usage on my laptop, my Open Source experience was nearly flawless. Open Office worked remarkably well both receiving Microsoft Office files and creating files in Office format. I exchanged literally thousands of documents between Microsoft Office and Open Office. I never encountered a single issue with Word and Excel and occasionally encountered minor formatting issues with Power Point files. The formatting issues where nothing more then some minor placement issues which probably occurred less then 5% of the time.
Over the course of the year I experimented with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Freespire, Mepis, and PCLinuxOS. I settled on Kubuntu and recently upgraded with ease to the latest version, Hardy Heron. Here is my analysis of the different Linux distros from last fall. With this “Microsoft free” laptop I have coexisted with 1000+ employees who use XP and various verions of Office including 2007 (the 2007 compatibility add-on works fine). I also delivered presentations at conferences using Open Office Impress and traveled across the country and internationally with no issues with wireless connectivity.
I am not in any camps. I use XP and Linux at home and like both. I gave Outlook the boot years ago at home and do just fine with Thunderbird. It has every feature I need. I do however have problems with Vista. But my message here is not about recommending what tools that my readers should use. My message is that I performed at a high level at work while using Linux, Open Office, and other open source products. These tools did not hinder my ability to do my job and did not impact anyone else at my job. I was able to productively coexist with no Microsoft tools in a Microsoft shop. That is all I am trying to say.
I am not going to recommend to anybody that they change their company standards away from Microsoft. What I will tell you is that open source is a viable alternative that can be used in a production environment. So when you see flame wars where the two camps argue back and forth about their favorite technology, you can point to this post when people claim that Linux and Open Office just won’t work in the work place. I have validated that they do work for over 365 days now. Whether we should use these tools at work is a whole different story that really depends on factors like corporate culture, skill sets, budgets, user base, executive support, and many others.
All I can say is that for the last year, I have been using Open Source exclusively and I am loving it!
Kubuntu, Laptops, and Wireless Networks
I have been experimenting with various flavors of Linux over the last several months. The last time I wrote about it I mentioned that on my newer 64 bit laptops, only Mepis could connect to my wireless network out of the box. On the desktops and older hardware, all of the distros that I installed successfully had no compatibility issues with any hardware components. They also could see my network.
This weekend I finally found some time to look into the wireless issues on both the Ubuntu and Kubuntu distributions. After much experimentation and little success, I finally found a thread that solved my problems. In an effort to help others, I felt that I should post my fix here.
This thread is specifically targeted for Dell laptop users running (K)Ubuntu. There are a lot of steps but if you follow them all you will have your laptop connected to your wireless network in no time. Before you start, make sure the wireless switch on the front left hand side of your laptop is in the on position. One note, I did have to make a few minor adjustments to the script that was posted. First of all, I had several commands fail due to permissions. I had to do a few chmod commands to allow write access to various directories and files. Second, there were two wget commands that are issued to retrieve a file from Dell and the ndiswrapper file. I had to precede the commands with the command “sudo” to get the appropriate privileges.
wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R151517.EXEwget http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-1.51.tar.gz should change to sudo wget http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R151517.EXEsudo wget http://superb-east.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-1.51.tar.gz
Once I finished running all of the necessary commands and rebooted, my wireless light indicator finally shined blue. Then I had to install the Wifi-radar using adept_installer. Once I did that my laptop was able to connect to my network and I became a happy man.
I also had an issue with my sound card. A quick search on the Ubuntu Forum and I found this simple one liner.
sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-generic and then reboot.
I cut and pasted the commands, ran it, rebooted, and presto….Sound! If it still does not work for you, make sure your volume controls are not set to low or mute.
So hopefully some people will find this post and quickly resolve their issues on the newer Dell laptops. Once these issues are put to bed, you can sit back and enjoy the experience of a fast, secure, and a free operating system for those like me who dumped Vista.
Linux Mint is…..Mint!
Last weekend I posted an article called Comparing Linux Distributions where I reviewed eight different Linux distributions on five different machines. I had used the freshly released Beta version of Linux Mint and kept getting read errors on the disk. This weekend I downloaded the real version of Mint 4.0 and was able to install it on my Dell Dimension 4300S. The install was a piece of cake. Mint uses the same 6 step install process that Kubuntu uses. See slideshow for screen shots.
The interface is as refreshing as its name and adding additional software packages is as easy to do as installing software on Windows. In addition to the various package managers that are available, Mint offers the Software Portal. This is a web site for Mint users that allows you to select and install packages just like Windows. Here are some screen shots of the easiest Wine install that I have ever done.
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| From Linux Mint |
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| From Linux Mint |
I was going to include various other screen shots but I stumbled across this post which beat me to it. You can see from this post that updating software and configuring the desktop are about as easy as it gets.
I also installed gOS on an old laptop to give it a spin. It installed easy and has a unique interface that brings all of the Google apps and various social networking tools to the task bar. It was nice, but I quickly got tired of it. This OS is for Linux noobs like Freespire is. If you are comfortable with Linux you probably want to pass on gOS. This is the OS that is shipping on the $200 PCs at Walmart.
And finally, some of my readers asked that I try Suse on one of my 32 bit machines since I couldn’t get it to work on the 64 bit laptop. So I downloaded the 32 bit version and tried it on a couple of machines. Unfortunately, I got the same result. It fails when it tries to repartition the disk. I guess I could have used a tool like gParted first and then run Suse, but that defeats the purpose of my experiment. I am looking to see which distro installs the easiest.
One last note, Mepis is still the only distro I tested that was able to connect via wireless on my Dell Inspiron 1721 (AMD Athlon 64×2 Dual-Core TK-53, 1 GB RAM, 64 bit). Only Mepis, Kubuntu, and PCLinuxOS was able to install on it. The others, including Mint all failed on this laptop. On the 32 bit machines, every distro except Suse worked for me. So now my network now consists of 1 Vista, 1 XP, 2 Mepis, 1 Kubuntu, and 1 Mint. I am keeping Vista around to see what Service Pack 1 will do. Besides, struggling with Vista gives me a lot to blog about!
Comparing Linux Distributions – Final Results
I have been experimenting with many different Linux distributions over the last month as I posted here and here. In my review of the various distributions, I was looking for ease of install and ease of use as the most important factors in my personal ranking system. I believe for Linux to win the desktop war over the next few years they have to appeal to more then just the technical folks who can install distros in their sleep and are wizards at the command line. With that said, here are the distributions I tested:
Distros – 32 Bit
Distros – 64 bit
- Mepis 6.5.02
- Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon
- PCLinuxOS 2007
- Open Suse 10.3
- Linux Mint 4.0 Beta
Disclaimer: I am not an expert at administering desktop software (Windows or Linux). I am very familiar with Unix and Linux operating systems from a software development point of view, but not from an admin point of view. I know enough to be dangerous!
PCs & Laptops used:
- Laptops
- IBM Thinkpad, Intel 1.86 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, 32 Bit
- Dell Inspiron ME051, Intel Celeron 1.4 GHz, 500 MB RAM, 32 Bit
- Dell Inspiron 1721, AMD Athlon 64×2 Dual-Core TK-53, 1 GB RAM, 64 Bit
- Dell Dimension 4300S, Intel 1.70 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 32 Bit
- Dell Dimension 4700, Intel Pentium4 3.00 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 32 Bit
Overall Observation
- In general, Linux is very easy to install these days. All distributions have come a long way over the years and no longer requires an experienced administrator to install it.
- 32-Bit – All distros except Fedora 8 installed easily and worked flawlessly. They also all found my wireless network. Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon was my favorite by far on a 32-bit archtiecture.
- 64-Bit – Mepis had the best driver detection for the newer hardware. Only Mepis could connect to my wireless network without manual intervention. Mepis 6.5.02 was my favorite on a 64-bit architecture due to it’s excellent ability to detect newer hardware.
- Best out of the box packages – Kubuntu came installed with Wine (let’s you run Windows software on Linux), Adept, and the KDE interface. Kubuntu also comes preinstalled with a nice UI for Wine which made it simple to install Windows programs. I had some issues manually installing Wine on Mepis which are still unresolved to date.
- Flat out didn’t work – OpenSuse 10.3 would not install on the 64-bit laptop. Linux Mint kept giving me disk errors. I downloaded it twice and burned the CD at different speeds. I will try again later because I hear so many good things about Mint. Fedora only worked on one machine. It was getting different error messages on different machines.
- Honorable Mention – PCLinuxOS has a great user friendly install process and a nice interface. If it would have connected to my wireless network on the 64-bit laptop I would have ranked it above Mepis due to ease of use.
- Not for Geeks – Freespire was definitely targeting Linux newbies. It is made for people who have never ventured away from Windows. I used it at work for about 2 weeks and I got so annoyed with the interface that I quickly moved to Mepis.
- Linux at work - As I wrote in the past, I have used Ubuntu at work since April of this year. It has been flawless. I tried Freespire for two weeks and then moved to Mepis. Mepis had some issues with my monitor and wasn’t able to work on an overhead projector. I am now on Kubuntu for the last two weeks and it has been working great.
Summary
All of these distros except OpenSuse (couldn’t load) are great options for those wanting to move to Linux (I will try Mint again later). For those who are more experienced with administering Linux desktops, you may have come to different conclusions. I did spend a lot of time with most distros performing command line magic to make some things work (especially on the 64-bit environment). Kubuntu and Ubuntu were the only distros where I just installed and went on my way. All others required some amount of tweaking.
I had the luxury of owning several different machines and some time to experiment with the different Linux distributions. Each distribution that I was able to get up and running ran well. I was able to make use out of some old machines that were running poorly on XP. Most importantly, my new laptop that was running Vista very slowly is now cruising with Mepis.
By no means was this a highly scientific experiment. This is the view from a technical guy with limited systems administration skills. Take it for what it’s worth. My recommendation is Kubuntu and Mepis.
Review of Linux distributions
The family was gone most of Saturday so I took the chance to download and install various Linux distributions. Here is the list that I installed this weekend:
To get started, I first downloaded two open source tools, UTorrent and Active ISO Burner. Who buys software anymore? I downloaded the .iso files for each Linux distribution with UTorrent and burned them as bootable CDs using the ISO burner. Then I downloaded SystemRescueCD and burned it to disk. SystemResuceCD has a variety of tools on it including GParted, a great partition manager tool. All of these Linux distribution tools have a partition manager tool but GParted is the best and most user friendly tool in my opinion. I backed all my important files up over my network onto my new 500G MyBook from Western Digital. I connected it via USB to each PC/Laptop that I was working on and uploaded all of the data to a folder named after the computer. Now the MyBook is connected to my main server and is a shared drive across the network.
Now that I had all my tools and all my CDs ready, I started installing them on various computers. All four installs were simple and straight forward. The Freespire install is probably the best for those who have never seen anything other then Windows in their life. The partition tool was also very intuitive. Kubuntu has an extremely easy 6 step install process. Unless you are getting fancy with partitioning, this should be simple to do. The Mepis install was also very easy although not as intuitive. And finally the Suse install took a couple of tries until it was successful.
Then I tried to get fancy and install multiple distributions on the same laptop. That’s when things started going south for me. Keep in mind that I am a software guy, not a system administrator so I am not a pro in this area. After several tries I finally got Mepis and Kubuntu to dual boot from the same laptop. Unfortunately I lost my ability to connect to my wireless network. It was working when I had Mepis running but I think the second distribution may be causing a conflict. I hope to resolve it soon.
My parents were over today and they were using Kubuntu and liked it. If my parents can use Linux, anyone can. They were getting frustrated with their five year old PC running XP and were ready to buy a new one. This week I will convert them to Kubuntu and their PC will start performing for them again. That should save them a few grand.
I took some screenshots of each Linux distribution and posted them on Picasaweb. Feel free to view the slideshows below and go to the photo album for close ups.
Mepis
Dumping Vista – A divorce with a happy ending
I have many colleagues and friends who have been through messy divorces. In each case, these poor guys have gone from having the good life, to having issues, to losing half of their assets (or more). I just filed my divorce papers for Microsoft’s
With all jokes aside, I recently posted my positive experience of installing Kubuntu on an old 1.7GHz machine that was taking 10 minutes to boot up XP. The registry was beyond repair and the various programs like Spybot, Adaware, PitStop, Defrag, and many others did little to improve performance. The desktop was destined for the dumpster. Enter Kubuntu and this PC now works like a champ. I installed Wine on it and got IE 6.0 running on it for those foolish websites that target only the Microsoft browser. My daughter plays various Flash enabled games on Club Penguin. On my brand new Dell Inspiron 1721 laptop running
So I installed Mepis 64 bit on my laptop and wiped out Vista. My daughter launched her game and it loaded instantly. Her exact words were, “Wow, this is so fast”. My response was “Good Bye Vista!”. So let’s take the religion out of this discussion and talk about the investment I just made on my hardware. I bought two brand new identical laptops for $1000 each. These laptops have a Dual-core 64 bit processor with a Gig of memory. Now the Microsoft fanatics would cry, “why would you buy a laptop with only a Gig of memory?” My answer is, my budget doesn’t allow for laptops that cost $2K-$3K and the main usage of these laptops are web browsing, email, and word processing. None of those functions require a ton of computer resources. I also have a monster machine (Dell XPS gaming machine) for all of our intense gaming needs (Battlefield 2, Civilization IV, Age of Empires, etc.). So two laptops for $2000 dollars was what I was willing to spend. Unfortunately, Dell did not offer XP or Linux on these machines. The cost of Vista is about $300. So 30% of the cost of my laptops was for an operating system that drained 50% of my resources and performed poorly.
I am not a financial analyst, but that is not a good spend of money. Now that I have eliminated Vista from the equation, I get a better ROI on my investment, even after acknowledging that I threw away $300 worth of software. As I mentioned in a post called Vista – What were they thinking, my wife dislikes Vista so much that she refuses to use the new laptop that I bought her for her birthday (due to it’s poor performance). Now she is happy with the laptop running Mepis and the old clunker running Kubuntu.
My plan now is to move all of our computers except the gaming machine to Linux. The gaming machine will stay on XP while the laptops will leverage Wine and virtual machines for those Windows centric programs that won’t run on Linux. I will install various Linux distributions and allow for the user to select from a list of distributions when booting the system. Eventually we will probably settle on a distribution like Kubuntu of Freespire that has an interface similar to Windows for an easy transition.
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| From Kubuntu |
So for all of the folks out there who have gone through a messy divorce, divorcing your Vista operating system is the only divorce in town where you get your assets back and still get to keep your kids!
Another easy Linux install, Kubuntu style
I am doing an experiment at home. I recently purchased two new laptops from Dell for my wife and daughter for their birthday. As I wrote in a previous article, these laptops came loaded with Vista. Vista has completely frustrated my family because of the poor performance, the bugs, and the interface. My wife refuses to use her new laptop so I gave it to my son. I took my daughter’s old PC (Dell 4300s with 1.7 GHz, 256MB memory, 40GB disk) that was performing poorly on XP and installed Kubuntu 7.04 on it. The install was incredibly simple despite the myth that Linux is hard to install. The total install took about 70 minutes. Most of that was due to the time it took to partition a very old hard drive. Once the install completed I plugged the PC into my Linksys access point and just like that I was up and running. I was able to see my shared folders on my XP machine and print to my Lexmark x73 scanner/printer.
As I have written in the past, I use Ubuntu at work. A friend of mine recommended Kubuntu so I tested it out at home. Kubuntu has a very nice user friendly interface. It’s desktop manager is actually similar to Vista’s. Kubuntu comes preloaded with Open Office, chat, dvd burning software, graphics software, the Konquerer browser, and many more open source software packages. This is the first time I used Konquerer and I found it to be equal to if not better then Firefox.
Like Ubuntu’s package manager, Kubuntu has the Adept Manager which provides a simple user interface for installing software. For those users who are not hardcore Linux geeks and don’t want to mess around with tar files and the like, Adept Manager is the tool for you. There are literally thousands of open source products listed by category and completely searchable. I added Wine, Thunderbird, Firefox, Gimp, and a hand full of other popular tools. I simply clicked the check box next to the desired software, clicked apply, and the Adept Manager did the rest. Who says Linux is hard to install?
So now that I have this up and running on my slowest and oldest machine, I am going to have my wife and kids test it out to see if it meets their needs. If they are comfortable using Kubuntu, which I expect they will be, I will be kicking Vista out of my house. I will always have my Dell XPS gaming machine with XP on it for the rare times where they can’t get their needs met on Linux. So far the only thing I can come up with is some of the games we play. Most of the PC usage in my house is internet surfing, email, and office. We have been using Open Office, Firefox, and Thunderbird for years, so this should be a simple transition.
The next experiment will be my parents. I still have to reset the clock on their VCR everytime I go to their house. All they do is read email, surf a few web sites, and play Spades and Mahjong. I am giving them my son’s old computer, which is a very good machine, and taking back their old PC. I will mess around with Mepis on that PC. Once I get that installed I will give it back to them with a wireless USB adapter and see how they adapt to Linux. They already struggle with XP so anything will be a challenge for them. If my parents are able to use Linux, then anyone can use it. I’ll provide an update on their Linux experience in the next few weeks, assuming that I find time to get them set up.
