Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
When Ubuntu 7.04 was released, I downloaded a copy. I didn’t experiment with it much at the time. I have been caught up in the whirlwind of owning my new Mac. Well, I was using my laptop the other night and decided to toss in my Ubuntu CD. It rebooted into the full Ubuntu environment, where you can use the OS without actually installing it. I ended up being stunned at how well it operated, despite the fact that it was running entirely from the CD. All of my devices, including wireless Internet, worked without a hitch.
Today, I decided to actually install Ubuntu on my laptop. This is as easy as booting the CD and clicking “install” on the desktop. I was only asked a few simple questions, such as language and time zone information. Installation was a breeze. It didn’t take long at all. I am using it now to write this blog entry. I hadn’t used Linux before on a processor any higher than an old Pentium-III. My Dell laptop is much faster than that and Linux is surprisingly snappy. Even the external media player buttons work, without any setup at all.
My only complaint is that it isn’t easy to choose between Ubuntu and Windows for the default operating system. This should be made clear and simple during installation. It knows I use Windows, because it had to resize my Windows NTFS partition to make room for Linux. I wish it would ask me which OS I want to boot to. If nothing else, make it an easy option in the system preferences. The only way I could configure this was using the Terminal and manually editing the menu.lst file in the Grub folder. It took me a couple of tries to get it so that Windows booted automatically after five seconds. Still, that is small potatoes compared to Linux from years past.
Ubuntu 7.04 is awesome. I am very happy with it. The new desktop effects are really cool. I have only been using it for a couple of hours now and I am very happy with it all around. I think the Linux community has a clear winner. Thanks to Ubuntu, I think Linux may finally be a true desktop contender.
