Ubuntu Linux, Week 2

Welll, it’s not really week 2. I got the laptop a few days ago – but it was last week. I figured this was a good time to post an update, and complai… explain where I’ve gotten to so far.

I’m using it full time now, as my basic desktop. I’m reading email, posting blog entries, searching the web, working on presentations, etc.  I have definitely hit some points of pain in migration.

What’s fine:

• The web was painless. I’ve been using Firefox for a long time anyway, and all I had to do was install a few extensions (and google sync, which rocks) and I was up and running exactly as I had been before. And since so much of my workflow is in Web2.0 apps, it all works great.
• I had converted to IMAP a while back in preparation for this change, so all of my old mail and folders are now sitting on a server. Thunderbird is a bit different than Apple Mail.app, so it’s taking me a bit of time to get used to it.
• Skype seems to work fine (I haven’t tried to make a phone call, but I usually use it for chat anyway, and it works fine for that.)
• There are a lot of open source apps that I’ve already been using (XChat for IRC, Open Office, GIMP, Scribus) that work just the same, and can read and write all of the same docs I’ve been using.
• I found some good screenshot software.

What’s been problematic:

• Wireless networking – it took a bit of work to initially get it going, as I’d mentioned in my last post. Now, it seems to work fine – I’ve used it with two different open access points. I have yet to try it with a closed access point – I’ve heard that WPA can be problematic.
• Video – the video resolution that the generic driver has is lower than the resolution that my laptop can use. I had to install new drivers, and, I have not yet gotten a configuration to work yet. I posted this plea to the techtalk list on Linuxchix. Hopefully I can find a solution.
• For some really odd reason, Konqueror, the web browser that comes with Kubuntu, can’t see any external web sites. Every other program does fine (GAIM seems to flake out at times.) I haven’t solved it, and I hate Konqueror anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. But it’s quite odd.
• Proprietary media doesn’t play by default. I totally get why this is true, and it’s not Ubuntu’s fault – it’s the fault of those who license the proprietary media. I wish everyone would just switch to Ogg Vorbis – it would make life easier. But, fat chance. So I’m having to download and install all sorts of strange stuff in order to play MP3s, Quicktime, etc. Installing Flash was kind of a pain, and I had to resort to the command line.

What’s unclear:

• I haven’t done much with sound yet.
• I don’t know what I’m going to do for an address book, and I don’t know how I’m going to get that to sync with my cell phone.
• There are several key pieces of software that I use every day that I don’t know how I’m going to replace. They include the blog client, ecto – there really aren’t any good solutions for Linux. There are also Journler and Scrivener – two great apps for which there are no  Linux equivalents (actually, there are no Windows equivalents for these either.) There are also a whole host of tools and games I’ve gotten used to that there are likely no good replacements for at this time.

The bottom line – pretty much, if I were the type of person that did mostly email, the web and word processing, and the occasional spreadsheet or presentation, I’d be off and running, and doing just fine. And, actually,  I am off and running, and doing just fine. But if I hadn’t been so familiar with Linux, some of the stuff (like wireless) would have stymied me, if I couldn’t resort to the command line (Ubuntu doesn’t come out of the box with a decent wireless network application – if I were them, priority #1 for the next version would be seamless wireless, at least as good as is present in Mac and Windows.) I can’t blame them for the driver problem for my laptop, really.

But since I’m a power user, and have gotten used to Mac tools, which are great and user-friendly, it’s going to be a bit painful at times, I think. But I’ll be getting my work done, for sure.