1% complete! 7 hours to go! $60! Holy what!?

Yes, that’s my Ubuntu desktop.

You can also press and release Ctrl+Shift+U, then a unicode hex value, then space. That’s equivalent to the Windows Alt+<unicode> shortcut. Get the hex values from the Character Map in the Accessories menu.

Over the weekend I created a photo uploader for Linux, specifically for Gnome desktop users:

I’m looking for some people who can install and try the package out before I release it publicly. Ideally I’d like several people to run the installer (a .deb package) and make sure it does all the right things. I’m targeting Ubuntu but (in theory) the .deb should work on any Debian system and a tarball is also available. A mix of technical and non-technical users would be nice. Please only respond if you are able to spend some time using the app and share feedback with me via email. Contact me if you’re interested.

My goals were to remove Windows and re-dedicate the drive as backup storage. There are easier ways to do this. For example, I could have simply deleted all of the files on the Windows drive and been done.

But because I’m human and often irrational and for aesthetic and symbolic reasons, I wanted the Windows drive to become /dev/sdb1 and I wanted to reformat it for the ext3 file system. So, here’s what I did:

[ Follow this procedure at your own risk! If you come whining to me that you blew up your computer I will feel your pain, shake my head sadly, send you some good vibes and not write you back. ]

1. Download Ubuntu and create a bootable live CD. This will be your rescue tool if you screw up. You may also want to create a backup of your important files, just in case.
2. Reboot into the Live CD.
3. Open a console and start GRUB:

   $ sudo grub

4. Find your Linux drive (the result shown here says Linux is on device hd2):

   grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd2, 0)

5. Install GRUB into the MBR of the Linux drive:

   grub> root(hd2, 0)
grub> setup(hd2)

6. Since I was changing the physical order of my drives, I edited /boot/grub/menu.lst and changed all references to the old drive (hd1) to the new one (hd0).
7. I also deleted the Windows boot entries in menu.lst.
8. I don’t know if this is strictly necessary, but I used gparted to add the “boot” flag to the Linux drive’s root partition.
9. Then I powered down and physically switched drive channels so that the Ubuntu drive would be hd0.
10. Then I rebooted. It worked. :-)

There are a lot of ways you can mess this up, but as long as you don’t reformat or delete anything, even if you can’t boot, all of your data and files are still there. With the live CD handy you can still get on the internet and find help and get at all of the files on your drives if necessary.

Read the GRUB manual. Make sure you check your BIOS and it is using the correct hard drive for booting. Also, if GRUB loads but can’t boot your system, you can get into a console and/or edit menu entries on the fly from there which will allow you to try different device numbers until you find one that works (and when it does, write it down and edit your menu.lst appropriately).

It’s been very nearly a year now and I’m happy to report that not only am I still using Linux on my main desktop computer on a daily basis, I haven’t had any need or desire to boot into Windows in a long time. So long, in fact, that I can’t remember the last time I did.

Browsing Flickr in Firefox, watching a CNN video podcast in Miro, listening to music with Amarok. The icons are hard to make out but the first two are Civ 4 and Age of Empires 3. Yes, this is Linux.

A couple of days ago I was hunting around for a new removable storage system for making backups (I have about 200 G of memories and important files) when I realized that I already had a spare 320 G hard drive just sitting idle: my Windows paritition.

I poked through it to see if there was anything left on there that I still wanted and then blew it away (I’ll write a short post about removing Windows from the boot partition of a dual-boot system and setting up rdiff-backup another time).

The kids have been using Linux for years, so they’re happy penguins. I’m a happy penguin. The wife’s laptop is the only remaining Windows machine in the house and it is nearing the end of its life. I’m predicting we’ll be a Windows-free household in just a few months with absolutely no regrets.

Folks, it’s been a fun and sometimes woolly ride. Several times, early in this adventure, I had thoughts to just reboot into Windows and forget the whole thing ever happened. I mean, it’s not only hard to get used to a new way of doing things, it’s also a chore to have to transfer all of the stuff over that I want to work with and set everything up the way I like it. Years of Windows history is hard to shake.

But I stuck with it and I started to become proficient in the tasks I needed to do daily. With each success, my confidence grew. And as my confidence increased, I began to notice the nuances and subtle improvements that Ubuntu Linux makes over Windows.

It’s tough to switch. Period. You just need to give it some time. A few days is not enough. I’d say it takes three weeks minimum to switch. You aren’t giving Linux a fair chance if you give up earlier.

But it’s worth it.

In Part 1 I hinted that the more advanced you are as a computer user, the harder it would be to switch. So, what types of people are good candidates for switching?

People with modest computing requirements would be well served by Linux on their desktop. If you want to check your email, browse the internet, write and print personal documents, and download pictures from your camera onto your computer you bought in the last 2-3 years then you should have no problem at all switching to Linux. Ubuntu Linux comes configured out of the box to support all of these activities. If the desktop theme is setup in a particular way, it’s hard to even notice you’ve switched. Your first clue that you’re in a far, far better place might come when you realize you don’t have—and don’t need—any anti-virus software running.

If you want to do slightly more advanced things like watch videos on YouTube, listen to your mp3 collection, rip and burn CDs, chat with people on Skype or IM, do complex photo editing, create spreadsheets, write software, and manage your finances, you’ll still be well-served by Linux. You have to do some additional setup, mostly in the area of proprietary driver and codec (audio and video decoding) installation. Ubuntu 7.04 (code named “Feisty Fawn”) due out in April 2007 provides a simple control panel that will walk you through the process of installing just what you need without any hassles.

If you want to take it one step further and start creating your own content, editing multi-track audio, doing non-linear video editing, printing color-calibrated photos on your own printer, capturing video from a camera, or playing commercial video games, then you are going to run into problems. These problems are usually of the “there’s no driver” variety or its kin “there’s no GUI configuration tool so I have to edit .config files” or “it’s fairly easy but I have to search the Wiki and decipher 10 sets of conflicting instructions before I find the set that works for me”.

In some cases, you will simply not be able to use the software you are used to. There’s likely something that is very similar—maybe even better! (visit osalt.com right now!)—but whether it is a suitable replacement or not is a completely personal decision. For many people, The GIMP is a suitable replacement for Photoshop but for many others that’s a laughable suggestion. Then again, you may be pleasantly surprised by what you can run with Wine.

I also wrote that Linux isn’t just for geeks anymore. That is 100% true. I’d bet that anyone who says that hasn’t used Linux in a long time. But the cool thing is that a lot of geeks do use Linux. And by “geeks” I mean savvy, technology-loving, early-adopters. (And I count myself among their number.) Being in a community full of geeks is a wonderful thing. For example, if you have a gripe about something or wish you had an app to do some task, it’s a good bet that a lot of other people had the same itch; that a few of them had the time, energy, and know-how to do something about it; and that they contributed it back to the community so you can download exactly what you need, for free, with a few mouse clicks.

As you can tell by today’s date it’s actually been nearly eight weeks since I started using Ubuntu Linux. I wrote most of the content for these articles in late February and early March. But I can assure you now, with eight weeks of experience behind me, that if you stick with it that long you won’t want to switch back.

I just booted back into my old Windows XP system for a minute to see if I had any lingering switching pangs (it took too long and then it greeted me with a prompt to run the monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool—I don’t miss that at all). I don’t think my old Windows partition is long for this world. Rather than feeling comfortable, like getting your favorite leather jacket out of Winter storage, everything just seemed a little… off.

Windows had been my home for years, but I don’t live there anymore.

I’ve heard that installing software on Linux is very difficult. That may have been true once but it is a myth today. The truth is, installing software in Ubuntu is a far better and easier process that it has ever been in Windows.

The installation and updating of software is an area where Ubuntu shines. The Windows Add/Remove programs dialog is a feeble shadow of Apt, Ubuntu’s package management system. There are several different ways to install software in Ubuntu including a familiar sounding “Add/Remove” programs choice, a utility called Synaptic, and a command-line utility called apt-get; but under the covers they are all accessing Apt.

Apt manages a tremendous catalog of free software that has been packaged by official Ubuntu representatives and the Ubuntu community. There are over 20,000 applications available to me right now. I prefer using Synaptic to access the catalog which lets me browse and search software by category and description. To install anything I need requires just two clicks. One to select the software and one click to actually start the install. Once it’s installed, Ubuntu will automatically let me know if any of my installed software has been updated and offer to upgrade it for me. As if that wasn’t enough, I never have to reboot after I install anything!

Anything not in the official repositories that has any kind of popularity is quickly packaged by the community and made available. The end result is that if you need it, it’s in there. It’s an understatement to call this an amazing resource.

Apt combined with Synaptic is Ubuntu’s killer app.

I was already using a variety of free and open source applications when I installed Ubuntu. This probably made the switch easier for me since most of those applications were already available on Ubuntu. In other words, switching was easier because I was able to keep using the same apps. If you’re considering switching, switch apps first. Find free and open source applications that run on Linux and your current operating system. Open Source Alternative is the definitive resource for this information. You may be surprised by the quality of alternative software available (I was) in every category.

Applications I was using regularly (daily, in most cases):

Firefox, iTunes, Skype, Gaim, Adobe Lightroom, Paint Shop Pro X, GVIM, Subversion, Launchy, Last.fm, Apache 2, MySql, MySql Query browser, Audacity, Terminal Server Client

(I use Gmail and Google Calendar exclusively for mail and scheduling so those were non-issues.)

All of these applications also run on Linux except for iTunes, LightRoom, Paint Shop Pro, and Launchy. As I wrote earlier, this makes switching easier. Because I was already using a lot of free and open source software like Firefox, I could keep on using those apps on Linux.

I just needed to find replacements for Launchy, iTunes, Lightroom, and Paint Shop Pro. Replacing Launchy, a keyboard-based application launcher, was easy. A free app called Katapult performs exactly the same function.

iTunes was a bit more problematic. I don’t mind not being able to access the iTunes music store any longer as I didn’t buy a whole lot of music from them anyway. The real problem was being able to play the DRM-protected music files on my Ubuntu system that I had already purchased. Fortunately, I’ve always burned newly purchased iTunes tracks to a CD and re-ripped them in mp3 format. If you haven’t been doing this all along, you may have some work ahead of you.

But what app to replace iTunes as a music library and player? amaroK stands head and shoulders above every other music player I’ve tried, iTunes included. The amaroK guys say version 2.0 (due out this year) will run on Linux, Windows, and OS X. Whether you’ve switched or not, give it a try when that day comes.

Replacing Lightroom and Paint Shop Pro, key components of my digital photography workflow, have been my biggest hurdles. I’m a photographer. I care more about my photographs than the average snapshot shooter. I don’t typically get prints at Target and send them to grandma (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I’ve pressed the shutter on my Nikon nearly 50,000 times (no joke) since 2004. I’ve spent a couple thousand dollars on equipment. I mention all this not to brag but just to show how important photography is to me.

Adobe Lightroom is, frankly, magnificent. Lightroom is a joy to use and is brilliantly designed both aesthetically and functionally. Lightroom only runs on Windows and Macs. I haven’t found anything on Linux (or Windows!) that even comes close to it. There are apps on Linux that perform roughly the same function. digiKam, for example, is a very fine photo management and editing suite similar in capability and use to Google’s Picasa (which also runs on Linux). But, I don’t even think you can make a fair comparison between digiKam and Lightroom since the intended audiences are drastically different (Joe Snapshooter vs. Pro Photographer). Lightroom is in a different league.

Recognizing that nothing can truly replace Lightroom, I hunted around for usable alternatives and came across an app called LightZone. LightZone is a professional, commercial photo processing application created by a company called Light Crafts. LightZone runs on Windows, OS X, and Linux and retails for $249. But wait! They give away the Linux version for free! It’s a very nice photo processing app with some very useful and unique capabilities. It’s not as polished or quite as capable as Lightroom; but for me—for now—it’ll do nicely.

Which leaves Paint Shop Pro. The GIMP image editor is the de facto Linux standard for image editing. It is a shining example of the open source community’s ability to create complex and highly functional software. It is a technological marvel and includes almost everything you’d expect including stuff like pressure-sensitive tablet support. That said, the learning curve is a steep. Everything is there but it can take a while to get used to its… idiosyncracies. Everything, that is, with the exception of adjustment layers.

Ah, adjustment layers. If you don’t know what adjustment layers are, I’ll just say that switching to an app without them is kind of like giving up your dual-core PC for a Commodore 64. The GIMP may have adjustment layers in version 3. That’s a long way off.

There are other alternatives. You can actually run Photoshop 7 and maybe 8 (CS) under Linux via an emulation app called Wine. I haven’t tried it personally but many others have reported success. There’s also a very promising looking and modestly-priced ($38) commercial (shareware) application called Pixel (which I haven’t tried). If your needs are more modest, open source Krita, Picasa, or digiKam may suit you better.

For now, I’m using a combination of digiKam, LightZone, and GIMP. It took a lot of getting used to as these apps are significantly different from what I was accustomed to, but I’m finally becoming proficient with these new tools.

There are several “desktops” you can use with Ubuntu. Ubuntu comes with the Gnome desktop but you can easily install others. I’m currently using KDE and I think I prefer it over Gnome but I haven’t been a Linux user for very long. KDE is more Windows-like than Gnome is so Windows switchers might feel more comfortable with it.

KDE and Gnome each include a lot of “little” things that make working with your computer more civilized. For example:

• In Windows XP, you can download an app (Tweak UI) that lets you configure Windows not to steal focus from the current app. Instead, it will make the app that needs your attention blink in the taskbar. In Gnome, that is the default behavior; and it is much less intrusive with a very soft, gradual pulse instead of harsh blinking.
• You can copy and paste text simply by highlighting the text you want to copy and then clicking the mouse wheel where you want to paste it.
• In KDE, when I highlight a URL, a small popup appears in the corner of the screen asking me what I’d like to do with it (like open it in a browser).
• You can paste the contents of the clipboard directly to your desktop or folder. KDE prompts you for a filename and saves the contents in a new file for you automatically.

And there are hundreds of these kinds of things that, if you use a computer a lot, make a big difference in the long run.

In part four, the last article in this series, I’ll conclude with my overall impressions of Ubuntu and talk a little about the kinds of users Ubuntu might be best suited for.

[ Continue to Part 4: And the verdict is... ]

If you’ve never installed a modern Linux distribution and you’re worried about how difficult it will be because you’ve heard awful stories about the process, let me assure you that it is as easy as pie. Easier, probably, now that I think about trying to actually make a pie.

Before I go on I should mention what kind of computer user I am. This is important because the kind of computer user you are will affect your ability to switch to Linux.

I’m an enthusiast. A hobbyist. I am very demanding. I’ve been using computers since I was about ten years old. As a freelance developer, my daily bread is won through the use of a computer. I sometimes spend sixteen hours a day at the keyboard. A good chunk of that is work but a lot is also hobby-related and recreational.

I’ve found that the more demanding you are of your computer, the harder it might be to switch. This is because hardcore users like myself have extremely (often tediously) specific requirements about the software we use and we use it much more frequently. A casual user probably doesn’t care (or even notice!) many of the things that I require. To put it another way, if most people think of their computers as a family sedan, I think of mine as a Formula 1 race car. When the suspension isn’t dialed in perfectly, I notice and it affects me.

If Ubuntu and I were dating, I’d be her high-maintenance boyfriend.

Interestingly, this shows that the notion that Linux is only for highly technical computer geeks is a myth. The opposite is more likely to be true.

Ubuntu Linux comes on what is commonly referred to as a Live CD. A Live CD is a bootable CD that loads a complete and fully functional operating system without actually installing or changing anything on your hard drive. You put the CD in, turn on your computer, and in a couple of minutes—*poof!*—you’re using Linux. If you don’t like it or you were just experimenting, take out the CD, switch the power off and on again, and you’re back to your old system. It really is as simple as that.

Live CDs are an ingenius way of packaging software. With the Ubuntu Linux CD (which you can download from their web site and burn in your very own CD drive for free), you can try out a fully functional Ubuntu system, verify that it has correctly detected all of your hardware, play around with any of the pre-installed applications like Open Office, browse the Internet, and a lot more—all before you install anything. Everyone should try a Live CD no matter what you might think of switching.

And if you decide you do want to install it? Just double-click the install icon on the desktop and it walks you through the process in just a few clicks.

Installing software, even operating systems, on home computer systems should by now be a complete non-event. It should be taken for granted that it will work. So why am I even mentioning it? Because Ubuntu should be recognized and congratulated for fulfilling that promise better than any other system I’ve ever used. Period.

Once my new system booted for the first time I checked to make sure everything was in working order. Hard drives? Check. CD ROM? Check. Sound? Check. I turned on my scanner and I could scan. Setting up my printer was almost identical to the process I use in Windows and just as easy. The network was already active and I could browse the Internet. Everything was working.

Overall, hardware support is very, very good. Your computer will boot on the first try, all your hard drives will be detected, you’ll be able to burn and rip CDs, and your monitor will come up in the correct resolution. But I had two hardware problems. The first minor problem was that the available driver for my positively ancient Canon S520 wasn’t an exact match. If you have a more modern/popular printer, you’ll probably be fine. In actual usage, it doesn’t seem to matter as I can print fine.

The other problem was setting up dual monitors. Dual monitor configuration is, unfortunately, a dark art. Just like Windows, it required installing the correct drivers for my video card first (which in Ubuntu was actually easier than it was in Windows). Unlike Windows, there was no point and click tool for configuring the monitors. I spent a couple of hours wading through conflicting documentation and trying various configuration files until I found a method that worked.

Here are some other initial impressions I had during my setup phase:

• Ubuntu comes with a software installation/management/update system called Synaptic that is a dream come true. It makes finding, installing, updating, and removing software easier than anything available on Windows. Taken together with a free software library consisting of tens of thousands of applications and it easily qualifies as Ubuntu’s killer app. I’ll write more about this sublime resource in the next installment.
• Font rendering is very good but I didn’t like the sub-pixel rendering option on my LCD so I turned it off in the control panel (the equivalent of Windows Clear Type which I also don’t particularly like). There’s a font smoothing hack but I didn’t notice much of a difference. It did seem to have a little trouble when some fonts were rendered at very small sizes (can anyone say Web 2.0?) but that I think had more to do with the quality of the fonts in question than anything else.
• There’s a bug in the included version of Firefox that causes the “Restore session” dialog to popup every. Time. I started. It. But there is an easy workaround: disable the popup.
• I copied over my Subversion repository from a Windows drive to the Linux drive and did a checkout and it worked perfectly. Yay, Subversion.
• For some reason, all of the sound devices were turned down to zero in the mixer. No sound, no microphone, etc. It took a while for me to find the mixer (there’s that switching “friction” I’ve been talking about), enable all of the inputs I have, and then turn up and adjust the gain on all the inputs I care about. It might be because I’ve got a sound card with 5.1 surround. *shrug*
• Skype works great. The only “problem” I had was that it took me a while to figure out how to get it to start automatically when I login.
• All of my Firefox plugins still work. That’s as expected but it’s still cool.
• Installing Apache and MySql were no more of a chore than they were to install on Windows. The experience was different, of course, but it wasn’t any tougher.
• Ubuntu doesn’t install a bunch of stuff you might expect because of licensing issues. MP3 ripping and playback, NVIDIA device drivers, and proprietary video codecs all need to be installed separately. It’s very easy to do, it’s just an extra step if you need that stuff.
• Installing NVIDIA drivers was easy but incomplete. I installed the drivers and rebooted and nothing. You have to also run a tool to get it to modify your settings to enable it (xconf).
• Adobe provides an installer with the version 9 Flash plugin which is really swell of them. Now they just need to release Photoshop for Linux and they’ll be the coolest kids on the block.
• Sharing the printer with my wife’s XP machine was another story. It’s straightforward but a little ridiculous.
• Boot time is about the same. Windows XP actually gets you to the login screen faster than Ubuntu but after I login I then have to wait again while services and background apps start up. Ubuntu seems to do all of that nonsense up front so when I login I’m just logged in and there’s no additional wait. I like that approach better since I can just do something else for 60 seconds and come back when it’s ready instead of having to wait twice. The Ubuntu way is more civilized.
• Setting up file sharing for my wife’s Windows laptop was a mixed bag. Right-clicking a folder and clicking Share folder worked as expected—to a point. Ubuntu installed the appropriate file-sharing stuff, shared the folder, and declared success. I tried accessing the share from the laptop and was asked for a username and password and my Ubuntu login didn’t work. After some digging, I discovered that passwords for Windows file sharing are stored separately from Ubuntu login passwords, presumably for security reasons. I just wish the installer had told me about it.
• Installing my Wacom drawing tablet required an easy driver install followed by a not so easy edit of a configuration file. Installing hardware sometimes seems to peter out at the last step. Linux needs just a little more *oomph* in some of the hardware installers.

So far, Ubuntu has been a terrific experience. Most of the minor issues I had are the types of problems new users commonly have with computers in general (How do I adjust the sound? How do I get apps to start automatically when I login? And so on.). Getting to a functional and aesthetically pleasing desktop environment is essential and Ubuntu handled that critical first step with ease. The more I use it, the more my old Windows habits fade, and the easier it becomes.

In the next installment, I plan to write a little more about some applications—specifically, new apps that I found to replace apps I had been using in Windows that didn’t have a Linux version and the delightful and sometimes disappointing surprises in that arena. And I’ll wrap up the series in part 4 with conclusions, I’ll tell you where I ended up, and share some final thoughts about switching.

[ Continue to Part 3: Oh my God---it's full of stars! ]