[ On January 30th I installed Ubuntu Linux and decided to give it a serious try. Read Part 1 for an introduction including my reasons for doing this. Part 2 covers my installation experience. And Part 3 was all about finding and using replacement applications. ]

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.

Comments

1. RAWDEADFISH » Blog Archive » i’m linux on 2007-03-25 09:43:21 wrote: […] out this series of posts on flagrant disregard about moving to linux from windows. this is what i will be doing with my new athlon64-based pc that […]

2. herval on 2007-03-25 10:11:45 wrote: you were the first person to convince me to try Ubuntu at home. I’ll send you my analyst bills if I get way too depressed by using it ;)

3. Richard Chapman on 2007-03-25 12:47:47 wrote: *I love reading these “just switched” stories and yours is one of the best. Very good information for those people considering leaving (escaping, running-from, kicking-out) the Microsoft Camp. I personally use PCLinuxOS, but there’s nothing wrong with the ubuntos. You’re right about sticking with it. I was never going back to Windows no matter what so sticking with it was not an issue. I have noticed that even after 2 years I’m still discovering things about Linux that are making my computing life much more enjoyable. Thanks. I’m looking forward to reading more about your adventures in Linux Land.

4. Kussh Singh on 2007-03-30 04:07:48 wrote: Remaining in linux was not easy initially–I had to use software in windows whose alternatives at that time were either not known or not well documented but synaptic, kpackage and the mailing lists as well as google helped a lot besides linuxquestions.org. Now I know quite a bit more of linux and learn something new and very interesting almost daily. It also helped that I made opted for daily google alerts (for linux) in my mailbox to learn more and more of it. The switch to linux actually happenned when ubuntu came along and the installation out of the box became really simple. It took me some perseverance but the positive stories really helped. Besides now more and more people are giving their actual experiential stories/blogs and other information which is making the transition much more easier and faster.

5. flagrantdisregard » Blog Archive » A year with Linux on the desktop on 2007-11-23 01:52:04 wrote: […] the surprises of that switch (both happy and vexing) in a four-part series (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) in […]

6. Fabrizio on 2007-12-10 03:19:55 wrote: I’ve read all your stories, I wanted to ask you something, I’m a professional photographer and i wanted to know if there is a linux alternative to Genuine Fractals. I need that software almost more than photoshop.

7. John on 2007-12-10 09:08:03 wrote: I don’t use anything like that so I don’t know. I do know that Photoshop CS2 runs well under Linux so if there’s a plugin for it that should work. You could also run a virtual machine with Windows inside of it (like Mac users run Parallels to run Windows apps) and just use the Windows version of Genuine Fractals that way. Virtualbox is very good for that (and it’s free). http://www.virtualbox.org/

8. Fabrizio on 2007-12-11 19:42:22 wrote: Thank you very much! I’ll try photoshop cs2! You are a life saver!