Spotlight On Ubuntu: Why I Love Karmic Koala

Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 is released today, Thursday 29 October. Ubuntu has been around for a while, of course. I’ve been using it as my operating system of choice for about four and a half years and I’m writing this post because I’m so totally impressed with the new version. I just want to say thanks, properly, to the developers and everyone involved in producing this great free alternative to Windows and Mac operating systems. But before I get into that, I just want to put my experience into some perspective.

Breaking Windows

Back in 2000 had my first home computer running what I guess must have been Windows 2000 (or it might have been Win 98?). I knew how to do the basics – email, browsing the internet, office applications, playing football manager – all of which I’d learned in jobs of variable satisfaction. I was on dial-up with about a 10GB hard drive, so photos, music and video were not a viable option, then. I didn’t know anything about firewalls, viruses, trojans and all those little nasties that soon downloaded themselves on to my system and rendered it slower and slower until it finally stopped altogether and became almost unusable.

Learning From eXPerience

This was around the time that Windows launched XP and I wanted the new, shiny operating system and a new, shiny (well, matt black) Dell Dimension 2200 PC. I still didn’t know anything about nasties, although I was about to learn, and fast. I got broadband, too. As soon as my new PC launched itself and connected to the web I was informed about Windows Firewall and Norton Internet Security. So far so good. I had to learn how to adjust the settings on the security features so that I could use the applications and that enabled me to learn a bit more about why that’s important. So important, that I would have to pay Norton to continue to use my computer safely. Oh, well, that’s how it was.

Discovering Free Software

Now, I used my new PC for all sorts of things that I won’t go into here, or anywhere else for that matter, but along the way I learned quite a bit more about how the internet works, made some new virtual friends through massively multiplayer online role-playing games and discovered that, amazingly, I didn’t have to buy any software at all if I didn’t want to. There is tons and tons of what is called freeware out there. Some good, some bad and some just plain ugly. So I tried out various free firewalls and anti-virus programs and even some spyware masquerading as anti-spyware. It wasn’t long before my shiny, new XP was chugging along like my old and not long since dead PC.

By this time I’d learned enough to know that I could reinstall my Windows and start again, which I did. Only I didn’t realise that in doing so, as soon as my machine switched on and connected to the internet it would be inundated with viruses and trojans that literally caused my computer to stop working withing a matter of seconds. Crap! I managed to resurrect my old PC somehow in order to Google my problems and spent several hours if not days getting my XP system working again. Next time I did a clean install, I was going to remember to switch the broadband off and manke sure I’d got copies on CD of all the security software I needed to install in advance.

Cutting Out The Crap

I must admit, I got a bit obsessive about security. But I heard so much about the dangers of viruses and spyware (and the vulnerabilities of Windows and its endless updates) that it seemed like sensible advice to follow. The downside to all of this, of course, is that I spent so much time and energy locking down my computer, I hardly used it for anything else. Not to mention that if I did want to use it for anything it was so slow because the security software was using up so much of it’s relatively limited power. Christmas 2004, I ended up borking my system using something called CrapCleaner rather foolishly – with the benefit of hindsight – to clean out my entire Windows directory. I can see the funny side of it now, but at the time I was ever so slightly annoyed.

Karma And Dumping Linux

By this time, in my job, I’d had my Linux virginity rather brutally taken by a couple of hairy bikers in leather pants. Not a pleasant experience, I can assure you. However distressing it had been, I did learn about the ethos behind Linux – open source – and liked the idea of it, if not the reality (which, oddly enough, is how an ex-girlfriend once explained to me why she was dumping me). So, I reinstalled Windows and researched how to get Linux on my home PC. That’s when I discovered Ubuntu and I was soon downloading and burning it to CD.

Now, my first taste of Ubuntu Warty Warthog 4.10 was not that great. While I was able to follow the instructions and install it, I couldn’t access the internet as it didn’t recognise my network connection. Nevertheless, I was impressed by the sheer speed of the damned thing compared to what I’d been used to with Windows and this was with all my basic software needs and more pre-installed and free. But I was back to XP for the time being. I decided to order the free Ship-It CDs of the next version of Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog 5.04.

Feeling Part Of The Ubuntu Community

Hoary worked! I was now officially an Ubuntu novice (or an Ubuntard, if you prefer). My Ubuntu experience was not without problems, such as figuring out how to play MP3s, videos, Flash, etc., all things I would expect to be able to do on my Windows machine. But the solutions were very easy to find via the Ubuntu community forums where there are so many responsive and helpful people as well as many like myself having similar issues. So it wasn’t long before I could do everything I could do using Windows – and a whole lot more besides, without having to spend half as much time and certainly no money on the software I needed or wanted to try. Not only that, but I didn’t have to worry about firewall, viruses and spyware any more, or at least, not to anywhere near the same extent that I had done with Windows. An added benefit to me, but one that for others may be the opposite, is that I learned a bit more about computers, Linux and, of course, Ubuntu, as well as feeling part of something – the Ubuntu community – along the way.

Never Trust A Leeds United Supporter

So, back to the present. Along the way, I’ve upgraded Ubuntu through all the new releases (with plenty of problems caused by my Ubuntardness) and learned that the best way (for me, at least) is almost certainly to do a clean install. I’ve also learned the importance of backing up my personal and data, settings and applications, and found plenty of options for for doing this using external drives and online services – my current favourite being Dropbox. So, why do I love this latest release? Well, it’s funny, really. I had no plans at all to upgrade to the new version, at least not for a few weeks, to see how it was going and all the major bugs that tend to happen with any new release were ironed out. I was happy with my Jaunty set up and had overcome problems with my new PC hardware not being recognised by any Linux kernel after 2.6.27.

One little application I liked using, however, is CheckGmail, which – amazingly – checks Gmail for you, stopped working for me a few days ago. Richard Cutts kindly offered me some help and advice about how to fix it (which didn’t work) and from that moment on I was quickly able to undo all my previous good work and totally screw up my system messing around with things I shouldn’t be messing around with. So, thanks to Richard, I decided to try the Ubuntu Karmic Beta. What a fail! It recognised my hardware and network card, but I couldn’t connect to the internet. Crap, again! Bollocks! Shit!

Thank You!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I had to reinstall Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10, update and upgrade to Jaunty, then update and upgrade to Karmic to make it work. And how it works! I still cannot get over just how fast it is, how smoothly everything works, how well integrated the design is (from an aesthetic point of view – I like brown), but also from a functional standpoint. I’m no expert, but from my perspective this is a tremendous leap forward for Ubuntu and makes using it even more of a pleasure than it was before. So, once again, thanks to all involved in making it happen!

My desktop – trying out Windows 7 in VirtualBox on Ubuntu Karmic: