More on Ubuntu Hardy Heron
With Microsoft's most recent misstep in Vista, some opportunities have opened up in the desktop OS space. Apple has had one of its best quarters, and now Canonical has put its best food forward with its latest release of Ubuntu, Hardy Heron.
OSNews has a roundup of reviews of Hardy Heron, while Lifehacker offered a detailed and well written primer to getting started with this popular distribution.
While not a perfect distribution by any means, there is a lot to impress. It runs snappily on obsolete hardware. It definitely felt faster than XP on my Eee, and that was with the visual effects turned on. Where Ubuntu, and ultimately Linux on the desktop fails, is driver support. I have yet to have a painless experience getting wireless to work on the Eee, and that's even after switching out the wireless card to a more compatible broadcom version.
Ubuntu has as slick a GUI as I've ever seen in a Linux distro, although the interface designers do need to come to the realization that brown is not the new black.
In any case, if you're just looking to get up and running, without a lot of customization, Ubuntu can fulfill most surf and mail requirements. Once you have to dig a little deeper to tweak the system, you'll definitely be in need of a little more patience. I do believe that the goal of a viable Linux based desktop is well in reach.
OSNews has a roundup of reviews of Hardy Heron, while Lifehacker offered a detailed and well written primer to getting started with this popular distribution.
While not a perfect distribution by any means, there is a lot to impress. It runs snappily on obsolete hardware. It definitely felt faster than XP on my Eee, and that was with the visual effects turned on. Where Ubuntu, and ultimately Linux on the desktop fails, is driver support. I have yet to have a painless experience getting wireless to work on the Eee, and that's even after switching out the wireless card to a more compatible broadcom version.
Ubuntu has as slick a GUI as I've ever seen in a Linux distro, although the interface designers do need to come to the realization that brown is not the new black.
In any case, if you're just looking to get up and running, without a lot of customization, Ubuntu can fulfill most surf and mail requirements. Once you have to dig a little deeper to tweak the system, you'll definitely be in need of a little more patience. I do believe that the goal of a viable Linux based desktop is well in reach.
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