The Two-Week Linux Challenge
By Tom Sciortino
November 2008
Purpose
For two weeks, I made an attempt to survive in an Ubuntu Linux environment. I installed Ubuntu on my workstation on its own partition, side by side with my Windows XP install, and then tried to accomplish all my normal, every-day work, without resorting to booting out of Linux and back into Windows. Following is the 14 day “diary” of my experience. It is written from the point of view of a relatively technical user who has long felt at home with Windows XP. (Skip to the Summary if you want the short version.)
Day 1
To prepare for Linux, I backed up my Windows partitions and booted to my freshly-downloaded Ubuntu 8.10 Linux CD. From the boot CD, I re-partitioned the drive, leaving some space so I could image Windows back on. Less than an hour later, I had Ubuntu up and running. I also had some fresh geek cred. I was running Linux!
The first thing to do is enable the wireless and graphics card drivers. These are proprietary (non-open source) drivers provided by Broadcom and nVidia, respectively. Upon getting an internet connection, Ubuntu asked to install several updates and patches. I had a few networking problems so I just plugged in an ethernet cable. Eventually, though, even wireless worked (networking was a problem the last time I gave Ubuntu a test drive, too.)
That annoying system beep has got to go! (This was another issue I remember dealing with last time. I eventually solved this one from my previous notes…)
Now for a trip through the add/remove repository! Unlike Windows, Ubuntu has a vast online repository of free software—you simply choose what you’d like to install, and then it downloads it and installs it. There’s a lot of 'K' stuff (pretty sure that requires KDE... why are these here?). I also see Active Directory support—will definitely have to try that one. The default set of installed software is actually pretty good—not much unnecessary stuff, and just about everything I need is there. I have added GpartEd (a partition editing utility).
GPartEd has allowed me to get my Windows partitions imaged back into place (just in case...). On to housekeeping and general internet stuff. The command line is a quicker way to install programs if you know exactly what you want:
sudo apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird
Now I have email and calendar, the bare essentials for getting my work done.
As a side note, it’s fortunate that I'm already exempted from Cisco Clean Access—otherwise, I’d have to get my MAC address passed through for this little project as there’s no CCA client for Linux to my knowledge.
While I’m at it, I found the notes on killing the pc speaker beep:
sudo rmmod pcspkr
After changing to the nVidia graphics driver, I’m getting random graphics glitches... Title bars are routinely getting messed up, and every five minutes or so, the entire screen gets corrupted for just a split second. It’s not stopping me from getting work done, but it’s unnerving. An OS needs to feel solid under your feet. You don’t want to have to tip-toe around hoping it doesn’t crash at any moment.
Ubuntu has a curious mix of familiar features from Mac OS, Windows, and also some of its own ideas. The eject icons for removable drives appear in window browsers just like they do in Mac OS’s Finder. The menu bar is at the top, just like a Mac, but there’s a Windows-style task bar at the bottom. You can move or remove either of these. You can create quick launchers, etc, and display various system tray icons… Both Mac and Windows users should be able to adapt the system to their needs though many novices may still have a hard time figuring out just how to do so.
Why must windows stick to edges? I cannot find a way to get them to stay where I left them.
The annoying PC speaker beep is back. I forgot—rmmod only unloads it temporarily. To kill it permanently, I have to edit the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file and add the line:
blacklist pcspkr
Day 2
Downloads of updates are often delayed and I don't know why. Sometimes reconnecting the internet connection seems to fix it.
Installed Flash and it works fine, .pdf's open fine, Firefox and Thunderbird work fine, Pidgin (a multi-client instant messaging program) is a bit lacking in features but also works fine. One by one, I’m regaining most of the abilities I had in Windows—sometimes with the same software, sometimes with an open source alternative.
I have got to find a way to set default apps... double clicking .txt files should just open them (not ask whether I’d like to view it or run it as a script). And .url files should be recognized as web page shortcuts. [It turns out that this is because NTFS partitions don't know how to use the execute bit—once I copied the offending text file to my desktop or created one from scratch, it would open fine.]
Also need to figure out how to make things occur at startup.
Couldn't open Office 2007 docs in OpenOffice—that could be a deal killer. [Problem solved later, with upgrade to OpenOffice 3.0]
Looks like my graphics glitch is due to a known bug with the nVidia driver:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-177/+bug/99508
I’ve spent probably 30 minutes trying to get printing to work. Giving up for now [I did figure it out later…]
Upon trying to add my machine to AD, it threw an error and said I need to open ports 88 UDP, 389 UDP, 464 UDP, and 464 TCP. Why would they be closed in the first place? Unless I can get myself into AD, I’ll have to reboot into Windows to use the Access database on the V drive. [Found a workaround for getting onto network drives later, but it was moot anyway as not even OpenOffice 3.0 could open an Access 2007 database, though try it did…]
Day 3
With no choice left, I went into Windows to access the V: drive only to find I could no longer connect to it. I wonder if that had something with my failed attempts at adding myself to the domain? Plugging in via ethernet and giving it a hard reboot fixed it. After that, I updated the database and rebooted back into Ubuntu.
Today I’m taking a stroll through OpenOffice. OpenOffice doesn't know how to open Office 2007 docs, but maybe there's a plug-in, we'll see. So far, I’ve just been modifying preferences in Writer. Pretty standard stuff. Writer has the ability to open and save to the office 2k3 formats .doc, .xls, and .ppt.
Installing java...
apt-get install openjdk-6-jre
Hmmm, still not working. Going to java.com to try it that way. Also failed. Using Ubuntu’s standard add/remove application finally got it to work (the trick was to enable 3rd party software—this should have been easier to figure out).
Just tried to play a .wmv, was cued to install restricted (non-open source) codecs. Installed them, and it worked fine. That was very painless. Resized videos are very pixel-y. I don’t see an option to use bilinear resizing. Same problem with flash vids, too. [Later on, after a couple re-installs, this problem went away. Not sure what fixed it.]
Day 4
Boy, external monitor support failed miserably. Could not get anything to work—screen said "Invalid Format" (though it did change from "No Signal" so it must have been receiving something)... So far, the list of major problems includes (where “major” means I am not be able to accomplish my normal day-to-day tasks) Active Directory support, external monitor support, printing, and undocking (I haven’t mentioned that yet, but the system locks when I push the undock button on the dock). [As mentioned previously, AD and Office 2007 doc’s have workarounds. Printing I also figured out.]
Minor annoyances include window resizing—the "grabbable" spot isn't quite big enough, the graphics glitches, and networking just doesn't quite feel "there" yet, though it generally works.
So now I’m downloading Kubuntu, the KDE based version of Ubuntu, via bittorrent. Should be a good time to test CD burning capabilities, too. …The torrent came through fine, and the CD burned fine, too. I’ll give Kubuntu a try in a couple days…
Installing Wine (an implementation of the Windows API for Linux—this enables one to run Windows programs directly from Linux. But it’s not perfect…). I'm not too familiar with it, but installing ffdshow codecs was successful—I can now play XviD encoded movies via Media Player Classic (not bad, not bad!). Resizes are still pixely. Let’s give it a real workout and install Office 2007! That would solve one of my major issues. Failed. Oh well. Summary of Wine: works for basics (notepad, and the likes), works for some non-basics (media players, for instance), but doesn’t work for everything.
Trying the printer again... chose AppSocket/HP Jet Direct, punched in the IP address... and about 15 minutes later, k’pla! Success! Borrowing the .ppd file from the Windows driver was the key. That being said, this should not have been so difficult, but it is satisfying to have figured it out. And to Linux's credit, it did discover several other printers on the network—just not mine.
Not only does attempting to undock crash the system, but suspend does, too (and also spins up the CPU fan...). Even two years ago, power management, along with 3D graphics and Wireless support have been issues with Linux.
Day 5
I should have mentioned it earlier, but the volume, brightness, and other laptop-specific controls worked fine (volume does not work properly with Kubuntu, however). So Kubuntu looks pretty amazing... I'm reinstalling and moving to Kubuntu!
Day 6
Today I'll be working in Kubuntu. As a Windows user, I think I'll try and reconfigure it to make it comfortable for me—that means some sort of start menu, quicklaunch, task bar, and system tray. Kubuntu is already slightly more Windows-like than Ubuntu.
Day 7
Kubuntu is interesting, but has its own share of bugs. I can't seem to enable the nVidia graphics driver at all (it just starts to install and then stops with no explanation)... Reading of NTFS drives works fine right out of the box though I’m prompted for a password every time I try to access one of my Windows drives. Laptop volume controls no longer work. Mute works, but up and down, while they do show the volume level indicator on the screen, don't actually do anything. This was not a problem in Ubuntu.
These widgets are a new thing. They don't seem to stick to any kind of dashboard like Mac OS—the "dashboard" appears to be just the desktop without the taskbar or any running apps. Either way, I've already lost interest (which was my same exact response to Vista's gadgets... they were fun for about an hour and then they became needless desktop clutter).
Networking is a little easier in Kubuntu, though I can't find a way to get wireless to connect automatically.
In general, it's hard to find things once you’ve lost them. In Ubuntu, I couldn't get pidgin to stay in the system tray once I'd deleted the tray and then created a new system tray (there's an option for it in Pidgin but it no longer worked). And now in Kubuntu, I can't find out how to get the power management tray app back. There's a battery indicator app, but it's not the same. Currently the CPU fan is spun up and the computer is running hot even though all I'm doing is typing in Kate (Kubuntu’s equivalent of notepad).
As pretty as Kubuntu is, I think I'll be moving back to Ubuntu.
The Favorites menu. There's probably a way to create shortcuts to programs directly in this menu, and the start menu in general (or the “K” menu, to be proper…) but it's not obvious. Unlike Windows, you can't just copy and paste a link into the menu. Instead, there is a menu manager app which lets you add and move shortcuts. Admittedly, cutting and pasting shortcuts into a menu isn't intuitive, but I've been using that method to customize my start menu in Windows for so long that without it, I’m lost as to how to customize my start menu.
Shortcuts to recently used doc's. Again, there's probably a way to get a menu to perform this function, but I sure don't know how (Ubuntu had this but Kubuntu doesn't).
How do you change the clock from 24hr time? [I figured this out later, in Ubuntu, but I didn’t remember seeing an option while in Kubuntu.]
Knetwork manager doesn't want to open. Who knows why that is…
To sum things up, there are a lot of mysteries about Linux that I just have not run into in Windows or Mac OS X. Not just the "how do I do..." type of mystery, but more the "what just happened?" type. Unpredictable is a bad trait in an OS.
Several things that should be double-click are actually single-click in Kubuntu (opening files in the file system shell) and things that you'd expect to be single are double (this expectation comes partially from the mind-training of other single-click items that may normally be double). I’m not sure what they were thinking there—some things are so standard across both Mac OS and Windows that it makes no sense to change them.
Day 8
Kate is annoying (Kate is Kubuntu’s basic text editor—what I’m writing this document in). I cannot find where to disable certain buttons and whatnot. A basic text editor should not be so cluttered. Once again, another instance of "I know I should be able to accomplish this, but I can't see how." …Okay, figured it out, but still should have been much easier (Profiles? Seriously? For a simple text editor??)
There’s still a lot of polish to go—things we take for granted, like the avoidance of horizontal scroll bars, are still sometimes an issue in Linux.
Ah, finally, the solution to accessing network drives. I need to type in:
smb://cp-file.cp-calpoly.edu/share$
Then enter my credentials (including the cp-calpoly\ in front of my username). I can now access the V: drive.
Day 9
Switched back to Ubuntu from Kubuntu—Ubuntu feels more stable (and more familiar).
This time I install the proper java environment via the command line:
apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin
Ubuntu gets confused when you attempt to open more than one instance of a program that's not really supposed to have more than one instance (for instance, when you forget you’ve already opened email or chat). The result is about a 30 second freeze on whatever application you tried to re-open, but it recovers in time.
On my stroll through the control panels (the system preferences menu), I decided to change to a new theme. What a difference—gone are the bizarre graphics glitches I was dealing with. Fonts are a little nicer too, as is the pointer (which I changed from the default to black a la Mac OS)
Keyboard Preferences has an enforceable "typing break."
It can even force a screen lock-out to ensure you get a break from typing.
For some reason, after moving back to Ubuntu videos even resize properly now. Both local vids and flash resize with a nice bilinear function—I wonder what's different this time around? Wow, just installed advanced desktop effects—talk about eye candy! It's raining on my desktop as I type this...
Mouse options enables scrolling via touchpad—nice to not require extra driver for that.
Preferred app's is only for web, email, and multimedia. Not much else.
Enabling remote desktop control worked perfectly—using the free VNC viewer on another machine, I could remotely view and control this computer. Even from Windows.
Linux has lots of cool screen savers but I already knew this from the last time I worked with it.
Session Preferences is where startups are controlled.
So ends my trek through the control panels. Now to go through the admin menu...
Day 10
Network drive access is working, I'm about to update my resource planning hours, but there is no database program installed. Looks like full OpenOffice didn't come with Ubuntu, just the word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation portions. I'm now installing full open office, which comes with Base, a database program.
I got farther than I thought I would when trying to open the resource planning database, but OpenOffice eventually just crashed. Guess I'll have to do that one in Windows.
I successfully created a bootable USB drive, but nothing wants to boot to it. Oh the irony, the pain…
Installing Compiz Configuration settings manager (for fine tuning of eye candyness).
Day 11
Wireless connected right up! Very good, that's what I expect. A few minor graphics glitches but overall, I'm able to just get things done in Ubuntu. I also looked into Office 2007 a little more... VMware seems to be the only remaining option. While I could run Windows in a virtual machine and then run Office 2007 inside of that, it’s far too ugly a solution for a normal user.
Day 12
Continuing my trek through the Adminstration menu… Startup programs are listed under session preferences. Authorizations lets you fine tune just who needs to authorize and who doesn't. The line between the Preferences menu and the Administration menu is rather blurry at times—why some things are placed in one or the other is sometimes not obvious.
Hardware testing allows you to test your system and then send a report back to the community. Sending this report requires some kind of account, presumably free. Ahh, so that’s where you set the clock to 24 hr mode: it's in login window preferences (what's it doing there??)
The partition editor, which I haven't really mentioned until now, has been extremely helpful in all of this. A novice may not be familiar with the idea of "mount points" but other than that, it's a great tool and knows how to work with many different file systems, including NTFS.
System monitor is the equivalent of Windows' ctrl-alt-del screen, though it's nicer looking and gives a lot more info. Log viewer is very handy, if you're a log viewing type (those who host ftp or web servers I imagine would find this a convenient tool).
Day 13
Another small mystery solved. Once again my Windows bias shows itself. To set the default view of folders (I prefer list view, not icons), you must remember that the file browser is a program, just like a web browser or a game. I was looking in the view menu for some sort of "set default view." What I needed to do was go to the edit menu and go to Preferences... and there it was waiting for me. This idea isn’t so foreign to a Mac user, who knows that the "finder" is an application just like any other.
Sure enough, there are lots of other good settings in here: you can vary icon sizes, sort methods, etc... And finally, a way to avoid the "read or execute" dialog for text files marked executable. Lots of good stuff in here—I can also decide what types of files to preview in icon form and which just show up as a generic icon (do people actually like these file-preview icons? Personally, I want all my jpegs to look the same, not to look like the picture they are). Anyway, lots of good settings in here. Autorun settings are here, too.
Day 14
Things are quite routine and to be honest, I'm looking forward to getting back to Windows. Things in Linux work, but not quite as well as they do in Windows. Of course the other problem is that I’m so used to Windows.
Day 15
My last day in Linux? Probably, unless I think of something I haven’t tried that really should be tried. I'm upgrading to OpenOffice 3.0 to see if that'll let me open Office 2007 docs. Excellent, it does! My once long list of “deal breakers” is now whittled down to external monitor support (which is really nVidia’s fault), and some power management related to docking/undocking.
One great thing about Ubuntu which I haven’t mentioned yet is that there are so many people in the online community supporting it. For most simpler problems, it's pretty quick to solve by just typing them into google (for instance, "upgrade OpenOffice 3 Ubuntu"). Upgrading worked fine and now .docx files open right up—if there even was a conversion, it was transparent.
Fonts did not carry through (printing worked fine and it's apparent in printing that these are not the standard MS Office fonts—where’s my Calibri? I can’t live without it!). Once again, the community to the rescue. To install fonts, create a folder in your home folder called .fonts, then just copy fonts into it.
I re-opened my .docx file and printed it, and it looks just like it was printed from Word 2007 on Windows. I have not bothered to check for compatibility with some of the more advanced features of office 2007, but it's impressive that fonts and printing work. Can't save as .docx, but I guess that's not a surprise.
Tried Gimp just a tiny bit and f-spot too, but not enough to really comment much on them. When I plugged in a camera, f-spot popped up and didn't immediately make sense so I quit it (Sorry, but by now, photo management software should be completely brainless, like Picasa or iPhoto). Gimp worked alright but I only did the simplest of edits with it.
Brasero, a CD/DVD creation program, sounds very useful as it's still fairly rare to find good, free software that lets you make DVD's. …Unfortunately, several people have encountered the problem I’m running into and there doesn't seem to be a solution. The Burn button is grayed out with no explanation as to why. Oh well, no video DVD's for me. A rather anti-climactic end to my Linux adventure.
Epilogue
I didn’t exactly uninstall Ubuntu; rather, I simply formatted the two drive partitions Linux was on… This was a bad idea as the boot loader was based off my Linux partition and so when I removed Linux, it decided to take Windows with it. Fortunately I knew this was coming—the solution is to boot to a Windows install CD, go into the repair console, and run “fixmbr” which overwrites the MBR with a Windows boot loader. This is not something your average Windows user would know to do, so a user might be in for a surprise if they decide to switch back to Windows after trying Linux. Ubuntu runs perfectly fine in a Virtual Machine so if I ever want to go back, I’ll have it there waiting for me in VMware. This latest version also features Wubi, which is a system that lets you install Linux on a Windows drive and run it from your C drive just as Windows is run. This is a good option for those not ready to completely take the plunge.
Summary
The good:
• Easy Installation.
• Free! (As in open source, and as in no money.)
• Easy to patch and keep updated (fully automatic by default).
• Extensive on-line repositories of free software available for installation straight off the internet. Most of these are sufficient for the average user; some are exceptionally good, for instance Open Office and the popular Firefox and Thunderbird.
• Powerful command line interface (if that’s your thing).
• Surprisingly able at playing various media files, including Windows media. Flash works fine, too. 3rd party repositories need to be enabled, and then Java can be installed as well.
• Some great eye candy available via the advanced desktop effects. A lot of great screen savers, too (the 3D Fireworks one is my favorite).
• Wine implementation allows you to run many Windows applications natively in Linux.
• Laptop-specific controls worked fine (volume and mute buttons on Dell Latitude D630). • Remote desktop access via VNC. Works well and easy to implement, even across platforms.
• Great System Monitor utility—much better presentation than the one in Windows.
• Linux specializes in running on a huge variety of platforms, including older, less capable machines. With Ubuntu, an old Windows 98 box can be repurposed into a safe and usable web surfing/emailing machine. Or even into a web server, for that matter.
• Runs well in a Virtual Machine environment, too.
• The on-line community is friendly and invaluable. Most of the common user issues have already been addressed—generally, all you have to do is punch your question into google and someone will have solved the problem already.
The bad:
• Out of the box, several things are missing. For example, proprietary drivers are not enabled by default. Office 2007 documents are also unusable.
• Annoying system beep. It can be disabled, but not easily. Why is it there in the first place?
• On Windows or a Mac, you pretty much download software and then double-click an installer. In Ubuntu, if the software you want is not available from repositories, it will likely be a bit more difficult to install. You may even have to compile it yourself.
• Networking, especially wireless, is still a little shaky and unintuitive. It works, but doesn’t quite feel solid yet.
• No Cisco Clean Access client.
• Title bar and other graphics glitches (technically, this is nVidia’s fault, not Ubuntu’s—using a different theme than the default may partially or completely fix this).
• External monitor support completely failed. Again, probably an issue with nVidia’s driver, not Ubuntu. Unfortunately, this one is a deal-breaker for many laptop users.
• Setting up a network printer not intuitive at all (but still doable if you know how).
• Supposedly there’s Active Directory support, but I couldn’t get it to work.
• Undocking and power management issues. Sometimes I could not wake up from suspend. Pushing Undock button on dock freezes machine.
• Standard disc burning worked fine but DVD Video authoring didn’t work. Not sure why.
• Trying to open a program that’s already running sometimes causes a long pause.
• Many of the open source apps just won’t cut it for power users. Gimp, for instance, is good, but it’s not Photoshop.
• Be careful uninstalling if you’re a dual-booter; you’ll lose your boot loader and have to repair the MBR in order to boot back into Windows.
It seems that every year, Linux fans make the bold claim that “This is the year of Linux on the Desktop.” As best I can see, Linux is not poised to explode onto the desktop scene, but it is becoming easier and easier to get useful things done in Linux, particularly via Ubuntu. There are very few things left that can’t be done in Linux and this is a considerable improvement even compared to the scene two years ago. Power management still has a few issues, and so does advanced graphics support. But the wireless networking issues are all but gone, and even the hardware issues that do remain are less severe. Also, the older the hardware you use it with, the more likely it is to work right out of the box.
Ubuntu takes a while to adjust to, but I would estimate that perhaps with a little help, most users could feel at home in a month or so. It took me about two weeks, but I had used it before and I know where to look for solutions (and I kept my notes from last time). In general, the people behind Ubuntu did a good job walking the line between too rigid and too open.
On a final note, many of the netbooks that are getting more and more popular also run Linux. It’s becoming so easy to use that people don’t think twice about it. And then there are the rumors of a Google OS which could be a locked-down Linux with Google’s Chrome browser built right in… Who knows, maybe 2009 will be “the year of Linux on the Desktop” after all.