The following post is pretty much written one person in mind. Bear with me.
I tried to install Ubuntu to my laptop (last try was three versions ago, when nothing seemed to work properly). I still had the CD from my last try (a month or so ago), and figured the reason it didn't work on that computer was because of my uncommon configuration of parts, and not to blame on the operating system itself. Heck, as I think about it, even Windows had some trouble with the drivers of the graphic card!
Anyway, installation itself went dandily. Year ago, when I tried this on the then most recent version, the installation process screwed up my Windows XP partition as well, and I had to reinstall that as well.
Not this time.
Everything loaded perfectly (last time even the resolution was wrong).
I did experience some troubles;
- For some reason Firefox threw up some errors everytime I tried anything even little more complicated with that. but I found them pretty easy to fix with some Google-searches [REINSTALL].
- I couldn't get the WLAN working. When I did some googling I noticed that I wasn't the only person with this problem. nVidia had some drivers that Linux (very grudgingly, I hesitate to add) gave me, but they were no good. I tried few solutions, but they didn't do it.
- My sounds didn't work. Again, Ubuntu got me some drivers and recognized the integrated card but it didn't work. After literally hours of working, I found a solution, which included about 15 sudo-commands in the terminal.
I tried to follow them, but I noticed that even with a map it was too much for me (how do I get past PAGE BREAK or something in terminal, for examble?). I think I screwed up the blacklist thing, and couldn't figure how to destroy the dublicates (how do I get root-access on Nautilus?).
The end-result was that afterwards Ubuntu didn't even THINK it had found my soundcard. On hindsight, I think there might have been an easy solution, but I don't think I can backtrack my way to it.
Someone who is as experienced with Linux as I am with Windows would probably do it, but I don't know anyone like that.
Excluding these two problems that were outside my skill-level, I really loved the GUI and the solutions. The graphical user-interface really blasted my eyes wide open; it looked better than Windows Vista or Mac OS X!
The ability to make virtual screens finally worked in an impressive way (thus far I had always found it a bit gimmicky) and the ability to skin the OS and mod the taskbars really blew my mind. [ Yes, things like this really matter to me ]
The fact that I could add my favourite folders to the "what folder would you like to use"-list (which isn't possible after 15 years in Windows) made me feel all farm inside.
The login-screen just radiated friendliness and professionalism; the same screen in Windows just looked fake and teenagery.
And the biggest surprise of them all; I downloaded a video with Bittorrent (just to check if I could) and was amazed to found that it went about eight times faster (2200 kb/s) than it ever did under Windows (I have 24 Mb cable, but Bittorrent has never gone over 500kb/s, usually not over 400 kb/s).
Should somebody solve my two big problems (eg. help me play youtube-video without any cables going to my laptop) in a way that I don't have to write sudo comments for one and half hours to terminal, I would not only thank him kindly, but ask him to destroy my Windows partition and -against promise to help me in the future- throw money at him. Like, 50€.
And that's what I think of Ubuntu today. It was very impressive, and the two final big problems I had with it seemed like they might be fixed (finally) in the next Ubuntu version, which is due in.... three months? This is the first time I have gotten so close to making everything work out-of-box that the fact that I failed really hurts me heart.
*sigh*
