aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Friday, March 03, 2006

What to do with that old computer? Ubuntu!

You say Linux, I say huh? But thanks to a pal here I’ve installed Ubuntu on an old laptop and I’m an instant convert.

So I asked that pal, I said, “Is Ubuntu to Linux as Windows is to DOS?” The answer was no but it sure feels that way to me:

Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and professional support. It is developed by a large community and we invite you to participate too!

The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.

These freedoms make Ubuntu fundamentally different from traditional proprietary software: not only are the tools you need available free of charge, you have the right to modify your software until it works the way you want it to.

Now that’s a philosphy I respect.

It comes witrh many applications for business, home and personal computer users including Open Office, Firefox, image editing software and an intuitive interface that took no time or effort to figure out. None! (They say, “it should ‘Just Work’, TM” and it does.)

What’s best is it’s no bloated resource hog. It’ll run on that old sluggish Windows machine that slowed to a crawl leaving you with no choice but to dump it. Now there’s another choice!

I’m still a newbie so I’ll let you know how it goes, but I can tell you already that you should put it on that old clunker and give it a try. Here’s the download site: for Mac, PC, er, I mean for Intel, PowerPC or AMD64. My next install is on that old Lime Green G3 iMac I got sitting here…