Introduction

I apologize for any factual errors in this. I am only writing this feature from my own knowledge, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. A really large grain.

Open Source Software is rapidly becoming a viable alternative to closed-source, proprietary software. This is due to OSS coders’ goals of making the software easy to use for the general consumer, as well as being as feature rich, yet streamlined as proprietary software, which dominated the market until only recently. OSS developers are targeting big name software vendors, such as Microsoft and Adobe, among others. You most likely have heard about Firefox, right? That’s showing just how much OSS has made inroads into markets dominated by vendors.

However, there’s more to open source than software. Most techies have heard of Linux, which has earned itself a bad connotation as ‘the hacker’s OS”, only fit for people who like spending weeks compiling everything through the command line. More and more, these developers have decided to shed this connotation by making their distribution much easier to use. Spearheading this attempt is a distribution called Ubuntu. Ubuntu is an African word meaning ‘humanity to others”. They believe that software should be free no matter where you use it, that it should be available in any language, and that anyone who wants to make improvements, can. Ubuntu comes in two flavors. Ubuntu, which uses the window manager Gnome, and Kubuntu, which uses the window manager KDE. This review will only cover Gnome, but there may be a KDE feature in the future (I make no promises).

Ubuntu’s tagline is “Linux for Human Beings.” It’s time to see whether or not Ubuntu really is the Linux for the rest of us.

Installation

Ubuntu is made available for three different architectures, x86 (Pentium, Athlon XP), x64 (Athlon 64, Em64T Xeon), and PPC (G3, G4, G5). One of the things that sets Ubuntu apart from others is that its disk image fits on a single CD. Compare that to OpenSuSE, which needs 5 CDs. This is due to only including one of each type of application (One web browser vs. 3 different ones). If you have dial up, lack a CD burner, or just don’t feel like downloading a 600 MB file, you can have the Ubuntu guys send you a CD.

To get it to install, all you need to do is make sure that your CD drive is set to boot before your Hard disk. The install program will ask for your country, language, keyboard layout, timezone, a Host Name (what your computer is called on a network), a user name and password, as well as a full name. If the installer detects other OSs, it will ask you if you would like to add a boot loader so you can select which OS to boot.

The GNOME Desktop Environment

Use this diagram with the following section.

By default, the Gnome desktop has two bars, one across the top, and one across the bottom. The left side of the top bar (1) has three menus, Applications, Places, and System. Applications is self-explanatory, Places contains a list of places in the file system (Home, CD Drive, etc.) and System contains Help, Log Out, Preferences, and Administrative controls. After these menus, there are shortcuts to the Web Browser, Email, and Help, but you can add a shortcut to any program you want by dragging it from the applications menu to the bar. The top right (2) has a system notifications area, which is only ever under light use(Only two out of almost all of the applications that I’ve used have ever added something to the notification area), and the Time and Date. On the bottom left is a button that will hide all windows (not shown). On the right (3) is the Trash and virtual desktop switcher (called workspaces). In between (4), all of the area is reserved for the window switcher. You may recognize it because it looks a whole lot like Windows’ taskbar. In each menubar, there are the minimize, maximize, and close buttons (5).

The file manager in Gnome is called Nautilus. It has two ways to browse files. The first is browser mode, which can be accessed in the Applications menu. You may know browser mode from Windows Explorer. The second is called spatial mode, which is called up when you select a folder from the places menu. Spatial mode was used in the Mac OS 9 Finder.

Gnome supports theming the window border, the controls (scrollbars, buttons, etc.), and icons.

Applications

Ubuntu is bundled with many different applications. This section will only list the most basic.

• Web Browser: Firefox
  
• E-mail Client: Evolution
  
• Instant Messenger: GAIM
  
• Feed Aggregator: Liferea
  
• Graphics Editor: The GIMP
  
• Office Suite: Open Office.org
  
• Text Editor: GEdit
  
• Music Player: Rhythmbox
  
• Movie Player: Totem

• Others:
  
• Calculator, Dictionary, Archive Manager, Character Map

Remember that this is only a brief rundown, and that not all applications are covered.

Installing Applications

Installing applications in Ubuntu can be either flawlessly easy, or tiringly mundane, depending on whether that application’s package is in “The Universe”. The Universe is all of the packages that are available through the “Add Applications” menu item. These applications are already preconfigured and all dependencies (when one package relies on another to function properly) are documented. If it’s a program you got off the internet, the application will need to be installed via the terminal. I won’t go into that because most applications have installation instructions either on the web site, or in the download.

Conclusion

Ubuntu is possibly one of the most user friendly Linux distributions available. However, there are several problems with Linux in general that prevent it from being as new user friendly as Windows XP or Mac OS X. First, Applications outside of the Universe can’t be installed using a Graphical User Interface, and secondly, there are so many different distributions out there so as to make the 7 versions of Vista a no-brainer to a newbie.

Despite these flaws, Ubuntu shows that Linux isn’t just for extreme nerds. If Linux in general can clean up its act, it will take an effort of the entire community. Distributions like Ubuntu and Debian, which Ubuntu is based off, have a chance to spark support for a much more user-friendly Linux. If you are tired of paying through the nose for an OS, now is the time to make the jump to Linux, and see if you truly can live without Mac or Windows.