Anybody Here Use The Ubuntu Os?

[Snacko]

I have seen this OS mentioned now and then and really don't know much about it. But I like Open Source, so I am thinking of checking it out...

1. If you know much about it, what do you think?
   
2. What are it's limitations?
   
3. Can it run games??
   

[Jabo]

I used it extensively in my previous job, I really liked it for certain applications (like hacking windows accounts) and the fact that you can run it from a USB memory stick makes it ultra-portable. The important thing to bear in mind is that it will not run windows apps, although there are a lot of open-source (free) applications which covers a lot of bases (OpenOffice for example).

What were you considering using it for Snack?

Jabo

[Snacko]

Not sure, I just have been seeing a lot of posts about it lately and was checking it out..

[Mayhem]

Will run certain Windows apps using the WINE emulator package. Ubuntu, or any Debian based OS for that matter, is very stable and works well. To tell you the truth I'd rather run Ubuntu 64 then Win7 except for the fact that 7 runs ALL the Windows games and not just some of them. When it comes to Linux the different distros are really just collections of apps, after all Linux is Linux. Ubuntu just happens to be user friendly and a good entry level Linux which is why many new users are attracted to it. After using it for a while though you may find yourself swerving toward a Linux distros that are more suited to your particular taste and needs. Debian is an excellent distro that Ubuntu and many others are based off of. Any Debian based distro such as Ubuntu can usually run the same apps. Debian just doesn't come with all the nice polished shiny bits like Ubuntu straight out of the box but that is the great thing about Linux, it is infinitely customizable. You can make Debian look and feel just like Ubuntu or either one just like Mac's OSX. You can add as much as you want or strip down to just what you need which makes Linux great for appliances like hardware firewalls, automation controls, media servers whatever. Puppy, Mint, PCOSlinux are some other nice distros as well. Redhat just happens to be a commercially sold package of apps for Linux (or distro) that are not free but the Linux kernel itself is free and claimed always will be. Puppy Linux is especially nice cause it will fit on a 256MB thumb drive and contains all the apps you need for system recovery, hacking or just personal use. The nice thing about system recovery with Linux is that it's not susceptible to viruses targeting Windows. You can customize it however you want and then burn your custom install to a pen drive and take it with you anywhere. Boot a machine off it like at the library for instance and you have your own personal OS on the go. Remove it and reboot the machine and as long as you haven't changed or removed any files on the computer no one will ever know you were there. You can do this with Ubuntu as well I believe.Ubuntu will also run as an application under Windows if you'd like. You can run it from the CD you burned it too and check it out without ever installing it on your machine and when your done all is back to normal. There is also a very nice VMware for Ubuntu. The learning curve for some Linux distros can be a bit step but check it out its well worth the time.

[Crash]

Not sure, I just have been seeing a lot of posts about it lately and was checking it out..

Hi Snacko, why not download the disc image and burn to CD? You can then boot from the disc and try it out.

It wont run trackIR or Saitek/CH joystick stuff though.

[B16Enk]

This server is running on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

With the Ubuntu Live DVD you can, as suggested, boot off it and try it out.

You can also install it alongside windows, it creates a file system within a file on your hard drive, no need to partition, and give you dual boot.

Learning curve can be a little steep, for example you will have an ordinary user account and have to 'sudo' to do any admin stuff - like system updates.

The root account in Ubuntu does not have a password, but that can be easily changed so you can log on as root

Running Windows Apps, not as hard as it used to be as WINE has evolved, I have run IL2 on Linux quite well.

Dedicated servers can also lend themselves to running well under Linux - again this server we are on here runs a Windows based dedicated server (Warband) very well and attracts sufficient donations to pay for itself (a hungry server that consumes upto 165GBytes daily!!!).

If you want to experiment without installing you can also grab a copy of Virtualbox and setup a VM, this is also open source:

http://www.virtualbox.org/

I also have a server running Centos, which is essentially RedHat but the free version without support and somewhat delayed updates.