Tales from the Ubuntu

This almost sounds like "Tales from the Crypt". However, in this instance ... Ubuntu does not represent the dead. Instead it was my four year old Dell desktop Dimension 8110. This system was never speedy to begin with. Here are its specs:

• System Type: Dimension 1100/B110
• Processor, 80546, Celeron Prescott Desktop Socket N,325 E0
• Dimm, 512, 400M, 64X64, 8K,184

This system was almost dead in the water under Windows XP and four year's of Hoeg Household software bloat. I was wondering if I should purchase a Netbook to provide another computer that would be around our house and available for basic computing and web browsing. However, before making that purchase I decided:

1. Let's try a virgin installation of XP (that was painful and slow ... gave up after many issues and realizing I would need to download a phenomenal number of updates.
2. Decided to try Ubuntu ... downloaded an install file ... burned it to a CD
3. Booted from the CD ... formated the hard drive ... answered two questions
4. Voila ... in less than fifteen mintues the system was up on my home network

My initial thoughts include:

• Boy was this easy
• Installed Wine for Ubuntu (gives me a windows emulator)
• Firefox runs quickly
• Performance is better than my old Dell had experienced in years.

My only bummer ... can't get TIVO desktop to run (open source options don't synch the sound and video properly) and the Wine emulator doesn't work in this instance (can view Powerpoint presentations, however)

These are just some quick notes. Here are some screenshots I took with Ubuntu's screenshot tool. The nice think about this LINUX based installation ... did not cost me a cent. Click to maxminze any image.

Comments

[Craig Wiggins]

congratulations! have been through several Ubuntu installations and have loved them (and the Linux experience).

[Anand Mehta]

Rich,

I did this over a year back to an old HP desktop with an AMD Athlon processor. I played with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Red Hat, Knoppix, and OpenSuse. I have to say the Ubuntu is the most user-friendly and closest to WinDoze in terms of GUI. OpenOffice is free and very compatible with MS Office apps.

Have you tried MythTV? Or there's MythBuntu.

Check out http://www.linux.com/feature/118668

Welcome to Ubuntu-land!