Drum roll please…  I took the plunge yesterday and upgraded my secondary laptop to the latest release of Ubuntu’s solid Linux distribution.  End result for me is that this one is probably one of the best Linux experiences I have had to date.  To me, a desktop operating system should not be a religious experience.  Rather, it should be a combination of good looks and solid reliability. In the end it should get out the way when I’m working but yet also be a place to go and explore unto itself.  Ubuntu 9.04 meets and exceeds this and then some.

The Install:

Hardware was an IBM Thinkpad T42 with 1.5GB of ram and a 30GB hard drive.  It has an 802.11G Atheros built in wireless network card.  Previously I’d installed the an assortment of OS’s on this laptop, including an XP machine. This laptop has gone thru the Vista Beta’s, RTM and finally 2 Ubuntu distro’s.

I used the CD install method, choosing to do a fresh install rather then an upgrade (I had a previous Linux install on this but had nothing I could not afford to lose). I chose all of the install defaults and let it roll on its own.  It asked a few questions including partitioning (best part is that the default choices really were perfect), and user ID password.  Installation than just continued, chugging away on its own till it was ready to reboot.

Surprisingly, I ran system update and actually had a few patches waiting for me to download.  Remember, the distribution was only a few hours old but then again, any given distribution comprises so many applications, its bound to happen.

What I was left with at the end was a completely usable installation.  Wireless was active, video at the proper resolution for the built in LCD and even my favorite freebie word processor, Open Office 3 was primed and ready to go.  One note about the wireless configuration that is worth mentioning. I use all Linksys Wireless hardware at my home and Linksys has a great feature for those who use still use wep.  It can generate the key via a pass phrase and the best part is that the wireless config in Ubuntu can utilize the same pass-phrase.  Joy!  Its the little things in Ubuntu that I like so much.

Quick digression, I would prefer to use WPA but because I use two access points in a relay mode, they can only link up if I have them open or in wep mode.  If anyone knows if this can work with Linksys access points, feel free to post.

And the result??

Among the application tested, Skype worked beautifully, as did Silverlight in its open source variant.  I did a few checks of the IBM system things like processor power savings, the various buttons including sound, brightness, etc…. and  they all worked as advertised.  Lastly, for the first time I was able to get the wireless to come back after Hibernation, very slick.

The bad?  Not much really, mostly inconveniences.  As usual some audio codecs were not installed by default but all downloaded as needed which was pretty slick.  Same with some Adobe browser add ins.  This was seriously the only downsides I could find which in reality really are not much of a downside at all.

Update: 2nd install on my beloved x41 tablet. This is my litmus test of os effeciency as vista runs on it painfully, Windows 7 beta 1 better, but still no speed demon. Linux, now that’s something. It’s like a new laptop. The bugger boots fast. Graphics are on par with my desktop, which is to say with effects on full bore there are no anomolies. Every piece of hardware on it that I can find us working. That even includes the digitizer and the Access IBM button. Now if they only had integrated handwriting recognition. Sigh…..