Ubuntu Linux. Good but not good enough for my creative ambitions

Before 3 years or so, i decided it was time to change the way i used my computer. I had been using till then Microsoft Windows and more accurately Windows XP back then. After a small presentation of a very good looking Linux distro, i bacame so amazed by it and its compositing effects i told him that i wanted to have my laptop formated and install this new piece of software. Back then as i can recall it was Ubuntu 7.04. After experimenting with some old distros like Mandriva, Suse etc, Ubuntu stood at the only OS that could become my main operating platform.

This new distribution backed by Canonical seemed to try to unify all the chaos that software freedom consequently produces. Till now so many Linux distributions existed, each one with its own graphical framework (gnome, KDE, xfce etc) own package format (deb, rpm, tar.gz) and with a utterly different way of trouble shooting and installing new software. I myself frequently when using other distros was put down when i wanted to install a driver or a piece of software ,having to download a tarball and then compile it with the use of the console. All this for me as a beginer was hard to do and too much of an effort in order to make Linux my main operating platform. I  knowing how to compile a piece of software though i prefer to install directly executable packages for everyday uses. I always dreamt of having Linux as my main operating system, though many things kept me away from it becoming my reality

Back then in 2007, when Ubuntu was still in its infancy as a Linux distro, with the help of a collogue we formated my laptop i had then and put Linux for the 1st time as my main and only operating system. As i can remember i was really pleased that software was now organised and installed through a very good and efficient package manager. The only thing i needed on this new distribution in order to install something new a single deb file. Offcourse it was pretty troublesome back then to install drivers from my ATI graphics card and i had to edit manually the xorg.conf file. Now offcourse most drivers are included with the install and if not they can be automatically installed through the proprietary packages. Ubuntu has come to a point where it stands as the most significant and popular linux distro, without limiting the usability and openness to it’s end users. Mark Shuttleworth aimed to make Linux a poupal desktop platform and he has achieved that to a great extent. Most people i know using linux have Ubuntu installed for many good reasons stated below.

Why i cant live without Ubuntu Linux:

• Speed. Linux is fast even in an old computing system. It requires even less memory and CPU cycles than old OS’s like WinXP or Win2k
• Looks. Apart from being fast it has a very shiny and has a well  good looking GUI. The use of Gnome and Compiz is dead easy if you treat it as something  new and worth learning.

• Security. The most secure OS around. No need for firewalls, anti viruses, spy-ware cleaners and any form of memory consuming software that is built to protect my system from all the windows illnesses
• Freedom. Linux was built for providing a free as in freedom Unix OS. I can modify, change and transform my system in any way i want. It is very important that i feelfully in charge of the tool i am using and not limiting my freedom on it
• Price. Free as in free beer. No money required in order to legally use this OS and almost any software installed on it. As a developer i don’t have to pay fee’s, taxes and licences in order to use free software. I can and am supposed get it free and modify it without the permission of anyone under to GNU/GPL licence

• Package manager. It has one of the most cutting edge package managers around. Any piece of software can be searched, downloaded and installed through a unified graphical interface and will eventually be updated through this same system as well. This mythical tool is called apt-get and synapitc or its alternative interfaces like add or remove programs.
• Programming use. It is the best suitable platform for web designers (apart from flash) and application programmers. It has numerous compilers pre-installed and supports the LAMP architecture almost without any effort

So till this time speaking i am very happy using Ubuntu for all the above reasons though sometimes i get put down by some limitations i can point out:

• Proprietary software support. No support whatsoever for popular professional software suites like (Photoshop, AutoCAD etc)
• Freeware and other usefull software is only built for windows. Ofcourse with the use of wine api for linux all this can be overcome though it is not a full solution for this problem.
• Multimedia production. Ok lets face it. Someone who works with graphics and sound professionally is not recommended to use Linux. Photoshop, premiere, 3d max, reason, cubese etc is NOT supported through linux and probably all the above will not work with wine.
• Game support. I am not a gamer myself though i would appreciate if i could play an occasional network with a friend for a laugh. Wine or its implementations for windows game support are not recommended and by no one are a solution.
• Hardware support. This problem may be not so frequent any more. Not all hardware is supported by linux although most of the drivers nowdays are included with the kernel or are developed by the community. Big hardware corporations just dont publish drivers for linux though the linux community codes them and has filled that gap to a great extent

Evidently Linux may be suitable for professional coders, novice users (internet, office, msn etc) educational use but surrelly not for graphic or sound producers and gamers. I myself want to get involved with multimedia production and start using this digital tool as an expressive mean for my creativity so i start feeling that Linux cannot fullfill all my expectations

The most appropriate tool i can think for multimedia production is MacOS. It is a proprietary operating system built by Apple, packed with some very good software. As i know its is more stable, safer and well designed than Windows. The bad side is that its expensive to acquire because it requires specific hardware to be used. It only comes preinstalled with hardware from Apple. That was the main reason for not having used this OS till now. Ofcourse it has been hacked so it can be installed on PC’s with a x86 architecture with the  osx86project.org patched applied on it. It requires fast hardware in order to work smoothly and probably some hardware will  be unable to work because of lack of  support.

The laptop i own was the cheapest machine i could find and is equiped with a 900mhz celeron processor and a 8,9″ screen. It is one the 1st models of the eeePC series with the 900mhz celeron CPU. It not by any means suitable for installingd macOS patched or even using windows on it. Ofcourse now since my IT career has come to a start the basic tool i need is a good laptop. Luckily in a month or so by brother will start using a new macbook and he will hand me his macbook pro he purchased last year. In addition to its preinstalled OS i intend on installing a special version of Ubutnu Linux called Ubuntu Studio. The main aim for this distro is to provide a free platform for mutlimedia prodcution. Even if i wanted to use it right now i do not have the suitable laptop to run all thes software that requires plenty of CPU, Ram and a resolution someone could work with. So the ultimate tool which will be in my hands shortly will be:

Macbook Pro 2,4Ghz 15″ with MacOS Leopard + Ubuntu Studio dual boot or through VM

Humorous Comic showing the that Linux is mistreated by the userbase by the other 2 main OS’s

~ by anotherfinemess on September 29, 2009.