Ubuntu an Alternative to Linspire?

thephotoman rantman_2000 at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 24 00:35:30 CST 2005


Ed Sutherland wrote:
> I'm a Linspire 5.0 user but am looking for a bit more flexibility. I'm 
> looking at Ubuntu because it is debian-based, includes more recent 
> versions of my favorite applications, and does have wide support both 
> from the user community and a commercial entity.
> 
> But (and you know one of those just had to appear) I don't want to give 
> up the positive aspects of Linspire: zero configuration, perfect 
> hardware detection and Windows support (I'm able to access my XP 
> partition and use my Windows truetype fonts.)
> 
> Am I asking for too much, or can Ubuntu provide me more freedom but not 
> at the expense of desktop user friendliness? (I hope the answer is yes. 
> After weeks in Linux, going back to XP is a jarring experience.)
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Ed
> 
Welcome!

To be completely honest, I've found that most distros these days are 
equally easy to use if they're targeted at a desktop audience.

You can get read-only access to your Windows side with the stock 
drivers, or you can Google for the ntfs-captive drivers for read/write 
access.  A word of warning about ntfs-captive, though: it's currently 
unmaintained and somewhat buggy.  I wouldn't use it unless you needed it.

TrueType fonts work just as well under Ubuntu as they do under other 
distros.  Just copy them into fonts:/// and you're all set.

As for Windows, I'm going to be removing it from my machine shortly.  It 
comitted suicied some time ago, so I need to remove its corpse.  Don't 
know what I'm going to do with the drive, though.  I have a laptop (when 
it's not in the shop) for my Windows-only work.




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