Finally took the plunge - Ubuntu - VERY NICE!

[Mike]

Hi All,

Well I finally took the plunge and switched from OpenSUSE 10.2 to Ubuntu 
7.04. I've been using SuSE since 7.2 (pre Novell days) and it was a 
really hard decision to make. But the last straw was when I upgraded my 
computer to a new motherboard and processor (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core) 
this past week. I re-installed OpenSUSE 10.2 and it didn't recognize the 
integrated audio chipset or the integrated LAN. I also had some issues 
with the on board video (nVidia 6100) so I bought an add on PCIe nVidia 
GeForce 7300LE card. That helped with the video problems.

OpenSUSE has been a royal pain in the a** lately trying to get the zen 
updater and zmd package management stuff to work!!!! I've been pulling 
my hair out over the past 6 to 8 months trying and getting nowhere! 
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and for no particular reason! 
If one of the repositories is slow or down, watch out! What a mess.

I've been using Ubuntu on an older computer (my test machine) for about 
6-8 months now playing around with it a bit. A couple months ago I 
installed Ubuntu 7.04 on my Dad's computer (he's 76 and OpenSUSE was 
just too complicated for him, again mostly because of the zmd package 
management and zen updater. Plus it was slow on his older computer). He 
loves Ubuntu. He told me it boots up a lot quicker now and it's just 
easier to use. I also recently installed Ubuntu in a dual boot config on 
my wife's laptop (Toshiba). It recognized everything during the laptop 
installation including the wifi and wide screen display without any 
additional configuration on my part.

The most influential experience for me in choosing Ubuntu for my primary 
production computer was when my wife and I went away for a week and took 
her laptop (after Ubuntu was installed). The hotel we were staying in 
had GuestWIFI. She was trying to log in to GuestWIFI using Windows XP 
and was unsuccessful. I called GuestWIFI tech support and followed their 
suggestions. We still couldn't get it working under Windows. I knew the 
wifi card worked properly because she uses it at home with our wireless 
network. I then asked if he had any config info for Linux and he stated 
"We don't support Linux at all". At that point I ended the call and 
re-booted the laptop into Ubuntu. After a few minutes of manually 
setting up the wifi connection (using settings he had given me for 
Windows) I had an internet connection. Very nice indeed! It wouldn't 
work at all under Windows, but Ubuntu brought up the connection just fine.

Ubuntu is a real breath of fresh air! It installs really quickly, it 
looks really nice and the updater just plain works without any fooling 
around. Apt and synaptic are second to none. Granted I've been a KDE guy 
for years but the funny thing is, I have always customized KDE to the 
point where it was very similar to Gnome (double clicks, etc...). I was 
impressed when I installed 7.04 and it immediately recognized my 
integrated audio, LAN card and video for my new motherboard without a 
hitch (something OpenSUSE failed to do).

I've used a lot of Linux distributions over the years starting with Red 
Hat 4 (back in 1995 or 1996?). Since then I've tried many including 
Debian, Mandrake, Fedora Core, SuSE / OpenSUSE and MEPIS among others. 
Of all that I've tried, Ubuntu seems to be the most polished. It's the 
easiest to setup and just plain use for productivity. It's also very 
fast to get up and running (under an hour for me, with restricted 
formats, medibuntu and drivers installed). No offense to OpenSUSE, 
Novell or their developers. I enjoyed using SuSE exclusively on my 
primary computer since 2001 and if the package management/updating 
system wasn't so messed up, I probably wouldn't have looked for 
something new.

Keep up the great work Ubuntu Developers. I'll be here for quite some 
time to come. This coming weekend I think I'll help my daughter blow 
away OpenSUSE and install Ubuntu on her computer. That should take only 
about an hour to get it completely up and running properly... I wonder 
what else I can do with all that spare time I'll have this weekend? I'm 
sure my wife will have a few ideas!

Mike