Running on free software

Well i tried Windows 7, and it was a horrible experience. (more accurately.. it was a mixed experience). This old work laptop only has a p4 processor and 512 MB of Rams.. so Win7 grunted and spiffled like.. someone very slow. Plus it refused to send any signal to an external monitor/projector.

So i’ve loaded up (k)ubuntu linux, and the system is running beautifully.

• The start menu is superior to anything windows has ever done (screenshots below).
• i can tweak the desktop appearance with my usual collection of favourite images.
• i can easily assign keyboard shortcuts to various operations.
• Installing new software is far easier than on a windows machine, mostly – because of the inbuilt “download and install” program.
• Flash and java work effortlessly in either web browser (native konqueror or mozilla firefox)..
  (correction: after some effort, Java is now working).
• and the laptop is now permitted to send a signal out to the external projector.

Plus if i really need to, there’s a way to run windows applications. For the moment, i’ve found several mind-mapping apps that also run on Linux.

Sweet.

Here’s a couple of screengrabs of the brilliant Linux (KDE) “start menu”.. with apps neatly and automatically organised into categories. All right, i used the built in menu editor to create a new mind-map category. (images link to larger version.)

Plus: this post entirely written and edited in the new ubuntu system.. including screengrabs and image editing.

Postscript: Well that was a real “fan boy” post wasn’t it: i left out the negative side. Largely because i was so happy to finally work with a useful “start menu”.. and because the laptop would put out to a projector easily enough.

Problems?

• Java install needed problem-solving.
• Occasional screen glitches.
• Yes programs do sometimes freeze inexplicably, just like in windows.

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