The Switch!

Now I’m going to tell why and how I switched from using Windows to using just Linux.

Around september of 2011, there I was with a 3 and a half year old Desktop with the following specs:

- Intel dual core 2200 MHz (this was already an old CPU when I bought it in 2008).

- Gigabyte mobo with onboard video and ethernet card;

- 1GB of DDR2-RAM;

I had already installed Windows XP twice on this machine (when I bought it, and then 1,5 years later) and it was slow as hell again (You might have noticed it, fellow Windows user, that after a while your PC becomes really slow. Have you noticed it?). Anyway, the computer was taking 5 to 10 minutes to boot and once it booted, it’d take like 5 more minutes before I could load any application. I was all set to start backing everything up and then to format the hdd (yes, using NTFS file system).

I had used Linux (Mandrake distro) on my old Desktop in 2002 by the time I got into university. Back then I used to game a lot on the PC so after a few months, I stopped using Mandrake since playing new games on Linux was... I don’t know if it was impossible, but it at least needed a lot of tinkering around. Back then I chose Mandrake because it was the “noob distro” at that time. I always liked the philosophy of the Linux system, it is fast, efficient, clean and free!

Anyway, I was ready to start backing everything up when I remembered how Linux was clean, fast and had no viruses, and since I was not gaming on the PC anymore, I might as well try it again. I simply don’t know what triggered my memory but something did. I also remember thinking of why I was using Windows, actually, there was no reason why! I was using Windows just out of inertia! Right there, I think it was around 11pm, I decided I’d give Linux a try again. When I woke up the next day, before I went to work, I googled around for “Linux distro for newbies” and found out about Ubuntu. Before leaving home to work I left my Windows Desktop downloading the Ubuntu 11.04 iso. Before getting home I bought a new hdd (I didn’t want to have to make a backup of my Windows hdd), a cheap video card (nvidia 64-bit 512MB card, I did not need anything fancy) 2GB of DDR2-RAM (it was cheap as hell, so I bought it :P). When I got home, sure enough the Ubuntu iso was already there on my Desktop. I burned the CD, installed the new video card, the extra RAM and the new hdd on my Desktop and installed Ubuntu 11.04 on my new hdd.

The install was smooth and easy. I do have some experience with computers so I don’t know if someone with little experience can easily install Ubuntu (I don’t KNOW but my guess is yes). You just have to answer a few questions and the installation program does the rest. Anyway, I rebooted the system and there I was with a menu (GRUB bootloader) listing 5 or 6 boot options, with the one saying “Windows XP” being the last. I just chose the first one and waited.

I was presented with a login screen (I had defined user name and password during the Ubuntu install). I logged in and that was the first time I saw Unity running. I fell in love with it. It seemed like a perfect interface to me. I played around with it for a few days and on the web all I saw was people complaining and saying how much it sucked. Bear in mind that I was using Windows XP for last few years and a slow one for the last year. Unity was perfection. It seemed fast and I could find what I wanted very quickly (thanks to Zeitgeist and the Unity dash). I was also amazed how fast Linux booted, went through pdf files and how fast applications started. Also, Ubuntu detected almost of all my hardware automatically. The only thing that wasn’t working by the time I booted into Ubuntu was the scanner. I did find the solution of how to get the scanner of my Epson Stylus CX5600 working in 5 minutes, and it took me 10 minutes to get it solved. It was a surprise to me how easy it was to get hardware working, since when I used Mandrake a few years ago, I had to do some tinkering to get some stuff to work.

I played around with Ubuntu, exploring the “Ubuntu Software Center” and reading about the Linux kernel, different distros, different desktop environments and window managers, how to use the command line, etc. After a week I had learned about apt-get and was not using the GUI (“Ubuntu Software Center”) anymore, I installed and uninstalled applications and updated the system using the command line:

sudo apt-get update;

sudo apt-get upgrade;

sudo apt-cache search <application/package>;

sudo apt-get install <application/package>;

sudo apt-get purge <application/package>.

It was much easier and faster than using the GUI. Now I was infected! I had to learn more! Speaking of infected and viruses, I was also thrilled by not needing a AV application, no more nasty viruses lurking around.

After two weeks of using Unity, I decided to test other desktop environment I read about: Gnome. I remember using it from the days I used Mandrake but I honestly couldn’t remember much more. So I installed Gnome and played around with it as well. Found it to be way more of liking, very customizable and it felt faster than Unity. Gnome was perfection (yes, I know I just said that Unity was perfection, but Gnome was “more perfect” than Unity :P). I was thrilled by the fact that there was something better than Unity. I remember thinking, “if there’s something better than Unity, there may be something better than Gnome”. And I found it: XFCE. And how easy it was to put a XFCE interface on my Ubuntu system:

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

XFCE did everything Gnome did but it was lighter, leaving more RAM for the applications. It was uglier than Gnome and Unity though, but I didn’t care, I was amazed by how fast Linux ran and I wanted a even faster system. Up to now XFCE still is my favorite desktop environment. To me it’s the perfect compromise between ease of use/configuration and resources needed between all DE/WM I tried (Haven’t tried all DEs/WMs yet, there are too many!). With XFCE my 3 and a half year old desktop with a VERY outdated hardware was as fast as lighting.

After a few weeks fiddling around with my “Ubuntu turned Xubuntu" setup, I logged in my Windows XP setup again just to see if the new hardware would make any difference on the OS performance. Turns out it didn’t. The additional 2 GB of RAM didn’t make any difference. I still have this NTFS formatted hdd with Windows XP on my Desktop, but I have not logged in it for a while, I’ve been using just Linux ever since. Besides, on my Linux system I can still access and use the files and applications (using Wine) on my NTFS formatted hdd.

The only trouble I remember facing during my Ubuntu/Xubuntu days was setting up Samba to share my printer and hdd for my wife to access from her Windows XP netbook. It took me a few days to get a smb.conf that worked the way I wanted. I tried several files and interfaces (like SWAT) and can’t remember where I found the one that worked. But I did find it in the end. I did learn a lot while I was solving this. That’s a great thing about Linux, if you don’t want to be “just a user” you can get to know the inner workings of the OS, something you can’t do on Windows. Windows kinda dumbs up everything for you.

All in all, I used Ubuntu/Xubuntu for nearly two months (I think, but I’m not sure). I read a lot about the Linux world during this time and decided I’d try a “faster” distro, known to be more stable and has been around the Linux scene for years: Debian.

PS: In case you’re wondering, I still use this now 4 year old desktop as my main computer. Considering how fast Linux runs, I see no need to upgrade. In other words, I have a up-to-date OS on a old hardware.