I have a very ill-reputation in my hostel, for being an evangelist for open-source software and OSes – so much in-fact, that my wingies actually use my preferance for Open-source over “normal”ware to my disadvantage. While the entire world goes gaga over Bill Gates and his Microsoft products and of course Windows, I choose to be a passive spectator to all these phenomena and maintain my indifferent attitude to the same with a certain degree of nonchalance. For example, when the latest sensation hit the computer industry in the form of Windows 7, I was, to say the least, thoroughly annoyed. Why? Because it was sensational, for the wrong reasons. It was sensational because it was good. Now seriously, after the hugely disastrous failure of Microsoft Corporation in the earlier Windows Vista, you cannot actually expect them to come up with a poor OS again, and still charge a hefty amount for it! It's got to be good. Or to rephrase it, it better be good! MS had to ensure that Windows 7 did not turn out to be a let-down, like its precursor had, and hence they had to take that extra step to ensure that this one was indeed of top-notch quality. And so Windows 7 was born: a very good, capable, and quality OS from the overlords of the OS industry: Microsoft Corporation. I have used it, though not on my machine, and have found it very good indeed.
You must be wondering by now about my allegiance: whether I am a Winboy or an Openboy. You'll get the answer soon enough.
While on one hand, we have Windows and Gates and doors and latches and ... other objects associated with civil engineering ... on another hand we have a completely different set of tools and gadgets which are radically different from the aforementioned category. This is openware, an alternative set of tools and devices that are built upon the spirit that “that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language, and that people should have the freedom to customize and alter their software in whatever way they need.”
In this world, things are quite different. Windows 7 (or XP or Vista for that matter) ceases to exist. In comes Linux with it's wide range of Operating systems: Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, OpenSUSE etc. Windows Media Player has no significance in this world. On the contrary we have Rythmbox, VLC, Totem, Sound Juicer and other marvellous freeware. Microsoft Internet Explorer loses all ground (if it hasn't already on Windows itself :D ) to be replaced by Mozilla Firefox and Opera and Google Chrome. There is nothing called MS Office here, and all Office work is brilliantly handled by the radical Open Office. This is, in short a completely new and different environment, and once you've used it, I can guarantee, you will think twice before reverting to Windows.
My new laptop, a Dell Inspiron 15.5'' 3 GB machine, which I got yesterday, I am proud to say, has been perfectly configured with this new environment ... Open and free and totaly legal. I have used Linux before on a tiny HCL netbook (or as the HCL guys put it, a myleap) and liked it a lot. The only glitch there had been the hardware shortcomings (a nearly negligible quanitity of RAM and hard drive memory, no CD drive, a tiny screen and other failings), and a very primitive version of the Ubuntu OS (7.10), which I must say is not one of the best OSes around.
The new one however, is properly equipped and makes up for the previous shortcomings, and loaded with the latest version of Ubunbu (Ubuntu 9.10) it sure means business. Here's a brief walkthrough:
You press the boot button on the laptop, and in 15 seconds the splash screen followed by the login screen comes up. You give your password, and the desktop appears. The machine is fully operational within 20 seconds ... provided of course you are snappy at entering your password :D. This after all uses only 256 MB of RAM to load as opposed to Windows 7 that uses all of 1 GB. The desktop is pretty neat, with two panels: one on the top (by default) and one at the bottom. The one on the top has the Ubuntu equivalent of the 'Start' button on Windows, and other system indicators and appliction shortcuts. The one on the bottom is the taskbar where you can see all your running applications. You can add as many panels as you want on the desktop, place them wherever you want, and have whatever you want on them at the click of a mouse button, but I am satisfied with the two default ones, and shall stick to those.
The top left corner of the screen is adorned by the Ubuntu icon, which comes as a breath of fresh air from the traditional blue Windows icon on the bottom left. Several other things catch your eye the moment you look about. One is the multiple workbench icon on the bottom right, beside the trash icon (the equivalent of a Recycle Bin). The multiple workbench feature is a rather smart and chic feature of this OS. Workbench basically refers to desktop, and in all versions of Ubuntu, you can actually maintain multiple desktops at the same time. Advantages? Suppose you have too many applications running on one desktop. To reduce the clutter, you can just shift a few to another desktop, and make the place look cleaner. The “shifting” part is real fun ... :D shall come to that later. You can have as many desktops as you want in a tabular manner and can shift between them by clicking on the desired compartment in the workbench icon or by using Ctrl+Alt+arrow keys.
Now comes opening and running applications. The Applications button hides all the programs and executable applications installed on the machine, categorised as Accessories, Games, Graphics, Internet, Office, Sound and Video, System Tools and Wine. Let us try the Open Office Writer (the Open Office equivalent of MS Office Word). As the screen comes up, you look at it and can't help feeling good. It has everything that Word has and that too in a fresh new interface, while retaining the basic navigability and get-up.
But I am not going to describe every application because I don't really want to. They are all best experienced than heard or read about. But the striking feature that I want to mention is the amazing graphics and visual effects. The different windows, (note: not Windows) can be maximised or restored by just dragging the top panel of each window to the top of the workbench, and believe you WILL love the amazing rubbery/bubbly motion as you drag the windows from here to there. You click twice on a maximised/minimised window it gets restored in a remarkably bouncy and hilarious manner, which you can't help adoring. And as for shifting from one workbench to another just grapple one window with your mouse and drag it out of the screen and it enters the next workbench. The motion of the windows on and between the workbenches are so awesome that you actually need to see it to believe it. Moreover, the workbench theme, appliction window, fonts are all customisable via system>preferences>appear on the top panel.
So much for visual effects. What else is cool on Ubuntu? Everything. There is/are alternative(s) available for every Windows application one uses for use on Linux Ubuntu. And the best part is all of these applications are free and open source, so you don't really need to think twice before using it or bothering about piracy issues. Also, legally free and open source drivers exist for all hardware devices ... webcam, bluetooth, external hard drive, pen drives ... you name it, it has it. The next remarkable feature about Ubuntu are the software updates and installation. The Applications tab on the top panel has another option in the drop down menu called the Ubuntu Software Centre … which is essentially your portal to all software available around the globe for use on your Ubuntu machine. You double click on it, and you are pleasantly surprised at the sheer number (hundreds and hundreds) of software which you can install at the click of a button. There are tens of free and snazzy media players, hundreds of educational software, Programing IDEs, graphical software, Internet applications, Accessory software, games and loads and loads of other amazingly varied applications. Be it CD burners, rippers, format converters, graphing, mathematical, E-mail utilities, chat/messengers, image editors, photo managers, animation software, Gmail notifiers, more free browsers, blogging clients , PDF readers, text editors, Prism for every Google service, clients for DC++ … even obtusely far-fetched software like satellite trackers, weather trackers, chemical element analysers, algebra solving programs, PDF readers devoted to E-books, formula editors, dictionaries, thesauruses, character maps, virtual keyboards, gaming packages, alarm clocks, personal diary managers, time-table generators, notifiers, translators even mouse-clickers!!! That was just a teeeny weeny glimpse of what is actually in that Ubuntu Software Centre … believe me, it's truly fascinating.
Select the application you want and just click install … and it's done. No setup wizards, no clicking on 'I Agree', no clicking on 'Next' or 'Finish' … no notices which say 'your so and so was successfully installed.' … because very simply, nothing can go wrong while installing a software from Ubuntu Software Centre onto an Ubuntu machine. Even better is the fact that the Ubuntu Software centre is updated daily with the latest free and open source software from all around the world and you are kept updated with the latest and the best freeware from around the planet.
Next we come to the directory structure and file manger, which works like a breeze. The Places tab on the top panel gives you a drop down menu. The Places tab is analogous to the My Computer/Explorer on Windows machines. There is absolutely no clutter in the menu and no additional partitions into C drive/ D drive and so on. Just the 'Home Folder'. This home folder does not encroach into the system's executable files/software region etc. It just gives access to your documents, pictures, music, videos, and downloads. It creates a level of abstraction and hides all the installed applications from your view, letting you access them only through shortcuts on the Applications tab. If you really want to access them/uninstall them, click on the Computer option in the Places drop down menu. There, you'll find other directories and folders that hide these details. Your Home Folder, you'll see is actually one such folder, directly accessible through Places>Home Folder via the top panel. Call it user-friendliness to the maximum!
This extremely fun-to-work-with OS has the additional benefit of completely free online support and help should you need it. Added to this is the additional security you get from 99.9% of viruses around the planet, solely because all viruses/trojan horses and elephants and other malware are designed specifically for Windows owing to its popularity. Inspite of all this protection the Ubuntu Software Center has loads of Ubuntu specific anti-viruses which you can install. Small additional perks that come along with the OS include a pair of “eyes” which you can keep on your top panel that follows your cursor movement by rolling its eyeballs, and a tiny Fortune telling applet called Wanda the Fish that keeps ranting out funny quotes when you click on it. Yet another advantage is that, being open-source and being completely customisable by local users it has all resources necessary to cater to all communitites. The wireless Broadband modem setup specifically shows just the three services available when you specify your country as India, ie Reliance Netconnect, Tata Indicom Photon, and Tata Indicom Photon+ ... this portion I presume, having being developed by Indians themselves. Not surprisingly the regional font range on Ubuntu is way more comprehensive than Windows because of the same region. Fonts for Indian scripts like Bengali, Telegu, Tamil were developed much earlier on Ubuntu than on Windows.
And yes, finally an OS that does NOT consider Subhayan Mukerjee to be a spelling error because it's the name of the user, and doen't give suggestions like Subhuman Mockeries!
Whatever. All done, and you click on the Shut Down option. In less than 5 seconds, your laptop screen darkens and the Ubuntu icon fades away … call that snappy.
Believe me, you really need to experience Ubuntu. It's more than just an OS. Its a way of life.
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