linux on the notebook

theoretically, linux works great and ubuntu is wonderful. After needing a new hard-drive and being super annoyed with XP, I gave it a try. It installed beautifully, everything worked right “out of the box.” However, after 6 weeks, I am a bit disenchanted:

a. there are all these applications that supposedly work with my ipod (classic), but they don’t (and if you go into the fora, they all give lame excuses). Think Floola, GTPod, Banshee, etc.

b. wine and codeweaver’s crossover supposedly allow you to run windows software natively in linux, it is just that microsoft office 2007 and itunes are not supported (and nobody writes about this).

c. I have now downloaded 7 different applications to watch movies and I have been able to mix-and-match and actually found applications that were able to play movies without turning my kids into blue zombies or decoupling the sound from the video, however, when I connected the computer to the projector nothing happened.

d. flash sometimes works and sometimes does not.

e. facebook works sometimes.

About Philipp

Philipp Müller works in the IT industry and is academic dean of the SMBS. Author of "Machiavelli.net". Proud father of three amazing children. The views expressed in this blog are his own.

10. January 2008 by Philipp
Categories: Blog | 4 comments

Comments (4)

  1. Reva Doiss says January 11, 2008 at 9:33 pm

    That was exactly my point when discussing with Nestor about Linux: Everybody says is great but nobody uses it. I’d never heard of anybody unistalling its XP or Mac to give it a chance in my inner circle.

    Now you have, and it wasn’t a perfect experience.

    iTunes, Facebook, Office, Flash, Players… Anything of the basics that did work?

  2. reva_doiss@anonymous.disqus.net'
    Reva Doiss says January 11, 2008 at 9:33 pm

    That was exactly my point when discussing with Nestor about Linux: Everybody says is great but nobody uses it. I’d never heard of anybody unistalling its XP or Mac to give it a chance in my inner circle. Now you have, and it wasn’t a perfect experience. iTunes, Facebook, Office, Flash, Players… Anything of the basics that did work?

  3. Stefan says January 18, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    For me except Office 2007 everything works. For Ubuntu there is a nice documentation here:

    https://help.ubuntu.com/

    If one wants to use Office 2007 one could use maybe a vmware solution…

    Cheers

  4. stefan@anonymous.disqus.net'
    Stefan says January 18, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    For me except Office 2007 everything works. For Ubuntu there is a nice documentation here:https://help.ubuntu.com/If one wants to use Office 2007 one could use maybe a vmware solution…Cheers