I’ve been missing my Bloodhounds! I reminded myself that arguing about politics is like arguing about religion, so logged in to push up a new post.
About a year ago, I posted that the Android OS was going to free me from Windows (and Office.) Unfortunately, the g1 was a gigantic POS, so that didn’t happen. However, in the meantime something fortunate did happen:
I dumped a giant glass of iced tea on my laptop.
During the two weeks of my PC repair, I was forced to move off Outlook and start using the powerful tools that Google provides (free) in their apps products. End of two weeks, and I was off Outlook entirely.
Zoom forward a few months from that point and I’m bored out of my mind (funny how that happens in a real estate broker’s life during the Nov-Dec months.) Out of this sheer boredom, I decided to install Ubuntu (linux) on an old PC laptop we had sitting around.
I’m writing this blog post on that machine. Ubuntu is incredible. This 5 year old laptop with 512kb of RAM runs faster than my 1.5 year old PC w/ 3gb of RAM and lightning fast processor. I can’t wait to replace buggy Vista with Ubuntu on my fast machine!
So…I put it to you: Find an old laptop in your house, download Ubuntu, install it, and give it 2 weeks. Ubuntu is ready for prime time. You belong in the cloud, and there’s no reason to be bound to an OS.
I’d love to hear feedback from anyone/everyone willing to give Ubuntu two weeks1!
James Malanowski says:
Welcome to the club! I’ve been using Linux full-time on all of my computers for years and Ubuntu since v1. Not much I can’t do. I run a copy of Winblows in VirtualBox for those idiot sites (like our MLS!) that require IE, but otherwise I’m totally open source here.
There are some differences and quirks, so if you have any questions feel free to drop me a line and I’ll be happy to help out as best as I can.
February 28, 2010 — 12:06 am
Cheryl Johnson says:
Installation looks simple enough here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall
February 28, 2010 — 6:05 am
Teri Lussier says:
Timely post. We have an old PC we are cranking up again today, just for shits and giggles, and thinking that we’d play around with Linux.
February 28, 2010 — 7:13 am
Tom Matthews says:
I have an old pc that I want to load Linux on. It’s been years and years since I did anything with linux. Any pointers on how to get started would be appreciated.
February 28, 2010 — 7:34 am
Steve Krzysiak says:
I thought I misread when I switched folders on my google reader, so I went back to my RE folder and sure enough, an RE blog talking about Ubuntu! A tear came to my eye, thank you!
February 28, 2010 — 10:31 am
Joe says:
I’ll try it. I have a dinosaur of a laptop I use only when needing an alternative when I hit the slopes. It’s slow, but worth a try of Ubunto.
March 1, 2010 — 7:19 am
Jim Klein says:
I’ve been using Linux for years and very strongly recommend it. It is indeed finally “ready for prime time.” I downloaded Ubuntu a few months ago and while it was a piece of cake, I found it somewhat limiting compared to Slackware, which is what I use. The Slackware distro comes with tons and tons of software pre-installed, though of course with Linux you can get any software you need anyway by downloading. And it’s got a price that just can’t be beat!
IMO Microsoft has basically been in the business of trying to do what Unix does by nature. Linux has been tough because it requires the user’s own thinking and acting, but it seems lately that even that isn’t required. IOW, it’s the perfect OS for modern America!
Free and easy, that is. The reason I like it, though, is that I really believe it’s better too. Anyone should give it a whirl and it works wonderfully even on old computers, depending on various set-up options.
March 2, 2010 — 9:42 am
Erika Eaton says:
Do you have to erase Windows from your system to run Linux? I really appreciate your posting this, I have an old laptop that runs very slow.
March 12, 2010 — 9:30 pm
James Malanowski says:
Only if you want to. Ubuntu has the ability to automatically install beside your Windows and gives you the choice of which system to load when you boot the computer.
March 12, 2010 — 10:42 pm