My Ubuntu Tryout

I recently had my 5th or 6th Linux desktop tryout. The distro’s that I have used before are Suse, Xandros, Knoppix, Kubuntu (Ubuntu in a KDE environment) and Ubuntu. Out of all of them the one that worked best for me was Ubuntu mainly because I like the Gnome interface a bit more than I like KDE.

From time to time I get the urge to give Linux a go. There are a few things that always bug me though. Number one is the fact that I must manually edit config files. In order to get my graphics card to work I had to edit some config files, something many of us won’t be too happy about. Second thing that bug me a lot is the amount of times I have to use the terminal/command line. I know it isn’t such a big deal but I am sure the average user would feel much more at ease if they can simply change some things using a GUI instead of the command line.

One big hurdle for me is the lack of support for dual monitors. Having two monitors greatly improve productivity but more importantly, it looks cool. I know it is possible but to give you an idea of the difficulty, take a look at this thread on the Ubuntu forum:
HowTo: Dual Monitors (Xinerama/TwinView/MergedFB/Big-Desktop).

Now, that is exactly the kind of thing you should try to avoid when wanting to attract new users. But, credit where credit is due, the Ubuntu and Linux community in general is really great, the support is fantastic and the improvements I have seen in the past 3 years that I have been fiddling around with Linux has also been tremendous.

For those of you who want to give Ubuntu a try, I’d suggest heading over to Wubi.