One More Stab at Ubuntu

My computer life has been turned upside down in the past few weeks. My home PCs have been running Windows 2000 forever. They're old machines (I built mine from part in 1999!). Win2k is great, but more and more it's being marginalized. I can't run the latest versions of software (like the GIMP and Picasa, Napster and Quicktime), and have been thinking about upgrading.

I got in on the Windows 7 beta test and have been using it for well over a year. It's great. My PC (the oldest) runs it passably, but it's not quick enough to play Guild Wars, which is why I still mostly use Win2k. Kristen's PC is faster, but for some reason can't read the Win7 installation media (I've tried multiple times in multiple forms, no dice). I really wanted to upgrade her, as she uses the Gimp and Picasa a lot.

I've been a Unix guy on and off since 1995, and really love the power and flexibility of a well-administered system (I've preferred BSD variants over the years, but also used Linux and Solaris). There have always been a few things about these systems that have bit me in the butt. The most pressing: printing. I've been involved in computer hardware and software support for almost 20 years, but I could never configure and out-of-the-box Unix system to print on a modern printer!

So, I decided to give it one last shot. I installed the latest Ubuntu Linux on an old drive installed in Kristen's PC. It went great. The Linux-native Adobe Flash support for Firefox lets me watch YouTube videos and run Napster over the web. The Wine-enabled Picasa works like a charm. GIMP... of course. But what about that pesky printer?

Well, Ubuntu (or, more specifically Kubuntu) saw it and pre-configured it perfectly. No problems yet. I want to try using XSane or the GIMP to scan something this week, but I'm oddly confident.

So, that brings me to my ASUS EeePC netbook. it had been running the Windows 7 Release Candidate, but that expired today. I had to either pony up the money for a legit license or try something else. Listen closely: WINDOW 7 IS WORTH THE MONEY. It's a great version of Windows and has given me much joy over the past year. That said, money's tight and if I can NOT spend $100, I'll try.

So, I installed the Ubuntu Netbook remix on my netbook. So far, few surprises. I am having problems with my network printer at work (a Xerox WorkCentre 7232 color copier). Ubuntu's print manager can find it and recognize it, but the driver doesn't work. It may be that this copier doesn't support Postscript, but I thought CUPS was supposed to take care of that. I tried a generic PCL5 driver and am able to print, but not in color and probably not using some of the advanced features of this copier/printer. I'll keep trying...

So, my first morning in the office with my Ubuntu netbook is going OK. Not perfect, but OK.