Ubuntu Geek Website

@Kaf: Actually if you’re going to use the command-line, the preferred method is “sudo aptitude install cake”. That way if you later decide to remove the cake, aptitude will be sure to remove all of cake’s dependencies you don’t need (e.g. fat & calories).

@Mike: Geeks-with-a-life have better things to do than babysit Windows+Firewall+AntiVirus+AntiSpyware+Office through constant updates that require numerous reboots and must be done one at a time. With a properly setup Ubuntu machine, one can schedule system updates to run in the background and install updates for every piece of software installed on the machine.

@Pixelfish: If you don’t like their Sugar interface, have you thought about replacing the distro on your XO with Ubuntu?

@C.e. Petit: Punch cards? Nah, real nerds use butterflies.

http://xkcd.org/272/

Anyhow, I put Ubuntu on my PC a couple of days back, after carving out a 10 gig partition from empty space. It was my third or fourth install from the same CD, and it’s pretty easy.

I installed Linux on my mum’s PC when she got it 4 or 5 years ago, btw. She’s windows-free, and I’ve had ONE call for help which involved pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to exit her current session.

One thing – you might prefer KDE to Gnome. I know I do.

Oh, and Compiz with full effects is something to behold.

And Wine has improved out of sight.

I think you’ll find Linux is pretty cool. I made an almost complete switch about a year and a half ago. It’s an almost complete switch because I still need Windows XP to play a bunch of flight simulators. (In fact, I’m using Windows now because I just finished shooting down some MiGs.)

I started with Ubuntu, but later moved to the even geekier Slackware. Slackware requires a little more work to configure, but it is a simple, clean, stable, and full-featured OS. I had OpenSUSE on my laptop for about a year before migrating over to Slackware for that computer too.

Open Office runs well in both Windows and Linux. It has a feature that I simply love — predictive word completion! (I’m not sure if Word 2007, the latest version, has that feature. Word 2003 doesn’t.) In any event, I almost effortlessly switched between Word and Open Office Writer in both Windows and Linux when working on my thesis this past spring. After a while, I got to really liking Open Office because of the predictive completion.

If you really want to geek out with Linux, start using Emacs for your writing. Randall Wood is a writer who has written a lot about distraction-free writing:

http://therandymon.com/content/view/99/98/

He’s got a good article on using Emacs for writing text rather than programs:

http://therandymon.com/content/view/16/98/

I pretty much use Emacs exclusively now when I write magazine articles. Frankly, I think I’d still feel more comfortable in Open Office or Word for more substantial works — but Emacs *is* pretty free of distractions.

And, yes, welcome to the darkside. I’d chime in with the “it’s super-easy, you’ll love it”, but I’m a sysadmin and have no perspective anymore.