Getting back to linux

Back when I was at the LINC project, I worked on a Linux laptop full time. Then Mac OS X happened, and I fled the linux world for the user-friendly *nix on the Mac platform. Now, I'm starting to look at linux as a day to day desktop OS again.

First, the why: basically, because it's the beginning of the bicycle season and I'm out of shape. Since I'm out of shape, I'm trying to carry as little as possible. Now, my 12" iBook isn't exactly large, or heavy, but in trying to carry as little as possible, it was obvious that it was one of the things that should be left at home along with the extraneous notebooks, manila folders, and just about everything else that I didn't absolutely need to work. Also, we're in the planning stages of a new program, and at least one of the groups we're hoping to work with is an all Linux shop. I figured the least I could do was return to Linux land and see how things had changed in the last year or two.

__The requirements__: We've recently been using a technology life-cycle model in our training programs to illustrate the process an organization will ideally follow as it adopts a new technology. Since I'm also trying to eat our own dog food, I did an informal version of this process as I started my trek back to Linux.

My requirements were pretty simple

* I need to be able to connect to our Windows SBS 2003 server for file sharing
* I need to access email through our Exchange Server
* I need to be able to print
* I need to be able to browse the Internet
* I need to be able to open/edit/save MS Word format files

With these requirements in hand, I set out to find the right Linux distribution.

I didn't spend too long on this step since I've kept up to date with developments in the Linux world and had pretty much narrowed my choices down to Debian or Ubuntu (a Debian based system).

I've used Debian in the past for servers, and while I like it a lot, I wasn't interested in all the configuration work I'd have to do to get a basic desktop system up and running properly. I'd been hearing a lot of good things about Ubuntu, so I downloaded the CD image, burned a copy, and started the installation.

__Ubuntu__:
The installation isn't what I'd call pretty, but it works, and it's not hard to figure out. I went with the defaults for everything, and within about 30 minutes, was looking at the login screen.

After about another 30 minutes, I'd configured Evolution, the mail client, to access our Exchange server, and had set up our printers and a connect to the file server.

Up to that point, I was very happy. It's about a week later, and I've spent a fair bit of that time using the Ubuntu system.

Overall, I'm still happy with it. For the most part, things just work, and in some cases, work better than the Mac.

__Things that work well:__

* Printing - printing pretty much just worked. I did have to know about how to connect to our different printers since one has a built in network card and the other is attached to a Netgear print server, but actually connecting and printing works like a charm - better overall than the same setup on my Mac.

* File access - again, this was easy, with one small caveat listed below. I just used the "Connect to server" option in the Places menu, entered in the relevant details for the server and was browsing our shared files. Open Office, the FLOSS office suite does a great job with most of our Word files and Powerpoint presentations - most of them.

* Access to Exchange - using Evolution's Exchange connector, I can do everything with Exchange that I can with Outlook - at least everything that I've tried so far. This is much better than the Mac since both Apple's Mail program and MS's Entourage don't completely work. There is one small caveat here as well.

* Browsing the Internet - as on my Mac, I'm using Firefox and everything works just fine. If I keep up with this setup, I'll need to figure out how to share bookmarks between computers. Del.icio.us is a possibility, but I'll have to see what I need and what works.

__Things that don't work so well:__

* File access - I think this is a bug in the Gnome desktop system that I'm running. I can "mount" network servers on my desktop, but they don't appear in file operation dialogs. What this means is that although I can network files, I have to save to the desktop and then copy over to the network share - I can't navigate to the share through the save dialog. I found a reference to the bug, and it appears to be fixed in newer versions of the software, so I'll have to see if there's an update available. Also under file access, Open Office has trouble with some of our more formatted documents. This is generally not a big deal, but it's still an issue.

* Access to Exchange - again, this could be a configuration/version issue, but Evolution can be somewhat unstable accessing Exchange - at least if I'm impatient with it. If I jump around in Exchange folders too quickly, I can make Evolution crash. Restarting Evolution generally puts things right, but it's still a problem.

* The interface - the criticism of Linux has always been that the interface is ugly, and that look and feel across programs isn't consistent. This is still the case. It's certainly better than it was a few years ago, but there's still much more work to be done. Ubuntu has done a lot to make it a more comfortable environment, and they've succeeded, but compared to the Mac or even Windows, it still doesn't compare favorably. To die hard techies, the interface may not seem like a big deal, but I think that interfaces matter a lot- we spend a lot of time using computers, and I think it's silly to think that skimping on interface is OK.

Overall though, I'm happy. The system does most of what I need it to do, and it means that I don't have to cart around my laptop.