Ubuntu Linux 5.10

If you would like to give Linux, the versatile and useful Operating System, a try but are a newcomer to all things penguin then the general consensus is that Ubuntu Linux could well be the best distro to give you a gentle introduction. Ubuntu Linux is an easy to use version of the Linux O/S based around the Debian core. Now, it has been said that Debian can be somewhat difficult to get into but Ubuntu, supposedly, takes all the good things about Debian and wraps them in a nice, easy to use shell.

Armed with this information, a copy of the latest version, 5.10: The Breezy Badger was sourced from the Ubuntu Website. You have the choice of either downloading an ISO image of the CD or placing an order and having the CD delivered directly to your door, completely free of charge. We opted to go for the latter, purely to investigate what the quality of the pre-produced CDs was like. Some distros we've ordered before have been amateurishly produced and shipped on cheap CDs with a simple paper label stuck on them. With Ubuntu being completely free, we were interested in how the finished product would look.

Live CDs

The CDs arrived about a month or so after they were ordered, which was a little disappointing but it was, nonetheless, pleasing to see that they were professionally packaged and produced. Unlike previous incarnations of Ubuntu, all of the available versions now contain a Live CD that allows you to run, or have a look at, the OS without exposing the machine to any possible risk to the hard drive. Previously, this was only available to the customers who owned x86-based machines.

After taking a quick look at the Live CD and liking what was contained on it, one of the x86 CDs was used to set about installing Ubuntu on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ based machine.

Installation a Breeze

The install starts with a screen prompting you to press enter to install or press F1 for help, all underneath a nice Ubuntu logo. The F1 option takes you into some help screens that detail advanced options that you can use when troubleshooting your installation. You can also enter commands before the install program starts so you can disable USB detection, ACPI, APIC, etc and also enter a more advanced version of the setup program that goes into more depth than the standard install.



Choosing to go with the standard install, we were pleased to find that, after about 20 mins, our test machine was running Linux. Obviously the time this takes will vary from machine to machine.

The standard install is pretty painless and has nothing in it that would really boggle the mind of someone who's not used Linux before, the only thing that could need a second glance is the section devoted to partitioning the drive. If you have an Operating System installed on your machine already it would probably do you well to read the options given to you at this point, rather than just blindly hitting 'Enter'. Our version wanted to completely wipe a partition that we were using to store files for a Windows install. If, however, your machine is an empty page, then the partitioning section can automatically choose how to set up your drive. Obviously, you still have the option of overriding the automatic option and partition your drive(s) exactly how you want them.

The set-up program also goes about detecting hardware, installing the kernel and copying it's vast (just over one thousand) library of supplementary packages to the hard-drive. Once this has been completed, the machine reboots into the newly installed OS and sets about finalising the set-up procedure.

User Friendly Interface

Once inside, everything has a nice feel about it. It all looks very pleasant and it's easy for someone with a bit of computer knowledge to find their way around. There's a standard W.I.M.P. layout using Gnome for the front-end, this can be replaced with KDE quite easily if you prefer. A good addition to this version is the Ubuntu Update Notification system. It scans the available repositories (online resources that contain all the available packages for the Operating System) for newer versions of currently installed software and prompts you to update them. In earlier version of Ubuntu, you had to manually check for updates using the 'apt-get' utility from a Command Line.



Synaptic Package Installer

Synaptic Package Installer

One of the nicest utilities in Ubuntu is the Synaptic Package Installer. This is, basically, Ubunutu's version of the Add/Remove Programs panel in Windows. You simply type in the name of the package that you are looking for and it searches through all the Ubuntu Repositories (see above) to find a match. You then select the one you're looking for (it gives you a description of each package next to the filename,) mark it for install, hit 'Apply' and the OS takes over, compiling and installing the package there and then. No need for user intervention. Also, the Package installer will automatically select any additional modules you may need to install alongside your selection. This is particularly useful if you have no prior knowledge of how to compile and install packages in Linux using the more conventional .configure, make, make install combination.



As an example, if you search for Apache, it finds all the packages that have Apache in the title or description and displays them in the selection window. You pick the main Apache web server package and Ubuntu automatically selects other packages such as the PHP, SSL and CGI modules that you'll probably want to install with it. Click 'Apply' and it brings up a summary of what will be installed and what's been excluded so you can change things before finalising and installing.



Free of Charge

Some other good points about this particular Distro is that the makers claim the OS will always be free of charge (they actively encourage you to make copies and pass it on), there will be regular, six monthly updates available which will be supported for 18 months and it's available for Intel x86 (IBM-Compatible PC) AMD64 (Hammer) and PowerPC (Apple iBook and Powerbook, G4 and G5) architectures.

User Experience

Overall, the experience had using Ubuntu was nothing but pleasant, a few problems were encountered when trying to install it on a Dell PowerEdge machine relating to the Hardware Clock and some third party display drivers installed on an old Sony VAIO laptop led to Ubuntu having to be restarted in recovery mode from the Grub Bootloader to remove the offending files. Recovery Mode starts the machine in a Linux terminal environment and allows you to have Root access to the file system to diagnose and repair problems. A bit technical for average users but a handy thing to use if you know what you're doing.

Above all, Ubuntu seems like a very intuitive and easy version of the Linux OS to get to grips with. Its graphical interface is nice, not too overbearing and not too far removed from Windows that newcomers to Linux wouldn't know where to start. It also has all the relevant packages available to it that mean it can be used as a Server O/S. There is an option in the install procedure that allows you to pre-configure the machine in this role, basically installing a very stripped-down version of the OS, without Gnome and other, more user-friendly, packages.

Obviously there are still things that need to be run from the command line, crontab, restarting Apache, changing file and folder users using Root, etc. This can cause an annoyance to more experienced Linux users as Ubuntu doesn't, by default, allow you to use the Root account. Instead you have to prefix most advanced commands with the sudo (SuperUser-do) command. This can be bypassed, however, by changing the Root account password from the random one the system sets during install to one you manually choose yourself. You can then change to SuperUser by using the standard su command from within a terminal or console. However, these probably wouldn't be things that your average home user needs to be doing anyway.

Not so Flash

We also tested the x64 version and although, for the most part, it was identical to the x86 version, there were some things that we couldn't install. The x64 version of Firefox that Ubuntu comes shipped with, for example, couldn't display any Flash content, as Macromedia haven't developed a 64-bit version of the player yet. There are work arounds but none of the things we tried appeared to work. There are ways of getting 32 bit applications to work on the 64-bit kernel but these involve more tweaking that your average home user won't have any inclination to attempt. For this reason, we'd suggest steering clear of the x64 version until more support is available for 64 bit applications in the home.

Overall

These few points aside, however, and we feel that Ubuntu Linux is probably one of the best distros out there for those people wishing to make their first foray into the non-Microsoft arena. It's simple to use, attractive interface makes inexperienced users feel at home and un-intimidated. As outlined above, there are some issues that others may find annoying and we have reflected this in the final score.


We give it a hearty 8 out of 10

There are very helpful, in-depth guides to setting up, tweaking and generally getting the best out of this distro at ubuntuguide.org These are, currently, only aimed at the two previous releases (Warty Warthog & Hoary Hedgehog) but most of the tips given can be applied to this latest release.