A long time ago, when young men were still ogling at cars like the Z1 and the F40, I was studying hard trying to understand the ins and outs of the VAX/VMS operating system. It was something a lot more sophisticated than the Prime PRIMOS that I used when I was in junior college, and a whole lot more sophisticated than the DOS on my very humble 80286 AT personal computer at home! I remember, albeit vaguely, the mention of something called Unix, and how it was going to be the king of operating systems. However, since I was very clear it would be of no use to me, I promptly erased it from my memory, opting instead to look at the MacIntosh…which was so much cooler!
My next brush with this strange thing called Unix was several years later in the office when a colleague helped me setup an account on one of the Unix computers. I cherished that account dearly, only because it opened the window to the world of Usenet! It proved to be a valuable source of knowledge that spurred my growth in so many areas. It was in Usenet too that I discovered something called Mosaic…which was the precursor to the now ubiquitous web browser!
So while I was not a Unix expert by any means, I did like my Unix very much! However, it remained a dark and complex creature to me as I never quite understood how it worked…and other than the fact that it was my window of knowledge, I never understood why there was such a big hoohaa around it.
Sometime later, I started hearing the term Linux. The one thing I remember about this other beast, whose name I was not able to pronounce confidently up till this day, was that it was something called Open Source. That the codes would be available to anybody who was willing to invest time into understanding, developing and using it. And that the masses would flock to it like ants to that granule of sugar that you forgot to wipe away from the kitchen counter!
To cut a long story short (there, I said that again), I stuck with my Windows and Mac machines up till today. Why? Well, because they came packaged with the computers that I bought and would work out of the box. Also because the applications that I wanted to use came with Windows and Mac versions…and I could not find, let alone hear, of any credible applications in my sphere of interest available on Linux that did not need me to compile! And so that was that…
…until this last weekend. You see, I will be going on a long ride around the peninsular of West Malaysia very soon and would like the ability to edit my photographs and write my blog along the way. That meant I had to bring along a portable computer. I could lug around my notebook with a generous 15-inch screen…but that thing weighs almost a ton! I could get myself a brand new MacBook Air which weighs as light as a feather…but that thing costs a couple thousand bucks (with my favourite applications installed). So I started looking for alternatives…and what I found…well…made me wish I paid a lot more attention in school!
I realized (a lot later than many other smart people, I know) that I could install a light but powerful operating system on a small and inexpensive portable computer with all the applications that I would need for editing photographs and blogging. Yes, you guessed it. I discovered, or re-discovered, Linux, in the form of Ubuntu. No, I do not know how to pronounce Ubuntu confidently either…but it was to be the thing that promises to work for me…and it would not break the bank!
So I downloaded a version of Ubuntu onto a USB drive and ran that on the netbook that Jera (my younger son) had. Now get this. The netbook was running an Atom N270 processor…it had a meager 1GB (or was it 512MB?) of RAM and a tiny 160GB hard disk. I used it sparingly before to write my blog on WordPress while waiting for them to finish their swimming class and the performance was horrendous! Not only was it slow, it would suddenly change the zooming on the browser. Using it was a nightmare. So I was prepared for this test of Ubuntu to be disappointing…but I was dead wrong!
While it did take quite awhile to load up from the USB drive, once loaded, it ran perfectly. The track pad behaved very nicely, very smoothly. The browser loaded pages relatively speedily. WordPress worked flawlessly. I could even watch YouTube videos without any real annoyance! My goodness! This thing works! I downloaded a few other applications to try out some simple photo-editing tasks and they worked respectably. Not spectacularly fast…but not unbearably slow either. Given the slow processor, low memory and severely limited screen real estate, the performance blew me away!
So today I decided I would install Ubuntu on my desktop computer…and now that the install has completed…I am able to write this blog on Ubuntu! Sure. The install was not flawless. I had it freeze on me once. Crash on me once too. But in the end, it worked. I think the freeze and crash was due more to my embarrassingly old hardware (a 5-year old HP Multimedia PC) than anything else. Most importantly…it is working now and my computer feels so zippy I am amazed!
Now I know that many of you reading this is probably doing so on a Windows machine or a Mac. And I am not advocating that you switch to Ubuntu anytime soon…because honestly…it does take a little bit of effort to get it running. BUT…if your machine is starting to run a little more slowly than you like…and if you are not using any application that is so unique that there is no Ubuntu equivalent…or if you have an old computer lying around that you would like to resurrect, then you owe it to yourself to try Ubuntu out. After all, you can run it off a USB drive like I did to try it out. And if you liked it, you can install it alongside your current operating system (like I did) so you still have access to your other environment!
What is there to lose?
