October 14, 2010 at 16:33What you should know if you are thinking about migrating to Ubuntu
A friend who did not see Linux in the eye, but became interested in the open source, after the release of Ubuntu 10.10 he asked me to write to him “what’s good, what’s bad, what complications, what subtleties, how to establish a relationship with vin7” so that he can decide if he needs this happiness . At first I thought, “why will I write the text, when probably a hundred people have already written it - I’ll quickly google it, send a link, and then I will answer specific questions”. But then I found out that on requests like “migration to ubuntu” giant manuals with the intricacies of compiz settings fall out, and I can’t quickly find short text for “undecided” either on the Internet at all, nor on ubuntu.com and ubuntu.ru (that is, all as he wrotein the previous post), not on Habré - and thought that now let at least be on Habré. Ubuntarium participants are unlikely to learn anything new from the text, but they can add it in the comments (I do not pretend to be an ubuntugur, so I probably missed a lot of important things), and then people who later introduce something like “into Google” transition to ubuntu ", they will find happiness here.
I immediately warn that much is given in the text in a somewhat simplified version, so that the essence is immediately clear; if someone after this post decides to go over, he will still read more detailed texts, so that he will find out the correct wording. I also want to say that I’m not at all persuading everyone to switch to Ubuntu; The system has flaws, for some they may well be critical, and in the text I tried to state everything impartially.
For what it's all (main advantages):
1. Practical plus: the system is free (like most programs for it). Windows, of course, can also be obtained for free in a well-known way - but it can suddenly find out about it, or (when installing it at the workplace), those who come with verification can find out about it, or, finally, your conscience can find out about it. In addition, under Windows, you also have to fool around, extracting every program in a known way - with some it can be difficult.
2. Practical plus: no viruses. You can safely stick any flash drives brought by your friends and go to any (including those that you thought about) sites. Update: in the comments they indicated that the theoretical possibility of a computer infection exists, but in practice this is still extremely rare.
3. Practical plus: it’s more convenient to do some things (it’s described in more detail below) than in Windows.
4. A practical plus for geeks: flexible configuration. If you are ready to “work with a file”, you can almost get your dream system.
5. Plus for the curious: broader horizons. And not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively: when you see two different approaches to one thing, you start to look differently at these things themselves.
6. Aesthetic plus: the interface of programs, alerts and other things is designed in the same style. In addition, many people love the “add-on system” of Compiz Fusion for both external effects and functionality (there is no full-fledged analogue of Compiz in Windows).
7. Ideological plus: you help create competition for Microsoft :) I have nothing fundamentally against Microsoft, Windows 7 is a good OS, but the fact of competition would make both sides work more actively, and as a result, everyone would feel better.
8. Ideological plus: bright ideals of open source. True, if this tells you something, then you are a programmer, and if you are a programmer, you already know enough about Linux yourself. But even if you don’t say it, be aware that you are supporting a good deed by the very fact of using Linux.
What you need to know if "interesting, but scary":
1. You can not install Ubuntu immediately "fully", there are three options that allow you to first look at it and understand whether you like it or not. One is the installation using the Wubi installer, in which Ubuntu is installed inside Windows: then you do not need to bother partitioning the hard drive (which eliminates the risk of accidentally tearing everything down) and can be easily removed. The second is to install the system on a flash drive (any one from a gigabyte will do): you can boot from a flash drive and look at Ubuntu, without making any changes to the hard drive of your computer. Moreover, if you like the system, after that it can be installed on a computer from the same flash drive. Some generally make their system on a flash drive their primary, so that when they come somewhere and plug their flash drive into someone else's computer, they work at home, but they didn’t do it, I don’t know the details.
2. With a "full-fledged" installation, Ubuntu perfectly stands up "next to" Windows, and they can be used alternately, each time you turn on the computer, choosing which system to load. On lifehacker.com there is a good English-language instruction on dualboot of Ubuntu and Windows 7. If someone really needs it, I will translate it into Russian.
What will the Windows user have during the transition the main questions:
1. Installing applications: in Ubuntu they are usually installed not from distribution files, but from repository servers. At first it’s unusual, but then the majority begins to like this approach much stronger than Windows; programs are literally "one click" without ten clicks on the "next" and enter the serial numberfrom keygen. The vast majority of programs are free, but paid ones also exist.
2. The file system structure is noticeably different from Windows, there are no “C and D disks”; it takes time to get used to, but then to many the structure seems more logical. At first, it is most important to know that NTFS partitions and external connected devices such as mp3 players can be found by going from the root to the / media folder, and the "personal" folder of each user is located in / home / username. (Here lies another plus: it is possible, when the system is completely reinstalled, to save the “personal folder”, and then the settings of all programs will be saved.)
3. Compatible with Windows standards. Everything is different here. It is quite possible to communicate with winders by ICQ and Skype (though the Skype client is crooked now). It works quite well with doc and xls at the household level in OpenOffice, but here large documents with complex formatting in it may not look exactly like in Microsoft Office - it is better to write a diploma not in Linux, if you do not want the scientist under Windows to see distorted tables. There are problems with encodings in various situations (for example, Cyrillic in the names of files placed in a zip archive and Cyrillic in tags of mp3 files). There is almost always some way to cope with this, in some cases it’s quite convenient, in part there is a “crutch”. If this psychologically comforts those who are rolling over, then be aware that Ubuntu uses Unicode, which is designed to solve all problems with encodings, And the problems arise because Windows has not completely switched to it yet. There is also Wine, with which Windows applications are launched under Linux - in the case of "heavy" programs this may be difficult or impossible, but with the little things it is much better (for example, you can run a Windows archiver and unzip zip without problems with Cyrillic names files).
4. Iron support. Let's be honest - not all hardware manufacturers think about Linux users, therefore, it can run into problems with some hardware, and for some peripherals there may be no official drivers. You can check in advance whether the system works normally on your hardware using the aforementioned flash drive, and for the part of the officially unsupported peripherals (for example, Yota modems), the drivers are written by Linuxoids themselves. If you definitely need support for a certain piece of iron, but it is not at hand, in order to check in practice - google, Linux has already written about all the popular iron Linux systems, is it supported. No iTunes - there are some alternative solutions for iPods and iPhones, but, of course, this is not the same thing. Update:in the comments they say that sometimes even during normal operation of the system from a flash drive problems arise after a full installation, I myself have not encountered this.
5. Support for some popular things, including mp3, is not included in the system by default due to the fact that they are limited by patents and do not comply with open source rules. This is solved by installing one ubuntu-restricted-extras package.
6. It is an internet-oriented system; without the Internet you can live in it, but significantly worse. Therefore, if there is no normal access, this is an argument against the transition.
7. There are several (you choose your exact value) desktops, they look the same (wallpaper icons match), and open windows can be scattered between them. At first it is not clear why this is, but then many develop for themselves such an algorithm for placing windows that makes them feel much more comfortable than with a single table.
8. When switching layouts by Ctrl + Shift hotkeys of the form Ctrl + Shift + X do not work. On Linux, hotkeys fire when you press the keys and not release them, and it takes the beginning of Ctrl + Shift + X for a layout change command. There are workarounds, but at first it’s easier to switch to Alt + Shift (in general, I recommend putting CapsLock on one layout and Shift + CapsLock on another, I don’t have to check which is turned on before switching).
9. The disk partitioning during installation: in this text in detail I can not paint, but the manual is easy to Google it ( here , for example). I can only say here that if you want to alternately download Ubuntu and Windows and use the same files in them, you need to allocate space when breaking, based on the fact that Linux partitions are not visible from under Windows, so that the "common" files must be stored in NTFS partitions. Update: in the comments they suggest that there is a way to see Linux partitions under Windows.
10. New major versions of Ubuntu are released every six months, in April and October, numbered by year and month of release ("9.04" - April 2009). Every fourth of them is called the LTS version (from “long-term support”: they have a longer period of official support), they try to make them as reliable as possible, and those who value stability are recommended to use only them and update every two of the year. The latest LTS version is 10.04 “Lucid Lynx”, non-LTS - 10.10 “Maverick Meerkat”.
Additional item. In practice, you will certainly encounter problems not mentioned here (in the comments you already wrote that it’s unusual to configure wired Internet after Windows - it always connected only to Wi-Fi, so I can’t say anything). But there are practically no catastrophic for the average user among them. Most of them can be either fully or partially dealt with by googling and reading forums. It is possible that at first Google will have to pretty much, but you should not think that this is the case for life - if you perform the same tasks at the computer every day, then it will settle down. And another significant point: sitting under Ubuntu, it is advisable to realize that this is not a “different looking Windows”, but a different system with a different logic - then some of the problems will be easier to solve.
Key myths about Ubuntu and Linux in general:
1. Linux is complex, it is for system administrators, not normal people.
Basic tasks (surfing, music-video, etc.) are performed in Ubuntu no more complicated than in Windows, and sometimes easier (see the above installation of programs). Yes, there is a console, but most of the basic tasks can be performed through the graphical interface: for example, to install a VLC video player, you can enter “sudo apt-get install vlc” in the console, or you can go to the “Ubuntu Application Center” and enter “ vlc ", select it and click on" install ". Linux often uses the console and hotkeys not because it is very inconvenient in the system without them, but because it becomes very convenient with them (if you spend time and learn). Without a graphical interface, with one console, you can stay in case you want to do something atypical - but when you google the name of the task you want to perform, Often you can find ready-made commands on the forums that can only be copied to the console, even if you don’t understand what they mean. (Well, in fairness, atypical tasks in Windows are often even more difficult to complete.)
2. Linux is ugly, it is for system administrators, not girls with a craving for beauty.
Firstly, Ubuntu does not look like an angular console monster from the 90s; many even believe that it partially imitates MacOS. Secondly, in Ubuntu there is much more uniformity of the system than in Windows: applications follow the same design rules, display alerts in the same way, and so on. There are exceptions to the uniform look (usually these are cross-platform applications that look the same as under other systems), but you can also pull skins on some of them. Thirdly, if you put the appearance at the forefront, then using Compiz Fusion you can make Ubuntu look more spectacular than Windows and customize its appearance for yourself (for example, such a video is not the most indicative, but you can understand the essence).
3. Under Linux there are no programs / games I need.
It depends on what you need. There are programs for performing all basic tasks. Specific - depends on the specific situation. AutoCAD, for example, is not really (although they say that the alternatives to it are getting better and more compatible with it), and most autocadders even with a love of Linux leave the second Windows system to work. There are games, including good ones, but there are no fresh blockbusters. (However, now there are less and less blockbusters on Windows, they are mainly on consoles.)
If after this text someone decides to try Ubuntu and needs more detailed information, you can find it, for example, on ubuntologia.ru or help.ubuntu .ru / manual , and on forum.ubuntu.ru (well, here in the comments) you can ask a question.
I immediately warn that much is given in the text in a somewhat simplified version, so that the essence is immediately clear; if someone after this post decides to go over, he will still read more detailed texts, so that he will find out the correct wording. I also want to say that I’m not at all persuading everyone to switch to Ubuntu; The system has flaws, for some they may well be critical, and in the text I tried to state everything impartially.
For what it's all (main advantages):
1. Practical plus: the system is free (like most programs for it). Windows, of course, can also be obtained for free in a well-known way - but it can suddenly find out about it, or (when installing it at the workplace), those who come with verification can find out about it, or, finally, your conscience can find out about it. In addition, under Windows, you also have to fool around, extracting every program in a known way - with some it can be difficult.
2. Practical plus: no viruses. You can safely stick any flash drives brought by your friends and go to any (including those that you thought about) sites. Update: in the comments they indicated that the theoretical possibility of a computer infection exists, but in practice this is still extremely rare.
3. Practical plus: it’s more convenient to do some things (it’s described in more detail below) than in Windows.
4. A practical plus for geeks: flexible configuration. If you are ready to “work with a file”, you can almost get your dream system.
5. Plus for the curious: broader horizons. And not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively: when you see two different approaches to one thing, you start to look differently at these things themselves.
6. Aesthetic plus: the interface of programs, alerts and other things is designed in the same style. In addition, many people love the “add-on system” of Compiz Fusion for both external effects and functionality (there is no full-fledged analogue of Compiz in Windows).
7. Ideological plus: you help create competition for Microsoft :) I have nothing fundamentally against Microsoft, Windows 7 is a good OS, but the fact of competition would make both sides work more actively, and as a result, everyone would feel better.
8. Ideological plus: bright ideals of open source. True, if this tells you something, then you are a programmer, and if you are a programmer, you already know enough about Linux yourself. But even if you don’t say it, be aware that you are supporting a good deed by the very fact of using Linux.
What you need to know if "interesting, but scary":
1. You can not install Ubuntu immediately "fully", there are three options that allow you to first look at it and understand whether you like it or not. One is the installation using the Wubi installer, in which Ubuntu is installed inside Windows: then you do not need to bother partitioning the hard drive (which eliminates the risk of accidentally tearing everything down) and can be easily removed. The second is to install the system on a flash drive (any one from a gigabyte will do): you can boot from a flash drive and look at Ubuntu, without making any changes to the hard drive of your computer. Moreover, if you like the system, after that it can be installed on a computer from the same flash drive. Some generally make their system on a flash drive their primary, so that when they come somewhere and plug their flash drive into someone else's computer, they work at home, but they didn’t do it, I don’t know the details.
2. With a "full-fledged" installation, Ubuntu perfectly stands up "next to" Windows, and they can be used alternately, each time you turn on the computer, choosing which system to load. On lifehacker.com there is a good English-language instruction on dualboot of Ubuntu and Windows 7. If someone really needs it, I will translate it into Russian.
What will the Windows user have during the transition the main questions:
1. Installing applications: in Ubuntu they are usually installed not from distribution files, but from repository servers. At first it’s unusual, but then the majority begins to like this approach much stronger than Windows; programs are literally "one click" without ten clicks on the "next" and enter the serial number
2. The file system structure is noticeably different from Windows, there are no “C and D disks”; it takes time to get used to, but then to many the structure seems more logical. At first, it is most important to know that NTFS partitions and external connected devices such as mp3 players can be found by going from the root to the / media folder, and the "personal" folder of each user is located in / home / username. (Here lies another plus: it is possible, when the system is completely reinstalled, to save the “personal folder”, and then the settings of all programs will be saved.)
3. Compatible with Windows standards. Everything is different here. It is quite possible to communicate with winders by ICQ and Skype (though the Skype client is crooked now). It works quite well with doc and xls at the household level in OpenOffice, but here large documents with complex formatting in it may not look exactly like in Microsoft Office - it is better to write a diploma not in Linux, if you do not want the scientist under Windows to see distorted tables. There are problems with encodings in various situations (for example, Cyrillic in the names of files placed in a zip archive and Cyrillic in tags of mp3 files). There is almost always some way to cope with this, in some cases it’s quite convenient, in part there is a “crutch”. If this psychologically comforts those who are rolling over, then be aware that Ubuntu uses Unicode, which is designed to solve all problems with encodings, And the problems arise because Windows has not completely switched to it yet. There is also Wine, with which Windows applications are launched under Linux - in the case of "heavy" programs this may be difficult or impossible, but with the little things it is much better (for example, you can run a Windows archiver and unzip zip without problems with Cyrillic names files).
4. Iron support. Let's be honest - not all hardware manufacturers think about Linux users, therefore, it can run into problems with some hardware, and for some peripherals there may be no official drivers. You can check in advance whether the system works normally on your hardware using the aforementioned flash drive, and for the part of the officially unsupported peripherals (for example, Yota modems), the drivers are written by Linuxoids themselves. If you definitely need support for a certain piece of iron, but it is not at hand, in order to check in practice - google, Linux has already written about all the popular iron Linux systems, is it supported. No iTunes - there are some alternative solutions for iPods and iPhones, but, of course, this is not the same thing. Update:in the comments they say that sometimes even during normal operation of the system from a flash drive problems arise after a full installation, I myself have not encountered this.
5. Support for some popular things, including mp3, is not included in the system by default due to the fact that they are limited by patents and do not comply with open source rules. This is solved by installing one ubuntu-restricted-extras package.
6. It is an internet-oriented system; without the Internet you can live in it, but significantly worse. Therefore, if there is no normal access, this is an argument against the transition.
7. There are several (you choose your exact value) desktops, they look the same (wallpaper icons match), and open windows can be scattered between them. At first it is not clear why this is, but then many develop for themselves such an algorithm for placing windows that makes them feel much more comfortable than with a single table.
8. When switching layouts by Ctrl + Shift hotkeys of the form Ctrl + Shift + X do not work. On Linux, hotkeys fire when you press the keys and not release them, and it takes the beginning of Ctrl + Shift + X for a layout change command. There are workarounds, but at first it’s easier to switch to Alt + Shift (in general, I recommend putting CapsLock on one layout and Shift + CapsLock on another, I don’t have to check which is turned on before switching).
9. The disk partitioning during installation: in this text in detail I can not paint, but the manual is easy to Google it ( here , for example). I can only say here that if you want to alternately download Ubuntu and Windows and use the same files in them, you need to allocate space when breaking, based on the fact that Linux partitions are not visible from under Windows, so that the "common" files must be stored in NTFS partitions. Update: in the comments they suggest that there is a way to see Linux partitions under Windows.
10. New major versions of Ubuntu are released every six months, in April and October, numbered by year and month of release ("9.04" - April 2009). Every fourth of them is called the LTS version (from “long-term support”: they have a longer period of official support), they try to make them as reliable as possible, and those who value stability are recommended to use only them and update every two of the year. The latest LTS version is 10.04 “Lucid Lynx”, non-LTS - 10.10 “Maverick Meerkat”.
Additional item. In practice, you will certainly encounter problems not mentioned here (in the comments you already wrote that it’s unusual to configure wired Internet after Windows - it always connected only to Wi-Fi, so I can’t say anything). But there are practically no catastrophic for the average user among them. Most of them can be either fully or partially dealt with by googling and reading forums. It is possible that at first Google will have to pretty much, but you should not think that this is the case for life - if you perform the same tasks at the computer every day, then it will settle down. And another significant point: sitting under Ubuntu, it is advisable to realize that this is not a “different looking Windows”, but a different system with a different logic - then some of the problems will be easier to solve.
Key myths about Ubuntu and Linux in general:
1. Linux is complex, it is for system administrators, not normal people.
Basic tasks (surfing, music-video, etc.) are performed in Ubuntu no more complicated than in Windows, and sometimes easier (see the above installation of programs). Yes, there is a console, but most of the basic tasks can be performed through the graphical interface: for example, to install a VLC video player, you can enter “sudo apt-get install vlc” in the console, or you can go to the “Ubuntu Application Center” and enter “ vlc ", select it and click on" install ". Linux often uses the console and hotkeys not because it is very inconvenient in the system without them, but because it becomes very convenient with them (if you spend time and learn). Without a graphical interface, with one console, you can stay in case you want to do something atypical - but when you google the name of the task you want to perform, Often you can find ready-made commands on the forums that can only be copied to the console, even if you don’t understand what they mean. (Well, in fairness, atypical tasks in Windows are often even more difficult to complete.)
2. Linux is ugly, it is for system administrators, not girls with a craving for beauty.
Firstly, Ubuntu does not look like an angular console monster from the 90s; many even believe that it partially imitates MacOS. Secondly, in Ubuntu there is much more uniformity of the system than in Windows: applications follow the same design rules, display alerts in the same way, and so on. There are exceptions to the uniform look (usually these are cross-platform applications that look the same as under other systems), but you can also pull skins on some of them. Thirdly, if you put the appearance at the forefront, then using Compiz Fusion you can make Ubuntu look more spectacular than Windows and customize its appearance for yourself (for example, such a video is not the most indicative, but you can understand the essence).
3. Under Linux there are no programs / games I need.
It depends on what you need. There are programs for performing all basic tasks. Specific - depends on the specific situation. AutoCAD, for example, is not really (although they say that the alternatives to it are getting better and more compatible with it), and most autocadders even with a love of Linux leave the second Windows system to work. There are games, including good ones, but there are no fresh blockbusters. (However, now there are less and less blockbusters on Windows, they are mainly on consoles.)
If after this text someone decides to try Ubuntu and needs more detailed information, you can find it, for example, on ubuntologia.ru or help.ubuntu .ru / manual , and on forum.ubuntu.ru (well, here in the comments) you can ask a question.