Thursday, July 3, 2008

Things I like #1 - Ubuntu Linux

Brian recently posted a "things I like" post on his blog, and I liked the idea. I am planning, therefore, to write about "things I like" on this blog from time to time. For the first one, I thought it would be a good idea to write about Ubuntu Linux, because Brian introduced me to it!

To understand Ubuntu, you first have to understand linux. Simply put, linux is an operating system, just like Windows Vista, Windows XP, and all of the Macintosh OS flavors (Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Hedgehog -- oh wait, Hedgehog was actually an Ubuntu release.) So there is Mac, there is Microsoft, and there is linux, except it's really hard to put "linux" in the same category as Mac and Microsoft, because Mac and Microsoft are both companies, whereas linux is not. You can't trade Linux on the NYSE. Linux distributions are all supported by the community. And by "the community," I mean a whole lot of nerds. You can include me in this category if you want, but most of the nerds in the linux community are wicked smart, and exceptionally devoted to computers whereas I am merely interested in one thing: getting my computer to work. I might have gotten started using Linux because I wanted to be a smartypants computer geek, but I have stuck with it because it works better than Microsoft Vista, which routinely makes me cry. In the 3 or 4 months that I have been using Ubuntu at home my computer has NEVER crashed, it has NEVER frozen, I have received ZERO error messages, and I have been booted off the internet ZERO times. Ubuntu Linux, you are a thing I like! Look for more posts on things I like as well as more posts on Ubuntu and Linux!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Double Points! Wohoo!

Seriously, though...you have no idea how happy I am to know that Linux has gotten to the point that normal people can use it and even appreciate it as a legitimate alternative to the other big OSes.

Traci said...

thanks for calling me normal. ;)