My Ubuntu experience

I've always been a Microsoft user. I had to, everyone was using it. I could try using linux, but it seemed like such a hastle with lack of payof. But I was young and didn't understand what open-source really meant. Few years back, my interest into Linux started to grow. This open-source concept was blowing my mind and Windows was frustrating me. It had such sketchy inner workings that were built on way too old concepts and code.

So I wanted to move. I'm a web developer so Adobe support held me back for a while. But 6 months ago I just decided I'd try and find good software for some smooth web development. So I installed Ubuntu on 2 of my 3 laptops with ease and started using it (an impulse I'll never regret). At first I kind off liked it because of the speed and the cool alternative software. Then I wanted to improve my experience and started to customize. That meant I got to meet the most fantastic thing about linux! I had eye on eye contact with Ubuntu's inner workings. The unix legacy but open and refined. This is a system built on thought, not sales. I got to know those amazing shell tools like screen and piping, it looked hacky but I absolutly enjoyed it. I started using CUI's more than GUI's, just because I could enjoy those clever way's of getting things done. I started to try tiled window managers, exploring every possibility and writing tons of scripts and learning new languages. After a really short time, my home became linux exclusive.

I've got tons to check out and loving everything about this OS. Sure it needs a lot of work at some places. But it doesn't matter because you can dive into it's workings and try and make it work yourself. While doing so, enjoying the unique way to communicate with your computer.

Thank you Ubuntu, you thought me Linux.

PS: Sorry for my wacked grammar and spelling. I'm always amazed how bad I am at English.

EDIT: Oh I forgot to say something. I am especially learning new languages like C/C++ and Python (I'm from a Actionscript 3, PHP background) because I'd like to contribute to this amazing venture. It wil probably take me years but I would love to have a piece of code in the most incredible community effort I've ever seen.

i enjoyed your post EgoBEL, it is a sincere post :)

We have much in common. Open source is what attracted me first. While on Windows, I converted to Firefox (version 0.something). Then it was Thunderbird. Then it was OOo.

Finally one day, after reading about Linux for some time, I decided to take the jump. Ubuntu was the hot distro in late 2005, so I figured out how to dual boot it with XP. The learning curve was not as bad as I thought, and with a fresh install of Dapper, Windows was gone, and it's been Linux only since then.

(Your English is fine by the way.)

EgoBEL thank you for the wonderful post. I'm glad you are enjoying Ubuntu Linux and the benefits from using open source software. And by the way your English is perfectly fine so don't worry about it :).

If you wouldn't mind however I just would like to ask you a question. You said you are a web designer and so you were held back due to Adobe support. I too am in a similar situation and this is why I keep a virtual installation of windows.

Would you mind telling me how you made up for this? I'm just curious as to your experiences using open source alternatives to CS3.

David

dyous87 said: EgoBEL thank you for the wonderful post. I'm glad you are enjoying Ubuntu Linux and the benefits from using open source software. And by the way your English is perfectly fine so don't worry about it :).

If you wouldn't mind however I just would like to ask you a question. You said you are a web designer and so you were held back due to Adobe support. I too am in a similar situation and this is why I keep a virtual installation of windows.

Would you mind telling me how you made up for this? I'm just curious as to your experiences using open source alternatives to CS3.

David

I'm mostly a developer. I spend most of my time programming Actionscript 3, Javascript or PHP. Doing Javascript/DHTML is no problem. I can slice layouts with gimp and everything else is pretty much the same.

Not that easy on Flash projects though. There's a Flex SDK available but I get fla files at work so I need the CS3/4 library. Flash CS3 in virtualization (or wine) didn't really preform that well and I already have very slow compile times on a Windows box. Furthermore I often need AfterEffects while doing Flash projects and that's a really slow app.

So yeah, I'd convert completely if I was able to do Flash development on Ubuntu. Right now, I'm using Vista at work and Ubuntu at home. Adobe launching the whole suite for Linux seems nothing more than a distant dream. They can't even make a decent port of an eclipse modification.

But more and more webdevelopers are coming over to the linux side so maybe we can put some pressure on them in the future.

EgoBEL said: [...] more and more webdevelopers are coming over to the linux side so maybe we can put some pressure on them in the future.

I do hope so that would be amazing. For now I keep windows, but as far as a photoshop replacement I just can't bring myself to getting used to the GIMP no matter how hard I try.