DSLR Photography Forum

I started playing around with Ubuntu Linux about 2 weeks ago, and I've been hooked since? Just wondering if anyone else uses linux or has done it in the past? For the benefit of others, Linux is a free, open source operating system that serves as an alternative to Windows or Mac OS, and Ubuntu is a distribution (type/flavour/variety) of Linux that is meant to be the most popular and easy to use.



I'm very surprised how well it works - everything is very slick, and seems to work without much tinkering. I installed it on my laptop, and things such as wireless, the trackpad, suspend/hibernate, even the little volume buttons all work flawlessly. I can access my shared storage drive on the network, connect to the internet, and listen to my iTunes files and more. There are popular programs such as firefox which run really well, and alternatives to the major apps such as OpenOffice, GIMP and others.


I made the transition slowly - firstly trying it out in VMWare using the free player (www.vmware.com) and then using one of the free images. I'd suggest this route to start off with because you can run Linux within Windows (although a bit slowly). You can feel your way around, Alt Tab back into windows if you're stuck, and at the end of the day, it doesn't modify your computer in any way.

Then I moved to the LiveCD version, which you can boot into from a CD ROM. This one allows you to try out Linux to see the full performance and compatibility of your hardware and the good thing is that it doesn't modify any settngs on your computer either. However, if you want to get back to windows, you will have to reboot.

Once I was comfortable with the concept and everything, I decided to plunge in by carving out a new disk partition and installing Linux proper, and dual booting my machine. All this sounds scary but was pretty simple to do - in the Ubuntu LiveCD, there an icon on the desktop that says "Install Ubuntu to Hard Disk" or something like that, and you just follow the prompts. The amazing thing is that my existing Windows hard disk partitions are automatically mounted and it can read NTFS volumes natively so I can browse to my "My Documents" or my images folder and still use the files.


Anyway, I'm probably ranting on a bit too much, but I'd encourage you to try out Linux if you're curious - you can usually find LiveCDs on computer magazine covers. I'd definitely suggest Ubuntu Linux, or even SUSE linux, Fedora or something similar...

So uh, any advantages for using Linux on laptop? My laptop (like most others) came with Windows XP - so Windows XP costing more than Linux doesn't affect me.
Does it allow faster net browsing? heeeheeeeeeeeeee

Haha, good point adam. My laptop came free with windows XP too...

Don't get me wrong - I think XP is a great operating system, it is powerful and has lots of programs and I have no problems in using it at work or at home.

I guess I like to tinker and it's fun setting up machine knowing that everything you're using is open source. It probably has the "cool" appeal too - like OSX does. There is great community support available as well.

In terms of speed, I found no noticable difference in web browsing and office type stuff (maybe just a bit quicker in linux because my windows is so full of junk). I haven't tried games or 3d graphics stuff yet - I'm guessing windows will probably win there. I really like how you can find and add new programs through Add/Remove programs or Synaptic - you just select the package you want, and it goes off and downloads and installs everything for you. Everything is secure and stable - viruses and spyware and all that are pretty much a thing of the past. I like the power of the command line as well - very handy when you're doing web programming and development.

Anyway, it's early days yet - there are probably some things I will still require windows to do, like using photoshop and such...

Let me know when they release a version of PhotoShop on Linux. The Gimp doesn't cut it for me.

I've used Linux on and off for years, recently I've been playing with various versions on a VMWare (http://www.vmware.com/) virtual machine on my desktop.

Its a good way of trying stuff out without deleting your Windows install.

I've been using Ubuntu as a risk free internet browsing solution on my home machine its pretty cool.

If you want a Live CD Linux (runs of CD or DVD disk) to try I would go for Knoppix, http://www.knoppix.org/

I used the GIMP before I got Photoshop, I quite like it for doing some tasks, its let down in certain areas compared with PS (interface for one) in others its better (curves dialog).

Risk free because it won't get infected for viruses, spyware, adware and things?

adam Wrote:Risk free because it won't get infected for viruses, spyware, adware and things?

Linux is less likely to get them, one because its more secure than windows, two there are a lot less viruses etc out there which target it.

Also if its running under VMWare, you can always just refresh the image if you get infected with anything, have a look at http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/di...erapp.html

If you are running it using a LiveCD then you get a fresh copy everytime you startup.

alastair_hm Wrote:Also if its running under VMWare, you can always just refresh the image if you get infected with anything, have a look at http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/di...erapp.html

If you are running it using a LiveCD then you get a fresh copy everytime you startup.

VMWare is great for trying out functionality but the performance can be a little lacking sometimes. It's like a little sandbox which you can just try out stuff to your heart's content, and without fear of damaging your machine.

I find LiveCDs are great if you're serious on a particular distro and want to check if your hardware is fully compatible and see what the performance will really be like. By the way most distros have LiveCDs now, but yes, Knoppix was one of the first (or the first?) to come out with the concept.

Quote:VMWare is great for trying out functionality but the performance can be a little lacking sometimes. It's like a little sandbox which you can just try out stuff to your heart's content, and without fear of damaging your machine.

I run the broswer appliance virtual machine on my home machine which is 3 years old now, it has no problems running it, on newer machines it shouldn't be an issue.

One thing I haven't tried it dual boot with an XP system, I think the wife would be rather upset if I messed up the home PC testing it out. Ah the days when I didn't need to share the computer with anyone

alastair_hm Wrote:One thing I haven't tried it dual boot with an XP system, I think the wife would be rather upset if I messed up the home PC testing it out. Ah the days when I didn't need to share the computer with anyone

Lol... take a backup and cross your fingers... that's what I did.
Incidentally I hear you can install Linux on top on a computer that already has XP, but if you do it the other way round, it trashes your MBR... slight inconvenience.

Hey if anyone is looking for more info on linux, there's an awesome magazine available in PDF format - Tux Magazine. You can download one issue for free...
http://www.tuxmagazine.com

Did you repartition your hard disk manually or trust the install to do it for you?

alastair_hm Wrote:Did you repartition your hard disk manually or trust the install to do it for you?

With the Ubuntu LiveCD, the installation process starts off GParted, a graphical partition editor. It was a pretty straightforward process to resize the partitions and create 2 new ones (1 for root disk, 1 for swap). I heard some stories of partitions getting corrupt so I did one thing at a time - i.e. resize windows partition, quit out of the install and rebooted, let windows do the chkdsk thing and made sure it still booted up. After that I started the install process again, created the new partitions and then installed linux.

Toad Wrote:Let me know when they release a version of PhotoShop on Linux. The Gimp doesn't cut it for me.

Hey apparently you can run photoshop under wine (Windows Emulator)

http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=graphics

Not sure about how well it will perform, nor does it list CS2, but oh well... might be worth a try.

shuttertalk Wrote:

alastair_hm Wrote:Did you repartition your hard disk manually or trust the install to do it for you?

With the Ubuntu LiveCD, the installation process starts off GParted, a graphical partition editor. It was a pretty straightforward process to resize the partitions and create 2 new ones (1 for root disk, 1 for swap). I heard some stories of partitions getting corrupt so I did one thing at a time - i.e. resize windows partition, quit out of the install and rebooted, let windows do the chkdsk thing and made sure it still booted up. After that I started the install process again, created the new partitions and then installed linux.

Cool, I've got a spare 30GB hard disk, might stick that in my machine as put Linux on that, save me partitioning the main disk.

Last time my MBR got messed around with,
had to restore it using windows cd

YES I LOVE LINUX!
I've just started to use ubuntu too and every thing works out of the box. Linux is so much better then Windows ( well I think so ).

Hey everyone, I took a brief hiatus from linux, but I'm back with renewed vigor.

I was running ubuntu version 6.06 (dapper drake) for a long time, then decided to do a complete reinstall of the latest development version, fiesty fawn (7.0.4), skipping version 6.10 (edgy eft).

What can I say? I'm in love... new stuff which I really like:
- automatic installation of codecs - when you try to play a restricted format (e.g. mp3), it will download the codecs automatically. no more fooling around with automatix and easyubuntu
- compiz eye candy - it's built in and it's gorgeous - your windows and menus wobble when moved around and look really cool
- more recent versions of apps such as firefox (now with flash 9 plugin!), openoffice, gaim, rhythmbox, gimp, etc.
- my wacom graphics tablet works! (takes a little fooling around though)
- new network manager applet, which is very intuitive to use

I've been also playing around with f-spot and gimp; I installed the ufraw-gimp plugin, and it can now open my Nikon NEF files, with full control over white balance, curves, exposure compensation etc. Very nice!



I haven't seen winxp in ages - almost a week now. Linux and ubuntu is cool... I like it... alot.