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The answer to this funny question : "What does a girl and Ubuntu have in common?" is simple : me :). What I want to say with this little introduction is the fact that when my girlfriend came to visit me and start using the computer she had a first encounter with Ubuntu.She didn't really know what's going on.What can a girl do with a computer ? Chat,browse and look at the pictures.Well she had some complains just about a few things : the fact that she can't send files to yahoo users and the the browser was acting a bit strange.The rest seems perfectly natural just like in Windows.

 

Both of the problems could be corrected by me.As I understand you can run the Yahoo Messenger just like you do on Windows and the browser was just acting strange cause it was IE6 that I've just installed on my Ubuntu distribution and I didn't had time to restart the computer.

 

This is article is really about telling people the good side of switching to Ubuntu and just my first thoughts and impressions. I wasn't a big linux fan until recently.People are taking more and more about the coming Vista Windows and I like changes. But why use Windows anymore?Well…you really don't have to.It's just a choice you make and before buying a new windows licence just read a bit more.

 

This is how my first week went : I started the installation from my "free 1 CD only" distribution.The partition manager was great.So easy to understand and use. I remember from my past linux experience that i have to set 2 main partition : one for the swap and another for the root.Easy enough.But then the miracle happened..while i was thinking what to do for the next 20 minutes I sow a red cool icon on my upper linux bar.It was firefox.Hmmm..i said.What's this doing here?Is this a bug?I pressed the button with a good feeling about it. THE INTERNET WAS WORKING.This can't be true I said.But it was.While you wait for the installation to be finish you can browse online with no problem.I can't believe what a great idea this is.

 

Windows people…why didn't you thought of this ? Why I had to waist hours and hours looking at the blue installation screen when I could have talk with my friends or play on digg in that time?Yes truly a great feeling when I've discovered this little thing. After an error free installation i found my self in a cool environment.All my windows partitions were all ready mounted and I could browse them with ease.GREAT.

 

As an internet user i was very pleased to see that all my firefox extension work the same and even LOOK the same.The FoxyTune skin is identical.That's a great start I said.Next I looked at the fonts.They were perfect even better looking the on XP.So I started my search on good alternatives for my xp applications.There are a lot of forums and websites that tell you want you need.A good example would be this. My audio experience was great.The sound seemed clearer and louder.Better drivers? I guess so.The xmms - winamp alternative is great so no need to search for this anymore.The 5.1 surround system kick in after a simple use of the command : alsamixer.All 5 channels were up and running.

 

The internet speed seemed also a bit faster.Maybe is just the joy I have for the moment because of this decision i made to change my OS.I decision that can really change your life i guess.The pictures look sharper.When you use the magnifying tool the images look a lot better they were looking in windows.But I guess that's just a programing thing. I could go on but something stops me.

 

Do you know about WINE? This is truly magnificent.A software that allows you to run most of your windows programmes directly in Linux.This is not an operating system emulator.It's just a translator of windows api to linux code.So theoretical all of your application can work on Linux.They have a big list of checked application and you can ask them nicely to help with any problems you may encounter with new ones.My first success was installing Internet Explorer 6 on Ubuntu.It's working and running fine.It still takes some time to make an application work but they are on the right track.You can make all your favorite software run : even Macromedia Dreamwaver 8.Pretty cool guys.

 

Well..to make a long story short : The last thing I found was the Add/Remove option in my taskbar.You only type a name or a description of an application your looking for and the manager will find it , install it for you and add a shortcut in the menu.This is unbelievable.

 

I'm sorry to say but WINDOWS Is going DOWN.Ubuntu you're my favorite pet now and I hope some of you diggers will share some cool finding of your own in the comment section.