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I won’t bore you all with my new obsession with Ubuntu Linux, anymore. I just wanted an excuse to put this rocking new screenshot online. So, without further adieu…

**Edit**

I forgot to mention that I got my dock idea from a Zooomr friend, Jonester.

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So, as you know, I’m in love with Ubuntu, the Linux distribution that is teaching all the others how to get it done.

We have a nice Mac mini, that has been running the latest Ubuntu version, Feisty Fawn, for a couple of months now. Every so often, I fiddle around, cleaning something up, and discover another cool, stable feature of Ubuntu that makes me smile.

At work, I’m forced to use MS crap, and I hate it. I never smile while using Windows. Never.

So, with a few regular months of using Ubuntu as our primary OS, for regular everyday stuff, I’m even more sold that Ubuntu really is a generational leader for top notch operating systems.

So, with today’s release of Ubuntu’s Gutsy Gibbon, I’m proud to say that I’ve upgraded and I love it. It’s just as attractive and easy to use as before. Many of the subtle system upgrades are now organized in a nicer, more logical set of menus.

Just a few of the outstanding upgrades:

• Fast User-Switching
• Awesome 3D effects, by default, (Compiz Fusion)
• Really fraking awesome graphical interface for messing with X.
• Plug and play printer support.
• AppArmor, basically it helps you keep your computer secure by restricting what certain applications can do.

Gutsy simply rocks! If you’re already using Linux, you’re crazy not to upgrade to Ubuntu 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon. If you’re an Intel Mac user or any Windows user, you’ve got to try this out.

What’s really cool is that you can download it and burn it to CD. Then you can boot off the CD, and it runs a fully functional OS, ready to play with. When you realize that you like it, just click on the install icon on the desktop and presto, you’re installing the world’s greatest operating system.

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So, with all the heartache I dealt with, I’m now reporting success. Yes, I found my solution, eventually, in the Ubuntuforums. Go check it out for yourself. I’ll add an update here later today telling you what I did.

In the mean time, just know that I now have widescreen support on my MacFeisty.

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OK, you’ve read me talking a bunch about Ubuntu, and my desire to get a nice install up and running at home. Some time back, I mentioned that I wanted to build a simple machine, dedicated to serving up my family’s media, printing, and files. Well, the budget always trumps ideas like that. Some day, I’ll get that going again. In the mean time, we had the chance to get a couple of Mac mini’s. Sweet, now the old family computer, the first rev LCD iMac, is going to be dedicated for use as a kid’s computer. Right now they mostly play a few online educational games. As they progress in school, I know they’ll be doing more work with it. So now we don’t have to share. Now, if only Adobe made a Linux(PPC) flash plugin, I’d dump OSX on that machine and run Ubuntu there. I know that it would run faster, but without flash, there’s no way the kids could play those online games. They’re all flash.

So, back to the Mac minis. Mine is an Intel 1.66, duo core, 1gig ram. It’s used for my photo processing, eventually podcasting again, and the random processor heavy app.

The family Mac is the same machine with only 512mg ram. MISTAKE! OSX needs more than that to run smoothly. Since we can’t budget to double the ram right now, I’m considering dumping OSX entirely there and running Ubuntu exclusively. It’s Intel, so no flash issues. I’ve been thinking this through for weeks now, and the only deal breaker has been our massive iTunes Store purchases. There are no tools around for converting, (read, dropping DRM), on the most recent iTunes version. So, I’m left with burning each album to  CD, and reconverting to MP3. I’ll keep a back data-DVD of all the files, and I know I’m loosing some quality, but I really have no choice.

For future music purchases, we now have the DRM-free Wal-Mart online store. And since DRM-free music is catching on, I think that we’ll see more options birthed soon.

So, what do you think?

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So, it’s been a while since I’ve said anything about my Ubuntu travels. Well, it hasn’t gone away, I promise. I ran out of money and time in building the older machine. However, we did get a couple of Mac minis, which are Intel boxes, and perfect Ubuntu testers.

So with that in mind, I’ve loaded up the Fiesty Fawn Live CD a few times, playing and testing. It’s amazing!  Even on the Live CD, all I had to do to get the desktop effects was check a box in the settings. Sweet! Also one of the coolest is that I get the Flash plugin, since the Mac mini has an Intel chip. (The pre-Intel Mac’s have processors that are not supported with the Flash plugin.)

I must say, I’m ready to dump OSX on one of the machines. My wife’s is probably the most likely candidate, since all she has that is Mac only is a bunch of iTunes purchases.

My machine is used for a bit more, like Garageband, iMovie, etc. I’m also quite comfortable with my Mac’s podcasting software apps. And since I’m getting ready to record my last Scribe Music Show, but also getting together the stuff to launch a new show, with a coworker, I’ll need my podcasting stuff. Until the Linux multi-track audio editors get much better, I may need OSX for quite a while.

The only thing holding me back right now is the iTunes purchases. I’m stuck on having my music library on this exact Mac, so, moving it to my machine is out.

I’ve scoured for some open-source tool that will easily convert my DRM’d AAC’s to plain AAC’s or MP3’s, but nothing works with the newest iTunes. We also have too much to just burn to CD and then re-encode. So what do I do?

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So I found some space in our master bedroom to set up the donated PIII and got to work. First I tried the Xubuntu Live CD. Then the Xubuntu Alt install Live CD. Then Ubuntu, Ubuntu server, Ubuntu Alt, and nothing. I couldn’t get any one of those to install and boot. I couldn’t even get the Live CD’s to load a full desktop. I was starting to get a little frustrated.

So I scouted around the forums and low and behold, 128 MB of ram is the minimum, but just barely. I can’t explain it, but the donation just doesn’t have enough juice.

So I put that one on hold. Then I got to thinking, if I move a bunch of my media and documents from my PowerBook, I could make enough room to install Ubuntu and get it dual-booting. So I did it.

Wow! Amazing! I won’t go into all the technical details, because many others have done that already. I don’t want to confuse those who search for the same questions. I had to consider that I didn’t want to have to re-install OS X, so I had to find a free way to dynamically re-partition. I could have spent some cash, but that defeats the fun. So I found a nice little terminal app that would do it, and it comes on the Ubuntu Live CD. I had to be patient, but it worked. I gave myself 10 gigs to work with. No problem.

Within 30 minutes of the re-partitioning, I was up and running with my very own Linux installation on the world’s greatest laptop, a Mac. So it was then that I decided to play with Ubuntu and continue to work with OS X. More on a shift in that attitude in another post.

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As I posted yesterday, I have decided to tackle the exciting and perilous task of adopting Ubuntu (linux) as my new operating system. In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be building, testing, and playing with an older, donated computer.

As my knowledge and skill increases, I expect to swap out and add new components to the system. Eventually I hope to have built an all new system and still have a slightly older system. Since Linux runs so well, even on older systems, I plan to keep the old system around for a while, possibly running as an email/web research/basic family computer. As I build the newer system, I will be selecting components that will contribute to an eventual media center.

“What’s that?” you say. Well, I’m sure you know about Tivo. And you may have heard about the MS Windows based media systems. I want to build an open-source, free DVR/media center.

I’ll be able to record live TV, and store those programs, just like my Tivo does right now. However, I’ll be free to burn those shows to DVD, for backup and/or increased choices for viewing. I also won’t be paying any monthly fees. You read that right, no fees.

Additionally, I’ll be able to throw in my own DVDs and store those movies for a homemade iTunes-like library of movies. Of course all digital music files and photos will be accessible, all from a menu system not unlike your typical digital cable menu, or your Tivo. The software tool I’ll use is called MythTV. I’ll get into that more at a later time.

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What is Ubuntu? What is Linux? Click on those links for detailed information on those questions.

Linux is basically an open-source, usually free, operating system that can be installed on almost any computer system. Macs, Win-tels, AMD, Motorola, Symbian, and even your spanking new Playstation 3 can all run with Linux. Many of us take for granted that our OS comes with a wide variety of additional applications. If you understand that these apps are not a part of the actual operating system, you’re on the right track. Also, the OS is separated into the kernel, the libraries, the windowing environment, and the desktop.

To help you understand, I’ll use an automobile as an analogy. The kernel is like the unibody, it supplies the structure that everything sets upon. The libraries are the electrical system, providing a unified power source to nearly every system within the modern vehicle. The windowing environment is like the seating, it keeps you focused and pointing in the right direction. The desktop embodies the ergonomics of the interior’s design, it gives you access to all the tools you need to operate effectively and efficiently. Not a complete analogy, but it should point you in the right direction.

Ubuntu is a distribution of Linux. Basically, a group publishes a package of the kernel, libraries, other software tools, a windowing system, and a desktop environment. Then they throw in all the extra apps you’ll probably want. What’s real cool is that they make is close to a “double-click install” as possible. Someone finally figured out that main stream western culture was not going to embrace an alternative operating system that took them more than 10 hours to get working correctly with all of their hardware. Most already settle for 9 hours, with a MS Windows system, I guess they have a limit. Of course Mac users weren’t even considering it because they feared the text-based terminal.

The Ubuntu distro is quickly becoming a leader within the small community of viable alternatives to Windows and OSX.

In future posts, I’ll review some of the apps I select to replace apps from my current setup.

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Now, I’m not entirely abandoning my Mac, I’m just entertaining the use of Linux.

It actually started years ago, when Linux arrived on the scene as a potential OS player. I bought a book from Amazon, and downloaded the SUSE distribution. What a nightmare that was! I learned a lot from the book, but, coming from WYSIWYG environment, (Mac), the thought of messing around with a text only environment was frightening. My inability of find good help was probably the number one reason I abandoned that attempt at Linux.

So here we are, years later, and I’m itching to get in on some of that. A few months ago, I found a college friend’s website, and he mentioned this thing called ubuntu. So I googled it.

Since then, I have been acquiring old computer parts for the purposes of building a basic linux system. I hope to run it as an alternative at home. I’ll plan on reviewing an open-source alternative to each of my OS X prized applications. I’m not sure how they will do against some of the best applications available, but I’m willing to give them a try.

I’ll also be running the box as a server for our home network. File, print, network, and web serving are all great strengths of the *nix market, so I expect success on this front.

A few weeks ago I ordered the Live CD’s of Ubuntu for PPC, AMD64, and Intel. My very first go round with this sweet distribution was from that Live CD. I tossed it into my 12″ Powerbook G4, and everything just worked. I didn’t do anything complex, or install any apps that weren’t immediately available, but I did simply fiddle with it. The trackpad was a little slow, and I couldn’t get it to speed up, but I popped in a USB mouse and presto, it was just fine. Additionally, it was beautiful.

In future posts, I’ll describe my building and installing of Ubuntu on my new/old intel box. That machine is a nice PIII, w/ 128 MB of ram and a small 8 gig hard drive. But I know it meets the minimum. I hope to add some ram and another hard drive.

I know this post has been a little sloppy, forgive me. I’ll follow this one up with a little background on ubuntu.

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