Fitting the battle of life

That’s it. I’ve blitzed my Windows partition. I now run an Ubuntu-only system, and once I’ve finished installing the 196 updates (!) I’ll start getting my newly installed OS back to how I like it.

I don’t think I missed anything in my pre-blitz back-up - I even remembered to back up my Evolution settings, so I didn’t need to go through the pain of setting up e-mail accounts.  The only thing I’ve forgotten is my log-in details for the AIM account I use for talking on rare occasion to one person, so I’ll have to trawl through my email trying to find the relevant information.

The first time I tried to install, the installer hung at 90% for about 15 minutes (while I cooked myself a celebratory fry-up!) - the clock had stopped, no windows were responding but the mouse worked. So, very hesitantly, I hard-rebooted and tried again, but this time it was flawless.

Needless to say, I am happy to be Windows-free.

Well, I’ve decided that when Hardy is released in April, I’ll wipe my Windows partition. I no longer need XP for anything - the two songs I’ve bought from the iTunes store are both on my iPod, and principle tells me not to care too much if I lose them in the future.

My /home will be backed up onto my external hard drive (it is already anyway), I’ll get a list of packages that I’ve got installed ready to batch-install them, and then I’ll switch over to Ubuntu completely. No more Windows on my laptop. It feels odd, thinking that. There’s just no reason to. It’s a liberating feeling.

I suppose I’ll have to save my theme to reinstall it on Hardy just the way I want it, but that’s no big deal.

The release of Ubuntu 8.04, an LTS release, is an apt time to make this decision, I feel. Just as the OS itself will be ‘hardened’, so too will my commitment to it. I guess it’s a bit like confirmation. It’s been baptised with the dual-boot, but now I’ll be making a real commitment.

In other news, I’ve received two Gutsy cds in the post from Ship-It, and already have given one out to a friend - she’s previously tried a 7.04 cd I gave her, but found her graphics card wouldn’t work even in the live cd safe graphics mode, but I remember an improvement in ATI support when I upgraded, so recommended she try the latest version.

The second one I shall use to install Ubuntu on a flatmate’s laptop. I’ve already checked the hardware on the live cd, and made sure his printer works with my own laptop (it’s an HP Photosmart C4280, works perfectly, unlike my Dell freebie). Today I got something resembling an affirmative answer from him. I’ll update on this when I can…

This time in two weeks, I will have successfully run my third and final debating competition of the year. Unfortunately, I decided early on in my tenure that I would be using a Windows-only piece of software (running it under WINE didn’t work properly, and unfortunately I don’t have the time or skills to get that sorted). There is an open-source solution, tabbie, but the Windows software I have automatically generates a powerpoint presentation showing which teams are in which rooms being judge by whom, which is something tabbie does not (it does something similar, but not as sophisticated).

Anyway, Sat 16th Feb is the date of my last tournament as IV Convenor this year. Next year will be someone else’s turn, and I’ll let them use their laptop for running the tournament with whatever system they wish (within reason and after discussion with all involved parties, of course). After that, I shall back-up all the files on both my Windows and Ubuntu partitions onto an external hard drive and take the decision to start over or not.

I’m not running out of room on either, but very rarely use Windows. I have only used it once or twice since November (the last competition I ran), and don’t use it to play MOHAA any more, simply because I have moved on from gaming for the time being (and I can always play enemy-territory on Ubuntu!). The only reason I might need it is for iPod management (I have a couple of DRM’d tracks - literally two or three), but I mostly do that in Exaile (although it’s been strangely broken of late; perhaps I’ll go back to Amarok).

I may just defer the decision until Ubuntu 8.04 is out,  because it would give me more of a reason to wipe clean and start over. I still have the xp discs somewhere, so could always set it up in a virtual machine if I needed it (and I see no foreseeable need anyway). Hmm, we shall see.

Following on from my post this morning about the non-cost of OpenOffice versus MS Office, what happens when you don’t have much money to buy a new computer? The ‘average’ consumer isn’t going to want to be scouring the shops for bargain parts, worry about static discharge and getting jumpers set right by either upgrading their computer or building one from scratch - especially if they need the mobility of a laptop (and 2008 could well be the year laptops overtake desktops in terms of sales). So, what to do?

[Note: I've started with the base models from Dell and tried to match specs as closely as possible.]

As an Ubuntu user, I would always recommend anyone to use it. I’d almost go so far as letting them take my laptop for a test-drive for a couple of days. (Almost.) I’m sure with a little gentle encouragement, a little guidance when they need it, they’d fall in love. Oh, and it’s free, I’d tell them. You can get it from Dell, I’d tell them. Wow, all this for free? I’ll get one of those, not one of those hideously expensive Vista machines then, they’d say.

Well, here’s the problem. Take the base models, the Inspiron 6400 and it’s Ubuntu counterpart, the 6400n. With the same specs (1.60GHz cpu, 80GB hard drive, one gigabyte of RAM, the same Intel graphics), the Ubuntu machine actually works out £10 more expensive than the Vista Basic machine. (The Ubuntu machine starts at 512MB memory, which would be enough, and is £20 cheaper overall, but in the interests of fairness…)

So what is that extra £10 doing there? It’s there because companies pay to have their software pre-installed on retail computers, which of course reduces the overall cost (and, in a way, locking you in) - remember all those ‘get your internet here’ icons on the desktop last time you bought a Windows computer? Ubuntu doesn’t do that - it wouldn’t fit with the philosophy, for a start, and you can’t make something free any cheaper.

One argument that says that the £10 doesn’t matter is that Ubuntu comes pre-installed with even more (useful) software than Windows does out of the (retail) box. Look at the GIMP, for instance. It’s not an equivalent to MS Paint. It’s an equivalent (for simplicity’s sake!) to Adobe Photoshop. Which costs over £500. And that’s with a 10% discount from the nice people at Amazon.co.uk. Look at it like this: that £10 pays for a whole lot more than it looks like it pays for. Think of it, perhaps, as a one-off registration fee for unrestricted access to the Ubuntu software repositories. To the community support network that exists. To complete customisability of and freedom over your computer. And £10 is less (to continue a theme from my last post) than ten pints of beer. So you’re only losing what, two nights (maybe even one!) of drinking? (Remember also that Dell is enabling multimedia out of the box, so the £10 probably covers some kind of license for that too.) Let’s also bear in mind that Vista Basic is, well, basic. Ubuntu comes in one form, like Mac OSX, which has all the features in it, not some myriad different forms that give you more as you pay more. So it probably isn’t a fair comparison to choose the Basic option anyway…but we’re going for a cheap computer here.

To return to the £10, it’s also a signal to send to companies like Dell that there is consumer demand for Ubuntu-based (or even GNU/Linux-based in general) computers, and that’s a signal that in my opinion is worth £10 to send.

The £10 ‘Linux tax’ on Dell computers is actually very good value for money, I would say. Just wish I had the other £330 to buy the damn computer with.