Wubi and Jaunty Jackelope

For the first time in a couple of weeks, I have an actual Linux dual-boot on my hard drive. Another relative has temporarily moved in with my grandfather and me, so I decided to reinstall Windows on my computer to allow him to work with an OS he was more familiar with. I decided to set up a Wubi install of Intrepid Ibex to tide me over until Jaunty Jackelope came out.

Wubi

That was my first use of Wubi. Having experienced it, I wish it would have been an option when I first got into Ubuntu and Linux (back in the days of Gutsy Gibbon). If I’d had the chance to try Ubuntu out without setting up a permanent dual-boot, I wouldn’t have set up the conservatively sized partition I originally did. Then I wouldn’t have spent so long trying to figure out how to expand the damn thing.

Wubi works very well. The boot-up seems to take longer, but Ubuntu runs just as quickly under a Wubi install as it does on a regular dual-boot. The biggest differences are:

• You don’t have access to your Windows files under Wubi.
• You only have a maximum of 30 GB of storage for Ubuntu under Wubi.

Otherwise, everything seems to work the same, including the update feature.

Gnome Partition Editor (GPartEd)

In my past experiments with the Gnome Partition Editor, I’ve never been able to get the results that I’ve wanted. I finally figured out that this is because you can’t manipulate the partition on which you’re running GPartEd. Thus, when I downloaded the program and attempted to grow my Ubuntu partition, I was out of luck.

Fortunately, the Jaunty Jackelope live CD comes with GPartEd, which allows you to manipulate any partition on your drive by running it from the CD. Unfortunately, I didn’t come to this revelation until after my relative had already saved some stuff on his Windows account, so it’s going to be a while before I can really grow my Linux partition. However, I was able to gain about 10 more gigs for Linux because of the fact that a Wubi install apparently creates an ext3 swap drive separate from the Windows partition.

Jaunty Jackelope

At the end of the day, I got Jaunty Jackelope installed. So far, I like what I’m seeing. A few things struck me right off the bat after I installed it and started playing around.

• The boot time has dramatically decreased, as others have pointed out.
• The new wallpapers (though there are only two of them) are much better than in the last couple of releases.
• The preinstalled themes are better. This batch includes popular third-party themes like New Wave and a couple of versions of Dust.
• The default shut-down widget now gives you 60 seconds to change your mind.
• OpenOffice 3 is now preinstalled. That saves me the trouble of adding the OOo repository to get it. (I do need the ability to occasionall read Office 2007 documents in case I accidentally download or otherwise access them in Linux. Of course, OOo 3.1 is sounding interesting enough that I might end up doing that eventually anyway.

I’m sure I’ll find more to write about as I mess with Jaunty some more, but this is enough for now. Besides, who keeps a blog to write one comprehensive entry every six months?

Dell Ubuntu Mix-Up

From Jayson Rowe’s post, I got this news story about a woman who mistakenly ordered a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed from Dell. Apparently, though the blame for the situation lies mostly with Dell customer service, some Linux users took the piece as an attack on Linux. This resulted in some heated e-mails to the station. While Jayson Rowe (and some others) have used this story to go off on a tangent about what awful people Linux users are, I would like to do something more productive. This story demonstrates the most important thing a prospective Linux user should do before switching: know your needs.

You should never swtich to Linux without knowing whether or not your current equipment is compatible. Obviously, I like Ubuntu, but not every hardware vendor supports Linux, and this can be a big problem. This is why you should always run Ubuntu (or any other flavor of Linux) from the live CD before actually installing it on your computer. If your printer, modem, etc., lack Linux-compatible drivers, this is the time to find out.

Even if your Linux version passes this first test, you shouldn’t completely eliminate Windows from your computer until you’re sure you don’t need any Windows programs. Most of the time, OpenOffice’s ability to convert to Word file formats will work fine for the average computer user. However, you can lose some document formatting information in the transition. For most people, this isn’t a problem, but some tasks require precise page design. For example, in my technical writing classes, my work is judged partially on whether page design makes the document’s information more readable or understandable. Thus, I can’t afford formatting mistakes. That’s why I still dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows.

I’ll conclude with one final, indispensible tip: use all the resources you have on hand before calling the local TV ombudsman. Most of the problems the woman in the news story had could have been solved by taking two steps: calling Verizon’s tech support and checking out OpenOffice’s help files. Now, to be fair, this woman was thrown into the Linux community involuntarily, so her confusion is understandable. However, for anyone deliberately considering the switch, the Ubuntu website has a lot of basic information, such as OpenOffice/MS Office compatibility. Despite one woman’s unfortunate experience, Ubuntu can be a joy to use with just a little bit of forethought.

New Icon Set: Human 02

In my continuing efforts to improve the appearance of my desktop, I ran across a set of icons called Human 02. Basically, it combines some Hydroxygen icons with icons that more resemble Ubuntu’s default Human theme. So you get orange Back and Forward arrows in Firefox, but with somewhat cooler effects than you see with the default icons. You can even customize some of the icons when you first install the set.

That said, the installation instructions are somewhat counterintuitive. The download is a Debian package. Normally, this is a very good thing, since the last couple of versions of Ubuntu have included a Debian package installer which allows pain-free installations without using the terminal or digging around in folders for instructions. The authors recommended installing this package from the terminal, though, claiming that you would be overwhelmed with customization instructions if you did it that way. So what happened when I typed their installation command into the terminal? It ran the Debian package, complete with the long list of customization questions. Now, this wasn’t entirely a bad thing, since it’s easier than digging out the customization instructions for Hydroxygen. However, it was unexpected and left me wondering what the point of not using the Debian installer was.

At the end of it all, it’s a pretty good icon set. My only problem is the overly large Ubuntu logo. It doesn’t look quite right. It seems stretched out somehow. This is made up for by the application icons, which are much more colorful than the equivalent Hydroxygen icons. Here’s a screenshot of the desktop with Firefox:

Gotchione With Human 02 Icons

Edit: It looks like I misunderstood the installation instructions. Installing in the terminal is the only way to get the customization instructions; the Debian installer will just install with the default options. It makes sense now.

Ubuntu-Art

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been a big fan of Gnome-Look, a website that features themes, wallpapers, and widgets for the GNOME desktop, Ubuntu’s default graphic interface. However, poking around in the top navigation bar on Gnome-Look has revealed an even better site for my needs: Ubuntu-Art. Basically, Ubuntu-Art is just like Gnome-Look, except tailored for Ubuntu. That means you don’t have to sort through wallpapers with logos for other Linux distributions like Debian or Fedora to get to things you might actually use.

The way I see it, Gnome-Look is great for people who use minor distros without the level of specific third-party support that Ubuntu and other popular distros have. It’s also good for people who run more than one Linux distro on their computers. But for people who only use Ubuntu, Ubuntu-Art is a better, more targeted choice.

That previous post I linked to didn’t get into the value of these kinds of sites for Linux users. According to The Linux Life, changing the desktop theme is much easier in Linux than in Windows. I’m inclined to agree, since I never even figured out how to change the desktop theme in either XP or Vista.* A source of alternate wallpapers is also really handy. The default Ibex wallpaper of 8.10 isn’t bad, but it’s nice to know there are options if brown either isn’t your color or doesn’t go with your favorite theme. The GNOME desktop comes with tons of customization options, and sites like Ubuntu-Art provide the resources to take full advantage of this customizability.

*For the newbies, in Ubuntu you can see the themes available on your computer by clicking Appearance under System –> Preferences. Your current theme’s square will be outlined in a solid-colored square, and its title will be highlighted. To change the theme, simply click on another theme’s square.