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MON HISTOIRE 2
My history with computers dates back to the 1970's starting with using Fortran on a Honeywell mainframe at University. This was followed by Basic on HP minicomputers and afterwards some experience with IBM mainframes and DEC VAX and PDP systems. My first personal computer was an Apple IIe running CP/M followed by adventures with the DEC Rainbow before moving on to IBM PC XT, DOS and later Windows. I can actually remember Windows 1.0 becoming available in 1986 and being very unsure as to it's acceptance. Around the same time, I had a Mac SE and an Apple Laserwriter for desktop publishing. In short, I worked with multiple hardware platforms, various operating systems, many different applications and became quite comfortable with all of them.
The creation of Linux in the early 90's was of some interest to me but I admired it from afar as I was busy with other things. Ubuntu was the first distribution I ever used and that was the Feisty Fawn release in 2007. However, I always installed them in a dual-boot arrangement and never really committed to Ubuntu. In the meanwhile, I had pretty much reached frustration levels with the various Windows versions and Vista was the last straw. It was time to commit: I decided to dedicate an IBM T42 laptop (Pentium Mobile 1.7GHz, 1.GB RAM, 60GB HDD, 15 XGA+(1400×1050) TFT LCD, 64MB ATI Radeon 9600, CD-RW/DVD, 802.11b/g wireless) to Ubuntu and did that with Lucid in 2010, followed by Maverick and Natty. As I moved through the various releases over the years, the improvements seemed slow and steady rather than dramatic to the point where a Natty clean install went without a hitch. Previously, I had tried the upgrade route from Maverick to Natty but had problems I was unable to resolve.
Of course, Natty arrived with Unity and that caused me some bother. My comment in Full Circle #49 was “I don't like it. Immediately after installing Natty, I tried to use it for a couple of hours but found it inconvenient and intrusive. Things were not where I expected them to be, or didn't do what I expected them to do. After a while, I was able to figure things out, but it still took me longer to do anything. I was glad to have the option to switch back to “classic””. Since then I have taken the time to switch to Unity and now use it full time with fewer and fewer issues. There are still some odd things like the inability to move the Launcher and the consequent “conflict” with the Back button on Firefox.
Having worked with Maverick and Natty daily for over a year, I can see no reason not to recommend Ubuntu to other people although I am frequently surprised by the number of people who know little of Linux and less of Ubuntu. However, given the costs associated with the Windows route, it makes a lot of sense to make the switch. The main concern is the compatibility issue with applications running on other systems. Unfortunately, that means compatibility with MS Office and web sites optimized for or requiring Internet Explorer. Again, these issues are very minor in all practical applications.
At this point, I have one other PC running Windows 7 mainly for Adobe Lightroom photo management software. As soon as there is an equivalent Linux product, that will be the end of Windows on any of my PC's. I am waiting for the latest release of Darktable with great interest.
I also have an older PC running XP which is used for occasional browsing and this will be my next upgrade project.