A Second Look at Linux - Part 1

When it comes to Linux I’m not exactly late to the party, but I’m the first to admit I’m a Windows guy. I also love to discuss and write about Apple because they make such nice products. So where does that leave everyone’s favorite open source OS? Pretty much out in the cold. Until now that is.

I downloaded the latest release of the Ubuntu (v7.10) and fired up VMWare. The installation was about as easy as it comes. I literally had to make just a couple selections and the installation took care of itself. I’ve run Knoppix a few times just out of curiosity a few years ago, but I haven’t really used Linux since I was exposed to it in college. I mostly used Mandrake, and I even went as far as compiling the kernel for myself a couple times. Once as part of an assignment and then again just for fun (and no I didn’t have a life back then). I wrote a little C++ code on it and used it sparingly, but I never made the leap from Windows to Linux as a full time system. At that time I was a big time gamer and it was before I had heard of the LAMP stack, so I eventually moved away from Linux when I graduated. Well Tux, I’m back!

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be using Ubuntu as much as I can, and I’ll share my experiences here. From what I’ve seen so far Ubuntu is plenty fast on VMWare, so I think I’ll get a good experience on a virtual machine.