Customer Reviews

Ubuntu 8.04 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

For non-technical users, the first thing to note is Ubuntu is not at all related to Microsoft Windows XP or Vista. This means you can't go to the local Best Buy and purchase, any piece of PC software, and expect it always to work with Ubuntu.

The good news is you may never need to. Ubuntu provides, free of charge, thousands of applications including many games, Office applications, email, Web browsing, chat, and the likes. If you have a high speed Internet connection, Ubuntu can install these applications.

Ubuntu also works well with older PCs, since its hardware requirements are much more modest than Windows Vista.

If you want to try out Ubuntu, you can install and run it from within Windows, so you can try it out before dedicating hard drive space to it.

In addition, Ubuntu provides a Windows emulation layer (called "WINE") which can run some Windows applications quite well even including some older Windows games.

Unfortunately, Ubuntu does not always work with newer hardware, because some drivers aren't available. Also, the emulation support is not 100% accurate, so some Windows applications won't work.

Ubuntu is ideal for the typical PC user, who needs to browse the Web, send email, store a music library and so on. It is also an excellent fit for someone who wants to develop software. However, Ubuntu is not a good fit for users who want to use the latest PC games.

Basically, Ubuntu provides an excellent alternative to the ever-increasing hardware requirements and licensing restrictions required to run Vista (since Microsoft is phasing out Windows XP). But it's not for everyone.

Finally, this DVD is excellent if you don't have a high speed Internet connection but want to try out Ubuntu, because it includes a lot of extra software which wouldn't fit on a standard CD.

I had to reinstall Windows XP recently, something I hadn't done in so long that I didn't know where the CD was anymore. I had to go buy a new copy at a local store, and I was shocked that it was $130 for an OEM copy (OEM means that it doesn't come with the retail box). Granted that the Windows operating system is continually updated, but it seemed ludicrous to still be paying so much for an OS that was released in 2001. It's the kind of thing a company can just *do* when it owns something like 90% of the desktop market, and I felt insulted and gouged.

So once I'd put XP back on my hard drive, I immediately went looking for alternatives. If only that local store had had a copy of Ubuntu. You know why? Because Windows didn't recognize the Ethernet controller on my motherboard. The motherboard that's been on the market for years and uses a widely popular chipset. And XP, which as I said has been out for seven years, didn't know what the heck it was. So I had no Internet access. I had to go to an Internet cafe, track down and download the driver onto a USB thumb drive, trudge back home, and install the driver.

So after all that business, I was finally able to get online, and I dived into Linux research. I'd used Mandrake Linux a few years before (now known as Mandriva), so I was familiar with the layout, so to speak. And my research led me to Ubuntu. It is based on Debian but has a much more accessible community, and its website is infinitely better designed, more intuitive, and more helpful (in my opinion) when you encounter a problem. Ubuntu also has arguably the largest desktop community in the world right now, so there are always plenty of people on the Internet, or IRC, who can help you with the quirks and tweaks. So while Ubuntu isn't really much different than Debian, it is ready for the Windows user in a way that the Debian community cannot even touch; the Debian website, for example, does not even had a forum. There's only a mailing list.

But of course, what's more important is how Ubuntu compares to Windows. In a nutshell, there really isn't a whole lot that belongs to Windows anymore. Videogames? WINE has very impressive compatibility, and its website has an extensive, easily readable database. WINE also lets you run many other programs, like Photoshop. Word processing? Open Office. Email and Web browsing? Evolution and Firefox. And all of these come with Ubuntu, free of charge -- forever. Because you *own* your copy of the software, not just a commercial license to use it. The difference is that a commercial license can expire, be revoked, and have limitations on the number of installations that you are "allowed" to do.

Meanwhile, you can install Ubuntu as many times as you like, on as many computers as you like, you can change your hardware all you like, and it will never demand that you prove you're not a thief.

There are also pretty much no viruses to deal with, because Linux uses a completely different architecture than Windows, and one that can be viewed and changed by anyone in the world. All they have to do is download the source code, which is also available for free. Thousands of people pore over the Linux programming code every day, so it is exceedingly difficult to take advantage of a hidden vulnerability. In fact, so reliable is its security that it's used heavily by the National Security Agency to safeguard sensitive information and systems.

I won't lie, though. As awesome as Linux is, the current version of Ubuntu has pretty flaky support for wireless cards, and getting sound to work can be equally frustrating. As these are pretty important elements of the experience, I can't in good conscience give the OS a full five stars. You can work around both of these flaws, but sometimes, for some reason, nothing will work, and you're left with a computer that can't connect to the Internet or play any music. I'd hate for anyone to buy Ubuntu on the basis of my review and get stuck with potentially nasty surprises, so these things have to be mentioned.

Ultimately, at this price, it's at least worth a look, in my opinion. You can keep both Windows and Ubuntu on your computer, and remove Ubuntu if it doesn't work out for you. Personally, I had problems with sound, but I refused to give up until I got it to work, because I was so irritated by Microsoft. Now everything works swimmingly, and I think my effort has been rewarded. My computer feels more secure with Ubuntu, it feels faster, and I save money. What's not to like?

For years I have wished to replace Microsoft on my home PC with Linux. It seems every new version of Microsoft software required more and more memory and greater CPU horsepower. I had used Linux at work and knew it was generally faster. The problem was always a bad experience in the past where I attempted to install Red Hat Linux on my home machine and had problems setting up my computer to be useful again. In the end, I gave up on Linux and went crawling back to Microsoft again. I did go ahead and replace MS Office® with OpenOffice.org and was very pleased with that product. This is not a reflection on Red Hat at all, I know many have had success with it and I am glad. And, I am sure it has improved since those many years ago. But, the initial problems made me afraid to try again.

Finally, I kept hearing about Ubuntu of late and decided it might be time to try and swim in the deep end again. I downloaded the CD image and requested this CD through amazon just in case I ran into problems with the download or CD imaging. The imaging had no issues so I went ahead and gave it a try. At first I had hoped to try a dual partition rather than jumping in with both feet but the partitioning process had errors and it only gave permission to continue with Ubuntu as a full partition or not at all. I did not want to make that leap so I tried booting from the CD just to see how my PC would do with Ubuntu. After trying all my usual tasks in Ubuntu (surfing the net, working on some OpenOffice documents, etc) I was very pleased and decided to go ahead with the full partitioning after backing up some important data files. I would have preferred the dual-boot option at least for a time but Ubuntu is easy enough to learn and OpenOffice can convert MS documents so well that I realized there really was no need for a dual-boot configuration.

After the automated installation, which was as easy or easier than any Windows® install I have done in the past, I plunged right into personalizing the preferences. I had some difficulty in that the automatic install did not recognize my display monitor or video card and so it was stuck in low-resolution; but after a quick glance at the online support forums I found a lot of help figuring this issue out and had that resolved. All this took several hours altogether but probably did not amount to much more time than a Windows install would have taken in reality. I was not locked to my desk for much of that time and only came back to check progress from time to time. The time spent looking for answers in the forums was the main delay but the wait for answers was brief. The Ubuntu community is very active and very helpful.

Several days have passed using Ubuntu and I am very pleased I switched. I was able also to set up accounts for all the kids so each can have their own environment to work in. I also set up a guest account for when the kids have friends over who want to use the computer. OpenOffice and Firefox are essentially the same between Ubuntu and Microsoft versions so the learning curve is very shallow. The ease of use and installation are much better than Linux versions of the past making Ubuntu a solid contender for the PC market. The minor glitches I encountered are a very small price to pay for free software that performs better than the costly memory-hogging alternative.

Have used various flavors of Unix for work in the past. Rather than update to something newer than Windows 2000, I looked at switching to Linux for home use. Ubuntu has their 8.04 distribution polished well enough for family use. My 9 and 7-1/2 year old girls have no problem using the Gnome desktop. Running on a Dell Dimension 2400, with a 2.8 GHz P4 and 256 MB RAM, it's running circles around Win2K on the same machine. XP would be even slower, and Vista requires at least another 256 MB of RAM just to meet its minimum requirements. The O/S immediately was able to read NTFS volumes, access the local Windows network, and browse shared directories and print to devices connected to other systems running Windows. OpenOffice reads my existing MS Office documents and is able to write MS Office docs as well, for sharing with others. Online support has been excellent. I haven't had to do more than check the online help sections (help.ubuntu.com) to get my answers quickly. Very well done!

I have an older laptop and decided to see what a Unix based OS would do on it. Ubuntu is great! Easy to install, it went to the web and updated itself, allowed to to download a lot if excellent free software including a full featured Office suite which reads MS Office files (called Open Office) and more clipart than I imagined to be out there. I find easy to follow instructions on the Web. Am very impressed with it. I am not a guru, am actually a senior citizen on a restricted budget so not having to buy a new computer is a boon. Ubuntu works very much the way Windows does so I just mouse around and find things.

Before I begin, let me state that I've been in computer tech services for the last 20+ years in one form or another. I've tried Windows from version 3 on up to Vista, Mac from every OS imaginable (and even when they were known as Apples or MacIntosh) along with DOS, FreeDOS and several versions of Linux (Suse, DSL, Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc).

Without a doubt, Ubuntu 8.04 is the most polished Linux version I've seen recently. Some may argue that versions like Suse 11 look better, and I can't argue with the artistic merits of the latter, but I'm referring to overall user friendliness. Ubuntu is going to give Windows and Mac a run for the money and considering Ubuntu costs little to nothing, you getting more bang for the buck.

For my experiment I got a 32 bit version of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) and put it on an HP Pavilon DV9000 laptop running, unfortunately, MS Vista Home Premium as the original OS.

Here are the high points in comparison with that version of Vista (which, by the way, was the new "improved" SP1 variation):

* Cost. Vista Basic, about $175 on sale. Home Premium runs about $225 or so. Business and Ultimate versions can approach the dangerously high $400 mark. OS X runs about $170. Ubuntu? Free if you download it, about $5 if you buy a disk and, again, free if you order a disk from the Ubuntu website (it does take 4 to 8 weeks to get it through the mail, though). Beware of places selling them for $12 or more. That's a clip. In case you didn't know, Windows preloaded on a new computer generally adds $200 to the price.

* Initial installation time. Ubuntu erased my hard drive and installed itself within 35 minutes, including yanking some updates off my DSL connection. What about Windows? On average, about 2 hours not including updates.

* Installation parameters. Want to install Vista on your old XP machine? Fat chance, you'll probably get an "incompatible hardware" error message. With Ubuntu, or any version of Linux, you can pretty much load it on any old piece of machinery out there. I've installed it on old 20 pound laptops running at 20Mhz with 64 MB RAM. I even got it to run on an early 80s Apple Lisa (for those of you who remember than stinker computer).

* Boot time. About 30 seconds with Ubuntu and 256 RAM. Vista with 1 GB RAM can take minutes to boot and cycle. Even with the 3 GB on my laptop, it still took at least 2 minutes to boot with Vista. Add another couple minutes if you have anti-virus, firewall, or both running.

* Overall safety. Ever heard of a virus being written strictly for Linux? Chances are you never will. When I was in college for computer studies a couple years we purposely loaded a virus written for Windows on a Linux computer and forced it to run. It did absolutely nothing to the machine. Windows accounts for roughly 85% of the computers out there so guess what the average hacker will right nasty programs for?

* RAM usage. This was frustrating. I had a RAM and CPU usage meter on my Vista OS and it showed all 3 GB being used by Vista during peak times. This resulted in a slow processing of some information and programs. Even at idle it hogged 1 GB. Ubuntu? It doesn't care. 128 MB is the minimum but anything above that is gravy.

* Recognition of hardware. Ubuntu recognized my SATA hard drive (this was problematic with earlier versions), my wireless card, my NVDIA video card, USB ports, etc, etc. The only thing it didn't recognize was the Lightscribe drive (it recognized it as a burner, but not as a Lightscribe burner); however, it did download the necessary drivers when I booted up. Vista? It refused to accept my wireless card nor did it recognize Lightscribe or attempt to download the necessary software. For whatever reason, Vista did not recognize my 250 GB hard drive as a single unit (on my model it is, I dumped the split hard drive when I bought it). Vista insisted on splitting it in 2 and naming one C and the other D thereby relegating my CD burner to E. Of note, the wireless card was a standard Atheros model, nothing special. This should prove no challenge for any OS.

* Outside hardware recognition. Vista offered to find a driver for my Samsung laser printer and then never found it. I had to hunt on my own. Ubuntu took less than 15 seconds to accept my printer and never blinked an eye. Ditto for my digital camera. In fact, Vista refused to accept a flash drive that was 8 GB in size. In one case, I had a flash drive I used under XP that was listed as drive E on that computer and Vista recognized it as drive F and then refused to access the files on it because they were loaded when the drive was E. I understand this problem has been solved with SP1. No problem with Ubuntu with the same exact drive.

* OS wizardry. Do you like the Aero effects in Vista? Ubuntu has those, too, but I ignore them. I use a computer to compute, not be dazzled by special effects. If you want them, Ubuntu has them.

* Eye candy. Ubuntu comes with a limited variety of desktop wallpapers, all of which are various shades of brown. While Vista does have a wide array of desktop wallpapers, fact is you can merely download what you want when you want off the Internet. Again, this is personal preference. Most computer users I know have pictures of their families, pets, or both on the desktop so what's included is academic.

* Acceptance of outside programs. I use Opera or FireFox as web browsers and ignore Internet Explorer. Guess what? Vista doesn't like that. So much so it would take over a minute to open Opera. Ubuntu doesn't care. It takes less than 10 seconds to open either version. Want MS Office on your computer? That'll set you back about $200 or more. Instead I use OpenOffice and its suite. Grand total cost? $0. It's free just like 99% of the Linux programs out there. Besides, if you want MS programs, you either have to go to a store or order online. With Linux, merely use the apt-get command at the terminal and download them for free within a few seconds or minutes. If this is Greek to you, it won't be once you start using it. You can find online tutorials that will help you in this matter. If nothing else, take the money you saved on not buying Windows and purchase a book titled, "Ubuntu for Non Geeks". Great book that covers the basics and advanced aspects.

* Software compatibility. Windows is the master of this domain. When you hear document compatibility you usually hear "Word" in deference to the MS word processor. Ditto for Excel (spreadsheets), Access (databases) and PowerPoint (presentations). Problem is, this dominance is based upon user ignorance - they just don't know that other programs exist out there than can do the job just as well. Corel's WordPerfect has suffered from this for over a decade (it costs a lot less and does just the same as Word). Ubuntu's version of these programs is included in the OpenOffice suite that comes prepackaged on the disk. It will run Windows documents and it will also save in the Windows format. You can trade back and forth as you like. Same can be said for most other programs. If there is a Window's version, there will be a cross compatible Ubuntu version and the cost will generally be 100% less.

* Software upgrading. Vista software, such as MS Word, will cost you dearly to update and the OS itself doesn't remind you to update or that an update exists. Ubuntu will notify you that an update exists and asks you if you want to upgrade for free.

* Number of programs. Vista and Linux have thousands of programs. The problem is finding them. Not all stores carry all versions of Vista software and, truthfully, most stores seem to carry about 10% of what's available. With Linux you merely go to the repositories available and download what you like for free. The nice thing about Linux is that each distribution knows what works and what doesn't. When Vista first came out a couple years ago one frustrating problem was Vista's insistence on sometimes accepting XP programs and sometimes not. Unfortunately, you didn't know until you attempted to load it and then you'd find out no refunds for opened software.

* Wireless acceptance and usability. Vista does have an edge here. I never went under 3 bars inside my house with Vista but Ubuntu seems to stall at 2, possibly 3 on a good day. I understand this is a Linux software problem that should be solved soon. Of note, Ubuntu lags in download speeds on wireless. I could never best 250 Mbps consistently while Vista pushed 480 all the time on my DSL wireless connection. Again, a software problem; however, if you have your network connected via hard wire, the download speeds are the same between both Vista and Ubuntu.

* Other considerations. Linux by its virtue of being "open source" (aka, free) has a problem playing DVDs with copyright restrictions; however, it'll be more than happy to download the necessary free software to get around that problem. Weird thing is, Ubuntu has no problem playing MP3s and will even play sound files with odd suffixes attached.

* Insistence on interfering. Vista insists that you are an idiot that needs to be guided in everything you do. Just about everything requires a password and if you should bypass the password requirement, it will bug you to no end to reinstate it. Ubuntu can be the same way in some respects, but generally when you're downloading programs from an unknown source. It pretty much leaves you alone otherwise.

* User friendliness. Linux has definitely gotten better from the days it was a command line OS much like DOS. Many users are weaned on Windows or Mac and are wary of Linux because it's "different". The fact remains it is different but not so much so that you can't pick up on it within a couple hours. I can remember when Windows came out and users were afraid to switch from DOS. For years Windows packaged DOS with Windows for those who were reluctant to switch.

Overall, Ubuntu is a much better OS than Vista and comes close to matching OS X Leopard from Apple. From a cost and expandability standpoint, it beats both. It is much more forgiving with older computers than either Vista or OS X.

Oh, and by the way, don't forget to pick the proper version. 32 bit works with any computer out there but the 64 bit OS will only work with 64 bit processors. If you don't know what you have or plan to use Ubuntu on several computers, I would recommend the 32 bit version as a safe bet.

I have read several "reviews" here and find one at least to be simply silly. Note to complainers about the charge here for Ubuntu: If you don't want to support the folks who actually go to the trouble of making a professionally produced installable DVD, take your $13 elsewhere. You are only making yourself look stupid - like you need this review to do that.

There are myriad people who do not want to be bothered with downloading a huge file and then figuring out how to make an installable CD or DVD who want to get an alternative to M$ who also trust Amazon. This is only one of several options available.

Personally, I downloaded it and burned 30 DVDs for people who were somewhat timid but who now are very satisfied getting away from Vista to an O/S that actually works and gives them Open Office and GIMP.

The implied suggestion here is to go elsewhere but don't downgrade a great, entry level piece of software because you don't want to pay a lousy $13.

As for this distro, well done, easy to install, I put it on a couple of homebuilts, an HP desktop, an Acer desktop, and a Lenovo Thinkpad. All went flawlessly - no driver issues at all. Plain and simple, Ubuntu is a class act making the open source world available for everyone, not just those with enough smack to "buy" XP or Vista. The only better alternative is Leopard but the outlay for the machine stands in many people's way. This O/S can go on any machine out there, legacy to SOTA.

Ubuntu is going to out shine Apple in a few years and then Microsoft... I think the young kids should learn Ubuntu now... You are your own administrator.. How cool is that...

t is great set of ubuntu and kubuntu and the library is top notch. I first installed ubuntu, then decided to try kubuntu and came across this set Kubuntu, Ubuntu and Linux Training Library 2DVDs+CD I use ubuntu for second year and it is by far my most loved Linux distro. Now I try out kubuntu that also great but different. This particular one comes with complete training library for all levels of users! Here's smooth installation and hour of fun! Awesome!

I decided to make the plunge a week ago and installed Ubuntu 8.04 on a second hard drive to see how it would work. The next computer I buy will use Ubuntu (or some other version of Linux). Except for those with specialized needs, there is no longer any reason to support an expensive legacy system like Windows.

I installed Ubuntu on a four-year old eMachines PC. It was a hassle-free process, taking about 10 minutes (mostly of waiting while the computer did its thing). I was most concerned that there would be some hassle getting drivers for my wireless network adapter, but as it turned out, there was no need to worry. The adapter was recognized immediately, and I was surfing the Internet within three minutes of installing the OS.

Ubuntu comes with the software needed for everyday needs, such as a browser, a word processor and an e-mail program, plus quite a few extras, such as chat software and some simple games. The only difficulty I've had was installing some specialized software that isn't officially supported by Ubuntu, but the Ubuntu web site includes plenty of articles and forum discussions that helped me resolve the issues I had. Otherwise, installing software that's supported by Ubuntu is easier than installing software for Windows.

The interface is fairly intuitive. It's not quite the same as what Windows users are used to, but it has a much cleaner look and isn't difficult to figure out. And it's easy to customize the desktop; Microsoft seems to take the attitude that the user should adapt to do things Microsoft's way, but Linux takes the opposite approach.

The only issue I'm dealing with now is that the sleep mode creates some video instability in my computer, but I don't know if this is an Ubuntu problem or a hardware problem.

Overall, I'd highly recommend Ubuntu. A few years ago, Linux was for geeks only. But with Ubuntu and some of the other Linux packages out there, that's no longer the case. The only reason I gave this four stars instead of five is because there are still some web sites, such as some of those providing high-definition streaming video, that make it difficult (or officially impossible) to use anything other than Internet Explorer. Such sites are few, but they could be a dealbreaker for some users.