Hard to believe, but it’s been almost a year since my first Ubuntu-themed article appeared on this site. Last October I made the decision to try Ubuntu 8.04. This was the end result of a number of factors, including months of trying to squeeze every drop of life out of XP. Eventually the futility of salvaging a 7-year-old (at the time) OS hit me, and I realized that 2008 was as good a time as any to try something new.
A year later, Ubuntu is still my primary operating system. I’ve also converted my wife’s PC to Ubuntu (at her request) and we use Ubuntu on our laptop for everything besides Netflix. I’ve had 4 friends and most of my immediate family try Ubuntu, and more than half continue to use it as a primary OS.
Impressive, no? Ubuntu is a fine operating system and it continues to improve in many ways. 9.04 was the first incarnation to work “out of the box” on all three of my PCs, and I am looking forward to a new batch of improvements in the soon-to-be-released 9.10 version.
But while much is good, much remains less than perfect. (And in some rare cases, less than acceptable.) A number of issues – many minor – continue to prevent Ubuntu from being as good as it could be, and with the recent release of Snow Leopard (and the forthcoming release of Windows 7) the OS playing field is about to become much more competitive.
I feel like Ubuntu is on a bit of a precipice. On the one hand, it has accomplished remarkable things. Four years ago I used Linux extensively while working through my bioinformatics degree. It wasn’t pleasant. At the time, the thought of using Linux at home would have been unthinkable. XP simply worked better.
Four years later, everything has changed. An honest Ubuntu/XP comparison proves to be surprisingly balanced. Ubuntu offers most of what XP does and many things that it doesn’t. This marked improvement is certainly not attributable solely to Canonical, as many individual components have seen massive gains (GNOME, Firefox, OpenOffice.org, and Wine stand out in particular).
But the Ubuntu/XP comparison is soon to become largely irrelevant. XP may be the current market leader…but its days are numbered. I’d wager that by late 2010, XP market share will drop below the combined numbers of Vista and Win7.
And remember – “late 2010″ is less than a year away. When it arrives, will Ubuntu stand up as well against Windows 7 as it has against XP?
…Truth be told, the answer to that question worries me.
So it is out of a desire to help that I’ve been preparing two very cool articles.
First, I’ve just about finished a lengthy “scorecard” on Ubuntu’s progress over the last year (8.04 to 8.10 to 9.04). (Edit: the scorecard article is now available here.) I’m using not only my own experience, but also that of family and friends to try and make this report as objective as possible. It examines a number of categories, from “out of the box” functionality to UI to software, and I think it’s an enlightening look at where the Ubuntu team excels and where it needs some help. If you have your own input on this topic, send it to me ASAP!
Once that’s complete, I’ll follow it up with a second article – this one a group-generated list of features/fixes that have to happen over the next year if Ubuntu wants to remain a viable competitor in the consumer OS arena. This list is the result of conversations with all the Ubuntu users I know, and should represent a diverse range of input.
If you have any specific requests for the forthcoming articles, I’d love to hear ‘em. What missing features are holding you back from adopting Ubuntu completely? Is there something that has to be implemented before you can leave Windows behind? Comment here or email me via the contact page, and once a nice list has been assembled I’ll look at passing it along to people that can actually make our requests happen.
(The scorecard article is now live, and you can expect the 2nd article within a week or so depending on how many people want to participate…)
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By Ubuntu: One Year Later – Tanner Helland (dot) Com | September 10, 2009, 1:08 am |[...] article appeared on this site. Last October I made the decision to try Ubuntu 8.04. More here A year later, Ubuntu is still my primary operating system. I’ve also converted my wife’s PC to [...]
By Ubuntu: One Year Later | Ubuntu-News - Your one stop for news about Ubuntu | September 10, 2009, 12:58 pm |[...] http://www.tannerhelland.com/ubuntu-linux/ubuntu-one-year-late/ a few seconds ago from kdemicroblog [...]
By Roy Schestowitz (schestowitz) 's status on Friday, 11-Sep-09 21:56:24 UTC - Identi.ca | September 11, 2009, 3:56 pm |[...] Ubuntu: One Year Later Hard to believe, but it’s been almost a year since my first Ubuntu-themed article appeared on this site. Last October I made the decision to try Ubuntu 8.04. This was the end result of a number of factors, including months of trying to squeeze every drop of life out of XP. Eventually the futility of salvaging a 7-year-old (at the time) OS hit me, and I realized that 2008 was as good a time as any to try something new. [...]
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