Moving to Linux
I’ve finally decided to do something I’ve been planning o do for a long while now, move over to using Linux as my full time OS at work.
I’d class myself as a Linux ‘power user’ if there is such a thing. I’ve been using Linux in its various flavours since about 1998 (the days when one false move would obliterate your Windows partition), and I manage various Linux servers for clients at work.
Now firstly, If i could, I’d also be running Linux as my full time OS at home right now, but the machine is shared with my wife and kids who might find it a bit disconcerting and secondly Im sadly quite hooked on Vista Media Centre, but thats another story…
My work laptop is a fairly powerfull machine and has ben running Windows Vista. Now dont get me wrong, Im actually getting quite used to Vista and I’m no MS hater (Im actually MCP certified x 3), but I seem to find all the bugs and performance annoyances with it. Random application hangs, slow startup and shutdown speeds to name a few.
I installed Linux as a dual boot on the laptop last week and so far theres only a couple of minor issues. I chose Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) as Ubuntu has been my Distro of choice for the past couple of years. Its very straight forward to install. Stick in the CD and it boots live, from there you can play around with the system and see how it works etc. Theres an icon on the Desktop which you click to install Ubuntu to the harddisk, and after a couple of steps you can relax for 20 mins while it installs. (It will also detect any windows installations and add them to the boot loader).
Now, the only downside in the corporate environment is the lack of an email client that can talk MAPI to Exchange 2007. Evolution supports Exchange 2003, but we recently upgradded to 2007 in our office. At present im using IMAP to connect Evolution to Exchange 2007, but apparently there is an Exchange 2007 plugin on the way, I await it with baited breath…
Apart from that everything else is pretty sweet, I especially like the compiz composite desktop stuff. I have all the tools I need to manage remote machines, (ssh built in by default of course and Terminal Services client). I’ve also managed to join the laptop onto our windows domain using a new tool called likewise-open, this allows me to logon to the laptop using my domain credentials which then allows me to access server objects without having to enter my password a ton of times.
Looks like Linux is here to stay.
Tags: 8.04, compiz, Evolution, Exchange, Exchange 2007, Hardy, Heron, IMAP, laptop, likewise-open, Linux, Live CD, MCP, Media Centre, Microsoft, MS, OS, ssh, terminal services, Ubuntu, Vista, Windows Posted in