Ubuntu is like Top Shop, easily accessible, fitting every one and quite fancy when worn with the right accessories. Mint, however, is like Mango – slick, elegant and funky, but much harder to come by. Ubuntu is Linux “for human beings”, which is nice, but Mint, Mint is for the in crowd, human beings, who appreciate importance of style. Like Top Shop, Ubuntu will occasionally employ the likes of Kate Moss to spice up its profile, which is a good way to go about it (except, as Mint users will know, Kate Moss is so last season). At the end of the day, Ubuntu will be the one you’ll see around town most often, so as any good reviewer should, I put my fancy heels on the shelf, and decided to write for human beings. The in crowd knows what’s what any way.

Before we start, here’s a disclaimer, in case you missed out on the preliminary write ups to this research: the objective is to find out how easy an experience it is to switch from closed to open source operating system. In my case Mac OS X to Ubuntu. What helps, what doesn’t and what eventually could be improved. I’m concerned with the failure in communication between open source community and the rest of “human beings” – on both ends. I appreciate the open source philosophy, but this is really not my concern here. If you’re an open source enthusiast, you probably know it all and more, but you still should read it – to see how the little people think and operate.

So here we go. First day with my new friend, the one and only Ubuntu (don’t hold it against me, but my computer in the Ubuntu install is called Buntu.. and in the Mint install Minty). As beginnings tend to be, it was a bit hairy at times, but generally, after initial distrust we discovered we have a lot in common. Trying to think of ways to illustrate these first moments I remembered this scene from one of my all time favourite series, Spaced:

I think in this instance I was Daisy, Jessica Stevenson’s character and Linux was Tim (Simon Pegg) – in the end when I cried, he comforted me.

The hairy beginings were due to the fact that greedy me installed the 64bit version of Ubuntu; initially, before I was told to know better. Apparently .deb files (Linux installation files, equivalent of Windows’ .exe and Mac OS .dmg) for the 64bit version are difficult to come by. Not something the download page would tell you, mind: “32bit version: This works with most computers, 64bit version: May provide additional capabilities to computers that are able to use 64bit software”. Doesn’t sound like big of a deal, but it becomes one later when you find yourself struggling with just about every program you’re trying to install. Still better than the Mint website though, which gives you about 5 different downloads not bothering to describe the difference between them, and the names are not very indicative either.

Download itself is easy as pie. Answer few questions (like where you live and what’s your name), wait about half an hour and voila: you’re in your new operating system.

Which is brown.

BROWN. One of these seasons brown will be in, I’m sure. I mean not so long ago purple was the thing – everything is possible. All I’m saying is: don’t get scared, it can be easily changed. Now, open source enthusiasts will hate me for this, but I have to say it: user interface of Ubuntu really is a lot like that of Windows, specifically XP. This is for the benefit of the people afraid they won’t get used to it. You will, it’s pretty intuitive (mind you i do say pretty).

One thing I noticed and I have been told, is that Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, are pretty hard core about the open source-ness of their endeavours. In your ‘Applications’ menu (top right corner) you will find a pretty handy ‘add/remove applications’ option. Stick to it while downloading new programs – while it takes a while to have the newest versions of them (this is open source there’s new version every 3 to 4 days), it’s all checked, easy to install and will work. Otherwise you will run into unnecessary hassle.

Be weary though. When you first go into the ‘ass/remove’ by default it will look for ‘Cannonical-maintained’ applications only.  That is what I mean by hard core. But also slightly – slightly! – hypocritical. Flash is not open source – but you will need it to surf the web, whether we like it or not. And so on. There is, admittedly, not much need to go mad with downloads, as Ubuntu comes with a lot of the things one will need. You might want to download Banshee, an unfortunately named (this is a theme with open source programs, you will soon discover), but rather slick application, looking much (very much) like iTunes that will cater to all your media files needs including podcasts. Gpodder is also a podcast client, but as it doesn’t have a player built in I personally don’t see much point in it.

The main problem with open source programs is the little flaws in the user interfaces. The un-geeky user doesn’t care much about the performance or beauty of the code. They also won’t put a creation ethos above usability – and it’s neither wrong nor right. But this is a whole different story, which I shall come back to in the next instalment.

I admit towards the evening I swapped back to Mac OS. But it seemed somehow less irreplaceable, than before.

next installment: add/remove and how it could make Linux superior. Should we have a migration editions of Linux distributions?

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