[daniel_owen_uk]

Over the weekend I decided to move our family desktop PC over to Ubuntu.

I have previous with a few different versions of Linux, mainly Fedora and Ubuntu, but have always gone back to windows. The main reason has always been some weird driver incompatibility or must have application that I can't get to work.

This time round I have to say it is so much more polished. I have been able to connect network, deal with choices browsers, graphics config, codecs, iphone sync, htc sync, kindle etc.

I am hoping it lasts this time round, has anyone else use 12.04 for their sole OS? What problems have you encountered.

[Trollslayer]

I would be cautious for a family PC, have you checked the applications the family want are avialable under Linux?
But yes, Ubuntu is very polished now and has very good hardware support.
One thing - I think Windows often wins in the long terms because of the way updates work under Linux.

[daniel_owen_uk]

Family is really just me and the wife, kids use a few flash based websites for homework, youtube etc.

Mainly browsing, photos etc.

The wife uses photoshop everynow and then but mainly just for tarting pics up (red eye removal, etc.), I showed her GIMP (that sounds so wrong), and she is happy enough to use that.

In what way do you think updates under linux are flawed?

[5un]

Hey mate,

I'm also in a similar position where im lookin to move away from Win7 (possibly dualboot initially, then fully linuxed up) and Ubuntu seems a very popular choice, is there any specific reason you chose it?

I've currently downloading LinuxMint 12 KDE (http://www.linuxmint.com/index.php)and the Gnome+MATE flavour as my first in a veryyy long time in using a Linux OS, for the same reasons of weird driver issues and what not back in the days. But most of it seems resolved with these new distros.

Be interested to know how you and your family get on with Ubuntu.

I'll post some info once i get Mint up and running.


Sun

[daniel_owen_uk]

The wife very kindly treat me to a kindle last night (can't complain), and I can honestly say I found it simple to get going. That said this may be a touch unfair as I have used calibre on windows too.

My reason for going Ubuntu was that this was an LTS release (so supported for a while) and I watched a video review of Unity.

I like the way that the start menu was keyboard biased. I can touch type quite quickly and am one of these sort of people that really only want to touch the mouse when I absolutely have to, so the idea of pressing my windows (super) key and typing firefox is at times quicker than moving my hand to the mouse, moving cursor to icon and clicking.

The fact that you can do this throughout is key as well, to be in GIMP and press windows (super) and type red eye and get to the function is really useful.

Along with the recently used lenses it's very good.

Additional bonus, walked the wife through music management on her android and it's identical to management on my iphone, where before I could use itunes and she was resigned to file explorer. Banshee takes care of all of this.

Would be nice to get some feedback on other distros, so keep me informed.

[daniel_owen_uk]

Had the first complaint from the wife, after 2 weeks of using Ubuntu, she couldn't find the cross (close button) on the browser, explained that it only showed when you are on the bar and it's on the left, she seemed ok about it.

This went someway to explaining why I came home to 15 different versions of firefox

[daniel_owen_uk]

I think I have found a deal breaker

Last night I wanted to put a new album on my iphone, no problem I think, I have the mp3 files, put them in my music folder, bring up banshee, drag from music library onto iphone, get progress bar telling me all good, says successful. But it's not...

Turns out it can't update the database of modern IOS, and I am unsure anything but iTunes can.

I might try WINE but I am less than keen to do so.

Anyone have a workaround (other than WINE).

[daniel_owen_uk]

Ok... a feel a bit of a cheat, but I installed VirtualBox and Windows 7 for itunes. Took a bit of tinkering, but managed to get it to share my /home/music folder.

So I can successfully sync my iPhone/iPad

[arfoll]

Ipods are a pain on Linux because of apple's updates. The truth is that it works quite well with stuff like gtkpod/banshee as long as you never plug it into itunes. Itunes messes up and updates the library and creates havock.

I would try update/sync your iStuff over wifi if that is possible, i mean plugging things in to sync is so Palm/PDA world ;-) Then again my smartphone runs ssh+rsync so it makes it a bit easier!

I've got a shuffle which never got plugged into itunes, plugged it in once (apparently there was an update that improved battery life or something), and bahm stopped working in Linux. Thankfully fixed with a full revert - formatted the disk from linux and made amarok initialise it again

Good luck with the wife, my girlfriend is on Arch Linux and doesn't seem to mind the KDE4 desktop. She had Vista before which more than anything was super slow on her cheap Acer laptop.

[daniel_owen_uk]

She is getting there, but sometimes finds things that are obvious challenging.

She was clearing the camera last night, and sorting them into specific folder (kids disco etc.) nothing rocket science and she was saying "I can't figure out how to do this".

No different to windows, just cut and paste but the different look was daunting I suppose.

I figure the longer it's in place the more used to it the whole family will be.

[maryusdemetry]

I disappointed a year ago to Ubuntu, I decided to switch to LinuxMint, and now I am very happy,

[daniel_owen_uk]

Had a play with digikam over the weekend, hugely impressed with this software. Used it to remove duplicates in a list of folders.

Managed to get my iphone syncing via wifi over Virtualbox, it's a faff and would prefer to do it natively, but failing that it is workable.