So it’s been a while and it’s been an experience. I’m not saying that I’ve lived in Ubuntu, but I’ve had fun exploring every now and again.

First things first, I don’t care if you aim this operating system at the general public or not, it’s still not quite escaped the geek feel. It still requires above-average computing knowledge to do even the most generic things, like installing new apps - and to be fair I even had problems installing some normal linux apps, that weren’t part of the standard user-friendly installer.

Secondly, if you want to play games then you’ve almost come to the wrong place.. If I rephrase that to “off-the-shelf” games, you’ve definately come to the wrong place. If you want to play an absolute ton of open-source/freeware games then you have almost definately arrived. I did, however, notice markedly slower frame rates on linux than windows with 3D games, although I’m sure that’s down to driver versions (more on that in a minute.) Don’t expect to play anything other than games that were popular between ten to twenty years ago and certainly nothing you’ll find on the front page of PC Gamer.

Now on to the drivers… All drivers were supported and loaded during installation (I don’t know if that’s just luck or what.) I did however notice that the best way to install ANYTHING is with the “Synaptic Package Manager” or the “Add Applications” entry from the menus. If you try to install things off the net by downloading them, you will wind up in all sorts of trouble and very lost. Hence the utilities I guess.. One big problem however - it seems that the most popular games/packages are a bit behind in Ubuntu. You can browse the net and find version y, but only poor old version x is availble from Ubuntu. I’m sure this will only improve with time. eg. Firefox in Ubuntu is 1.0.8, latest net version is 1.5.0.4. Scorched Earth 3D in Ubuntu is 38.1b (bc), latest net version is 39.1.

So after a few weeks, what do I think? I think if you want an operating system that is robust, quick (not graphics!) and usable out of the box then choose Ubuntu - but if you want to customise it expect a steep learning curve. If you want games, an easier learning curve and a corporate rip-off choose Windows. Horses for courses I guess - if only I didn’t have bf2.

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