Linux on the Desktop: Eventual Success

I wrote about trying out Linux (Ubuntu) on the desktop before.  That attempt failed in getting my video card drivers to work properly.  However a few months later,  I got my windows PC infected with a virus ( just by passing by on a website)  and decided that was it.   I installed Ubuntu on my laptop (Dell D630) and have been using it every day since.

My hardware was very well supported,  I had no problems whatsoever, so that was a good start.    Furthermore, it provides me with an environment similar to our webservers and I have most of the tools I used:  jEdit, Photoshop 6.0 (using wine), skype, Firefox, TweetDeck and an SSH client.

There are still a few things though:

– It actually feels slower than Windows, especially Firefox (probably more optimization as gone into the Windows version as it is more wide-spread)
– Keyboard shortcuts are not very well standardized, so I find myself using the mouse  way to often
– There are some GUI things I’d like to be much simpler (like  enabling/disabling an external monitor)

All together I’m quite happy I made the switch.  I tried it many times before over the last 14 years ( I have a book and disks from 1996), but only now it has really became a viable alternative.

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