If after installing a new operating system on my computer I lost all audio and had to endure a bug which resulted in a persistent pop-up window, I would not normally be writing a glowing review of that OS.
I am for Ubuntu 9.04, code named “Jaunty Jackalope”.
Those things did happen to me when I upgraded from Ubuntu 8.10 to Ubuntu 9.04. It took me several days reading all sorts of cryptic crap on several sites to fix the afforementioned problems.
However, I have no regrets.
I have seen two “taking it to the next level” end user spectacles with computers. The first was the slickness of Windows 95 when it first came out. The next was seeing my friend plugging in somebody else’s video camera into his Mac laptop and having playback instantly work.
Now, the third.
Ubuntu 9.04 boots in 15 seconds on my computer.
You read that right, 15 seconds. Fifteen seconds from the time I turn my computer on until I am prompted for my password.
After more than a decade of enduring agonizingly long computer start up times this is truly an amazing innovation.
The bugs I experienced aren’t guaranteed for everyone. If you are comfortable with futzing you can fix these bugs yourself with only a modicum of pain. I highly encourage you to try out the latest Ubuntu. The lightening fast boot-up time is amazing.
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You know my feelings about Ubuntu….
Windows on my laptop starts up in 5-10 seconds; I always “hibernate” instead of shutting down, so I don’t have to mess with booting up.
15 seconds from a COLD start. You aren’t going to get that on windows. I have XP pro at work. I usually go have a short conversation when I reboot.
I know, I wasn’t saying different. It’s only 42 for a cold start with XP on the netbook I use (which has a slow processor). On my other laptop, it’s around 25… which isn’t too bad. I wouldn’t call it a conversation.
Buuut with hibernate it’s no time at all, so it’s not really anything to care about.
At my new job, they gave me a laptop that seemed much faster than my previous work desktop, despite having 2 cores instead of 4, and slower cores at that. But i booted it at home, and noticed something missing – the noise. SSDs have no moving parts. It feels faster all the time because when backups happen SSDs are faster, so there’s no problem. I hardly ever run anything that is CPU intensive at work. Even Windows 10 boots in a reasonable amount of time. MS Word ran OK on a 1 MIPS machine in 1989.
I don’t recall any particular issues upgrading to Jaunty. My desktop is a semi 2010 vintage bucket of scraps that is upgraded in various ways from time to time. It didn’t have as much CPU speed, CPU cooling, RAM or disk, or a supercomputer (3 TFLOPS supporting multiple 4k HDMI video) at the start. Same axe, except the handle and the blade. In 2010, i was still buying parts only after checking Linux compatibility.
In 1992, Linux didn’t have shared libraries. You compile something, got it to work, and you were done forever, even if you upgraded the kernel. I had a 386 that had over 430 days of uptime. I had to shut it down because i was moving to another state. When i mentioned it, i was asked how i went that long without doing an upgrade. Uhm. I added a SCSI scanner, a web cam, and all sorts of software – even upgraded the kernel with loadable modules. Why on Earth would i reboot? But that’s been fixed, upgrades are forced marched every 3 years, and you must get all new software, and you must like it, meaning learn how to use it all over, and figure out the new workarounds. Feels like Windows, though it’s cheaper, and frequently the new software does something new for you. However, MS Word recently corrected my grammar, and i’d been doing it wrong my entire life. I’ve been using MS Word since before 1989, and it never did that before.