Has anyone tried Ubuntu?

Bosk

Bosk

Make photos, not war.
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Just wondering if anyone here has tried Ubuntu yet, which in case you didn't know is freeware Windows Vista look-alike version of Linux.

It looks pretty amazing - plenty of slick graphical effects - and supposedly can be run direct from a CD without having to be installed first.

I'm thinking of giving it a try but am unsure weather or not I'll be able to get my Coolscan IV running on it.
Sure would be nice to ditch another Microsoft product though! :) (I'm currently running WinXP )
 
currently running.
since i do not use scanners, i cannot comment on that, but linux always has been a do-it-yourself thing, so why don't you just go ahead and report then?
beside this, i can tell that at least feisty fawn has issues with wifi, but that's the only thing i struggle with (and of course the network cable that i now stumble over).
 
Used it. I find it over rated, honestly. Yes, it's pretty but it makes doing the things that Unix is good for extreamly difficult IME. I've decided to stick to Mac OS 10.4.9 for my Unix needs :)

My USB scanner did not work at all & GIMP can not replace CS3... ;)

William
 
My main computer is a Mac running OS X. But on my notebook and my 2nd desktop I use Ubuntu since version 4.04 (April 2004).

On Intel PC's, for me, nothing beats Ubuntu Linux in terms of reliability, stability, speed, cost (free), ease of use (yes indeed) and availability of software "out of the box": all you will ever need is there already, or just a few clicks away (in the huge repository).

To anyone considering buying Vista I would say: first take a look at the alternatives (Mac OS X, and Linux) and compare the three on the qualities I mentioned above. Vista will probably end up as number three on your list.
 
I'm on Dapper Drake, but I'm planning to upgrade to Feisty Fawn when I have the time. For me, it's the Linux distro with the best balance of flexibility and user-friendliness. I'm not a coder, and I need the graphical frontends that Ubuntu comes with. Don't let anyone tell you that Linux can be as user friendly as Windows. It is, however, a lot more secure and stable, which is a different sort of friendliness, I suppose.

Yes it can be run off a CD, but so can other Linux distros, although Ubuntu is, as I mentioned, one of the more user friendly flavours.

If you don't plan on buying a new computer, installing Ubuntu will be a breath of fresh air.

Clarence
 
I admin an Ubuntu server at work (dapper drake).
I love it, however I don't use the gui. I've found it to be
plenty fast and easy to use.
 
I have not used Ubuntu, which is said to be good. I am on another top ranked distribution, PCLinuxOS. Did not contrive to get it to work with two scanners, which is one of the reasons for still having Win 98 as well.
 
Been dual-booting Ubuntu and XP for a good year or two now. I absolutely love Ubuntu, I use it for 90% of the things I do, including photo related things. My film scanner does not work unfortunately so I have to use XP for that. I much prefer linux to windows, and I do not see myself moving to Vista, ever. Windows tends to treat you like an idiot who's never used a computer before in their life, Ubuntu does no such thing - But without meaning that it's hard to use for a newbie. The fact that almost all of the software including the operating system itself is open source and therefore free is the cherry on top.

I don't use Beryl or anything like that, can't see any practical reason for it really.
 
Ubuntu became my favourite distro last year, usualy had SuSE before that.

It just works and Kubuntu with Beryl has a nice 3d desktop, if you need that or have CPU cycles to waste :)
 
I use Ubuntu both at home and at work (managed several Ubuntu installed as servers). I also dual boot Windows XP (comes with it) and Ubuntu on my personal laptop.

What impresses me about Ubuntu is the ability to upgrade the whole installation without having to reinstall from disc. I've upgraded 4 generations (currently on Edgy Eft) of the same installation on my laptop successfully, paying nothing unlike upgrading OS X :) ).

Don't worry, I'm not bashing OS X, I use it at work and it's a joy to use also. But I came from UNIX, so OS X is a joy to use because it is based on BSD UNIX, otherwise it's just a superb eye-candy.

As for scanners, I currently hook up my Microtek USB scanner on Ubuntu and XSane handles the driver and preview software. I also have a Nikon Coolscan, but it's hooked up to my Windows 2000, so I can't tell you exactly whether it'll work on Ubuntu, but a short googling session will tell you whether it will or it'll not, I'm betting on "it will".

As for CS3, try Lightzone which is in the same market as Lightroom and Aperture, but *free* for Linux. I have it installed recently but haven't got a chance to really test it. When I really need the power of Photoshop, I run PS6 on my laptop running Ubuntu using Windows Emulator Wine. So you can sort of have it both ways :p

In short, give it a try, it may stick on you.
 
There are reports of people using the Coolscan IV in Ubuntu with X-Sane and VueScan. I use Ubuntu at work for java application developement.
At home I use a Mac.
 
I tried using Ubuntu a couple of years ago, but I just didn't have the time necessary to really learn how to get the most out of it. It's not that I'm really that technically inept, I work in medicine and have five other computers in my tiny office operating several very technical pieces of medical equipment, it's just that learning to interface Ubuntu and existing hardware takes time, it's not "plug and play". I fully hope to convert to open source for home use in the future, but it won't be until I have enough free time to do it successfully.
 
I'm a loyal Gentoo user and have been for many years, but I keep hearing great things about Ubuntu. I should fire up a VM and see what the fuss is all about...
 
Roger, multimedia aside, Ubuntu is quite easy to install, I have it on various kinds of hardware from modern IBM Blades to a five year old Dell Inspiron Laptop. DVD playback and TV cards are a problem if you don't want to get your hands dirty. Like me, I'm fine with a good old TV and DVD player :)

Derrick, if you use Gentoo you know so much about Linux that you won't need Ubuntu, I'm pretty sure you'll find it boring. To make it even more boring, try one of the appliances from vmware ;)
 
I've used a number of different versions of Linux and UNIX over the years. Ubuntu is OK as a desktop operating system, but its a bit fiddly for those who want to run a server... Having to type sudo in front of every root command is just plain annoying, although you can get around this with a bit of hacking.

SuSE and Fedora Linux are also worth looking at.

All versions of Linux are still struggling with wifi especially if the network is encrypted. One of my linux machines keeps connecting to my neighbour's wifi as his is unencrypted, so it takes the lazy route.

There are quite a few versions of Linux that will run from a CD without touching your hard drive if you want to see what its like. You can also install some versions of Linux and UNIX on a USB memory stick and run it from there. Both of these options will run quite a bit slower than installing on your hard drive. Bear this in mind when trying Linux out... It will run about 10 times faster on a hard drive.

My personal preference is a UNIX-like operating system called OpenBSD. It's not as cool looking as some of the latest versions of Linux and is quite a bit harder to set up. However, its one of the most secure operating systems around and its very fast and reliable. It runs GIMP (like photoshop) and Sane (scanner software), although I don't use my machine for that purpose at the moment. My OpenBSD machine does a number of things including a web server, a file server for the whole household and an MP3 player linked to the hifi. Windows can do all of this, but I refuse to pay £150+++ for Vista when Linux and UNIX are free.

If you want to try Ubuntu, consider Kubuntu. This uses the KDE desktop rather than Gnome. Gnone is more user freindly to the Mac user, KDE will be more familiar to the Windows user.
 
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I have been using ubuntu for around two years now (gentoo and suse before that) and I find it to be by far the best desktop linux distro around.
About wifi-networking, you'll probably run into problems if using wpa encryption, but wep usually works fine.
According to the VueScan homepage, they support coolscan IV, therefore I would guess that SANE supports it too.
If you are seriously thinking about switching to linux, I would advise you to download a ubuntu feisty fawn live cd and run it on your computer to check if all of your hardware works correctly, before installing the whole thing (classic problem-cases are wifi and graphics card).

Best regards
Indriði Einarsson
 
...
According to this, there seems to exist a SANE-backend for coolscan IV. That means it should "simply work" when you plug it in your computer and start some scanner program (almost all of them use the SANE drivers).

Indriði
 
Socke said:
Roger, multimedia aside, Ubuntu is quite easy to install, I have it on various kinds of hardware from modern IBM Blades to a five year old Dell Inspiron Laptop. DVD playback and TV cards are a problem if you don't want to get your hands dirty. Like me, I'm fine with a good old TV and DVD player :)
Click to expand...

Socke, thanks. Perhaps I need to try a newer version than the one I tried back then. It just seemed a little cumbersome for some tasks. But then again, it was probably the things I was trying to do that made it difficult, for example, at the time I had only dial-up and Ubuntu did not support most Winmodem cards, so I had to seek out an external modem and pretty much figure out how to get it going on my own since there didn't seem to be a whole lot of folks in my situation at that time. I managed to install a printer, but learned that, like the modem, if it wasn't powered up before Ubuntu loaded, then Ubuntu didn't know it existed. Little nitpicky things I know, but figuring them out took a fair amount of time, and it seemed that I might have to do that every step of the way so I gave up for the time being.

I have used Featherlinux and Knopix and really liked them.
 
Bosk, your question is about Ubuntu but like several others here I'll stretch it to Linux in general. I've been using SUSE for many years and just upgraded to version 10.2 from 10.0. I've tried a couple of releases of Ubuntu and found them very appealing, and it comes highly recommended from at least one other friend who likes to sample distros (and keeps me well supplied with things to try). I think my preference for SUSE depends on a few factors, some of which won't be of use to you: it deals with some hardware that other distros seem to have a little trouble with (I run a 64-bit Athlon system, so that may be part of the problem); it has a very good administrative utility (YaST); it uses RPMs for package management (though Ubuntu may have an even better system); and finally, I'm familiar with it and know where to find things.

More generally, I use Hamrick Software's VueScan on the Linux machine with my Nikon LS-2000 scanner and have had excellent results. (I've used it with my flatbed scanner as well, an Epson 4990, under Windows, and was able to compare it head-to-head with SilverFast and Epson Scan. I liked the images I got using VueScan best by far, though I'm sure tweaking the settings would enable me to get fine images from any one of the programs.)

SANE ("Scanner Access Now Easy") is the standard Linux scanning software, and I think it can be used as a back-end to other interfaces. I gather it's very capable and it should support the Coolscan well. (I got started with VueScan because it supported an antique film scanner that SANE wouldn't, so I'm not as familiar with SANE.)

If you do go the Linux route, I suspect that other distros might require the same tweak I had to learn to use VueScan under SUSE: Unix and Linux systems have a branch of the file system called "/dev" (for "devices") that contains "files" representing all of the hardware in your system. On my system the device files representing SCSI-attached scanners were unfortunately set so they could not be used by anyone other than the "root" ("superuser") account. (This account is the all-powerful account used to administer a Unix-type system.) So as root I have to issue the following command after each reboot (which fortunately isn't that often with Linux):

chmod 666 /dev/sg*

This changes the mode of the scanner devices to one which allows reading and writing by all users.

The Coolscan IV is a USB scanner, as I remember, so the story may be entirely different for it.

I hope this doesn't scare you off of the Linux route (or Unix -- FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, three descendants of the original Berkeley Unix code, are superb systems). Though I doubt I could get NikonScan to work under Linux, I'm very happy with the setup I've got. I use the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) as a Photoshop substitute and I like it; an alternate interface called GimpShop makes it more Photoshop-like. (You'll find a LOT of "alternate interfaces" available on Linux.)

Other considerations: Ubuntu comes with good support for multimedia; SUSE is a bear to get to support DVD playing, mp3 encoding, etc. Setting up printing will either be a breeze or eternal torture. (Ubuntu recognized my old LaserJet immediately. SUSE has given me a good deal of grief but I've got it set up at last.) It might be good to look into color management capabilities of any system you try. I'm lazy there; I keep the old DeskJet I use for photo printing connected to the Windows machine and print through IrfanView, which works for me. I'm sure there are far more sophisticated solutions. Graphics pros swear by Macs, I gather, though Macs don't do some other things I need (like run the stat software I use in my day job).

As you can probably see by now, this could all be a new adventure for you. But then again you may decide that photography is enough of an adventure without the adventure of system administration!

Good luck...
 
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like2fiddle said:
for example, at the time I had only dial-up and Ubuntu did not support most Winmodem cards, so I had to seek out an external modem and pretty much figure out how to get it going on my own since there didn't seem to be a whole lot of folks in my situation at that time. I managed to install a printer, but learned that, like the modem, if it wasn't powered up before Ubuntu loaded, then Ubuntu didn't know it existed.
Click to expand...

As the name says, winmodems are made for windows. They are more soft- than hardware and are more a function of the soundcard than anything else. Same goes for cheap printers, they rely on windows to do the processing.

It's close to impossible to use those without access to Microsoft tools. Hard to include that in Open Source Software.

The Centrino WiFi Chipset is another example of virtual hardware, most of the processing is done by the main CPU and Intel released programming tools for windows first.

The Open Source comunity cannot touch any windows code with a 5 foot pole, this would lead to a patent suit which can't be won.
So sometimes one has to spend a considerable amount of money to use an OS which is said to be free, but more in the sense of free speach than in free beer :)
 
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