Now that I have Ubuntu on a computer that I use on a day to day basis, I wanted to see how practical it would be for an inexperienced person to use. In the past, I have mainly used it for Emails and internet browsing as well as playing around with it to see what hardware would or would not work. I have now taken some time to undertake a number of common tasks that most people would expect to be able to carry out on a computer.
The experience with Ubuntu can be described as generally good but, in addition to limitations with hardware driver support, there are some functions that are not easy or straightforward to implement.
First I will repeat its strong points. It is free, easy to install, stable and there are practically no issues with viruses. Ubuntu comes packed with free programs that function well for things like browsing the internet, emails, word processing, spreadsheets and your photos. You can do your internet banking with safety and access your MySpace and Facebook accounts as easily as on Windows or Mac. It now operates with a wide range of hardware including many common printers, scanners, web cams and wireless keyboards/mice and will run on an increasing number of laptops.
Ubuntu has a file system that is similar to the Mac but is set up so that Windows users also have little trouble getting used to it.
I almost forgot, it comes preloaded with a full complement of games as good as what you get with Windows. Furthermore, you have access to a wide variety of programs and, if one does not suit or work, you can install another.
I should also mention that networking has been greatly improved in the latest version. I had no difficulty at all getting on my Windows home network and accessing files in the public folder on my Vista computer.
These things are more than enough to make it ideal to run on a second computer particularly an older model. Ubuntu even has a light weight version called Xubuntu for use on very old computers with low processing power and small amounts of RAM.
However when you venture beyond these basic functions, you start to run into problems that may be difficult for people with limited computer skills to resolve.
As mentioned in my previous post, installing Skype does require some effort and my first attempt to print a label on a CD was not a success. To enable use of Wi-Fi adaptors it is necessary to install a program (Ndiswrapper) that enables use of Windows drivers. Even so, I have not been able to get a D-Link G132 USB Wi-Fi adaptor to work correctly with WPA encryption. My Dvico TV tuner card will not work properly. For some unknown reason it will only pick up a few of the available TV channels.
Initially, ripping a CD was not completely successful. I used the pre-installed ripping program and it worked well enough but, by default, the tracks are ripped to the open source music file .ogg. Most MP3 players including iPods and my old SanDisk M240 do not recognise .ogg files. It is possible to make adjustments to rip CDs as MP3. To do this, you need to install the MP3 package, after which it is easy to rip CDs as MP3s. I then found that extra steps were needed to load the MP3 files onto the SanDisk. The default media player program (Rhythmbox) did not Auto Sync like iTunes and it was necessary to mount the player as a USB storage device and copy and paste the songs. The MP3 files contained the track name but did not include Artist or Album details.
This was not an easy process so I used the “add remove program” function to install another Media player (Banshee Media Player) and it was far superior in performance. It recognised the SanDisk player and supported an Auto Sync function. It has smart playlists but these could not be loaded onto the MP3 player. Once again, the tracks did not include artist or album information and, if you use the “Sync” function, every song in your Music Folder is loaded onto the MP3 player. Therefore, while it is possible to use your MP3 player, it requires some work and most normal computer users would not bother. We have been too spoiled by iTunes and iPods.
Burning a CD also had a small problem. The default program (Brasero) would hang when “normalising” the sound levels but I was able to solve this issue by turning off this function in the Plug Ins. On the other hand it automatically generated an album cover that included a list of the tracks but no Album Art. You have to insert this yourself.
Importing video from a camera is another function that requires far more effort than on commercial operating systems. I don’t own a video camera but I shot a couple of short videos on my Kodak still camera. I could not find a program that would see and import the video and, once again, I had to mount the camera and copy and paste the video. I tried two video editing programs but neither was easy to use and I gave up after some time. Perhaps I’m dumb but I did not want to waste any more time and I suspect that most people would have a similar lack of patience.
People who know their way around computers will have a generally good experience with Ubuntu. A similar good experience would apply for everyone else but only for the basic functions I have mentioned. On the other hand, “normal” computer users would run into obstacles if they expected it to be as easy to use as Windows or Mac across all operations.
But hey it’s free and you can always re-install XP on that old computer if things don’t work out. (Although the act of re- installing XP will be a major pain in the rear compared to the first class experience of installing Ubuntu.)