Gablar's Journal: my first linux experience

Well here I go, the first time for two things that I've been curious abaut. Linux and to lesser degree the slashdot journal feature. I've been interested in the software world for a while, and slashdot is my main source of acknowledge gathering . In a place like slashdot I have become used to the idea tha linux is somehow better than windows, and since I'm taking my first software courses next semester, I thought I start getting used to Linux. Reading around slashdot I got the opinion that ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/ was a good place to start.

To be honest, I don't particulary liked the download page(way to many options), but it had good balance between ease of use and information availability. But as soon as it is downloaded and burnt to a CD I noticed a big difference with windows. It's actually really easy to get it up and running with just the cd. It din't change anyting that I could notice on my windows installation, and I'm using it right now. Lets get to the interesting part, I'm really itchy to talk about it.

As soon as the desktop loaded I notice a diference. I instinctivly looked at the bottom left hand corner and noticed the big start button missing. Instead I noticed that in Ubuntu you are not immediatly led to believe that the OS is the center of the computer. Once the desktop loads, I started using the computer, so there is no need for the OS to suggest what software I should begin using first. This OS abstain from suggesting software. Instead the aplications I've loooked for, are placed very cleverly and relativly aptly named. The Internet Browser and the e-mail app are the only applications that have a distinctive place. Good thing too, the first thing I reached for was firefox, to conect to the web, which Ubuntu did flawlessly.

Ubuntu's interface is really neat. There is very little clutter, and there are some cool things that windows don't have. The first one I discovered while typing this entry was the workspace system. It is extremely cool and efficient way to organiza the work place. While I was typing this in open office, I was searching the net, for information on HTML formating. When I do this using windows I usually run into the problem of my navigation bar gettig full of all the applications that are runing, but I'm not necesarily using. with the workplace system I can keep my current work(activity) hidden enough so it doesnt interfere with my current work, but accesible enough for easy switching between tasks