Ubuntu 11.04
For years I’ve wanted to love Linux, even use it. The closet flavour I’ve come to having a passing attraction with is Ubuntu. I started around the time of version 7 and even though it seemed so promising it just seemed so brown and uninteresting and I never used it for more than a couple of days. With the birth of the netbook we got to play with even more versions before Windows XP eventually stole its crown (I even bought my daughter an Acer with a simplified Linux distro). But now apparently it’s all changed with the release of Ubuntu 11.04. So what’s the verdict 6 versions later. I’ve been giving it a whirl.
As already mentioned it’s my long suffering daughters laptop that is getting the update treatment. Mainly because it came with Linux and it’s not a powerhouse by any means (Acer Aspire One ZG5) but Linux always has an incredible could ability of working great on old kit. The other great thing is that there is so much support on the official channels guiding you on how to install the OS on hardware minus an optical drive.
Installation was painless. Booting from the USB drive it automatically picked up the wireless card and my home network which meant that I could set it up to add the latest updates so after the installation I had the newest version. Install time was about 30 minutes but I was obviously aware of the limitations of the hardware I was using.
Post installation all seemed well, especially after disabling the damn wireless keyring protection (remember my audience for this build is only 8 years old). Out of the box everything seemed great. 11.04 is now running the Unity GUI which is a throwback to when Ubuntu had both a separate netbook and desktop flavour but now there is one taste for all which it seems isn’t going down too well with some of the open source community (although you can switch back to Gnome should you wish). Unity brings an OS X and Windows 7 style task launcher to the party which really isn’t a surprise which you can customise with you favourite apps which is especially using considering the age of my audience.
One thing that did surprise me, and I am sure that it’s something that I just missed in previous version is Ubuntu’s own AppStore. When searching for apps in the OS, not only will it show you what you already have pre-installed it will also make suggestions of other apps that can be downloaded. Getting these apps as is as simple as doing it in iOS and the OS X equivalents but with the added advantage that you’re not tied to any user account whatsoever.
In terms of performance considering the limitations of the hardware the OS boots up very quickly indeed and apps such as the browser etc load in next to no time so the addage that Ubuntu breathes life into old kit still holds firm.
The only annoying thing I could find in my initial investigations in the way that Unity deals with scroll bars. For some reason when you have a page or window that needs to be scrolled the bars actually do not appear until you hover over them and even when you do they sit outside the window and look quite messy although I am sure with more use this would become less of any issue.
So all in all not a bad job and definitely the most agreeable release to date. Well worth checking out on a virtual machine or an old piece of kit you’ve got lying around.
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