Further on my Linux journey: Ubuntu on a laptop

First, I decided to switch to Linux. I have to tell you: I’m so glad I did. It’s not just the sheer relief from the knowledge that I’m not being monitored by Microsoft or carefully controlled by Apple. I’ll admit, that’s probably the biggest advantage to Linux for me. But I really, truly find Linux Ubuntu (that’s the distro I’m using) running the Gnome desktop environment (this is actually the thing that has 80% of the “look-and-feel” we associate with operating systems) to be significantly easier to use (and faster, and less frustrating). Of course, we’re all different and your mileage may vary.

But after having used it some more, and having also installed another distro, I’m not sure Linux is quite ready for grandma yet—not unless she’s rather technical, is eager to commit a fair bit of new stuff to memory, or has easy and quick sources of help. I do stand by my claim that Linux is ready for prime time, but only if you use one of the more user-friendly distros. If you’re a “power user,” i.e., if you are not necessarily a programmer but do know your way around a computer pretty well, if following technical instructions to solve problems doesn’t bother you too much, then you should really seriously consider trying out Mint or Ubuntu. The cool thing is that you can try it out before you take the leap, either with a live boot (i.e., it lives on a thumb drive; this is probably easier) or a virtual machine.

Then when I went on some trips and a month ago I had a serious moment of disgust with my Apple laptop. I mean, ugh, there were so many things I have come to dislike about the Apple scene, but after enjoying daily life with Ubuntu, when I switched to Apple while on the road, I just could not get over how damned clunky the thing is. It looks pretty and costs too much, but god, so much about it is, in the vernacular of my teen years, totally bogus.

So then I decided, OK, I’m going to dual boot on my MacBook Pro, too, i.e., run both OS X and Linux on the same machine, in different partitions. I had it narrowed down to distros like Arch, Manjaro, and openSUSE; I wanted to try something that wasn’t Ubuntu, just for the experience.

Well, last week, I finally bit the bullet and put Manjaro on the machine. (This time I insisted on doing most of the hard work, instead of leaving it to my 12-year-old son, who has been using Linux daily for longer than I have.) Installing wasn’t that hard, actually; it really wasn’t significantly harder than installing Ubuntu. While most things worked, I ran into a series of problems I won’t bore you with; suffice it to say that I ended up installing Manjaro twice and rebooted it endless times while trying different drivers and Grub parameters and stuff. I worked very diligently until an experienced Linux user told me that I shouldn’t even try to put any Linux distro on a new MacBook (mine is from 2018) because so many of the device drivers are simply unsupported. That was a huge let-down. Even my Linux geek son couldn’t figure out the issues. I told my wife I’d just sell it, but she said to give it to the boys since the old laptop they’re sharing (another old one of mine) has a screen that often didn’t work properly.

By then, I had also decided I didn’t like Manjaro much (or maybe it was the XFCE desktop environment). In any event, I had enough hours on Manjaro to have learned that mastering two different flavors of Linux at once was going to be a serious pain without any compensatory advantage.

So I ended up shopping around and getting a decent Windows machine, a Samsung Notepad 9, and did a clean install (i.e., wiped Windows entirely) of Ubuntu again. I mean, if I’m going to learn Linux properly, might as well do it completely in one distro before branching out too much. The installation process was pretty painless—seriously, so much easier and more pleasant than setting up a new Windows machine.

So now I’m 100% Linux (and 100% Ubuntu with Gnome), and I’m not looking back. I’m so done with Windows and Mac. Now I’m just looking forward to implementing yet more ways to lock down my cyber-life.

(Wait…100% except for my phone and tablet. At present there is no non-heroic way to own a Linux phone, but I’m still keeping an eye on the Purism Librem 5 and might well take the plunge…)


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Please do dive in (politely). I want your reactions!

10 responses to “Further on my Linux journey: Ubuntu on a laptop”

  1. Welcome to the fold, Larry! I still use the Chromebook I bought to produce the Infobitt podcast. Crouton rocks. No need for Grub.

  2. Larry, I pretty much came to the same conclusion; Ubuntu works well on a wide variety of devices, is pretty solid, easy to use, and is well-documented, so I’ve stuck with that for everything. As for your cell phone, there is always F-Droid, which is going to be my next move once I’m hosting my own e-mail.

    1. Once again, great minds think alike.

  3. Dan Avlis

    Welcome, Larry. You’re the second online writer (that I’ve read about) who’s switched to Linux. Jason Evangelho at Forbes switched about half a year ago when the Windows 10 upgrades kept critically disrupting his work. He took the dive, wiped Windows and almost fell out of his seat when he installed Ubuntu on his XPS13 in 4 minutes. Since then, he has been singing the praises of Linux, trying different distros, writing reviews, promoting it and now actually actively involved in helping others to make the switch. He writes about and reviews games and, though he admits Windows still holds the crown for the number of games, he is continually testing and reviewing Linux gaming. Steam and Proton have brought thousands of Windows games to Linux.

    As for grandmas (and grandpas), I have read about how many more advanced computer users installed Ubuntu / Mint on their parents’ computers because they got fed up with the number of calls for help for Windows. Since installing Linux on the machines, the calls became few and far between. The explanation was grandmas and grandpas use their computers for basic things like e-mail, social media, watching video online and documents (e.g. recipes). Their parents report back how much they love the “new Windows”. No complicated tech knowledge needed to do these — just fire up the browser or word processor.

    I’m a retired teacher. I volunteered after retirement and installed Xubuntu 14.04 (still running this version) in several PCs in the school library’s network. Students don’t need help browsing the Internet, watching streamed video and doing assignments using Libreoffice. I’ve been away for 3 years and return only occasionally. I have received only one call for help from the IT technician who wasn’t familiar with Kodi. It was a Kodi database problem and the distro was fine. This was two years ago. No calls since then.

    Yes, Larry, it will be quite a journey — a fascinating and educational one. Enjoy.

    1. Interesting that you describe me as an “online writer,” which isn’t wrong, but if I’m going to be honest, I should say that I did find it much easier to get into Linux after studying programming as I’ve been doing (part time) since summer of 2016. My Linux story actually started in 2001 or 2002 or so when I first installed Red Hat, and then in a virtual machine from 2016. But I didn’t get into full time all the time until just a couple months ago. So much better than it was in 2002! Yes, it’s not just comparable, it’s better than Windows (and Mac)! But there are those times when you actually do have to get on the command line to install something, and I do worry that that would drive away a lot of people. I do totally get that idea that the grandfolks find Mint or Ubuntu really easy to use, because for basic computer usage stuff, it really is! It’s easier than either Windows or Mac for the basic stuff! Wow, no calls for help in years, that’s great.

      You remind me of an old friend of mine I met again recently. She’s also a teacher, and she’s also been installing Linux on her school’s systems. She’s an amateur programmer at best, just enough to teach basic computer stuff to the students, but she’s been using Linux for years, like you.

  4. Regarding Linux for the “ordinary” computer user. One big difference is that you cannot (almost) buy a Linux computer. You must start with something else installed and add or convert the machine. And I mean, most ordinary users don’t install eg Windows either. I am somewhat surprised and definitely sad it is so difficult to buy a Linux computer. From my Swedish horizon; I have noted it is possible to buy a few Dell laptop versions with Ubuntu. I have also seen a few small PC stores that sell it, but it’s more the entusiasts who go to those stores. Ok, I know it is possible to buy on internet from abroad, which add some more possibilities – but not really attractive for everyone to buy from abroad if something goes wrong, and also additional cost. And if buying a laptop from abroad, it is difficult to get one with keyboard for the native language. It would be great to have more fresh Linux machines to buy on the market.

    I have also understood in my Linux journey, it can be tricky to update firmware (eg BIOS) from Linux, it’s built for update with Windows – there are tricks to do it from Linux but not user friendly.

    Finally, when I talk about Linux distros above, I actually excluded one; Chrome OS. I believe you did it too. Although for all I understand it indeed is a Linux kernel distro.

    1. It is certainly annoying that those Linux machines that are for sale online tend to be more expensive, not less. I considered buying a Purism Librem 13 but decided I could get more machine for much less money and simply install and configure Linux on a Windows machine myself. The only difficulty is that the keyboard backlighting and a few of the function keys don’t work, but that’s it. I vaguely recall one maker in Scandinavia (maybe?) and definitely one in Germany.

      Installing (especially a clean install, wiping Windows) Linux on a Windows machine isn’t that hard. There are lots of detailed instructions and a huge amount of support if you stick to Ubuntu, Mint, or a few others.

      Is Chrome OS really still Linux after all the changes they’ve made? It certainly isn’t usually considered Linux, any more than OS X is considered BSD. They might be built-on-top-of, but that doesn’t mean they’re still varieties of their parent systems.

  5. RitaCeleste

    My mother-inlaw is older and did not go online until her husband died. This is the second time she allowed people into her computer and had her accounts compromised. I am putting her on Ubuntu to protect her from bad people taking advantage her. She was paying people to clean her computer and they betrayed her and billed her for it. When my mom is widowed and needs to go online, I’ll set her up on Ubuntu too. I will set it up and hide the terminal and there will be no problems until its time to update it years later. I use some programs that keep me chained to Windows and Windows 10 is not bad. For the grands its going to be Google or linux.

    1. I think it’s a good idea to install Ubuntu (or some other easy-to-use Linux distro) for her. Just be ready to step in with tech support if anything does turn out to require the command line.

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