Going with Ubuntu full time

Recently I've been using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS for my main laptop, switching from Windows Ultimate 7. In the past I had Linux installed on either a old laptop or a part time computer but now I'm working with Linux on a main computer. The easy part is finding how well Ubuntu installs, with drivers, the only part that needed installing a separate driver was the Nvidia video card.

Other than the driver, the rest of the applications were installed, Open Office, VirtualBox, Gwibber, and a few extras that are also available on Windows. I also used DropBox to keep my other workstations updated with the same files from Windows to Linux, the application alone makes the transition so much easier.

But after getting everything I needed from Linux, there was some problems. One of the issues is Microsoft Office and working with Open Office formats. If you open a Microsoft Office Word document 2007 DOCX format file in Open Office the formatting is not 100% correct, and vice versa a Open Office ODT format file will not open correctly in Microsoft Office. I tested this out at home but didn't notice any issues until I started to send out documents to other users that I saw many people having difficulties opening the files.

Another issue is formatting with certain browsers or applications only available for Windows. One of my favorite web applications is watching Netflix, which streams the video using Microsoft's Silverlight. As far as I know, there is no official alternative for Silverlight on Linux, but you can use Mono as a possible solution. I have not tried this so I can not speak on the reliability of this solution.

The formatting issue is not really a problem on Linux but a problem of people using either ASP or Internet Explorer specific formatting versus formatting for non-IE browsers. While the percentage of web sites that have issues is going down, there's still that strange website that will always have problems. Also for the Linux users who need VPN access, most cases VPN clients are for Windows users. I got around this issue but running a Windows XP virtual machine in VirtualBox, it's not really a solution rather a work around. The same work around I recommend to Mac users who wanted VPN access using their Mac hardware.

Other than the strange site or special application, my Ubuntu machine has been working excellent and funny that even the control buttons on the Asus laptop that did not work with Windows 7 work with Ubuntu. So far, running all of my favorite applications including my new favorite Docky for the desktop and the transition has been very seamless.

It's really impressive how much Linux and Ubuntu have come along, with the recent change of Internet Explorer loosing the top spot for browser this might allow even more adaptation of Linux to work further.

Rob