Test Driving Hardy Heron with Wubi

I felt like unwinding with a technical challenge, yesterday evening. And what could be more fun than screwing around with a new operating system?

Well, since I couldn't do any of those things you just thought of, the operating system was the way to go.

I've been dying to try out Ubuntu Linux on a fully powered desktop, but since auto repair costs have been eating up all my computer-building money I haven't had the opportunity.

I could have partitioned the hard drive on Donna's one-year-old Dell and set up Ubuntu on that. But partitioning a hard drive is a bit like giving birth: you might get a new operating system out of it, but there's lots of groaning and screaming, and once in a while, somebody dies. I wasn't willing to repartition my wife's hard drive and run the risk of wiping out all of her stuff. (Unlike regular birth, hard-drive partitioning usually leads to the death of the husband.)

But I'd read that Ubuntu's latest release, "Hardy Heron," uses a program called "Wubi" that will install Ubuntu alongside Windows without partitioning the hard drive. This is a tremendous improvement, and it will doubtless bring Linux into the homes of millions like me: soft-core geeks who like messing around with technology and like the idea of open source, but who don't have the patience to compile a kernel from scratch--or risk partitioning their hard drives.

The install was immediate and painless. I downloaded and burned a disk image of the Hardy Heron release, but when I went to install it I learned that wasn't even necessary--Wubi will even handle the download and installation for you! I'd already burned the CD, though, so I used that, rather than download it all again.  Wubi asked me how much of the hard drive I wanted to devote to the install. The core files are going to take 5 GB whatever you do, but you can specify how much space you want to reserve in your partition-that's-not-a-partition for the OS, additional programs, and all your data. I set aside 15 GB, figuring I wasn't going to be storing lots of big media here.  I pulled out a novel and let it go to work, remembering long laborious Windows installs of yore.

Ubuntu was installed and functioning in 10 minutes.

This is remarkable, given the amount of configuring you used to have to do to get a Linux system to work. I expected big problems with detecting USB drives and CD/DVD burners, but they were detected by the system right away. Even our wireless Microsoft brand keyboard and mouse worked without a hiccup.

Now when I re-boot the machine, I'm given the option to use Windows or Ubuntu. If I press nothing for ten seconds it goes to Windows, like it used to--so maybe Donna won't even notice that I've been messing with her computer. When I select Ubuntu I pop into that OS just as if I'd split the drive with a 15 GB partition.  After working in Windows XP (and especially after working in Windows Vista), Ubuntu seems preternaturally fast and responsive.

When I'm in Ubuntu, I can't see the Windows files that share the disk with it, but when I switch over to Windows I can track down the Ubuntu files--and I can remove the whole installation from the Add/Remove programs dialog, just like any other program, when I'm through with it.

I understand that this type of installation--without a dedicated partition--slows down disk performance some, but it's not really noticeable.  All the standard open-source office and graphics programs are there already.  I didn't notice anything ground-breaking, or anything I couldn't necessarily do with my Linux-powered Asus, but all the good stuff was there and I was ready to go hunting for more.

A couple of disappointments, now.

All the flashy graphics effects I've seen featured in Linux magazines don't seem to happen here. I expected a big rotating cube and animated program switching. Not that I wanted it, so much as I wanted to know I could have it, if I ever did want it. I know we've got the processing power and the graphics card to handle them, so it must be a driver issue. Clicking the radio button to turn these effects on returns the error message, "Advanced graphics effects are disabled in this system." I'm sure with some research and a couple of downloads I could flashify the system by 200% or so, but...

The big deal-breaker for me right now is the wireless networking. Ubuntu doesn't seem to recognize our wireless card. I went to the vendor's website and found a Linux driver, downloaded that, and tried to make sense of the installation instructions by crossing my fingers and cutting and pasting commands into a terminal window. (Hey, at least if I screw up my installation at this point I've only lost 20 minutes of work.) All it returned me were cryptic error messages. So a bit more googling turns up some program called Ndiswrapper which works, through some arcane process, by converting a wireless networking card's Windows driver into something Linux can use.

The walkthroughs for this process are all several pages long and beyond my capacity--or at least too much for an evening's light entertainment. And from the comments other Linux users leave beneath these walkthroughs, I'm not alone. "I've try this every time a new tutorial comes out and still no joy," one user wrote.

Because we share our internet connection with a neighbor (legitimately, I might add--we pay half) we don't have access to the router or a wired connection. So for this Linux install--no internet. (That might be a good thing. I might get more work done if I wasn't distracted by email and youtube videos every time I sat down to write something.) But connecting to repositories of free software is one of the great joys of Linux use, so it's discouraging.

And it seems kind of ironic that, using the Wubi installer, you can download and install an entire operating system, wirelessly--but that once you boot into that OS you're completely cut off. If only operating systems could understand irony.

Hey--maybe that could be a feature of the next release. We've had Feisty Fawn, Gutsy Gibbon, Hardy Heron. Get your hard drives ready for 9.0: Ironic Iguana!

So anyway, if you have a computer with a wired internet connection and have been wanting to try out Linux, give the Hardy Heron Ubuntu distribution a try. It comes bundled with all the usual open-source office, graphics, and internet applications, it'll do everything 95% of the population needs to do, and you don't ever have to run anti virus software or spy-sweepers or spend hours deleting vendor ware. The other 5% of users will be able to hook up to repositories and get whatever else they need for whatever else it is they want to do. As always with Linux, you can't beat the price. And the install was mind-bogglingly simple--a hell of a lot easier than downgrading this computer from Vista to XP, for example.

It's getting to the point where, I fear, having Linux on your PC won't even make you cool any more.

Unless you can get the wireless networking to work, in which case you are cold as ice.

Comments

[Rebecca]

Why don't you just get a second hard drive? That would save you doing the faux-partition thing. And maybe they have a small enough distro to put on a jump drive/ flash stick. Since you're just playing...

[jolla]

I decide to test out Windows 7 ( this version http://file.sh/Windows+7+Build+6956+torrent.html ) for experiment. It's good OS.