New Ubuntu on the way!

[Lucas]

Hey CMN.

Just thought I'd let you know that the newest release of Ubuntu is on the way.

There's a few new features I'd like to point out.

Wubi

There is a new installation option for Windows users. Wubi allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application. It does not require a dedicated partition, nor does it affect the existing bootloader, yet users can experience a dual-boot setup almost identical to a full installation. Wubi works with a physical CD or in stand-alone mode, by downloading an appropriate ISO to install from. It can be found on the root of the CD as Wubi.exe. A full installation within a dedicated partition is still recommended, but Wubi is a great way to try Ubuntu for a few days and weeks before committing dedicated disk resources.



umenu

WinFOSS and the Windows open source software have been replaced by umenu, a simple launcher that lets the user install Ubuntu from Windows using Wubi, install Ubuntu to a partition without having to make their CD-ROM the first boot device, and find out more about Ubuntu at the www.ubuntu.com website.





<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.ubuntu.com/files/countdown/display.js"></script>
Credit for portions of this post goes to the Ubuntu community.

I personally will be dual booting XP Pro and Ubuntu, the only reason I'm still using XP is my Adobe Suite, Steam, and SSP.

Take care

[cjlowe]

So in other words, everything you use...

[tedanderson]

I hope that this version will work on some of the older PC's that I have. I had to go down to version 6 before I could successfully install it.

[Creonus]

Hummm... an name like that is gonna confuse alot of Chinese writers.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by cjlowe

So in other words, everything you use...

Almost, there's a few things I use that are cross platform.

I'm gonna experiment with running windows apps in Ubuntu

[cjlowe]

What, with wine?

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by cjlowe

What, with wine?

Yeah, with wine

[cjlowe]

wine is ok, Crossover Office is better. wine's free though.

[shayward]

I've been curious about Linux for a long time - I'm exclusively working with the Windows platform.

But I'm doing some PHP and Drupal (limited to what some of you guys here are doing) but maybe being able to install it this easily may give me the push I need to have a go at it.

[Tony Kanago]

I almost despise Ubuntu, to be honest. While it's nice to bring Linux to the masses, it's corrupted a great portion of the community; Ubuntu allows more people to work with and contribute to Linux, but the majority of the contribution are creative in nature. There is little motive now to get into the real core of Linux like there was more commonly in the past. While it's great that overall market penetration of Linux is somewhat higher, it's detracted from so many of what used to be great in the overall Linux community

Shay, a good place for you to start would likely be with a Linux virtual machine on your Windows desktop. I never recommend people go through all the hassles of a real install when what they're after is a little bit of operating system experience; as nice as the Windows-based installers can make things, there's still a greater potential for installation mishap than a Windows or Mac install. Countless times have I been called and heard troubles from people getting the bleeding 7s- an error in a bootloader from a Linux install giving the user a flood of 7's repeated on their screen.

Shay, what I think would most interest you from the start is the Mono runtime (or DOTGnu, a similar project.) The aim is to create a runtime that gives Linux users (nearly) the full power of the .NET framework. Mono Olive even gives you the power of .Net 3.0 and 3.5 (LINQ is my girlfriend, thanks.) Right now I'm actually working on a game development project, specifically creating a Linux daemon to handle statistics data from gameservers run across the world. For programmatic ease, C#/.NET 3.5 was the best. I wrote it using Visual Studio 2008, spent a few minutes dealing with the youth troubles of Mono Olive, got it to build, and now it runs nearly as fast as the same daemon I wrote in C (taking much more time to write, mind you, with a bigger likelihood of long-term memory leak build-ups.)

With GTK+ and Mono, you can do your usual Windows programming on Linux with ease. Reason enough to play? You bet.

[cjlowe]

Er, by "core of linux", do you mean the kernel? Last I checked that was still under fairly active maintenance.

[Tony Kanago]

By the core of Linux, I mean the whole of what makes it. By definition, Linux is ONLY the kernel. Everything else is just associated software. I mean all of this. I'm not saying that contribution has diminished, but rather the focus that made the community so great is slowly shifting toward the creative side. It's great to have a powerful desktop product out there, but it only saddens me that a greater percentage of the excitement toward Linux is now directed solely at Ubuntu. Why is one distribution becoming, in itself, Linux to the majority of this new community? I understand how and why, but it's a little off target.