Last week, my Windows 7 hard drive finally blew out. My first instinct was to just simply go out and replace the hard drive. As I thought about it, I have 3x 500GB hard drives between my two systems. I don’t use the 1.5TB of data, so why spend money on a new drive? I convinced myself to spare our (student) poor bank account, and rebuild my system on the existing 500GB drive. The thought of trying to resize filesystems around and play games with the disk partitions wasn’t my idea of fun. So I decided to back up my data, and reinstall from scratch. And since I’m building from scratch, I thought it was about time to introduce Ubuntu to my desktop.
Since I’ve been running Fedora on my desktop and laptop since Fedora Core 5 or 6, I haven’t ever felt comfortable moving away from Fedora to Ubuntu. The new OS learning curve was a little more than I was willing to put into it. I have been dual booting Fedora with Windows for just as long. I never bought into Vista, so I ran XP all the way until I received a free copy of Windows 7 from MSDNAA as a result of my enrolment in at UVU, shortly before the Windows 7 was released to the market. All things considered, I decided to install all 3 Operating Systems. The experience has been enlightening.
I have a home server that is configured to offer Network based installs that I really haven’t had much opportunity to leverage. This week, I added Windows 7 64-bit, and resolved some issues with my mirror of Ubuntu so I could install Maverick. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to be able to re-build my system with out having to go the old archaic route of burning DVDs that become obsoleted an hour after they’ve been burned. This is also the first time I’ve installed an Operating System on my desktop straight onto the bare metal since somewhere around Fedora 8 or 9, when I discovered VirtualBox.
I decided that to avoid having to resolve boot loader issues after the fact, that I would install Windows 7 first, Fedora second, and Ubuntu last. Ubuntu comes packaged with a grub configuration tool that will scan hard disks, and determine what OS is installed, and configure grub to allow you to boot into that OS. So I’m putting it to the test.
The installation experience was pretty different between the 3. I’ve done enough installs of all three to know the difference between a DVD install that most people will experience, and the Network based installs that I did. Most of the difference is in how you boot from the installation Media, and choose where the installation media is located. The rest is pretty much exactly the same.
Windows 7 asks you to answer “Yes” to a few questions like the EULA, then it presents the Disk Partitioning tool. Once you’ve partitioned the disk manually, or let it partition it for you, the installation is essentially done. Come back 15-30 minutes later, and you’ve got your new bare-bones, out-dated system ready to use. An hour of installing updates, browsing around to find the software I want to install, and the system was complete.
Fedora’s installer is pretty much the same up until you’ve partitioned the disk. The software selection tools are presented, and they allow you to really customize your system. Pick your software, and 5-10 minutes later, you’ve got your new bare-bones, out-dated system ready to use. An hour of updates, browsing around to add repositories with software like video card drivers, and the system was complete.
I think it would be fair to say that the install and set up experience between Fedora 13 and Window 7 were pretty similar. The major differences were in aquiring software. My nVidia drivers were automatically detected and setup with Windows Update, but I had to browse to RPMFusion on Fedora 13 and add their repository, and then specifically choose the software. If I didn’t know what to look for, it wouldn’t have been a smooth experience. I had to download Firefox separately on Windows, but it was default on Fedora. I have a personal bias against Windows Media Player on Windows, so I downloaded and installed Media Player Classic almost immediately. Once I got the DirectX 9 runtime issues resolved, MPC has been running smoothly. Flash is annoying because there are two versions. The ActiveX version, and the Plugin version. Firefox uses the Plugin, and Hulu Desktop uses the ActiveX version. Both, however, prompt you to install the correct version when you try to use them. On Fedora, you have to know where to look to be able to enable flash on your system. Hulu Desktop 64bit did not detect flash when setup this way, but the 32bit found the non-wrapped plugin. Both versions run full-screen fairly well, if I manually set CPU scaling to “Performance”. I think I’ll give the NSPlugin Wrapper version a shot first. The last thing is that Windows 7 automatically creates your first user as an Administrator, and prompts you to click “Yes” for administrative tasks. On Fedora 13, it asks for the root password for the same sorts of administrative tasks. I would suggest installing the accountsdialog package on Fedora to configure users as Desktop Administrators, as well as Auto-logins. I like to setup my desktop to auto-login for the time being. It saves on boot time.
Now, Ubuntu was a totally different story. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to get the Graphical installer to work via a network install. However, the text based installer, while it asks a LOT of questions, was pretty straight forward. I was able to install to the correct partition with out any issues. Once I got through the 3rd progress bar that took 5 minutes, the system was finally installed. It took much more babysitting than Windows 7 or Fedora. However, the post-install experience has won my heart. Before I can get my bearings on where the software installer tools are, I get a pop up informing me that there are better drivers for my Video card. It warns me that the software is not open-source, and that the software is maintained by a 3rd party, meaning nVidia. Cool! Then installing Flash was a snap from the Add-Remove software tool. I noticed that it pulls nspluginwrapper down as a dependency as well. The only thing I had to go outside of “Ubuntu tools” to get installed was Hulu Desktop, which detected and used the nspluginwrapper version just fine. All administrative tasks prompted for my user password, instead of the root user password. I know from experience that Ubuntu configures the root user to be password-less, and that users are encouraged to use password protected tools to escalate their privileges. The root user can be configured to have a password if you need it. I completely agree with this philosophy.
I think I could happily make the argument that a properly installed Ubuntu system is MUCH more user friendly than Windows ever has been. New users to Ubuntu who can get used to downloading and installing software from the Add-Remove software tools in Ubuntu, instead of browsing the internet and downloading the software installer themselves will find the Desktop experience to be rich, smooth, and easy to use. I’m sure I’ll be back with more differences on the actual usage experience.