I have tried many Linux Distros over the years. Up until now I think the champion in terms of ease of use was Mandrake (later Mandriva) but I think we have a new winner in that arena. Ubuntu Linux, a Debian based distribution, was extremely easy and quick to install – from one CD too though of course it required an internet connection to do so

The ease of installation is further helped by a little tool called Automatix. Usually once I install a Linux Distro I then have to go through and install a media player, get the dessktop to work the way I want, install browser plugins, java, codecs etc. I know that some people will point out that you have to do most of these tasks wtih Windows too, however the process with Windows is nowhere near as time consuming in terms of making everything play nice and work together.

Automatix takes the pain out of that – it is basically a sripted install of various helpful applications, plug-ins and configuration options, and it all completes in less tha half an hour (I have an nice fast Cable connection). After that I fired up the package manager (Synaptic) and switched the Kernel to an AMD K7 specific variety. This is not necessary, but I figure why not try to get the most out of the CPU when the change is so easy to make?

This little box (a Shuttle SN41 G2) has run several distributions over the years and even Windows at one point, I think it now has a permanent OS – the minor optimizations possible with Gentoo (the last OS) did not warrant the extra work needed to keep the system up to date. I may begin to use Ubuntu elsewhere also, we shall see.

So, to conclude:

For anyone looking to start out on the Linux frontier though, or indeed any Linux veteran who just doesn’t have the motivation to tweak and tinker just the get the OS to work, Ubuntu is the way to go.

Can’t wait to see what they can do with the next release

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