Coming to you live from Linux

Ubuntu Dapper Drake to be precise. Over this last week I’ve been in Linux just about as much as windows, actually. As i have no room for a Linux partition on my primary harddrive, I’m running it on an external USB drive. I think i’ve posted about his previously elsewhere. But I now have it in an upgraded, fully usable state. Previously it was more of a toy, and lots of stuff (Firefox plugins, customizations, etc.) wasn’t in place. But it’s now much more “me.”
I also was able to get my brother on linux (albeit on M$ Virtual PC). He’s running Xubuntu (uses the XFCE desktop environment instead of GNOME). I still find it quite oxymoronic (is that a word?) to run linux using a Window$ program. Anyway, I thought since i was using linux “so much” this week, i should at least make a post using it.

Customizations i’ve made to the default install include (but are not limited too)…

• Firefox 2 (not in the dapper repositories yet)
• Automatix – nice installer for lots of common plugins (flash, quicktime), apps (gFTP, Gaim beta 3, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Bluefish and much more), codecs, etc. that make Ubuntu much more friendly to my everyday use.
• xorg.conf customization for Thinkpad scrolling
• Copy of file browser running as root
• Standard Firefox and Thunderbird icons (not the ubuntu versions)
• msttfcorefonts (Verdana, Trebuchet MS, Arial, Tahoma, ect [since almost every website we’ve created uses at least one of those)
• other tweaks such as theme, screensaver, fonts, wallpaper, etc, to give it “my” touch

Before i sign off, i suppose i should register at least one complaint, and others have mentioned it before… If linux is ever going to go mainstream, linux support is going to have to stop referring users to the terminal. I personally like using it, but my brother dislikes it a good deal. Eh, as a designer, he just wants a Mac, anyway.

Current System specs:
Thinkpad R40 2723
80GB Western Digital external USB hard drive
1.3 GHz Centrino processor
Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06 (I’d upgrade to Edgy, but it seems to have been giving too many users problems)