My Ubuntu Status January, 2009

I started this blog in 2006 and after 2+ years I am still blogging about this thing called Ubuntu. So many things have happened in my personal life and I've managed to have 9 more other blogs about things very much not Ubuntu or Open Source. I still feel like a newbie but I guess that's what keeps me yearning for more. I guess that if anyone assumes that he or she knows everything there is to know about something, that person is a fool. Wisdom after all is knowing that you know not everything.

I haven't used Debian for quite some time now, essentially because of the sheer amount of interest of other people in Ubuntu. Which I equate with the formula: 

More Interest = More New Applications = More Stuff You Can Do = More Features = More Fun!

I am sure the Debian people would disagree, my response to them would be - to each his own. The wonderful world of Linux is so diverse that everybody has his or her own place. There are the Ubuntu Christians, Ubuntu Gnomes, Ubuntu KDEs, Ubuntu XFCE's, Edubuntus, Enlightened Ubuntus, Gobuntus, Ubuntu Muslims, and even Ubuntu Satanists.

I beg to differ when people say that Ubuntu is a Newbie distribution. Well, in practice it is, but in principle, I believe that it is the best embodiment so far of what Open Source Software and Freedom is all about. The possibilities of Ubuntu emerging from the future ashes of the empire called Microsoft is very high. I am not saying this out of fanaticism, but out of pragmatic considerations. People will realize on their own, that Microsoft is no longer offering anything of value which deserves its value.

I haven't tried any other Linux distributions aside from Sidux, Debian, Arch, and the Play DVD thing, but I will be firm in my opinion that Ubuntu has the best community, the best infrastructure, and the best revenue model.

The revenue model is important because like it or not - (Personally I do not like it too) money is what drives people to do what they do.

Me as an Ubuntu User

I still have problems with the present set of Office applications available to Ubuntu/Linux. Open Office has to do something breathtaking or ground breaking because until they do they stand on shaky ground. Nobody wants to use slow and bloated software.

I have finally drifted over to IceWm as my primary Desktop Environment - or window manager. I no longer use icons on my desktop.

Ubuntu is a good platform for media applications, I can play VCDs, DVDs, basically everything that Hollywood Can Puke Out of the Netherworld.

I get my dose of CNN via Miro.

I browse the Internet grudgingly (I hate slow remember?) with Firefox

My kids play their kiddie windows games via wine.

I play tremulous as well as Master of Orion I, II, III via dosbox and wine respectively.

I gaze at the stars with Celestia.

I look at the planet via Google Earth.

I even organize "normal non porn" photos through PornView. Really.

For now, I will stick with Ubuntu, I keep my XP partition just in case there is something that I am required to do in a Windows Application that doesn't work with wine.

Maybe I am going to buy a new computer this year and buy my fastest yet.

But definitely, I am going to be dannybuntu.