At the time Deb was primarily a server OS so security always came before ease of use. Just mounting a cd or flash drive was a chore. I heard about Ubuntu and one day I broke down and tried Breezy Badger and fell in love. It seemed to have all the advantages of Debian with the emphasis on the desktop and the user.

I have played around with other distros over the years. Many are interesting, beautiful and full featured. But I always come back to Ubuntu due to the community, the ease of use and of course, apt.

I am currently running Karmic on my desktop and eeepc and Hardy on my server.

Happy Birthday, Ubuntu and many thanks to Debian developers upstream!

Now at this point I was just fucking around, having fun with a new toy really.

Then I heard about Wubi.

Now up till that point I’d not tried Dual Booting because I didnt wanna fuck up my Windows, and I didn’t wanna partition stuff away if I was just gonna give up on it later.

After Wubi, and my resulting installation of Ubuntu, I still just fucked around with Ubuntu. I remember being impressed by how every program looked like it was made by the same people — something I wasn’t used to on Windows with all it’s Norton’s and Chrome’s and Photoshop’s.
I guess it eventually grew on me, because after 2 weeks I realised I was no longer using Windows, and that led to me doing a proper Dual Boot.

I kept Windows on at first for games, but after I got over Crysis, which is an awesome game btw, I just stopped using it, and deleted it.

So now I stand as a happy Ubuntu user, almost a year on.

For the last 2-1/2 years, Ubuntu saves me from the agony of blue screens, constant re-installation of Windows every 6~12 months due to degradation, and not to mention virus cleaning. Thanks, and now Ubuntu is on 3 out of 5 of my home computers (balance 1 on Windows, and another on Asus Linpus).

I still boot into Windows XP occasionally at home, but very much restricted to games, and with the latest Virtual Box Direct3D support, I am hopeful that Ubuntu will occupy the whole hard disk in my dual boot PCs one day.

I am now on 64 bit Jaunty, and love it even more as 64 bit applications in Ubuntu (Linux generally as a whole) is very matured. My initial worry of not able to run many applications was immediately wiped off when I started keying my first apt-get on the terminal :-) In comparison, I do face many applications problem on Windows 64 bit as the Windows world is very much still stuck on 32 bit.

Happy 5th Birthday Ubuntu!

I agree that earlier is better. I’m so glad I used Debian before so I can contrast the desktop now with what came before. It’s nice to be newb, but it’s also nice to be able to appreciate what you have.

Thank you for the trip down memory lane, and your blog in general. My desktop does look a lot prettier thanks to this blog than it would without (no Docky? D:)

I literally laughed out loud during the bits about Screenlets/AWN/Mac4Lin because they just echo my own experiences. back then i’d have sworn AWN was a keeper – now i swear Gnome DO is… the never ending rollercoaster of new apps that just get better and better and better…

I was “lucky” (depending on how you look at it) that i came along during Gutsy – it had the “basics” by then for a total n0ob. Several years later i run a blog about the OS… It is *that* awesome.

That computer was unfortunately reclaimed by Windows. My next venture into Linux was Xubuntu Dapper (this was a very old PC, and I though Xubuntu would be more appropriate). I put it on, and I loved it. It was a very clean, attractive interface. I approved, and used Xubuntu on that computer right up until its end.

That came not too much later when my family broke the GHz barrier and bought a brand-new PC. Dual core and everything. Crazy. I’d been reading about some very impressive (though experimental) capabilities of the Linux desktop, and so I downloaded Ubuntu Edgy.

I put it on its own little 5Gb partition, got the drivers all installed, put XGL and Compiz on there (do you remember the transition to AIGLX?) and marvelled at my wonderful new spinning cube desktop. I made it snow, threw my windows around with reckless abandon (often leading to them literally falling off my desktop) and other very impressive things. Love at first sight.

I moved out then, and got my own PC. Edgy was on it the day we got the Internet connected. I’ve been upgrading steadily ever since, and made converts of two family members.

I remember running Beryl, when it was the thing to have. I remember loving the freedom of expression: for a while, all my windows were fetched and removed by transporter. When it was finally reabsorbed by Compiz, I was pleased to see this freedom remain.

I ran AWN during the period when every screencap worth seeing had it. I downloaded and applied Mac4Lin when everyone just had to have OSX without the expense, and went out of my way to find new GTK+ knockoffs. I had Screenlets when it was the coolest thing to happen to the Gnome desktop since its inception.

I remember finally switching to 64-bit for Intrepid, after years of being perfectly happy with 32-bit, and finding the experience almost identical. I remember waiting in anticipation for the release of KDE4, and find myself still using Gnome a year and a half later (Karmic’s the one, I swear!). I recall spending a lot of time planning my partition sizes to make room for Windows, and now I just give it an expandable VM drive.

Looking back at it, it has been a lot of changes. Ubuntu’s come a long way (as have all its Linux-based competitors). I wonder what my desktop will look like three years from now.

When Windows blue-screened and died on me (due to HD failure), Ubuntu kept running and gave me more than enough time to retrieve my data before buying a new HD. After that, Ubuntu got its own partition. I went Ubuntu-solo in time for Intrepid. When I got a new awesome laptop for Christmas last year first thing I did Christmas day was use Vista’s partition resizer to give Ubuntu some space. After a brief affair with Vista I decided to dump it (not least because it was incredibly slow and had stopped suspending/hibernating) and I went solo again with Intrepid.

Happy 5th birthday, Ubuntu!

btw, Warty did use GNOME 2.8 but it should be noted that GNOME changed it’s naming specs, as the current release is 2.28

And like “rewarp” said..
Happy Birthday Ubuntu! Thank you for liberating me from Windows!

And like “rewarp” said..
Happy Birthday Ubuntu! Thank you for liberating me from Windows!

Oh on a side note, I had to roll back to 9.04 on my notebook as on 9.10 I was getting at most an hour of battery life on my 3 year old HP, as with 9.04 I get almost 2 hours.

Oh on a side note, I had to roll back to 9.04 on my notebook as on 9.10 I was getting at most an hour of battery life on my 3 year old HP, as with 9.04 I get almost 2 hours.

I have forgotten what version of Ubuntu I first used, but I do recall not being able to connect to any wireless network (usually); and that it came in 2 CDs.

Because the WiFi was a disaster to work on, and my geek skills had yet to mature, I put my Linux ambitions on hold until I got my first (and current) laptop in 2008.

Hardy Heron was the best operating system I had ever used (still is, because unlike Jaunty Jackalope, there was no beeping sound when I shutdown, which when I disabled, disabled the login screen sound as well; and there was no annoying “must press any key to load Ubuntu while on battery power problem”.

Now I am still on Jaunty. Hoping the problems I have will be fixed in Karmic Koala.

Happy Birthday Ubuntu! Thank you for liberating me from Windows.