Ubuntu

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon Linux Distribution is available

If you are already using the upto now latest version of Drupal (7.04 Feisty Fawn), this upgrade will quick and painless. At least I am sure that it will be painless while the quick part will depend on the power of your processor and your internet connection. In Fiesty Fawn (and probably in other older versions), a notice will appear at the top of the regular update window informing you that a new distribution of Ubuntu is available for download. If you opt to upgrade as opposed to just installing the available updates, you will launch the update process with the following progress dialogue.

If you have my kind of luck, you might see the following message which is most probably a result of congested networks due to everyone rushing to upgrade their Ubuntu computers to the latest distribution.

Failed to fetch http://www.kiberpipa.org/~gandalp/ubuntu/feisty/cinelarra/i686/./Packages.gz 404 Not Found

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Despite the GUI nature of the upgrade, it is necessary to begin the update in the terminal.

Unlike the upgrade from Ubuntu 5.10 to 6.06 LTS, the upgrade from 6.06 LTS to 6.10 does not appear in the update manager as a possible update that can quickly be applied using the update manager. This is unfortunately not clearly indicated in a number of the available instructions. Although Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) is already available, it is necessary to go through all the minor steps of upgrading from 5.10 all the way to 7.04. This is the main reason why we are upgrading first to 6.10 'Edgy' as a stepping stone to Feisty Fawn.

To enable an upgrade from Dapper 6.06 to Ubuntu edgy 6.10, we get into the command-line terminal and use the following command

gksu â??update-manager -c -dâ?

This invokes the update manager with the -c and -d switches which direct the update manager to look for updates, and consider pre-release versions of applications.

The command will launch the update manager (Make sure that there are no other open instances of the update manager since only one instance can run at a time), and display a message prompting you to install the 6.10 Edgy upgrade.
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Are you looking for a way to upgrade directly from Ubuntu 5.10 or Ubuntu 6.06 to Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04? It is not possible, and you have to upgrade to intermediary versions first...

Upgrading from Ubuntu 5.10 to Ubuntu 7.04 is only possible if done progressively through the intermediate versions of Ubuntu 6.06 (Edgy Eft), and 6.10 LTS.

I just tried to install Ubuntu Feisty Fawn on two DELL desktop systems, one with an AMD processor, and another with an Intel Celeron, and on both the installation process was very very slow to the point where I have to abort the installation.

On the DELL system with an AMD, I got an error message that is related to the fact that Feisty Fawn has both the installation and the Live version of Ubuntu Linux on the same disc.

Since I do not have the original Windows CDs for these systems, I decided to add them to my growing number of PCs running on Ubuntu Linux by installing Ubuntu 5.10. My thought was that I could first install Ubuntu 5.10, and then progressively upgrade to a later versions.

Upgrade Restriction
With 5.10 installed, the only way to upgrade to Feisty Fawn (7.10) is either by rebooting the system with the Feisty Fawn CD-ROM to re-install Ubuntu (Will probably result in the same slow performance), by installing Feisty Fawn in a new partition, or by progressively upgrading through the other versions that are available to each lesser-version's update manager until one gets to a version that has Feisty Fawn as the next update.

Upgrading to Ubuntu 6.06 (Edgy Eft)
From the System -> Administration -> Update manager in Ubuntu 5.10 is an option to upgrade to Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft). Select that option and go through the entire upgrade process as prompted by the dialogs. The system will scan the installation, download the Ubuntu 6.06 LTS files, install them and restart the computer to complete the installation.

The common fear of most seasoned Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP or even Vista users when told about switching or even just having Linux on a second computer is:
1 - Will I be able to install Linux without knowing intricate technical details about my PC?
2 - Linux is identified with Unix, how steep is the learning curve?
3 - I need to be up and running quickly with familiar applications such as Word and Outlook
4 - Will I be able to find as much free software as there is for Windows?
5 - Will my iPod, PDA, toaster work with Linux?
6 - All my friends, and my tech support is already on Windows!

To be honest, some of the above issues are valid, and others used to be, but they are not anymore. Here are some detailed answers to those questions. I am a seasoned Windows user, and so my experience will most probably be representative of that user-group.

1) As detailed in a related document (see link at the end of this page), yes, you will be able to install Ubuntu much much easily than you do with Windows. In my experience, I did not run into any software or hardware errors, and I did not even have to know what kind of PC I was running it on. I was able to install and use it on an Intel and AMD processor each with a modest 512MB or RAM. Windows would choke is it was run with that amount of Random Access Memory (RAM)

2) The learning curve is not steep, it took me less than a day about a day of use to figure out how to install applications and change settings, the usability is great. Actually, I must note that apart from some differences in menu locations and click-paths, most GUI based operating systems are now quite similar. May be I am just guilty that the Ubuntu Linux user-interface is so similar to that of Windows XP.

3) All software foe Ubuntu is free. Once you install Ubuntu, you can open the Synaptic package manager and install the pre-loaded applications as well as others that you may download with the same ease that you get on a recent Apple computer. You just have to look through the list and select what you want and click "Apply", it will install and one big difference with Windows is that Ubuntu Linux does not require you to restart it after installing software, not even System updates. You can even Windows applications using WINE (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wine). I was able to install and run Internet Explorer.

4) Granted that many pieces of hardware are made to run with Microsoft Windows, less on Apple, and even much less on Linux. But the list of supported hardware is increasing all the time. You can find out which hardware is supported on the www.ubuntu.com website, or from your hardware vendor.

5) I think the fact that there are many people running Windows is not a valid reason to stick with it. The only reason you may consider this to be valid is is you have a group license, or you want to use their software (which is piracy and will cost you morally and legally). With Ubuntu, you do not have to worry about paying for software.