Jaunty Jackalope and XP
I’m going to start this post with a little synopsis of my computer based skills as I deem it relevant.
Unlike Jon I’m not quite one step up and beyond when it comes to computers. My skills certainly aren’t lacking, although they don’t quite meet par. My expertise lies more in graphical design, using specific software although I am more than capable of maintaining a windows desktop for many years without issues.
Now we have that out of the way on to the task at hand!
I recently decided that I wanted a fresh start with my desktop computer. My Windows XP was running stable just as always, but I had noticed some real slow down from extended use, and I happen to be a ~little~ bit of hoarder when it comes to old pieces of software or music I have laying about. I used the old “I’ll keep it for now, you never know when I’ll need it!”, well two years later and I didn’t need any of it to be fair. The music was never touched in those two years, and the software was now many moons out of date.
From times past, I still had my hard drive partitioned into four segments:-
- Windows XP
- Windows Swap
- Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon
- Ubuntu Swap
The last time I frequented my Ubuntu partition was a good year or so previous, it certainly wasn’t in any recent months in any case. What I hadn’t counted on when it booted up, was for my Windows to have played havoc with some of Ubuntu’s key files [A problem which arose from my own mistakes I.e. allowing the Linux drive to appear in my windows, forgetting and commencing an anti-virus sweep of all available hard drives] …suffice to say, my Ubuntu was dead. I attempted a recovery via doing what it asked, but subsequently made it worse and savagely murdered Grub in the process and without Grub I certainly knew no other way of getting into my Windows Partition.
This is where having laptops in the house came in use. I downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu and swiftly began an installation over my old Linux partition, formatting as I went.
[As a quick side note, if any of you are debating whether or not to to install Ubuntu, we do have a guide floating around here on CTN Today which you can find here. It may be a little out of date but it still leads you down the right road as the installation process doesn't appear to have changed that dramatically.]
Grub was now back up and running, so I now had complete access to my Windows partition. After what seemed to be an age waiting for my XP to boot up [After booting into Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope I finally realised just quite how slow my Windows was] I set up moving files I wanted to save onto my external hard drives whilst constantly cleaning my external hard drives of junk which was no longer useful.
Now something I recommend, although it certainly isn’t a prerequisite is to spend a little time looking through your start menu. What software do you want? What do you need? Is there something better out there? When was the last time you looked? I found it a great experience just to spend time evaluating exactly what I did and did not use, and went about finding the set up files [.exe] from their websites and sifting through my installation CDs ready for when I formatted Windows.
Windows reinstalled without issue although it did take a fair while longer than Ubuntu. It was here that I now discovered an issue. Windows needs to be there first, before you install Ubuntu or Grub doesn’t quite work. Thankfully I had left my Jaunty Jackalope as a basic installation so a quick reinstallation was in order. Now I know what you’re thinking, “You could have just as easily searched the famous Ubuntu forums for a more direct way of getting Grub back up and running!” …Suffice to say last time I tried *coughs* things didn’t go too well.
Ubuntu is such a delight to install, especially since the more fundamental pieces of software you’ll want came already packaged with Ubuntu Jaunted Jackalope i.e. Mozilla, Pidgin [IM Client] Open Office, and my personal favourite Mahjongg! Man do I love that game! There are a few other bits and pieces you may find the need to look for such as setting up the CompizConfig Settings Manager but a quick google search will pull back many results in how it can be achieved.
Windows on the other hand, although not exactly difficult to get up is certainly long. Working my way through the set up files of software I wanted to reinstall took me the good part of an afternoon with coffee breaks between sessions but the improvement is certainly one to be admired.
My Windows and Ubuntu use has certainly improved now above and beyond before. You see my personal experience of Windows is that the more you use it, the worse it seems to perform so as a work around I’m now using my Ubuntu installation for IM’ing and general internet use. It runs perfectly for it and this entire article was written within Ubuntu rather than Windows.
Windows will always have a place in my heart though as it has some brilliant pieces of software which I’m certainly not willing to give up. I enjoy my online games a little too much and I’ve recently fallen in love with Trillian Astra which Jon recently wrote about.
There’s certainly a happy medium for myself at least between using two of the best operating systems on the market to optimise my overall desktop experience which I’m sure the most of you acknowledge.
Chris
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