I’ve gained quite a bit of respect for Ubuntu Server over the past year or so. Recently though, I’ve encountered an oddity that is simply too much to bear.

I’ve recently become interested in using Ubuntu Server as the base Linux distribution for a project that I’m busy working on. My recent interest occurred when I learned that Ubuntu offered Sun Java, which I was considering using with some server software.

One of the people who switched to Ubuntu Linux recently, phoned me asking what kind of antivirus they should have installed. Quite frankly, I’ve never given that a thought. I’ve used Ubuntu for some time and have never had any virus issues, ever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that Linux is impervious to a computer virus, rather I’m suggesting that (currently) it’s not an issue. As a matter of fact, I did a bit of research and found out that there are viruses, worms and malware that effect our Linux based systems.

I’ve had persistent issues with Intel Video since the Jaunty release of Ubuntu. The short version is that the fancy effects that I eventually came to depend on stopped working after the Intrepid release of the distribution. Both Jaunty and Karmic include Intel video drivers – and I’ve tried every bleeding edge PPA version I can find – that simply don’t work with Compiz.

I’ve been using Ubuntu 8.04 for about four days now and I must admit that that I still prefer PCLinuxOS 2007 as my favourite entry-level Linux distribution. However, I’ve compiled a list of 9 features I wish Ubuntu had, which may help me change my mind. (why 9? I couldn’t think of more at the time of writing, but more ideas will come to me)

What a week! I’ve been working on my podcast so I’m a bit behind on posting. Here’s an interesting compilation of Linux distribution which resemble Apple’s Mac OS 10.v.

I began My Linux Experience back at the end of February and over the past five months I’ve managed to spend a fair bit of time dabbling and experimenting with a variety of Linux distros. Over these months I’ve learned a lot - a lot about Linux, a lot about the Linux community and a lot about myself and how I look at and interact with PCs.

With the problems of Vista, the end of the availability of XP, and the lack of Apple to see the light and open up OS X to non-Apple hardware, much is expected of the next release of the most popular consumer Linux distribution.

I’ve been running Ubuntu as my sole OS on my laptop for around 8 months now. I’ve had dual-boots and dabbled in Linux for servers and stuff for around 10 years or so, but this is the first time I’ve had it as the only OS on a system, that I use for day-to-day.