I have been using Ubuntu 7.10 for about a month now. My experiance began when I sent a request for a free CD to be mailed to me. Several weeks later, it arrived, however I was reluctant at first to install it, as there was much hassle when I attempted to install my BCM43xx wireless network drivers for another distro, Suse. Although I had ran a server on Linux for a while previously, it was easy to do as Linux automatically detected the wireless network card I was using. This was on an older computer that I ran the server. On my current pc, a Dell Inspiron 1300 Laptop, a Broadcom wireless adapter was used, which usually required a lot of work to get running. I decided to google how to install the drivers on Ubuntu, out of curiosity. The instructions were very simple, and unlike other distro's guides, it didn't assume I already had an internet connection with Linux (a very silly assumption, since few people will be using multiple network adapters) and gave me a few files to download, then run. I decided to give Ubuntu a try, seeing as it seemed so simple. It gave me a little hassle at first, but after that, it worked great. I then opened FireFox, and to my surprise, a google search returned results. I then went to my forum and posted about my switch. I soon learnt some basic command prompt work, and now, 1 month later, I'm doing very well with Linux.

I would rate Ubuntu 8.5/10. There is room to improve in some respects, but all in all it is a great distro & I recommend more people switch to it.

 

 

 

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I just installed Ubuntu 8.04 and had a similar difficulty with the same wireless card. All I did, though, was run the hardware test and then it offered to download the correct driver, so all said and done, I had wireless in about 5 minutes after the first Boot. Lucky, I guess...

And tonight I set-up a LAMPP server c/w MySql for local development work, so I'm all set up as a dual-boot.

Looking forward to seeing how the terminal learning curve goes... wish me luck.

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I actually quite like it because it is easy to get help with Ubuntu if you encounter any problems with it (e.g. installing the necessary drivers to make Ubuntu work in VMware). I also like the general design of the operating system.

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I think ubuntu is the best linux distro. It's the only distribution that has a chance of becoming the most popular open-source operating system ever. It's stable, it's easy to use, it's free, free support, ...

Unlike many other Linux distributions I'm sure that Ubuntu is here to stay.

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I installed ubuntu; I'm currently dual-booting it with Vista. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get wireless working (broadcom drivers truly are the bane of my existence), even when I did install the correct drivers and downloaded ndiswrapper. Nothing suggested in the numerous forums I searched worked, so I finally just gave up. I guess I'll mess around with Ubuntu on a desktop next time with a wired connection so that I don't have to worry about wireless. Or maybe I'll get a job and go buy myself some wireless adaptors that are more Linux-friendly...

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