ThemBid.com

Ubuntu: The Switch ( 1 of ? )

This series of blog entries will document the process of a ThemBid.com developers journey from the vast barren lands of Windows Vista to the green pastures of Ubuntu.

Motivations

• All throughout my University life and education, Linux was my home. I was raised on Red Hat, Mandriva and Gentoo (my favorite). It is time to return home.
• For my Life 2.0 project, I require a low cost point of entry and I have decided to use Ubuntu as the OS. Although the system will be OS independent, I want to make sure that those withe most restrictive of budgets can be equally as productive as their Windows brethren.
• I have a long term vision of creating a Small/Micro Business distrubution of Linux, and this is the very first baby step.
• I have been running Ubuntu in a VMware instance within Windows; however, I have not been happy with the performance that Vista gives me (random crashes and slow responsiveness), even after performing some optimizations and with upgraded hardware.
• I have two other machines that are running Windows Vista, so I will be able to transfer, compare and fall back as needed.
• It will be fun.

Current Hardware Setup

• OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
• MODEL: Dell Precision Workstation 690
• CPU: DualCore Intel Xeon 5050, 3000MHz
• RAM: 2048 MB DDR-677 Fully Buffered ECC DDR2 SDRAM
• MONITORS: 2 DELL 19″ LCD’s
• VIDEO CARD: Radeon X700 Pro 256MB
• AUDIO: SigmaTel STAC9200
• HD: 232GB SCSI Internal Drive, 298 GB External USB Drive, 74GB External USB Drive
• OPTICAL: CDRW / DVD
• PRINTER/SCANNER: HP Officejet 5600 (printer, fax, scanner), Samsung ML-1740
• WEBCAM: Creative WebCam NX Pro
• MIC/HEADPHONES/SPEAKER: Logitech USB Headset/Mic, Logitech Computer Speakers

Frequently Used Software

• Firefox 2, IE 7, IE 6
• PHP Eclipse
• Skype
• MS Outlook
• MS Office
• QuickBooks Premier 2007
• Adobe Photoshop CS2
• Notepad++
• RoboForm / RoboForm Portable / Goodsync
• Adobe Acrobat / Distiller
• WS FTP
• WinSCP3
• UltraMon
• GoToMeeting
• FreeMind
• Audacity
• Camtasia Studio 4
• XAMPP
• ActiveSync
• Google Desktop
• Tortoise SVN
• Macromedia Flash
• iTunes
• Windows Media Player

Goals

• Ultimately I would like to have a Windows Vista, OS X and Ubuntu setup, with each optimized for productivity. I will document the OS X experience as well.

First Steps

• Back up all data and settings
• Find the Linux equivalents of my frequently used software.
  • For those that can not be replaced, I will use Wine, Crossover Office and VMware in that order. Or I may just run those applications on a separate Windows machine.
• Install a fresh copy of Ubuntu and begin the fun.

The next entry in this blog series will document my experience with the first steps outlined above.

If you have already made the switch, please share your experiences below or provide a link to your blog.