There is all this news about these long time Mac fans switching to Linux and Apple needs to look out.  I was wondering what all the fuss was about so I thought I would try it myself.  I am not crazy and instantly switching.  I didn’t put it on my work machine.  I installed it on my mac mini that I have running as a local server.  The built in drive is to small for me to use portable home directories with my powerbook.  I actually have the Mac OS installed on an external fire wire drive.  This leaves the internal 40 gig drive with nothing to do so I put linux on that drive.  The last time I installed linux on anything was about ten years ago with the help of my friend Tim on a power mac that I had at the time.  It was serious stuff with manual partitioning of drive, swap size, knowing how to do that and blah blah blah... more geek terms and talk than I want to write out at this moment.  I used Ubuntu, which is the one all these Apple users are switching too.  I have to say it is good as far as Linux goes but I don’t think Apple has anything to worry about at this moment based on my experience.  I will just give you a run down of my first two hour experience and you can make you own judgement if it was user friendly or not.  Which is what Apple is all about.

I went to the ubuntu website and to the download section.  There they have iso files for all the major PC types out there.  They are live boot CDs so you can actually try the OS before installing it.  I downloaded the iso file for my Power PC mini and burned the disk using toast.  Not so easy I would say for the average user but they do have CDs to order for like 10 bucks.  So that negates that problem.  The CD booted up just fine.  I played around a bit with the the apps and quickly got tired of how long it took to load stuff off the live CD so I decided to install it.  The installer had a quick page to enter the user info and a page to pick what drive to install the OS to.  I had it reformat the internal drive and install there.  It took about thirty minutes to install everything and it was at 100% when the installer failed.  It said could not install the boot loader.  Okay this may not be so easy.  I tried it again and had the same problem at the very end.  I was about to give up, but I had one more thing I would try.  I unplugged the two firewire drives I had connected and installed again.  This time no problem installing, but it was an hour and a half after I started.  I don’t think most people would try that long compared to getting an Apple product and having it work the first time right out of the box.  I would say that most PCs work out the box, but they are so full trial programs and crap I don’t want on there that just slow it down.   The first thing I do with a brand new PC is wipe it clean and install windows again.  Have you ever tried installing windows on a PC with just a Windows installer CD?  I could tell you some nightmare stories about trying to track down drivers that didn’t come on the PC's restore CD’s and were not available on the web for download.  With an Apple CD installer it has worked every time and everything was installed right the first time.  Okay end of rant.

After logging in for the first time it download about 40 megs of updates and security fixes.  I had to reboot again after the updates.  Typical for everything I have used except for Sun Solaris.  The installer includes many apps you are going to want to use right away.  The first one I used was Firefox.  The first problem I ran into was a site using flash.  It needed to download the plugin.  I told Firefox to go ahead and find it and install it.  It reported back that it could not and to visit macromedia’s website.  I went there and found the installer for flash on linux.  It downloaded a tar file or some compressed file like that.  I can’t remember at this moment.  Now this is where you would loose most normal computer users.  I doubled clicked the file and it said it said it would put it in /tmp which I knew where to look for it but I know an average user would not.  So I went to the tmp folder using the window system and double clicked what looked like the installer file.  A new window popped up asking which app to use to open that file.  Okay, time to read the read me file.  In there it tells me to use the command line and what command to execute to install the file.  Okay you really lost the average user there if you had not already.  So I open the terminal program and run the command and I get back that this installer does not work on power pc.  Okay, so no official flash support in linux on power pc.  I kept using firefox to visit some other sites I have worked on and I notice the border lines on pictures are huge, as in that is not one pixel like I had them set at.  They also look blurry.   Then I think to myself what is the screen resolution set at?  The LCD screen hooked up to the mini sucks if it is not set at the native resolution.  I go to change it and it is set for 1024x768.  Okay, now the blurry graphics are starting to makes sense so I click on it to change the settings and guess what, that is all the higher I can set it at.  Talking with friends who have used linux this is one of the biggest problems plaguing installing linux.  It hardly every gets your video card settings right.  So I visit the web forums to find out how to change it.  I have not done it yet but it involves the command line again and editing configuration files and knowing the refresh rates of your monitor and so on.  Not so user friendly.  At the same website I noticed the graphic problem I click on a mp3 file to download and listen too.  It downloads and tells me I need to install a decoder for the mp3 file.  What?  When I look there are apps installed to play media files but I have to download a decoder?  This install of linux is starting to loose me at this point. 

Now let try this from the other side of the fence as in not using an Apple product with the simplicity of iLife apps included with a Mac but with a PC.  If I was Microsoft I would be scared of this ubuntu installer.  The install went fine.  You have an Modern OS that is being supported and works on older PCs(Thats right I am talking about all your pre windows 2000 versions Microsoft just said they would not fix for vulnerabilities found in the code).  Not only that open office is installed too. You don’t have to spend 500 dollars on a office sweet full of features you will never understand how to use when all you what to do is write a letter in word.  The installer includes your web browser and an email client that works with an exchange server.  You can download free apps that can do video editing, photos and play music.  With a little work you can get it to even work with an iPod.  Unlike Macs, most general computer users I know using a PC are not surprised when something does not work or has a conflict.  So when the screen resolution doesn’t come out right they just go thats a PC.  Most complaints I have about this install are problems I have experienced using windows too.  I just have to pay for the pain in butt I get from using windows. With a little more time on it I believe I would feel comfortable setting people up with this version of linux over telling them to go out and upgrade to xp or vista if all they do is write some word docs, surf the web, write some email or take some photos with their digital camera.  Time will tell.