Hi Readers,
So I've recently made the complete transition from the Windows OS to the Ubuntu Linux OS. After being fed the Windows propaganda for most of my life, I've finally taken the Linux plunge. It all started more than a year ago, when I first installed a Ubuntu guest machine on Virtualbox, running on a Windows host. Sure, that brief tryst only lasted 2 days until I gave up (mostly because I couldn't ever figure out how to get the screen resolution to work and actually show something on the screen). But it put a seed of curiosity in my mind, about the weird malleability that Linux offers. Then about 3 months ago, my Win7 began to act up. It would occasionally fail to wake up from sleep. Then it progressed to taking 10+ minutes to start up and shut off. I began to hate using my computer, because everything would take so long. Eventually I just got so fed up with it that I decided to reinstall the entire OS. But I thought: what about dual-booting Win7 with Ubuntu, just to try it out? I've thought about using Linux for awhile but never made the concerted effort to do it; it was as good of a chance as any.
So I reinstalled my OSes by dual-booting my Win7 and Linux, which was an adventure all in itself. (Creating all the bootable USB sticks were already an adventure enough). Then the true fun began. I quickly noticed that Ubuntu was faster than Win7 in a lot of regards, such as startup, or waking up from sleep. It was also much more reliable. It never had "blue screen" moments, and it would never fail to wake up or go to sleep, whereas Windows did sometimes. Eventually I drifted towards Linux, so much so that the only time I would use Win7 was to use either Mathematica, Matlab, Word, or Powerpoint. The Linux terminal began to feel really exciting to use, when I started experimenting with using the terminal to control my files. About 2 months in, Win7 began to act up again. It would fail to wake up from sleep, forcing me to power it off manually. And then the past week, it completely crashed. I couldn't get it to start in any mode (normal, safe, or recovery). What's worse, it crashed during one of my homework simulation sessions, so not only did I lose everything I was working on, but I couldn't even redo it because I couldn't access the Mathematica program on my Windows.
In a fit of rage, I wiped the entire HD clean, and told myself that the next installation I do will be completely and only Ubuntu, with Win7 running on Virtualbox in my Linux host. Or so I thought. Turns out, Virtualbox can't install virtual OS'es from bootable USB sticks - only from CDs. I tried mounting the .iso image on a virtual drive and loading that into Virtualbox, with no success. So in another fit of rage, I decided to put the thoughts of Win7 aside, and to focus on getting my finals stuff done first before tinkering some more.
And then Wine for Ubuntu popped up on my radar (because who can keep procrastination away?). This awesome program (actually more like a platform) is a Windows emulator for Windows applications and programs to function on the Linux OS. I had previously used a program called PlayonLinux, which is a no-frills attached derivative of Wine, to run Spotify on Linux. I clicked (someone dubiously) on my Mathematica setup.exe file, and voila - it successfully installed it. I wrote some basic Mathematica code and pressed compile, and out popped a beautiful graph of f[x]=x^2. Of course, the actual course was a smidge harder than that, involving extracting an .iso file and using the "sudo chmod -x" command to change the permissions of the file.
It's hard to describe the sheer satisfaction that emanated from me when I saw that graph pop up. The rest of the night I had a huge smile on my face. Yes, nerds ftw.
My next project? Getting Matlab to install successfully on Linux. So far Wine has failed with a cryptic message about being unable to find a file called dir.exe, which I am assuming is an incompatibility issue. But I've seen some clues online that it may be possible, so I will attempt it and hope it works.
But so far I love Ubuntu. It's absolutely awesome. =D
Cheers till next time!
-FCDH
So I've recently made the complete transition from the Windows OS to the Ubuntu Linux OS. After being fed the Windows propaganda for most of my life, I've finally taken the Linux plunge. It all started more than a year ago, when I first installed a Ubuntu guest machine on Virtualbox, running on a Windows host. Sure, that brief tryst only lasted 2 days until I gave up (mostly because I couldn't ever figure out how to get the screen resolution to work and actually show something on the screen). But it put a seed of curiosity in my mind, about the weird malleability that Linux offers. Then about 3 months ago, my Win7 began to act up. It would occasionally fail to wake up from sleep. Then it progressed to taking 10+ minutes to start up and shut off. I began to hate using my computer, because everything would take so long. Eventually I just got so fed up with it that I decided to reinstall the entire OS. But I thought: what about dual-booting Win7 with Ubuntu, just to try it out? I've thought about using Linux for awhile but never made the concerted effort to do it; it was as good of a chance as any.
So I reinstalled my OSes by dual-booting my Win7 and Linux, which was an adventure all in itself. (Creating all the bootable USB sticks were already an adventure enough). Then the true fun began. I quickly noticed that Ubuntu was faster than Win7 in a lot of regards, such as startup, or waking up from sleep. It was also much more reliable. It never had "blue screen" moments, and it would never fail to wake up or go to sleep, whereas Windows did sometimes. Eventually I drifted towards Linux, so much so that the only time I would use Win7 was to use either Mathematica, Matlab, Word, or Powerpoint. The Linux terminal began to feel really exciting to use, when I started experimenting with using the terminal to control my files. About 2 months in, Win7 began to act up again. It would fail to wake up from sleep, forcing me to power it off manually. And then the past week, it completely crashed. I couldn't get it to start in any mode (normal, safe, or recovery). What's worse, it crashed during one of my homework simulation sessions, so not only did I lose everything I was working on, but I couldn't even redo it because I couldn't access the Mathematica program on my Windows.
In a fit of rage, I wiped the entire HD clean, and told myself that the next installation I do will be completely and only Ubuntu, with Win7 running on Virtualbox in my Linux host. Or so I thought. Turns out, Virtualbox can't install virtual OS'es from bootable USB sticks - only from CDs. I tried mounting the .iso image on a virtual drive and loading that into Virtualbox, with no success. So in another fit of rage, I decided to put the thoughts of Win7 aside, and to focus on getting my finals stuff done first before tinkering some more.
And then Wine for Ubuntu popped up on my radar (because who can keep procrastination away?). This awesome program (actually more like a platform) is a Windows emulator for Windows applications and programs to function on the Linux OS. I had previously used a program called PlayonLinux, which is a no-frills attached derivative of Wine, to run Spotify on Linux. I clicked (someone dubiously) on my Mathematica setup.exe file, and voila - it successfully installed it. I wrote some basic Mathematica code and pressed compile, and out popped a beautiful graph of f[x]=x^2. Of course, the actual course was a smidge harder than that, involving extracting an .iso file and using the "sudo chmod -x" command to change the permissions of the file.
It's hard to describe the sheer satisfaction that emanated from me when I saw that graph pop up. The rest of the night I had a huge smile on my face. Yes, nerds ftw.
My next project? Getting Matlab to install successfully on Linux. So far Wine has failed with a cryptic message about being unable to find a file called dir.exe, which I am assuming is an incompatibility issue. But I've seen some clues online that it may be possible, so I will attempt it and hope it works.
But so far I love Ubuntu. It's absolutely awesome. =D
Cheers till next time!
-FCDH
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