More Pleasant Surprises with Ubuntu
As I continue to test and work with Ubuntu, I have come across a few more very pleasant surprises:
- I plugged in my Logitech V20 Notebook Speakers (USB). They worked.
- I plugged in my Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks Deluxe. It worked. No muss, no fuss, so searching for drivers, it just worked.
- I plugged in my Canon BJC-55 printer. It worked. I printed a test page on it, and it came out perfect. This really is getting quite impressive.
- I plugged in my Philips SPC1300NC webcam, and although it is recognized and identified correctly, it doesn't seem to work. This is a bit surprising, since it is a UVC-compatible device, I'll have to look into it a bit more.
- The Skype presence reporting system has definitely not been fixed. They (Skype) keep telling my friend who still uses it that the presence bug has been fixed, and I keep seeing that it certainly isn't. As long as Skype is running, it produces an apparently never-ending stream of messages informing me that various of my contacts have come on line, or gone off line - some of whom I know are not doing so, because I am chatting with them on Gizmo or ooVoo! I still don't see how an IM/chat program is supposed to be of any use at all, when it can not tell you reliably if your contacts are online or not.
- The Citrix Presentation Server Client is definitely much more stable on Ubuntu than it is on Windows. I can connect it once, in the morning, and stay connected all day; on Windows, it loses the connection occasionally. This might be unique to my Windows laptop, or the configuration or software running on it, but it is a real pain.
So, I will continue using, testing, evaluating and reporting on Ubuntu. The contrast with how this all went with Vista is interesting, I think. When I loaded Vista, I was very positive and hopeful, and each time I started out thinking it was great, and would work out fine for me. Then I kept finding more and more problems, until they finally became so serious that I had to give up and go back to XP. With Ubuntu, I was very skeptical when I loaded it, I honestly expected to have it running for a day or so, just to see what worked and what didn't. As I tested it, and then actually started working with it, I became more and more impressed with it, and more comfortable using it, and I now have no intention of removing it again.
If it continues to go this way, what I will probably do is try loading Ubuntu on the newer Lifebook S6510, and see how it works there. It will be interesting to see how it handles the Core2 Duo CPU, the Intel Wireless-N networking, and the built-in Logitech webcam. If all of that works, I'll keep Ubuntu on that one, and swap the S2110 back to the Windows XP Pro disk.
jw 3/6/2008