Ubuntu: It Just Works
It seems just like yesterday, the launch of Lucid Lynx, the latest Ubuntu 6-monthly offering. In fact, it was at the end of April. I know this from the name 10.04.
At first, I wasn’t convinced. The window control buttons moving to the left, to make way for the windicators, the new dark theme, new logo.
But it worked, better than ever before. It took me an hour to install everything from scratch, including all the software I use.
I wish the same could be said for Android. I recently moved to the T-Mobile Pulse Mini, I think like many Free Software aficionados, I thought Android would be The Right Way To Go. Yes, it is Free-er than anything else on a mobile. But it isn’t Open in the Open sense of the word. I can’t install my flavour of Android, I just have to accept what it is given.
But the real frustration is that it doesn’t Just Work. Now, I’m not stupid. Really, honestly, I do believe I have the full compliment of sandwiches in my picnic. But, for example, I can’t find the User Defined Dictionary. So I can’t even add the staple words like nxt, txt, cld, wld, fone, hv, gd etc. I even tried to buy Better Keyboard to get around the problem, and I can’t for the life of me login to buy software.
Contrast this Android marketplace to the slickness of the iPhone apps store. You want to give us your money? Yep, sure thing.