Wubi and Ubuntu For Me
July 12, 2008 – 12:20 am
For a project at work we have the requirement to make one of our Java programs run on Ubuntu Linux and sure enough we didn’t have a box setup for that. I was tasked with doing this setup on one of our monster server machines. I have had something of a mixed relationship with Linux over the years so I was not terribly excited about this. The list is long and distinguished and recalling it makes me even feel a little dated: Red Hat (now Fedora), Mandrake (now Mandriva), Slackware (still Slackware)… I always considered myself lucky if I got through an install without fouling up my hard disk boot sectors, getting the dual boot right with Windows, configuring X, getting video and network drivers to work correctly, etc. This isn’t a unique story and has long been the bane of mainstream Linux adoption by the masses.
As the years went on, and installers became more automated and friendly, things got better but I haven’t really had the time or patience in recent years to care. The new kid on the scene, Ubuntu Linux, has set out to change all of this. I first tried it out from a live CD distribution I picked up at Chicago BARcamp last summer and thought it was neat but didn’t want to go through the hassle of partitioning my laptop.
So back to my task… I wasn’t thrilled for about 5 seconds because I remembered that I ran across this new thing called Wubi on Reddit recently. Its site claims:
“Wubi is an officially supported Ubuntu installer for Windows users that can bring you to the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application, in a simple and safe way. Are you curious about Linux and Ubuntu? Trying them out has never been easier!”
It sounded too good to be true! I promptly downloaded the meager installer and away it went. I was skeptical that this was going to work and through each step of the install process I expected something to go wrong… 64-bit architecture incompatibilities, server hardware and video card driver conflicts, something… but alas it never did. After downloading all of the install, a reboot brought me to the dual-boot screen and I found myself whisked away into Linux land. Everything worked the first time, right out of the box - I was stunned.
It is no secret why Ubuntu calls its default theme “Human” - everything about the OS is down right human friendly. This is leaps and bounds beyond the usual paradigm of “developed by programmers for programmers.” My non-programmer albeit geek friend Matt didn’t believe my tale about a painless Linux install and promptly found out for himself how easy it was. He played with it for the afternoon and uninstalled it through the Windows Add/Remove Programs dialog without a hitch, just as promised.
In summary: Wubi is awesome for enabling people to get introduced to Linux in a low-risk, painless way and Ubuntu is awesome for being the Linux experience everyone has always dreamed of.
Ubuntu is definitely going on my laptop just as soon as I finally get a new hard drive for it, I’m a little cramped on space at the moment.
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