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Technology news and Jobs 
The Linux distillery Ubuntu 8.04’s Wubi makes for universal desktop
The Linux distillery Ubuntu 8.04’s Wubi makes for universal desktop | Ubuntu 8.04’s Wubi makes for universal desktop |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Wednesday, 23 April 2008 | |
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Welcome! Ubuntu is not yet the commercial success that Red Hat reached, but it is undoubtedly gaining popularity as a top notch, easy to use, and just plain “it works” Linux distribution of choice. The previous Ubuntu release – Gutsy Gibbon – was met with wild acclamation and excitement. It was to be the best Ubuntu ever and many pundits believed it would be a real Linux for the desktop, negating any need to ever use Microsoft Windows. In practice, it turned out that while many could load Gutsy Gibbon without difficulty, equally as many others found it was not compatible with the wireless network adapter or that other hardware and software offerings were lacking. By comparison, Ubuntu explicitly promises masses of extra drivers and implicitly promises rock-solid stability for years to come. This latter claim derives from the release being dubbed an “LTS” release – for “Long Term Support.” In other words, Ubuntu’s developers guarantee to provide support Ubuntu 8.04 for several years. It is designed to be a milestone edition which individuals and businesses can deploy with confidence, as it will be supported over the same typical lifetime of a Microsoft operating system. This is a big thing for Ubuntu; it’s only the second LTS release they’ve issued and the first came out early in the distro’s history, before it was so well known. Previously in this column I’ve gone into depth about one of Hardy Heron’s new features, namely ufw – the uncomplicated firewall. Today, I’d like to talk about something else which is new in this release: Wubi, the Windows based Ubuntu Installer. Wubi offers a remarkable new way of trying out Ubuntu, making it even more of a risk-free proposition than ever before. Anyone currently running Microsoft Windows XP most probably has all the computer hardware working as they expect, be it video cards, scanners, the afore-mentioned wireless network adapters and so on. Linux has achieved dubious notoriety for requiring effort in getting every device working. In the past, this may have been important items like the sound card or video card. While Linux has improved dramatically in this record it’s still the case that 3G modems and other modern components probably won’t work on first install. Linux developers have been mindful of this and have long offered their operating systems on what are called Live CDs – bootable discs which will run a genuine full version of the OS within computer memory and without modifying the hard drives at all. This allows anyone to test how much of their hardware is correctly detected by, and functioning within, that distribution. Wubi provides a new, third means of getting Linux up and going from the very same CD (the first being to install it au naturale to a disk partition.) What is Wubi and how do you use it? Please read on. CONTINUED
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