Product: Ubuntu Made Easy

I’m so very happy that this book became available for review for free through the Vine program. I doubt I’d have spotted it otherwise. I had no idea how much Linux has changed in the last few years.

The book is really excellent. The format is presented as a project based approach to introducing the reader to Ubuntu’s flavor of Linux. Ubuntu’s goal is to be a work right out of the box distribution that is close enough to the ubiquitous Windows platform in form and function to allow an easy crossover user experience.

I’m going to add a review of my experience with Ubuntu in a comment to this review if you are interested. My original review had intertwined the two, the book and the OS, and I thought that wasn’t fair, as much as I like Ubuntu, to the book itself so I rewrote it. Some things, like the installation, really are dual issue impacting the book and the OS so I left that in this review.

This book includes the 32bit 12.04 (latest as of printing of the book) on a CD. Very nice. The 64bit version is free too but you have to download that if you want it and you should do that if you have a 64bit computer. Both versions weigh in at about 630MB. The site recommends the 32bit version on the download page but elsewhere the site recommends the 64bit version for 64bit processors - which is most processors these days.

There are 22 chapters that cover a very broad and mostly basic range of projects. The first 11 chapters deal with getting the OS set-up or tweaking it. Don’t let that daunt you. Right out of the box everything (with ONE big exception -WiFi- I’ll cover in the comment on the OS review) was working fine. Better than fine. The only problem I had was the unfamiliarity of the user interface and the desktop short-cut thing.

Things covered: Installation, desktop overview, Internet connection, web browser (FireFox), Ubuntu Software Center which is the Ubuntu equivalent to Windows Update but better I think, Ubuntu’s version of a file explorer called Nautilus, the command line, user interface tweaks, printer set-up, and language customization. Wow. It is a lot of territory but the authors do an excellent job and keep it reasonably easy to follow along. You can skim through the stuff that is not of interest and come back later - I did that with the printer set-up for example. Ubuntu is very intuitive for most things so you’ll be skipping a lot of it.

A very, very cool development over the past few years in the Linux world is what is called LiveCDs. LiveCDs allow you to boot from your CD drive and get the full 100% experience of the OS without changing or endangering your current installation. The book describes it and I did it. I was so impressed that I installed Ubuntu. It was very intuitive and the install process is thoroughly covered in that chapter. You are properly warned to make a backup before proceeding. I am a geek and confident about what I am doing so I didn’t bother with it. If that doesn’t describe you and you picture yourself fainting outright at the loss of all the stuff on your hard drive then make a back up for goodness sake. Since Win7 took up my whole drive I had to repartition it on the fly and that is super easy to do while in the install process with the included partitioning app.

You can also install from Windows. Very cool.

You can dual boot, which is fully supported by Ubuntu, or zap everything and do a full install. Please don’t do that if you aren’t absolutely positive that is what you want to do. The only way to recover from that is with a full disk back up made before hand or a fresh installation if you have your Windows DVD. My nephew zapped his laptop that way and now has a laptop he won’t use because it can’t do something he wanted that was, apparently, Windows only. He lives a ways off, is impatient and rash and giving him tech support to address the problem is impossible. I’m sure that he can do what he wants but he’s too quick to give up to get it done. And getting it done is mostly just running the Windows emulator WINE. Anyway.

You don’t necessarily have to take the chapters in order since Ubuntu is very easy to use and intuitive too with a few exceptions.

The next 9 chapters deal with actually using your computer with Ubuntu. This is good stuff. Items covered are office applications, paint type stuff, music player(s), working with mp3 players and other similar devices, video/DVD, gaming (still losing out to Windows sad to say), misc. stuff [like financial software, recipe, health et. al.], using actual Windows and alternative to windows apps under Ubuntu/Linux, and finally security.

The final two chapters are about the Ubuntu community, which is a very helpful place, and resources. The appendixes cover referenced items from the text of the book, including installing Ubuntu from a USB drive (which I did later with Zorin).

Throughout the book all topics are covered in enough detail to either answer your question, fix your problem or put you on the right track to getting them fixed if they are fixable. That is very impressive in a book of this sort and the authors did an outstanding job.

[EDIT: Just wanted to update this review to note —- you are not stuck with Ubuntu’s choice for a user interface. Unlike Windows, where what you see is pretty much it like it or lump it, Linux employs Desktop Environments so you can completely change your user interface. And that is changing the stock interface but depending on what you use you can further customize the heck out of it. It isn’t hard either. Some are very large downloads and some are not. Lots of tutorials on what is available and how to install whatever you are interested in. I DL’d and installed about 6 different desktop environments last night. Switching between them is as simple as logging out and logging back in.

If you like that candy glass look that some Android phones have for a UI that is available as a DE called ‘E’ or ‘Enlightenment’.

/EDIT]
Rating: 5
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