Linux with Majority Market Share?

When will Linux be as popular as Windows, or will it ever take down the monopoly of Microsoft? This question seems to be at the heart of Ubuntu, as the first bug report made my Mark Shuttleworth is that Microsoft has the majority market share. So how are things going since that report in 2004? Well, okay. Ubuntu is definently a long way off from being as user friendly as Windows, no matter what the nerds say. But it is getting better. Things like the software store in Karmic Koala and Ubuntu's increasing ability to detect drivers on install are certainly helping. I would say the next big push is to get Linux out there and known to the everyday user. Steven Nicholas addresses this issue in Five ways the Linux desktop shoots itself in the foot. Either way, it's exciting to see Ubuntu become more and more user friendly with each release.

Puppy Linux

One Linux distribution I tried recently and was very impressed with was Puppy. Puppy is a very small operating system, with an download size of about 100 Mb, compared to Ubuntu which takes up a full cd at around 700Mb. But what makes Puppy truly unique is that it loads completely into your computers ram. In essence, this makes Puppy very, very fast. To put it into perspective it took me a couple of days to see the system detectably pause while loading an application.

Another great feature about Puppy is that it is small enough to store entirely onto a USB drive, which is just really cool. This means that you can plug your flash drive with puppy installed into any computer and load your operating system into its ram, without disturbing the hard drive at all. If any of this sounds intriguing, you can find the download here. And for a more snazzy, but larger version of Puppy, try the Macpup version. Enjoy!

Linux Pumpkin!

I know its a little early, but I recently carved pumpkins, and what else to carve but a linux penguin? Here's a couple of photos:





I found the stencil for the linux penguin at http://www.pumpkinlady.com/images/tuxpattern.jpg . It was my first pumpkin carving experience, so don't judge!

Karmic Koala

I may try upgrading to karmic koala in the future, so that should be exciting! .

Upgrading to Jaunty Jackalope

One more day to Jaunty Jackalope!

If you are using a long term support version of Ubuntu, such as 8.04, you may be wondering how to upgrade to 9.04. The problem is that by default 8.04 wont allow the upgrade option because it is still supported.

To fix that, go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources

Once there, click on the updates tab and on the bottom where it says Release upgrade and select the option that says normal releases. Now simply go to System -> Administration -> Update Manager and the option to upgrade to the newest OS version (soon to be 9.04) should be available.