Two day experiment

After hearing all of the hype about Ubuntu 7.04, I decided to give it
a spin. The first thing that I did was to make a fresh copy of my
home directory on a CD, using KDar. I have two physical hard drives,
and I would simply put the Ubuntu on a partition on the second drive
and then copy all of my data onto it using KDar.

Installation was almost as easy as falling off of a log. Remembering
that I preferred the KDE desktop, it was simple to add that on and it
instantly became Kubuntu. The reason that I did not start with
Kubuntu was that I wanted to have some of the applications that come
with Gnome already in place.

The first problem that I encountered was when I sought to access KDar
to copy over my personal data. KDar wasn't available on their
repository! Loading new applications using their tools was very easy
compared to RPM, but if something isn't included you must search it
out and do a tedious manual install.

Then, came the clincher: I tried to reboot back into SuSE. No go.
It just hung on the black screen of death. Many hours of going through
the Ubuntu forums and printing out a ream of paper led me to a career
of editing the extremely lengthy boot menu that Ubuntu had created.
Nothing worked. It seemed like the Ubuntu Genie had commandeered my
computer for its exclusive domain.

At long last, I concluded that the only way that I could get back
into SuSE was to disconnect the sdb drive (where Ubuntu lived)
physically and try booting SuSE from the sda drive using the SUSE DVD
disk to attempt repairs. Perhaps my menu editing skills were lacking,
but I finally wound up re-installing SuSE 10.2 and then putting my
data back in place with KDar.

From this brief digression into a new operating system, I can draw
several premature conclusions:
1. Ubuntu is far easier to install than SuSE.
2. Their philosophy seems geared toward making the transition easy for
people accustomed to using Windows.
3. Applications do seem to load faster than with SuSE, probably
because of less overhead in the coding.

If I had to use one system, I could live comfortably with either one.
Others have succeeded in creating seamless multiple boot systems,
so in this regard I blame no one other than myself.

But, for now I remain a SuSE user. ;-)

Godzilla
.

Relevant Pages

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