Ubuntu Users' Stories

Who is using Ubuntu?

Check out who and why is using Ubuntu Linux. Read the stories below.

sealview, DTP, web designer

I was used to use only MS OSes since '96, in 2004 I have opened my small company for web design and hosting, of course, on my hosting server and workstation I have installed WS web edition (2003 back then) and did not suite to my need at all. So I have made a small research on the good old Google and banged to Ubuntu, I have experienced some linux distros till then (Slackware, RH since 6.x and Debian which I loved). So since 2004 I used only Ubuntu Server on my hosting machine.
I can't say the same thing to my workstation because of an alternative to AFlash Professional, even a commercial one.
I love the way Ubuntu suite my needs.

Hendoc, Contractor

I like the flexibility of Ubuntu. I can point and click, or I delve deeper as I see fit. I have been using Ubuntu since Dapper, and I see nothing out there that can pull me away from it.

Monroe, Student (Computer Science)

I started with Linux when I was a Freshman in High School, my friend gave me a copy of Slax live cd. After a few weeks i installed Mandriva Linux, i used that for several months and decided i hated rpm files. i switched back to windows for a little while and then installed ubuntu for the first time ever. it was the first time i had ever used gnome and i loved it. that install was ubuntu 6.10, i have used ubuntu ever since. i am currently running ubuntu 8.10 and i have even switched over several of my families computers to linux. i am now a Freshman in college and i still use ubuntu

Marcus , Science Teacher

I have been teaching Science for a while now. When I was an angry young man I had issues about the amount of money being spent on software from my departmental budget for operating system licences, word processor licences, spread sheet licences and database licences leaving little left for the kind of software I wanted to use in class, let alone things like equipment, text books and exercise books.
As a teacher in the U.K who entered the profession quite late in life I perceived a situation in our schools that I still consider nothing short of ludicrous and something that has become an institutionalised form of insanity. In a nutshell it is this;
Why as a British tax payer, with a budget responsibility for obtaining the best value for money in a British school, teaching British children, was I compelled by my employers to purchase the expensive products of an American company, Microsoft, that would on a whim change its proprietary file structures every couple of years in “upgrades” further compelling me to allow the aforementioned American company to metaphorically suck the blood out of my small science department year on year? No one in the school could ever give me a satisfactory answer. Usually phrases like “industry standard” and “compatibility” and “whole school policy” would be bandied about by my “superiors” who all had difficulty with mouse control and considered “the command line” as some sort of Voodoo! Most if not all of these standard responses are spurious as anyone who has tried to work with MS word attachments in emails will attest to.
As a struggling newly wed and newly qualified teacher, I was compelled to purchase a copy of Miscosoft Office of use at home because of these so called standards. More than once I have been stuffed by Microsoft, and other companies when “upgrading” proprietary backup software, only to find that my precious work has not been readable on a new system. This happened every couple of years because I was “locked in” at school and at home.
My job put me in a position to review a lot of software for the purpose of education. Too much of what I have seen had restrictive licences that meant I could not alter any of the software if I needed to. Too much of the software available for windows also had proprietary data formats and there was still the problems of “Lock in” and companies deliberately making their older software obsolete.
Now I went into Education on the back of some very deep seated notions about nurturing “the future of our race” and noble intentions of passing on philanthropic values to the next generation and beyond. All this milking money out of school budgets is something that I consider thoroughly distasteful an immoral. Sure I'll pay a reasonable price for good software, but I need the right to change it to my needs, share it with colleagues and friends and I also need open data standards so that the swelling archive of work I do does not get marginalised. Also as a teacher I have ethical objections to further indoctrinating other peoples children into the use of the products of one profit making company, or any company with closed source software for that matter.

Then in 1996 I discovered Redhat Linux 5.0 and the concept of open source. It was an epiphany. Here I had, potentially at least, the tools to do my job better than I have ever been able to do it before. Unfortunately few of my colleagues at the time shared my enthusiasm and the decision makers still muttered the same old stock phrases. I had no choice to remain a Closet Linux Nerd until the rest of the world caught up. I played a bit with Suse 5.2, Slakware and Debian 1.0. Since then I have used a wide range of Linux “distros” at home. Linux in the 21st century has grown up beyond recognition. In 2007 I came across Ubuntu Linux “Hardy Heron”. Ubuntu Linux has so far been the easiest to install and configure. It sees my windows machine on the home network easily and I can interchange files with the same ease. It connects my ancient Toshiba laptop wirelessly to the internet, and my three year old delights in safely surfing the Cbeebies website playing “Aunty Mabel”.

Everything I need for basic productivity is there in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, including Open Office for word processing, spread sheets and databases. It even has support for presentations. I now run a main system with “Intrepid Ibex” (8.10) and I am testing out some of the educational software available. The help forums are full of information from people who have had problems and solved them. There is a friendly community of folk from across the globe so if you get problems then there will be someone there to help you.

In my latest job I have responsibility for steering ICT use in my school. This includes all subjects, not just science. I have discovered a wealth of really good software such as Rosegarden, a music mixer and midi manipulator, blender, a 3d design program, GIMP a photo manipulation tool and too many others to mention. All free. All supported. Unfortunately I am faced with the same old nonsense where the key decision makers are still Microsoft junkies and I am prohibited from making the change to a Linux environment.

The British government, rightly or wrongly, has dictated that ICT become a larger part of the school experience. Unfortunately, by failing to consider open source and offer guidelines on it, the UK Govenment has also played a major part in creating a framework to further line the pockets of software houses while causing the state schools to haemorrhage money on mismatched systems, software and the ecologically disastrous practice of upgrading for upgrades sake. Working in education, with computers over the last couple of decades has done nothing to quell the anger from my earlier years. However, seeing the rise of Ubuntu Linux and its ease of use, ease of installation, adoption of free (as in “libre” as well as in “beer”) software and open standards I at last see a glimmer of hope that some form of rational thought will enter the minds of head teachers and governors as an increasing number of them begin to use Ubuntu at home.

At home, where I have control of my environment, Ubuntu is taking root, and will eventually serve all my needs.

Wong Kean Wah, Student

I have been on Ubuntu Linux for about 1 year now, and I have to say I love it! To hell with what you hear about the complexity of using the command line, etc. I found it easy to use, and in fact, I fire up the terminal almost everyday! Ubuntu is quick, fast, smooth, flexible and very customizable! I love the community over at the Ubuntu Forums. Ubuntu has offered me more than Windows have, so to hell with Windows. Ubuntu, rock on!

Spydon, Student

I was so tired of windows and I wanted to learn more but windows was not advanced enough. I tried alot of distros and then finally settled down with Ubuntu 6.06. It was easy, yet very powerful. Today I use 8.10 and 8.04 on all my computers.

Heroid Shehu, Student soon in the High School

I found out about ubuntu in a forum in witch im a moderator www.ayih.org im from Kosovo in Ballkans Europe the newest state in the world so i readed about the ubuntu shipit and orderd a ubuntu cd and started using it at first i had problems with my internet connection PPPOEE then i had to delete my ubuntu because i had to use my pc in a restorant for music and my father did'nt let me using ubuntu because it was "difficult" for him and he was using Windows a week later i bought a new Pc so i took'ed my pc upstairs in my house and reinstalled ubuntu and started using it and i don't use windows no more since i discovert Wine Hq because i use Photoshop and Corel for design but i still have problems with my brother for deleeting windows and i will find the solution or somebody plz find it for me i need counter strike for ubuntu because he only plays that game and then i can delete windows forever from my pc by the way the new Pc runs ubuntu 2 because i told my father that ubuntu is more secure and i told him that i gave some of my friends copies of the ubuntu cd and they installed it and some of them use it and now the restorant use's ubuntu and the Totem Movie Player as media player im happy being a part of the Comunity and im Happy being a Ubuntu User thanks Ubuntu Linux

Rob Beard, Proprietor of Esdelle Computers, http://www.esdelle.co.uk

I had dabbled with various distributions of Linux when trying to get away from the bugs, slowdowns and grief which I was experiencing with Windows. When I tried Ubuntu I was amazed how easy it was to use. It's user friendly for new users but powerful enough to be used by advanced users. It provides everything I need:- Web Browsing with Firefox, E-Mail with Thunderbird & Evolution, Office applications with OpenOffice.org, Media Playing with Totem and even stuff for the kids such as TuxPaint, TuxMath and SuperTux. I'd certainly suggest anyone giving it a try. It's not just for the computer geeks, it is easy enough to install and use by anyone. I recently converted a friend's mother from XP to Ubuntu. No longer was she experiencing crashes, everything Just Works (tm).

I'm looking forward to the next release of Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex), I'm hoping that I'll be able to convert some more systems from XP to Ubuntu.

Rob

Fred McKinney, Reference Librarian

As soon as I felt comfortable doing so, I had already made up my mind to switch to Linux over Microsoft's WGA (and thus never had XP, let alone Vista, installed on my computer) when I had a problem with Windows 2000 that I couldn't resolve. I kept getting this error message that kept popping up every few seconds. I tried a fresh re-install of Win2K and still kept getting those same error messages.

Seeing as how I had no choice, I went for broke and took a few CDs of Mandrake Linux I had downloaded from the computer lab and installed them, and thus began my Exodus from Windows (this was back in January of 2005, when Ubuntu was in its infancy, and to be honest, I hadn't even heard of Ubuntu until several months later).

Intially, I was a fan of the KDE desktop. I had tried Kubuntu once, but didn't like the way it did things at all, and had Mandrake, Mepis, and PCLinuxOS on my PC for the first three years of my Linux experience.

But then, last winter, KDE4 debuted. I was already very turned off by its looks but still tried a live CD of SuSE that has it -- KDE4 sucked like a Hoover, which drove me to GNOME and Xfce -- and, of course, Ubuntu. And quite honestly, Ubuntu is the best Linux distro I have ever used. I'm especially blown away by how TOO easy it is to install a printer! Ubuntu clearly puts Windows to shame any day.

Mike Cormier, Student

I've always like messing with computers however possible and installing Linux at one point became my new challenge. Ubuntu was the first distribution I was shown and tried and it worked out alright. Later on I decided I wanted to try Linux again, but a different distribution. 5 minutes with the other Linux I had tried and I had bolted for my Ubuntu disk. Not only is Ubuntu better then Windows and OSX, it's better and easier to use the OTHER Linux distributions!

Patrick Crawley, Student

A friend of mine showed me Ubuntu at the beginning of the summer and I switched from XP almost immediately. I first learned how to properly set it up with a separate /home partition and FAT32 storage space to exchange files between my Ubuntu and Windows partitions. However, now I do everything except gaming on Ubuntu because not only is it more stable and reliable it is also more aesthetically appealing and highly customizable. I am always trying to get people to convert and spread the word about Ubuntu. As well as live disks.

Brandon, Student/ Laptop DJ

I've collected tons of music over the years and in trying to get rid of a virus in my root directory; i ended up killing my entire windows partition. But, thank God, I had most of my tunes backed up and I had been in week 2 of trying out Wubu. So I made the switch. And I am never looking back. Linux is absolutely amazing, and I can't seems to see why I didnt make the switch earlier. And with the soon to be released Mixvibes cross software, i'll never have to "live without walls" a roof, heck i have an open grassy knoll to run on. and its amazing.

Jakke77, ...

kerran kauniina syysiltana mietiskelin silloisen xp:ni ääressä jotta miten helvetissä tämän koneen saa toimimaan, etsiskelin internetistä vastauksia ja ei mitään.
jossain sitten törmäsin ubuntu-shipit palveluun ja ajattelin tilata itselleni ubuntun, pari viikkoa odoteltuani sain ensimmäisen ubuntuni ja ja koettelin sitä live-cd:llä, hetkeä myöhemmin koneessani oli UBUNTU wihuu kaikki toimii, ei jähimisiä, ei kaatumisia eikä turhia boottauksia.
noo eipä aikaakaan kun tutustuin conffaamiseen ja sain ensimmäisen kerran black-screenin :) (älkää tehkö perässä) ja kun en viitsinyt etsiä neuvoja netistä kovin kauaa päätin asentaa ubuntuni uudelleen, ei siinä tosin mikään iso homma ole.
vuosien varrella on sitten tullut kokeiltua ubuntun lisäksi myös kubuntua xubuntua ja freespireä (josta en heti viitsinyt tykätä, susea koettelin mutta grub error 18 sai mut vihaseksi ja en sitten susea ole koetellutkaan.
kaikki joita linux kiinnostaa, suosittelen tutustumaan ihan mihin vaan versioon, kyllä se siitä, tulette huomaamaan kuinka yksinkertaiseksi kaiken voi tehdä ;)

Jamie, Professional Magician - Speaker - Freelance IT and computer assistance guy.

I've been using Macs since 1986. I have used them for all aspects of my business as an entertainer and speaker. In recent years I've begun repairing and refurbishing Macs for myself and others. As a result of that I have begun helping folks in the wide wasteland of Windows with some of their issues as well...LOL.
I stumbled upon Ubuntu and I'm enamoured with it. I'll never leave my reliable and capable Mac, however the new frontier and user friendly nature of this Linux distro is simply amazing!!!!
Real computing power for anyone and all for no cash and a little learning curve (very little). I have discovered that the long debate over Mac v. Windows is largely that most folks don't know anything about their OS just a bit about their most used apps (office, IE etc..)
SO I say try it out and explore. Ubuntu will unleash and older machines power and give you all you need to work and play and create on a digital platform.

vache asatryan, web developer / student

If i was asked what is free, what is freedom, Linux would be the number one thing that would come to my mind. If we, as a society, are striving to break all boundaries than Ubuntu is leading the way .

Abhishek , B,Tech Student

The best thing about Linux is that it lets you look under the hood and see how things actually work. Being of inquisitive nature, Linux is a boon for me.
And Ubuntu is the best distro I have encountered. I have tried Fedora, open SUSE, Mandriva and so on but Ubuntu is the best.The best feature I like in Ubuntu? Its got to be apt-get. I don't know how many hours I have spent doing apt-get and installing things which I don't actually need but what to do, it's so addictive. Also I love the way I can customize my Ubuntu.

M. Koskinen, Art student

I moved to Ubuntu a few months ago, mainly because of my disappointment with Windows Vista. I had heard that Ubuntu was easy to use, fast and reliable so I tested it out. I was more than satisfied. With Wubi I was able to test it out without partitioning. Eventually I stopped using Windows altogether and moved my Wubi install to a dedicated partition. It took some time to get things working since I have a lot of USB devices that lack Linux support but with the help of the wonderful Ubuntu community I eventually got everything running.

Eli, Library Technician

Like many, I had a hard drive crash and lost my only legal copy of Windows XP. I didn't want to have to purchase a new hard drive AND a copy of XP so I just got by using a computer at the public library. I came across an artice touting Ubuntu as a viable alternative to Windows so I decided to give it a try. I had a friend of mine who not only downloaded & burned Ubuntu for me, but sold me an old hard drive of his for a fastfood lunch. Awesome!

I loved Ubuntu from the start. LOVED! It is by far the easiest of any operating system to just sit down at, and having no experience, use and have fun with, and get work done with. I've used Windows, and Mac's newest OS, neither stand up tp Ubuntu. That first version was 7.04, and I'm now using 8.04 at home & at work. At our library we have XP, Mac's, and a few Ubuntu machines. Ubuntu continues to be the most stable, quick, and the coolest operating system that I use. Thanks to Ubuntu working for me at home, I've spread it to our local public library where I work. In turn we're spreading it to the community. I think that's kinda what Ubuntu's developers have in mind.

VoodooLogic, Tenant Coordinator

Ubuntu was my way into Linux. It was a hobby, then a bit of an obsession. I live a regular life; work, sports, girls, etc. but I also unlocked my computers potential as well as my own. Ubuntu is the dojo where your geek skills are honed.

Jorge, High School Student

About 5 months ago i bought a laptop with windows Vista. I like millions of others bought vista for its eye candy. Its sad really, ms deprives you of visual affects with xp then throws aero for vista so ppl go crazy. Transparent windows ad fading effects..Ooo lol open your task manager and thats a joke... 600mb on just the os..rofl gj ms. Well anyway i used vista for a week and then decided it sucked and installed xp. But i found xp actuall ran slower. Out of curiosity i ordered an ubuntu cd and im really glad i did its so fast, stable safe. All i can say is UBUNTU FTW! UBUNTU FTW! UBUNTU FTW! UBUNTU FTW!

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Share Your story

Please tell us why are You using Ubuntu. Share Your story!

Write Your story

Flexibility | Speed | Simplicity | Appearance | Stability | Freedom | Security | Community

Po polsku | En español | In english | Nederlands | Türkçe | Deutsch | Italiano | بالعربي

Web Design - ubuntustory@centrologic.com. About this website
Part of this page texts was reprinted from PCMech. Visit Ubuntu website.

swingers adult dating