Moving from Windows to Ubuntu

After flicking backwards and forwards between Andriod and IOS several times over the last 6 months I finally gave up a 7 year relationship with the iPhone and moved to my lovely Samsung S8+. During this period I've also been tinkering with Ubuntu as a starting point to delve deeper into Linux and the power of shell scripting and Python. I've been tinkering with the latter on and off in my Windows Desktop.

Last night I finally took the plunge and removed Windows from my Dell XPS laptop and replaced it with Ubuntu 18.04.

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

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My first experience of Linux was Redhat 6.0 (I think) back in 1999/2000 and ... well I can't say much about it as I don't think I ever managed to get it up and running properly. I seem to recall getting it installed but then not being able to get graphics working properly.

Redhat 6.0 Hedwig

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It looks like it has been quote a journey! I was tempted to go with Fedora which is, as I understand, the consumer version of Redhat Enterprise Linux but decided against it. Dell ships some XPS devices with Ubuntu so it seemed a safer route on the compatibility front.

I've not used it loads yet but my thoughts so far are:

• Very easy to install - no tricky questions and I'd go as far to say more straight forward than Windows to install
• Quick - OK I'm using a pretty good laptop but it seems to perform better on this hardware than Windows 10
• Good mail client - I forever struggled to get icloud working on Windows Mail, in fact I gave up trying. Firefox works beautifully. I appreciate it's available for Windows.

I've not tried installing my HP Wireless printer yet so I'm hoping that will be as easy as it was to install Chrome.

So far so jolly good! My mate @steevc asked me what software I might miss and so far I'm not too sure. Maybe my family tree software but I've not used that in a long time so I doubt that will be a big deal. Also I've not really used Libre Office but it looks to cover all the bases so should be more than adequate.

I should add I still have a Window's PC and also run an iMac for photo editing. This machine is my couch device that I use for browsing, paperwork and catching up on mails and social media.

It's far too early to give a final thought but first impressions are good.