Ubuntu has been by far the most stable and user friendly linux os I have used thus far. As soon as it was fully installed it adapted to all of my hardware and provided such an enjoyable experience. It even features three different versions on the website for the desktop, server and netbooks! Let’s take a look at some of the main features:

1. X.Org server 1.6
2. Boot performance
3. Linux kernel 2.6.28
4. Ext4 filesystem support
5. Cloud computing
6. GNOME 2.26

All these components are not foreign to other linux distro but they are featured in this distro and has such nice integration in ubuntu. One thing that pops out is the boot time. When installed on my laptop it has a boot time of 20 – 25 seconds.

Stuff I like

I used the Desktop Edition 64 bit version, and the features that jump out me was how you can control the individual speed of each your processors if you have a multi-processor chip. The programs it comes with it, how it can control the brightness of my laptop (ASUS N50), when I needed certain plugins it downloaded them with ease. The linux kernel is definitely making great strides and is becoming more and more dependable for people out the box. This operating system runs pretty fast and efficient other that I have no complaints or do it?

Stuff I didn’t like

I didn’t like the fact that every time I would use hibernate I would get some error message. I also didn’t like that fact I couldn’t perform a software raid. Your best bet if you want to do this is to solve this hardware wise and buy a raid controller. One other thing I realize is that firefox 3.0 would crash a good amount which turned out be annoying from time to time.

Conclusion

I feel as though this is the best linux distro for a windows user or someone starting in linux and for 2009. Ubuntu support is great and continuing to show great strides. I would suggest for users starting out to use th 32 bit version to have more access to programs they would commonly use. I feel comfortable putting this linux on someone computer for their main os now. I still feel as though Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is still slightly better though, but that only because of the better support of hardware for computers. Anyways, look out fo 9.10 in October 2009.

1. Vista is such a memory hog and the 64 bit version doesn’t have enough 64 bit programs
2. I was using the 32 bit version of vista and I have 4 GBs of memory and it was only reading 3 GBs.
3. I feel now that suse 11.1 is the best version of suse released and KDE 4.1 is so nice (KDE 4.2 is a little unstable).
4. Linux runs so smooth compared to WIndows and really knows how to use dual core and multi core processors.
5. The Linux community is getting bigger and to find a solution to a problem is becoming more likely.
6. And I finally got Skype 2.0 video to run without distorted images, lol.

Now the last one is what sealed the deal for me because Skype is a program that I use alot. Now after months of researching I can finally unveil how to get it working.

First off let me reveal my specs.

Specs for my laptop

But the most important spec is my webcam which is a Sony VGP-VCC8. First thing first is getting the webcam detected by Linux which would be detected as video0. I’m using the Linux Kernel 2.6.27.19-3.2-defaultx86_64. There are two ways I know of to get this type of webcam working you can get Ricoh R5U870 Linux Driver and follow the instructions for compiling it or add the community repository for SUSE located in Yast for webcam drivers.

After adding this to your repository you will need to go to Yast > Software Management then install luvcview. After doing so open up the program luvcview. If you can view yourself pretty well on the screen, that means everything is good and we can proceed further, if not you go back to the website follow everything thoroughly and make sure you have your kernel headers installed from software management through Yast.

Moving on we now install Skype. After installing skype and creating account for ourselves or logging in we will go to options and proceed to video devices. You should see the Select video occupied by /dev/video0 and to the right of that see test.

Click on test if the image is distorted or blurry then you may proceed if everything is good then you are good!

If your lost with what is going on so far, I will take time out to explain. We have the webcam working properly on our computer because we saw our picture perfectly in luvcview. Now when we open up skype we see a distorted picture which means something is wrong with skype. Which means we need to configure skype correctly.

Now for the kicker

Go to /home/user_name/.Skype/user_name/config.xml

Open up the config file and input

<Video> <CaptureHeight>480</CaptureHeight> <CaptureWidth>640</CaptureWidth> </Video>

In between the <lib></lib>  and close out skype and open again and you will see the problem fixed. Shaggy? It’s fixed and you don’t know why. The reason is that Skype for Linux 2.0 video works in a resolution of 640 by 480. So improper resolution is the problem with skype not displaying the video correctly it took me a few months to figure this out and after you reading this it will take you less than a day lol. Leave comments about what you think.