Category: Ubuntu

ubuntu 16.04 with cat

whbeebe

I know I’ve written how I’m pretty much into using my Apple MBP as my primary driver. Which has meant that the old Samsung R580 running Ubuntu 15.10 has been sitting, forlorn and ignored in its bag. I hate wasting anything, especially a working computer, even the R580.

So I pulled the R580 out of its bag and updated its 15.10 installation. And then, on a whim, I ran the updater a second time and got the notice to upgrade to 16.04. I figured why not? After about an hour of downloads and installs, the R580 rebooted into 16.04. And following that whim, I downloaded the Vivaldi Browser 1.1 Debian package and installed it as well. Easy peasy using dpkg.

Since before its official 1.0 release Vivaldi had become my BFF browser, surpassing every other browser I’ve used (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE and Edge) across all my computers. And just like on Windows 10 and Mac OS X, it’s blazing fast. And I just like the way it works. Even the Gingersnaps, especially Luke, likes it. He’s also something of an Ubuntu fan cat, which is why he’s sitting next to the R580 above.

I don’t know that I’ll dust off the R580 and start using it again like I have in the past. But for the record, I am extremely impressed that the R580 is still usable, and that Ubuntu 16.04 runs on it without any issues that I can see. Even though the R580 was purchased in 2011 with Windows 7 installed, it’s run Ubuntu as long as it’s run Windows, and run Ubuntu with a lot less drama (Ubuntu went on when Windows 7 corrupted itself). For the record this is the last version of Ubuntu Long Term Support I’ll install on the R580. I know I said that with the last LTS (14.04) and when the next Ubuntu release (14.10) came out it went on over 14.04. But I have a sneaking suspicion I’ve pushed my luck with this machine and upgraded Ubuntu as far as I reasonably aught to. It’s still usable and from my brief tour of 16.04, it’s as polished a Linux distro as you could ever want. And Vivaldi is as polished a browser as you could ever want. Especially if you want a Linux computer.

updating ubuntu

whbeebe1 Comment

I was forced into updating my ancient Samsung R580 notebook from 15.04 to 15.10 today. I didn’t feel the need to update to 15.10 when it was released back in October because it had nothing new I wanted and I was more than satisfied with 15.04. I’d planned to stretch out my use of 15.04 until the next LTS, 16.04, is released in April.

That plan got knocked to the side of the road when I checked with Software Updating to get the latest fixes and updates and it displayed a message that 15.04 would not longer be updated, would I please step up to 15.10. Sort of reminded me of Microsoft’s entreaties to me to update from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. So I updated the Samsung and everything updated and upgraded without a hitch.

I now have three key notebooks whose native OSes are, respectively, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Because the R580 is as old as it is I’m now in the market for a used notebook that’s current enough to last another 5-10 years to replace the R580. The R580 is old enough that it was originally sold with Vista, then later upgraded to Windows 7. That Win7 install eventually ate itself up, at which point I replaced it with Ubuntu 13.10 right after Christmas 2013. Except for one very brief side track to Fedora/RHEL, it’s been on Ubuntu ever since.

I’m not sure I’ll ever switch to Ubuntu the way Dan Gilmore did, but as soon as I get my finances back in order I intend to never spend as much on computers as I have in 2015. I have my strong business reasons for owning these three machines, but I don’t want to be dependent on any of them. But if I had to, I’d probably pick Ubuntu.