Ubuntu phone review: first-look

Thursday, January 3rd, 2013

Ubuntu for smartphones is the third episode of an ambitious four-part series that will eventually see the Linux distro span phones, tablets, PCs and TVs. Only the tablet version of the OS remains on the drawing board, which is surprising given that it’s the closest relation to Ubuntu’s traditional PC stalking ground, but we’re told it will arrive in the next year or so.

In the meantime, we kicked off the new year with a hands-on demonstration of Ubuntu for smartphones in London last night, giving us an early glimpse of what visitors to CES in Las Vegas will be treated to next week.

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The Linux Labs – how it was done

Thursday, October 11th, 2012

Earlier this year we launched an appeal. We wanted you to help us with our Linux Labs. We didn’t want you to answer a few multiple choice questions; we didn’t want plain numbers. We wanted you to help us write the reviews themselves.

So, via the medium of The big PC Pro Linux Labs wiki, hosted by our friends over at Memset, we set about building a collaborative Labs of the likes never seen before in the pages of the magazine.

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Help PC Pro write its Linux distro Labs

Thursday, July 26th, 2012

In the past couple of years, we’ve seen huge interest in the reviews we’ve published of the different versions of Ubuntu. The popular free operating system has a massive following, and rightly so. It’s a fully fledged operating system, complete with office software and a host of useful tools and utilities. And Ubuntu, which has now reached version 12.04, is now a usable, mature operating system.

Is Office 365 the best thing that’s ever happened to Linux?

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Currently, my office PC is running the betas of both Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.04 — a situation that is doubtless pushing Dennis Publishing’s IT manager a little closer to his well deserved nervous breakdown.

Yesterday, I spent the day working solely in Ubuntu 12.04 to see how the OS is progressing. I’m a big fan of the tweaks made to the Unity interface; the drop-down killing Head Up Display is tinged with brilliance if currently a little sluggish; and the Ubuntu Software Store is maturing nicely. However, there’s one thing I’ve always missed when working in Ubuntu: Outlook. Despite the protestations of the Linux faithful, neither Evolution nor Thunderbird — the two default mail clients in recent versions of Ubuntu — are a patch on Outlook when it comes to dealing with an Exchange Server.

The only other option was to worm in via Outlook Web Access, but because there’s no Linux version of Internet Explorer, you were forced to use the horribly rudimentary stripped-down version, which was spitefully designed to punish people who had the barefaced cheek to run Chrome or Firefox. The old version of Outlook Web Access made Lotus Notes look cutting edge: even basic tasks such as creating a meeting were akin to a colonoscopy, and you could literally make a cup of tea in the time it took to perform a basic keyword search of your inbox.

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Why Unity made me fall out of love with Ubuntu

Monday, May 16th, 2011

I’m falling out of love with Ubuntu, which is strange because it’s as good as it’s ever been. And no, this isn’t one of those blogs. I’m not going to proclaim that it’s now too mainstream, or soulless or any other such tosh. It’s not. In fact, it’s very brilliant in many of the ways that matter, just not the one that matters to me. It’s simply not the Ubuntu I’d hoped it would become.

At the root of this statement is Unity. I’ve read all sorts of complaints about the new front-end, and to my mind they veer from wildly silly to outright daft. Quite frankly if you can’t suss out a new scrollbar, then evolution’s wasted on you.

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The dual-core ‘phone’ that runs Android and Ubuntu

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

There’s more than enough glitz and smartphone glamour at Mobile World Congress to keep me writing previews well into next week, but when I dropped in at the ARM stand, it was something a little unusual that drew my attention.

On the edge of a narrow bench sat a rattly-looking development unit – the kind of device phone and chip makers use to test hardware before squeezing it into the shiny, sleek chassis I’ve seen so many times over the past three days. But that’s not the interesting part: ARM was using it to demonstrate the benefits of multicore mobile processors, the sort so many of the new devices this year are set to employ.

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Running PC Pro on Ubuntu: the verdict

Friday, February 11th, 2011

Yesterday, something remarkable happened. Our entire editorial team migrated to Ubuntu overnight and – by and large – it was business as usual. The website ran as normal, magazine copy was still written, we (just about) fulfilled our day jobs. (You can see how PC Pro’s Ubuntu day unfolded here.)

Several of the many excellent comments on yesterday’s live blog suggested our day-long experiment wasn’t a fair test; that no IT manager worth his space in the car park would migrate an entire office to a new operating system with almost no preparation or staff training. They were right. Yet what our somewhat reckless experiment revealed is that Ubuntu could cope. On a rag-bag selection of laptops and desktops, installed as a Windows “app”, a dual-boot or within a virtual machine, Ubuntu worked (sometimes at the second or third attempt) every time.

What our test also revealed is that the underlying operating system is becoming less and less relevant: what really matters are the applications. So much of our working lives are now spent in the web browser – updating the web CMS, scouring websites – that it really doesn’t matter if it’s Windows or Ubuntu propping the browser up. The Chrome and Firefox sync tools are so well implemented that you’re up and running with familiar bookmarks, extensions, search history and passwords within minutes.

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Live blog: running PC Pro on Ubuntu

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

To mark the Complete Guide to Ubuntu feature in the new issue of PC Pro – on sale today – we’re attempting to run our magazine and website on Ubuntu 10.10 for one day only.

Every website story and review we write, every email we send, every picture we edit will be completed on a PC running the popular Linux OS. Click here for full details of the challenge.

We’ll be updating this blog throughout the day with our experiences – good and bad – of running our office on Ubuntu. You can also follow our updates on the PC Pro Twitter account, using the #ubuntupro hashtag.

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Can we run PC Pro on Ubuntu?

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

On Thursday PC Pro is going to put its money where its mouth is. To coincide with the release of the new edition of PC Pro – which features our Ultimate Guide to Ubuntu on the front cover – we’re going to attempt to run the magazine and website exclusively on Ubuntu-based PCs*.

You can follow our live blog on running PC Pro on Ubuntu here

From 8am tomorrow, when the news team clock-in to bring you the early morning website news, to the time we switch off the last PC late in the evening, there won’t be a single blang of that Windows jingle heard here at PC Pro HQ.

Why? Over the past year we’ve been won over by the maturity, reliability and sheer quality of Ubuntu. Our recent Windows vs Ubuntu feature extolled the virtues of the Linux OS for business users, and the feature that goes on sale tomorrow reveals just how easy it is to install, configure and even run everyday Windows software on the cost-free OS.

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Windows vs Ubuntu: in a nutshell

Monday, July 19th, 2010

You may recall how Dell dug itself into an almighty hole last month, after proclaiming that Ubuntu was safer than Windows, before swiftly changing its mind and declaring itself more neutral than Switzerland.

Well, now the PC maker’s had time to think the matter through, another page has appeared on the Dell website, condensing the whole Windows vs Ubuntu debate into about 100 words.

From Dell’s perspective the choice is clear. You should choose Windows if (and I swear I’m not paraphrasing here):

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