Some weeks ago I blogged that I was installing Ubuntu on my laptop as I was going to give another operating system a try. It's been over a month now and the learning curve has been slow. It's not because Ubuntu is difficult and arduous it is Bill Gates who has a firm hold on me. We all learn new things different ways and the trick is to find how best you learn. As for me the best way I learn things depends on what I am trying to learn. When it comes to operating systems...well.... it has and always been the Windows systems. When one of Bill's OS's where changed there was the frustration factor of just trying to make it work. This is where I am at with Ubuntu; I have downloaded some programs and once downloaded for the life of me I can't find them. It occurred to me the other day that I am looking for these programs with a Windows mindset. I began to head over to Youtube to check out some learning videos. The problem here was I would have to keep stopping,
trying what they said then getting back to the Youtube video and then back to the same spot in Ubuntu again. That was just a receipe for frustration as this game plan was far from smooth going. It was off to some user groups but that turned out most of the time to be a hunting trip. I would end up going to so many links that the original question was forgotten and at my age that process does not take long. I came to the conclusion the written word in the form of books was the way to go to solve this monkey on my back. I hope to become more familiar with the Ubuntu OS now and get past the wall I have come up against. Over the Christmas break I will be taking a leisurely approach with the help of some books and hands on learning to get Ubuntu in check.
3 comments:
Assuming you're using a recent Ubuntu 11.04 or later, you have the new Unity user interface. To find a program, press the Windows key, then start typing the program's name, it should appear then you can run it by clicking it or you can drag the icon to the dock on the left for the future.
Unity is still new and not quite ready in my opinion at this point. Looks beautiful though.
Good evening Peter, the one program I did download and it was a CW code program said it had to be run in terminal. I was not sure what that was and did some Goggling. I found out about the terminal program but not to comfee using it. But Peter I will download some others and use the Windows key as you say and see how it goes. Thanks very much for stopping buy and taking the time to give me some feedback.
Mike
I dislike the Unity interface. I found it cumbersome to use and I don't think it was just because it was new to me. If you want to switch back to the older interface do it at the login window. Along the bottom you will find pulldowns to set the interface. Once selected they will stick until you change it again.
Give Ubuntu a month working with it everyday and it will start to fall into place and you'll discover some things that are just better done than in Windows. Having the multiple desktops is one of those, very handy.
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