Linux.

Right now, I’m typing on a Linux OS. Ubuntu to be exact. There are many different brands, or “distros” as they are called. Although there are a couple paid ones, a majority of them are free. Yes, free. Download, install, and you’re good. And everything there is to install on Linux, be it a media player or video editor, they’re all for free.

However, Linux is in the same boat as Mac with software compatibility. Everything is being made for Windows, so it’s lucky to have a Linux version. Extremely lucky. However, there are ways to run Windows programs. There’s the free emulator, wine. And then there’s running a virtual machine through VMware, but this means that you need a copy of Windows, which blows the freeness out.

Currently, I’m running Ubuntu on VMware Fusion for Mac. Compared to my installation of Windows 7, it runs much more smoothly, even when limited to only 512 MB of my RAM. There is no lag whatsoever. Now, I’ve upped it to 1 GB (1,024 MB), but it still is so much better than that Windows VM of mine at 2,500 MB, which is a shame with Windows getting most of the big programs and games. But it’s a great display of how little is needed to run Linux. Back in high school, I had a programming teacher who enlightened us on the fact that Linux can run on PCs that Windows crawls on. This is proof to that.

At this moment, I’ve switched to Unity, which is a feature on VMware Fusion that makes the desktop of the OS you’re running within it to disappear. The programs and windows run right on to of the Mac desktop, running in unity with the original OS. So, you can see where the name comes from.

It does seem a bit buggy still, with it unable to get one of Ubuntu’s windows to go full screen. There’s also some lag with dragging the windows around, with some frozen imprints of a previous window sometimes being frozen overtop of the next one you bring up or when you switch tabs. However, the fact that the windows sit on the dock just as they would if they were original Mac programs is just plain awesome.

Unable to run Linux to it’s full extent with the limits of running a virtual machine of it, I can’t play with the cool cubed-desktop-switch thing that really sets Linux apart from other OSs. But even in this limited state, there is a second desktop I can switch to. It’s not so 3D cool, but the ability to have multiple desktops to switch to (maybe so you can have one cluttered with icons and the other nice and clean) is awesome.

Leaving Unity and back to Ubuntu itself, at full screen, it appears to be the actual OS I’m running, with no signs of Mac at all on the screen. It feels nice. I can gladly say if I couldn’t get another Mac, or if I went for a netbook (which Apple doesn’t make), I’d certainly opt for having Linux on it.

As I play around and experiment with this OS, I’ll make some updates here on it in the future.