This blog posting is the review of Ubuntu Desktop 24.04. This is the first time I ever made a Linux distribution as my primary OS. There are some things I like about it, and some things I don’t like about it. So far, the OS does almost everything I would need without too much of a fuss. However, that doesn’t make it smooth sailing. As with most Linux OSes, Ubuntu is free, and the download .iso file was 6GB in size. This meant it needed to be installed on a drive that was 8GB or larger to install the OS.
The Good
The OS is secured. It allows me to log in without my password, but if it was waken from sleep, I could use either my biometric, or password to get in. I would have much rather have a PIN instead of a password, and just use the password for OS changes, but I would take what I can get.
Another thing I like about Ubuntu is that the secondary drive shows as an icon on my task bar which shows on the left side of the screen and positioned vertical which is odd, but simple enough. Also most of the common used applications are on the task bar, and when I have a program open, that icon as well shows on the task bar.
The Bad
There are a couple of things I do not like about Ubuntu. First, some of the applications don’t have a menu bar, while others do. This leads to an inconsistent user interface, and had led to make things harder than it needed to be. For example, I wanted to add an email account in Mozilla Thunderbird. I had to look for a Menu icon that you might find in mobile applications to get to where I could add an account. However, Libre Office does have a menu bar. Text Editor which is Ubuntu’s text editor does not have an menu bar. Again, all very inconsistent.
Next, I knew ahead of time, but it would be nice if more OSes used drive letters similar to Windows. This seems to be a Windows only feature, but a feature I miss nonetheless. Also, it would seem as if the OS hard drive is hidden as much as possible with only offering my home folder as my only option for the OS drive. This makes it hard to see how much of my 2TB I have left on my PC.
And speaking of my home folder, I could not find a way to change my Home directory to go to my second drive. This actually discourages me from wanting to save to the home folder, and therefore use the OS. If I could change my home folder to my secondary 1TB drive, then I would force myself to use Ubuntu more often, and therefore become more competent in the OS.
Last, there is no auto-correct for common misspellings. While the OS will denote a red line under words it does not recognize, there are no options provided for the correct spelling like what MacOS has. I am not the best speller, so options on correct words would have been really nice.
The Ugly
I could not find a way to make my desktop a single color. I seen where I could change the wallpaper as different images, but no a single color such as black. With that in mind, I chosen the most dull wallpaper I could find that was also dark.
The OS interface will some getting used to. Not everything is as intuitive as I would like it to be. Hopefully, I can pick up on the OS as I use it more often.
Verdict
I am using Ubuntu because I couldn’t get the Windows .iso file to install the OS on my Framework16. Obviously, I was able to get Ubuntu installed, so I know it wasn’t the fault of the imaging software, but Ubuntu was the second choice nonetheless. I do like the good features of Ubuntu, but it is definitely not a perfect OS. I will keep Ubuntu because I don’t have a choice, but I do hope to grow to like the OS.