Australian film - Federation of Australian Movie Makers

Ubuntu vs Windows
By Ralf Jorg
This month's newsletter has been made with Ubuntu. Well what is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is an operating system
like Windows or Mac. It is a 'distro' (short for distribution) in the Linux family of distros, there are already
over a hundred distros in use at the moment.
All of this sounds quite confusing for the normal Windows user. Windows is owned by Microsoft whereas
Linux is made up of thousands of people and even some companies making up programs and distributing
them on the net for people to load onto their computer free of charge. This is called 'open source'. Many
large companies already use open source like Google and Amazon. Some of us already use open source
programs and don't even know it, Firefox and OpenOffice.org are just two that some of us might recognise.
Windows usually works straight away when you load it onto your computer and people are quite happy to
pay for this privilege where as Linux being open source has kept all of this free and will continue to do so.
As I have already stated, there are heaps of distros out there already and anyone can make their own usually
consisting of components from other distros and using programs already in the Linux system. Each
distro has newer versions coming out all the time bettering the use and making it easier for the user to configure
their computer. Some large companies own distros (still at no charge to the user) whereas others are
one-man efforts called 'Slackware'. Some are community driven distros such as Ubuntu.
This all sounds very easy and being free even sounds better but there is always a little drawback.
Drivers are little programs that make your peripherals work. Peripherals are things like printers and scanners
and Linux distros don't always include all these drivers on their disks. So you have to search for these
drivers to make them work. Many companies distribute drivers for Linux on the net and there are many forums
to help you find what you are looking for.
This months magazine usually is put together with 'Microsoft Publisher'. This time I have used 'Scribus', is
it the same? Well, we get used to using the same program all the time so it’s a learning curve. I attached the
camera into the USB port and 'F-Spot' photo manager came up. Wow! What a great program, downloaded
all the photos nicely and quickly and there a few powerful tools there to alter the photos for me, usually the
photos are altered with 'Paint Shop Pro'.
This page is made with 'OpenOffice. The presidents page is sent to me in 'Publisher' format and so is Joe's
technical page, both of these pages will be converted into text and photo files and inserted into the 'Scribus’
document. The whole magazine will be made into a Pdf format to be sent over the internet and printed.
How much did this new format of publishing cost me, not a cent, that's what open source means.
Does Linux Ubuntu take over my whole computer, sorry no, not at the moment. I use a completely different
computer for Ubuntu. Why? Because it’s a new experience and I, like most of us, am so used to Windows
and the programs associated with it.
Does Ubuntu or Linux systems have all the programs I need to take over my computer usage? Nearly, but
as you are all aware most programs are aimed to be used on Windows. Even the ones I have used are available
on Windows at no charge.
You can download them for free. Why is this article in this month's magazine? 'Kino' is one of the video
editing programs which Linux users can use for free.
Reprinted with permission from NVM Editor Ralf Jorg
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