I am downloading the latest Ubuntu Linux distro to try out on my desktop so I thought I would write a few words about Linux. An OS (Operating System) is the core software that starts after your hardware is booted. Windows, MAC OS, Linux and Blackberry OS are examples of OSes. The OS allows you to install and run other software like Microsoft Word, Chrome browser, Tweetdeck or Lotus Notes. It also manages your hardware like printer and monitor. So basically imagine your OS as being at the center and connecting your hardware, software and network to work together. When I hear Linux I immediately think free and open source software. I know the word free is very appealing and may motivate you to try Linux to see if it works for you. Open source means that the programming code of the OS (known as the source code) is available for anyone to view, contribute, and modify accordingly. There are many distributions (or distro for short) of Linux for desktop, server, mobile devices and embedded devices for example. Linux and MAC OS both have a Unix background. Persons who like working on the command prompt and having a lot of control over the OS tend to appreciate Linux and also traditionally persons with an IT background or even the technology enthusiast. Linux today for example Ubuntu, looks, feels, and works like any other major OS. Only a few more minutes before the .iso file is downloaded then I burn it to CD and install on my desktop. As with any installation or such make sure your documents and files are backed up to an external drive and/or internet storage. You may need to go to your boot menu (F11 on my desktop) or BIOS (F2 for me) to select CD drive to boot from if this does not happen automatically.

This page was very useful for troubleshooting why Skype wouldn’t run straight off the website installation for OpenSuse. On Linux Skype is a 32-bit application, but my version of OpenSuse was 64-bit, so this page explains the steps needed to install the missing libraries that would allow a 32-bit Skype application to run.

The OpenSuse Community Restricted Multimedia Formats page was ultra useful today for getting my xvid-encoded videos playing smoothly on my OpenSuse installation. A nice extra surprise was that it smoothened the video on Flash playing within my browser. I was getting annoyed by jerky YouTube playbacks, and this ymp file for my Gnome environment seemed to fix this.