The Ubuntu desktop reminds me a lot of the Mac OS X system
that I typically use. The Ubuntu software center looks a lot like the Apple App
Store. I browsed some of the games available for download and was interested in
one called “Pingus” (the name made me giggle). It is a lemmings-like game about
guiding penguins through obstacle-filled levels. I checked the Apple App Store
to see if there is an IOS version of the game—there wasn’t.
I thought it was odd that the launcher on the side came
pre-loaded with an Amazon.com icon that launches the Amazon.com website. Did
Amazon pay for that kind of endorsement? I am not sure how that kind of
corporate sponsorship fits with the ideological mission of Share Ware.
Once I started opening apps and creating sample documents, I
had difficulty getting back to the graphical desktop screen. Without thinking,
I used “Command S” to save my sample LibreOffice Writer document and it worked
just like it does on my Mac (I try to use “Command Q” or other Apple shortcuts
on the Windows OS all the time—they don’t work). But once I used “Command Q” to
try and quit an open program, and it quit VMWare instead, so maybe my commands
were only working because I was using VMWare? I don’t know.
Overall, a lot of the Ubuntu desktop felt very familiar, but
it was just different enough to be slightly frustrating when I couldn’t intuit
how to do something or where to find something. I am looking forward to
learning more about Ubuntu in the following weeks.
I went about the tutorials very linearly. I have taught
myself how to knit and crochet, how to make cheese, and other relatively complex
tasks, so I know what learning methods really work for me. I like to read all
the directions through once to get an idea, and then go through each small part
of a tutorial while doing the task in real time. The command line tutorials
were difficult because I don’t know all the commands to make things work.
Having to refer back to the “cheat sheet” and the linuxcommand.org instructions
over and over again got old fast.
I preferred the written linuxcommand.org tutorials to
Griffith’s UACBT tutorials. I liked that reading text gave me time to sit and
think about things before I did them, and let me work at my own pace, rather
than constantly pausing and resuming the videos. However, the Griffith
tutorials were helpful as background.
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