As many of you know I enjoy listening to podcasts during my commute to and from work. One that I regularly listen to is Cranky Geeks featuring John C. Dvorak and guests. It’s also no secret that I’m a massive fan of Ubuntu. So today was a double-whammy when Ubuntu got a mention on the show.
More specifically Dvorak and guest Roger Chang briefly discussed the Ubuntu Software Center, and very positive they were too. I knew from previous episodes that Dvorak himself likes Ubuntu, and recently discovered (nsfw link from that tweet btw) via twitter that Roger Chang also uses it on his netbook.
You can watch Cranky Geeks episode 236 dated 15th September 2010 over at crankygeeks.com, the section about the store is about 24 minutes in. However I thought I’d transcribe it because it was only short. You can read it below.
Note the amusing part where Andrew Eisner (Director of Content and Community) at Retrevo singularly fails on multiple occasions to stick the boot in about Linux being old (relating it to Unix) and requiring the command line. Good, honest defence from John and Roger. Great fun.
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Dvorak: “Y’know everybody always overlooks the fact that with a Linux box, an app store is built into Ubuntu for example, and most of the systems will have this.”
Dvorak: “People, if you haven’t loaded a machine with Linux you should get a little machine and put Linux on it.”
Dvorak: “So, you put Ubuntu on there and as soon as you get the thing loaded it goes to the internet and it takes you right to the app store and just says ‘What do you need?’ and it’s got everything!”
Eisner: “Like CostCo (unintelligible word)”
Dvorak: “Exactly! All this free stuff and variations, like you get five or six Word Processors. One or two of them are very close to Microsoft Word. And, you know, spreadsheet programs, all kinds of utilities, DVD makers, the whole thing, and just click, click, click, click, and it downloads them all and next thing you know your machine’s loaded!
Eisner: “Right, then try to use it (laughter)”
Dvorak: “It works”
Chang: “It actually works (unintelligible)”
Dvorak: “I think it works”
Chang: “I use one of those Acer netbooks when I put Ubuntu the Netbook Remix on it I downloaded everything I need and it works for the most, I mean I’m not doing heavy you know, video editing or photo editing but if I’m just doing like cropping or touching up or typing out a document it works.”
Eisner: “You’re not grepping?”
Chang: “Huh?”
Eisner: “You’re not grepping? Unix huh?”
Dvorak: “Nah”
Chang: “That’s the great thing, it’s almost seamless, there’s no terminal window that you need to use.”
Dvorak: “I’m actually very impressed with that. That to me is like the original app store that’s practical for computers because you get all these things and they’re all free and they work fine. ”
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