As I mentioned earlier, NautilusSVN attempts to be the TortoiseSVN for Linux. It looks like NautilusSVN is not yet available in the Ubuntu repositories but fortunately they had a “deb” package which I downloaded.

Though their documentation specifies that you don’t . . . → Read More: NautilusSVN – The TortoiseSVN for Linux users]]> TortoiseSVN is the dominant Subversion client for Windows. While there so many Subversion clients available, what makes TortoiseSVN special is it’s smooth integration with the Windows Explorer. As a result, working with your Subversion repository becomes super easy. When I switched completely from Windows to Ubuntu Linux, TortoiseSVN is one of the few applications I missed. Not anymore!

As I mentioned earlier, NautilusSVN attempts to be the TortoiseSVN for Linux. It looks like NautilusSVN is not yet available in the Ubuntu repositories but fortunately they had a “deb” package which I downloaded.

Though their documentation specifies that you don’t need anything extra, I had to install a few packages before proceeding to NautilusSVN. I installed the dependencies using the following command,

sudo apt-get install python-nautilus python-svn python-configobj

Then I installed the “deb” package using the command,

sudo dpkg -i nautilussvn*.deb

I had to just close and open Nautilus to see NautilusSVN in action.

All other SVN tasks can be performed by simply doing a “right click” at appropriate places in your working copy.

NautilusSVN has a commit window quite similar to TortoiseSVN.

NautilusSVN provides decent support to create branch/tag, move, change properties, view revisions etc. But there is no “Repository Browser” yet and the “Revert” option needs more polish. Also I noticed that as my working copy grew, NautilusSVN seems to slow down Nautilus. This can be a major downside which might prevent the adoption of this otherwise great tool. But NautilusSVN is still in beta and I hope these issues will be resolved shortly.

My objective was to convert *.DAT files from a VCD into *.mp3. I decided to try WinFF first. The interface was pretty simple to use.

But when I pressed the “Convert” button, I got the following . . . → Read More: Convert video files to mp3 in Ubuntu]]> In my previous post, I explained how to convert audio files from one format to another in Ubuntu. Ubuntu provides native support for this through Sound Converter which can be installed using a simple command. After trying Sound Converter, I was confident that there will be similar applications to convert video files. That made me to install applications like WinFF, Avidemux.

My objective was to convert *.DAT files from a VCD into *.mp3. I decided to try WinFF first. The interface was pretty simple to use.

But when I pressed the “Convert” button, I got the following message,

WinFF reported that the encoder ‘libmp3lame’ is unknown. I tried to install that via apt-get but could not find that in the repository as well. I tried to convert to other formats but in vain. I understand that I miss some libraries/encoders, but the help message was not very useful. The application could have suggested me to install the respective library like Sound Converter does for “mp3″ support.

Since WinFF failed to get the job done for me, I tried Avidemux this time. When I started avidemux, I quickly realised that this not going to be an application which everyone can use effortlessly. Avidemux might be a great tool but unless it gets a decent user interface it’s not going to be used by many. But since I was determined to convert my video files, I proceeded ahead with Avidemux.

When I tried to load the “DAT” file, Avidemux complained that it could not open that file.

I searched the Avidemux wiki but still couldn’t solve the problem. My search continued and in one forum I got a suggestion that I can rename the file to “mpg” and change the “video”, “audio” options to “MPEG-4 ASP (Xvid4)”, “MP3 Lame” respectively. But the result was same. Avidemux couldn’t open the file.

Then I realised that another user had the same frustrations like me and eventually opted to run the popular windows only tool FormatFactory on top of Wine. I decided to follow suit but I thought of trying out AnyVideoConverter on top of Wine. But AnyVideoConverter failed to start which left me with no options but to turn for FormatFactory.

I downloaded and installed FormatFactory using Wine and it started without any issues on my Ubuntu.

Since I wanted to convert video files into “MP3″ format, I clicked the “Audio” tab in the left pane and chose the option “All to MP3″. Then I was prompted to add the necessary files.

Once I added the necessary files, all I had to do was to click “Start” button.

After a few seconds, FormatFactory successfully converted the “DAT” files into “MP3″ format.

Thanks to FormatFactory and Wine, I was able to convert “DAT” files without booting into Windows. Many thanks to this wonderful article which was an eye opener for me.

I haven’t yet tried the FormatFactory|Wine combination to convert my videos into other format. Why don’t you try it and share your experience with us?

Traditionally I use softwares like Any Video Converter, Format Factory to convert audio/video files but unfortunately they are available only on Windows and I had to boot into my old Windows XP in order to use them. I thought I . . . → Read More: Convert audio files in Ubuntu with Sound Converter]]> “Linux lacks good multimedia applications“. How many times have we heard this! This was my perception as well. Not that I do my living based on these tools but I do use them often at home. Atleast, many of us might be in a need to convert audio/video from one format to another and rip tracks out of audio cds.

Traditionally I use softwares like Any Video Converter, Format Factory to convert audio/video files but unfortunately they are available only on Windows and I had to boot into my old Windows XP in order to use them. I thought I had no other choice and also since those tools did the job for me, I was eventually using them whenever the need arises. Fortunately there are some good tools in linux as well.

My search for a good audio/video converter continued and even thought of using those popular windows tools on Ubuntu using Wine after reading the article, Best Linux Ubuntu Video/Audio Converter: Format Factory and WINE.

I was almost sold if not for this comprehensive guide from ubuntu forums. At the first look, the article might look a bit overwhelming, but it contains a wealth of information covering many aspects. I was primarily interested in just a audio converter and I all I had to do was execute this simple command


sudo apt-get install soundconverter audacity oggconvert

All these three are audio converting tools where audacity provides audio editing capabilities as well. You might also need sound-juicer to extract audio files from cd. Installing that is pretty straightforward:

sudo apt-get install sound-juicer

Converting files are only two steps away. Click “Add File” button to add the files you would like to convert. Once you have added the necessary files, click “Convert”.

By default, Sound Converter converts audio files to the opensource “ogg” format. If you want the default output to be “mp3″, you need to first install some additional libraries. Then you need to edit the preferences and change the output format “mp3″ (under the section “Type of result”).

I am using Sound Converter quite regularly now and I am quite impressed with it. How about you? What tools do you use to convert audio files? It will be great if you can share your experiences as well.

Step 1: Install JDK

Install jdk on your machine using the super easy install option in Ubuntu. Open the terminal and type:

This will install the latest jdk available in the Ubuntu repository. This is cool because, you need not worry about updating your jdk whenever a new release is available. Your system’s “Update Manager” will take care of the rest.

Once the jdk is downloaded, you will . . . → Read More: Getting NetBeans ready for work on Ubuntu 8.10]]> Now that you have upgraded from Windows to Ubuntu (like me ), let’s see how to setup NetBeans quickly on your new Ubuntu machine without wasting much time.

Step 1: Install JDK

Install jdk on your machine using the super easy install option in Ubuntu. Open the terminal and type:

This will install the latest jdk available in the Ubuntu repository. This is cool because, you need not worry about updating your jdk whenever a new release is available. Your system’s “Update Manager” will take care of the rest.

Once the jdk is downloaded, you will be prompted to agree a license agreement in the terminal. Press “TAB” key to select the “Ok” option and then press “Enter”.

Next you will be shown another prompt, use your “arrow” keys to select “Yes” option and press “Enter” to start the install process.

Step 2: Install NetBeans

Verify whether jdk is installed on your machine by typing “java -version” in the terminal. If everything is ok, go and get yourself a copy of netbeans installer.

Once the netbeans installer is downloaded, right click the downloaded file (which should have “.sh” extension), click “Properties”, go to the “Permissions” tab and check the “Allow executing file as program” checkbox.

Now double click the file and click “Run” to start the installation process.

Step 3: Start NetBeans with Nimbus Look and Feel

Let’s face it. The default look and feel (GTK) of NetBeans on Ubuntu (and that of Ubuntu too) sucks. You probably don’t want your friends to ridicule your IDE and say “Is this NetBeans 1.0?”. You don’t want that, right?

But fortunately, there is a saviour in the form of “Nimbus” which is available from JDK 6 Update 10 onwards. And instructing NetBeans to start with “Nimbus” look and feel is very easy. Just right click your “NetBeans” icon on your desktop and click “Properties”. In the “Command” text field add the word ” –laf Nimbus”.

In my case, it looks like:

Now restart NetBeans to see your IDE skinned in Nimbus.

Tip:
If you want NetBeans to look like other apps on your system, skin your Ubuntu with Nimbus theme too.

Step 4: Configure your video driver to ensure that NetBeans displays large files properly

In a perfect world, you don’t need this step but unfortunately you might need to configure your video driver properly to ensure that NetBeans displays large files properly. Otherwise, your IDE editor might display large files like this when you scroll your mouse:

Relax, this is not a bug in NetBeans but rather it’s just a little misconfiguration by Ubuntu. Fortunately, there is a solution to this issue and follow this netbeans wiki page to solve this.

Step 5: Choose the right font for your editor

Some of you might not like the default font used by the NetBeans editor on Ubuntu. For example, I like the crispy “Bitstream Vera Sans Mono” font with font size “13″. But if you are satisfied with the default editor font, it’s fine.

Step 6: Install path-tools plugin to integrate NetBeans with your filesystem browser

I strongly recommend you to use the excellent “path-tools” plugin which help you to integrate your NetBeans IDE with the nautilus file manager in Ubuntu. With this plugin, you can easily navigate to your netbeans projects located in your filesystem. Go grab it from the plugin portal.

And don’t forget to install your favourite version control system like subversion, mercurial, git etc to enjoy the benefits offered by your IDE.

That’s it for now. It will be great to see your suggestions, comments and tips you employ on your Ubuntu machine. Enjoy..!

You can get the nimbus icons and themes from gnome-look.org. Just download the “icon” and “gtk-engine” debs and run it. (TIP: First install the “icon” deb)

Installing NetBeans in Ubuntu in very easy. The . . . → Read More: And now NetBeans 6.5 is there in my Ubuntu-8.10]]> NetBeans is my favourite IDE for java development. I’ve been using NetBeans from version 4.1 onwards and I can’t believe that it has progressed and transformed itself so well. Right from version 5.0 onwards, NetBeans has been making amazing strides in terms of developer adoption. And the recent 6.5 release is really fantastic. It’s fast, it’s responsive and got many new cool features. Though I use NetBeans at office which runs on Windows XP, I haven’t tried that yet on my Ubuntu-8.10. So, I thought it’s time to give it a go.

Installing NetBeans in Ubuntu in very easy. The only pre-requisite for installation is to have a suitable JDK on your machine. That too is not a problem if you download the NetBeans + JDK bundle. But I thought of installing them separately. By default, Ubuntu-8.10 doesn’t come with JDK pre-installed, so you have to install it manually. Installing JDK in Ubuntu is just a matter of issuing a “one line” command. Just open your terminal and type:

“sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk”

or, if you are a person who prefer GUI more than command line, open your Synaptic Package Manager and look for “sun-java6-jdk” and install it. What surprised me though was the availability of the latest JDK, i.e, “JDK 6 Update 10″. Installing JDK had never been so easy.

(Note: I’m not sure whether sun’s jdk is available in the default Ubuntu repositories. You may have to enable universe/multiverse repositories if you don’t find the package “sun-java6-jdk”)

TIP: To ensure faster download of JDK, configure the fastest mirror near your location. To do that, open “System -> Administration -> Software Sources” and look for a drop down box called “Download from”.

The installation process of JDK will ask you to accept a license agreement. Once you agree it, JDK will be installed in your system. I’ve installed JDK 5 previously in old versions of Ubuntu but I had to change some files to configure the default JDK. But this time, I did nothing and after installing the JDK, I went to the terminal and typed “java -version” and found everything to be setup correctly.

I thought of installing NetBeans 6.5 also the same way, but I found only NetBeans 6.1 in Synaptic. So, I decided to download NetBeans 6.5. After downloading, I opened the terminal, navigated to the download directory and issued the command “sh netbeans-6.5-ml-javase-linux.sh” to initiate the install process. Kindly note that “netbeans-6.5-ml-javase-linux.sh” is the name of the file I downloaded. This might change depending on the version/pack you downloaded.

And within a couple of minutes, NetBeans was ready for use on my machine. And this is how it looked, when I opened it.

Well, while there are so many great things that WUBI offers, there is one drawback that can make eyebrows rise. WUBI downloads the latest “iso” image from the web automatically when you run it. There is nothing wrong with that and infact . . . → Read More: Getting better results with WUBI]]> WUBI dramatically reduces the gap that prevents windows users to try Ubuntu. If you are wondering what WUBI is all about, you may get some idea from my post “WUBI – A wonderful little gem that helps windows users to try Ubuntu“. Yes, with WUBI, installing Ubuntu is just like installing Firefox or Thunderbird on a windows machine.

Well, while there are so many great things that WUBI offers, there is one drawback that can make eyebrows rise. WUBI downloads the latest “iso” image from the web automatically when you run it. There is nothing wrong with that and infact this is what makes WUBI a very very easy tool to use. Then what really is wrong with WUBI?

The problem is, WUBI does not seem to choose the fastest mirror near your location. And this makes the download take very long time. I installed Ubuntu in my machine using WUBI and it took nearly 12 hours to download the “iso” image (Kindly note that the size of the iso image is around 700 MB). And even worse, when I tried installing Ubuntu via WUBI in my wife’s notebook, it took nearly 18 hours and downloaded only 38% before I got frustrated and stopped WUBI.

But what makes WUBI great is that has so many “hidden” options that one can explore and I did exactly the same. I learnt from the WUBI guide that WUBI can detect any “iso” image found in the same location as “wubi.exe”. That means if you are “wubi.exe” from your desktop and if there is a ubuntu “iso” image on your desktop, then WUBI will make use of it instead of downloading one for you.

So I went ahead and made use of my “Free Download Manager” (a decent open source download manager) to download Ubuntu-8.10 iso image. FDM was smart enough to download the 700 MB iso image in less than 2 hours. Then I placed wubi.exe in the same place where the iso image was downloaded and I was surprised with the result.

WUBI installed Ubuntu in my machine in a couple of minutesand then asked me to reboot. Then in another 10 minutes Ubuntu was ready to use and then my wife tookover from me. However she likes the word “KUBUNTU” more than “UBUNTU” and now I should find ways to bring Kubuntu desktop in Ubuntu to make her happy.

So, if you have a pretty average or slow internet connection, you should not attempt running WUBI straight away. Download the respective iso image with your favourite download manager and then start WUBI. WUBI will obey your commands and it will get the job done for you in minutes.

If you have installed Ubuntu recently, you might find some useful tips from my posts,

- Customizing Ubuntu to provide stunning looks

- Good news for Google Talk users on Linux

I recently installed Ubuntu 8.10 in my notebook using Wubi. As a result I started using Ubuntu regularly at home and Windows XP at office. But as I used my Ubuntu more and more, I felt the pain of living with Ubuntu’s default font rendering, especially when I browse using firefox. I tried all . . . → Read More: Customizing Ubuntu to provide stunning looks]]> Disclaimer:
This blog is intended to help those who are new to the linux world (like me). So if you are a long time linux user, you might perhaps know/used the concepts explained here, but you can help me by providing your valuable comments and suggestions.

I recently installed Ubuntu 8.10 in my notebook using Wubi. As a result I started using Ubuntu regularly at home and Windows XP at office. But as I used my Ubuntu more and more, I felt the pain of living with Ubuntu’s default font rendering, especially when I browse using firefox. I tried all the options available under the “fonts” section in “Appearance Preferences” with no fruitful result.

Then when I started looking around for solutions, I came to know from this nice article that certain “font rendering features” were turned off in Ubuntu by default due to some legal reasons. The article went ahead and suggested a solution, which I successfully implemented in my Ubuntu. So, if you are struggling with fonts in your Ubuntu, please follow the steps mentioned in the article “Enable Smooth fonts on Ubuntu Linux“.

Ok, now my fonts look great and the web pages I surf looks the same as it use to be in Windows. But I don’t like the default brown theme of my Ubuntu. So I looked for other options in the “Appearance Preferences” window but none could satisfy me. So I started surfing around to find some alternatives.

But luckily I came across a great site called “www.art.gnome.org” which contains tons of themes for the gnome desktop. There is a section called “Desktop Themes” which contains so many options. I quickly found out that there are so many things you configure in your desktop like “Application” or “Control”, “Window Border”, “Icons”, “Login Manager”, “GTK Engines” etc. By making use of these themes you can customize the look and feel of your Ubuntu desktop much like how you configure firefox with various themes.

Application Themes or Controls:

They are responsible for the look and feel of buttons, tabs, scroll bars, progress bars, tables etc.

Some popular “Application Themes” available in art.gnome.org are:

- Aero-ion (For those dark theme lovers)
- Glossy P (For those who want Mac OS like looks)
- Cillop (A graphite theme)
- Water Vapor (Another mild grey theme)

You can also find some great themes from gnome-look.org as well.

How to install? – Open “System->Preferences->Appearances” and just drag and drop the downloaded file.

(But my current favorite is a theme called “Murrine“, which can be found in the “Synaptic Package Manager” of your Ubuntu. To install it, open System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager and then search for “murrine”. You need to install the murrine gtk2-engine if it is not already installed.)

Window Borders:

Window borders are responsible for how the title bar of a “window” (frames/dialogs/model panes) looks.

Some popular “Window Borders” available in art.gnome.org are:

- Vista Basic (Almost an exact replica of Vista window borders)
- Almond (My favourite window border)
- Graphite (Mac OS style window border)

How to install? – Open “System->Preferences->Appearances” and just drag and drop the downloaded file.

Icons:

Good icons can make a ordinary theme look better. So selecting the appropriate icon pack of your choice is very important.

Here are some popular icon packs available from art.gnome.org:

- Dropline Neu
- Unofficial Tango
- Gion

You can also have a look at some great icon collections from gnome-look.org.

How to install? – Open “System->Preferences->Appearances” and just drag and drop the downloaded file.

All the above three provide a rich set of icons, but my favourite is “Ubuntu Studio” icon pack. It is not found in art.gnome.org but can be found in your “Synaptic Package Manager”. Just search for “ubuntustudio” in your package manager and proceed further.

Login Managers:

Login managers define your login screen. So if you don’t like your default login screen, don’t worry, there are tons of options available from art.gnome.org.

Some popular Login Managers are:

- Brasillinux Eye
- DarkClean Linux (My current favourite)
- Blue Swirl

How to install? – Open “System->Administration->Login Window” and then navigate to the tab “Local”. Drag and drop  the login manager you downloaded.

GTK Engines:

You won’t need this most of the time but some themes work only with the respective GTK Engines.

Putting it all together. Creating a custom theme:

Once you have downloaded and installed the necessary components, it is very easy to create your own custom theme. Open “Sytem->Preferences->Appearance”. You can see the “Theme” tab by default.

Click “Customize” button. Now you can see an “Customize Theme” window.

Select the “Controls” tab and choose the appropriate “Application Theme” you installed previously. Notice how Ubuntu applies the changes dynamically.

Select the “Window Border” tab and choose the appropriate border. Your new custom theme is almost ready now.

Follow the same procedure by clicking the “Icons” tab as well.

Once you have finished your configuration, click the “Close” button. Now you can see a new theme called “Custom” in the “Appearance Preferences” window.

Now click the “Save As” button and give a suitable name and description for your theme. That’s it, your Ubuntu desktop now has a new cool theme.

Feel free to blend different combinations that suite your taste. So here’s how my desktop looks when I combine MurrineBlue control + XColorsLite window border + GNOME-Color Blue Bravo icons.

These screenshots might not amuse some of you , but there are so many great options available from sites like www.art.gnome.org, www.gnome-look.org.

CAUTION:
You can even customize your splash screens and boot up screens, but please use these options with caution as they can have some nasty effects on your system.

Conclusion:

There are still many options available but I haven’t tried them, so I cannot recommend it to you. One important thing to note is you need select appropriate combination of “Application Themes” + “Window Borders” + “Icons” to get a really pleasing and sometimes stunning looks.

So, don’t get bored of how your Ubuntu looks or renders your fonts. Ubuntu is extremely flexible and you can customize every bit of it to suite your taste. If you have already customized your Ubuntu desktop, kindly share your experience.

Resources:

- www.art.gnome.org

- www.gnome-look.org

More Ubuntu articles:

Convert audio files in Ubuntu with Sound Converter

Convert video files in Ubuntu with FormatFactory

I’m a long time windows user and in the past 2 years, linux has caught my attention.Thanks to VirtualBox, I have tried various linux distributions successfully, ranging from Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS and even Solaris, a great unix distro.

Using VirtualBox is definitely the easiest way to try linux without disturbing windows, from my experience. Otherwise as a new lad to the linux world, I couldn’t have . . . → Read More: WUBI – A wonderful little gem that helps Windows users to try Ubuntu]]> Traditionally, windows users (including myself) are afraid of installing linux in their machine because of a fear that if something goes wrong, linux might spoil their machine or render it unusable. Not anymore.

I’m a long time windows user and in the past 2 years, linux has caught my attention.Thanks to VirtualBox, I have tried various linux distributions successfully, ranging from Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS and even Solaris, a great unix distro.

Using VirtualBox is definitely the easiest way to try linux without disturbing windows, from my experience. Otherwise as a new lad to the linux world, I couldn’t have installed, used, uninstalled so many linux distros.

But I had few problems:
1. The notebook I have is pretty old and not powerful enough. (1GB RAM, 1.6 GHz Intel Centrino Processor, 60 GB harddisk). As a result, I cannot boot one host OS and run a guest OS virtually on top of it.
2. I bought a new dell vostro notebook with good configuration but my better half is owning it now post marriage.

I actually tried the above mentioned linux distros via virtualbox in my new notebook but not anymore. As a result, I was forced with 2 options (again):
1. Install linux in an usb drive (or an external harddisk)
2. Install linux directly in my (old) notebook with windows as my primary OS (Sorry buddy, but I MUST use windows in my office)

To be honest, I was luring the first option mentioned above as it would never ever disturb my primary OS (windows). I almost went ahead to implement that option but changed my mind after stumbling a review about WUBI. (Acutally, WUBI stands for Windows based UBuntu Installer)

Immediately, I downloaded wubi, whose size is roughly around 1 MB and ran it. It opened up a window with few options like where to install, installation size, ubuntu flavour etc..
I was really amazed at it’s simplicity. I never ever have installed a linux distro with such a few installation options. It was much like installing an application in windows.

I gave the following input to wubi to proceed with the installation:

1. “C” as the installation drive, simply because I had more disk space in it.
2. “8GB” as the installation size. Since I had good experience installing guest OS using virtualbox, I was able to make a quick decision here. However, this option depends on the amount of free disk space available in the drive you want to install. It is better to give atleast 8GB so that you can have fun playing around by installing some cool linux apps.
3. Ubuntu as the desktop environment since I’m comfortable with GNOME.
4. A username and password with which I can login into my new ubuntu.

What more can you expect from wubi? Installing linux had never been so simple.

Though the official wubi site declares “Just run the installer, enter a password for the new account, and click
“Install”, go grab a coffee, and when you are back, Ubuntu will be
ready for you“, I knew it will take it’s own sweet time because it has to download a
“entire operating system” using my slow internet connection.

I would slightly rephrase it for the sake of people who have slower internet connection which is, “Just run the installer, enter a password for the new account, and click
“Install”, go have a good sleep, and when you woke up in the morning, Ubuntu will be
ready for you“. Atleast this is what happened to me.

Yes when the installation completed, wubi asked me to reboot my system and when I did so, my system asked me whether I want to boot into windows or ubuntu. Sweet..!

And when I booted into ubuntu, it again took some time (this time you can just have coffee and come back) to configure certain things, but it never asked me to input anything.

So the second time when I booted into ubuntu, there was a pleasant surprise waiting for me. Yes, my ubuntu welcomed me with open hands into the new wonderland. It was fantastic! Even my screen resolution was set perfectly and I didn’t have anything to complain. From my experience, setting the appropriate screen resolution was really a painful task and I even wrote a blog entry about that. From the number of people reading that post, I could easily say that setting the screen resolution has been a pain point to many people out there. But not anymore..!

Luckily I stumbled upon a wonderful article called “10 things you should do immediately after installing Ubuntu 8.10“. I followed many, if not all the points mentioned in that article. Nowadays, I use windows at office and ubuntu at home always, all in one notebook, thanks to wubi.

Ubuntu 8.10 along with the wonderful little gem called Wubi makes the entire linux world proud for such a great achievement. Installing linux had never been so simple and easy. Hats off to Ubuntu and Wubi team! With this I wish to see two things:
1. Ubuntu will be installed in many if not all the windows based operating systems using wubi.
2. People will start playing with ubuntu more and more in their free time.
3. Eventually ubuntu will be preferred as the primary operating system and windows an optional one mainly to provide support for legacy things.

I hope the dream come true. So what are you waiting for? Go grab wubi and start exploring the wonderful world of linux and ubuntu and I can assure you that you will cherish the experience.

Added on November 14, 2008:

I actually didn’t like the way ubuntu rendered the fonts. Luckily I found this simple but excellent tip called “Enable Smooth Fonts on Ubuntu“. After I implemented the tip, my fonts now look really better. Go try it and enjoy with your ubuntu.

Added on November 24, 2008:

You might also find something interesting from the following posts:

- Getting better results with WUBI

- Customizing Ubuntu to provide stunning looks

- Good news for Google talk users on Linux

- Is Ubuntu for you?