Axel Winter's blog

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to use Kubuntu 8.10 Beta.

I used the upgrade features - running Kubuntu 8.04 - and it took about 3-4 hours for the Laptop to be ready with 8.10. No work, no reinstalling software, nothing ... It just worked.

This release again, fine tuned prior releases. We can see how Ubuntu is becoming every step more mature. It works excellently on my laptop with all the usual office and INTERNET application. Some User Interface Innovations (Mouse Pointer, Network Manager, Menu Ribbon, etc.) make it even more interesting.

There was no need to use the command line or terminal at all - for nothing.

The original article is about 6 month old. See this latest update.
Updated in September 2008

There are continuing a lot of updates and questions on an office like setup of Linux on a Laptop or Desktop. Through using Google Analytics I understand which key words in Google searches let to my side. Here some comments on the key topics:

My current configuration is:
Kubuntu 8.04 Remix with KDE 4.1
Dell Latitude D630 with Intel Graphics Chipset.
Laptop Screen max resolution is 1200x800

1.) Dual Monitor Setup for Linux Desktop Users

Yesterday my wife insisted that I am printing some of her documents on our HP DeskJet 5051 for her. PowerPoint and an Excel spreadsheet. Of course it was almost midnight, as she just figured this out ... 

WINDOWS XP Printer Configuration: 

So I took her private notebook - as in not to worry about her company notebook - which has Windows XP, Office 2007 latest and greatest installed. We did not turn it on for a few weeks now, as I bought her a MacBook Air (ultra cool for showing off at a Starbucks). 

Turned it on and then? The anti virus software annoyed me and said it can not start without registering ... The Firewall Software did not know a few applications installed for the last year or so, too. So I took care of that.

< Please look at "Kubuntu Ubuntu 8.04 Searches" in the Blog Section for Technical Q&A >

Since Ubuntu 7.04 I am using Linux on my Company Laptop, a Dell Latitude D630. I still recall the initial pain of installing Ubuntu on, what turn out to be, brand new Intel Graphic and Sound chips. It took me a few weeks to get Linux operating well in an all Windows Corporate Environment and addressing some of the hardware configuration shortcomings (actually its less a Linux fault then something we would expect HW vendors to worry about).