Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installed

[zimena]

So, I have a working dual-boot system now, with macOS and Ubuntu 16.04.

This time, installing Ubuntu was significantly more challenging than when I did it last time around... or rather, installing was okay enough, but once I booted into Ubuntu for the first time, it would simply take over the whole boot process. So, no rEFInd, no macOS, just Ubuntu - directly, and without any sort of boot manager in sight.

Okay, I fixed that via Recovery mode, where I could set my usual disk as the start-up disk. That worked fine, so I could just reinstall rEFInd (again, yes!) and now there is a proper boot manager which lets me pick which OS I prefer to boot into at startup.

...and that was only what happened before I had set up anything.

I have had Ubuntu up and running for a couple of hours now, so let's see what I've noticed so far:

Installing things is not just about picking what you want from the Software Center. Half of the time you need to add repositories and download your apps via the command line instead. I quite like doing things via the command line... if I understand what I'm doing and which parts of a command does what. Here, though? I've already had a few instances of having to copy commands from the net, because they're long and I can't fully decipher what they do.

In a similar vein to the above - Opera web browser actually claims to have an installer that should work with the Ubuntu software center. You download the installer, open it, it opens the software center with an install button, but once you click on that one, nothing much happens. It seems to attempt to start installing, but it just aborts after a second. I am typing this from Opera, though... because I installed it problem-free via the command line, heh.

I have also installed Gimp. Learning to use that has been on my list of things to do since forever, but whenever I've looked at it in the past, it has always done my head in. I suppose part of the problem is that I know how to do what I'm trying to do in Photoshop, and when things don't work the same way in Gimp, I get frustrated and return to the more familiar environment. Let's give it another chance, hm?

There's a slight difference between the macOS keyboard layout and the more Windows-like one that Ubuntu seems to use. Even if I selected the Mac keyboard option, some things are just not where I would expect. Especially the apostrophe (') sign had simply disappeared from Ubuntu's understanding of a Norwegian Mac keyboard layout, so for now I'm using the standard layout instead.

Generally speaking, I'm liking the colours and menus I'm seeing around me here. The menu font also seems to be beautiful and nicely readable. I believe it's called Ubuntu as well, and I had that font package installed even in macOS for a long time, because I quite like it. I don't like the default font in things like gedit, though - or in this online text area, for that matter. I can't quite point my finger at what's wrong with it, though, because it's definitely easily readable.

More impressions later. These are just the first thoughts.