Moving to Ubuntu 17.04 ...

Gnu/Linux has always been our cup of tea. And it will continue to be so .. ¹

This is a soft invitation to all my friends to come experience a new software world. The world of Free and Open Source software, FOSS or in other words, Gnu/Linux. It's been almost thirty two years since Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985 and twenty six years since Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel in 1991.

You can select the ISO image for download (1.5 GB file), make a bootable USB. (scroll down for the link to do that in Linux and windows). Change your BIOS boot commands to make USB your first boot device. Switch off and switch on your machine to experience an out of the world experience.

You may already be one among the 96% of computer users globally using Gnu/Linux without your knowledge.

• If you are already one of the 1900 million users of Facebook, you are already using Gnu/Linux software in a big way, as FB is a great user of Gnu/Linux software as OS and RDBMS packages. 
• If you use Google search engine for your search, the Google cloud for word processing purposes, you are an avid Gnu/Linux user. 
• If you watch videos over Youtube, you are one among the 1.3 billion hardcore Gnu/Linux user watching upto 4 billion videos daily, 



The advantage which only Linux offers, constant upgrades
and an out of the world experience ...

• not to mention of Linkedin, twitter (1.3 billion registered users) Google chrome browser etc.

The author, an avid Linux fan wanted to test the latest Ubuntu 17.04 beta version, set to be officially released by 13 April 2017 (17 and 04, giving it the version no 17.04) and name Zesty Zapus .. (click here for more details about zesty zapus) Zapus, is by the way, the enthusiastic American common mouse, the only mammal in the world with 18 teeth in total.

The author uses a simple five year old HP 430 laptop, 2 GB RAM for SOHO use, all actions are on the Google chrome browser and Google cloud.

The many advantages of using the present Ubuntu 17.04 Gnu/Linux for your SOHO use, which you may find interesting are as follows.

• Its cool. No hassles, you don't have to carry a heavy conscience of using pirated proprietary Operating systems like Windooze
  
  
• don't have to pay heavily for the OS nor the upgrades, thousands of software, technical and general, are aviable FREE
  
  
• can lecture about the OS and copy it any number of times, its different software and don't have to worry about taking permissions from some unknown entities for getting the benefits of IT to the masses
  
  

• 

  Zesty Zapus

  have a vast number of high quality volunteer programmers working round the clock in different parts of the world to constantly upgrade the OS and the software to prevent it from being hacked and getting outdated
  
  
• you will be amazed at the audio / video capability the OS and the software offers to moderately heavy computer user
  
  
• Unlike earlier versions of LibreOffice which was found dragging and slow, the Ubuntu 17.04 version of LibreOffice is super fast. So is the case with the Firefox browser, even though the browser version is not changed. The underlying OS and 4.1 kernel has made all the difference.
  
  
• The response time is very less compared to earlier versions of Ubuntu and other Linux distributions
  
  
• Regarding long term support (LTS), the even year releases offer upto 5 years support while the odd year releases like the present 17.04 release, gives support for only two years, which means that one will have to upgrade to Ubuntu 19.04 in two years or next year upgrade to the LTS 18.04 version. This may make a difference for commercial users of Ubuntu but for SOHO users, it rarely matters.
  
  

• 

  Mark Shuttleworth

  
  

  using this as a live version on a USB, since it is the beta2 version. Once the official stable release is out by 13 April 2017, I may think of changing from the present Ubuntu mate 16.04 to Ubuntu 17.04 then ..
  
  
• can export output straight to PDF from Libreoffice
  
  
• Google Cloud and Apps usage is very cool
  
  
  The response of all software is lot quicker than earlier versions of Ubuntu. In short the 17.04 release is faster, cleaner, leaner and more efficient as it uses a recent updated Linux kernel 4.1.
  
  

  "We are a tiny band in a market of giants, but our focus on delivering free software freely together with enterprise support, services and solutions appears to be opening doors, and minds, everywhere. So, in honour of the valiantly tiny leaping long-tailed over the obstacles of life, our next release which will be Ubuntu 17.04, is hereby code named the Zesty Zapus".
  

  
  

  Mark Shuttleworth, CEO, Canonical software, that releases Ubuntu

It is worth trying out the new Ubuntu beta 2 version ( I use it from a USB as a live distro for the time being ..). been using it regularly through live USB for about three days now and I am going to install it on my HD very soon.

Its worth giving a try, When you use a live USB, your old windows partition and data stored on that partition will not at all get affected, you are only using your laptop RAM and the USB memory .. Its very safe ..

Click here to write a Live USB stick in Linux

Click here to write a Live USB stick in Windows

You can erase the USB stick later if you are not satisfied with the Gnu/Linux distro or install Gnu/Linux on your hard disc if you are floored by the distro. You may need some handholding to install Ubuntu 17.04 on your hard disc. Your techie friends can help ..

george..

1. The author was fortunate enough to work on Solaris at IIT Bombay during late nineties, Unix on the College of Engineering, Trivandrum IBM Mainframe around the early eighties and again on a NELCO mini computer at Goa Engineering College during late eighties.