I enjoy a bit of Linux dabbling – in part it helps maintain familiarity with the Linux way of doing things (essential for part of my work running remote Linux based web servers), partly because it is free and easy to have a dabble with, and partly because it is very powerful in specific areas where it can be a struggle to get Windows based PCs to do the same sort of thing.

I currently have about three or four different flavours of Linux running on different bits of kit so I am fairly familiar with the pros and cons of the different ‘distributions’. For ease of use and widespread support, Ubuntu is near the top of the list – so for at least one of my systems, that’s what I have installed.

I have been hearing about how the latest version of Ubuntu (9.01) should have some decent improvements (faster boot sounds promising for example), so earlier today I initiated a system upgrade using the built-in system updating tool. This worked well last time I upgraded, however today, it went horribly wrong… read on dear friend for details of this minor pothole on my otherwise smooth motorway of Linux system maintenance…

I should first say that the system I was updating is accessed via a KVM switch – a switcher that allows me to flip from one PC to another at the press of a button, retaining just one screen, keyboard and mouse. This usually works pretty well, and the odd glitch is resolved by disconnecting and reconnecting the USB plugs.

So, after running the upgrade process for about 90 minutes, flipping between my usual work screen and the installer on the Linux box, I was a little perturbed to see that the keyboard and mouse inputs on the Linux machine were no longer being recognised. I thought I would wait for he upgrade process to complete, thinking it would probably be happy left to its own devices – however towards the end of the upgrade, there appeared a dialog asking whether I would like to save or reconfigure an item – I had no way of responding (plugging in a second mouse directly into the Linux box did not work) so (as the upgrade had now stalled, waiting for this dialogue to be dismissed), the only option was to crash re-boot (5 seconds on the off button).

On re-booting, it was clear that the whole lot was a mess – it would certainly not boot into Linux. So what to do?

The beauty of modern Linux distributions is that they can be installed using a variety of painless techniques – via a USB key for example. In this case, I decided to grab a copy of the latest iso disk (useful to have in any case as it is in itself a complete operating system bootable from CD). Downloading via Bit Torrent (using my installed trusty utorrent app) was blindingly fast – and in minutes I had a new install CD.

The rest is predictable – the Ubuntu installer is completely painless – and I now have a squeeky clean Linux box again.

If you haven’t tried Linux, I seriously recommend giving it a go – you might be surprised. The Wubi installation method makes it a breeze for anyone to install it from within Windows (when booting you have a few seconds to choose whether to boot Ubuntu or Windows – until you uninstall it like any Windows application). At the very least, you will get to see how far the Linux desktop has come since the early days – the learning curve is now far less steep, and if your needs for a PC are modest (email, web, word processing, spreadsheet) I suspect you will be satisfied immediately.

Right, that’s it – I’m off to install some of my favourite bits and bobs on my new Ubuntu installation.