Have you ever switched to a new OS all of a sudden?

What was the experience like for the first time?

Read on to find out about my experience.

I am Atul Lakkapragada, Computer Science and Engineering student from reputed institute from Chennai, India, looking for opportunities to excel in whatever I engaged in.

It was 26th November 2020, when I was offered an internship at Tactii and Tact Labs. I was really excited to be part of Tact labs and contribute my best as it was my first internship.

While I was so excited to be part of the internship, I was perplexed and confused when I found out that the Internship needed to be done on Ubuntu rather than Windows which I was extremely comfortable with.

But as needed, I had searched a lot to understand the Ubuntu Operating system and slowly got convinced that it was also user friendly and intuitive just like windows. I had seen many videos on installation of Ubuntu and found out that it was also as easy as windows in installation and the GUI is also interesting.

I downloaded Ubuntu v20.04 and completed the installation which was so seamless and quick and couldn’t control myself from having my hands on the system. Initially, it took some time to understand the difference with windows and I guess this is normal for anyone who is using a new Operating System for the first time. But within a few days of working on Ubuntu during my internship, my perspective had completely changed.

The first thing I loved about Ubuntu was that it was very user-friendly with simple navigation. The interface was clean, easy to understand and one can start working without any hassles.

As I began to use Ubuntu, I found out that I had to use the terminal quite often. The first time when I had the command line open, I felt like it was going to be troublesome. However, as I started to use the terminal for installing the required software, I realized the fact that I am remembering whatever I am doing without much effort, as elders say writing / doing once is better than reading several times. Though the Command Prompt existed in Windows, i never really used it often since many other easy options existed.

I really liked typing my commands, rather than using any IDE, which does most of the things for us behind the scenes, and started gaining knowledge which is of paramount importance to me.

After completing my first project which was a Chatbot using the Rasa framework, I had to deploy it using Docker and Heroku. Though Docker runs on Windows and Mac, it was originally built for Linux. With the help of the terminal, I was able to do it easily with a couple of commands.

Few more points to highlight are:

• Ubuntu is an Open-source Operating system and thus we do not need to spend huge amount for licenses.
• Very secured and thus no need for Antivirus software
• Seamless software updates
• Faster booting time

Though I started working hesitantly on Ubuntu, I would say that my experience on Ubuntu so far has been good and encouraging. Also, working on Ubuntu / Linux will provide us with many new skills as we get to explore a completely different OS. Hence, I recommend every student to try working on Ubuntu and gain a competitive edge over the others.

Happy Learning. Stay Safe!!!