OSNews

I can't really elaborate on this because my machine is a CoreDuo with 2 GB RAM and is really fast. Most people still use PIII/P4 and it would be unfair to say it's "fast" and then not get the same performance on their computers. So, I don't know.

However, I did notice some things:
1. My other Ubuntu Feisty installation under VMWare on my 3 Ghz P4 desktop is pretty fast, if that's an indication.
2. It displays HD 1080p video without dropping any frames, while my 3 Ghz P4 desktop and my other 2.8 Ghz P4 laptop do drop frames.

But overall, on *my* new laptop computer is responsive, yeah.

Edited 2007-03-17 00:48

Linux is generally more responsive compared to windows anyway, and it's getting better. Redraw speed is still slower, as is application startup, but those are being worked on by projects like Cairo for Gnome and Qt4's arthur for KDE 4 in the drawing area, and other optimizations in both KDE and Gnome.

And lower in the stack, X is getting work, as is the kernel in the scheduling area, so expect responsiveness to improve even more in the future.

so draw performance, startup (both application and bootup) are worse. I'd add general click to window time and file browser performance.
What's left in this superior responsivity?

Edited 2007-03-19 12:07

Showing menu's and other actions in the applications, switching between apps, and responsiveness on high load - all better in linux. Menu's often don't respond in Windows, and are generally slower than linux. I often click the taskbar menu twice, waiting for a response!
Windows also quickly shuts down when you try to use many apps concurrently, esp if some off them are heavy. Loading several files at the same time (select 10 files, hit enter. Explorer even WARNS you it's not smart to do that - no problem on linux...)

Filebrowser performance differs for several reasons. Explorer seems faster, but just does less - showing previews is much slower, and it doesn't get the filetype right in many cases (linux looks IN the file to determine it's filetype. So for example Konqueror will pretty much identify files correctly, explorer relies on their extension - I hate this when copying files from my linux to windows, as I don't add extensions on linux - why should I?).
But reading this metadata takes time. I know KDE is working on this, I'm actually preparing a blog about this - the new strigi-based KFileMetaData replacement is anywhere between 25% and 80 times (!) faster (depending on cold vs warm cache)...

Also, windows apps themselves freeze much more often than linux apps do. Try adding somebody's agenda to Outlook, and wait until you can use the app again... If the server takes his time, it can take minutes!

>Linux is definately ready.

Depends on what you call ready, if you read Eugenia's post, you may have noticed that initially the display was garbled.

She was able to fix it because she is an "expert" in Linux, for a beginner (or someone not interested in wasting his time), this would have been a show stopper..

Myself I failed to intall Kubuntu 6.10 due to a garbled screen, Mandriva 2007 worked. While it's quite nice there are very basic usability mistake..

For example, with Xgl, when I put the mouse in the up-right corner to close a window, quite often the 'Expose' effect kick-in, which is quite stupid (it should have been activated from the low-right corner, the only corner not used).

The other day? It's before the initial release of Vista

Interesting though.. a chat with Sikosis.. not bad

I'm not sure if you mean nice distro or nice preview, but both are true. Excellent preview, Eugenia.

That said, I've had no luck trying to install the Kubuntu test release of Feisty Fawn. It mashes up the MBR and doesn't install grub at all.

This is what gets me about Ubuntu/Kubuntu. I'm also looking to move on from my "hobbyist" phase after using predominantly Gentoo for over 5 years now. I like what I see in the Ubuntu project and its community, philosophy, and ambitions. I think they have a winning formula that's going to carry them past the honeymoon stage and withstand the test of time and growth. As Eugenia and others note, the distribution is really impressive overall, but it's just not achieving the level of quality that I would like to see. Yes, this is a beta release, but the Ubuntu project and the free software desktop in general is too mature to allow installer bugs like undetected display modes on mass market laptops and botched bootloader installations in a public beta.

Don't get me wrong--there is a LOT to like about how Feisty is shaping up. But there's also some unacceptably rough edges. The quality has to rise to meet growing expectations. Linux desktops have always been a matter of tweak a little here, clue-bat a little there, and it's great. The definition of "great" is completely different idea today than it has been in the past, as a well-setup Linux desktop compares favorably with the industry leaders in terms of features and usability. But the nudging, poking, and prodding has got to stop. Slow down just a touch, and let's try to avoid all those sticky forum threads with simple workarounds for ridiculously common issues.

What you are saying would be perfectly understandable if we where talking about the final release, but Feisty is still in alpha, not beta. You may want to wait and try the final release before you give your opinion of the distro as a whole.

"""
Don't get me wrong--there is a LOT to like about how Feisty is shaping up. But there's also some unacceptably rough edges. The quality has to rise to meet growing expectations. Linux desktops have always been a matter of tweak a little here, clue-bat a little there, and it's great.
"""

While I agree, I'm afraid that progress on some of the problems may be reaching a point of diminishing returns.

For example, shortly we're not even supposed to *need* and xorg.conf file on our systems. Rah! Rah! Rah! But I've had too many monitors that lied about their capabilities to think that I'm not going to have to keep tweaking the frequencies in a config file.

Hardware vendors sometimes don't seem to care that much about what their hardware reports... as long as they get it right in the .inf file they send to Microsoft, Dell, and HP.

Until they start caring more about getting things right with Linux Kernel and Xorg, before they release the hardware in question, we'll continue to be at a disadvantage. Particularly on new hardware like Eugenia's shiny new treasure.

In this way, preinstalls by companies like Dell would actually benefit all of us, if the fixes percolated back upstream before the hardware hit the market.

//That said, I've had no luck trying to install the Kubuntu test release of Feisty Fawn. It mashes up the MBR and doesn't install grub at all. Ways to go there, I think. So I am keenly waiting on the final version of Kubuntu for 7.04.//

I too have had endless problems installing Kubuntu from the liveCD. For me, the disk partioner qtparted kept crashing. This has been the case even since edgy. I filed a bug report (because this was a showstopper bug for getting Kubuntu installed), but it was ignored. I filed it again for a beta of Kubuntu feisty, and as far as I know it is still being ignored.

Having said that, I am running the beat of Kubuntu Feisty right now. What I did was get the beta of Xubuntu (the one with the lightweight Xfce desktop), install that (since it uses gparted not qtparted), then once it was installed I used synaptic to install the kubuntu-desktop package. That worked for me.

Apart from the qtparted crash when installing from the Kubuntu liveCD, I have to say that otherwise Kubuntu feisty is looking pretty good.

Agreed, the new installer is complete rubbish.
I recommend the "Alternative" installer instead... Just look for the .iso with "alternative" in it.

afaik, qtparted is being replaced by the same system ubuntu uses (but with a qt gui) so your problems should be solved. Try the latest flight, and ping riddell on #kubuntu-devel (irc) if you still have problems. I'm sure he will help you. He's way too nice to ignore people, unless they are reall reall dicks (and then still, he's pretty polite, where others would look for their gun).

Yes, my Home Basic came with Aero (minus the visual tricks) -- composite was enabled by default on Vista. There was hardware acceleration, shadows etc.

I only tried Compiz on Ubuntu though, and I didn't stay on it very long because I found some major problems with it. I didn't try Beryl in there because I don't want to screw up the system between AIXGL/XGL and Compiz/Beryl. I will just follow whatever Ubuntu decides to use as their default, although my personal preference is AIXGL/Beryl (just without these silly-loaded pref panels). Beryl moves forward faster than Compiz /me thinks.

Edited 2007-03-17 01:21

I am running beryl on edgy with all the bells on a thinkpad t30 with 512MB of ram, and a 2ghz proc. Runs just fine, and looks damn cool. I haven't and won't install vista on any machine I own, but I bet aero would choke on these specs, and beryl looks fantastic.

what's the video card you're using in your laptop?

Intel 945G.

And what will you do when she needs to troubleshoot and repair Linux? Teach her the UNIX command line? How to calculate and add new modelines in xorg.conf? RTFM?

Linux may be easy as long as things just work but when things break or you need to do something that isn't covered by GUI tools the user is totally lost. And getting help with a highly complex system with such few users is not going to easy.

Convert people to Linux and you will probably be their computer tech for a very long time.

And Windows is "really" easy to fix when it gets broken.....

what was your point ?
apart from flamebait.





Edit as my E key did not seem to work.

Edited 2007-03-17 11:03

I've never has to mod xorg.conf for my screens.

What do you do to fix Windows - reinstall anything from a driver or application of the whole OS to fix it. You should stop quoting hearsay and learn about other systems. Some systems don't "just stop working" like Windows system do.

"Convert people to Windows and you will be their computer tech for a very long time." is the true statement hence the large Windows support teams in large organisations. I am forever fixing windows systems for family and friends.

{And what will you do when she needs to troubleshoot and repair Linux? Teach her the UNIX command line? How to calculate and add new modelines in xorg.conf? RTFM?

Linux may be easy as long as things just work but when things break or you need to do something that isn't covered by GUI tools the user is totally lost. And getting help with a highly complex system with such few users is not going to easy.

Convert people to Linux and you will probably be their computer tech for a very long time.}

Firstly, I would probably tell such a user to install an easy-to-use Linux in the first place. One built for newbies.

Then I would point them here:
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/HomePage

... and if they were having a problem with hardware setup, I would direct them here:
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PclosControlCenter
... and then here ...
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/AddUpgradeHardware

... and if the problem was setting up X, I would point them here:
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/ChangeResolution

... and have them go nowhere near a command line.

If they were using SuSe, I would direct them to the GUI control-panel equivalent for video settings, which is part of yast.

If they had a Kubuntu system, well that isn't quite as friendly as many systems, as it really isn't for newbies. Nevertheless, I would direct them to this page:
http://www.kubuntu.org/docs/kquickguide/C/ch03s07.html
... then here ...
http://www.kubuntu.org/docs/kquickguide/C/ch03s07.html#sect-display

There is, I'm sure, a similar arrangement for Ubuntu.

Then they could still fix their video hardware problem without using a GUI.

It is a myth that you must use then command-line in Linux. It is less of a myth for Ubuntu systems than it is for some others, but it is still a myth.

If someone asks you to help them with screwed Windows system, usual answer will be reinstall application -or- reformat a hdd (in fact just reinstall the OS), or maybe use system restore and loose all settings with installed programs.

In Linux it means running package manager with some commands and backup/restore of home directory with possible creation of a new user.

rklrkl, Ubuntu only comes in a single CD. Fedora is several CDs. Therefore, on Ubuntu you will find ONLY the packages that most of the *home desktop* users will need (I never needed an NFS client for example, while there is an SMB shared-folder panel available by default). For the rest of the packages, there is the easy to use add/remove application which has Azureus and XMMS etc.

I feel that the *only* applications that are missing from Ubuntu for a *desktop* system is the Bluetooth Obex server for Gnome, Brasero and maybe Liferea. Everything else that is needed, is already there (including a simple Gnome Bittorrent client compared to the loaded Azuereus that could put off a lot of home users just by the looks of it).

Edited 2007-03-17 01:32

Therefore, on Ubuntu you will find ONLY the packages that most of the *home desktop* users will need (I never needed an NFS client for example, while there is an SMB shared-folder panel available by default).

I have to agree with the OP. SMB is all fine and good for Windows users, but you're in Linux-land now. Lack of ability to share files over NFS in a default install is quite ridiculous.

As I said, never in my life needed NFS. However, many-many times I needed SMB. I think Ubuntu just went with whatever most people use.

....

Just wait a second!! I just checked again the "Shared Folders" admin panel and that takes care of BOTH NFS and SMB!! When you load it for the first time it asks you if you want them and it takes care of installation and service-loading. That's how it should be and that's how it is.

"""
"I have to agree with the OP. SMB is all fine and good for Windows users, but you're in Linux-land now. Lack of ability to share files over NFS in a default install is quite ridiculous.
"""


I was reading an interview with either Andrew tridgell or Jeremy Allison a while back. I can't remember which. But the person in question stated that making CIFS, with the posix extensions, the de facto standard across the board was a goal of theirs.

He made the excellent point that it is silly to have some machines use CIFS, some use whatever version of NFS, and some use... whatever Apple uses these days, when all these machines can just talk CIFS and be done with it.

I tend to agree. NFSv2/3/4 are not so wonderful that it makes sense for us to take an NIH attitude and perpetuate the fragmentation. NFS has never been what I'd call one of Unix's crown jewels. We've mainly used it because it was what we had. And cifs with the unix extensions is quite serviceable now.

If that's what works for you, go for it. Personally I've much better things to do with my life than screw with configuring a rebadged SMB. I also prefer not to have the monstrous overhead that comes with SMB or CIFS.

And that is Ubuntu's major problem imho. I dislike Gnome, much preferring KDE, yet *out of the box*, Ubuntu does NOT give me choice. Some say that that's to keep it simple, I honestly think it's bad for Linux. Everyone keeps saying 'but Linux gives you choice!!!' - strange that Ubuntu doesn't. How hard would it for Ubuntu to release a DVD instead of a CD and include the most popular desktop environment in Linux land?

Don't give me the Kubuntu bullshyte, cos that's just baloney. It gets far less attention, and has far less developers, resulting in a shoddy system. What we are seeing here is blatant favouritism for Gnome, rather than letting the end user choose what they want/prefer.

Until Ubuntu decides to support KDE properly, I won't use it, nor will I recommend it.

In fact, these days I don't use GNU/Linux at all, since several things I use aren't supported:

1. Photoshop CS2 (WINE/Cedega/CrossOver Office do not support it, not even with nasty hacks)
2. Neat Image (full of bugs under WINE, haven't tried Cedega/CrossOver office)
3. Capture One Pro (WINE says v3.6, although it has bugs, not sure on v3.7)
4. Canon EOS 1D DSLR - gphoto2 doesn't support this *major* pro camera whatsoever. Disappointing. Asking me to get off my a$$ and code drivers for this baby is what I consider elitist and a very unreasonable demand on the end user. It's one thing that gives GNU/Linux zealots a very bad name in the real world.

I have a Windows based PC, which is what I primarily use these days because Photoshop and Neat Image are Windows versions (I didn't have a Mac at the time of buying both software pieces). I love the Mac (older PowerMac G4 1ghz running 10.3.8), but until I have Mac versions of my software I won't switch totally.

Dave

From what I can tell kubuntu is not any worse/better than other KDE based distros. If you have any special needs perhaps you should tell them.

The rest of your problems unfortunately relates to market share and development costs. So why complain that your favorite programs doesn't run in wine or some wine derivate. Why not complain that they are not ported to native Linux to the company that made them, In this case Adobe and Canon.

Microsoft isn't even close to provide drivers for as many devices that Linux supports out of the box. Yet it is always a fault of Linux when some device doesn't work under Linux, and the fault of the device manufacturer if it doesn't work on Windows. We need to be careful to place blame where blame belongs.

Today the Linux desktop is easier to use, and looks better than current versions of Windows. What is holding it back is lack of applications that people are used to use. E.g. Gimp may be a good editor, but if you have used Photoshop half a lifetime it is unlikely that you will be prepared to relearn, at least not until Gimp is significantly better than Photoshop. Currently this is not the case.

Preloaded Linux would be nice too, but it is not as important to get commonly used apps ported. The main advantage with preloaded Linux, as I see it would be that there would be less machines that ship with windows. Modern Linuxes are so easy to install that everybody can install provided the hardware is supported.

" From what I can tell kubuntu is not any worse/better than other KDE based distros. If you have any special needs perhaps you should tell them. "

If you want a better KDE based Ubuntu derivative besides Kubuntu I suggest SimplyMEPIS. Maybe Freespire or Linspire are better but I havent used Linspire much.

" Microsoft isn't even close to provide drivers for as many devices that Linux supports out of the box. Yet it is always a fault of Linux when some device doesn't work under Linux, and the fault of the device manufacturer if it doesn't work on Windows. We need to be careful to place blame where blame belongs. "

If you want Linux drivers from hardware manufacturers make your voice heard. Speak up. This is not a blame game. After working in both the hardware and software side of the business I can tell you this. A company is not going to do anything if it doesnt make A) Financial sense or B) there isnt demand for it. But its a give and take, if you want the device and app support you must be willing to abide by and follow the licensing terms of the manufacturer. Adobe at one time had Framemaker on Linux and they didnt follow through with it because when the community was polled Linux users wanted it for free or wanted Adobe to Open Source it.

" Today the Linux desktop is easier to use, and looks better than current versions of Windows. What is holding it back is lack of applications that people are used to use. E.g. Gimp may be a good editor, but if you have used Photoshop half a lifetime it is unlikely that you will be prepared to relearn, at least not until Gimp is significantly better than Photoshop. Currently this is not the case. "

I disagree. I like the Windows Vista look. Windows isnt as customizable out of the box as KDE or GNOME but Microsoft has the look down. if people want Photoshop on Linux until a native port is done I can testify that Photoshop works very reliably with Wine in its current version.

" Preloaded Linux would be nice too, but it is not as important to get commonly used apps ported. The main advantage with preloaded Linux, as I see it would be that there would be less machines that ship with windows. Modern Linuxes are so easy to install that everybody can install provided the hardware is supported."

The current plan for preloading is offering choice. either Linux or Windows. People will go with what they know. Linux needs the wow factor and when people find out that they may need to do more work to get a Linux machine up and running than they do a Windows machine whats the point?

Eh? Excuse me? I've probably used Linux a whole lot more than you, and probably know a lot more about it. So, don't talk about my 'special needs'.

An operating system has to do what I need it to do. If it can't, then it's not suitable - period. At the moment, Linux continues to fragment. Whilst this is good, and offers choice to the user, the downside is that it doesn't encourage software vendors to port their software to Linux.

I'm not going to blame Canon, etc. I've done my bit, I've asked for them (previously) to support GNU/Linux. I can ask, but that doesn't mean I'll get what I want. If it makes you feel a bit better, an engineer at Canon Australia told me that they're looking to natively support Canon cameras in the near future for Linux. Adobe? I'd love Adobe to port Photoshop, and I honestly don't think that it'd be that hard for them. If they can get it running on OS X, then they can it with Linux as well. Unfortunately, I can't make Adobe port it. You could have a million emails go to Adobe, requesting that Photoshop be ported, in the end, they won't do it unless they feel that they have to. Photoshop is their baby, and they'll do what they please. Until Linux has an equally powerful, and usable Photo editing/imaging application, there'll be no pressure on Adobe to port. Plain and simple.

I can from the GIMP to Photoshop btw. I don't mind the GIMP, but it's simply not intuitive, and it doesn't let me do the things that I need to do, as a photographer. Plain and simple. Photoshop does. If Adobe ports to Linux, and the other pieces of software that I rely on are ported, I'd switch back in an instant. I prefer GNU/Linux, I prefer the GPL. Early in 2006 I needed to make a distinction - stay with Linux and be hampered as a photographer, or move back to Windows (or OS X) and grow as a photographer. I chose the latter.

You're not telling me something I don't know (drivers, etc), I've used Linux long enough and extensively enough to know what I'm doing. I'm not some newbie troll who has no idea what he's talking about.

Anyways, to me, Ubuntu doesn't give me choice, real choice. If it offered the 2 major desktop environments, I'd consider it. Until then, I can't honestly recommend Ubuntu. If it pleases you, 3 of my friends have tried Ubuntu and all have been unimpressed, with an attitude of "what's all the fuss about?". One much prefers Mandrive, another Fedora, and another Mepis.

Dave

I dislike Gnome, much preferring KDE, yet *out of the box*, Ubuntu does NOT give me choice... Everyone keeps saying 'but Linux gives you choice!!!' - strange that Ubuntu doesn't.

Part of the choice is that there are around a dozen major distributions to choose from. Ubuntu is merely one of these choices.

How hard would it for Ubuntu to release a DVD instead of a CD and include the most popular desktop environment in Linux land?

Not very hard, but they might as well release a CD for users who prefer GNOME and another for those who prefer KDE... which is what they do. I'm not sure where your numbers are coming from on DE popularity. I have a feeling that GNOME is currently more popular than KDE, but I think this is a cyclical thing. KDE used to be more popular, then GNOME reinvented itself and became more popular, and now we see KDE reinventing itself and gaining momentum.

Don't give me the Kubuntu bullshyte, cos that's just baloney. It gets far less attention, and has far less developers, resulting in a shoddy system. What we are seeing here is blatant favouritism for Gnome, rather than letting the end user choose what they want/prefer.

I'm not going to disagree with you. Kubuntu and Ubuntu share a great deal of development effort, but yes, Kubuntu tends to trail Ubuntu in overall polish. Remember, Linux is about choice. Ubuntu chooses GNOME. Who are you to deny them their right to choose?

There is no shortage of high-quality KDE-oriented distributions. Try MEPIS or PCLinuxOS, for example. The former is a relatively close derivative of Ubuntu with a focus on KDE and simplicity. The latter is a fork of Mandriva that uses APT tools to manage RPMs, which is unusual, but it seems to work really well.

Look, man, everybody's different. It isn't feasible for everybody to develop their own distribution, so we only have like four hundred and change to choose from. Most are really small niche projects that probably aren't what you're looking for. There's certainly no conspiracy to keep you from using a KDE-oriented distribution.

In fact, these days I don't use GNU/Linux at all, since several things I use aren't supported:...

You're preaching to the choir. We all would like to see those seemingly irreplaceable Windows apps become available on Linux and other free software platforms, but nobody here at OSNews or over at the Ubuntu project can help you with this. Maybe write a letter to Adobe if you think it's worth your time, because it isn't a matter of Linux not supporting Photoshop, it's Adobe not supporting Linux. Same thing with hardware. Canon could have implemented the USB mass storage standard if they cared about compatibility, or they could have been more forthcoming as to why our reverse-engineered PTP driver in gphoto2 works with my PowerShot but not with your EOS.

Asking me to get off my a$$ and code drivers for this baby is what I consider elitist and a very unreasonable demand on the end user. It's one thing that gives GNU/Linux zealots a very bad name in the real world.

I have sneaking suspicion that you get this response from the Linux community because we feel you're placing unreasonable demands on us. Your points are valid, but your energy is misdirected. Unfortunately for those who don't like to code, that's how software is created and improved. We invite you to participate in our projects in a variety of capacities including but not limited to programming, but of course participation is not required.

I think that Linux "zealots" get a bad name because much of the "real world" believes in a culture of entitlement. Look at everybody living life with a chip on their shoulder, blaming everyone else for their problems and scoffing at the notion that they take responsibility for their own situation. Somewhere along the line we stopped believing in opportunity as a means of realizing our dreams and began to foster the idea that we're entitled to our expectations. In "Linux land," we believe that the opportunity to participate in our information society is fundamental to our inherent desire as human beings to better our situation and control our own destiny.

Of course, money can make just about any dream come true. Mark Shuttleworth, for exmaple, invested $10 million to help make the Ubuntu project a reality. But years ago my great-grandmother told me the story of how my family came to America with nothing but the promise that here they would find a land of opportunity. This is the same promise we make with free software. This isn't elitist, this is egalitarian.

Edited 2007-03-17 05:34

{In fact, these days I don't use GNU/Linux at all, since several things I use aren't supported:

1. Photoshop CS2 (WINE/Cedega/CrossOver Office do not support it, not even with nasty hacks)
2. Neat Image (full of bugs under WINE, haven't tried Cedega/CrossOver office)
3. Capture One Pro (WINE says v3.6, although it has bugs, not sure on v3.7) }

What a strange person.

Those three points are no fault of Ubuntu nor Linux, but rather are the fault of the OEM software vendors (Adobe, Nik Software et al) for not writing a Linux version.

Windows can't run Linux binary software packages at all, BTW, so why would you expect Linux to be able run all Windows binaries?

The fact that WINE/Cedega/CrossOver Office suppaort any Windows binaries at all is the remarkable thing.

If you want even better support for running Windows binaries under Linux, then try this:

http://www.win4lin.com/index.php/content/view/64/125/

... or you can go the full way and use vmware or virtualbox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) virtualization software.

"Until Ubuntu decides to support KDE properly, I won't use it, nor will I recommend it. "

I think it's possible to install KDE afterwards and switch to it then. Can someone confirm?

"In fact, these days I don't use GNU/Linux at all, since several things I use aren't supported:

1. Photoshop CS2 (WINE/Cedega/CrossOver Office do not support it, not even with nasty hacks)
2. Neat Image (full of bugs under WINE, haven't tried Cedega/CrossOver office)
3. Capture One Pro (WINE says v3.6, although it has bugs, not sure on v3.7)"

As it has mentioned before, just write a letter to the vendors of these software products. Tell them you paid some money to them, but their programs do not work in Linux properly.

To get serious again: Software support is not a lack of Linux or Wine. It's the fault of the software vendors. For Linux, specifications, APIs and frameworks are well documented, the libraries and the compilers are free (due to the GPL), so why do they refuse to use them in order to make a great product working on Linux?

BTW, I'm a photographic enthusiast myself and I never found any reason to use one of the products you mentioned. There are very capable alternatives available, just try them and see how you can work with them. Remember, even the Gimp's interface has improved and is ready for Joe Q. Sixpack.

"4. Canon EOS 1D DSLR - gphoto2 doesn't support this *major* pro camera whatsoever. Disappointing."

I agree, that's a real problem. But it's Canon's problem. There are standard specifications that Canon could have used, but they simply didn't, because they don't care. So, if your EOS had a standard USB mass storage system, a /dev/da?s1 file would be available to be mounted via the -t msdos command. No problem! There are other free standards that could have been used. But if Canon decides to be proprietary, I won't buy this product.

A simple workaround could be to eject the storage media from the camera and put it into a drive (internal or attached via USB). So access to the files would be possible.

I for myself own a Canon EOS-50 (without D) because digital SLR's quality is not worth the money at the moment. Letting a photo CD being made is possible as well, and is enough for my needs at the moment.

"Asking me to get off my a$$ and code drivers for this baby is what I consider elitist and a very unreasonable demand on the end user."

Inform developers that are able to. How does someone who you would call "elitist" to write a driver for your camera? He even would not use it, so why should he do such work?

It would be better to inform Canon itself that you want to use their great camera with Linux, but you can't because they don't support it. So you won't buy or recommend their products...

The easiest alternative: Hardware vendors and software vendors, use existing standards or publish new ones to the public!

"It's one thing that gives GNU/Linux zealots a very bad name in the real world."

Per definition, zealots have a bad name, if they defend Linux or MICROS~1 or whatever. I won't worry. Nobody cares about them.

Quote: "I think it's possible to install KDE afterwards and switch to it then. Can someone confirm?
"

Oh, it is. The thing is that most people will simply stick with the default desktop environment - Gnome. What Ubuntu has done is nothing more than favouritism. I also don't agree with distributions like Mepis shipping with KDE. I think these types of distributions do a disservice to GNU/Linux by not offering both major desktop environments and letting the user choose.

Quote: "As it has mentioned before, just write a letter to the vendors of these software products. Tell them you paid some money to them, but their programs do not work in Linux properly."

Already tried this, I'm sorry, but 2% of the population isn't a big enough warcry for these corporations to hear us. They're responsible to their shareholders to maintain and increase profits, spending money developing software that only a very small percentage will use is not financially viable in their eyes I suspect. I wish it was different, but alas...

Quote: "BTW, I'm a photographic enthusiast myself and I never found any reason to use one of the products you mentioned. There are very capable alternatives available, just try them and see how you can work with them. Remember, even the Gimp's interface has improved and is ready for Joe Q. Sixpack."

I guess it really depends on what you want to do. Since you're shooting film, something like Capture One Pro wouldn't be much good to you (since it's used to process RAW files). Same with DPP. Neat Image and Photoshop could be used by film shooters of course.

Quote: "There are standard specifications that Canon could have used, but they simply didn't, because they don't care."

Please do your homework first. Canon's 1D uses FireWire - that's the ieee1394 *standard*. They chose that at the time, because USB 2 wasn't ratified by the ISO. There's an official Canon interview somewhere that explains it.

Quote: "But if Canon decides to be proprietary, I won't buy this product."

Unfortunately, competitor's products do not meet my photographical needs. They come first.

Quote: "Inform developers that are able to. How does someone who you would call "elitist" to write a driver for your camera? He even would not use it, so why should he do such work?"

That is indeed true. But, given that, then I'm quite free to bag the gphoto project for not supporting a *major* camera. Sure, they don't have to, but I don't have to say that their project is any good either, based on my needs/requirements. Sure, I could use a memory card reader, but the point is that I *shouldn't have to*.

Quote: "I for myself own a Canon EOS-50 (without D) because digital SLR's quality is not worth the money at the moment. Letting a photo CD being made is possible as well, and is enough for my needs at the moment."

I beg to differ. Digital has surpassed film in critical areas now in all honesty. And I've shot film for near 20 years. I was very late to convert to digital, in fact I bought my first digital SLR in January 2006. The new 1D Mark III has noise at ISO 3200 that is probably better than film grain at ISO 800. That is a MASSIVE improvement. Even my 5 year old 1D has better noise than the eqivalent film speed, and the 1D is reknowned for being very noisy.

Dave

Sorry, but the lack of NFS client support means that if you have two machines with Linux on and one is to share the files to the other, then by default, you *can't* on Ubuntu. It took a bit of Googling to realise that portmap and nfs-common were needed - the average user of Ubuntu would have no clue about this and think it was impossible to set up an Ubuntu box to use NFS (as either a client or server). Saying that SMB shares are available is a complete cop-out - this implies that the only way an Ubuntu user can share files on their local network is to have a Windows box as a fileserver!

Problem with saying that you can use Synaptic to install stuff is that I was sick and tired of running it over 20 times to fill in the gaps shockingly left wide open by Ubuntu. No secure shell daemon installed - oh, you can't log inbetween Linux machines on your network then. No Azureus meant downloading Sun's Java (from java.sun.com - the Ubuntu version didn't work for me) and the Azureus package - the Speed Scheduler plugin is essential for me (and *many* users) because I'm quotaed during peak times and I must have automatic throttling at certain times of the day.

Got to say that claiming some obscure Bluetooth server was missing isn't that essential - not being able to run the Flash plug-in, Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in or Java plug-in in Firefox on a 64-bit Ubuntu system easily is way more important a problem. Ubuntu should make it easy to install 32-bit versions of apps that rely on 32-bit libraries onto 64-bit systems (and before you say that 64-bit is "scarce" - it isn't, a *lot* of new systems are 64-bit capable) - at the moment, it's too hard to do so on Ubuntu, which is a big negative in my books. I'd like to see Synaptic include a 32-bit/64-bit option (i.e. add an architecture column and let you choose which bitness you want for a particular app [for apps, you can probably only have one or the other, but for libs, you should be able to install both, assuming the install paths don't clash].

Ubuntu doesn't come with smb or nfs by default. Like Eugenia said, you open up the networking config tool and it prompts to install nfs and/or smb. You don't "need to realise that portmap and nfs-common" are needed, unless I'm misreading something.

Edited 2007-03-17 12:23

{ Ubuntu doesn't come with smb or nfs by default. Like Eugenia said, you open up the networking config tool and it prompts to install nfs and/or smb. }

That is what I did. I just went to the Kubuntu "System Settings"
http://www.kubuntu.org/docs/kquickguide/C/ch03s07.html
... then to "internet & network" and then "sharing"
http://www.kubuntu.org/docs/kquickguide/C/ch03s07.html#sect-sharing
... and clicked "administrator mode" ... and Ubuntu told me I needed NFS and Samba to be installed, and then after I allowed it to, Ubuntu automatically downloaded and installed them both for me.

Why wouldn't you use fish or scp to share files?

Because it has extremely poor performance on large dirs and requires mutual ssh passwordless login setup which is far from user friendly.
Besides, no support for discovering computers in your neighborhood exits.
By the way, is there an easy way do integrate nfs/gnome vfs with avahi to have shares discovery?

AFAIK, I don't think so. When I use the "main US server" I get about 5 MBs of download for all the repos.

APT supports it and Debian uses it by default (with Etch that is).

Ubuntu decided not to use this feature because they update their repository several times per day, while Debian updates it once a day.

...So what? They can just automate the creation of the diffs. Instead of people downloading a few 100kB diffs, they'll download a megabyte of diffs, perhaps? Better than 4-5MB every time I run apt-get update.

Have they really run an analysis that says redownloading everything will be faster?

That part of your post struck me as inaccurate, too.

I have been using Ubuntu since Dapper (currently on Edgy), using the Canadian repos, and "apt-get update" always fetches updates that are a few kilobytes in size, nowhere near 5 MB.

If you're getting 5 MB every single time you update, something is wrong (or strange, at least).