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I'm with you! I really don't like Ubuntu in the least to start with, and really can't stand all these endless reviews for every single release. Just because Ubuntu is popular, that does not mean their level of quality of code is worth a stitch!

I wouldnt go quite as far with the ubuntu bashing as you do (considering what it is trying to be, and considering you compare it to stuff like fedora), but i find linux to be getting rather boring too. The exciting new stuff is all basically things that have been already done elsewhere. Sure, fancy graphics are nice for demoing it to someone used to windows or osx, but I miss the days when the work was being done on more interesting things. I think a big part of it is the massive influx of clueless users over the last few years. I used to be proud of being part of the linux "community", but nowadays it means alot less then it used to. The mac community is stereo-typed by its high priesthood, the windows community by its apologetics, but the linux community used to be all about the uber geek. Instead, now it seems to be about the ex-windows user who is too cheap to buy vista, and wants a free ride.

Personally, I am going the Belenix route, possibly Project Indiana, but we'll see about what kind of direction they go (I don't want to dump linux for a linux clone).

I think that's what's doing a lot of damage to Linux in general, is all these people that want a zero-cost OS, and all this really stupid mentality of people being against Microsoft, so they're cool because they use Linux. My own personal perspective, Linux anti-Microsoft people will never be "cool" as long as they don't know how to work without a graphical desktop environment and without graphical menus. For me, with Linux, I feel depressed, with Open/FreeBSD, I feel I can whip it into a frenzy and have a great old time with it all!

Have you thought about using PC-BSD so you can just install and go, populate the ports, and edit all of like 2 system files to make a bullet-proof system to use? I hear PF as even developed a couple graphical things for editing PF stuff, although I have not tried or seen PC 1.4 myself.

//It just seems to me (and a lot of other people that have been following this for a long time) that application development (and subsequently, distros) on Linux are just trying to replicate the MS, Apple, Adobe, and other major software paradigms out there//

Maybe because that's the better way to do it? I imagine you still use punch-cards for programming. Welcome to 2007.

Actually it is a fairly new article (published yesteday) and it is always interesting to see how a distribution is doing after the hype has settled. Usually it takes some time to get more realistic reviews like this one. Especially when the distribution is Ubuntu.

For me the review on Ars Technica is still a bit too euphemistic. Several major computer magazine published Ubuntu 7.10 on their cover disk and the feedback we get from our readership is not really as enthusiastic as with release 7.04.

This is the Ars review. To some, the only review that matters.

Ubuntu, to be fair their has been precious little reviews of Ubuntu on here, yet *BSD distro's have been in abundance, even Leopard was neglected till release, I has to get my OS News other places. To be fair though Ubuntu has lost some of its impact it initially had I hope we will not see the same thing with Fedora which rightly or wrongly is garnering a following. I hope to see some reviews with it only a week away.

Oddly the article concludes with

Not totally lambasting vista does not mean a microsoft bias. Ars is one of the few good tech media sites out there.

Thats funny, Vista is the only version of windows I have ever liked. Not enough to shell out 300$ mind you, but enough so that the OEM costs weren't a waste. My work depends on windows software, but back during and before the XP years, i would use Windows for work, and Linux for everything else. Vista is what changed that. XP was dated when it came out, Vista is right behind the mac in terms of providing a solid desktop environment. I'm not saying that all kinds of people havn't had problems with it, but for me (and for my girlfriend, who has the 15" model of the same laptop as me), Vista has been a pretty smooth ride.

To each his own.

Warn the non-tech friends that they'll be able to play HD content? The horrors! I'm sure they'll gladly jump to Linux so they can use their HD-DVD discs as coasters.

That you feel strongly about a cause is fine. You're implying that everyone (regardless of how technical they are) should take up your cause as well.

My girlfriend uses Vista too. She has no problem with it. She likes it. It runs programs that she's familiar with, and does so with a pretty UI. I've also shown her Linux, and she likes that too. She still spends most of her time in Vista, though.

I'm not a Vista fan, by any means, but it's not the devil that you make it out to be.

I'd go so far as to say that opinions which are worded like yours hurt the general adoption of alternative operating systems.

And you are there, matching them one for one, with posts entitled "Enough!". The reviews are varied. You, however, sound like a broken record. Minus one for you... again. Because at this point, you are effectively off-topic.

Edited 2007-11-08 00:23

IMO he's totally ON-topic. It's YAUR (yet another Ubuntu review), right? Criticizing articles is one of the purposes of the comments section, right? So why not criticize the fact that the web is full of fanboy Ubuntu reviews? I mean, c'mon, it's not like Ubuntu is the second coming of Christ. Heck, it's not even the best distro there is. Yet, every time a new version is released, those fanboyish reviews spring up everywhere, telling us how great an improvement this new release is over the old one. Essentially, all Ubuntu does is putting together some FOSS apps, adding some half-*ssed attempts at GUI configuration tools plus some artwork (which, to be fair, doesn't look too bad).

Now, I hear some people say "This is what most distros do." Not quite, folks.
1) Most decent distros don't try to imitate Windows, which is a good thing.
2) They give credit where credit is due, while Ubuntu deliberately fails to give proper credit to Debian. Check out their website, to stumble upon the word "Debian" some searching is required. NO Debian on the front page, NO Debian on the "What is Ubuntu?" page. Using other projects' work and not even mentioning them - How "human".
3) Other distros actually support FOSS. Contrary to all propagandistic claims, Launchpad still is proprietary. To quote a blogger: "How on EARTH can you say you’re a free software supporter but not release your own code?"
'nuff said.

There's more, but the above points already provide enough evidence that Ubuntu/Canonical is up to no good.

OK, thanks for clearing that up.

1. Can you explain to me how Ubuntu imitates windows, because it seems more macish to me. You are dead wrong besides, there are many distros that try to emulate windows. Linspire being at the forefront. you are even more in error, because Novell's slab menu looks strikingly similar to a certain redmond derived menu, don't you think? As far as I know Windows doesn't have two panels not to say this wouldn't help with all the crap people install in the system tray). Last I heard windows installs very little of you hardware out of the box. I don't remember windows letting me install off of a live cd. I'm pretty sure I don't recall an office suite coming with windows, nor a photo manipulation app.
If ubutnu si trying to "be like windows", then any gnome based distro is trying to "be like windows". So you can count redhat in there as well as any distro that heppens to have gnome on it, because Ubuntu packages an almost pure (with a few addons) gnome.

2. Its not secret that ubuntu uses debian packages as its primary source. What credit are you talking would you rather Ubuntu be called Ubuntudebian. A lotof the bad blood between Ubuntu and debian has more to do with the siphoning of developers and very little with credit, because at the end of the day the credit goes to the packager mainteainer, programmer, not the distro.

3. Launhpad is proprietary, Novell closed development of compiz to work on it (they released it though =, but how fickle are people's memories), not long ago Yast was closed source. you seem to think that Lauchpad cou;dn't be opened at any given time. Besides what is so special abut launchpad that isn't already available elsewhere and as open as a man's fly in a latrine.

Right now youa re just on the verge of sounding like a troll. I always wonder why when something is popular all of sudden you get chumps like these spouting hate. Whatever. Use wahtever you fell like using, nobody is forcing you to even consider Ubuntu at all. Use Fedora, use Suse, use whatever makes you feel comfortable but don't go bashing a whole community based on your bias.

1) Ubuntu is a click-click-click distro, aimed at the Would-switch-if-Linux-wouldn't-be-so-hard-to-learn Windows user. You're right though, Gnome's interface is more like Mac. Nothing new here.
2) I didn't request some stupid name change. But most derivatives are plain honest about their roots. Look at ubuntu.com's frontpage: "Ubuntu is a community developed, linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers." Several points worth noticing here. I'm sure most people think it's nit-picky, but the wording tells you a thing or two about Canonical's intentions.
1. "community developed" - Does that mean every person that's part of the "community" (whatever that means) automatically becomes a developer? Suggests an openness that just isn't there. Moreover, if there's a "community", who are the non-community guys, and how come they locked themselves out of the development process? The wording truly is weird.
2. "linux-based" - What!? Wrong spelling! It's called "Linux", with the first letter being CAPITALIZED. Coincidence? I'm afraid not. Everybody knows how to spell _that_ word, and I'm sure content on the front page is proof-read multiple times. So why is it lowercase? Psychological reasons. They want "Ubuntu" to stand out, not "linux" (even Firefox' spell check corrects me here). But who cares, Ubuntu is all that matters, who cares if it's based on that... well... erm... cough... "linux" thingy or whatever they call it. Go figure...
3. "operating system" - Why the heck don't they use the word "distribution"? Answer: Ubuntu is aimed at the average clicky-clicky Windows user (repeating myself here), who may not even know the word "distribution". Additionally - and this adds to the evidence that Ubuntu seeks to hide its Debian heritage - "distribution" would suggest that Ubuntu isn't special at all, just one of the currently 368 active distros listed on distrowatch.com. A Debian derivative, not a product made from scratch. And yes, I know that there are some other distros using the word "operating system" too, but it leaves a completely different taste when used by Canonical.
3) So you wish to compare Canonical's shady practices to Novell's, who signed a patent agreement with Microsoft and are the driving force behind Mono? Compiz is a waste of developer resources, but sadly, open-source GUI development is more about copying Windows/Mac stuff than innovation. And of course there are plenty of alternatives to Launchpad, so why did they create it in the first place? VERY suspicious, and the reasons are clear as day. Do some research.

Well, I can assure you I'm not a troll (using that word never is a good idea), but very concerned about the behavior of Mark S. and his Canonical. And I definitely am not the only one. I also did not bash the "community", and my "bias" is critical thinking and careful observation. BTW, not too long ago I've been an Ubuntu user, too. The main reason for leaving Ubuntu for something much better (Arch Linux in that case) was the lack of quality found in Canonical's product.

Edited 2007-11-08 17:33

Ubuntu is a click-click-click distro, aimed at the Would-switch-if-Linux-wouldn't-be-so-hard-to-learn Windows user.

Right. Because, you know, we're only imagining that it's 2007. It's actually still the 90s, and none of the other distros can be administered with the GUI.

Helpful hint: There's a terminal in applications->accessories. And, like, you can use a less easy interface if you want to. I do.

Does that mean every person that's part of the "community" (whatever that means) automatically becomes a developer

No, it means that it's developed by a community. Say, the community of people who develop open source software. No offence or anything, but duh.

What!? Wrong spelling! It's called "Linux", with the first letter being CAPITALIZED. Coincidence? I'm afraid not. [blah blah]

The mis-capitalization is probably not a simple error, but your theory that it is part of a grand conspiracy is little over the top.

"operating system" - Why the heck don't they use the word "distribution"? Answer: Ubuntu is aimed at the average clicky-clicky Windows user (repeating myself here), who may not even know the word "distribution".

People who know what a distribution is already know that ubundu is a distribution. And since every distribution is an operating system, not only is that usage more general and widely understood, using 'distribution' would cause confusion to the same windows users that you seem to think should be excluded for some reason.

Additionally - and this adds to the evidence that Ubuntu seeks to hide its Debian heritage - "distribution" would suggest that Ubuntu isn't special at all, just one of the currently 368 active distros listed on distrowatch.com.

Your psychoanalysis is impressive (say something about mark's feelings toward his mother!), but the less insane explanation is that it's just an about box which is meant to be easily understood.

Do you really think that they are convincing people, or trying to convince people, that they made the entire thing? Do you think that anybody who didn't know would even care if the evil conspiracy were revealed to them? Do you think that there would be a mass migration to Debian if they said, in big, red letters on the front page, that it is based on Debian?

Compiz is a waste of developer resources

Because attracting new users and demonstrating that it has a modern interface doesn't matter.

but sadly, open-source GUI development is more about copying Windows/Mac stuff than innovation. And of course there are plenty of alternatives to Launchpad, so why did they create it in the first place? VERY suspicious, and the reasons are clear as day. Do some research

Really? So windows and OS X have repositories, are massively multi-architecture, and all the software for them has 64-bit versions? Man, I'm behind the times.

So tell me, what you think about 9/11 and the moon landings?


google_ninja: The same thing happened with the internet (Ref: The eternal September). If you want a community with smart non-plebians, just move to something more obscure -- slackware or debian (although I've never understood the latter's reputation for being a hacker/power user distro), or one of the BSDs.

Also, it's spelled expatriate. Don't ask me about the etymology though.

Too late to edit: Oh wait, you said GUI innovation. Yeah, I'll give you that one.

" but sadly, open-source GUI development is more about copying Windows/Mac stuff than innovation"

There's a saying: good artists make good art, great artists copy great arts.

While a small group of vocal individuals (like you) complain about "copying" and "innovation", the vast majority of the world couldn't care less who invented it first.

"And you are there, matching them one for one, with posts entitled "Enough!". The reviews are varied. You, however, sound like a broken record. Minus one for you... again. Because at this point, you are effectively off-topic."

I sound like a broken record? What sounds like a broken record are the myriad of Ubuntu reviews that all essentially say the same thing. They monotonously describe the booting of the live CD, the installation (which hasn't changed significantly since Ubuntu's inaugural release) and then the desktop experience. The reviewer then blathers on about his or her personal problems with the distribution and then wraps up with a paragraph or two about how wonderful Ubuntu is for newbies and Linux in general. Pardon me while I puke! Oh, and don't get me wrong: I'm an Ubuntu user myself. I just don't need to see an in-depth review by every Tom, Dick and Harry with a Blog!

See this post under the current story:

http://www4.osnews.com/permalink?283485

It is a very good reason why multiple reviews of the same product are beneficial and desirable. Individual reviewers have limited hardware on which to test, and use the OS in different ways. They have different expectations, and different opinions based upon a combination of those expectations, their own personal termperament, and the hardware that they have.

Those uninterested in the distro or OS, on the other hand, are perfectly free to use their eye muscles to deflect their eyes slightly down the page and skip the story. You have expended a great deal *more* effort than that to complain about something for which there is simply *no* valid reason for you to be bothered. Which makes me wonder what your real motivations might be.

For the record, I try to apply this attitude to *all* the stories here which reasonably belong in this forum. It does not matter if it is about an OS I like, or an OS that I don't. It's about respecting the fact that on a site like this, devoted to diversity in computing, different people, at different times, are going to find different stories helpful and interesting.

Do you have a problem with that?

Edited 2007-11-08 17:39

But suggesting that you should use general reviews of Ubuntu to see if it will work on your particular machine is just plain crazy [/q]

Why is it crazy? That is what a review is! Sheesh!

Fair enough. Last two PCs (desktop and laptop) I bought had Linux pre-installed, so I knew Ubuntu would work. People are more likely to complain when something doesn't work than report when something does.

If his hardware works wonderfully with Linux, why then would you not like to share this with everyone?

Maybe, because we would get negative reactions on Yet-Another-Particular-Setup-Works-Great-With-Ubuntu type articles "flooding" the net.

The hard truth of the matter is that you always should check the hardware compatibility list for your OS, be that Windows, *BSD, OS X, Haiku, SkyOS or Plan9.

The reason Windows users aren't accustomed anymore to do such research, is that even the cheapest hardware has a more or less working (current) Windows driver these days and buying before thinking doesn't punish anymore with non-working hardware.

On the other hand buying without thinking may lead to dubious functioning or random crashes on Windows and on Linux it will give you hardware that is as dead as a Dodo.

It all depends on how lazily you want to squander your money. Do you do research or do you trust upon the Gods to make it happen...

But search forums, mailing lists, blogs, personal websites, support databases and the such.

Ideally this valid for whatever OS you are running. Therefore i'm a frequent visitor of www.phoronix.com amongst other sites that specifically deal with GNU/Linux, Solaris soft and hardware issues.

apt-get install compizconfig-gnome

You have missed the point.

Just because there are config tools available out there, does not mean we shouldn't bother improving the default tools.

KDE vs. Gnome - again.

I think, Gnome tries to set up their Desktop in a way which works well for most, but denies them easy configurability.

KDE tries to let the user configure everything from within the GUI, which enables fast access to "minor" configuration items which are available in Gnome only via the registry (or however it is called).

I for example like KDE better than Gnome, because whenever I tried to use Gnome I at some point hit the wall. Then searching through the internet to find out what registry entries need to be changed costs 10 times more effort, than clicking my way through a KDE config dialog. Gnome is not easily configurable to my way of thinking/working KDE is.

By the way: Can I configure the "open" and "save as" dialogs in Gnome in a way which ALWAYS shows the "folder browser"?

The brown wallpaper with the swirls looks very amateur, the art team on Ubuntu are just not good enough it's that simple.

It is an operating system not a painting you hang on your wall.

Yes and some of the gnome art devs think that way to, thats why I left, looking good is part of the package. why polish the bike if your not going to polish it all?

Yes and some of the gnome art devs think that way to, thats why I left, looking good is part of the package. why polish the bike if your not going to polish it all?

The least part of the package. The part that counts is that it works, who cares if it look good if it doesn't even work properly. Some people make bikes to ride from A to B not to impress people.

I happen to agree with him though. The art team for Suse has always been pretty decent. Fedora is on fire, they are doing things which I haven't really seen in other distros at this point. There seems to be a completeness to their artwork. Everything works together well, from the grub menu to the login screen to the desktop itself.

Ubuntu would do well to follow in fedora's footsteps. With the next release the artwork is supposed to be getting a revamp and everything should be much more coherent. Though black and orange is gonna be a stretch, I've seen some wallpapers that make me think they can pull it off.

Thats the easy answer, yes it's the first thing I do(because it looks bad) but anyone who thinks the default look is not important better not give up their day job for this.

I find it sad you people think it's not important, next time I go for a job interview I'll look like crap and say it's my experience that counts not first impression.

Edited 2007-11-08 03:44

I find it sad you people think it's not important, next time I go for a job interview I'll look like crap and say it's my experience that counts not first impression.

That is an interesting analogy you are trying to draw there. Unfortunately your impression of an "OS background looking good" being similar to "looking good for a job interview" is a terrible picture. Now that you have failed to impress me with the mental picture you drew, should I now dismiss everything else you say?

Why is that?, because the OS has to impress the user on first impression the same you do to a potential employer. People underestimate the power of colour, it's in everything you do and see and brown is not up their on the default colour scope for pretty much anything or any product.

You use neutral colours and not heavy colours for a default look, everyone likes neutral colours because they appeal to most people, brown is NOT one of them.

Edited 2007-11-08 05:02

Why is that?, because the OS has to impress the user on first impression the same you do to a potential employer. People underestimate the power of colour, it's in everything you do and see and brown is not up their on the default colour scope.

But you have failed to impress me with your original mental picture analogy so now I just dismiss everything you say, because by your logic that is how it works.

Nice try with your mind games but you simply have no clue or appreciate what i'm saying. Perhaps when the next version goes back to a more lighter cream look you'll get what I'm saying.

If you think I can't back up what I'm saying, just look at what it's own users prefer

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=591257

Edited 2007-11-08 05:18

Do you realize that, in that poll, 31% of users said they preferred the brown, while 53% said they preferred "blue, or silver, or black, or green, or etc."? If we were to allocate that percentage to each of those named colors (ignoring the "etc.") we'd get 14.25% for each, i.e. less than half the stated support for brown. I'm personally tired of blue, and I can't stand "cream" looks.

The only thing we can learn from that poll is that using a single color scheme will displease some people, and therefore the best way to handle this would be to offer multiple color schemes at install time.

Ah, statistics. Is there anything they *can't* do?

You missed the point didn't you, it's not about what I like it's about picking a default colour and look for everyone which is what neutral colours are suited to. The point of a default look and feel is so people like it and use it every day.

No, it *is* about what you like - and obviously you don't like the brown. I do, and I think it's become a brand thing for Ubuntu, and so they should make to radical a change for their next version.

I don't know, whenever I look at houses they are trying to sell people, especially in the model, they LOVE to make that all BROWN because people like the natural wooded feel of brown. I think Ubuntu didn't get that part right, but there is nothing inheritly wrong with brown. I think the problem is more with the gray and brown. Those two colors don't fit well together. I think if they just move away from the gray and keep the brown, it will create a unique and great looking desktop for Ubuntu.

Something, maybe more like this, but with still a little less gray. Gray is so Windows 95.
http://ubuntukids.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/murrine_sampl...

But suggesting that you should use general reviews of Ubuntu to see if it will work on your particular machine is just plain crazy

Why is it crazy? That is what a review is! Sheesh!

It looks to me like he said that you can't use general reviews to see if it will work on your particular hardware, and you said "Why is it crazy? That is what a review is!", meaning that a review is meant to tell you if it will work on your specific hardware.

Reading up does, reveal an 'if you have the same hardware' clause in an earlier post, but the odds of that are far too small for hardware compatability to be a reason for reading reviews.

I think maybe it's in how you look at it. On one hand, Ubuntu could evil by stealing everyone's inventions and selling them as their own; on the other, they could be doing the community a service by repackaging and distributing everything as a stable, nearly up to date and user-friendly release.

Canonical/Ubuntu's blatant purpose is repackaging; it's no sort of secret that all they do is take Debian unstable or testing, work out the wrinkles and put some ease-of-use enhancements on top. They aren't really selling anything, and I doubt they're making any sort of profit off the commercial support contracts which are available. Canonical is also quite a small company (outdated rumor says 100ish?).

I would be overjoyed if they worked up a serious business model, started to sell Ubuntu commercially (without splitting it into a commercial and testing (er, community) distro like RHAT and SUSE), and started contributing developers; it could make a huge difference in the Debian world. But I don't think a reasonable case could be made for them being evil as thing are, either.

Canonical/Ubuntu's blatant purpose is repackaging; it's no sort of secret that all they do is take Debian unstable or testing, work out the wrinkles and put some ease-of-use enhancements on top. They aren't really selling anything, and I doubt they're making any sort of profit off the commercial support contracts which are available. Canonical is also quite a small company (outdated rumor says 100ish?).

The official Ubuntu devs also package quite a lot of stuff straight from the upstream sources, just like Debian. What's worth noticing, however, is that Ubuntu leaves as much work as possibly they can to the "community" (read: community of unpaid volunteer developers). Yes, Ubuntu starts to build their every new release by taking a snapshot of Debian unstable. But Ubuntu doesn't really support all those Debian packages. Instead, they cherry-pick the packages that they think will be most popular, and the rest of the Debian packages they push to their "universe" component that only gets community support but no official support from the paid Ubuntu devs.

I've recently read that Kubuntu and Xubuntu are just largely community-based off-spins of Ubuntu and that they don't get similar support from Canonical as Ubuntu does. Kubuntu has one paid developer from Canonical and Kubuntu's package archives, webpage, mailing lists and forums are apparently hosted by Canonical. And Canonical supports Kubuntu by sending no-cost Kubuntu CD's via ShipIt. But the actual development in Kubuntu and Xubuntu seems to be mostly left to the "community". It looks like some of these community developers are not entirely happy with this situation:
http://jucato.org/blog/quo-vadis-kubuntu/
http://jucato.org/blog/after-all-thats-been-said/

Maybe it's like you suggest -- that Canonical is just a small company that doesn't have much resources to spend on the various projects that people usually associate with Ubuntu. Whatever the case, it's pretty clear that Canonical actively encourages all kinds of community participation while Canonical's money and resources seem to be strictly reserved for Launchpad and Ubuntu.

"Maybe it's like you suggest -- that Canonical is just a small company that doesn't have much resources to spend on the various projects that people usually associate with Ubuntu. Whatever the case, it's pretty clear that Canonical actively encourages all kinds of community participation while Canonical's money and resources seem to be strictly reserved for Launchpad and Ubuntu."

Its not a maybe. That is the way it is. Canonical is not a large company by any means, and rely heavily on community involvement. Mark has donated about 20 million of his own money to the project, which is nothing compared to what Rhat and Novell spend on their distros as their primary business. Ubuntu is heavily community based, while up until recently users had very little say in what went into "community" versions of suse and redhat (fedora). I think that is an achievement on Ubuntu's, imo, considering its position.

Yes Canonical relies on the community for one very good reason: Ubuntu is a free product. I have no qualms about that.

Canonical sells Linux service. Nothing contradictory, just complementary.

So, as far as Ubuntu users are concerned, they can be
- customers, if they need service
- free users, if they are happy this way.

It's just the best of two worlds...

I fully agree. I see a lot that do-not-bash-Ubuntu mentality all over the place, but I think that stems from people's complete lack of technical skills. I mean for Ubuntu to have a graphical front so people don't have to type "apt-cache search whatever" and and "apt-get install whatever" seems redundant. But I am also sensing a growing disray of users who can actually step back and look at technical merits, who is being innovation, and who is putting up up money. Nobody can deny Novel's GNOME slab menu and Control Centre, and their desktop research videos. Instead of Novell designing graphical fronts for everything, they're redesigning things for Joe User to understand with extremely little explanation, and not have to learn a whole different menu system.

But I also can't help thinking that much of Ubuntu's popularity has come at the expense of other distros, meaning that they're cannibalizing the existing FLOSS community rather than breaking down the barriers that need to be broken down, and finding new userbases.

So Ubuntu that comes preinstalled on a lot of ISV's hardware products isn't breaking barriers?

I'm also using OpenSuSE for the first time while being absent after the 10.0 release. That doesn't mean others should and could fair well with this specific distro.

Both Redhat and Novell haven't perse a great record of making accessible linux distros. And frankly if it is Ubuntu that tears down the barriers for other OS's to follow against the MS anticlimax i'm quite feeling comfortable with it.

What a lot of people don't seem top realize ans still don't understand or want to at this point, is that the Ubuntu project is not makign aporfit at this point. They put there money where it counts to see a pay off later. Contributing to all those projects like you said takes money and dedicated programmers. Lat time I check Mark was paying for the porject out of his own pocket and he said that he hopes the project becomes profitable but isn't at this point. Red and Suse have the resources and the capital to dedicate their attention to OSS projects, Ubuntu does not. Everybody assumes that because ubuntu is so popular that the project must be pulling in a lot of money, but that is not the case. The distro is given freely to users, they don't have a boxed version you can buy at compusa. They don't sell an enterprise version. Canonical primarily makes their money from creating custom linux distros for companies and countries. This doesn't mean that Canonical is raking in the dough. Ubuntu is a community based distro, with a large mainly novie community who don't know how to contribute to OSS projects, yet they contribute just by using the different apps and reporting bugs.

I find it narrow-minded to think that just because Ubuntu is popular that it has enough resources to contribute to every project. They don't even have the resources to implement everything in their release specs. They eventually get implemented but there are things that have been lounging in the specs since dapper that have still to make it into any major release, even in beta form.

At the end of the day Ubuntu is a distro. Its a debian derivative and a lot of its practices are based off of what the debian community has done. What canonical has done, which no one seems to want to credit them for, is raise awarness of linux. I've seen reviews of ubuntu in magazines that are usually windows only, I've seen Ubuntu in the 100 best products of the year lists, whereas there are NO other distro in site on the list. I've seen the ubuntu community grow from the small enthusiastic first time adopters (thats me) to the huge friendly community that it is now. I've seen OSS community based projects such as Beryl/compiz nurtured byt he Ubuntu community and become the huge projects they are now.

"""

I have a very similar hardware setup (Compaq Presario V2310) and I've solved most of these issues. I can help you fix them if you want (apart from #6, which you've already taken care of).

1. Do you have a FAT partition, by any chance? Slow bootup times is often due to FAT disk checking, which is notoriously slow. NTFS checking can also be slow. Just open up your /etc/fstab file and change the very last number on the line for the VFAT/NTFS partition to "0", that will disable disk checking at bootup.

2. No problem here...

3. With the Xpress 200M chipset, the best graphics driver to use is still 8.40.4, and not the latest ones. Note, however, that kernel 2.6.22+proprietary fglrx driver will disable suspend/resume (I solved this by installing feisty's kernel in Gutsy...)

4. What do you mean, exactly? I don't seem to have that problem here.

5. Yes, that is an annoying bug. You probably don't have a console if you type Ctrl-Alt-F1 either...to solve this, open up your /boot/grub/menu.lst file, then go to the line that starts with "# defoptions". Make sure you remove any "vga=###" argument (where ### is a number like 791, 773, etc.). You'll get your progress bars and your consoles back (though the font might be a bit big in the latter).

Wow you have solved most of the problems and you have helped me to solve them too. Thanks a lot.

The 4 point is when WiFi is discovered we usually type the WPA/WEP passphrase key but there is a keyloger that keeps the master passkey and you dont have to type Passphrase again and again when you move between various WiFi networks (office/home). It remembers the pass Phrases for you.
All though the point 4 is not trivial I had mixed feelings for Ubuntu because all earlier Ubuntu versions worked without an issue.
Anyway now you have given me good suggestions and I'll make changes according to them.
Thanks again!

Ah, the issue is with gnome-keyring...I can't help you much, because I've only recently switched to Ubuntu from Kubuntu (where this is handled by kwallet). I suggest looking into gnome-keyring on www.ubuntuforums.org. Good luck!

That's good. I haven't used PClinux since I'm not a fan of KDE at this point. Maybe it will get the ubuntu team to actually work harder on their distro. Are they really still using beryl?

Distrowatch doesn't do downloadnumbers, but pagehits on Distrowatch...

Nevertheless, nice to see a lot of people have an interest in PCLOS, it's not my cup of tea, but any user using Linux is a Linux user more.

Since I have never used distrowatch to justify Ubuntu (whatever that means), I will counterargue that it is irrelevant to determine whether or not PCLinuxOS is or isn't more popular than Ubuntu.

You fail at logic.

I kind of wanted to expand on what I just posted a bit on why I think Ubuntu is sticking to brown. Right now, you see OS X, you know it from a mile away. Same with with Windows XP, and Vista. Ubuntu wanted to create the same thing. If the window titlebars are blue and everything matches what most people want its color scheme to match, it'd be very easily confused with XP when you are looking from afar, and Ubuntu wants people to be able to easily recognize its Ubuntu being used. The brown accomplishes that. I sit in my classroom, by looking at everyone's screen, I can tell exactly how many people are using Ubuntu.

What I am saying is that Linux used to be a really cool club to be a part of, now its really not, and that has killed alot of the enjoyment for me.

There are enough people who share the opinion an OS has to run stable enough with less effort as possible.

If you want joy why don't you start writing an additional NOP encoder for the metasploit project or contribute some code for the linux kernel?

A lot of other communities exist outside the linux community.

"Users maybe, but communities yes. The linux community used to be more like the BSD one, where there was the odd guy who wanted to learn about UNIX, but for the most part it was programmers and UNIX geeks. Thanks to huge efforts at user friendlyness, there became this block of users that started at mandrake, switched to gentoo, and now are at ubuntu, who are completely clueless and only really looking for a free ride. Unfortunately, that portion of the "community" has reached the point where it pretty much dominates even project mailing lists. The only real haven left to us oldschool elitist UNIX geeks is the IRC, cause the kind of people that post on ubuntuforums get booted and ridiculed pretty quick there. I just want to say it here, dealing with other newbies on ubuntuforums and trolling in places like osnews is NOT contributing back to the community. "

Wow pulling some kind of Unix rank. I remember when Unix *was* the crap OS...and *still* is. The only thing to thank Microsoft for is killing that Garbage off.

Even then there was *NO* community. There is *NO* community now. There is a mythical community(sic) made up of many communities...each with their own communities. Thats not to say they don't share in part or in whole the same Vision. Linux/GNU/BSD/FSF/Ubuntu/Novell is *this*!? the community that your talking about, because I don't see one. I see linus arguing about the "spirit of GPL" and stabbing FSF in the front; Theo talking about minor infractions and stabbing the "Kernel Developers in the front" and defending proprietary companies, and well Novell just stabbing everyone and itself. What damn community show me. I'm not saying there isn't some common threads and even those are loose...pick words like "freedom" and everyone has a different definition, but everyone wants it...in other peoples stuff...as long as it doesn't compete with their stuff. Or open-formats...well apart from Novell who signed an agreement's that doesn't cover them.

Thats without covering the Distribution communities, of Power Users and Newbies, and those have cliques. The Game Communities which are often split between artists and programmers. Thats without mentioning all the other programs that are split between Users and Developers for those 1000's of program chunks that make up the OS. For those communities that don't use the term port...but use the term *cross-platform* your *more* likely to have those communities as well. In fact your as likely to have Microsoft/Apple platform users talking about firefox/OpenOffice than Linux Users.

I actually think I could put together a article that focuses on bitter rivalries, hate; and bribes being the driving force behind GNU. I believe *strongly* that these barriers are actually artificial, and even you try to point out walls between communities when they only exist in the minds eye. A BSD denies the existence of its GPL desktop, passing it off as a port. Theo/Linus/FSF all want freedoms over there code, in Theo's latest rant he made it clear that what he wants is GPL, without the license. Or we could talk about Fedora and Ubuntu the difference is a few version numbers and a package management. etc etc

...but this is the thing...the reality if you like. The twisted irony. I am part of the *technical* community, and me posting on OSNews is part of belonging to that community. Which is why I'm continually shocked by the arguments being centered around name calling like zealot, and fanatic. When for most here moving between the various OS's is pretty trivial, and can pick up any nuance fairly quickly. I only use Linux now, because I wanted to get my machine up and running with a hard drive greater than 132MB and a Linux solution was available at my local shop. I didn't install it because I'm a zealot, or a religious fanatic and these terms are used because of no technical argument exists. I wanted a working machine. I should have joined a LUG, and its my continual regret that I didn't, because I would have liked the guidance and the social aspect, and perhaps that would have been a small community. Linux to me is just another one of those things like setting up a home network to play doom; ripping mp3's; overclocking; because computing fun and new stuff is fun. I never saw the point of home sever pre-cheap-broadband, and Linux+X+Desktop was a memory nightmare, and I could never get sound working. The killer application was *gimp*. Like I say the *closest* to a community is this very site for me.

Now in reference to this. This site is not about technical innovation in the various OS's for Vista Users its become about defending Microsoft's patents; Licenses; overreaching DRM; because everything that Microsoft do is available elsewhere and better without *lock-in* or as a *default*, hell I can enjoy that just by clicking a button rather than buying a whole new machine, and that includes your examples. Anything else Microsoft is late to the party with what you would call not-important, even 64bit support. I actually think you should never post again over that comment. Microsoft is currently producing the most *dull* technology ever, and we hear nothing of innovation, or them being the best...only about protecting intellectual property. Vista is like cancer on a machine. Why anyone would defend a Platform that is only interested in defending a monopoly the rather than focus on innovating the product is sick. I would *love* to be on this forum, and Microsoft Office support ODF and you could argue that its the *best* product...or Internet Explorer follows a any web standard and can be replace because its the best product, or etc etc. There are *NO* arguments left anymore, anything that needed doing has been done years ago...I don't get why anyone would defend Microsoft's abuses even if its your platform of choice simply because you suffer from a static computing experience. I wonder whether Vista users here are simply terrified of to me the biggest advantage which is its rapidly evolving nature; change...and I don't associate that with computing. Thats why I also say I speak from a pro-computing aspect.

Edited 2007-11-09 15:22

Good article except the closing. Someone famous said back in 1900 that everything to be invented had been.

I will get modded down for this, though I have said nothing offensive.

"Good article except the closing. Someone famous said back in 1900 that everything to be invented had been.

I will get modded down for this, though I have said nothing offensive."

I agree with the sentiment, but it depresses me that *any* breakaway technology here, I cannot see the next big thing, the Desktop analogy has been done to death. My computer experience has been in stasis for over 10 years, and I have a processor 50 times as powerful, Memory 30 times the size, a hard drive 200 times the size etc etc...yet I pretty much do the same thing and use *similar* applications. Hell my desktop looks like 95 with an XP background. Even exciting(sic) technologies are looking depressingly like the old technologies. I was excited at the Vista release; I seriously thought we would have a rush of "THE NEW" if anything we are left with less simply because it was an excerise in an abusive Monopoly extending its reach over other profitable applications...more lock-in...and taking a slice of Media content. In fact the quote you are referring to is sadly about patents, one of the nasty side effects of patents is you can't *add* to the original patent, so we can expect less evolution not more, because a Patent is simply that a legal Monopoly.

Oh and thank you for reading that post.

So what's different between your dissapointment with Vista and it's lack of something new and that most experienced computer people felt with the launch of Windows 95?

We all held out for that something new over DOS and Windows 3.11 and got the same old same old with tighter integration. MS has constantly been timid in the new segment of computing and prefered to just repackage something that will just do the job with most users. Does it mean that MS isn't doing new stuff with OS development? No. At time of Win95 MS was working with IBM on something quite decent which migrated into the NT OS's we have as our base for today and now they have some interesting code brewing in their development labs but they are fn scared to release it incase they alienate their userbase.

I believe that this timidity on their part business wise will backfire on them as they need to produce something for the market that is quite a step above the NT adage to gardner peoples interest. The WOW hasn't started with Vista, most of us and the computing world see it as just further incremental development of what they already have. XP is more than good enough as a NT based desktop experience and MS needs give the masses something that sets the bar way higher than what they have for Vista.

Only thing working for MS is the application support for their OS. If application code starts to go cross platform, then given the current state of MS OS development and release, people will look elsewhere.

Forgot to mention I got big hard drives working with version 3.10. It works on the one I have, but I get no feedback on other people's success or failure with hardware. Hard drives are pretty standard, but some hardware you practically have to own every type and test it to be sure. I can't win that battle, so I stick to least common denominator, which kinda sucks.

LoseThos is innovative in it's simplicity, but doesn't break fundamentally new ground, but I get freaked-out by some technologies.

To understand LoseThos, imagine going from 16-bit intel code segments to 32 bit. This is an analogy, but is present in many ways in LoseThos. Latest thing is a system-wide screen-zoom feature centered on the mouse cursor. (Version 3.11 Beta) Now, each application doesn't need to do zoom because the operating system does it. I wouldn't be surprised if other operating systems did this, but I haven't seen them.

>> Wow pulling some kind of Unix rank. I remember when
>> Unix *was* the crap OS...and *still* is. The only
>> thing to thank Microsoft for is killing that
>> Garbage off.

Remember, the entire open source 'movement' was started by someone who had sour grapes over not getting a cut of something he GAVE AWAY, and was driven to todays prominance on the sour grapes of back room unix server geeks who were upset at being left behind in the computer revolution that started in the 70's and pretty much came to a close around 1997-'98 (and which *nix open source is STILL playing catch-up to in a lot of areas). Innovations in computing over that time was NOT done on Unix but driven by the commercial success of proprietary products from the likes of Apple, Tandy, IBM, Commodore, Sinclair and Atari. It was the hobbyist community that drove us to the point of having desktop computer... It sure as hell was NOT the backroom mainframes and their dated, archaic and unneccesarily cryptic OS.

NOT to say *nix didn't have it's place in the back room as the work horse driving industry, but let's face it innovation in that environment has been and remains a joke since 1982... most of it if not having a back room application being piss poor copies of stuff that had been done in the deskop market for a decade or more.

ON TOPIC, as to the article itself:

>> These technologies are still a work in progress
>> and give Ubuntu 7.10 a slightly unfinished feel.

So in other words, it's Linux... and this is a surprise why?