Ars has a review of Ubuntu 7.10. They conclude: “Ubuntu 7.10 provides an unparalleled desktop Linux experience and sets new standards for power and ease of use. This release lives up to Ubuntu’s reputation and delivers cutting-edge new features and solid enhancements. Although Ubuntu 7.10 is very impressive, some of the new additions – particularly Compiz and Tracker – lack the polish and robustness that they need to truly shine. These technologies are still a work in progress and give Ubuntu 7.10 a slightly unfinished feel. Ubuntu also unfortunately inherits some of the minor weaknesses of the GNOME desktop environment.”
Although Ubuntu 7.10 is one of the most polished distros and provides the power of Linux on the desktop as well, it is still a product to be enhanced in many aspects.
It shows well where open source scene is nowadays: it is extremely powerful in parts, lacks parts and is a minefield where it comes to new features.
Anyway, I am a mostly happy user while recognizing the current limits. And yes, seeing the progress keeps my happiness up.
Sounds like a description of every OS ever created.
Another Ubuntu 7.10 article? Is there any scrap of news or scant detail we haven’t yet heard about Ubuntu 7.10? There have already been dozens and dozens of reviews of this version.
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!
A Distribution which is what Ubuntu is, at the end of the day is simply a packaging of many *predominantly* open source programs typically on the Linux kernel, in a cohesive fashion.
Thats not to say they don’t code, but thats what they do. I’m not saying they don’t backport or cherry pick patches for their choice of programs.
A review of Ubuntu in this instance is not just a review of Ubuntu its a snapshot of the ever evolving landscape that is open-source rather than alternative anti-capitalist that supply a static platform for years.
If you look at the link provided http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntu which I only choose because it shows the version of the programs that make ub the *distribution* you see a move from OpenOffice 2.2 to 2.3 a version that brings aditional stability and speed to Document editing on Linux, you see Linux move from 2.6.20 to 2.6.22 (oddly 2.6.23 and I know fedora has this) which brings about as much as anything wireless for many etc etc.
The only thing I see that is missing is the latest xorg-server, and I suspect that is more to do with the binary drivers than anything else, that and the rather shaky release that it was.
So which *code* are you referring to.
I am talking about the code that they develop from the Debian unstable branch, they break and it becomes unusable, work on and send it back up stream to Debian and eventually because usable, so they do coding for that. Plus the changes in the code they make to KDE menu system, not just the Kmenu, and XFCE, changing the XFCE menu from the source code defaults. So there is that coding as well. So if someone thinks Ubuntu is an assembly of packages, ahhh no, not that simple, they do get into the source code, hence the major stability issues with Ubuntu, compared to using all the same packages and DE in Debian. I am curious to find out even if Ubuntu develops on their last release, or if they dump it all and build again from the unstable branch for the next release.
After the record, I’m starting to get tired of Linux in general anyways. Getting sick of the Linux kernel, even Andrew Morton has talked about shutting down development for 2 months and do nothing but patches and fixes for those 2 months. I’m an OpenBSD person, FreeBSD second. There are things with the BSD kernels that I lie doing and recompile, and editing system files, that I don’t know how to do in Linux, I can even work with PF no sweat, but I have no clue how to work on IPTables. And also, I am more than happy working without any graphical menus, graphical desktop. I can honestly spend all only using Lynx for browsing, Finch for chatting, and Sendmail for email. As much as I am really excited about KDE4 as I am a KDE fan, if what I do does not required graphics, I default back into Lynx and keep everything in text-only mode. So this is why I’ve gotten tired of Linux and its distributions in general, and I think Ubuntu is one of the worst ones of all the distributions.
Since I prefer BSD everyday, I find it it eaasier to work with, and for me I think OpenBSD is very logically designed for it’s network structure and system files very easy to maintain, when I looked at a couple of Ubuntu releases, I seriously wondered why this distro is even around. You see, I’m about networking and multi-system setups, I don’t use it for me and my computer, or for me and my laptop, but I am about what are my options for setting up a server, a remote storage unit, my laptop to remotely log into multiple systems, and setting up a dedicated system for people I know to use as their own remote storage server with their own logins and their own directories. And so I look at Ubuntu as a play toy, and not for people who are into true technical things, get into the guts and source files. I would recommend Fedora, openSUSE, CentOS, or Debian over Ubuntu any day.
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.
I concur with this comment. In fact, this kind of mentality is what’s driving alot of the application development we see on Linux these days – applications that go against the generally accepted “UNIX philosoph(y|ies)” that have been in place since the creation of UNIX. I could make a huge list, but the major offenders are things like GUI-only applications, bloated do-everything apps, and captive user interfaces. This is precisely the crap most of us *nix-users hate about Windows, OSX, and others. 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. Not only are they following (or often poorly imitating) instead of leading in this type of software, but cumulatively, they’ve resulted in these end user experiences that are functionally no different than using Vista or OSX.
If I really wanted to change my system and application settings by navigating huge, unmapped trees of dialog boxes, or waste all my clock cycles animating menus and rendering drop shadows, then I would just stick with Windows.
//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.
Boy, have you guys ever listened to yourselves? That’s so boring….
Zzzzzz….
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
rather than Vista Thom cherry picking the bad points from the middle of an article and calling it the conclusion.
Its a shame when news is twisted like this esp when. Its a real valid criticism new technology in Ubuntu is rough around the edges…and some of the not so new stuff, and these matters are worth both pointing out, but shouldn’t be done so in a negative manner unless it genuinely warrants it, and I can think of better examples of those.
What makes this review so nice amongst *all* the others is it doesn’t focus on its DVD playing ability. It actually looks like someone has looked at it in some depth, and this is from Ars what I would consider to have a Microsoft Bias…albeit with some really good articles.
Oh get over yourself, cyclops. Sure, everybody else is biased and only You Are Right. Only Your words ring truth, and anybody not in full agreement with You must be biased.
That makes total sense.
Not totally lambasting vista does not mean a microsoft bias. Ars is one of the few good tech media sites out there.
Yes it does.
Here is a sample of what you should be telling people about Vista, in order to do them a favour:
http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS4756599078.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307359,00.html
http://blue-gnu.biz/content/windows_wrong_system_security_unconscio…
http://www.channelinsider.com/article/Do+Your+Customers+Hate+Vista+…
If you aren’t lambasting Vista to your non-techie friends at every opportunity, then you have failed them and you shouldn’t really call yourself their friend.
Tell your non-tech friends not to get a “gas-guzzling, constantly breaking down American junker”, but to get a decent car instead.
Friends don’t let friends buy Vista.
http://www.computergear.com/friendonlett.html
Edited 2007-11-11 12:36
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.
Well, if you are going to be so incredibly irresponsible and unfriendly as to not warn your friends (or even your unfortunate girlfriend) to not use Vista, then at least warn them that because they use a version of Windows then they had better not buy any new hard drives for their machines:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/11/11/20033872…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/19/maxtor_harddrives_include_v…
Or, for that matter, warn them they had better not put any CDs (especially Sony CDs) into their machines, lest they catch a rootkit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scand…
Or, for that matter, warn them they had better not put any HD optical disc into their machines, because since they use Vista their machine already has a rootkit when it comes to HD content.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/27/windows_drm_monstered/
… you surely are friend enough to warn those non-tech people you count as friends all about stuff such as this, aren’t you?
Edited 2007-11-12 04:00
… or for that matter any USB memory devices either:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2126190,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX…
http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/26/london-hit-by-malware-infected-u…
In fact, you would be best off to simply warn all your friends to simply not put any new media into a Windows machine at all, so that way they could be safe. Also, warn them not to connect their Windows machine to the Internet, because they might get malware from there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_worm
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-botnet10nov10,1,3400959.story…
(BTW, isn’t it strange the way that these type of articles mention the danger of infection of “PCs”, but they somehow neglect to qualify that by saying they mean actually “Windows PCs”?)
Tell all your friends (especially non-tech ones) that they will be fine using Windows as long as the don’t connect to the Internet, and they don’t put any media (such as hard drive, USB memory, CDROM, DVD … that kind of thing) into their machine. So, as long as they are content to stick with the Notepad & Paint software that came with the machine, they will be just fine & dandy …
Edited 2007-11-12 04:54
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.
Why would you consider Ars to have a Microsoft bias? For one, they were one the first PC enthusiast/hobbyist sites to begin taking Apple seriously again (lengthy, technically-focused articles covering the DP version of OS X going back to the late 90s).
It’s also rather silly to suggest that a site with (at least) half a dozen individual editors is biased. Yes, if you read an article there by Evil_Merlin, it will have a Microsoft bias – and if you read a John Siracusa or Jacqueline Cheunq article, it will have a pro-Apple bias (and if – for some unimaginable reason – you happen to read a Jeremy Reimer article, it will probably have a pro-Amiga bias).
The worst you can accurately say about ArsTechnica’s editors is that they have a diverse range of biases.
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.
Err, no. Editorial complains go to me or the crew list BY EMAIL. That’s how OSNews works. You can discuss the content of the article freely in the comments’ section, but not the editorial policy.
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
There’s nothing wrong with that. I recently set up my ex-girlfriend with Ubuntu, as she was having trouble with her Windows laptop and I was reinstalling the OS on it for the third time. I told her I had installed Ubuntu alongsid Windows, if she wanted to check it out. She’s been using it exclusively for a month now, and loving it.
Actually, *I’m* using Gutsy Gibbon as well, and I’m far from a newbie user.
So you don’t like Ubuntu, big freakin’ deal! Just ignore the Ubuntu articles and/or submit articles about other distros.
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
Some highlights from my point of view:
1. debpartial is broken in 7.10, fortunately fix is available. (I cannot live without offline repos on DVDs because I have to maintain three Ubuntu boxes width no Internet access at all)
2. Add/remove programs very unstable when working width such DVDs – 6.06 ran smoothly in that way – it was somehow broken in 6.10 AFAIR and still remains broken. Synaptic works a little better in that “offline” mode but crashes also occur.
It is not caused by faulty DVDs – they work and all packages can be installed from them, but sometimes it requires a lot of patience! Also I noted during “battling” width that issue which “surfaced” on 6.10 that such off line DVDs should not be made in “one stream” i.e. on five disks, but (as of 7.10) on two disks for Main, one disk for Multiverse and Restricted and two DVD’s and one CD for Universe respectively. When Main and other components are mixed on each disk it tends to be almost unusable and much more disk-swapping is needed
3. Stupid bug in live CDs/DVDs which activates screensaver simultaneously when graphics environment starts – it confused me because it looks exactly like issue width monitor modes being identified wrong.
4. I do not, repeat – DO NOT – care for vistaish eyecandy. If I want system that looks like Vista I would buy Vista. Drag and drop support in GNOME menus similar to Win would be much more welcome by me and much more useful. But I think it is rather general GNOME fault, not Ubuntu’s
5. That new “Screen And Graphics” applet announced width so much fanfare is still in unusable pre-alpha stage.
6. Monitor and graphics card detection is degrading width each new version (since I am using Ubuntu – from 6.06.1 to be exact) – I have two systems in my house: One width Nvidia 6200 and Hitachi CM621F CRT and the second one equipped width Nvidia 5200 and quite old Phillips 150-something LCD panel. On BOTH OF THEM one way to start Ubuntu as live-CD is to select “VGA safe mode”. More interestingly – Kubuntu LiveCD boots without such problems on both those configurations.
Edited 2007-11-08 00:19
There is one thing that I have never quite understood about Linux reviews: authors seem to feel compelled to bring up their personal problems, like their 3 head setup not working, then apply it to the whole world. Yes, their problems may be an indication of deeper issues that anyone will have to deal with. On the other hand, they may be so unique that very few people will run into problems at all.
Why can’t these reviewers actually do what they are paid to do and do some research. (This comment isn’t targeted at this particular author, because Ars Technica reviews tend to be better than most.) If you want to say that there are hardware issues, go out there and discover which hardware is poorly supported by Ubuntu. Then do so research into sales numbers for that hardware to find out if it is even relevant.
What happens when its your problem? You are writing a review based on what hardware you have. If it doesn’t work, I’d rather know, so if i have the same hardware I can research for solutions before i install or choose not to install in the first place.
There not paid to research hardware that will give the best(or most popular)review.
It is no good for anyone, including Ubuntu, to stick our heads in the sand and just ignore the issues. We need to know whats wrong or it wont get fixed.
Btw, where is your research?
There is a problem with saying “my hardware doesn’t work properly with Ubuntu” then implying that Ubuntu is not ready for general use because of that. The problem is that you are relying upon anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence is great for suggesting that there may be a problem, but does nothing to prove that there is a problem.
Now if you are looking to see if Ubuntu will work with your particular piece of hardware, then great. But search forums, mailing lists, blogs, personal websites, support databases and the such. You will have a much larger cross section of people using a much larger cross section of hardware. Chances are somebody will have your answer. But suggesting that you should use general reviews of Ubuntu to see if it will work on your particular machine is just plain crazy because you have a much smaller pool of opinions. And given that they don’t do their research to see how reliable it is over all, their opinions are just that.
I did it before purchasing my last computer. Which is likely why it works wonderfully with Linux and is a bit flakey with Windows.
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!
And that is the real problem hey, your worried the review states that Ubuntu is not ready for general use.
No, what I meant was, where can others find your research so it can help them to do the same.
Is looking for the hardware compatibility list that hard?
For updated to date info it can be. From the ubuntu Hardware Support site about my board:
Not up to date, doesn’t give a true indication of how well it works and incorrect about sata drives on windows, you only need the floppy for raid setups.
If his hardware works wonderfully with Linux, why then would you not like to share this with everyone? Instead of crappy out of date lists, there could be actual full setups to direct users not only to buy the most compatible hardware available, but the hardware that runs best under Linux.
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 you would be helping the community and new users. What, negative reactions would scare you off?
Makes me wonder, if I code, i should open source it, manufactures should make drivers for linux and open source them, there are those who think that hardware should be open source as well and you cant even get ppl to release there research? Sad.
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 http://www.phoronix.com amongst other sites that specifically deal with GNU/Linux, Solaris soft and hardware issues.
I recently switched from using PCLOS to Ubuntu just for something different.
And I get the kind of experience that Ubuntu (and Gnome) is trying to give for beginners. They just give the bare minimum to get it working.
That’s fine. Beginners will easily find what they need, and more advanced users will just use the command line to do what they need to do.
I was very pleased to see that Gibbon gives many more ‘Beryl Manager’ type options, but why not provide a subtle way for experienced users to get full functionality?
Like this: http://members.westnet.com.au/mjvermeulen/options.jpg
I’m not suggesting that Gnome become KDE and just spray random options all over the place, but just make them available in a sensible understated way.
Edited 2007-11-08 00:17
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”?
They seriously need to change it and put something better quality in, If they dont have the GIMP artists or Inkscape then do it in Photoshop whop cares.
The brown wallpaper with the swirls looks very amateur, the art team on Ubuntu are just not good enough it’s that simple.
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.
On sites like OSNews, there seems to be a small but persistent number of posters who apparently have made it their mission in life to try to post negative comments about any FOSS topics. Linux, Ubuntu, ODF … it wouldn’t matter so much the subject but the fact that the subject is related in some way to free, open software.
The article in question could be saying “here is a fresh new highly-functional OS that comes with a huge array of quality software and it will work without a hitch on your existing machine, and it is free … both as in freedom and as in gratis” … and these must-say-something-negative-is-my-mission posters will doubtless find something to pick on.
They might, for example, completely ignore the fact that this new software could save people literally a couple of thousand dollars in the cost of equivalent proprietary software, and instead they would complain bitterly about the color of the easily-changed background image … as if trying to give the impression that this “failing” were the end of the world and that their opinion made the software offered utterly useless …
… oh wait. Isn’t that where we came in?
You know the spinners are getting desperate when the best criticism they can think of is “the background colour isn’t nice”.
You are confusing your subjective taste with objective quality.
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.
Funny, I really dislike the Suse artwork while I really like the Ubuntu one. Guess why? Because it’s subjective.
I dont care for fancy-a$$ grub screens either, it’s there for 5 seconds when you boot. No-one sits around looking at it all day in awe over how great it is.
Even though I disagree (I think it looks fine), I do have to ask the question: who cares about the wallpaper? It is the first, most customized interface element out there. Even computer newbies, casual users and office workers change it, usually within minutes of getting a new PC. I myself usually head over to VladStudio to pick a nice one up, though many people will simply put a picture of their kids or whatnot.
Considering this, Ubuntu’s artwork is more than adequate.
I upgraded from 7.04 to 7.10 and the new features are nice. I have the Tracker applet up in the menu bar and it’s nice.
I didn’t like how my wallpaper was replaced by what I guess is the enw default one, a minor gripe.
The turned off compiz fusion; It ddin’t boost my productivity.
Solid step up.
Why is it crazy? That is what a review is! Sheesh!
It looks like you just said that you expect reviewers to test your exact hardware. Don’t you think there could be logistical problems with them trying to test every piece of hardware which might be used by their readers?
SlackerJack:
There’s an option to change the desktop in system->perferences->appearance (or whatever). Try that — it’ll blow your mind. Also, never use XP or you’ll probably have a seizure or something.
My take, for no good reason:
Improvements:
Option for encrypted / partition.
Sensor support for my motherboard.
New stuff that didn’t work as advertised:
Bulletproof-X didn’t apply configuration changes.
Compiz didn’t work out of the box (no window decorations because the theme wasn’t installed for some reason).
Disimprovements:
Proprietary nVidia drivers have major video playback problems. Whoops.
Could be better, could be worse, took some work to get working. Once I get around to updating the video driver manually it will be a significant improvement. I’ll upgrade to Hardy when it comes out, and stick with it for its’ support cycle; I’ve been doing 6-month upgrades since 5.10, but the current feature set includes everything I need or want* so there’s no reason to go through the trouble of getting things working again that are broken by new releases.
*This isn’t actually true, but Ubuntu has nothing to do with ponies.
Edited 2007-11-08 03:36
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
The general rule of thumb is you dress appropriately. Much the said can be said for operating systems.
Look at the OLPC. Most adults wouldn’t want to be caught dead with a computer that looks like a child’s toy. But they are targeting children so it looks okay.
Contrast that to Windows 2000. A bit boring, but definitely professional looking: clean lines and conservative colors. Definitely a “down to business” appearance.
Contrast that to Mac OS X. It draws you in with curves, transparency, and shadows that are applied in tasteful ways. So it’s definitely not conservative and certainly not a child’s toy.
Ubuntu is somewhere in between. Human definitely isn’t as eye grabbing as Mac OS X, but that is a good thing to some people (and other people don’t care). On the other hand, it is nowhere near as drab as Windows 2000 was.
As for the amateurish angle, I think it looks professional enough. It is certainly light-years beyond the window managers of a decade ago, with crass color schemes and ill placed graphical elements that made the whole interface look lopsided.
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 don’t like the brown?
Use Kubuntu then. That approach gets you Gutsy without the brown and it also avoids the point made in the original article “Ubuntu also unfortunately inherits some of the minor weaknesses of the GNOME desktop environment.”
Kubuntu is a KDE desktop, so it doesn’t inherit any GNOME weaknesses, and Kubuntu is light blue.
http://kubuntu.org/announcements/7.10-release.php
Enjoy!
Funny thing is that those comments struck me the most throughout the article. Ars has always seemed to me as having an editorial bend towards Gnome when it comes to linux, at least in terms of it being the desktop of choice for their reviewers. Maybe Troy is having a bigger impact than expected now that he’s part of the Ars team, and they’ll start properly acknowledging KDE.
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…
No, it doesn’t. No one makes a decision to switch to an OS based on the wallpaper.
Correction: it looks bad *to you*. I happen to think it looks good.
Since the Ubuntu devs clearly can’t please everyone, what they should do is offer a choice of color scheme during installation, so we can stop hearing people whine about the brown.
In any case, as I pointed up above, chaning the wallpaper is pretty much the first thing *everyone* does on *any*, and that has nothing to do with the quality of the artwork, but rather because people want to set their workspace to their taste.
When did i say that? What i said was that if the reviewer has the SAME or SIMILAR hardware it can warn you that you might have problems.
What the? Are you for real?
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.
No, thats not what i meant at all. Not every problem with a OS is hardware based. Apps crashing, lack of features, etc, has nothing to do with hardware compatibility. If an app keeps failing or has stupid features, this will apply to all that use it, generally speaking.
If a reviewer has a problem with say, with a nforce 4 mobo, chances are that there could be a problem with my board even though its not the same exact board. Generalizing, maybe.
Just one year is enough to show how amazing and overwhelming is the driving force behind the community of FOSS and distributions like Ubuntu.
Let me put in context my own experience. And of course is anecdotal, but still it reflects a lot how fast things are moving. And it had its ups and downs.
I started to play with Linux in my laptop (a 2005 model) since a little more than 1 year. Btw, I have CentOS 5 in my ws at work and in my small 10 nodes cluster. After trying FC, Xandros and others, I was very pleased with the results with Ubuntu 6.06. A full support to the hardware required still some hacking but at least I could finally change the resolution of my screen without hanging my laptop, I could disable that nasting click on the touchpad (which caused that the cursor jumped everywhere on the screen) and after some serious tweaking WAP finally worked. But my my printer (a hp1020, probably one of the worst models that HP has put in the market) was difficult to work under 6.06 (you have to patch drivers and tweak the printing system, some times it printed, and sometimes it didn’t).
Then, it came 7.04 and for me it was a nightmare. Nothing worked, some solutions worked only temporally to became broken again, I just did not understand why everything seemed coming back in time. So I gave up and I moved temporary to FC7 and then to Opensuse 10.3. With opensuse I was in average pleased: WAP working without hacking but my printer (as in the other previous tested distributions) was having the same problems.
Then, I decided to give a chance to 7.10 a few days ago. Something that I have always loved of Ubuntu is the “Live-the-CD -then-install-it!” approach. I’m not sure if they were the first of doing this, but I think that they have been the best guys in implementing it. Besides, I have to admit that apt rules over yum or yast. And now, and let me say slowly, 14 months after my first try with ubuntu, with 7.10 everything worked and I meant absolutely everything: the WAP, the printer, the disabling of the stupid click on touchpad, the multi screen, compiz, etc, etc. Not a single tweak, at all.
Ok. my hardware is 2 years old and maybe with a brand new laptop I would suffer what I suffered with 6.06. However, we have to put the things in the context. With Windows, the driving force to make that all your hardware works “flawlessly” is in the hardware manufactures, not in MS, the manufactures want that their clients can use their machines with the dominant os. With Linux, the driving force is the FOSS community, literally fighting with limited and sometimes inexistent documentation. Honestly, we can give them a break and just be a little more patient and more positive. In my work, 7.10 failed to work flawlessly in a brand new desktop for a new student (the NIC model was really too new), but it didn’t stop me to do the required hack to enable the card. I know that just in six months or something I can install a FREE (please never forget that) brand new OS that will have certainly the support for that NIC.
And if you ask me “Why should I have some patience with these guys?”, well, more than 23000 reasons should convince anyone (23398 is the number of packages officially supported with debian). And we have yet to add all the rest that is not in debian, like the tools for clustering. MS does not offer in its expensive but yet buggy os a 0.1% of all that I have access with an apt-get or a “configure; make; make install”. The so-called avg. Joe users who need some help to do that can count me to help them.
The disappointing thing to me about Ubuntu is that they seem to be more of a marketing company than anything else. They’re very quick to announce adoption of technologies or applications developed by other distributions, but do not seem to invest in actually advancing those applications in terms of development support, or creating significant new goodies for the rest of the community.
Distros like RH or Novell contribute heavily in terms of paid resources towards kernel development, Gnome, KDE, GNU, etc. They can help determine the direction linux is heading in, whether looking at the work RH has done with selinux or cfs, or their contributions to Gnome, or the work Novell did with developing XGL and laying the foundation for the composited desktop every other distro seems to be chasing, or the development work they do with the kernel, Gnome, KDE etc.
From what I can see, Ubuntu does very little to contribute upstream, which means that the community doesn’t truly benefit from the investment contribution that Canonical could be making, and that Ubuntu has little ability to actually shape the direction desktop linux is moving in. They’re limited to simply re-packaging the work done elsewhere, and sadly it often gets praised as innovation by the *buntu community, which is a kick in the head to the developers working elsewhere and making it happen.
Ok, I’m coming off as overly cynical. I’m not trying to disparage the work that Ubuntu has accomplished, I think it’s fantastic that they’ve packaged linux in a way that makes it accessible. 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. The emphasis seems to be rather on making Canonical’s still-proprietary launchpad product integral to Ubuntu in an attempt to make it an industry standard.
Using openSUSE, I’m benefiting from development investments from Red Hat, Sun, Mandriva, Debian, HP, IBM, Intel, AMD etc., aside from the heavy investments that Novell makes as well and are shared by other distros. Canonical is noteably absent from this list.
Not to begrudge the success Ubuntu has achieved, but it would be nice to see Canonical making a serious investment in sponsoring or developing upstream projects that benefit the community at large, rather than simply refining and repackaging the work others do towards the betterment of Ubuntu. codec-buddy and promotion of launchpad don’t really cut it.
When someone like Warren works singlehandedly on a distro like Mepis, I can accept and respect the effort that goes into refining existing work to make it more accessible for a specific userbase. When a multi-million dollar organization does the same thing, while gaining credibility from the community for doing so, I question it.
So, while no doubt I’ll get hugely modded down for this post, I’m fully aware of the do-not-bash-Ubuntu mentality is public forums, I’d like to see Ubuntu contributing more upstream at the risk of others benefiting, rather than simply branding and marketing everyone else’s work in an effort to make Ubuntu the “standard” linux.
Take a little, you have to give a little.
Just my 2c rant…
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.
“””
“””
“Upstart”, to name one? But what Linux really needs at this point, more than YAFITB (Yet Antother Fill In The Blank), is polish and proper marketing. RedHat does a pretty good job of that in the server space. Canonical is their counterpart in the home desktop space.
One might quibble about the level of polish, so I will not push that angle, here. However, few would argue that they do great marketing. And consider just how valuable that marketing is to Linux as a *whole*. As RedHat is so fond of saying, a rising tide lifts all boats. Canonical’s excellent marketing efforts are every bit as valuable a contribution as is yet another sound server^W^W^W^WPulseAudio. Arguably, much *more* valuable.
We all have our parts to play. Linux is a pot luck. And we really don’t want *everyone* to bring potato salad.
I had mixed feelings about Ubuntu 7.10 release.
Before I comment much it would be appropriate to my hardware configuration so that people can provide solutions as well.
Notebook: HP dv8305z
Processor: AMD 1.8 GHz Turion 64
RAM: 1GB
Video Card: ATI Readon Xpress 200M
Video RAM: 128 Mb
HDD: 80 GB
I have used Ubuntu 6.06, 6.10, 7.04 on this notebook with the ATI drivers.
1. The current release of ubuntu 7.10 actualy takes
more than 2 minutes to boot. (-)
2. Once booted and login runs very fast (+)
3. ATI Readon card drivers released recently do not work well. (-)
4. Wifi works but global security passowrd is not working. (-)
5. Bootup progress bar is not visible at all, I just have to watch my HDD light to inspect some activity is going on during the bootup. (-)
6. By default apt get is pointing to CD rom in this release which is confusing at first and I had to uncheck it first. (-)
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 http://www.ubuntuforums.org. Good luck!
Just upgraded. I thought it would be all Compiz-fusion but all I got was CLI.
Lost X. Got X working just to find that there is no KDM/GDM running. Left with black unresponisive screen after Nvidia-splash.
Lucky me that I also have the very much stable Debian Sid…
It is really not a problem, I can fix it, but it is VERY irritating. Update-manager is a joke. Well, I have learned my lession, just clean installs from now on.
Check distrowatch stats. It is PCLOS a topper in terms of downloads. Dont counterargue that distrowatch is irrelevant. in past you had used it to justify ubuntu.
Looks like it is start of decay of another ‘so close to beat MS’ distro saga
Edited 2007-11-08 13:59
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.
@Macto
Sorry I spotted this too, but my thoughts are different; these reviews should not shy away from problems they have with X OS. What’s interesting is that the reviewers. even those with *extreme* bias are having increasingly *obscure* barriers that routinely have a technical solution, and I think that is an accurate view of Linux-based Distributions in general. What is a shame in *none* of these reviewers *pay* for support from Ubuntu, and have them *fix* their problems.
I picked this quote because I believe the days of picking hardware off compatibility lists is all but gone, with the two notable exceptions being multi function printer/scanners and wireless.
@Vista_Thom What you did was disgraceful, You unlike me has a position of *responsibility* that you have abused. I am continually appalled by you behavior.
@Vista_Thom & Google_Ninja
I find it fascinating that you are *defending* the site when I call it biased, it is. Does it produce excellent articles albeit with Microsoft Goggles…absolutely. Its a minor point, but your response that I must be biased by calling Ars biased is laughable. I’m some nobody on a discussion forum, who has made it quite clear that I enjoy open-source and even more so free software…and speak from that perspective. Where bias is wrong is when it is done with *subterfuge* and well I can think of a recent example of that abuse. The main point is that this is a respected web-site that concludes
@google_ninja
Thats an appalling comment, that tries to pidgin hole OS users. Having used all three OS’s as my primary Desktop is also somewhat ironic. Users are just users and just enjoy their OS’s for their own benefits. I would say Apple users enjoy a regularly updated OS; Malware Free environment, without having to sacrifice usability of those few major Monopolistic applications; from an innovative company; able to enjoy features not available on other platforms. I’d say Microsoft Users enjoy massive propriety application support available on its anti-capitalist platform and it being the de-facto standard; the modular nature of their hardware although increasing less so, and *feeling* in control by overcoming the unnatural limitation of the platform. Users like GNU for its sensible design; customer freindly; community of communities; control; regular updates; easy maintenance; rapid evolving nature its absence of Malware, or its simply fun/different, but it does have obvious *long-term* cost benefits, but short term has none as users are GNU users are constantly reminded of, if your are talking about cost of upgrading the OS perhaps Microsoft shouldn’t have priced themselves out of that market by making OEM the only real option to users. The bottom line is Users shouldn’t be pidgen holed, when choices by those who *can* are made with the mind not the heart.
@google_ninja “The exciting new stuff is all basically things that have been already done elsewhere.” sounds like sour grapes
I would love to see your examples. The days of GNU playing catch up are long gone, even things like 64bit support is available to GNU *years* before that of your platform of choice.
@zizban
This comment is so bizarre I picked it out, could you show me your testing!? I suspect that a bigger monitor will have greater effect on productivity. Although *many* find a little eye candy more engaging. Many find better ease of navigation between application. Many find that it makes working with Multiple Desktops more practical. That’s ignoring all the Usability features…but the bottom line is the world is moving towards real uses of compositing desktop in applications and I suspect this will hit GNU and to a lesser extent Mac OS first simple because of the availability of it to *everyone*
@RIchard James13 I’ve read your little head-to-head, and I can’t help but agree with both of you. I suspect that Ubuntu’s focus has been on Branding not beauty. I actually think there is nothing wrong with the original theme, although obviously this is trivial to change. I think how *pretty* at default is it comes under personal preference, but I think the focus should be moving towards *more* people thinking its pretty as default and I notice that this is a priory with their next release.
@elsewhere I really like your comments; Can’t help feeling that there is a flaw. I understand that Distributions have to provide unique features to *their* Distribution and having looked through your examples two things immediately string to mind. The first unless that change in functionality is *part and parcel* or the original project, ie changes fed back into Gnome, then its simply another inconsistency between Distributions, and if it provides real functionality I definitely want it fed back into Gnome. …But if *any* of these improvements are either *proprietary* I think that its even worse. One of the things I liked about Ubunutu *even* if its driven by the inability to recreate the wheel is that they are prepared to work with the *original* developers. Personally I think the focus of Distributions should be *elsewhere*, on basic things like getting their choice of applications to work together, stability without sacrificing features, and tailoring the Distribution to their users needs.
Edited 2007-11-08 15:04
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.
It is not biased, their leopard review poked fun of Vista most of the way through, and this review was obviously done by someone who is a big linux fan. Just because articles written about microsoft products are done in the same fashion does not indicate bias. If you like, I will go get quotes. Paul Theurotts WinSuperSite does fantastic articles on windows, yet is horribly biased. Ars is about as unbiased as it gets.
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.
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.
The cool stuff being done right now is things like compiz, which is done better on both OSX and Windows. Or bulletproof-X, which has been standard on non UNIX operating systems for a few decades now. Or user oriented scheduling, which has been the approach of other user oriented operating systems from day one. Or tracker/beagle, which is well behind WDS, and lightyears behind spotlight. Or OO.o, which is slowly becoming a bloated, unresponsive office 2000.
I see two areas right now where linux is really leading the way, virtualization and KDE-nepomuk. Other then that, everything I am aware of is done elsewhere, better.
And leading the way in 64bit is not exactly a huge selling point for desktop operating systems. The 64bit revolution for workstations happened at least 5 years before it had to. 99% of people who use desktop machines do not need 64bit addressing. Servers are another story.
Honestly, I downloaded and installed Gutsy, and it is fantastic, and hands down the best value for the price of any desktop OS (Vista being the worst, you can buy a computer for what you pay for the boxed version). But what I used to love about Linux is really getting crushed under a mob of windows ex-patriots, and when it comes to features, I would rather pay more to get something better. At this rate, in a few more releases I will start recommending it to anybody who is just doing email/downloading/surfing on their pc. But I think this is the point where I jump off.
Edited 2007-11-08 22:54 UTC
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.
“It is not biased, their leopard review poked fun of Vista most of the way through, and this review was obviously done by someone who is a big linux fan. Just because articles written about microsoft products are done in the same fashion does not indicate bias. If you like, I will go get quotes. Paul Theurotts WinSuperSite does fantastic articles on windows, yet is horribly biased. Ars is about as unbiased as it gets.”
I loved this quote. I read it…and then read it again. I do not think *I* could write a wholly unbiased article. I particularly like the bit where you say that its a “Linux Fan” thats wrote this, implying bias the other way…does that not reek of irony. Oddly the fact that Vista users are defending the site so much would point to a Microsofty viewpoint.
The bottom line is its pretty healthy to have bias without subterfuge. Technical users *routinely* work around problems of their platform of choice, and don’t even consider them problems. I make the point regularly that Microsoft create *artificial* barriers; have years between release problems that I shouldn’t have to go into; and restrictive Licenses; abusive defaults, but Linux has its own its still not unusual to see responses on *here* like “just type whatsthatcommand –obscurecomandoptionsinupperandlowercase && couple of meaninlessletter fileinsubdirectoryofsubdirectory”. The last review I remember on here was some numpy testing 10 or so Distributions her a couple of months ago and having *exactly* the same problem on all of them, Widescreen on Intel…and the solution was pretty much like the example I used for all Distributions, and the solution was posted everywhere, and I have no doubt was playing pig ignorant on purpose…so never got to review anything, Its one of the fixes included in this release.
Its my last point on this, as my point that Vista Thom lied about the conclusion, is being drowned out by defense of site, that we all agree routinely posts good articles.
“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?
ubuntu lacks of professional programs
ubuntu lacks of hardware support
ubuntu lacks of users
negative here comments about a great distro. Probably from non-contributing punks. Keep up the the good work Ubuntu. its hard work.
One time I observed great artists break the rules and pondered if it was better not to learn them. That’s not exactly true, but the longer you spend studying others, the less original you become. Ever had a song stuck in your head as you try to make a melody? I made a random song generator and discovered random works suprisingly well. I decided gifted artists are the ones who can block-out all they’ve heard.
It would be ironic if the punishment for pirating music and trying to be a musician was dooming yourself to failure.
I get sick of people pushing for standards. Standards are agianst innovation. I threw-out standards with LoseThos, my operating system, and started from scratch. It has a totally radical new inerface, with merits and faults. Honestly, it’s easier to just make-up standards and you avoid the whole licensing thing.
Linux will always be playing catch-up if they only do standards. Duh! If you want to take the initiative, you must forget standards.
I have source code with graphics in LoseThos. It also supports hypertext-like links to other local files in source code.
I have free-form icons without bounding boxes that can run any text as a macro at the command-line.
Loads more innovation.
You guys just have to mention your favorite operating system and you pretend you’re not spamming. People know where to find it. When I put
http://www.losethos.com
you get all excited about spamming.
Everybody promotes their favorite operating system on this site. The largest number of viewers is pro-linux and they make no pretense of modding-down anything non-linux.
Edited 2007-11-09 12:16
Decent review of an splendid allround linux distro.
Good for userfriendlyness that bulletproofX thingy.
However i wish tha gibbon would let me install nvidia modules for a custom compiled kernel.