http://www.osnews.com/story/9793/Ubuntu_could_do_with_a_bit_more_work Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:30:41 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This looks like a review with trolling in mind. It's like a KDE-fan has read all the recent hype about Ubuntu and decided to post a "review" which seems to only talk about all the things he didn't like or that didn't work for him. Every paragraph talks about something negative!

Hey, how about you go install Ubuntu, THEN install KDE, THEN review it!? Why aren't we seeing "Ubuntu for the KDE user" reviews?

Waste of time reading it, luckily it didn't go into any detail, the reviewer obviously wrote this review after 30 minutes of use. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ..but the product itself has several failings could do with a bit more work.

That's why we have new versions :-)

BTW, you can always set a root password in Ubuntu. Since you're not the average Linux newbie this shouldn't be a problem for you. The default behaviour is much better for simple users (sudo and no root logins). Expert users can still do the root thing.

-fooks Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why are there only KDE folks writing about Ubuntu? Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've been using Ubuntu for a while now and I would have to agree with some of the writers comments. The reason I switched to Ubuntu was because every other distribution (besides gentoo which I use on special projects) seem to be flighty these days.

You had to do 1 or 2 tricks to get mp3s and DVDs to play, which makes sense seaming how this is backed by a company. Both of these technologies are not open and have high-profile risks so I don't blame Ubuntu for that. Besides it took me 1 minute to do a quick google search and add mp3s and DVDs.

I have to agree woth greg on the

... obviously wrote this review after 30 minutes of use.

point. I would say a bit less then 30 minutes though... Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree with the author, Ubuntu could use more work, but then again, what really could use more work is your article. Next time you try to write one, try to get a clou beforehand.

"I know that the code to read DVDs is available, but apparently not in the Gnome world."
I mean, come on, how uninformed can you be. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Pff, how many Ubuntu reviews are we still gonna see on OSnews? I've had it by now... Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Pff, how many Ubuntu reviews are we still gonna see on OSnews? I've had it by now...

As a huge Ubuntu fan I agree on this one. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I must begin saying I'm a Debian user and use GNOME for all day work and pleasure. I've tried KDE a few times, but couldn't convince myself of it being superior to GNOME. I'm not trolling, and I will explain why:

We, humans, have different ways of thinking, different ways of achieving our work or enjoy our digital moments. The guy who uses a Mac knows why he uses it, and he probably won't change it doesn't matter how much I praise about Linux, GNOME or KDE or whatever I like. But if I like more GNOME than KDE because it's simpler and doesn't get in my path, that doesn't mean everyone out there will think or feel the way I do and need me to tell him what are the negative things, because it's just subjective as telling you blond girls are better than brunette ones.

This sort of comparisons won't help OSS. We must respect people choices. If you like KDE, go use it. If you like IceWM, go use it. I don't care. But don't be such subjective. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I really don't think this article gets the point of what ubuntu is like. I've been using the distro for some weeks now and I can say it's absolutely not that bad as it seems from the article. A simple interface to the known power of Debian.
In my opinion a really good Distro. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I tried Ubuntu on three PCs. It wouldn't boot on any of them. Knoppix just worked.

No, I'd never used either of them before. Just wanted to test a Live Linux CD.

Ubuntu would show the funky logo splash screen then fill the monitor with some hdb error.

"Buffer IO error on hdb" Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I had major problems with totem and gstreamer. Frames were choppy and subtitles cut off.

But I thought that an 8x AGP nvidia should be able to handle the load, so I persevered...

gxine seems to work well. But you need to get the win32 codecs and other stuff from the marillat repository.

Speaking of DVDs, perhaps if we're lucky the ubuntu folks will start shipping their distro on DVD with extra packages. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? To anyone not having used Ubuntu I suggest NOT reading this article because it only focuses on the negative side. 30-minute articles are not much respected by me either, please next time spend at least an hour with the OS before writing an article about it!
"Ubuntu: could do with a bit more work": The title is quite true though...I think next release, Hoary, will include that "extra work".. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You dislike that the root account is not used? Please explain so that we can follow your logic. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Let me make a wild guess here: You tried the same CD on three PCs, didn't you? Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? lol! Good point! Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I checked out the last live-cd and agree with some of what is said here. A few notes:

- I absolutely agree that brown is not an ideal default color. Blue or possibly other "earth" colors would be better if they want to go that way.
- It didn't detect my internet connection either
- I don't get this sudo thing. I get the impression that this a distribution that is supposed to be used by non-techincal users. When I start some software it just doesn't work without any clear indication why, and apparently I have to figure out on my own by searching the net for random postings that tells me I have to start the console and write sudo passwd or something... Wouldn't it be (much) better to set an administration password at startup/install? I might misunderstood something here. I'm puzzled.
- it didn't mount my harddisk partitions. All the useful stuff you need to do requires easy access to the data you already have, so I am puzzled about that choice as well.
- I don't like the verbose output at startup. It is like having wire sticking out of the box.

Overall, Ubuntu does indeed have a lot of promise... I'll be checking out the coming live cd's Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Of course. You think I should burn one cd per pc? Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you always get an error about the cdrom you could at least try to burn an other cd as it's pretty clear then imho that the cd simply is borked. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Why do you need a root password? "sudo su -" will get you into a root shell just as easily as "su" would with a root password. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Most of this reviewers problems can be solved by either apt-get, the Unofficial Ubuntu Guide, or both.

How about this for a deal- people that aren't willing to use Ubuntu's community shouldn't be reviewing the product. Mr. Spacecraft has said from day one that his whole point aws to build a vibrant community so that Ubuntu users have the support net they need. Almost every problem mentioned here (and in most Ubuntu reviews I've seen on this site) can be fixed with these two things and some work:

the guide

http://www.ubuntuguide.org/

and the forum:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/


Geez. Its not hard. I'm fairly green and I figured it out. I almost refuse to believe that people that with the Linux experiance most of these complaining Ubuntu reviewers they don't know how to use google better. I mean.....you type Ubuntu and the within the first 5 results both the guide and the forum appear.


Wake me when the preview release comes and someone that used Ubuntu more than a day reviews it...... Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "- I absolutely agree that brown is not an ideal default color. Blue or possibly other "earth" colors would be better if they want to go that way. "

Last time I checked earth was brown ... maybe you mean water?

But seriously: I like the default theme of Ubuntu because it's NOT the standard-blue-and-clouds-in-the-sky look. And if you don't like it, change it. This isn't OS X after all ... Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >
Last time I checked earth was brown ... maybe you mean water?
>

right, that came out wrong... I meant either the non-earth color blue, or alternatively, other earth colors than brown.


>
Almost every problem mentioned here (and in most Ubuntu reviews I've seen on this site) can be fixed with these two things and some work:
>

No, that is completly wrong! No one should ever have to search for anything or read any manual. It should be self explanatory and just work. Anything less is a bug. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Networking printing needs so much work...

Nevermind that in gnome, the printing dialog has been broken for about 7 months, :9 Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The problem is with the applications not using it, that's all.

Plus, "nopasswd" in /etc/sudoers is so nice Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I had the same problem until I turned DMA on manually with hdparm. The kernel should do it itself, it's a bug (in Hoary's 2.6.10 kernel at least) other kernels I tried don't have this problem. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No, that is completly wrong! No one should ever have to search for anything or read any manual. It should be self explanatory and just work. Anything less is a bug. Umm..
Will....

These things are computers, not appliances. I've never seen an OS in my life that didn't give me some problems that forced me to learn something to fix it. Even the wonderful OSX gave me some trouble the first time I tried it. I like the learning and I like the trade off for versatility. But if you are a believer that EVERYTHING must "just work" for EVERYBODY, then I suggest you buy a game console and use that only. Its the closest you'll ever get to your Utopia. Something might work well for you, but it will never work well for everybody. A jack of all trades is good at nothing.

Meanwhile, thousands of users enjoy the FLEXIBLILTY and EASE OF USE of the average Ubuntu install. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? - Don't like Gnome
- Don't like Nautilus
- Don't like the default theme
- Don't like Sudo

Got bored and skipped most of the rest.

Ubuntu is a Gnome based debian distro which is designed for desktop use and tries to avoid the whole root user thing without opening the OS up to the usual XP security issues most inexperienced users face.

Why don't you go download a f***ing KDE-based distro and stop wasting my bandwidth? It's not like you don't have a choice after all!! Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No, that is completly wrong! No one should ever have to search for anything or read any manual. It should be self explanatory and just work. Anything less is a bug.

Why, on earth, are manuals written then?

A) To waste space on the harddrive. After all, everyone loves bloat (check out services.msc btw).
B) To waste paper. After all, less nature is more living space.
C) To make the user feel stupid so he evades that confrontation after his or her first manual experience.
D) To make the user be able to learn something, possibly when he or she can't do it by 'self explanatory' and 'just work' paths.

My oh my, hard question! Perhaps tossing a coin between A and B will bring us the answer? Or just picking C because it seems the most plausible? Or could the answer be D?!?!? Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have been using Linux since 1999. When I first installed Mandrake (I think version 6.2 or something) I was impressed by both: kde and Gnome. Since then I switched many times from various distros and desktops but till recently KDE and Gnome were similiar. But that's changed! While KDE is now a kind of "generic" but well developed and stable desktop, it does poor support for hardware. It is likely that KDE team aims at wide variety of unices, not only Linux, and KDE is ideal for e.g. terminal servers or corporate desktops.
On the other hand, new versions of Gnome have significant support for automatic hardware detection and configuration. With Gnome come a lot of configuration tools similiar to those we used to have provided by commercial distros (e.g. Mandrake Control Center). What is strange (I mean I never dreamed about it), Gnome supports community-driven distros with ready to use, enterprise class desktop with significant integration with OS (I mean Linux).
I believe that in a few years we won't see distros with both desktops any more. Gnome does too much integration with system (this was the reason why slackware dropped it).
But, what's realy strange, both desktops are just great! I can't do anything else but keep switching from one to another again and again. And I believe that in the near future I will be watching Linux (or *nix) getting simply better every day.
Ok, so now I'll shut down my slackware box and go to bed (it's quite late here in Central Europe) dreaming about perfect desktop... Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I tried Ubuntu on three PCs. It wouldn't boot on any of them. Knoppix just worked."

I had quite the opposite experience, I tried Knoppix on three PCs, it wouldn't boot. Ubuntu just worked. Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? these "reviews" are a dime a dozen. someone who loves kde or gnome reviews a distro that uses the opposite, and surprise surprise, doesn't like it as much. if you like kde, use a distro based on kde. if you like gnome use a distro based on gnome. it really is that simple.

--
Want a free Mac Mini?
New Equal Opportunity Conga forming at http://www.fresh83.com/conga/. Check it out if your interested. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >
Something might work well for you, but it will never work well for everybody. A jack of all trades is good at nothing.
>


I knew I shouldn't have been so dramatic Just to avoid unneccesary reactions: what I had in mind is that, if it is possible to make something self-explanatory, it should be. Anything less is unacceptable, and I mean that literally.

It follows from this that a developer cannot say "go read the manual" or "search the net" unless it is not practically possible to make it self-explanatory. I think in many of the cases that are likely to pop up here, there will be eminently good solutions to make it self-explanatory if one just takes the task seriously.

Mac and Windows are both much better at this because they have clearer focus on non-technical users (note that I didn't say they don't have usability problems). Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I like Debian, I like Gnome, so of course I don't have a problem with Ubuntu. But it is too hyped (remember Gentoo fanboys?) and it can't live to the highest expectations right now (without a certain amount of placebo effect).

Let's just say that a week with Ubuntu has renewed my respect to Debian developers (they are of the highest skill, and they are a bit conservative for a reason). But Ubuntu=Debian for the people who would otherwise run Mandrake, is a worthwhile goal as well.

If you belong to the group of people that likes patching their own kernel etc, maybe you don't belong to Ubuntu's target group though. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? if it is possible to make something self-explanatory, it should be. Anything less is unacceptable, and I mean that literally.

1) Ask yourself, 'what makes something self-explanatory' and apply that to the subject(s). Then post the individual examples. Use the feedback. See if Bugzilla or Mailinglists name them. If not, consider writing the developers about the issue(s). It would be much more constructive.
2) Ask yourself, do other non-GNOME and non-Ubuntu systems also come with some lecture for the user to use when he/she needs help? These systems are not going away unless everything is self-explanatory for everyone which, unfortunately for those who'd like that, has implications as well (e.g. the usual disadvantage of conservative UIs). Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If you try a LiveCD on 3 different PCs and it produces the same error, how can it possibly not cross your mind that maybe the CD is bad?? Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I love brown and didn't even know it. I used to settle for retina burning blue desktops, but no more. You think I'm kidding but ever since switching to Ubuntu my desktop is a plain gradient dark brown to light brown. It's sweet and relaxing.

As to the 'less is more' approach to application packages, real science indicates it might be valid. I point you to the Scientific American:

http://www.sciamdigital.com/browse.cfm?sequencenameCHAR=item2&m...


Also, Mepis and Knoppix liveCDs haven't worked for me at all ever.

Finally, the authors beef with this distro is ridiculous. He doesn't like the color of the desktop or splashscreen?!?! I've never seen that listed as a positive or a negative in reviewing any other distro. Especially not when changing it is so easy. Furthermore, as was mentioned time and again, Ubuntu has a top shelf community. In my experience, it's second only to Gentoo.

Osnews needs to raise the content bar a notch on these "reviews", or add some kind of community rating system or something. I'm getting really tired of wasting my time on this crap. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I do agree with some of the author's points. I too am a "KDE guy" simply because KDE seems more complete to me. GNOME looks way nicer though.

I don't really like the brown theme in Ubuntu though. I know it can be easily changed but I think that blue should be there instead of brown. It just looks better.

I've tried using spatial on my Mac for a while and all the windows being left open is too annoying. Especially on a 14" screen. I went back to column view after a day.

Ubuntu does look rather nice though. I hope people stick at it. I hate it when a new distro comes out with lots of potential but doesn't follow through. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? No distro I've tried has everything the way I want it, perhaps he should actually spend a few minute finding out how to adjust things to his liking then use it for a couple of weeks before writing the review.

For the record, I managed to install Ubuntu without formatting my /home partition so it is possible. I admit their partitioning tool could be a bit easier to use though.

As to the distro needing more work, they have only made one stable release, you can't expect anyone to do things perfectly the first time around. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? picky picky Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Don't like (insert_distro_here)? Just make your own and give it away for free. When it's your distro you get to choose your own colours, desktop, wm, package manager etc. You can even put your taskbar at the bottom of the screen!

Ubuntu sent me 10 pairs of CDs halfway around the world for nothing. Everytime I see the brown, I'm reminded that this distro is a little bit different in a good way.

To everybody who moans about having to download so many ISOs and it won't boot on such'n'such, there are any number of (non-free) alternatives which would give you the right to bitch.

If you find a genuine bug. Make the effort to file a proper bug report. That way, you become part of the solution, not just another casual observer of problems.

All distros offer something. Linux users unite! Wed, 23 Feb 2005 02:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I guess by 'a bit more work' he means they should change it to a blue, KDE based distro that has several additional CDs of apps and defaults to a root user account. More work could also mean changing the name to Mepis or Knoppix.

I had an apple at lunch. I really wanted a pear. That apple could have used a little more work. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 02:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Just like what doogle said, Ubuntu (and Canonical) was gracious enough to send me a box of CDs to give away in a local installfest for nothing - that's one thing that made this distro unique.

When you receive a FREE Ubuntu CD package, you get 2 discs - LiveCD and Install. This will continue even for the upcoming Hoary release. And they will ship it to you for FREE no matter where you are on this planet.

As for the DVDs not to play at all, ALL OS installs don't have that by default UNLESS its included in the package! Some distros won't have DVD playback by default for legal reaons. If you want legal DVD playback, buy it from Linspire or get TurboLinux 10F.

If you didn't like brown, then install the thing and change it. It's Debian anyway, no different from any debian based distro out there (live CDs included).

Who needs ROOT/SU when you can do the same stuff with SUDO without having the risk of trashing the whole system? SUDO is much safer btw. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 02:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "But seriously: I like the default theme of Ubuntu because it's NOT the standard-blue-and-clouds-in-the-sky look. And if you don't like it, change it. This isn't OS X after all ..."

Heyyyy, HEYYYY! Wed, 23 Feb 2005 02:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hi, i used to be a kde fan until i first tried ubuntu.
yes kde is more mature and complete, that's true, but i got to prefer gnome when it comes to look'n'feel. I'd still like to have killer apps like amarok or k3b for gnome though...

to the author: kde and gnome are *two different projects*. saying "i don't like nautilus becasuse it's not konqueror" is not useful, infact your "article" is pretty much useless imho

hint: try kubuntu (ubuntu kde edition). trolling is bad for the OSS community Wed, 23 Feb 2005 03:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm a relative Linux newbie, and I've played with SuSE, Fedora Core 3, and Ubuntu.

I like Ubuntu better. It's simply a more responsive desktop system. I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't have any trouble getting my dvds, cds, mp3s, divx, xvid, and whatever other format under the sun working. Nautilus has a command line argument "--browser" and an option in preferences to make it work just like Windows Explorer or Konquerer.

Sure, you can compare the software to SuSE if you want, but the SuSE distribution is either 5 cds or a DVD, and FC3 is also a multi-cd distribution. Ubuntu gives you what you need to have a functioning desktop workstation OS. It's designed with apt in mind so that you don't have to download 3 gigs of information just to get the 600 megs you need.

My only real complaints about Ubuntu are the partition manager upon installation and the wierd version numbers given to some of the packages at the repositories. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 03:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I do think that the Brown Ubuntu theme is great (been using it as my sole desktop OS for about 6 months now). But their is some stuff that could be added to the brown theme. I don't think the anwser is to go away from brown, but maybe to some small splashes of color to it (ex. the close button might turn red when mouse is hovered over it). But I do think that the brown theme in Ubuntu was a breath of fresh air, just like the Distro.

~Alan

P.S. Does anyone know a good tutoral on creating GTK+ themes? Wed, 23 Feb 2005 03:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I really like the way Gnome is going these days. But I just cannot like it's apperance. I spend a lot of my time using OS X these days, and to go from this to drab brown just isn't good. Of course, business types tend to think Macs are toys, which may be to do with the bright colours, I dunno. Maybe Gnome looks more "business like". I've never found a Gnome theme that I like, either.

Oh yeah, and nautilus' "spatial" behaviour that leaves a whole bunch of windows open really really sucks rocks. I haven't found a file manager that is "ideal" yet. But I certainly have a better time of it using Mac OS X Finder and KDE's Konqueror. Maybe they should copy Finder's column view, that is kinda nifty.

Other than those two things, Gnome and Ubuntu seem pretty sweet. I may change to Ubuntu on my desktop after hoary comes out. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 03:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well, I'll give you a little credit in that you at least googled for answers to your "problems". But, the answers for everything you had issues with is either explained in the FAQ's or HOW-TO's on the Ubuntu web site or on the "unofficial" user guide at:
http://ubuntuguide.org/ Wed, 23 Feb 2005 03:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'd better start by admitting that I'm a fan of KDE.

It's not going to appeal to experienced Debian users,

They always show their hand in the opening and closing paragraphs. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 03:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This article is terrible. Don't even bother reading it if you have not already. The author has put forth absolutely zero effort obtaining his desired result.

*DVD and MP3 playback are both easily obtainable and you need go no further than the Ubuntu Wiki for the info.
*As others have said you can easily set a root password.
*Also, the placement of menus is a GNOME design decision, not an Ubuntu design.
*You can change the placement of the panels and what menus and applets are available on your panels.
*As to the aesthetics of the Ubuntu theme, please read the Ubuntu Web site.
*Spatial Nautilus is a topic that has been discussed ad nauseam since the advent of GNOME 2.8. Google for one of the countless sites that tells you how you can turn off spatial view.

By the way, if you don't like GNOME, then please apt-get KDE. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 03:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I had an apple at lunch. I really wanted a pear. That apple could have used a little more work."

classic. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 04:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? KDE fan "trying" to like Gnome and Ubuntu? C'mon, at least be fair in your review. You're not here to grade Gnome, but Ubuntu. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 05:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Oh yeah, and nautilus' "spatial" behaviour that leaves a whole bunch of windows open really really sucks rocks.

It's possible to navigate spatially and not leave window droppings everywhere. It's also possible to disable nautilus' spatial behaviour.

What really sucks is this demonstrated lack of reading ability combined with a tendency to demand instant results without requiring any effort.

And a bunch of you are bitching about the brown? Jesus wept... Why don't you just tattoo "my technical opinion is worthless" on your foreheads and save us all the hassle? Yes, I do realise that the initial appearance of an app plays a part in its acceptance... I just question the validity of wanting it to look like Every Other Linux Distro simply because changing the background is such a crippling operation for some. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 06:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ah,

Where should I start. I've been using Debian on servers for years, so I have pretty good picture about how it works. On the other hand, I've been using Red Hat (and these days Fedora) on the desktops since 5.2. or something.

Last weekend I had a dream about creating FOSS DTP environment. Since now it's satisfactory even technically by running native programs like sodipodi, gimp and scribus. Anyways, I thought by using ubuntu I could draw the line between my experiences with GNU/Linux servers and desktops, taking the best of both.

My dream didn't come true.

First of all, Ubuntu fucked up my MBR. Something that has never happened to me before. And when I say fucked up - I mean that literally, I got an error saying something like "No operating system available", when I tried to boot.

Well, after I fixed that (and missed The Other Operating System on desktop), started the dpkg rumba. It went as usual, no biggie. Besides not being able to find a mirror near me. But when I booted it first time to configure all the packages and everything, it just simply - didn't work.

It wasn't the root account or anything like that. Something else, which I can't put my finger on. No wait, yes I can. My Palm didn't work, sound didn't work (SB Live!) and so forth. And on the top of everything else - it looked horrible. VAX VMS looked fine being beige, but brown - gimme a break.

Damn, I'm in a hurry so I'll just tie up everything by saying, Ubuntu (human) is not the kind of person I would like to meet again. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 07:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? this article seems to be the opposite of what i wrote some weeks ago (a small mepis review called "gnome guy goes kde"). and sorry to say that, but, erm... mine was better researched. the author should have tried a lot harder to solve the problems (the ubuntuguide has been mentioned...). as it is, it really doesn't make too much sense... :-(

regards,
christian Wed, 23 Feb 2005 07:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? It shows clearly that a distro that is only a debian with a gnome theme needs only 30 minutes to be reviewed. At least is on a par with other 30 minutes superhyping reviews. But people complains only on this one I ask myself why... Wed, 23 Feb 2005 07:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Not a big distro hopper. Gave the Live CD for Ubuntu Live a try and it detected my Netgear usually only live after I compile my madwifi driver pcmcia card but I did not have my WEP passcode at hand so no in depth testing. Off the live CD I got no output for the battery monitor.

Impressed with the simple look and feel and after I did the research that obviously this writer did not I was pretty impressed with the level of software available. Including gnome-photo-printer which I had to run an rpmbuild and make an rpm for myself in Fedora Core 3. I have used Suse but being a big gnome fan and being disgusted with all the behind the scenes stuff SuseConfig did I tried RH8 and stuck through with it up to FC3.

There are just a couple of things that annoys me about RH and I am ready to give another distro a try. But on my main home box I am not making the move until I have played around with Ubuntu for awhile.

My wife likes the Fedora desktop and I would want to be ready for any fussing and minor quips and issues before I make the move. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Try it, it's nice: http://livecd.gnustep.org Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? could do with a bit more work Wed, 23 Feb 2005 09:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? So the reviewer went off down that tired old path of DVD playback, but apart from that and various subjective remarks, I thought it was quite a reasonable summary of the state of Ubuntu. If the apologists would actually get off their high horses (calling the reviewer a troll pretty much marks you out as an apologist given the fairness of many of the observations) and actually channel that energy into fixing the various broken parts of the Debian/GNOME/Ubuntu experience, perhaps they wouldn't need to spend their time defending the cause in online forums.

Oh, and Canonical did kindly send me some CDs and I'd gladly contribute to the effort given a bit more time, but as a distro to do actual work on (as opposed to one to hack on) I don't see it replacing my aging Red Hat install no matter how much I'd like it to. And as for comparisons with Knoppix, I was shocked to see that 128MB RAM is really not enough (unless you want to spend 20 minutes waiting for it to boot into a very slow desktop) - so much for the chances of third-world uptake with those kinds of minimum requirements. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ..is just a "sudo -s" away. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? totally worthless article, why do these things get published ? Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Why are there only KDE folks writing about Ubuntu? "

Because the Gnome folks are enjoying Ubuntu and having fun with it while the above mentioned are writing .



P.S. That's said being a KDE guy . Wed, 23 Feb 2005 12:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? im suprised someone could regularily visit osnews and NOT know about spatial nautilus. and what exactly is so hard about apt-get install libdvdcss2? it would be trivial to find in synaptic, and even easier found with a bit of googling.

either this guy is a moron or a glorified troll. either way, its not an honest review. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? By Guerkan (IP: ---.ethz.ch) - Posted on 2005-02-23 08:12:32
Try it, it's nice: http://livecd.gnustep.org

Yes, I have and its actually pretty nice. If there were a list of apps as long as gnome and kde I might give it a full-time try honestly I have always loved the gnustep look and feel.

Since many of these apps are cross-compatible (compilable) on Mac OSX I would have thunk Apple could throw these guys a bone and given a bit of support in adding apps since there are not a lot of native OSX GNU stuff available to supplement the X-based OSX fare which never, ever looks right running on a Mac. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? In fact, Debian is pretty easy to install besides its text-based interface. Partitioning is pretty easy, everything is easy when you read what they prompt. It's just like normal windows installation to me.

But debian is easy to configure. Hardware driver is pretty straight forward because it's kernel's job. Filesystem is easy to navigate and network is even setup for you if you have the right hardware.

The hardest part, though, is software packages. Yes we have apt-get, it is not super hero who can do everything for you. For example, you wanna install KDE 3.1 or XFree86 4.0.1, I was having a hard time on them and still failed to do so.

Yes I am a newbie, this is just my opinion since my first Debian 2.1. I still love it but I just know that unless I know more about XFree86 4.0.1 because I never get my mouse working fine. I have Logitech MX700 and I followed some of the tutorials or tips from internet but I still can't make it working. One funny thing is that you can do whatever you can do in Windows without a mouse if you feel comfortable, but you cannot even "startx" if you don't have mouse configured. Does it mean that X should re-consider taking away mouse as necessary components?

Just my 2 cents. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Pff, how many Ubuntu reviews are we still gonna see on OSnews? I've had it by now...

If you're tired of them - why are you reading them and even commenting on them? I would say it is pretty easy for most people to skip an article

I believe that in a few years we won't see distros with both desktops any more. Gnome does too much integration with system (this was the reason why slackware dropped it).

KDE and Gnome er getting closer and closer to eachother in many ways through all the work going on at freedesktop.org.

I personally agree with the reviewer in regards to some of his comments.

I don't like how Nautilus and the way it opens up new windows for each click. I know it has been discussed and there's a reason for it, but I don't quite get the idea behind and haven't so far gotten used to it og found it to be very effective. I haven't really tried Konquorer, but from what I've read about it, it seems pretty cool and a better fit for me.

I also agree in regards to multimedia, especially Rhythmbox which simply just don't seem ready. It doesn't like filetypes it doesn't know - it "stalled" and started using 100% CPU time because of that - not good! With a bit more work it could easily become a very cool application.

In regards to video, I've also dropped totem and simply installed mplayer.

Ubuntu tried to add my windows install to GRUB, but it didn't quite succeed doing that. After spending a bit of time I got that working (windows can't boot if it's not the primary drive so you have to use the "map" command to fool it).

Overall, I've been able to fix most of the issues I had with ubuntu and I'm pretty happy with it so far. I've now been using Ubuntu as my primary OS for about 14 days and I'm very much looking forward to Hoary. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Is this a review of Ubuntu... seems to me it's missing the mark and not reviewing the actual distro. As said before another example of trolling. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 13:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've tried several Linux distros over the past few years,and they all lack something, Out of all I think I liked Mandrake the best,with Mepis comming in second,Don't get me wrong there's eye candy a plenty there,and you can theme eveything,which is one of my favorite things about Linux,but lets get down to doing some serious work(which in my case usually involves Sound or Graphics)Linux to this date has very little to offer in this respect,Yeah I know there's the Gimp ,which is a very nice tool ,but thats pretty much about it,except for Xpaint.In BeOS I have my choice of Refraction,a low cost commercial app that rivals Gimp,WonderBrush,an up an coming lighter weight graphics editor that,while being commercial,is low cost and works well,then there is the free Artpaint that lies somewhere in functionality between Xpaint and gimp,Easel,avery nice painting program,plus tons of little viewers and tweaking type apps like Image pro and Warp. In audio BeOS is so far ahead of Linux ,It just don't even compare at all,the same goes for software installation,The only thing BeOS hasn't made easy for you is theming,you are pretty much stuck with yellow and grey unless you know how to install and tweak windowshade.
Of course in BeOS you have hardware support hell instead of the software support library hell you get with linux,But I would recommend BeOS Max for anyone looking for an alternative for Windows over and above any Linux distro at this point,they even have Vlc tweaked so it will play a DVD rigkt out of the box,and thats something I havent seen yet in linux.
To sum things up here ,I've been hearing a lot of buzz lately about this Ubuntu but after reading this review,I don't think it's really worth my while to buy a copy off ebay and try it(no broadband here,just dialup)
I'm just going to stick with BeOS Wed, 23 Feb 2005 14:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? When was the last time you read a manual for an automobile? Intuitive interfaces should be the goal of any man-machine-interface designer. ANY.


When the design is not intuitive you get: "where is the damn hood release, how do I open the gas tank, how do I turn on the wipers? How do I turn on the head lights?'


As far as the complexity of modern cell phones, dialing is still familiar. When you get a Network Failure or calls dropped it's because of hardware or signal troubles--NOT BECAUSE OF A MISSING DRIVER.


Yeah those two examples are stand alone applications, but so are many PC applications.

As far as the author goes, just using 'Search' on the Ubuntu forum would have helped him out--That is what I did when I installed it on my 2ndary K6-2, 395MHz, 128mb ram 8.4GB computer that I inhereted from someone who upgraded. The author mentioned, why doesn't ubuntu have light apps like Abiword or Gnumeric? I asked the same question to myself, and found how to do a minimalist installation from posts on the forum. Within 10-20 minutes I had a debian based IceWM box with only light apps due to the ram limitations I had.

Out of the box, ubuntu couldn't detect my dwl-122 USB wifi adapter till I installed a driver. This hurts for a minimalist install since in order to install software I needed to use Apt-get, but with no network it was catch22.

If you have to use a second PC to install software onto another, then that is something OS developers need to think about. If I only had 1 computer I would have been stuck.

I'm a KDE guy, but I do like gnome and installed both on my faster athlon 1700xp box (knoppix.) Ubuntu's installation seemed to go faster than most others, perhaps because it asks less questions.


Author: "was unimpressed with the partitioning tool."
Outside of Anaconda's tool, I don't think I've ever seen an elegant solution. Qtparted isn't really complete and for some reason is SUPER EASY to break (as in it doesn't detect my disks, or after a change, I can't undo it, or even make a change---they aim to duplicate Partition Magic, but they have quite a long road ahead.) Perhaps progeny would suit the author better.

Author: "One choice I didn't like was that a Root password isn't used." Yeah this caught me by surprise too as seemingly every other debian distro uses it (except Damn Small Linux.) Sometimes it's easier to just login as root, make all the necessary changes, and logout. When the X-server crashes and the .X0lock thing has to be removed in order to "startx" it can be confusing at first, but if you have ever used "open a root terminal" it's just as easy.

Author: "One thing they might learn from them is colour choices. Ubuntu is a Zulu concept (humanity to others) and they have tried to give the desktop an African flavour. Africa is full of bright colours; they have chosen a light chocolate brown for everything (everything that isn't grey, that is). If you like African themes, why not use some of the other earth colours like reds or ochres? Of course, this is Linux, you can change anything that you don't like.
"

You like chocolate, I like vanilla.

Author: "It also detected a Win XP machine on the LAN." The author seems to make light of this. Try this with Linneighborhood. I was at my wits end on my Knoppix box until I learned to use Samba instead. What a relief that was, samba rules. Linneighborhood would crash when copying huge directories (like an mp3 library,) if it even FOUND my windows box (yes I know how to use it.)

Author: " I copied and pasted my backup CD files to my home directory, then realised that I didn't want some of them. Of course, the original file permissions from the CD were preserved, so I had to go down through each imported directory, select all files and alter the permissions before I could delete them. I don't remember ever having to do that in Konqueror, it will alter the permissions of all the sub directories if you alter the permissions of a parent folder. Once I got all my rubbish in the trash, it still wouldn't remove them"

I get the same effect in Konqueror in Knoppix-- i have to right click the directory, go to permissions and click the checkbox changing ownership to my userlevel and all subdirectories. It may be annoying, but if you've ever had mouse trouble in windows, many files/folders get dragged and moved all over the place and you get screwed (happened to me once while using a faulty trackball [didn't know it was faulty at the time.])

Author:"I tried to play a Metallica DVD but Totem, the software provided, threw up its hands and instantly admitted defeat. I know that the code to read DVDs is available, but apparently not in the Gnome world. Mepis, for example, quickly downloaded the required library for Xine and played the same DVD without any difficulty."

As far as I know, decrypting a dvd is still a crime in the USA as it is circumventing copy protection per DMCA. Was his Metallica DVD encrypted, being that they took down Napster, I'd say pretty damn likely.

From the Mepis FAQ:
Playing DVDs
Protected DVDs
To play protected DVDs you must install the libdvdcss2 package. This package is not included on the MEPIS CD or in the regular sources for legal reasons.

I know Mepis is not WindowsXP, so how exactly did "It find and install the required codecs?" If so, and you're in the USA, it probably just commited a potential crime for you.


Author: "Rhythmbox, their music player, had a list of internet radio stations to listen to. If you tried to make it work, it just stopped responding. I even tried to load it via Firefox, which them loaded Rhythmbox, which stopped reponding. That too remained broken."

Keep in mind that despite popular belief, MP3--especially internet streaming MP3 is not an open or free format. It is a patented method of audio compression. Did the Author try any Ogg-based internet radio stations?


Author: "There's one web browser, one mail client, one chat client etc. This is good for beginners, but I'd say that Ubuntu isn't the ideal distribution to learn how to use Linux"

I could not disagree more: It's IDEAL to learn on, but not for customizing. When you're ready to customize, you're ready to modify Apt-sources. There are many tools to write notes with, pens, pencils, crayons, markers, charcoal, etc, and of these there are many more variants: caligraphy pen, eg., but you LEARN how to write with with a basic pencil and paper. Once you've mastered the basics you try out other similar tools till you find one you like. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 14:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've used linux for ~5 years (rh->mdk->deb->gentoo->deb->ubuntu). I installed ubuntu unstable after I royally f*cked my debian install trying to get x.org...

For me, as a long time debian user, ubutu is very nice. they seem to be able to keep the user-friendlyness of OS X (sudo & no root - v.god idea imho) and the power of a real debian install.

I've tried many debian-derivative over the years and ubuntu is the only one ive had installed for more than a day (~2 months now), and all is good so far (especially with universe & multiverse in my sources.list).

As good as ubuntu is, I will however be returning to Debian Unstable, when they get their asses in gear, release Sarge, and get to work on Unstable again.

Kepp up the good work unbuntu & dont let the trolls/bad comments on here get you down - youre doing a great job! Wed, 23 Feb 2005 14:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I had an apple at lunch. I really wanted a pear. That apple could have used a little more work."

Awesome! You could even expand it further like this:

First I want to let you know that I'm really a pear guy myself. That said, I thought I'd try an apple for lunch and see what all the hype was about.

Well after the first couple of bites, I had to put it down. While it was sweet, the skin was too hard and I didn't really care for the texture. And what about that color? Red?! That's a terrible color (OK I know that apples come in different colors but red is the default).

I'm forced to conclude here that, as a fruit, the apple could really use a little more work. I really don't think that experienced pear eaters are going go for apples at all. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 14:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What I like about the Ubunto website is that they use text-shadows for all the headers, which are only supported in Safari and Konqueror ;-)

Planet Ubuntu planet.ubuntulinux.org is the best real world demonstration of text-shadows I've been able to find. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 15:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I like Ubuntu. I like it a lot. It's probably the best Gnome implementation going. It's based on Debian. It's easy, fast, stable. Synaptic / apt-get work beautifully in Ubuntu. Ubuntu has a lot potential.

But Ubuntu does have some shortcomings compared to some other distros. And it was refreshing, for a change, to see a review that was not so glowing (it's trendy to gush over Ubuntu), and have the guts to point out some of Ubuntu's shortcomings.

What Ubuntu needs to become a great distro:
- A better partitioning tool.
- A faster installer (small amount of packages take forever to install).
- Easier modem dialing.
- A slightly larger default package installation (include Gnome Office, Frozen Bubble, SuperTux, KB3, etc).
- Basic development tools, at least for the purpose of installing from source.
- Slightly better hardware detection and autoconfiguration (Knoppix, Mepis, Mandrake, SuSE, etc. are all slightly better).
- Improved Live CD (Ubuntu Live CD fails on a lot of hardware)
- A deluxe, multi CD edition, that has all the Linux/open source goodies, for all the people out there still on dial-up (apt-getting everthing you want when on dial up takes forever).

These are all constructive criticisms, or ideas to improve Ubuntu. Ubuntu has started out very good, but could use some or all of the above in order to become great. :-) Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Just like what doogle said, Ubuntu (and Canonical) was gracious enough to send me a box of CDs to give away in a local installfest for nothing - that's one thing that made this distro unique."

s/gracious/rich/

Do you honestly think other distros wouldn't *love* to do this, if they could afford to? Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? GNOME has rhythmbox and muine, both excellent music players, and CD burners are getting much better lately - I'm partial to gnomebaker, others like graveman. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What I don't like is Nautilus as a file manager.>>

EEEEEE!


I've used Konqueror for a few years, Nautilus seems very crude in comparison. If you are navigating to /usr/bin you are left with 3 windows, one for /. one for usr, one for bin.>>>

Yes, praise jeebus. Makes it really easy to see how "deep" you are and drag and drop items between levels.

KDE seems crude to me by comparison.

Click on a file in bin and another damned window opens.>>

Dammned? Damned?! Blessed, methinks.

And if you think I'm an OS X zealot, it pales in comparision for what I feel about Nautilus. It's like sombody read my mind and created the perfect file manager -- one that works with the way I think. (Geometry was the one math class I aced.)

Of course if you really really want KDE on Ubuntu, there's always Kubuntu.

---

But beyond that, yes, Ubuntu, for all its good points does have crufty edges and room for improvement.

But, at least there's a schedule for improvements, a true focus on the desktop, and PPC isn't the red-headed bastard stepchild. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? WTF? -OR- you could buy WindowsXP for your PC or a Mac running Mac OS X and buy even more, better applications...

Anyway, I am no linux guru and I was able to find and get any of the non-standard applications I needed for my PC running Ubuntu. Ubuntu isn't perfect. No linux distro is. I prefer it to any other, but that is my personal taste. It being Debian it is extremely flexible and configurable... and there are always lots of people "out there" who can help if you have any problems. Looking forward to the next version. And, even tho' I've said it before, I have a Mac, a PC running BeOS and a PC running Ubuntu (at home, at work I use WindowsXP and Redhat). BeOS is my favorite all-time OS, but let's face it, it grows older by the second and its only hope is Haiku... SkyOS holds some interest...

As for macs, I've always had a mac and always will and, in fact, do most of my work on my mac at home.

But Linux gets better and better and better everyday. ALL the distributions get better and better because it is an open source world that is both able to share improvements, and compete against one another, driving developers to make new improvements. I like Ubuntu best, but I like Fedora, I like Mandrake, I even tried Mepis, etc. They were ALL good. There are still rough edges here and there but I think Linux can only get better and better, and the variety of interfaces continue and improve.

This may have been a bad review but it helps make the point that Linux is so very alive and kicking and the debates that rattle back and forth only serve to drive linux farther ahead in all aspects, quality, available software, hardware support... Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? The installer is a direct copy of Debian's new installer. Yet, the author seems to think that Ubuntu has created their own installer from scratch. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thanks for an honest, no BS article. Judging by the response from the Gnome evangelistas, you've hit a few sore spots! Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Thanks for an honest, no BS article. Judging by the response from the Gnome evangelistas, you've hit a few sore spots!
Sounds to me like:
"Look at me, I'm an attention whore!"

No, really. It's not about "hitting sore spots". Every DE has the right to exist, and everybody has the right to choose one. Period. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "I usually judge a distribution by how long it takes me to get on-line."

Yeah, because that's all we use computers for; getting online. Another review that, as others have said, took a 20 minute eval to write.

I am going to write a review of Gentoo......I'll be back in 20! Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Well NetSlayer, you ain't got a clue. It is exactly about hitting sore spots. Everytime someone tries to put forward an honest criticism about anything to do with Gnome they are flooded with moral outrage by the supporters of that desktop. I read 70 odd comments before mine that mostly flamed this poor guy for his effort and I feel he deserved some support. Your reaction just outlines my point even more. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What Ubuntu needs to become a great distro:
- A better partitioning tool.
- A faster installer (small amount of packages take forever to install).
- Easier modem dialing.
- A slightly larger default package installation (include Gnome Office, Frozen Bubble, SuperTux, KB3, etc).
- Basic development tools, at least for the purpose of installing from source.
- Slightly better hardware detection and autoconfiguration (Knoppix, Mepis, Mandrake, SuSE, etc. are all slightly better).
- Improved Live CD (Ubuntu Live CD fails on a lot of hardware)
- A deluxe, multi CD edition, that has all the Linux/open source goodies, for all the people out there still on dial-up (apt-getting everthing you want when on dial up takes forever).


I believe better partitioning is comming in Hoary, the install for me is pretty speedy, can't comment on the modem dialing. As for more packages, no thanks, I like the fact that it's on 1 CD, it's a refreshing change, a desktop-linux without using up all my CDs. Development tools are certainly not needed. As for installing from source, I don't know why gcc isn't included personally, but you can always apt-get it in 60 seconds and you can ofcourse install from source using apt-get. Hardware detection seems great for me, but I've only installed on 2 different boxes. LiveCD definately needs to be improved (I wish Gnoppix hadn't linked with Ubuntu) I can only run it in safe mode, for example, I'm hoping some of this is fixed in the Hoary edition which I'm yet to try out. As for a deluxe version, I guess this may be done, but still, you can apt-get just about anything and everything, and Ubuntu is non-profit anyway, I think they *prefer* to not make money from it .. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 20:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? For the life of me, I have no idea why you would install Ubuntu whose repositories fork away from the Debian branches. Just download the new Sarge installer and build your system on top of that. You want Gnome, apt-get it. You want KDE, apt-get it. Ubuntu hasn't done anything that you can't do with the debian installer. And yes, the Ubuntu installer is the Debian installer with some modules added on. Nothing Earth shattering. I will give them credit in one area though, they have managed to get X.org to run stable on Debian. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 20:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? has anyone tried ubunto with xfce?
I really like the speed and feel of it, and most
people don't do a review of a distro using it. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 20:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? And, then again, you have my experience: the Ubuntu live CD booted flawlessly on my ancient G3 iBook with support for both power management and my wireless LAN. Everything worked and it felt more nimble than OS X.

My kid used it all evening without incident. I gave her no training at all. She browsed, played games, and sent email. Her main comment was that it seemed "much faster" than the Mac OS.

There's not much chance I'll run Ubuntu on that machine fulltime -- I need my OS X apps -- but it worked great. Most of my background is SUSE, but I'll give Ubuntu very serious consideration when I build my next desktop PC.

The brown scheme might stand a bit toning down, but it's not bad to work on. I like the earthtone idea. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 20:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? personally brown is a nice color. especially when looking at it for a long time. Any color can be nice, if it desaturated enough.

If they decide to use blue. Make sure to desaturate it alot. so it doesnt look fisher price like windows xp. IMO microsoft needs to include more colors, or let people make more themes. or just let people choose the color like you can in windows media player. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Just like what doogle said, Ubuntu (and Canonical) was gracious enough to send me a box of CDs to give away in a local installfest for nothing - that's one thing that made this distro unique."

s/gracious/rich/

Do you honestly think other distros wouldn't *love* to do this, if they could afford to?

deb, slackware, (k|g)n.+pix - yes
suse, rh, mandrake - I don't think so.

I've paid for boxed distros. For me it's an order of magnitude cheaper than time+bandwidth. None of these have worked flawlessly. None of the freebies have worked flawlessly.

I don't begrudge something that I've paid for not working in this instance because it is open and I have the power to help myself and the support of the community when I'm too stupid to figure it out.

The altruism of Ubuntu may be backed by some dark force. Who knows? For now, Canonical are making a contribution that many welcome. s/(gracious)/rich and $1/ perhaps?

Most suspect Google to go dark some day. Do we stop using it today because of this? Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? When I installed Ubuntu, I brought along my collection of backgrounds and images. Then I went over to http://www.gnome-look.org/ and found several delightful Ubuntu backgrounds that work well with the bronze/brown Ubuntu theme.

Ubuntu isn't perfect. Nothing is. But there's a thoughtful integration to the product that has utility and promise. I'm glad to use it.

As for some of the rude comments about the review, dear author, don't take it too much to heart. There are almost certainly others like you, KDE users with a similar set of preferences, who wondered about Ubuntu, and now have a better idea what they'd find. You can't please everybody. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I my review I just tried to report on what I found. I did spend a lot more than 30 minutes with Ubuntu, contrary to what some people think. I installed it intending to use it as my everyday distribution, replacing Mepis.
The review was not all bad news, there are a lot of good points to Ubuntu and I tried to mention the things I really liked, (integrated CD burner, good USB support) if you bother to actually read what I wrote. If things were broken or didn't work, would you expect me to say that all was fine? Should I have said that Totem and music player worked? In Mepis, apt installed the decss library and Xine worked. Despite spending time on Google, I couldn't get Totem to play my DVD. If that's due to my lack of skill with Linux DVD players, perhaps someone more skilful might write a nice guide on how to set it up, or even help the Ubuntu project make their software choices work.
If you are someone who is looking for a nice Linux distro, you might want to be told that some things are broken. Isn't that the point of reading OS News?
BTW, I do know that you can change the colour scheme, I just don't think their default choice is very attractive. I can cope with Sudo, I did read the website/wiki and (as I mentioned in the article) found it very useful. I do prefer KDE, I tried to offer an insight into why I prefer it. If I wanted a KDE distro, I would have stayed with Mepis. I used Gnome on Red Hat 5.2 and didn't like it then, I still don't like it, but that is just my opinion. I think I've touched a raw nerve with some people. If you don't like to be told the truth, that some things didn't work too well, perhaps you'd like to write your own reviews? Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Good Review don't worry!

I tried Ubuntu myself, but could not understand what all the hype was about, it worked, but was no better than most other distros. Of course it is debian based which is good, but I couldn't help think that something was missing from it, maybe being a windows user as well I was led to believe that all os's are easy to use. But I did not find unbuntu easy to use at all, it hid stuff I wanted to use, unlike most other distros which let me get at the good stuff. To date I have used Linspire (not bad), mandrake (yuk!), SuSe (not bad), redhat (erm, ok), Debian (nice), ubuntu (needs more work, sorry), and at the moment not using Linux at all. But! If I had to choose, and it would be hard to make a choice, it would be a debian based distro, but hopefully one that did not make it hard to learn how to use. Sometimes we still like command line, and to deny access to getting under the hood, is a real problem. Plus a plea to distro makers everywhere, don't make the distros hard to use, Linux is good, just don't mess it up with the user unfriendly stuff okay? Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? suse, rh, mandrake - I don't think so.

rh, no, because it wouldn't do much for them, with their business focus. SuSE, well, Novell owns 'em, I wouldn't presume to speak for them. But MDK? Sure. It's a 100% free and redistributable distro anyway, it's freely downloadable online and you can buy it from the ISO vendors for a couple of bucks, so shipping out free copies of the free version to anyone who wanted it wouldn't hurt sales of the boxes much. It'd do a lot to boost the user base and profile of the distro, too - just look at what it's done for Ubuntu - and this is entirely in keeping with the MDKsoft business model. Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Neil

I am not a great fan of Gnome either, but if I were you I'd give it a fairer chance: install Debian, not necessarily with the Sarge installer (Kanotix highly recommended) and then:

# apt-get update
# apt-get install aptitude
# aptitude --with-recommends install gnome

The default Debian Gnome is quite beautiful out of the box. Change background and theme if you want (Nuvola or Lush are my favorites)
Finally in Synaptic go to: Sections: GNOME Desktop Environment, and see how much there is on offer.
You might change your mind about Gnome.

And BTW, don't forget to add this line to your sources.list:

deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main

(replace "unstable" with "testing" where appropriate) Thu, 24 Feb 2005 01:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? If that's due to my lack of skill with Linux DVD players, perhaps someone more skilful might write a nice guide on how to set it up, or even help the Ubuntu project make their software choices work.

Thats the thing. There is a guide. Typing "ubuntu" and "guide" in Googlea and you will get it. DVDs doesn't work out of the box because of legal limitations. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 02:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? http://www.gnome-look.org/ - for Gnome themes, eye-candy etc.

cfdisk - curses based utility for CLEAN and EASY partitioning.

reviewer is a quack. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 02:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I don't agree. Nice distro. Everething working fine. U could
install base (type "custom" at boot prompt, then "apt-get install kde" if you don't like gnome.
BTW. take a look of:
www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RestrictedFormats/view?searchterm=dvd

Igosr Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >I don't agree. Nice distro. Everething working fine. U could
>install base (type "custom" at boot prompt, then "apt-get >install kde" if you don't like gnome.


Yes infact you do not need ubuntu. You could do the same thing on debian and you get automatically a larger software base. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 10:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? You could do the same thing on debian and you get automatically a larger software base.

Ubuntu pretty much has what Debian has. Sometimes a package will be in SID first, sometimes a package will be in universe first... If you are already using and happy with Debian you obviously don't need Ubuntu, but even then you profit from what they are doing. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 11:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This person doesn't truly give me the impression that he is a very knowledgable linux user. Such as, the way he slams sudo ("not the way I would choose to do it"). Also, he doesn't give me the impression that he is diverse in distributions based on stuff like his difficulty with windows settings and the installation of software. I will only take his review with a grain of salt. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 11:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >Yes infact you do not need ubuntu. You could do the same thing on debian and you get automatically a larger software base.

What about Debian release dates?
:))) Thu, 24 Feb 2005 11:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry! But this review isn't fair. I used all the
"great" distros suse, redhat and so on. but they
all failed. and remember there are not free.

Till now i installed ubunto on several pc and laptops
the hw detection is simply great (even better than
knoppix).

Your point about the DVD shows it clearly, you don't
like it before you start the download and the rest is something between your ears. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 12:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Yeah, instead of looking up how to enable this, try looking up the legal ramifications in the USA. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Debian release dates hardly affect desktop users. When Sarge will be relesed, you can use it for a while, then it begins to be old and you want something new, either testing or Sid. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 15:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Ubuntu is brilliant! Thu, 24 Feb 2005 17:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hi,

I have read the article plus most of the comments and wonder what you guys / girls all talk about. Don't we all know that Linux does the work as one would suppose but lacks a proper front end / desktop?

Having used Linux and various desktops, I do believe there is no such WORKING desktop as of now. All - if it is KDE, Gnome, XFCE, IceWM, etc. - have features supporting the user and some features breaking the user experience. Is it really so hard to simply try to tell the developers what is wrong or could be improved and supply them with a report on bug trackers or mailing lists? After all their just human and thus make mistakes as you do, too.

Be serious, even Windows or MacOS X are not perfect and both have features that will not let you use the system. Take Windows, it does not have DVD playback either after you install it. You will need to buy it from 3rd party vendors. This could work for Linux disrtibutions, too.

Can't comment on MacOS X, since I do not remember if it had working DVD playback after installation.

So please, do what you expect from other people. Provide valuable criticism with your well-thought suggestions and not only jump on the buzz train. Good reviewers provide alternative suggestions, good readers / commenters, too. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 17:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? SuSE, Fedora Core and Mandrakelinux are all available for free download, and the download versions of all three are 100% free software. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 17:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Keep in mind the dmca and other stupid laws have made decryption software for dvds armost uncertain as far as legality goes. On kde you have trolltech's somewhat closed and incompatible license and you still have to install css decryption libraries separately. Mephis is just another useless ripoff of the existing distributions. Ubuntu is used by my mother, I know how easy it is to use. Everything you want works on there and she only runs a 2.4 celeron with 512mb ram, although a bit overkill considering I've ran Ubuntu as a solid and dependable workstation distribution even with unstable apt repositories on a 550 p3. Don't be bias because foundations have made the decision to keep a possibly contraversial libary out of the mainstream. Blame the dmca, mpaa, riaa, and those who oppose freedom of choice. You can run kde on ubuntu, as it is just Debian, get over it. Use Debian use Ubuntu, Use Slackware, it's all the same, just don't let me catch you running a Redhat based distro because in that kind of move you're liable to get shot. Thu, 24 Feb 2005 20:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? My only problem with Ubuntu/Gnome is why is it SO HARD to set up a modem and conect? WHY do I have to, as suggested in the Ubuntu forums, download another program to make a MODEM work? (modem lights) I really try to like Gnome but in the end KDE sets everything up a lot better. I'l give it another try in 6 months........ Fri, 25 Feb 2005 06:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? What a crap article. Is there no quality control on OSNews anymore? Or are articles of such poor standard allowed to slip through in order to generate more comment activity and traffic to the site? Clever ploy, if that's the case, but a bit underhanded. Fri, 25 Feb 2005 09:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? BUY is the operative word here! I was refering to stuff that is availble as a Free download,Free as in beer,wherre can
I find a free download of winxp? or better yet a free MacOSX box,and I don'e mean stolen computers or Warez versions! well?now that out of the way i can sit a newbie down in front of a BeOS MAX box and they can dl their own software off bebits or beshare,install it themselves,do email chat and syrf the netwith mozilla opera or net+,yes some things are getting dated but it's stll fast and fairly stable,and new software still shows up periodically,much of it ported from linux with none of that dependancy hell you get with linuc because the folks doing it for BeoS are often kind enough to include the needed libraries in the zip file with a conveinent drag and drop symlink to install them,thats the difference right thereand i just don't see anyonein the Linux camp addressing it because they still have that sysadmin mentality and are not tooling their distros for the new user but for more the seasoned os dabbler,this is fine with the everything but the kitchen sink biggies like Mandrake ,but the little distros that giveyou 1 or 2 choices of a particular typ of app are still crippled by software instyallation schemes that are WAY harder to use than Windoze Mac or BeoS,this may be better in lindows or lycoris but there we go back to BUYING the OS and software,and just wtf does a single home user need with a root iderntity?when you are the only one using that computer?it's ridiculous,all Linux distros that are aimed at home desktop users should have a way to shut that garbage off,it just makes an insanely long boot up time even more tedious.I agree that BeOS is basically dead in the water but Linux still haaaas miles togo to even get close to the ease of use,tho I also agree that it IS improving.oh BTW I can't afford a Mac(except for my ancient powerpc) but I do have several windoze boxes around to do windoze apps on Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments