Linux Magazine has a profile of Daniel Fore and the Elementary project. Elementary is a Linux distro that's committed to a clean and simple user experience, but it's more than a distro - it's actually a multi-pronged effort to make improvements to the user experience for a whole ecosystem of components, including icons, a GTK theme, Midori improvements, Nautilus, and even Firefox. The work that elementary is doing isn't limited to their own distro, and some of their work is available in current, and perhaps future, Ubuntu releases. The results are really striking, and I think it's probably the handsomest Linux UI I've ever seen.
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Member since:2005-08-12
Actually, it wasn't a personal attack, it was an observation based on the fact you offered up an "answer" that did not, in any way, shape or form provide a solution to the issue discussed.
In fact, you just did the exact same thing *again* with this reply and proved my point in the process. Sidux is a HORRIBLE example to bring to the table as it's yet another "rolling-release" distro, based on the "unstable" branch of Debian.
So, it's not a matter of not knowing what I'm talking about, it seems you don't comprehend what I'm saying (or are intentionally ignoring the crux of the problem). Seeing as most of the other people I've been conversing with in this thread do "get it" - whether they consider it a detriment to their personal usage or not, then I can only suggest yet again that you start reading from the beginning. I'm not going to repeat myself and I've already provided clear real world issues with the way distros handle this. I don't need to link to forum complaints as I've experienced everything I've said first hand, time and time again, across multiple distros since I first began testing Linux in the 1990's. Other than band-aids here or there, it really hasn't improved that much since the advent of repositories.
When all Linux can offer up to this are PPA's and rolling releases, it's a mark of just how far behind "desktop Linux" really continues to be... If you're happy with that, more power to you, but it has made Linux unsuitable to my own needs or my clients.
Member since:2006-11-12
I see nothing but vague, general statements and a refusal to support them with facts.
By the way, Sidux is not a rolling release, and the fact that it works so flawlessly as a distro based on Debian unstable pretty much proves my point on the lack of upgrade problems with Linux.
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move."A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane."MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Member since:
2006-11-12
Personal attack... okay.
I'll tell you what I am reading -- I see a lot of vague conjecture without any hard facts to back it up.
I'm sorry but I don't think you know what you're talking about. There is a great variety in basic methodology of Linux distros.
Furthermore, I have noticed that the only supporting arguments that you provide seem to focus on Ubuntu, and even those assertions lack solid detail and links to actual forum complaints. It is a fatal flaw to assume that Ubuntu is the whole of Linux. Ubuntu and its derivatives make up only a small fraction of the many, varied Linux distros.
Ubuntu might have the few package manager problems that you mention (I wouldn't know, having never really used it that much). However, most other distros do not have such problems, and that includes the non-Ubuntu Debian-based distros.
I can tell you from first hand experience that the repository of my 2009-01 version of Sidux continually and actively updates its packages. I do an apt-get update every week or two, and I have to wait for it to finish updating. Never had any problems with an upgrade from the sidux repos.
In addition, I use non-sidux repositories, with almost no trouble. The independent Debian Multimedia repository ( http://debian-multimedia.org/ ) is updated daily. Certainly, there will be occasional problems when changing builds on a daily basis, but I recall having only one upgrade problem with a package from this repository, using sidux, and it was automatically fixed when I upgraded the package a few days later.
Any distro base on Debian Sid will have very recent versions in the repo.
Also, there are plenty of other non-Debian, cutting-edge distros which have no problem upgrading packages to the latest version. Fedora, Arch, Gentoo immediately come to mind, but there are many others.