Ubuntu 12.10 released
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 18th Oct 2012 18:15 UTC
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu Ubuntu 12.10 has been released, sporting the rather... Interesting tagline 'Avoid the pain of Windows 8'. Two main features are that websites can now be treated as actual applications, integrating them into Unity. The divide between local and online content when searching has also been softened, which, they claim, makes it easier to find what you're looking for. On the server side, it includes the Folsom release of OpenStack, "Cinder, for block storage and Quantum, a virtual networking API. Ubuntu's Metal-as-a-Service bare-metal provisioning tool has been updated and now supports Calxeda hyperscale hardware based on ARM".
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RE[11]: ...
by lemur2 on Sun 21st Oct 2012 07:02 UTC in reply to "RE[10]: ..."
lemur2
Member since:
2007-02-17

"All of this took me just one reboot and about 20 minutes.


That's assuming that everything goes well and works properly after the upgrade, something I've rarely experienced with Linux. "

Why won't you Windows weenies just quit it with this type of misinformation? It get really tiring, it really does.

I repeat ... I bought a laptop for which the supplier offerred Linux pre-installed (instead of Windows) as an option. Specifically Ubuntu. I wanted Kubuntu, but the difference in desktop has no impact in terms of hardware compatibility, so this laptop is therefore one which works with Linux. The supplier certifies it.

So I bought it with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. It was running Linux when I turned it on for the first time. It works with flawlessly with Linux ... got it?

Sheesh!

These are the same conditions under which people normally deal with Windows, BTW. It comes pre-installed on a machine which is known to work with it.

Anyway, I wanted to update to Kubuntu 12.10. I obtained an .iso file, and used Unetbootin to make a live USB from that file. I then re-booted the machine from the USB.

At this point, the machine is now running Kubuntu 12.10 from the USB. The hard disk has not been changed at all as yet, but the proposed new OS is nevertheless running on the hardware. I poke around for a bit and make sure that all hardware still works with the new version of OS, as it is expected to do so. Everything is fine, so I go ahead and commit to installing the new version of the OS on the hard disk.

There is effectively zero chance that anything will go wrong form this point. The machine ran Linux from the get-go, and the new version of the OS has already been tested on my hardware before I committed to installing it on the machine's hard disk.

Sheesh!

It also slows things down when some needed software isn't available through the repositories, and has to be downloaded from elsewhere, or compiled from source.


Muon reports there are 62,964 packages available, and just 1,795 of those are installed on my 64-bit Kubuntu 12.10 machine.

http://imgur.com/HicZt

For my purposes, I have a full desktop suite installed as it is, but if I found that I did need some other desktop program that was out there available for Linux, what do you suppose are the chances that it is NOT one of those covered by 60,000+ packages I currently don't have installed?

You Windows weenies are living in fantasy-land. No-one has to compile desktop software for Linux these days. Just get a Linux distribution which is meant for the desktop (such as Ubuntu, Netrunner or Mint or even Mageia), and you will find every possible bit of decent desktop software for Linux you could ever want is covered by the repositories.

OK? Can we finally put this myth about needing to compile desktop software for Linux to bed?

Sheesh!

And of course I'd have to make sure I remembered to back up the various config files I'd had to edit to get things working when I installed the previous version. I wouldn't want to have to spend another weekend digging through howtos and Linux forums to remind myself how I fixed all the problems the last time.


What part exactly of "tested via live USB, freshly installed the OS, set up the users and the locale and the system Language, and installed a dozen applications not installed by default, in 20 minutes" did you fail to understand?

"Here is a 48 second video of someone using the Kubuntu 12.04 package manager (muon)


Package management is nice if all needed software is in the distribution's repositories. It becomes a bit more hassle when you have to search for a 3rd party repository with a particular package. "

I added the Ubuntu partner repositories, the backports repository, medibuntu, firefox-kde and getdeb repositories for Ubuntu as a part of the install. This is how I get 62,964 packages available. Doing this involves the arduous task of copying and pasting a few strings such as "ppa:blue-shell/firefox-kde" into muon. Doing this is well documented for new installation "things to do" on Ubuntu forums, and it is well within the time budget of 20 minutes.

The real problem is when the software simply isn't available for the distribution you're using. Then you have a choice between trying packages from a slightly different distribution (e.g. Fedora RPMs in Scientific Linux) and hoping for the best, or compiling software from source. Of course that often brings with it the dependency hell that plagued Linux before modern package management.


Use a popular distribution meant for use on the desktop, it will have a huge set of packages available in repositories. Faux "problem" solved.

After an hour or two spent failing to install a nice graphical utility (one that would have saved me from more time spent messing around with config file editing), extra seconds downloading an installer in Windows doesn't seem like a big deal.


FUD. I am running the Kubuntu 12.10 OS right now, as I type this, without having had to edit even one config file. All customisation (what very little has been required) has been done through the "System Settings" GUI.

http://www.kubuntu.org/docs/kquickguide/C/ch03s07.html

Please desist with outright lies and FUD.

Edited 2012-10-21 07:17 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[12]: ...
by Dave_K on Sun 21st Oct 2012 17:07 in reply to "RE[11]: ..."
Dave_K Member since:
2005-11-16

The machine ran Linux from the get-go, and the new version of the OS has already been tested on my hardware before I committed to installing it on the machine's hard disk.


In those circumstances I'm not surprised that Linux installed without any problems. Obviously I was talking about my own experiences with Linux, where I've merely bought hardware that was listed as Linux compatible, rather than buying something with it pre-installed.

Use a popular distribution meant for use on the desktop, it will have a huge set of packages available in repositories. Faux "problem" solved.


I tried half a dozen different desktop distributions on my Thinkpad before settling on Scientific Linux. It was the one where the most functionality worked after installation. For example, it was the only one where the laptop successfully entered sleep mode when its lid was closed, while the others required a lot of tweaking just to get that working. I've actually had a lot less problems with that distribution than I did with Mint or Ubuntu.

None of them had working graphical tools for things like power management, trackpoint configuration, or fan control. Even with the desktop distributions I'd have to try to compile utilities and edit config files to do things that are easy in Windows.

In my experience with Linux there's always something that goes wrong or isn't straightforward. Even when I've run mainstream distributions on my desktop there have been problems more time consuming than anything I've experienced in Windows.

Please desist with outright lies and FUD.


You may have had good experiences with Linux, but your experiences aren't universal.

I'm not claiming that everyone will have the problems with Linux that I've had. Unlike you I'm not trying to generalise my experiences and make sweeping claims based on them. All I'm saying is that my experience of Linux doesn't come close to matching the easy to use and trouble free operating system that you're promoting.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[13]: ...
by lemur2 on Sun 21st Oct 2012 22:54 in reply to "RE[12]: ..."
lemur2 Member since:
2007-02-17

"Please desist with outright lies and FUD.


You may have had good experiences with Linux, but your experiences aren't universal.

I'm not claiming that everyone will have the problems with Linux that I've had. Unlike you I'm not trying to generalise my experiences and make sweeping claims based on them. All I'm saying is that my experience of Linux doesn't come close to matching the easy to use and trouble free operating system that you're promoting. "

Sigh! Read what is being said.

If you want Linux and an easy to use and trouble free desktop operating system, you are going about it the wrong way. What you need to do is to duplicate the way you get a Windows system. You need to get hold of a system that will run Linux flawlessly. You can do this in either of two ways ...

1. you can get a Linux LiveUSB of the operating system you intend to use, and try it on the hardware you intend to use. This is not optimal, but it might work.

2. you can get a system for which the supplier is prepared to sell you Linux pre-installed. This is what you do for Windows, is it not? This is the only fair comparison, like for like, between the ease of maintenance and upkeep of desktop Linux compared with desktop Windows, BTW.

Now, once again, the distribution you choose is important. Scientific Linux is not a general purpose, ease-of-use-focussed distribution, it is made by CERN to control the LHC I believe. Hardly what a typical desktop user wants.

So, once again, to compare apples with apples, we need to compare the Linux OS which suppliers are prepared to pre-install. This is just about always Ubuntu.

Finally, the point about the number of packages available in repositories is crucial. For my Kubuntu 12.10 system, there are over 60,000 packages available in repositories. More importantly, every single package that I use on the system is available in repositories. Every single one.

This means that the single auto-updater, called muon updater, can automatically monitor all repositories, detect updated versions, notify, and update every single package on my desktop system, including muon itself.

You can't do that for Windows. Windows is a pig to maintain compared to a proper desktop Linux system.

Reply Parent Score: 2

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