Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 17th Oct 2013 22:05 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
After the customary six months of incubation, Ubuntu 13.10 - codenamed Saucy Salamander - has hatched. The new version of the popular Linux distribution brings updated applications and several new features, including augmented search capabilities in the Unity desktop shell.
Although Saucy Salamander offers some useful improvements, it's a relatively thin update. XMir, the most noteworthy item on the 13.10 roadmap, was ultimately deferred for inclusion in a future release. Canonical's efforts during the Saucy development cycle were largely focused on the company's new display server and upcoming Unity overhaul, but neither is yet ready for the desktop.
It's also the first version available for phones. Well, for the Nexus 4.
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RE[4]: Real News agout an OS
by ddc_ on Mon 21st Oct 2013 09:05
in reply to "RE[3]: Real News agout an OS"
Member since:2006-12-05
Member since:
2006-02-15
Oh, that sounds familiar!
I bought this HP laptop in 2010 or something and while it was working quite okay otherwise the soundcard was fucking horrible: every now and then it just decided randomly to try to output audio to headphone connector even when no headphones were connected or it insisted on trying to use an external microphone when there was no such thing connected. The same went vice versa, too: it insisted on outputting audio through speakers even if you had headphones connected or it insisted on using built-in mic even when you tried to use an external one.
There was no way of choosing what to use in the software, it was all supposed to be "automatic." The method how you normally choose input and output in Windows didn't work, because all the devices were collapsed into one virtual one, with no way of configuring it. There were no Microsoft-supplied drivers for it, it was a HP-modified version so reference drivers wouldn't work on it, and the HP-modified drivers were already outdated when I bought the laptop and HP never released a single update for them.
And yet, under Linux it worked just fine with whatever drivers the OS came with.
I can't even count the number of times these manufacturer-supplied 3rd-party apps have been the most-broken part of the whole deal, breaking something that would've otherwise worked, like e.g. how some manufacturers insist on supplying replacement apps for managing WIFI-networks. Sometimes I could modify the drivers so that the 3rd-party app didn't install, but the bare essentials did, and then the thing worked just fine, but also just as often the 3rd-party app was so ingrained in the drivers themselves that it would just fail inexplicably without the app, doing nothing, but running the app would hard-lock the system or BSOD it.
I don't blame Windows/Microsoft for any of these problems, though. I place the blame wholly on manufacturers doing craptastic job, skipping the standard ways of accessing things and not caring in the slightest about the result as long as their logo was visible somewhere at all times.