Ubuntu Linux 5.04–the “Hoary Hedgehog” release–came out on Friday, April 8. Is there a reason it’s #1 on distrowatch.com? Or is it not all it’s cracked up to be? Read here to find out.
Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=305&slide=2…
Quote from article:you don’t get to compile your own kernel, etc.
You don’t?
emil@rude:~ $ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 5.04 “Hoary Hedgehog”
l
emil@rude:~ $ uname -a
Linux rude 2.6.11.7 #3 Fri Apr 8 03:04:08 CEST 2005 i686 GNU/Linux
Gaaa! I have broken version then! ;-D
Oughtta be banned…
I’m looking to switch to a linux distro from freebsd. My question is would ubuntu appear “slower” (I know its more complicated than that) than freebsd since it is a binary distribution. I don’t know how conservative the package builders are about optimizations. If I switched, would this be something I would notice? With freebsd I compile everything from ports with CPUTYPE=p4 and -O2 -pipe. Do you guys think I’d be at a disadvantage moving to a binary distro compared to compiling my own programs suited to my machine? Right now freebsd lacks the HAL implementation and ati drivers which linux apparently supports. Thanks.
Damian
“It turned out that Ubuntu’s apt repositories aren’t enabled by default.”
Is this true, that all the repositories are commented out? From warty, and Hoary pre-releases, the repositories were turned on by default (the main ones, not the optional ones such as Multiverse & Universe etc).
I agree with the author that more needs to be done to inform users of the repositories open to them, I’m not sure how or if this has changed at all in the latest Hoary, but it would be good if Multi/Uni were in sources.list by default (maybe just commented out if Ubuntu wants to keep them optional).
As pointed out, UbuntuGuide.org is a great site to read through if you’ve just installed Ubuntu, which I believe also goes to show the great community forming around Ubuntu.
I had to manually edit my X configuration file to enable screen resolutions higher than 1024*768, as higher resolutions weren’t initially available in Ubuntu�s monitor configuration utility.
Is this STILL true? What a pain.
I think the snipe about the Hoary Hedgehog naming scheme is a little silly, who really cares? The naming used is fun and unusual (Linux-like
) and really matters very little in the grand scheme of things.
As for saying Ubuntu is for “all users”, I think this is wrong. Please don’t confuse Ubuntu with Mandrake and Fedora, they’re not the same, Ubuntu is a happy middle between a Desktop and a Hacker’s Desktop, maybe that’s one of the reasons it’s so popular. Basically, if you’re a brand new user to Linux, I’d suggest one of the others, Ubuntu is more for those people moving FROM Mandrake/Fedora and the like.
Um. Distrowatch is showing Ubuntu as #1 on my computer …
i am not any type of programmer, developer, NASA geek, etc. but i am plain joe with the home pc. i love linux and read the reviews on most distros, and have tried several…xandros, mandrake,and yes ubuntu. to be honest, i can’t understand why people rave about this distro. my personal favorite is linspire 5.0, it fits all my needs and my 5 year old son is able to use it without me standing over his shoulder. but, that is the beauty of linux, it’s all about choice.
If you’re installing Ubuntu for the first time, I’d recommend that you stick with sudo instead of enabling root so fast like the author of this review did. All the programs and menu entries have been set up for a sudo environment, so doing something weird like removing yourself from sudoers will lead to results that aren’t so entertaining. For extended periods of root commands in a terminal, use “sudo -s” to get a root shell. The Ubuntu site seems to be down right now, but when it comes back up, search the wiki for “RootSudo”, “root”, or “sudo” for more information.
i love linux and read the reviews on most distros, and have tried several…xandros, mandrake,and yes ubuntu. to be honest, i can’t understand why people rave about this distro. my personal favorite is linspire 5.0, it fits all my needs and my 5 year old son is able to use it without me standing over his shoulder.
I like it because it represents the future of the Linux Desktop that Gnome developers have been talking about for some time. It implements HAL and “Project Utopia” better than any other system i’ve used. More than any other distro, its design goals match up with Freedesktop.org. When Beagle and Dashboard are complete, you can bet Ubuntu will be one of the first if not the first to include them.
You don’t have to edit sources to include the additional repositories. You can “add” them in Synaptic, using the GUI. Its maybe a bit more complicated that it should be, but it doesn’t require the command line or a text editor.
If I switched, would this be something I would notice? With freebsd I compile everything from ports with CPUTYPE=p4 and -O2 -pipe. Do you guys think I’d be at a disadvantage moving to a binary distro compared to compiling my own programs suited to my machine?
Speed rarely comes from microoptimizations. Where you really win speed is in algorithmic improvements ie: the code is better. There’re some packages (the ones who have asm-optimized code paths specially) who benefit from optimizations, but for most of the software it doesn’t really matters. There’s no compiler switch that is going to make gnome/KDE magically faster.
In short, try Ubuntu. Maybe FreeBSD will end up being better for you, but it will be for other reasons, not because ubuntu is slow because of the binary packages…
I’m nuts for this distro. To me, it’s good for everybody beginners and advanced alike. I switched from gentoo because of the pressure. You break your gentoo system and it’s days of upgrading. Ubuntu has just about all the packages in Universe that Gentoo has, and if you devastate the system you’re looking at an hour, maybe two to get back to work.
The only thing I wish is that the awesome startup guide was the default page of firefox on a fresh install. Those ‘welcome to %s’ pages are totally useless, whereas actually having info about enabling extra repos and getting java/flash/etc… up and running would be a boon to newbs.
> Is there a reason it’s #1 on distrowatch.com?
Yeah, dw.com measures two things – publicity and the obsessiveness of a distro’s fanboys. It’s always getting far more credibility from the press than it deserves. Frankly, a “Which distro do you use?” poll would be more use.
“Yeah, dw.com measures two things – publicity and the obsessiveness of a distro’s fanboys. It’s always getting far more credibility from the press than it deserves. Frankly, a “Which distro do you use?” poll would be more use.”
Sure, as a poll certainly wouldn’t be effected by “the obsessiveness of a distro’s fanboys”.
“Ubuntu 5.04 provides support for suspending to disk.”
How can I use this?
There is also no root account enabled by default; according to the Ubuntu developers, this is a security measure. It’s very easy to enable a root account, just type ‘sudo passwd’ in a terminal, type your user password, then type the new root password twice. You should be able to log in as root from a terminal (you’ll have to change the GNOME preferences to log in to GNOME as root).
Last time I checked logging into GNOME as root was not the smartest thing in the world, nor really all that useful. The sudo system is about as simple as it gets for those in between being an experienced linux hacker and being tired of the hold-your-hand style of Fedora and Mandrake.
Oh, and for the record, while I personally love Gentoo and it’s flexibility, I’m stoked at the prompt “usability” of Ubuntu. Most of it, given standard hardware, just works when you needed it to.
im one of those gentoo fanboys to, but now im going to try ubuntu i need a lab machine quick att school so i dont have time to compile (its a celeron 400) , but it will be nice to se how good ubuntu is
1. I’ve heard that Ubuntu does not come with any neat system config tools like, say, YaST — I’m guessing there’s a number of offical Gnome config tools that Ubuntu comes with. Is the idea to simply keep adding Gnome config tools until they cover all the functionality of something like YaST?
2. Yeah, the “Linux for Human Beings” thing (and the name of the “Human” theme) is corny (“korny” for the KDE users out there — {ba dum ching!}). Very high on the corn scale. The scent of corn is unmistakable. Dangerously high levels of corn.
3. I’d like to see *some* mention of GNU and the FSF on their web page. Just a little nod at least. Especially since it’s based on Debian GNU/Linux.
[rant=on]
Just an aside: They have a lot of flowery talk on the Ubuntu site about “software freedom”, but I don’t think countries outside of the USA always get it. Big US companies (any multinationals) are remorseless and do *whatever* it takes to make a buck. Really. Wait ’til MS starts to feel actual discomfort due to desktop GNU/Linux and watch the force with which they will apply their vast reservoirs of cash to squash it. (I’m guessing it’ll happen via software patents.)
The whole point of free software is that the source remains free and available. It’s not about choice (which is entirely separate: you can choose free software, or not), it’s about the software (the code) being and staying free. Giving software away gratis is great. Making it available in all different kinds of languages is great. But if you care about the core of what keeps the “free software” movement alive — what keeps free software free — it’s the GPL and the FSF; and especially for a Debian-based distro, those two entities at least deserve honorable mention right on the front web page.
[rant=off]
Okay, I understand that there are distros such as Linspire, Lycoris, Xandros, etc. that are more “nOOb friendly”. However, if there’s a PPC version of any them, I can’t find it.
(Yes, I know that I could grab source and compile, but that still doesn’t gurantee a smooth install on my Pismo. Frankly, the whole thing’s about as good an idea as handling radioactive waste with an oven mitt.)
So, what makes Ubuntu kinda cool?
1) Fantastic Wikis, FAQs, How To pages, written and organized in such a way that not only is it easy to FIND The Frelling Manual, but the TMF is written for Joe User, as opposed to Joe AlphaGeekSuperUser.
1b) While I’m sure ther’ve been some flame ups worthy of busting out the marshmallows, the Ubuntu Forums are full of pretty mellow, relaxed people.
2) It’s not an everything but the kitchen sink distro. ONE browser. ONE office program. ONE text editor. ONE email program.
And the one program chosen is chosen because it just. frelling. works. Ubuntu is “Less is More” properly implimented.
(If you want everything but the kitchen sink, you gotta DIY.)
3) Gnome. Blessed, beautiful, logically organized Gnome.
(But if you like KDE, you can go get Kubuntu.)
3b) Blessed, beautiful Nautilus.
Ubuntu: Everything you need and nothing you don’t.
#1 on distro watch means what exactly? Mandrake was #1 for years then it nearly went bankrupt. All that means is a bunch of people are looking into it because there is 48 reviews a day and an flood of “try ubuntu” posts.
The distro looks fine, its the advocates I’m not so crazy about.
When all is said and done It is nothing but a distro with newer software. Your favorite distro will have all this stuff in a couple months if it doesn’t already. okay maybe they don’t have apt-get, but they might have portage, apt-rpm, yum, URPM, etc
downloaded and installed Kubuntu 5.04 earlier today…. absolute pants. won’t give me resolution above 640×480 (and no obvious way to change it) – and many default kde windows seem to be bigger than my 640×480 screen!!!!!
Won’t play any sound (Soundblaster Live 1024 (EMU101k)
Won’t detect my usb adsl modem
won’t compile the drivers for my usb modem
Looks great, but pants to use and configure!
Come on. Gnome 2.10 is going to be unusable with those specs. Even XFCE is going to have a hard time chugging along. Might as well throw fluxbox on it and call it a day.
PR buzz and page hits don’t necessarily mean quality….
but hey… if you hear everyone and their grandmother saying “oh man, this is the best distro ever”… i think it’s reasonable that you might take a few minutes to visit their page.
I moved from Hoary to Gentoo after Gnome started getting extremely sluggish after big Gnome/X11 updates. Hopefully they worked out whatever kinks they had.
I’ve got a p4 3.2, 1 gig and the only CFLAGS I use are CPUTYPE=p4 and -O2 and I noticed a big speed improvement. In fact, coupled with Epiphany I consider the 2.10 pre-release that Gentoo has to be as fast or faster as KDE on the same machine. I noticed with Hoary that I would hit the harddrive just clicking on the desktop menus for some odd reason. Remember, Hoary loads a lot of stuff up at boot time compared to lighter distros and it probably doesn’t have the fastest kernel on the block either.
Now G5 has been there for more than 18 months, does Ubuntu support sound on the G5, how is the performance of Ubuntu compared to YDL 4.01 on the G5. Does Ubuntu Hoary have 64 bit support to take advantage of the G5, anyhow one real good thing I have noticed is that there is a live cd available. Hope the guys at Ubuntu have a workaround for the sound to work on the G5. Thanks to all the developers @ Ubuntu for supporting the mac platform. Thanks guys.
Although: (I had to manually edit my X configuration file to enable screen resolutions higher than 1024*768, as higher resolutions weren’t initially available in Ubuntu�s monitor configuration utility.)
I didn’t experience that problem,every resolution from from low to beyond 1600×1200 was avaible to choose from during instalation.
Installing kde3.4 and is childsplay,(well if someone at my provider wasn’t playing BOFH all the time by unplugging the connection all the time).
Ubuntu is an realy impressive distribution,long time ago when i experienced such slickness,(Mandrake 8.2).Keep up the good work guys!
three problems for me.
1) wtf is the deal with only allowing me to run at 640×480 @ 60Hz from the config gui?
2) it automatically recognized my netgear wg311v2, but the drivers seem to be very flaky — it will see me airport network every now and then but will never connect when I try to enable it. Windows isn’t perfect here either, but is reliable most of the time.
3) after a short time, apps seem to take forever to load. I’ve got over a gig of ram, so memory isn’t a problem.
For me, Ubuntu ist just the best Distro ever. It beats everything i’ve seen except MacOS when it comes to usability.
Unfortunately this is one of the “I have to be the first” reviews. I guess the author used Ubuntu for exactly one day when I read sentences like this:
> “It turned out that Ubuntu’s apt repositories aren’t enabled by default.”
Yes, they are. Of course the complete Debian world and non-free packages are *not* enabled by default.
“They have to be enabled manually by editing /etc/apt/sources.list.”
Not true.
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/305_or/54.png
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/305_or/56.png
@ralph: That was kind of my point – even such a weak research tool would be better implies it is very bad. I wasn’t literally suggesting an alternative. You have to spell everything out to some people.
Only professional market research would give an accurate view but that wouldn’t get anyone’s attention. In the same way that “Big Brother” polls generate more excitement than national elections – that doesn’t imbue them with deeper meaning.
this “review” sounds like he was out to bash it from the start. Its full of lies, half-truths and misconceptions and it sounds like he didnt even make more than a half-assed effort. Now I’m a pure debian man myself but that whole article reeks of non-effort of the reviewers part.
Just loaded it a few hours ago. Seems rather nice, but I’ll have to disagree with the reviewer about the installer. I prefer Fedora’s nice and pretty installer over Ubuntu’s text based one. I find it more functional. Aside from that and having to select iec958 in the volume control everything else looks good to me.
The whole point of ubuntu is to narrow down the infinite choices to something more manageable. If you want more choice, choose Gentoo or just add the debian repositories.
You’re post was very difficult to understand, so if that’s not what you were talking about, I apologize.
How is linux less innovative than BSD?
this “review” sounds like he was out to bash it from the start.
Read the quote below from the article. You think he was out to bash it from the start??? Some people are really paranoid, and can’t accept any criticism at all. Clearly, it was a bad review by an idiot, but that doesn’t mean he was out to get you.
From the article:
Overall, Ubuntu: Hoary Hedgehog is a rock solid distro, and is a great choice for a user with any level of Linux experience
I’m so happy Hoary is here. For those wanting a speed increase, here are two lines that make your apps load faster:
sudo apt-get install prelink
sudo prelink -amvR
Go Ubuntu!
I don’t know exactly what you mean about not being able to run at certain resolutions/refresh rates. Ubuntu picks my monitor up with 3 seperate refresh rates and a bunch of resolutions. It is most likely the case that your monitor/graphics card have some kind of problem with DPMS and because of this xorg can not pick up your monitor’s settings. If you are aware of what specs your monitor runs at, you can manually edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and specify what modes/frequencys your monitor supports.
I also have no experience with your network card, but have played around with several network cards in Linux and Ubuntu. Many wireless card manufacturers don’t give out specs for their cards and it’s very difficult to create drivers for them. You can either get a card that is better supported(I use an orinoco based card and it is wonderfull) or alternatively you can install ndiswrapper if you have an alternate connection to the internet and with a little research you should be able to get your wireless card working with windows drivers, which has worked for me on 3 separate cards pretty much flawlessly.
Your RAM issue is a very common problem in Ubuntu and I think a stupid mistake by the developers. The default kernel install on Ubuntu only supports 900M of RAM or so, because you have over a Gig the kernel is flipping out and causing more and more havok the longer you run it for. If you are using an AMD XP/64 you can get the linux-image-k7 kernel i believe(you’ll find what i mean if you hunt in synaptic). This has support for up to 4G of RAM I believe. There are also equivilant kernels for intel CPUs, but I don’t run intel here, so you’ll have to find out exactly what kernel that is yourself. Once you do this your system will run much more stable and use much less RAM.
I personally just moved into a new apartment and am awaiting my router to be shipped here, but I’ve been running on the development releases for the last couple months and they have done a lot of nice work since the older version, the menu system has been revamped and is very nice and file sharing is also very nice now. Two things I would recommend to the Ubuntu developers though. 1: attempt to autodetect the cpu and use an appropriate kernel. Users have no idea what is causing there system to be unstable when they have over a gig of ram. 2: Add multiverse entrys in synaptic and default them to off. then give an accurate warning when they enable them. Overall though, you guys at Ubuntu rock, keep up the awesome work.
Could they have used Anaconda? for the installer why not make it as easy as possible to install their linux OS.
“A”
I’ve been running Hoary on my cheap arse lappy since before the preview release and it’s a fantastic distro, the best I’ve come across, but on the same laptop, eXPee is leagues faster on the desktop. Gnome feels like a lame horse compaired. Anyone know of some digital narcotic that might give it a boost? And while we’re discusing narcotics, what drugs are the art people at ubuntu on, so I can avoid them? Because last time I checked, dung brown was not the most favourite colour in the world
> Could they have used Anaconda? for the installer why not make it as easy as possible to install their linux OS.
They use debian’s installer (d-i) because it’s based on debian, there is talk of a graphical install in the future.
Debian does not make it graphical on its own because it supports so many different architectures.
Well, I can’t even complete a full installation. First of all, NO French Canadian keyboard support during install. Second, it failed on the Time Zone and would not install Yaboot…
Not ready for the Mac mini I guess….
Well – i’m a Libranet guy, but it’s not a bad idea to test what the opponents are releasing, so I snagged a copy of the new release of Kubuntu. My notes:
Issues.
1. Installer didn’t impress me one iota. It’s just ugly guys. Plain ugly. And not very user friendly imho.
2. kde has been butchered. Most of the Kubuntu users would never have installed kde 3.4 via apt-get and the alioth reps, so they’d have no idea. Only one choice of Icons. That’s crud. Gone are a lot of styles and window decorations. That’s crud. I couldn’t find the ability to download new themes/wallpapers etc, but may have missed it in fairness to Kubuntu. I couldn’t see the kcontrol options for setting up LISA – I triple checked and still missed it. Not good. Gone are several colours from Kubuntu. Sure, they offered kde 3.4 but it’s so heavily butchered it’s not worth it imho.
3. Very inflexible grub installation options – no option to say no to installing grub, and using another Linux distro to chainload it. Pretty crap if you ask me.
4. I’ve never liked sudo, and personally it’s a potential security risk imho. sudo has had many security issues in the past, and no doubt will have security issues in the future from time to time (the same is true of any software though).
5. I like choice. Ubuntu/Kubuntu doesn’t really offer that. It also alienates the Gnome/KDE crowd by offering a release for Gnome, and a release for KDE. When will there be a XFCE release 😉
6. Sure I can use apt-get, but there’s no guarantee of compatiblity with Debians reps. That’s a big issue to me. Interaction with other 3rd party reps? Again, another potential issue to watch for. Not everyone has a broadband connection, so updating/install applications on Ubuntu/Kubuntu is really only for those who either:
a. have a lot of time on their hands and are using dial up
b. have broadband
6. Very inflexible on file system installation. You get a choice of ext3, ext3 and ext3. Not great i’m sorry to say.
7. Didn’t install the nvidia driver, but instead used the nv driver. Not great imho. Didn’t offer to test X either to ensure that it was working OK.
8. No konsole on the kicker panel – this is simply a must. You shouldn’t have to be trolling thru the menus to find such an important thing imho – poor UI design. Desktop icons appeared to be turned off. Some like it, some don’t. I like it, and I think that the majority of people do prefer desktop icons.
9. Administrative tools for post installation?
Positives?
1. It seems snappy.
2. The installer is quick. But then, very little software is being installed.
3. Did auto pick up my other Linux o/s correctly.
4. I have the following drives in my system:
a. pioneer dvd rom drive (which gets most of the “work”)
b. sony cd-rw drive – used for burning cd-r/cd-rw disks
c. LG dvd burner – used for burning dvd-r/dvd-rw/dvd+r/dvd+rw/dvd-ram
Whilst /etc/fstab looks ok, i’m not sure if things were linked to what I wanted – ie I use the pioneer drive as the /dev/dvd device etc. Since Kubuntu is using hal/udev I can’t tell from my Libranet o/s, so I’ll have to reboot back into Kubuntu and see what it does as a live system.
5. Single CD download and install, which is nice, less to download and means a quicker install and having a system up and running quicker.
I didn’t notice any issues with X (xorg). It didn’t say it picked up my nvidia card (geforce 4 ti 4200 64mb) – which would have been comforting. See point 7 in the Issues section above.
Now – as I said earlier, i’m a Libranet guy. I’ve used 2.7 classic, 2.8.1 (my current system) – pinned to testing/unstable (sarge/sid). I’m also a beta tester for Libranet 3, which is very very near release – whilst I cannot disclose any specific details of Libranet 3 I can say the following:
1. The installer is kickass. Sexy. Simple. Flexible. It’s a custom installer, home grown design. So it’s not a Debian sarge installer rip off, or an Anaconda rip off.
2. Features – Libranet 3 has some very nice features and ideas, with more coming for Libranet 4.
3. Applications – stunning range of applications
4. adminmenu/Xadminmenu – back with a vengence. Truly kickass. If you thought the adminmenu from 2.7classic or 2.8.1 was great, you’re gonna really be blown away by the new version.
Of course, Libranet isn’t free (well 2.8.1 is). It’s not the cheapest paying Linux distro either. But it is quality, the support from Libranet is excellent, they offer pre sales/hardware questions support free of charge (how many distros do you know do that?).
And Libranet has an excellent forum. Some browsing on both the Mepis and Ubuntu forums didn’t leave me too impressed.
These are my thoughts on Kubuntu, and why it cannot seemingly sway me from my current distro – Libranet.
Dave
Well…. Im like a old-school guy…..
So i like the type of installer, that 5.04 delivers (who needs fancy graphic were something else matters???)
The desktop seems nice, and for all i can understand, it does not lack speed.
U have all the applications u need for an simple home-office computer, so if u want more then dont run 5.04 😉
Go Ubuntu, go!!!!
Forgot to tell, that i adore the choice of colour on the desktop….
Like the color of brown, ewen my windows desktop are brown…. (am i the only one in the world who think so??).
Wah?
1. How can it be made any simpler?!?
2. Can’t answer to that… I use Ubuntu, not Kubuntu because I have never really liked KDE.
3. No argument. Ubuntu purposely removes some choice from the user. That’s partly what it is about.
4. So don’t use it unless you need to. Don’t know how it is any more risky than having a root account enabled.
5. Again, no argument, but… See #3.
6. Well, that is what Debian is all about, so don’t use any other debian distributions as well.
6. Errrrr… I am running ReiserFS.
7. Ahhhh! The one item I agree with you on!!! It’s no big deal to edit xorg.conf and change “nv” to “nvidia”, but it is an annoyance.
8. Don’t use KDE.
9. I agree that system admin needs some work!
—–
1. Not too bad. Slack seems faster. But fast enough for me!
2. Agreed.
3. N/A
4. N/A
5. Single CD is nice.
—–
You lost me with “of course libranet isn’t free”. Free is why I use linux. For my not free systems I use Mac OS X (on my 3 macs
Someone else who doesn’t apparently understand what “free” means. It’s free as in choice, not beer. So, some Linux distributions you pay for, others you don’t.
1. Simpler? It’s ugly. And not particularly inducive to being user friendly imho. Simple doesn’t always equate to easy. The theory of relativity is simple, if you have a very high understanding of the concepts of theoritical maths. But it isn’t necessarily easy.
2. Since I don’t like Gnome (for a variety of reasons), obviously I wasn’t going to download and install Ubuntu 😉 Hence Kubuntu. KDE on Kubuntu is butchered.
3. That’s crap. We’re entering the ‘only install Ubuntu/Kubuntu’ territory here, rather than having the choice to dual boot and set things up as you desire. To be fair (and I was) it picked up my other Linux distro and added it to grub (correctly).
4. I suggest you look at previous sans advices – sudo has had a history of security issues. More so than a lot of other applications. Most security books i’ve read don’t recommend using it. I prefer enabling the root user, and using su to substitute user to gain root priviledges. SELinux is a much better method of controlling users (and their abilities on said Linux system) than Sudo.
5. Not my cuppa tea I guess.
6. Umm no. I think you possibly misunderstood my point. As Ubuntu/Kubuntu takes packages from sid, and then (in some instances) modifies them, there will be dependency issues, and this will potentially lead to breaking your system if you try and install from the Debian repositories. Whilst this may not happen, I think it eventually will occur. Your comment to not to use any Debian based distros left me wondering what you actually meant by that.
7. You lost count here 😉 I’ve been naughty here and should further elaborate – I chose the easy partitioning method (and actually forgot about that when posting my original post, so my apologies). Yes, if you choose custom partitioning you get the full power. Ignore my original point 7 😉
8. You lost count here again 😉 Not installing the nvidia driver might not be a big one, but it’s something that in this day and age should be done. There’s a bit more than just changing nv to nvidia in xorg.conf. Granted, it’s not really that difficult, but this is something that could, and should have been handled a lot better. Libranet has been doing this since 2.8.1. If Libranet can do it then why can’t other distros? And it’s something that many users would prefer that the installer do I suspect.
9. Same as point 2.
10. Agreed.
—-
1. I haven’t used slack in a few years, but agreed, it does seem nice and snappy. Not as snappy as freebsd, but still very nice.
2. Agreed.
3. To some it will be.
4. To some it will be.
5. Agreed.
Dave
Next time you feel the need for including false statements in your post, please try to ask yourself whether your very first impression of a linux distro suffices to express your depressing attitude.
i use xfce, aterm, and use a custom installed firefox, thunderbird, mplayer, and so on … i don’t really use the distro in that sense, i use the linux kernel and gnu tools.
however, i do like to have urpmi/apt/swaret …. and other admin tools like Diskdrake.
so if i use ubuntu with xfce … will i still be able to use such admin tools for hardware and packages? i really don’t like kde/gnome … is it better for me to stick with a distro that isn’t so gnome or kde centric?
I really don’t think you’ve used Ubuntu enough to make a judgement of it. Most of your points are plain wrong.
1 – The installer works. It works very well. As long as you can use a keyboard, it’s probably the easiest installer I’ve used. If you’ve got a blank hard drive, you can get a sane config by pressing enter a few times.
Do you seriously expect the Ubuntu developers to spend all their time working on a graphical installer that nobody is going to see more than once? There are more important issues, like getting everything to work properly. They’re aiming for a GUI installer for the next release.
2 – Kubuntu only installs a subset of KDE by default. That’s how it’s able to fit on one CD. If you want all of KDE, just install it with “apt-get install kde”
3 – I managed to not install grub…
4 – How is sudo any worse than su? If it’s set up properly, it’s no less secure than anything else. Unless there are bugs in it, but there could be bugs in anything.
5 – You can install XFCE if you like. There’s no CD for it yet, but there wasn’t a KDE-based version of it last release.
6 – Ubuntu’s repositories contain a lot of stuff imported from Debian, especially in the universe and multiverse repositories. You may not be able to just grab Sarge or Sid packages and install those, but you can’t do that on any other Debian-derived distro either, because Debian changes too quickly. Your other complaints count for all Debian-derived distros (including Libranet), and in fact most other Linux distros and OSes, including Windows. That’s just the way it is.
There are also a number of Ubuntu-specific repositories you can add.
6 (again) – I installed using JFS. I had the option to use ReiserFS or ext3 as well. There may have been others, but I didn’t check.
7 – It’s not a commercial distro, so it can’t install proprietary software by default. Libranet can, because it’s commercial. It isn’t hard to install either – just install the nvidia-glx package…
8 – Add it yourself. It takes ten seconds. However, most users would have no need of it, so it’s not there.
9 – Not in the KDE desktop, but there are plenty in the GNOME desktop. The GNOME desktop is more mature, and the KDE one is still new. Give it time.
If you want to see what Ubuntu proper can do, try GNOME instead of KDE. Kubuntu is still immature – it’s less polished than the version of GNOME included in Ubuntu 4.10, has less integration with the system, and has loads of bugs.
Why are so many people bitching about crappy KDE support? I got news for you: Ubuntu was never meant for KDE users. There’s a reason why Ubuntu releases are synced with Gnome releases, you know. One of the major strengths of this Gnome-centric distro is its strong focus on providing a polished Gnome desktop with a good selection of Gnome/GTK apps. If people want to work on Kubuntu, more power to them, but if you’re looking for a kick ass KDE experience, you’ve come to the wrong place. There are a gazillion KDE-centric Debian-based distros out there. As far as I’m concerned, Kubuntu shouldn’t even exist.
Quote: “I got news for you: Ubuntu was never meant for KDE users.”
Tell you what, would you have the same attitude if Ubuntu was the only Gnome distro, and all of the others had KDE and no Gnome? Would you possibly feel that maybe the other distros weren’t entirely balanced? I guess from your point of view, they are, since they include the Gnome desktop environment. But tell me, how is Ubuntu a good introduction to Linux when it:
1. Shows a minimum of applications
2. Shows a minimum of desktop environments.
Imagine if someone tries Ubuntu and thinks Gnome sucks and presumes that all Linux desktop environments are so bland. And they say “screw Linux it sucks”. That’s a really good way to introduce someone to Linux and open source software.
Obviously there are a lot of Ubuntu fan boys out there who feel that it’s above criticism, and anyone who makes valid critiques against it should be shot down, because you don’t want your beloved Ubuntu being “trashed”.
Dave
I still think osnews.com should ban anonymous posts.
Anyways:
1. You can get a sane config by pressing the OK button a few times as well. So, your point is? Humans a visual by nature, and text installs just don’t cut it for the vast majority of people. Try it – go out and get 100 people in the local mall to try install Ubuntu. You might be surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for the installer. Now, try a graphical based installer – you’ll find that the reaction is more pleasant.
2. apt-get install kde won’t grab all of kde i’m afraid to tell you. I’ve never seen this one command grab of all kde in several years of using Debian GNU/Linux (or Debian based distributions).
3. I could see no option to elect to not install grub. It was insistent that I had to enter a path for grub to be installed to. Maybe on a custom partition install.
4. Read my point 4 again – you just basically reiterated part of what I said. Sudo has had a number of serious escalation bugs in its history. Yes, any software can have bugs, but do you really want to chance something like sudo breaking and others having a field day with your system? Not me. Ubuntu seems to be one of the very few Linux distributions that uses Sudo, I think that speaks for itself.
5. Oh yes, I know that you can install XFCE. My comments were being sarcastic (to a point).
6. To a point yes. But remember, Ubuntu is customising these packages, and that increases the potential chances of dependency issues when using non Ubuntu repositories. Debian might change quickly, but I suspec that most other Debian based distros are more “compatible” with Debian. I’ve seen several other experienced Debian users come to the same conclusion.
I corrected the part in relation to ext3 in my 2nd post, that was an error on my part.
7. wtf? This is bullshit. Is Debian commercial? Nope. Try:
apt-cache search nvidia*
See what you find 😉 There are no limitations on installing the nvidia drivers whatsoever. This should have been point 8 by the way 😉
8. Yeah, it’s easy enough to add – if you know what to do. For those that don’t, it’s a pain. That said, Windows isn’t any better 😉
9. eh? kde is not mature? That’s bullshit as well. I’d say kde is a lot more mature than Gnome anyday. If memory serves me correct, kde was around before Gnome. In fact Gnome was started because kde wasn’t free back then (or not considered free as in GPL free).
Why would I want to try Ubuntu when I loathe Gnome [for a variety of reasons]? Sure, I could install Ubuntu and add alioth reps to /etc/apt/sources.list and grab kde 3.4, but what advantage does that give me over what i’m currently using?
It’s really amazing at the number of Gnome users who bitched about Suse being a kde centric distro (I don’t agree with Suses’s method btw). Oh, and the uproar when Peter (Slackware) decided he was going to drop Gnome from Slackware, and in fact he did (his reasoning was that gnome was a total nightmare to package). I think any decent distro should include both Gnome and KDE, and possibly the smaller desktop environments/window managers, so that the customer, the end user can try and see what they like. Any distro that just favours one desktop environment is not really showcasing open source in a favourable light imho.
It’s really amazing to see all the excuses cropping up from the Ubuntu fanboys in response to the article and to my critique on it. Excuses like ‘kubuntu shouldn’t exist’ just show the ignorance of some of the Ubuntu users.
Dave
> 5. […] When will there be a XFCE release 😉
Actually, the answer to that question is: As soon as someone creates it. Mark Shuttleworth has said in a recent interview that it would be welcome…
7. wtf? This is bullshit. Is Debian commercial? Nope. Try:
apt-cache search nvidia*
See what you find 😉 There are no limitations on installing the nvidia drivers whatsoever. This should have been point 8 by the way 😉
The nvidia packages are in the non-free section of Debian. They will never be installed by default in Debian because of their non-free status. Same goes for things like Flash and Java.
It is only the commercial Debian-based distros that install nvidia packages by default.
Quote: “They will never be installed by default in Debian because of their non-free status”
Nevertheless they are available. And Debian is being rather silly and pedantic by not including them. Ignoring things like the nvidia drivers will only drive potential new users away. Even the Linux Kernel Mailing List reports Linus thinking that Debian are rather pedantic. I’d have to agree with him on that one. If being pedantic hurts your customers/users, is that a good way to treat them? I think not.
Of course, Debian will argue that it’s not a commercial distribution, and this of course is true. It would also argue that it does not have customers, but has users. This, again, is true. Will Debian remain a viable distribution? I doubt it. Despite technical merits, Debian will not be favoured by the corporations, and it is the corporations who will drive Linux forward, not idealists. Sad, but true.
Debian has true spirits, but it’s drawback is that in maintaining those true spirits, they will disadvantage their users. And a time will come when Debian ‘pure’ will be used by very few because of that. And commercial Debianised distributions will take over, if need be forking the Debian repositories. Whether or not quality suffers as a result of this (I suspect that it will) remains to be seen.
As an example, the February edition of APC (Australian PC) had a Linux round up, Debian was included. Debian was most disfavourably looked up, and ranked the worst out of the ten or so Linux distributions rated. I disagree with many of the things that were said about Debian, but that matters not. What matters is that the normal computing populace will have read that article, and since it was damning on Debian, they most certainly won’t try Debian. They’ll go to Novell or Suse of Fedora or Redhat first. Think about that. You may say, tough shit, we don’t want those sorts of users, but if you think very carefully, users are a rare thing. You have to cherish each and every one of your users, for if you do not, they will desert you [and your distribution]. Withoiut the users, you have nothing. This is one of Ubuntus main strengths – its userbase. Many will argue that Ubuntu is Debian done right. I’m not quite sure that I agree with that statement, but it’s what the majority of people want.
As to your last comment – Ubuntu is just as commercial as anyone else. Hiring developers? That’s a commercial move if ever I saw one. If it was a true community based project, no hiring would have occurred. I’m happy to pay for commercial distributions like Libranet, because they do things, and they do them damn well.
Your argument doesn’t stop the fact that I was pointing out that the person who replied to my earlier post was wrong.
Dave
Ubuntu’s repositories contain a lot of stuff imported from Debian, especially in the universe and multiverse repositories. You may not be able to just grab Sarge or Sid packages and install those, but you can’t do that on any other Debian-derived distro either, because Debian changes too quickly. Your other complaints count for all Debian-derived distros (including Libranet), and in fact most other Linux distros and OSes, including Windows. That’s just the way it is.
The above comments make no sense. I run the relatively ancient Libranet 2.8.1, Simply Mepis, and Kanotix. All are Debian derived distros. All draw the overwhelming majority of their packages from Debian Sid. They do fine, and Libranet has done fine for years (they really need to get 3.0 out the door).
1. Installer didn’t impress me one iota. It’s just ugly guys. Plain ugly. And not very user friendly imho.
True. Ubuntu needs to get an option to choose between graphical and text installation.
3. Very inflexible grub installation options – no option to say no to installing grub, and using another Linux distro to chainload it. Pretty crap if you ask me.
True. I was forced to install Grub on Ubuntu partition even though I used Fedora Core 3 grub.
7. Didn’t install the nvidia driver, but instead used the nv driver. Not great imho. Didn’t offer to test X either to ensure that it was working OK.
Actually, you need to go on /etc/X11/xorg.conf to change “nv” to “nvidia”. I wonder why the package manager did not bother to automatically do that.
8. No konsole on the kicker panel – this is simply a must. You shouldn’t have to be trolling thru the menus to find such an important thing imho – poor UI design. Desktop icons appeared to be turned off. Some like it, some don’t. I like it, and I think that the majority of people do prefer desktop icons.
No big deal since it is possible to customize the desktop. Even Os like Windows XP does not have icon on the desktop
Small notes: I had hard time to use LVM partition on Ubuntu. The installer generated errors. I like LVM because of the flexibity.
Will Debian remain a viable distribution? I doubt it. Despite technical merits, Debian will not be favoured by the corporations, and it is the corporations who will drive Linux forward, not idealists. Sad, but true.
Who drive those companies?
I guess you are one who would say the suits,cause they give you browney points.I say the hackers make the companies we discuss here at osnews.An idealist lives for it.Who do you think has more potentiall?
A company isn’t impressed by the fast release cycle at all.They seek preferrably stabillity and not bleeding edge.
Firstly, at least get my name right!
Suits. Interesting. Suits are generally around large corporations. Smaller companies don’t generally have suits, they have a “everyone on deck” attitude. Hackers. Good point. Did Microsoft write any of its own code? Not much. Most of it has been stolen or bought. So much for the hackers…hackers will always code, because they:
1. Want attention
2. Like to show off their talents
3. Generally dislike authority, and the “corporate world”. They code for the fun ot it, not for money. It’s a challenge, a show of skills. Unfortunately, in this day and age that means very little. If a company wants to succeed they have to forgo some of the freedoms that being open source grants them. They need to provide quality products that the masses want, and can use.
Hackers are part of the equation, but not all of it. The average computer user out there doesn’t know what open source is, let alone what it’s all about. And you know what? They don’t give a shit. They want the computer to do what they need it to do, and that’s that. Nothing more, and nothing less. Proprietary software like Windows is perfectly fine – it gets the job done and brings home the bacon. Why is Linux failing to grab on the small home and business market? Maybe because the users aren’t being taken into proper consideration.
I had a interesting discussion with a developer about this – and he acknowledged that quite often, the developers don’t see or code for what the user wants. They code for the fun of it or challenge, with no ideals behind UI etc. Remember – not everyone is a hacker, not everyone has the talents of a hacker, or the patience/knowledge/understanding to be one, or use their system as a hacker would.
Dave
Wow, so much heat in here. Anyway, I’m not representing anyone but myself. I would like to say I like Ubuntu. The installer could be more “beautiful” but I can live with it.
But I do agree some Ubuntu user/supporter can be a bit overzealous. Kinda missed the earlier days when Ubuntu wasn’t a popular distro.
Just wondering how would it be like if there is something like closed-source in the car industry. Where car buyers can’t open the hood, change spark plugs or suspension or hired mechanics to do upgrades and etc.
Would there be a counter-movement such as open-source? Or car users would have just accepted closed-source? Just curious.
“When Beagle and Dashboard are complete, you can bet Ubuntu will be one of the first if not the first to include them.”
They’ll have to have a time_machine package, then, cos SUSE 9.3 is shipping with beagle 0.0.8, MDK 10.1 had beagle 0.0.1, and MDV 2005 will have beagle 0.0.8.
You do not have to install grub! Just choose “go back” and you get the option to go on without installing grub.
Why is Linux failing to grab on the small home and business market? Maybe because the users aren’t being taken into proper consideration.
If all were evaluating the pro’s and con’s of different OS’s or at least would read something substantial about it maybe i would agree with you on this one.However most PC’s are still (unfortunately) bundled with windows.A beginner or intermediate with no interest in OS’s (they are the vast majority) or whatsoever plugs the power cable ,turns the box on and uses the tool for whatever cause,with windows.They are baked in a propietary world,when a specific task has to be performed,they go to their local store and buy whatever software comes close to their cause.
The devs of “Linux” in generall take enough notice of users in generall,i think to much.Their “job” should be more the coding one and less interaction with users who are mostly brainkillers.However something could be put into place in between to fill the gap,(certainly no marketing trolls,but people with developing skills and exeptional feeling with the end-user ).
Hi.
I think this, as many reviews, is still too high level.
I have FC3 on my box, and wanted to give Ubuntu a try. I have tried 4.10 and I have installed the latest as well. I really like this distro and I would switch (because it’s one disk, ‘just works’ But ..
1. DVDrip and Transcode dependancy were not broken (it’s a hell to install)
2. Sound (SB Live! here) is distorted (even when disabling OSS emulation and esd) seems alsa is somewhat broken
3. Kb3 conflicts with realplayer (do not follow the installation guide on the web, install realplayer with the installer)
4. Xine and Totem (with libdvdcss installed) reproduce Commercial DVD in a sluggish way
Anyway, I really like this distro and once at least points 2,4 will be resolved I could really switch.
If somebody already knows how to solve points…. 🙂
4. Xine and Totem (with libdvdcss installed) reproduce Commercial DVD in a sluggish way
Totem/gstreamer still has some issues. If you have problems with Xine i would suggest you check your hdparm settings for your cd-drive.
sudo hdparm /dev/hdc
If DMA is set to off (it is on many drives since it causes problems) enable it
sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc
Edit /etc/hdparm.conf for a permanent setting.
I tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu and what more can i say …
Hate that sudo. On both it did not work at all.
Went to the forum and it seems i’m not the only
one. Tried a few fixes and it keeps saying that
i have the wrong password or that su is not enable
on the system. Never had that issue with Warty.
And the next one is the sound. I have what is mostly
common for a sound card, a SB live and it could not
manage it correctly. I had to go to the forum to fix
it.
Sorry for me i removed my Warty for this crap and now
i have to re-install it.
I know some of you think i should have upgrade to Hoary
directories, but i tried it before and i had to re-install
again.
No for me the Ubuntu story ends i’m going back to Mepis.
PS : I think fixed released dates is not a good way !!!
PS : I think fixed released dates is not a good way !!!
Ideally something should be released when it’s ready.
Hopefully, this new release will fix the dreadful USB malloc() bug. Linux users need webcams, too!
… but hardly anyone else. I cannot understand what’s great about that crippo, I even prefer using Kanotix and living with the SID bugs than using that thing.
Advanced users will find it childish, compared to gentoo or Arch.
Newbies will simply refuse to swap Mandrake Control Center or Yast for a “cryptic” sudo console.
That leaves just the pissed Debian users as a target audience- which surely explains WHY (K)Ubuntu has hit number one at Distrowatch!
I admit though that a thing so polished as Kanotix, but using the Hoary package base instead of SID should surely have a future! Such a thing does not exist yet though, so I can have a LONG break…
That leaves just the pissed Debian users as a target audience- which surely explains WHY (K)Ubuntu has hit number one at Distrowatch!
Not only pissed debian users.Ubuntu has realised the gap and responded.That’s the beauty of any non-propietary OS.If you don’t like the direction an OS is heading for,fork it and go for a different approach.Debian is clearly server oriented.Wheras Ubuntu like some other OS’s,Mandrake,SuSE,Fedora separate better between buisiness and average end-user.
There’s a ton of Debian users who just use Debian Stable for running server-class computers.
So really, I think maybe you’re talking about “pissed Debian Sid users”.
installing skype
hello all, i have just installed ubuntu over the top of my defunct SUSE installation, and now i want to install skype so i can chat with all my chums.
with suse, i d/l’ed skype > clicked “open” in the firefox d/l manager > and away it went, installed in seconds.
with ubuntu, i d/l’ed skype > clicked “open” in the firefox d/l manager > only to be presented with three files: control.tar.gz, data.tar.gz, and debian-binary
errr, just a quick question; what the effing hell are these files, and how the eff do i make them do something useful, like install skype for example…………….?
many thanks
furunculus
“And while we’re discusing narcotics, what drugs are the art people at ubuntu on, so I can avoid them? Because last time I checked, dung brown was not the most favourite colour in the world
“
The default desktop background for Hoary looks like diarrhea to me. I don’t mind the “Human” theme (browns, tans, reds, oranges), but this new background, with the bubbles, swirls, and different shades brown, gives the inescapable image of …
diarrhea.
The Ubuntu devs/packagers must have been smoking crack when they designed that desktop background. Oh well – it’s a good distro otherwise.
The default desktop background for Hoary looks like diarrhea to me
Hmm,schrinks would love to analyse those reactions.
What do you see in this picture?Ubuntu bright serene coming as the light through a lot of sh@t the world mostly is.
Remarkably some people can’t associate the colour brown with other than faecies.Or some people have a secret alliance with it.I think the standard wallpaper isn’t really so bad.
“I think any decent distro should include both Gnome and KDE, and possibly the smaller desktop environments/window managers, so that the customer, the end user can try and see what they like. Any distro that just favours one desktop environment is not really showcasing open source in a favourable light imho. “
Bingo!
I agree with this 1000%!
I think distros should feature both Gnome and KDE, as well as “lightweight” DE’s like Xfce and IceWM, so that the end user can decide what’s best for them. It also becomes a tremendous feature and convenience to have these all installed from the distro CDs, and be able to easily switch back and forth.
THis is why I tend to favor distros like Fedora and Mandrake. I’ll be trying Libranet when 3.0 is released. Libranet gets fantastic reviews, and looks really good, and it’s a full featured Debian based distro (with all the major DE’s and lot’s of other software).
Yes with Ubuntu, you can do an apt-get install kde-desktop (I’ve done so with success, when I had access to broadband). But many users don’t have easy access to high speed internet.
BTW, David, you are making a lot of very good points. The Ubuntu fans don’t like any deficiencies pointed out, but your criticisms are legitimate. No distro is perfect, and Ubuntu is no different (and I think Ubuntu is a good distro). So, keep up the good work.
“Hmm,schrinks would love to analyse those reactions.
What do you see in this picture?Ubuntu bright serene coming as the light through a lot of sh@t the world mostly is.
Remarkably some people can’t associate the colour brown with other than faecies.Or some people have a secret alliance with it.I think the standard wallpaper isn’t really so bad.”
Thing is …
I never got the diarrhea image with the default desktop background that came with Warty. That was just basic brown, with the Ubuntu name in the lower right hand corner. It was simple, warm, and pleasant.
So, it’s not the color that gives me the yucky image with the Hoary background, it’s the design, combined with the color, and different shades there of. In other words, the image comes from a combination of things.
That said, maybe I should have my reaction analyzed by a shrink! 😉
Put your money where you mouth is. People like you really shit me, you make a comment with nothing to it. How about you grow a brain?
What a sad, sad little man you are…
Changing the screen from 640×480 to bigger should be easy by opening KDE:s Control Center and browsing Devises -> Screen : There should be possible to change the resolution…
Actually you don’t have to edit the xorg.conf in order to enable the nvidia-driver. After driver and nvidia-glx package has been installed, nvidia-glx-config can be used to do that (See package description of nvidia-glx in Synaptic… 🙂 )
Umm… Ubuntu is a GNOME centric distro tailored to work with GNOME. Not KDE. It is also meant to have a small efficient set of programs and applications that are GNOME centric that get things done. As in, one media player, one mail client, etc.
Kubuntu, a side project of Ubuntu, is meant to be a KDE centric distro.
Another goal is to fit it on one CD. You can’t have KDE, GNOME, and all their programs on one CD. You are asking too much of them when their philosophy doesn’t fit what you want. If you want all the programs/etc get a box set.
As far as “Ubuntu people not liking” deficiencies being pointed out… that is far from the truth. I love Ubuntu and have pointed out CONSTRUCTIVE criticism while keeping in mind their philosophy.
You seem for them to be something they don’t want to be.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=22860&page=1&pp=10&highlig…
It’s just not any easier than thsi…
Just turn down the master volume by 1/4, then it was fine for me.
Just turn down the master volume by 1/4, then it was fine for me.
Had the same thing with my onboard sound (NForce2 AC97 stuff). Turning down the PCM to about 1/2 got rid of the distortion. I think it’s the driver that’s at fault here, with PCM at full it’s MUCH louder compared to Windows with full volumes, so I guess something is being overdriven in the hardware.
“Tell you what, would you have the same attitude if Ubuntu was the only Gnome distro, and all of the others had KDE and no Gnome?”
Why all the woulds and ifs? From what I gather, KDE-centric distros outnumber the Gnome-centric ones by a factor of about 3.
“Would you possibly feel that maybe the other distros weren’t entirely balanced?”
I feel that that actually is the case.
“I guess from your point of view, they are, since they include the Gnome desktop environment.”
Say what?
“But tell me, how is Ubuntu a good introduction to Linux when it:
1. Shows a minimum of applications
2. Shows a minimum of desktop environments.”
I’ve been reading lots of rants about how Linux distros suck because of their “everything and the kitchen sink” approach and how that makes the newcomers feel overwhelmed. Then Ubuntu comes along and I breathe a sigh of relief, “Now that ought to shut them up”. Guess I was wrong.
“Imagine if someone tries Ubuntu and thinks Gnome sucks and presumes that all Linux desktop environments are so bland. And they say “screw Linux it sucks”.”
Now imagine the same thing happening with all the KDE-centric distros targeted at newbies (Xandros, Linspire, etc).
“That’s a really good way to introduce someone to Linux and open source software.”
Indeed. I nearly gave up on Linux after being introduced to it by Mandrake 9.1, with it’s gazillion menu entries most of which only half-worked.
“Obviously there are a lot of Ubuntu fan boys out there who feel that it’s above criticism, and anyone who makes valid critiques against it should be shot down, because you don’t want your beloved Ubuntu being “trashed”.”
My beloved Ubuntu? Newsflash: I’m using Slackware with Dropline Gnome. I just don’t think that trashing a distro based on something it clearly wasn’t meant for to begin with is a “valid critique”.
“Dave”
Anton
ubuntu is lovely n’all, but i can’t actually DO anything with it. yes i’m a noob, but at least i could figure out how to install Skype and UT2k4 patches in SUSE 9.1………..!
Thanks Jeff. I made a few initial errors in my original post but corrected them in my 2nd post (how much fairer can you be?) but of course it wasn’t sufficient to satisfy the hoards of happy Ubuntu users (pun was intended btw).
Ubuntu isn’t bad at all, it’s not my cuppa tea, and for a variety of reasons. That said, I gave it a fair shot and used bandwith to download it and have a look at what all the fuss is really about, and I can’t say it impressed me. That’s just my viewpoint. That said, Ubuntu have done what Debian should have done when Woody was released. Debian is simply too slow on the uptake, and because of that it will lose popularity.
I see no reason why Debian can’t compete with the likes of Libranet, Mepis, Ubuntu, Xandros, Linspire etc etc, but sadly it appears that Debian doesn’t wish to. Debian has many, many talented developers, more than all the other Debian based distros out there, so it should be do-able. What Debian needs to learn to understand is that the majority of users will tolerate bugs – to a point. It doesn’t have to be a “kill all the bugs” approach, that is currently being used by Debian.
As to Libranet 3 – all I can say is that many people are going to be very impressed with it I suspect. It’s the quiet killer. Should be a release by the end of month all things going well. Again, it might not please Ubuntu users, it may. Who knows. Linux is about choice though.
Dave
I strongly disagree with some of the above posters comments that KDE/XFCE should be included on the default install. Part of what makes this particular distro work is simplification. I personally think one of the best things that could ever happen to linux is for either KDE of Gnome to disappear off the face of the earth. Either one – just leave a single desktop to program for, a single set of libraries to program with. The strange paradox of choice in such matters drives many potential converts away. It makes it much harder to be able to offer linux software commercially as well.
Did you not read and comprehend what I said Anton? I don’t think kde centric distros are a good thing either. Does that spell it out any clearer for you?
Quote: “Indeed. I nearly gave up on Linux after being introduced to it by Mandrake 9.1, with it’s gazillion menu entries most of which only half-worked. ”
Well it is Mandrake 😉 I had the same impressions of Mandrake 9.1 when I tried a fair while ago. It didn’t impress me one iota, but – Mandrake have done a lot of good for the Linux community, people seem to forget that and happily slag them for no real reason.
I haven’t went and counted how many distros are KDE centric, or Gnome centric, but it wouldn’t surpise me if it was heavily balanced on the KDE side. It seems to be easier to package (ask Peter from Slackware about that one – I suspect he knows a shitload more about Linux than either of us to put together), more fully featured, and more configurable. The problem with that is information overload, which is where Gnome has its audience. Both do a good job, both do it from various views/ideals/goals. I wonder how many people actually prefer Gnome to KDE and vice versa. Real, hardcore numbers. That would be very interesting to see. I still would prefer an approach that, rather than divides the Linux community, includes both, and shows them both off to prospective new users so they have choice. It seems that Ubuntu limits choice, of course you don’t have to use Ubuntu, and I don’t – because of the reasons that i’ve outlined previously.
And note – my original critique didn’t even touch on the Gnome/KDE ‘war’. It was purely on the installation/setup of Kubuntu, nothing more and nothing less. The discussion has morphed a bit 😉
Dave
“I don’t think kde centric distros are a good thing either.”
All desktop distros that feature a GUI are either KDE-centric, Gnome-centric, IceWM centric, TWM-centric, or whatever-centric. Even if simply because you have to make one of them a default. Mandrake includes (or used to anyway, I’m not familiar with the state of Mandrake today) Gnome, IceWM, WindowMaker, and a bunch of others, but it’s still a KDE-centric distro.
“It seems to be easier to package (ask Peter from Slackware about that one – I suspect he knows a shitload more about Linux than either of us to put together), more fully featured, and more configurable.”
You mean Patrick from Slackware? As a user, I don’t care if it’s easier to package, just that it’s easier to use. Not to mention that there is Dropline Gnome for Slackware users, which was a lot better than default Slackware Gnome long before Gnome was dropped fom Slackware.
“I still would prefer an approach that, rather than divides the Linux community, includes both, and shows them both off to prospective new users so they have choice.”
Which is why there are all the distros that take up 5 CDs and try to include everything you could possibly need. This isn’t what Ubuntu set out to do. The whole philosophy of Ubuntu is similar to that of Gnome: focus on good defaults instead limitless choice.
“It seems that Ubuntu limits choice, of course you don’t have to use Ubuntu, and I don’t – because of the reasons that i’ve outlined previously.”
A while back I read something that makes a lot of sense to me, can’t remember who wrote it, but it went something like this: “Linux is great at respecting the user’s freedom of choice, but not so great at respecting the user’s freedom to not have a choice”. Ubuntu fills that gap nicely, IMO.
“It was purely on the installation/setup of Kubuntu, nothing more and nothing less.”
Which is exactly what I was talking about in my original post: Ubuntu getting bad rep because its KDE alter-ego doesn’t quite live up to the standard.
Quote: “You mean Patrick from Slackware?”
Oops yes! For some strange reason I keep thinking of Patrick as Peter. I have no idea why!!!
Quote: “Which is why there are all the distros that take up 5 CDs and try to include everything you could possibly need. This isn’t what Ubuntu set out to do. The whole philosophy of Ubuntu is similar to that of Gnome: focus on good defaults instead limitless choice.”
5 CDs is overkill imho, package selection for a distro would be a nightmare that i’d hate to do. I’ve been tempted to try LFS for a few years now, but in the end i’m just plain too lazy. The problem with package selection is what I think is necessary, another person doesn’t. And vice versa.
A case in example – Libranet 3 won’t include amsn, which I think is great, and has a pretty solid download rate on sourceforge.net. If I want to use msn messenger I either have to use Kopete (yuck), Gaim (very yucky) or apt-get install amsn. I’ll take the 3rd option, but in this instance I don’t think it was good to leave out amsn. The developer(s) felt differently.
Part of the problem with offering multiple applications for certain needs is you really have be familiar with them to judge what’s worth the merit of inclusion, and what isn’t. In some ways then, it is easier to just go a minimal install, fixed applications for needs and if users don’t like that stuff them. I don’t think that’s the way to approach the problem, and nor is a 5 CD set. There has to be some happy medium somewhere.
Quote: “Which is exactly what I was talking about in my original post: Ubuntu getting bad rep because its KDE alter-ego doesn’t quite live up to the standard.”
I was critical on Kubuntu, not Ubuntu. But I did sidetrack at some latter point onto my feelings that having a single CD distro with fixed applications for certain purposes/needs isn’t a good introduction to GNU/Linux.
Dave
Just do what this page says-
http://beaglewiki.org/index.php/UbuntuInstall
And you can have Beagle in Hoary right now. Thats the advantage of Ubuntu (and the edbian in which it is based) is that its flexible.
Of course, many other distros have their own Beagle packages. Its a cool app, but I can’t wait to use it in a year or two.
“Umm… Ubuntu is a GNOME centric distro tailored to work with GNOME. Not KDE. It is also meant to have a small efficient set of programs and applications that are GNOME centric that get things done. As in, one media player, one mail client, etc.
Kubuntu, a side project of Ubuntu, is meant to be a KDE centric distro.
Another goal is to fit it on one CD. You can’t have KDE, GNOME, and all their programs on one CD. You are asking too much of them when their philosophy doesn’t fit what you want. If you want all the programs/etc get a box set.
As far as “Ubuntu people not liking” deficiencies being pointed out… that is far from the truth. I love Ubuntu and have pointed out CONSTRUCTIVE criticism while keeping in mind their philosophy.
You seem for them to be something they don’t want to be.”
IMHO, the criticisms by David Pastern, and myself, have been constructive (although mine were on the silly asthetic side, regarding the default background in Hoary).
David has brought up a lot of good points, and all he’s gotten back (mostly) is “your full of sh!t” type responses.
bman08 (IP: —.burl.east.verizon.net) – Posted on 2005-04-09 17:06:57
I’m nuts for this distro. To me, it’s good for everybody beginners and advanced alike. I switched from gentoo because of the pressure. You break your gentoo system and it’s days of upgrading. Ubuntu has just about all the packages in Universe that Gentoo has, and if you devastate the system you’re looking at an hour, maybe two to get back to work.
Thank you for summing up my move from Gentoo -> Ubuntu perfectly! I have tried to explain it, but have never succeeded as well. It’s spot on. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gentoo, and really enjoyed it, but long term I want to *use* my system more, instead of constantly fixing it. I realize that breaking it is my fault, but with Gentoo I’m simply too tempted. In Ubuntu I do a full system upgrade and it all *just works* thanks to it’s Debian heritige.
mL
1. Installer didn’t impress me one iota. It’s just ugly guys. Plain ugly. And not very user friendly imho.
it is debian-installer. i dunno, it does the job. not as good as the slack installer, but a hell of alot better then the graphical ones out there.
2. kde has been butchered. Most of the Kubuntu users would never have installed kde 3.4 via apt-get and the alioth reps, so they’d have no idea. Only one choice of Icons. That’s crud. Gone are a lot of styles and window decorations. That’s crud. I couldn’t find the ability to download new themes/wallpapers etc, but may have missed it in fairness to Kubuntu. I couldn’t see the kcontrol options for setting up LISA – I triple checked and still missed it. Not good. Gone are several colours from Kubuntu. Sure, they offered kde 3.4 but it’s so heavily butchered it’s not worth it imho.
this is the FIRST kubuntu release, and it was kinda rushed out the door. if you take that into consideration, its not that bad.
3. Very inflexible grub installation options – no option to say no to installing grub, and using another Linux distro to chainload it. Pretty crap if you ask me.
I havent ever tried to dual boot it, so I couldnt say one way or another. something to keep in mind with ubuntu, it is still new, it still has warts, and requires basic linux knowledge to use.
4. I’ve never liked sudo, and personally it’s a potential security risk imho. sudo has had many security issues in the past, and no doubt will have security issues in the future from time to time (the same is true of any software though).
sudo is also installed by default on most distros. ubuntu just uses it like osx. it means one less password to remember, and disabling root login is a bonus to security.
5. I like choice. Ubuntu/Kubuntu doesn’t really offer that. It also alienates the Gnome/KDE crowd by offering a release for Gnome, and a release for KDE. When will there be a XFCE release 😉
many, many, many, many linux users disagree with you, and see the “include everything and the kitchen sink on a 20 disc set” as the old way of doing things. consider ubuntu half desktop, half DIY distro and you will be on the right track. It is supposed to install a usable set of sane defaults, and let you grab whatever else you want via synaptic.
and mark shuttleworth has said he is just waiting for an ubuntu-xfce 😉
6. Sure I can use apt-get, but there’s no guarantee of compatiblity with Debians reps. That’s a big issue to me. Interaction with other 3rd party reps? Again, another potential issue to watch for. Not everyone has a broadband connection, so updating/install applications on Ubuntu/Kubuntu is really only for those who either:
if you dont have a broadband connection, i would say any debian based distro would be a bad choice, as a slow apt-get kinda defeats the purpose. i would say ubuntu has about 90%ish debian compatibility, i have run into one or two snags, but nothing major. and those snags tend to come from outside repos, not the sid snapshot that is hosted by ubuntu. if you actually used it, you would see this is pretty much a non-issue.
6. Very inflexible on file system installation. You get a choice of ext3, ext3 and ext3. Not great i’m sorry to say.
right now when it comes to filesystems for desktop use, its usually either ext3 or reiser4. remember, ubuntu is going the way of doing one thing well as opposed to doing everything ok.
7. Didn’t install the nvidia driver, but instead used the nv driver. Not great imho. Didn’t offer to test X either to ensure that it was working OK.
again, it is all over the documentation, and a google i feel lucky could get it for you. nvidia is an apt-get away.
8. No konsole on the kicker panel – this is simply a must. You shouldn’t have to be trolling thru the menus to find such an important thing imho – poor UI design. Desktop icons appeared to be turned off. Some like it, some don’t. I like it, and I think that the majority of people do prefer desktop icons.
once again, kubuntu really is not ready for release.
9. Administrative tools for post installation?
about as much as debian.
[i]
Whilst /etc/fstab looks ok, i’m not sure if things were linked to what I wanted – ie I use the pioneer drive as the /dev/dvd device etc. Since Kubuntu is using hal/udev I can’t tell from my Libranet o/s, so I’ll have to reboot back into Kubuntu and see what it does as a live system.
HAL tends to muck alot with fstab, but my experience so far has been that now, i dont have to. its a nightmare for administration though
I didn’t notice any issues with X (xorg). It didn’t say it picked up my nvidia card (geforce 4 ti 4200 64mb) – which would have been comforting. See point 7 in the Issues section above.
ubuntu is done with a philosophy similar to redhats or debians regarding free software. but installing nvidia requires an apt-get, and a dpkg –reconfigure xserver-xorg. i would call that relatively painless. where things get interesting is the ati fglrx driver, which seems to only work on the 386 kernel, and theres some issues with it on nforce2 mobos. but thats par for the course for ati. all in all, it has some of the easiest 3d accel installs from the truely free distros i have tried.
1. The installer is kickass. Sexy. Simple. Flexible. It’s a custom installer, home grown design. So it’s not a Debian sarge installer rip off, or an Anaconda rip off.
so anyone using opensource software they didnt write is “ripping” someone off? i think you need to visit http://www.gnu.org.
2. Features – Libranet 3 has some very nice features and ideas, with more coming for Libranet 4.
my experience of libranet is that its sid with a few kludgy config tools. i would like to hear the features that arnt debian or adminmenu.
3. Applications – stunning range of applications
any outside of debian sid?
4. adminmenu/Xadminmenu – back with a vengence. Truly kickass. If you thought the adminmenu from 2.7classic or 2.8.1 was great, you’re gonna really be blown away by the new version.
adminmenu is ok, but i wouldnt put it over mandrakes drakx, and about on par with the redhat-config stuff.
Of course, Libranet isn’t free (well 2.8.1 is). It’s not the cheapest paying Linux distro either. But it is quality, the support from Libranet is excellent, they offer pre sales/hardware questions support free of charge (how many distros do you know do that?).
the ubuntuforums are second only to gentoo. of course, we are talking community support, but ask anyone who has used gentoo for awhile how much support they could possibly need that the forums dont cover.
And Libranet has an excellent forum. Some browsing on both the Mepis and Ubuntu forums didn’t leave me too impressed.
That would be because you are a zealot, and have been saying how much ubuntu sucks to anyone who would listen since the project was first announced. the libranet forums are about on par with linspire, the amount of quality documentation comming out of the ubuntu forums is just staggering.
These are my thoughts on Kubuntu, and why it cannot seemingly sway me from my current distro – Libranet.
Well, I would try it in another year or so if I were you, this release of kubuntu just isnt done yet.
ubuntu has a very nice description here
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/licensing
debian has one here
http://www.debian.org/intro/free
redhat has one here
http://www.redhat.com/about/mission/opensource.html
to you, free software may just mean a free lunch. to the vast majority of people who write it, it means a return to the origional ideologies and methodologies that birthed the industry.