This article in Linux Journal focuses on Ubuntu and positions it as an enterprise player. Will English speaking North Americans accept it as a viable product? Certainly, it has appealed to the emerging world’s economies and in short order – less than one year.
Linux in Government: Linux Desktop Reviews, Part 6 – Ubuntu
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
“The Ubuntu distribution uses Debian as its base, as does Xandros and Linspire. Debian-based distributions have not impressed me in the past. However, Ubuntu combines the stability of Debian with the leading-edge features of RPM-based distributions such as JDS, Red Hat and SUSE. Therefore, I see Ubuntu as the best of both worlds.”
OSDir: http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=305&slide=2…
not only the stability of Debian and not only the leading edge features but also a great community with tutorials/tips/facts/howtos regarding those items not in the box, that will have you up and doing serious competing with your winxp.
Is the finest Linux desktop I have used to date, and I have used ALL of them. 🙂
I have to say after using Ubuntu, I was really impressed, so far only Mepis,Ubuntu, and OSX have all the features, and stability that I look for in an OS. What makes it more impresive is that its free, (free as in been and free as in speech), and it has one of the best comunities behind it that I’ve seen so far!
Hope they keep up the good work.
$distro is the best! I’ve tried them all, but $distro is not only the finest Linux desktop, but $distro has also a great community! And on my computer $distro is also a lot faster than Windows XP. Kudos to the $distro developers!
http://www.ubuntuguide.org yeey nice collection of guides, lessens the setup time of newly installed ubuntu for desktop
ian of debian complained, maybe the leaders of the others will complain that ubuntu is harmful to them too?
Ian complained, he and his wife are Deb Ian. Ubuntu should be harmful to Debian, it’s the most stagnant OS in history. 🙁
Ubuntu should be harmful to Debian, it’s the most stagnant OS in history. 🙁
Not at all. Ubuntu is only “stagnant” for six months and then you can upgrade all your installed software with the new release. Actually six months is a very fast release cycle — few GNU/Linux distros release that often.
Not at all. Ubuntu is only “stagnant” for six months and then you can upgrade all your installed software with the new release. Actually six months is a very fast release cycle — few GNU/Linux distros release that often.
Uh, he was talking about Debian which has been quite stagnant lately.
I had intended to imply that Debian was the most stagnant OS in history.
Oh, I see. I thought you were commenting the topic of the article but you were just off-topic trolling and bad-mouthing other distros. My bad.
I really do think it’s time for people to stop commenting about how great/crap it was for them. It’s like marmite; you either love it, or hate it
Did your feelings get hurt?
How long was it between Debian release cycles again? Some of the biggest names in the Linux world are telling the people responsible for Debian to get it in gear. It’s not a troll, sorry if you don’t like it.
I’ll give Ubuntu another go ’round when the XviD support is working without an endless amount of fiddling. It’s far and away the best distro I’ve found.
Long live DEBIAN!!!! but is debian going to be renamed woody since it seems to be the only release they are ever going to have! going on what….about three years now!!! wasnt woody 2002? that is a bit much, with no incremental releases or anything! love debian but come on…
And that’s why we have Ubuntu (-: Debian with a decent if not hectic release schedule and user friendliness. What more could you want. Debian main has stagnated into its respective branches and hasn’t moved from them in a while but that is not to say development has stagnated. Only the official stable releases.
Hell, I might even decide to try Ubuntu again after flirting with Arch again. Ubuntu 5.04 beta just worked with minimum of fuss and I have yet to see anything like it with Arch which I can’t get ESD up and running on my hardware.
Marmite is soooo good!!!
Ubuntu is pretty good too. A bit of work to set up but there are good guides and a great community.
So another load of Gnome screenshots then. Great.
There does seem to be a theme emerging relating to ESD and sound in Ubuntu – esd works well but then you can’t play mp3 via XMMS or use Audacity – if you kill esd then this stuff works but you lose other features – not good!
Kubuntu doesn’t seem to suffer form this ‘cos it doesn’t use esd
I believe Hoary uses Polyaudio by default not ESD
They planned to switch to Polypaudio, but due to various problems they decided to revert to ESD in Hoary. Hopefully ESD will be gone in Breezy.
http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2005-March/005336.htm…
Funny, i see you post your sermon all the time. You know, just because you keep telling this stuff it doesn’t make you not a troll.
Whatever, i’m sounding like a broken record myself.
>>How long was it between Debian release cycles again? <<
What kind of question is that? But i guess this is the root of your problem. Debian hasn’t a release cycle, they do a stable release when it’s done. Get over it or use another distribution with a release cycle.
>>Some of the biggest names in the Linux world are telling the people responsible for Debian to get it in gear.<<
Care to mention one by name? And concerning “the gears”: today i have had an update of 27 MB on a pretty basic Debian SID machine. Things are in gear, there’s just no movement where you are looking (which, to be honest, doesn’t surprise me a bit).
>> It’s not a troll, sorry if you don’t like it. <<
Well, Debian is rather slow on the stable front, nobody’s denying that, but you are still a troll because you don’t have a clue how Debian works.
Back to topic:
I was not too fond of Ubuntu but the 5.04 release actually is nice. A few colleagues and friends (of the i-don’t-care-as-long-as-it-works-kind) of mine are running Ubuntu on IBM Thinkpads T21s and T22s. They have no problems whatsoever, but i had to help to setup the Lucent WinModems in these devices.
That said, i would consider to use Ubuntu in our company (about 40 persons, some doubling as IT) if any hardware change was in order. This is not the case, so we stay with a wild hodgepodge of MS Windows 98-XP workstations and GNU/Linux and Netware servers.
I love Ubuntu and here’s why…
My boss’s laptop wouldn’t boot and had only a blinking cursor, no safe mode even (Win me on an older HP Omni, yuk)… I reached for my now dated Warty Ubuntu live CD, booted it, networked into the server, transfered all his files… Erased the HD and re-installed his OS only this time dual-booting with the newly downloaded Ubuntu.
Now it’s the talk of the office..That and why he held onto a Win Me machine for so long, possibly the worst OS ever.
Excuse me but I’m getting misty eyed just recanting the tale.
MrX
i swear to be a loyal debian follower and never again speak bad of my fav distro…. the mothership ….
long live debian….
yea, they are actually trying to get infrastructure in place and plans made to be a well oiled machine, or as well oiled as they can be, it is tearing me up having to wait on sarge sooooo long! Actually I could look around and see if anyone is selling the sarge cd sets…thats a thought! I wonder if anyone has bothered?
I actually love woody but it takes sooo long to get everything tweak and configured, I just want something that already has some of the stuff I like to use and would like something newer than a 2.4.18 kernel.
Heck, I dont know, guess i am just bitchin to be bitchin! I want “real” debian with the debian goodness and everything working the way it should. Where I pick exactly what I want or do not want installed and/or running. I want to be able to install over the network from a floppy boot since I have a laptop with no cd drive! I want to be have all 10000 packages sitting on a local machine since I am dialup and do not want to hit the net everytime I want a package and/or a reinstall. I want to be able to reinstall everytime I get a wild hair and want to try some different configurration. I want to run the same os on my server that I do on my 300mhz laptop all the way to my 2.4ghz desktop and 2ghz laptop. I want a simple install of fluxbox, firefox,and a few odds and ends that only takes up a couple hundred meg install or a whamo install where i have everything installed including tons of stuff i have no intention of using and just havent even heard of
whaaaaaa…… i want my debian!
nuff said!
“Kubuntu doesn’t seem to suffer form this ‘cos it doesn’t use esd’
No, it suffers from an affliction called artsd. The same problem exists there as well. You will need to kill esd or artsd when switching apps if you have a cheapie sound card. This is not an Ubuntu thing. This is a Linux sound driver thing. It has come many miles in the recent years, but I’m afraid that it still has many miles to go.
How long was it between Debian release cycles again? Some of the biggest names in the Linux world are telling the people responsible for Debian to get it in gear. It’s not a troll, sorry if you don’t like it.
Personally, I don’t really see that much of a problem. Debian is ultra-stable, and Ubuntu takes up the slack for those wanting an up-to-date system.
I just don’t see why every distro needs to be everything to everyone. For my needs, admittedly, I go with Ubuntu, but obviously some people want the ultra-stable set of packages, or why wouldn’t debian be more up-to-date?
“today i have had an update of 27 MB on a pretty basic Debian SID machine.”
So what, exactly, does this have to do with the state woody? This is the only part of your post that sounds like a broken record. “Debian is fine – more advanced than most actually – my sarge/sid install is the bomb!” Please go install woody, and then how how you feel about its viability as a sweet, sweet desktop.
I love debian. The problem is *not* with their product. The problem is with their process.
The problem is *not* with their product. The problem is with their process
Don’t they go through the process to get to the product. I mean its the process that makes the product. The quality and type of the process determines the quality and type of product.
“$distro is the best! I’ve tried them all, but $distro is not only the finest Linux desktop, but $distro has also a great community! And on my computer $distro is also a lot faster than Windows XP. Kudos to the $distro developers!”
Best comment on an OSNews Linux Distro thread, ever!
It should be the “boiler plate” comment for all OSNews posters who want to gush over their favorite distro.
The shell script variable is perfect. Insert fav distro there.
Don’t forget that $distro is suited for both desktop and server environments.
not to mention both for aunt tilly, and for a fortune 500 production environment.
@ Father Baker
Thanks for that, I’d seen some reference to artsd causing probs in K but didn’t realise it was specific to sound cards – that being the case I may well try a different card and disable to onboard AC97/RealTek as I really do prefer the Gnome-Ubuntu world.
bin
Of all the distros I’ve tried, Ubuntu is, hands down, exactly what I’ve been looking for all these years. Ease of installation, updating, and configuring. It helped that I’ve got several years of hair pulling, teeth gnashing experience in Linux. But all in all, this distrubution is the one for old hands as well and newcomers of Linux.
I’ve dabbled, and I emphasize ‘dabbled’, in debian based distros before. Ubuntu has made a believer out of me. To the point of doing a net-install of Sarge on a testbox. Still playing with that. Since I’m experimenting with ‘True Debian’, I’m even thinking of playing with SID if only I could figure out how to do that.
To get back to the subject: A hobbiest distro is not quite the way to discribe Ubuntu. Just because it’s easy to install and configure doesn’t mean it’s not for power users.
One last thing: As solid as Debian is, it just has to get the lead out and get with the porgram. It’s lagging too far behind.
Wow…. I’ve heard many reasons for not using a certain distro and have used many of them myself but had never expected to see anyone use racism as an argument.
My first thoughts are to be appalled but I’m also slightly impressed with the imagination and outlandishness (is that a real word) of the statement !!!
I feel dirty hmmmmmm
ESD should release /dev/dsp after a short time if there are no sounds playing. The problem is that the default Hoary /etc/esound.conf isn’t great and if ‘Sounds for events’ is on then there is never enough time between a shortcut being clicked and the ALSA/OSS program starting up. The program finds /dev/dsp is locked, so you get no sound.
Other programs that suffer are things like Frozen Bubble, Wolfenstein ET, basically anything that doesn’t use ESD.
Fix by turning off ‘Sounds for events’ and adding -as 2 to /etc/esound.conf options (Reduce delay in releasing /dev/dsp).
It’s odd the way that sound has always been difficult on Linux. Makes you wonder what would have happened if there’d been no XFree86. Multiple sound servers AND multiple graphics servers…nasty
I was a big rpm believer/hacker/programmer back in redhat 7.x days but came to view apt as a better solution, something change? I know debian may get a little stale between releases but on the upside they screw it up a lot less frequently than other distros.
that guy trolls all over the place. best thing to do is click “report abuse” and ignore him. worst thing you can do is take him seriously, people like that are kinda like annoying children, ignore them and they go away.
i deleted windows and installed ubuntu on my home pc. i been playing enemy territory. on an ATI card. 3d was working right out of the box, i diddn’t have to install anything else. it just worked.
my wacom tablet works after adding the configuration lines to the xorg.conf file. and the tablet works BETTER than it ever did in windows. it just updates much faster.
Gnome is quite nice.
and with ubuntu forums backing me up with quick answers to my questions, learning linux was much easier. Im very glad i switched to ubuntu.
“I was a big rpm believer/hacker/programmer back in redhat 7.x days but came to view apt as a better solution, something change? I know debian may get a little stale between releases but on the upside they screw it up a lot less frequently than other distros.”
RPM is not equivelant to apt. RPM is equivelant to DEB. These are the base package management systems for Red Hat and Debian, respectively, and distros based on them.
Apt is a dependency resolving (among other things) front end for DEB. YUM, urpmi, and apt4rpm are all dependancy resolving (among other things) front ends for RPM. And frankly, YUM, urpmi, and apt4rpm are all pretty much as good as apt is. And RPM is pretty much as good as DEB is.
I’ve used apt in both Mepis and Ubuntu, along with Synaptic, and love it. I’ve also used YUM in Fedora Core, and urpmi in Mandrake (with it’s awesome graphical front end, RPMDrake), and I love those as well. All of these work great.
So don’t say apt is way better than RPM – they are two completely different things.
What you can say is that apt has been around a lot longer than YUM, urpmi, and apt4rpm all have. For a long time, RPM did not have a good dependancy resolving front end, like DEB did with apt. That is why people mistakenly compare RPM to apt.
Debian very early on developed apt, and that has been one of it’s big selling points over the years. Now it is not as big of a selling point because now all RPM based distros have either YUM, urpmi, or apt4rpm.
All that said, apt is the most mature, and has the most features. And if you stay with pure Debian, and stay with one of the main releases (stable, testing, unstable – don’t mix and match), you can do complete system upgrades without too many problems (testing to unstable, for instance). YUM, urpmi, and apt4rpm don’t do complete system upgrades very well.
However, for software updates and installing new software, YUM, urpmi and apt4rpm are all as good as apt.
So I suggest, Sphinx, that you give an RPM based distro another try, and utilize YUM, urpmi, or apt4rpm. They get rid of RPM “dependency hell” and make updating and installing new software an absolute snap, just like apt does.
In my previous post, I mentioned the “DEB” package management system. It’s actually called dpkg, and it’s file extension is .deb
And, of course, apt is the dependency resolving front end / extension fot dpkg.
Don’t worry Matt, I certainly wasnt taking him seriously…….. !!!
I see the post has been deleted which is what it deserved, it was my own peverse sense of humour that found it slightly amusing for which I appoligise.
As to Ubuntu, I have my own reservations about Linux as a desktop OS but I assure you this is just down to end user experiance and nothing to do with any political stance.
I was running Ubuntu on this lappy for a couple of months but for me, there were a number of MS apps that I like to use with no direct Linux replacment for.
MS has a comfort factor on the desktop that Linux can not replace at this moment.
By the way, Debian rox server side and I wont hear a bad thing about it *nuff said* !!
Guys, if you find that Ubuntu is great, don’t forget to support them by donation. You can donate using Pay Pal at their main website. Really, we need to show them our appreciation for such a fine effort.
Long live Ubuntu,
Death to Linspire.
For the most part, I like Hoary. The only problem I have had is when playing any kind od audio/video material. The sound does not stay in sync with the video. On the exact same hardware(Thinkpad 570 with Crystal 4614 sound), Warty did a fine job. Is there some setting I need to look for, or do I just have to wait for Breezy to watch videos again under Ubuntu?