MadPenguin takes a look at Flight 5 of Ubuntu Dapper, and concludes: “All in all, Ubuntu 6.06 is gearing up to be quite an impressive release. Granted, I saw some bugs during my stay on the distribution, but can I really complain? It’s not a full release, so it deserves some breathing room. Considering some of the horribly authored software I’ve looked at over the years, I feel that Ubuntu in pre-release form is more stable than other distros when they reach final release status. It’s not quite in the league of Slackware and Red Hat/Fedora in that respect yet, but it’s surely getting there in a hurry.”
It’s still far away from a distro like Slackware which is much more powerfull and I certainly would not pay for it like the reviewer says he will.
Sure, it’s a nice distro for the average homeuser that is new to linux and wants everything done with wizards, but once they get more experienced they will move to another distro.
Ubuntu is a very overhyped linux distro, nothing more nothing less.
It’s popularity was made by throwing with a lot of cash, not because it differs from other distro’s in a great way.
The headline should be “First Look: Ubuntu Linux 6.06″… … and it’s on flight 6 already
Ubuntu is a very overhyped linux distro, nothing more nothing less.
It’s popularity was made by throwing with a lot of cash, not because it differs from other distro’s in a great way.
did you even READ the article?!?
Sure, it’s a nice distro for the average homeuser that is new to linux and wants everything done with wizards, but once they get more experienced they will move to another distro.
It is also nice for for people (like me) who’ve been using linux for 6-7 years (and other *nix OS’s before that), tried just about every distro out there, has worked as a linux sysadmin for several companies, has done just about any configuration setup you can think of using vi and /etc and just wants a simple solid workstation OS that works with a minimum of fuss.
Sure, it’s a nice distro for the average homeuser that is new to linux and wants everything done with wizards, but once they get more experienced they will move to another distro.
Really? I’ve been using ubuntu since Warty/Hoary time and never have I used a wizard for anything. At all.
I don’t really think there are any wizard/gui configs for ubuntu. I moved to ubuntu from Mandrake, where everything was gui-driven, and I had a hard time having to write scripts to run my ADSL modem at boot-time with a custom firmware, and having to set up samba/dhcpd manually was hard for someone from the ‘wizard’ environment. You just show with comments like this that you don’t use/(probabally) never have used ubuntu.
I think it’s a great transitional OS for people inbetween Linspire/Mandrake and Slackware/Gentoo
And I hate seeing people so violently opposed to a distro like this, we’re all comrades in the OSS arena, no need for this ‘ubuntu r t3h suxxors’ attitude, which, as far as I can see, is simply jealousy that it’s such a popular distro with strong active development…
Sure, it’s a nice distro for the average homeuser that is new to linux and wants everything done with wizards, but once they get more experienced they will move to another distro.
Ubuntu is a very overhyped linux distro, nothing more nothing less.
It’s popularity was made by throwing with a lot of cash, not because it differs from other distro’s in a great way.
I agree with some of your sentiments. The first two official releases were nothing more than hype and there were many distros out there that were more user friendly and technically superior. Dapper however, appears to be shaping up into a really good distro.
What Ubuntu has done well, is market its product to a broad range of people. This has resulted in many more people getting interested in Linux. This a good thing for Linux and opensource because it shows others that there are alternatives to MS. Obviously having the cash to market and promote your product does help.
Many advanced Linux users may not be too keen on Ubuntu but its simplicity and wizards is good for people making the switch from other OSes like Windows and MAC. I probably won’t use it but I am getting more confident in recommending it to others.
Sure, it’s a nice distro for the average homeuser that is new to linux and wants everything done with wizards, but once they get more experienced they will move to another distro.
Um no.
OS X does everything for me with wizards. You will pry it out of my cold, dead fingers. It works for me. I don’t work for it.
The people who want to go rooting around in the underbelly of their OS is about 2% of the masses. I want to learn shell scripting about as much as I want to learn the ins and out of my fuel injector and timing sequences.
>Sure, it’s a nice distro for the average homeuser that is new to linux and wants everything done with wizards, but once they get more experienced they will move to another distro.
I can’t hear this arguments any more. It’s the same if people referring to GNOME as the “average homeuser” Desktop and KDE or a “cool” windowmanager like openbox for the professional user.
Professional user doesn’t want to play the whole day with the system they want to work with the system. The difference between the “professional user” and the “average homeuser” is not that the professional user want to tinker the whole day on the system and the average user want to work. Both want to work! The difference is what they do with their machine.
I’m using GNU/Linux for many years. In my first years it was fun to try different distributions, WMs/DMs, work with Debian unstable… But by and by i just want a system that works so i can focus on the really exciting tasks and i switched to a “ready to work” distribution (fedora). With Drapper i will probably give Ubuntu a try because i liked always Debian, deb etc.
I just moved from gentoo (after about 2 years) to kubuntu on my laptop this weekend – still using gentoo on my desktop and servers. I wasn’t expecting much, as I became disillusioned with binary distros a long time ago, but I have to say I’m very impressed.
I’d say you clearly haven’t used it, and don’t understand what a “powerful” distribution is. Ubuntu is just as “powerful” as gentoo, because it’s … a linux distro. It’s got the same scripting environments, the same tools, and the same kernel as gentoo.
You can get down and dirty with init scripts just like you can in gentoo, or you can not worry about them and run with the distro as is. Up to you. But don’t judge a distro based on some perceived ‘l33t’ value. All distros are as ‘l33t’ as you want to make them.
Slackware is ancient. I’ve never understood those who said that Slackware is more “stable”. Linux is inherently stable, and as long as you don’t load a distro with junk you don’t need (I’m referring to desktop stuff like Gnome, X11, KDE, etc) Linux is rock solid. Slackware has no formal packagemangement which makes maintaining it a real pain. Sure, there is slapt-get, but why do that when you can get the real deal with apt-get?
Dapper Drake is the most polished Linux distro I’ve ever seen. I used to be a strong advocate of Fedora, but they move to slow now and it’s a pain to get extra software into your yum or apt-get repositories list. Ubuntu is smooth all around and has about everything you could ever want. I’m never going back and I urge everyone to give it a serious look. We need to standardize on a desktop/server platform in order for major hardware companies like Dell to carry Linux on more than just servers. Ubuntu is the most comprehensive offering I’ve ever seen that still maintains the free nature of open source.
Just because Slackware is “ancient” does not mean that it is in anyway inferior. There is something to be said about its longevity and its relavance in the market after all these years and all the changes to the free software movement. The reason people like Slackware is because the system is set up not to get in your way. You have the build system out of the box for compiling applications. You have “vanilla” builds of packages which tend to have less modifications (if not 0) than the original software from the author. This means that there are no surprises when linking to that app when compiling another app (ie apache, php, mysql, etc). I am no expert as to why this makes it better but my exprience running Slackware servers vs others is that they tend to be very quick, stable and dependable. This is not saying there isn’t a place for Ubuntu/Kubuntu but lets not disparage Slackware.
Just because Slackware is “ancient” does not mean that it is in anyway inferior
From the security point of view it’s inferior.
You have the build system out of the box for compiling applications.
And in other distributions you can’t compile software? You just need to tick during installation all development related apps. After installation you can always install *-devel (RPM based distros) or *-dev (Debian based distros) packages.
You have “vanilla” builds of packages which tend to have less modifications (if not 0) than the original software from the author.
IMHO it’s a problem. Do you want to use buggy applications? I’m a Fedora Extras developer and if I have a chance I always backport important fixes from CVS/SVN. Of course I always contact with upstream developers first to make shure that I won’t screw the job up
Maintaining a big pile of patches isn’t an easy task – that’s why we try to push our fixes upstream.
I am no expert as to why this makes it better but my exprience running Slackware servers vs others is that they tend to be very quick, stable and dependable.
What a pity that they are not so secure like other distributions. No Stack Smashing Protector, no Position Independent Executables, no FORTIFY_SOURCE, no MAC like SELinux, etc. For instance, this is all available in Fedora by default → http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Security/Features
Let’s take a look at PHP in Slackware. I was shocked when I noticed that libphp4.so (php-4.4.2-i486-3.tgz) and libphp5.so (php-5.1.2-i486-2.tgz) contain text relocations [1]!
[y4kk0@X tmp]$ eu-readelf -d libphp4.so | grep TEXTREL
TEXTREL
[y4kk0@X tmp]$ eu-readelf -d libphp5.so | grep TEXTREL
TEXTREL
[y4kk0@X tmp]$
WTF [2]? PHP in FC5 is compiled properly:
[y4kk0@X tmp]$ eu-readelf -d /usr/lib/httpd/modules/libphp5.so | grep TEXTREL
[y4kk0@X tmp]$
From the security and performance point of view PHP in Slackware is useless.
PS Sorry that I talked so much about Fedora. It’s a thread about Ubuntu, but I don’t know this distribution quite well :/
[1] More about textrels here:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/33992
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/34037
[2] WTF — Were They Thinking™ 😉
“Slackware is ancient.”
And your point is?
“Sure, there is slapt-get, but why do that when you can get the real deal with apt-get?”
Because you like the slackware approach better than the Debian one?
Sorry Ubuntu but i want to use a serious Desktop with features really useful.
with OSX i have
spotlight
automator (very cool )
dashboard
usability
speed
a rock solid unix.
speed ?? of course anyone has speed with a 2 processor machine or a dual core …
spotlight — have you ever tried out Beagle with its boolean operators, or do you still struggle using those through the Mac OS X Terminal.app, since they’re not yet implemented in the GUI?
automator (very cool ) — Yes, arguably a very cool and useful feature
dashboard — Do you really need this, and if yes, for what??????
usability — (See comment on Spotlight) The Gnome GUI is very clean cut and features many fine features, usability wise, eventhough I’d rather it’d be more like OS X than Windows in some sences… But the elegance is sure there, I think, and it’s nice and easy on your eyes (Clearlooks theme). The step towards OS X is getting smaller and smaller for each release.
speed — Have you tried Linux on comparable hardware? Try trimming down the Linux kernel by removing unwanted features and watch it perform with grace… On OS X you’re stuck with what you get…
a rock solid unix — Have you ever tried Linux? -It’s more of a Unix beast than OS X, at least by definition of Unix monolithic and the Unix kernel not being influenced by ‘other’ kernels an runtime… If they wanted these things in it’s truest sence, Apple’d opt for a ‘clean’ BSD kernel, Solaris or maybe even Linux…
I agree with s_groening,
I just want to add that gDesklets is a lot like dashboard, and a note on speed, take your mac, load linux on it, and run the same mysql bench you did in OSX, then you will know the meaning of speed.
“Sure, it’s a nice distro for the average homeuser that is new to linux and wants everything done with wizards, but once they get more experienced they will move to another distro. ”
I think the opposite is becoming the norm. People who have (my self included) used other distros (debian, slack, etc.) and OSs (FreeBSD, etc.), are moving to Ubuntu for its simplicity. After having meddled with rpms nd source recompiling and broken ports for over 9 years, I moved away from all that for OS X and Ubuntu (dual boot).
Sure, Ubuntu is not the fastest but it has made maintaining the system easier and me more productive.
I have to agree. I have an iBook, and run Dapper on an old Athlon T-bird in the basement. When i use my machines, I don’t want to spend any time doing configs. I want to do the work I need to do. Some seem to think that “working” on their computer is messing with all the config scripts in /etc. Someone else summed it up great. ” My computer works for me, I don’t work for it”. That is how it should be, and sorry 7334 h4Xx0rz but that is the direction loonix needs to go in to become a viable desktop. Dapper is the shizN4T!
I used gentoo for a good proportion of my Linux life, recently I’ve switched to Ubuntu on my laptop and couldn’t be happier.
I still have my server running Gentoo and it rarely has X11 enabled, but it’s very nice to have Ubuntu and stay very up to date (Xgl, etc.) whilst at the same time not having weird issues or spending every weekend compiling software or fixing weird issues that you’ve caused with small accidents.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/
Mac OS X 10.4.3
(Single User)
$129.00
Family Pack
(5 license)
$199.00
Ubuntu 4.6 < (released *around every 6 months)
(Single User)
$0.00
Family Pack
(5 license)
$0.00
Mac OS X 10.4.3
Usability: 9/10
Cool factor: 10/10 (6/10 after novelty wears off)
Ubuntu 4.6
Usability: 6/10
Cool factor: 1/10
‘Nuff said.
It’s more like:
Ubuntu 6.04 with Xgl/compiz
Usability 8.5/10
Cool Factor: 10/10 (the novelty doesn’t wear off)
I wouldn’t know about Mac OS X as I have only used it a few times. I use Linux every day at home and at work.
‘Nuff said.
You know Ubuntu is succesful when you start comparing it with OSX instead of Windows.
Maybe one day…
Mac OS X 10.4.3
Usability: 9/10
Cool factor: 10/10 (6/10 after novelty wears off)[/i]
Usability of OSX 9/10?
Guess your OSX is different than mine. Mine goes to -1/10 and -1/10.
Coolness? Why would one need that?
And it is not c00l. The only way you can be c00l with your OS is custom build setup or when your hardware is too expensive for 99.9% of mortals. When was standard look ever c00l? How else can one get their g33k friends to put up and shut up. With “look my flashy photo icon” maybe?
Call me after OSX gets half decent terminal. Not even one is getting close (I tried at least 10 of them on my G5). Or half decent configurable desktop.
Things that suck on Mac for me so far.
– development. If you do crossplatform development, Cocoa is not worth anything. Developing with anything else is just too alienated.
– terminal. Still waiting for at least usable one.
– browsing. Damn slow on my G5.
– having a lot of windows on desktop. I know some share/freeware enables you to have virtual desktops, but both I tried so far are just lame hacks.
– office? But that’s me. I don’t use MS one and OO.o is too alienated on OSX.
– non configurable window manager
– mailing. Mail.app is not even near to usable mailing app.
– iCal sucks when you try to use non-Apple calendar server
– Multimonitor setup. Get a life. Apple does not give frequent mouse user discounts. Menu on one monitor always. Yep, my try to use two 24″ monitors was lasting about 10 minutes. Then my nerves couldn’t stand no more abuse.
Need more? I’ve got as much of them as you want.
Ubuntu 4.6
Usability: 6/10
Cool factor: 1/10
Actualy Ubuntu is more usable than OSX. And no I don’t need Photoshop, Dreamweaver… But then again, it seems like Mac users don’t either. CS3 for Intel (Dreamweaver even later) is postponed for the next second half of the next year, and running trough Rosetta is much worster than running Windows based app trough Wine (you loose a lot more performance with Rosetta). So, one can just imagine Mac users start praising Wine for OSX now.
I think OSX and Ubuntu are for different audiences, so I don’t think direct subjective comparisons are really valid. OSX only runs (legally) on Apple hardware, and you need 1 license per computer. Ubuntu runs on almost all x86 computers (other platforms are supported as well), and you can install on all the computers you need. It’s ok to compare features to see what you like better (very subjective by nature). But at the same time, if you like choice and freedom, you are not in OSX’s target audience, and if you prefer highly integrated specific hardware with your software, you aren’t in Ubuntu’s target audience either.
The price of Ubuntu is no tech support besides online.However,in most other respects Ubuntu is a strong contender for Mac OS X.Well,at least Tiger,not sure how it will fare against Leopard.
I would expect no support for no price. Again, two different markets though.
It’s ok to compare features to see what you like better (very subjective by nature).
I wasn’t comparing which I like better. My comparisson was based on comparing USABLE/UNUSABLE for serious use.
Most of the functions I was bashing are completely unusable from the point of serious use. Might suffice for non-serious user, maybe, but not for serious one.
Either that or you’re just saying that Mail.app is serious mailing application and Terminal.app with all his deficiencies is best terminal ever:) It is not getting there even remotely. Even thunderbird is not there yet. Probably the only serious mail apps are Outlook and Evolution.
But at the same time, if you like choice and freedom, you are not in OSX’s target audience, and if you prefer highly integrated specific hardware with your software, you aren’t in Ubuntu’s target audience either.
I like choice and freedom, but I also prefer highly integrated specific hardware with my software. So… after buying a 100% supported machine I have a lot less trouble with my Opterons (bought after following HCL and except two liner for NVidia, worked out of the base install) than with my only G5 in case of software being integrated with hardware. And why is too integrated with hardware bad? Read next:)
This time all my bought software will go down the drain when I’ll be updating G5. Since (or better IF, and I doubt that more and more) I’ll be updating to Intel next year sometimes I doubt that even one software will make a crossgrade or upgrade even remotely possible. Talk about tight integration, too tight for my opinion or better said too expensive. It is probably cheaper to drop my Mac supporting needs and focus on Windows/*X only (OSX is not *X in my viewpoint, so take this as my personal opinion which is valid as expressed for me only), and it simplifies my coding since I don’t need to test and adapt on OSX anymore. I would maybe suffer if I would be dropping Windows support, but dropping OSX I probably won’t even notice except having a lot more time for other things.
>Either that or you’re just saying that Mail.app is serious mailing application and Terminal.app with all his deficiencies is best terminal ever:)
Not at all. I’m just saying that for people who don’t need any bells and whistles, and ONLY use Apple products, it’s probably just fine for them.
>And why is too integrated with hardware bad?
It’s not, and I wasn’t implying that it was. But with Apple, ANY Apple peripheral will work with OSX. Any peripheral in existence will not work with Ubuntu. “Too integrated” means less choice, but probably better stability, and better drivers. Do you want less choice with great drivers, or more choice with possibly inferior peripheral drivers? How you answer this is probably what you will pick as your computer system if there was a choice between OSX and Ubuntu. In any case, I think we went way off topic long ago. Sorry.
>And why is too integrated with hardware bad?
This part was a rhetorical question, not question requesting answer.
It was even followed with Read next:)
And the rest of your answer on it was complete bull anyway. I was talking how software I bought is too intgrated with my G5, and PPC Macs won’t exist anymore. So all money I gave out for those pieces of software will go down the drain if I would move on new comp.
Point of my comment was.
Vendor that has everything tightly integrated can’t even decide on which CPU arch they will tightly integrate. Talk about irony.
Do you want less choice with great drivers, or more choice with possibly inferior peripheral drivers?
I don’t have the slightest trouble with drivers on any machine. As I said, HCL is a rule.
And you’re sure that Apple NVidia drivers are better than the ones on Linux? Or that my optical fiber card would be better supported under OSX? Or printer (Apple uses cups just as linux, beside the really stupid and unintuitive config tool on OSX they provide)? A lot of hardware is not Apple based so how could that HW be tightly integrated?
How can one even say that some drivers are better than other? Are you really sure that company wrote better drivers than others. For example I don’t use fglrx on my notebook, XOrg is better on performance and system integration with my card so I use XOrg one.
How you answer this is probably what you will pick as your computer system if there was a choice between OSX and Ubuntu
I would follow my first OSs (Linux) HCL and try to find the best match for the second at the same time. I do this for my machine that doubleboots Windows-Linux already. Isn’t this just logical approach? And your question stupid?
I think we went way off topic long ago. Sorry.
And you went even further with completely missing my point. You went off topic when we were already off topic.
And for the end. Why do you ask stupid questions?
Mac OS X 10.4.3
(Single User)
$129.00
Family Pack
(5 license)
$199.00
Ubuntu 4.6 < (released *around every 6 months)
(Single User)
$0.00
Family Pack
(5 license)
$0.00
Mac OS X comes with MacBook Pro $0.00
Mac OS X:
Coolness : 10/10
Geekiness: 3/10
Ubuntu:
Coolness: 3/10
Geekiness: 10/10
oh, then in what way os OS X more usable? it works on less hardware, hass less programs that run on it, doesn’t improve while just using it :-). From as far as I’ve seen Kubuntu is improving every week a loooooooooot.
OSX users don’t have time to upgrade OS everyday …
> OSX users don’t have time to upgrade OS everyday …
Sure don’t upgrade for security?
don’t upgrade for more system stability?
don’t upgrade to keep your OS working with latest applications?
I hope you aren’t representing all mac users
Sure don’t upgrade for security?
don’t upgrade for more system stability?
don’t upgrade to keep your OS working with latest applications?
I hope you aren’t representing all mac users
The upgrades come by themselves. I only need to click “Update” button when they come.
This is typical message when you update your Linux system:
…
postprocess_template.c:3831: warning: pointer targets in passing argument 6 of ‘blockCopy_3DNow’ differ in signedness
postprocess_template.c:3943: warning: pointer targets in passing argument 4 of ‘tempNoiseReducer_3DNow’ differ in signedness
postprocess_template.c:3967: warning: pointer targets in passing argument 4 of ‘tempNoiseReducer_3DNow’ differ in signedness
postprocess_template.c:3368: error: can’t find a register in class ‘GENERAL_REGS’ while reloading ‘asm’
postprocess_template.c:3453: error: can’t find a register in class ‘GENERAL_REGS’ while reloading ‘asm’
postprocess_template.c:3368: error: can’t find a register in class ‘GENERAL_REGS’ while reloading ‘asm’
postprocess_template.c:3453: error: can’t find a register in class ‘GENERAL_REGS’ while reloading ‘asm’
make[3]: *** [postprocess.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make: *** [all] Error 2
sorry but that’s pure crap.
you’re representing a linux update system to make …
The upgrades come by themselves. I only need to click “Update” button when they come.
Excuse me sir, but have you actually read any of the reviews or seen any Ubuntu in action? The one-click method that you describe… that’s exactly how the upgrade is done.
The updates come by themselves in most linux distros as well. As far as getting errors while updating, that hasn’t happened to me since I was running Debian unstable on a test machine years ago.
I will not make any daft statements about linux being superior to OS X in usability (which is subjective anyway), but judging from your comments you haven’t read the article and are basically Mac-trolling in a linux thread.
As far as *on topic* comments are concerned, Drake looks to be a leap forward for Ubuntu. I don’t think I’ll be making it my default desktop just yet, but I was able to run it as a workstation for a couple of weeks without hitting any showstoppers.
I try to give distros an “honest” workout when I try them, which means running only that distro on my workstation for at least a week and seeing whether it has an effect on my workflow. If it hinders my ability to do work, then I will simply stop using it; that wasn’t necessary with Drake.
That’s funny. I’ve never seen that problem. I run Breezy on my laptop, and I get a message that shows on my “taskbar” telling me that I have updates, and I’ll click on it to go ahead and grab the updates, and everything goes through just fine.
These digs comparing OS X with Ubuntu are really childish and stupid.
I have an iBook with OS X 10.4 Tiger dual-booting with Kubuntu 5.10. I like them both, I use them both. There are a few things my Kubuntu can’t do — like play commercial DVD’s. It also can’t work wirelessly — yet. So for playing DVDs or surfing from a wi-fi zone, I boot into the Mac. For everything else, I prefer the Linux applications. Rumor has it that Dapper Drake will be able to support Airport Extreme, and when it’s ready, I” be downloading it.
And no one in the open source world can come up with anything but juvenile ripoffs of Windows UI elements for their desktop.
With OS X having been around for so many years now it is inexcusable that the Linux desktops can’t come up with something in the same league.
And no one in the open source world can come up with anything but juvenile ripoffs of Windows UI elements for their desktop.
yes, and while we’re at it, i think we should all just nuke every DE from linux and revert to the shell, since a “window” is surely a windows UI ripoff…
“yes, and while we’re at it, i think we should all just nuke every DE from linux and revert to the shell, since a “window” is surely a windows UI ripoff…”
Whatever.
Seriously dude… Xgl/compiz beats the pants off of Vista *and* OS X from an eyecandy perspective. They copied a few of the features from OS X (like expose and the cube virtual desktop switcher) but much improved. It’s hard to compare it to anything out there.
It even runs in your favorite DE be it Gnome (mine) or KDE.
“Seriously dude… Xgl/compiz beats the pants off of Vista *and* OS X from an eyecandy perspective.”
Inane comments about ‘eye candy’ use to be quaint and funny five years ago when desktop UI technology was discussed.
Linux users still so clueless these days is just sad.
The “cube virtual desktop switcher” is not part of OS X but rather an addon app called Desktop Manager.
VERY pretty effect. I like to show it off to people… but then I turn it off so I can get work done. Its too distracting and from using virtual desktops for over 10 years I kinda expect them to be instant hehe.
(Ssshhhhhh… yes I am prone to just switch back and forth watching the pretty graphics… hehehe)
oh, then in what way os OS X more usable? it works on less hardware, hass less programs that run on it, doesn’t improve while just using it :-). From as far as I’ve seen Kubuntu is improving every week a loooooooooot.
Feel free to use your proprietary MacOSX. We don’t care. The article is about Ubuntu an opensource linux operating system. Not about propietary MacOSX.
When there will be realease with _ALL_ “standard” + Universe packages on a DVD ? Not everyone has broadband connection (I have) and ability to download hundreds of MB’s just to have the desktop he/she need’s. If Ubuntu want’s to be more appealing to average Joe user, than I think it should at least give a DVD (multiple CD’s ?) as an option for download (not necessairly for free shiping). That would be a big deal for me.
And yeap – I know it’s that ‘apt’ kind of distribution (pun intended).
When there will be realease with _ALL_ “standard” + Universe packages on a DVD ?
Hopefuly never… there are lots of unstable/outdated stuff in those repositories, and its wiser to distribute just the cream of the crop with your install cds. Otherwise you turn it to a “20 text editors witch the crappiest” type of distro.
Fewer packages, better packages. Thats what makes Ubuntu so good.
I would like to see the live & install CDs merged to single CDs for each of Ubuntu, Kubuntu & Edubuntu and save B/W.
I would like to see the live & install CDs merged to single CDs for each of Ubuntu, Kubuntu & Edubuntu and save B/W.
It is called expresso and with the latest version of dapper (flight 6) it is working perfect for me. As a matter of fact, the expresso live cd based installer worked faster than the normal text mode installer to set up everything and boot into a functional desktop.
Weird, I thought it would be the other way around.
They tend to miss out gnome features, gnome nice backgrounds as default, missing preferences, gtk-icon-cache (which they ONLY have just done).
THey really should put nautilus beagle search in there are well, it’s so fast and powerful, beagle is better then spotlight in may respects so I heard. Ubuntu misses out on these feature and god knows why they dont enable nautilus beagle.
Nautilus is compiled with Beagle support. Beagle isn’t installed by default because Mono won’t fit on the CD.
Now if Beagle were written in C/C++ like it should be…
Like is should be?, nobody has do it in C thats why it’s in C#, what difference would it make being done in C?
By the way, the overhead of mono is smaller now and mono apps perform just as good as C apps.
Like is should be?, nobody has do it in C thats why it’s in C#, what difference would it make being done in C?
By the way, the overhead of mono is smaller now and mono apps perform just as good as C apps.
Like… no app running on top of a virtual machine will ever run as fast as an app running natively. Do you have bechmarks to back up yout claim?
And were are your equivelent C apps that beat mono apps?. What is your problem with C# anyway, because it’s damn site easier than C to learn.
And were are your equivelent C apps that beat mono apps?.
Probably all operating systems? Why do you think MS pulled out most of managed code out of Vista.
Believe me. Until heavy load or long run is in question, overhead is just too big.
Apps that rely on small ammounts of ram that fit in memory (with its sloppy memory handling) are probably faster than native C. In C one has to do all allocating and deallocating, which leads to performance suffering. VM on the other hand runs GC, where one memory can be reallocated without even being ever deallocated. But if your memory load is bigger than ram, GC will have to step to handle its job. Well, trouble is that GC needs all references released and people do tend to forget to release references on them. Either using WeakReference or using (var = null) helps a lot here but not even nearly enough. I can give you more exact examples if you want.
What is your problem with C# anyway, because it’s damn site easier than C to learn.
Agreed, but I think he doesn’t have much against C#. He’s just being more objective than you.
I use it daily for my desktop projects. But on server side? I thought of it, tested it and lost all my hope I’ll ever be coding service in C# (and as you said, it is a damn nice language. I would preffer results were different much more than this reality).
Like is should be?, nobody has do it in C thats why it’s in C#, what difference would it make being done in C?
Mono is an excellent system, and C# is a very nice language. The rapid progress of apps like Banshee are a testament to the power of the managed code system.
But Beagle is a system daemon that runs permenantely, and as such needs to be as small and efficient as possible. That’s exactly what C is good at, and what managed code cannot be. However much you pare it down, you’re always going to have the overhead of the VM running in the background.
This article is misleading as it doesn’t tell you that EasyUbuntu doesn’t properly work on Dapper.
Work is in “Slow Progress”.
https://launchpad.net/products/easyubuntu/+spec/eu-dapper-compat
I’ve seen parts of the tool work, and other parts not work at all. So use at your own peril!
Who opened the kindergarten doors?
Who opened the kindergarten doors?
Steve Jobs.
I think Ubuntu is great, it makes the transition from MS to Linux less painful in a classy sort of way.
But not everyone needs it, and this is based in the personal needs of the user. Everything is subjective.
Me? I use Debian Sarge, minimal install, no eyecandy, all business. Ion3 is perfect for my PII 266, but it took me several years to get to this point. I also started with KDE and Gnome 1.4, until finally, i realized that beauty doesn’t do crap for me, the only thing that matters is SPEED. I want something fast, easy to install apps, to upgrade, some wm that doesn’t get in my way, i need to to get the job done, period. I don’t need gdesklets or icons or wallpapers, nor waste my time with games, i need to move, move, with the ancient hardware i got.
But then again, my taste is based on my needs.
Whats with the weird kerning of fonts. Letters always seem too big or too close or too far apart. This has ALWAYS bugged me with KDE/GNOME.
I believe it depends on the configuration of FreeType2.
Personally I have much better hinting on my Gentoo Linux with Gnome (or occasionally GNUstep) than with ClearType on Windows.
And since I have created fonts for the last decade, I believe I know (at least) something about hinting and kerning
But I can easily change the configuration resulting in completely screwed hinting.
oh yeah that’s it, download a DVD so you don’t need broadband. The CD contains most of the programs, you don’t have to download much afterwards anymore. The only thing is: you’ll have to make one choice upfront:Ubuntu (GNOME), Kubuntu (KDE), Xubuntu (Xfce) (although there is no xubuntu cd to download yet). Better solution than a DVD with all on them, doesn’t leave much room for extra programs anymore while they all do the same. They just use other programs for the same task.
I could download it with my broadband and then install it on my friends computers really fast instead of relying on a internet connection of dubious quality. In my country most popular internet access is not easy configurable in linux (Ubuntu included) and therefore you can not rely on it during install and it requires internet access to know how other people sorted things out. But without it you can’t finish install process. Chicken and egg. If everything would be on CD’s (DVD ?) at least full install would be performed.
>”most of the programs”
mplayer ? # sorry – I live in Europe – it should be somehow included…
beep-media-player # univers – xmms has really ugly right-click menu, definitely not something I would like show off with ?
unrar # it’s not that unpopular, is it ?
oggz-tolls # if there is this awesome free codec – why not use it ?
wine # supposed to be bridge between Windows and Linux, so why hide it ?
gnuplot # not only sci-pro use this one
gqview # my choice over gthumb
gdesklets # not only eye-candy
leafpad # real replacement for notepad
mpg321 # no comment
And why on earth user which is just starting he’s advenutre with linux should be forced to choose DE (which he probably has no clue what it is whatsoever), when he is already forced to choose a distribution (and operating system prior to that). Linux is supposed to be about choice – why not give people that choice and make just this tiny little step further (which is a distance aproximately the same as between Ubuntu & Uberbuntu) and include kde (very popular) and xfce (beautifull & slick & fast DE I must say) in main repos ? When this is accomplished I will say that Linux is ready … you know for what
>”while they all do the same”
If top does everything what gnome-system-monitor does and more – should i ditch the latter ? I prefer to use both – whatever suits me best under particular circumstances.
mplayer ? # sorry – I live in Europe – it should be somehow included…
I don’t know where you live in Europe but codecs from Windows is not exactly the same as Free codecs for patented formats. Ubuntu would be in trouble distributing the binaries from Microsoft.
And why on earth user which is just starting he’s advenutre with linux should be forced to choose DE
That’s precisely why Ubuntu is a GNOME-based distribution where the user makes absolutely no choice of DE at all.
Choosing Ubuntu implies choosing DE (gnome) _before_acutal_installation_ , apart of course of Kubuntu (not that polished) and Xubuntu (no cd’s yet). If those DE’s were in main repos (and on cd’s/dvd) then the choice could have been made easily later. If there is no choice in regard to DE – how user will get to know other DE’s (instead of common jumping from one distro to another) ? Of course one can ‘sudo apt-get kde-desktop’ (+removing gnome?), but the installation process of a whole DE isn’t confined to this simple command and I would rather make it once at the beginning than to let (yet) inexperienced users to have it done (screwed?) by themelves. Is it really that much to ask for a dvd filled with goodies (which already exist) ?
You can download Ubuntu as a DVD iso. There is a secret, hidden site only known to insiders called google that would’ve told you within seconds.
>mplayer ? # sorry – I live in Europe – it should be somehow included…
Totally nonsense. What has the inclusion of mplayer to do with you living in Europe? The propietary codecs cannot be distributed with Ubuntu, but not mplayer. Please get at least a small clue. Remember that webpage I recommended to you before?
>Linux is supposed to be about choice – why not give people that choice and make just this tiny little step further.
You can
– download the DVD.
– download Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Whateverxubuntu
– download a completely different distribution.
This is what is meant with “having the choice” and not every distro out there must follow “the everything on cds and you have hundres of packages to choose from on installation” paradigm. There are already enough of those distros out there.
The DVD iso “secret hidden” .. whatever – is live/install version combined. I have no knowledge that it incorporates some additional pacakages… do you ?
The propietary codecs cannot be distributed with Ubuntu, but not mplayer. Please get at least a small clue.
I was talking about having it on an install cd’s/dvd, not about ditributing it at all. AFAIK there are some restrictions pertaining mplayer infringment of patent law in US … so I guess it is a problem – be it player or codecs for it.
You can
– download the DVD.
– download Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Whateverxubuntu
– download a completely different distribution.
This is what is meant with “having the choice” and not every distro out there must follow “the everything on cds and you have hundres of packages to choose from on installation” paradigm. There are already enough of those distros out there.
I guess not enough for me. And certainly not for totally new to linux users to whom this model should be most appealing – remember that I can get over it easily, but can they ? This kind of isntall model isn’t definitely win the crown of desktop for linux. Why is it that you have to do in a basic install process ‘sudo apt-get something’ than another sh#% like this and another …. why can’t I just pick programs that I need and be gone with this (maybe even with a list of progs remembered in a file resembling kickstart functionality?). It’s total bullshit to go this far with regards to user friendly install and stop here. New users won’t know what ‘sudo’ , ‘root’ , ‘apt-get’ is, and they certainly will cringe away from command-line (at least at the beginning). Why not provide them with easy instant install without resorting to obligatory broadband internet connection when it’s certainly not necessary ? – and this means (for me) more packages on isntall_cd’s /dvd.
“why can’t I just pick programs that I need and be gone with this”
That’s what other distributions do, and frankly, if Ubuntu did that I never would have stopped using Windows.
Ubuntu to me is very much a “best of Linux” – while you may not agree with their selections, that is clearly their intention. You get Gnome, Firefox, OpenOffice, Evolution. Open source has dozens of choices for every type of application: Ubuntu just installs one of each that is likely to be useful to me.
Before I switched to linux, I did not know anything about KDE vs Gnome, Evolution vs Thunderbird, OOo vs Abiword/GNumeric/etc . Canonical made the choice of software for me, and I for one was glad they did. The last thing I needed when switching to an entirely new operating system was to worry about figuring out what applications I needed to be productive.
Edited 2006-04-17 23:42
I understand your point (and partly second it), but… Ubuntu base install approach is rather minimalistic, which for a distro that aim’s to be mainstream (not only for geeks) is queer to say the least. Shouldn’t it try to please as many souls as possible ?
If their intention is to make me not to agree with their selection then ok. but they assume that people have this perfect internet connection (again – I have), which often is simply not the case and this is far from ok. One shot in grain : windows doesn’t require me to access internet to complete install (not only becouse I am not installing it).
The last thing I needed when switching to an entirely new operating system was to worry about figuring out what applications I needed to be productive.
Why not install them all ? Storage space is dirt-cheap. This doesn’t mean that all those app’s should be exposed in main menu, ordinary ‘debian’ submenu would be all”…just fine. And it’s much better approach for discoverability of those apps., which are currently not part of base install. The only thing user should choose is ->default<- DE, web browser, mail client. Of course ‘single app for a task’ is probably better approach for corporate/office customers (which is one of Ubuntu main targets). I guess we’ll have to wait for the one distro “to rule them all”.
Well it was a Windows user that made the comment :-). Besides eye candy can be usefull when you put it in the right way, which is what the devs are trying to do, and they seem to succeed.
I agree. My grandmother became very confused when I was showing her Desktop Linux. She minimized a window and didn’t understand why it went away. When I installed Xgl/compiz aka “eyecandy”, she understood where the window went due to the minimize animation.
She got angry recently when she was trying to use a windows computer and the scale affect (like OS X expose) didn’t work when she moved the mouse to the top right corner or hit F12.
Eyecandy isn’t just pretty, it makes the desktop more usable.
.. that takes over the desktop en massses with a Grandma friendly UI?
Reading through this thread here, I find the Ubuntu vs OS X discussion interesting. Saying that you cannot compare the two because one is open source and one is not is daft. If you cannot compete feature for feature and have to rest on ideology, you can’t compete.
I am also one of those who “switched.” Although, I switched from BSD to OS X, not from Linux. This is less of an ideological switch since the whole setup of BSD is to allow something like OS X. In regards to the comments above:
“spotlight — have you ever tried out Beagle with its boolean operators, or do you still struggle using those through the Mac OS X Terminal.app, since they’re not yet implemented in the GUI?”
At this point beagle is indeed almost as good as splotlight, however, its not completely integrated like spotlight and not quite up to the speed of spotlight. I am completely addicted to this type of search and while beagle provides it…its just not “mature” or fast enough at this point in my experience. As for boolean operators….please. They would be nice, but are hardly a killer feature. If you know what boolean operators are, you can use the terminal app.
“automator (very cool ) — Yes, arguably a very cool and useful feature” Less cool than you think actually, I prefer applescript. Now if _IT_ can get more mature and capable, then it would be cool.
“dashboard — Do you really need this, and if yes, for what??????” Nope, its disabled on mine. Totally useless memory waster.
“usability — (See comment on Spotlight) The Gnome GUI is very clean cut and features many fine features, usability wise, eventhough I’d rather it’d be more like OS X than Windows in some sences… But the elegance is sure there, I think, and it’s nice and easy on your eyes (Clearlooks theme). The step towards OS X is getting smaller and smaller for each release.”
Here is a main reason I switched. On the surface OS X and Gnome are similar in usability. They are not. OS X is miles ahead. I can’t use GNOME for more than a couple of weeks without itching to change something. I can use OS X for months before I get the “itch” to change a theme or something. Most things are consistent, most things are “pretty” and most things “just work.” GNOME is getting much closer, but its not there yet. At least in my opinion. That of course is the problem isn’t it, this particular subject is all opinion.
“speed — Have you tried Linux on comparable hardware? Try trimming down the Linux kernel by removing unwanted features and watch it perform with grace… On OS X you’re stuck with what you get… ” Yes I have. I have run several linux distros on my apple and OS X destroys each of them in speed. I don’t mean benchmark speed, I couldn’t care less about that. I mean “snappyness.” The speed with which things open, close and interact with the user.
Just my opinions…continue to compare linux to OS X. “Its a good thing” ™
Interesting comparison.
I run both, OSX Tiger on the Mac Mini and Ubuntu on a Celeron 500 Mhz laptop. My interest in Ubuntu stems from the fact that I crave an open source desktop that would match the elegance and completeness of OSX Tiger. Sorry, but people are forgetting how complete Tiger is compared to a typical Gnome desktop.
Having worked in depth with both (followed Gnome since 1.4, OSX since Jaguar), it’s hard to say that Gnome is anywhere near the OSX Desktop for very simple reasons: It’s just not complete. At all.
It’s easy to sit and compare Beagle, Nautilus and a simple GUI to OSX features like Spotlight, Dashboard or Finder, because these things are visible features. This is of course important, but the things that make a good desktop are the little things, such as proper window management, proper and complete drag’n’drop that work like you expect.
A single and complete sound system (Core Audio).
A single video system that actually works (Quicktime).
OSX sports complete APIs for managing application data with Core Data, hardware accelerated desktop, networking that doesn’t flinch or drag down the entire desktop, requiring me to restart X, if a site is unavailable, as with GnomeVFS.
Bugs and incompleteness are the reasons Gnome is not yet on par with OSX, not the major features like Beagle or Nautilus. Anybody can claim features like OSX, I know Windows Vista will soon, but do they work just as well?
I keep running into problems with things that feel incomplete or inexplicably slow in Gnome, which is why I keep returning to OSX.
OSX makes me wonder how tremendous an amount testing the system has undergone.
I think we’ll have to wait at least 3-5 years before it can get to the level of completion that the current OSX desktop has. There is a huge amount of polish to be done.
Perhaps you should try kde. Gnome != linux.
True, but it’s the same lack of completeness. It’s just in a different way.
The UI of KDE is a haphazardly put together mountain of features, but I don’t want this to get into a Gnome/KDE war.
It’s better to emphasize on how much testing and polish goes into each system, because that’s the difference between “sort of okay” and “great”.
So what is it with Linux fanboys constantly reiterating false Vista hardware requirements? It’s like they get off on this crap or something.
Either way will work. Having a commercial 3D accelerated graphics driver will allow you to do some really cool things like run XGL/Compiz don’t you know, and Ubuntu does it well… very well. I got it running in under 5 minutes using this HOWTO from the Ubuntu Forums. This was the first distro I was able to see it running in it’s full glory and I was completely blown away. Windows Vista will come out late this year or next year (or whenever they FINALLY get that vaporware out the door… I think we’ll see Guns N’ Roses new album before we ever see Vista) and it will require you to have the fastest machine $2000 can buy you… all for what? Eye candy. Guess what? Linux does it now and it does it on existing hardware. I got Ubuntu/XGL running on an AMD 2400+ with 1.5GB RAM and 128MB Nvidia card.
Can’t a Linux distro review just be a Linux distro review without throwing in some cheap shots at Windows? Is it a confidence problem on the part of Linux distro reviewers? Do they feel they have to proclaim the merits of Linux by telling the world how bad Windows is? Come on now.
As for the actual quote, it’s bullsh*t. I think Thom has a lot to say about this one, not to mention the fact that XGL/Compiz are still *EXPERIMENTAL*, and until they come shipped in final code form in a distro, it’s about as good a solution as using an early Vista beta.
Can’t a Linux distro review just be a Linux distro review without throwing in some cheap shots at Windows?
The real question is: why do you care?
Because it cheapens the entire image of the article. If I were writing a review of an ASUS motherboard, I wouldn’t throw in cheap shots about Gigabyte/DFI — it’s unprofessional.
And the author is still completely off about Vista’s requirements. I guess he’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise when all these people with aging machines install Vista, and it runs fine, along with fancy graphics. What a lonely day that will be for him indeed.
If you only say that porsche is very fast – then everyone say ok – it is. But when it’s faster then Lambordgini – then they go WoW – that’s cool
. All human kind strive on competition and rivalry, so why not sell few punches towards easy (not yet released! therefore cannot defend itself) adversary ? It’s really easy – do you guys wonder why is sport so popular ? Becouse of the competition. It wouldn’t strive on it’s own like it does now without ‘who beat who’ factor, and since Microsoft isn’t exactly the one who is fragile tiny weakling here … “let the killing begin” 
Yeah, except that in this case neither Vista nor Compiz/XGL are “released”. Call me back when Compiz/XGL actually start shipping in final form in a popular distro.
Until then, both are “beta” products, and as far as I’m concerned, Vista’s is more impressive at the moment.
Until then, both are “beta” products, and as far as I’m concerned, Vista’s is more impressive at the moment.
And Vista/Aero isn’t “beta”?
You quoted me saying “Until then, both are ‘beta’ products” …
And then you asked if Vista/Aero aren’t “beta”.
I’m sorry, but am I missing something here?
as far as I’m concerned, Vista’s is more impressive at the moment.
How so? Does Vista do everything that Xgl/Compiz does (btw, it seems that pixel shaders ARE supported under Xgl/Compiz, unlike previously noted).
1. It’s in a more complete state (code-complete, just bugs to iron out). Compiz is still only a demo WM.
2. It has the backing of the industry, along with LDDM drivers.
3. It’s Windows, therefore you know it’ll become the industry standard sooner or later.
4. Lots of neat stuff under the hood as far as the technology is concerned — there’s plenty of information out there. XGL is just an OpenGL interface for drawing the final product.
1. I disagree that Compiz is a demo WM. It’s certainly very usable, and is also in the “bugs to iron out” stage. Your bias is showing.
2. OpenGL also has the backing of the industry.
3. That’s not an indication of quality and/or features. This is akin to saying “it’s the most popular, therefore it must be the best.” That’s a logical fallacy.
4. There’s also lots of neat stuff possible with Xgl/Compiz. I understand that you’re dissing it because of your anti-Linux bias, but really you haven’t put forward any real arguments why Vista is better than Xgl/Compiz. Not one.
The best quote of the article is right up front:
“zealotry is for morons”
There are a lot of folks who post around here that need to take that one to heart.
i must say, i’m impressed. ubuntu does look really cool. just apt-get installed ubuntu-desktop on my kubuntu system. now lets see…
guess it’ll be like last time:
– looks better, clean
– mostly easy to use
– can do X, Y – nice work
– can’t do A to W, i want these, so bye…
but maybe they’ve improved it 😉
Because it cheapens the entire image of the article. If I were writing a review of an ASUS motherboard, I wouldn’t throw in cheap shots about Gigabyte/DFI — it’s unprofessional.
Come on, now, it’s a very common practice to compare alternatives to the market leader. There’s nothing unprofessional about it.
You’re just allergic to any criticism of Windows, especially if it’s to put Linux in a favorable light.
And the author is still completely off about Vista’s requirements. I guess he’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise when all these people with aging machines install Vista, and it runs fine, along with fancy graphics. What a lonely day that will be for him indeed.
Jeez, man, let it go already. You sound like a freakin’ fanboy. Who cares if the author is proved wrong or not? Who cares if a respected market research firm has recently said that half of the PCs out there are too old to run Vista? You really sound as if you had a personal stake in Vista being a success…do you own MS shares, by any chance?
Sorry pal, live in Europe as well, no use of mplayer here. The reason why they don’t include full-media support (restricted formats support) is given by them, it’s part of their philosophy. Ok, a DVD could come in handy, but you can download extra-repository cd’s, so if you have a broadband connection somewhere you can put it on several cd’s. (Ok, it’s not an easy way 😉 ).
The reason why there’s a seperate KDE distro is because some people prefer to have KDE installed, without having gnome installed from the start. There was (and still is) a demand for this, remember they started the way you proposed, but apparently enough people prefered a clean install, it’s why xubuntu is heading off, it’s why kubuntu is so popular too. Some people choose their distro based on the DE it uses, because of the integration.
is the missing dvd-collection of packages. Come on, I don’t want to download everything that is located in universe or multiverse, please put those on a disk and put it on the mirrors (with updates if required). More important, allow the apt-get to install from such offline “reposiotories”, so I don’t have to manually install each one with dpkg.
I’m tired of catching dependencies from a single packages and manually downloading all those just to have it all installed up on a machine which doesn’t haver internet access. Fedora and SUSE at least come with a whole package on dvd(s).
Another thing I don’t like is gnome-centric community. Distribution plans (“goals”, as in launchpad) are often centered around gnome features, I haven’t seen KDE even being mentioned there. It is like Kubuntu people have to follow everything gnome people devise as release features. KDE is’t really a first citizen in Ubuntu.