A month ago I wrote a review on Ubuntu’s 7.04 version and in it I promised a second look once the final version was to released. Feisty Fawn was released last week and as it seems so far, it is one of the most (if not the most) successful Linux distro release ever. This means that we can’t help it but compare it with XP and Mac OS X, after having tested it in 3 laptops and 2 desktops in my lab.In this article I won’t go on and on about how Ubuntu gets installed or how well it performs, as things haven’t fundamentally changed since my previous review. But I will expand in the afterglow of the release and the good and bad that came out of it.
First and foremost, this release feels like a cornerstone in the Linux battle for desktop market share. It is the first time where I felt that a Linux distribution had the right kind of attention to detail and potential to truly stand up against OSX and Windows. No grandchildren needed to fix your setup, no major googling before doing the big step. Just popup the LiveCD in the drive, install the much-reputed OS and off you go.
This release brought new focus to non-free drivers/codecs by making it easier to install them. Things are not perfect yet though, as there is no version of ffmpeg that’s built with AAC in the repos, and Ubuntu’s official version of Gstreamer’s “ugly” codec collection has LAME support removed and so SoundJuicer still can’t encode to mp3. It’s details like these these that must be worked out before offering an even better first-time experience to newcomers.
There is consistency in Ubuntu, and there is a feeling of well-thoughtness around every element. Application installation is now easier than before, system upgrade is a piece of cake and stability was brought to new levels. This is the best Linux desktop I have ever used in my 9-year usage of a number of Linux distros.
Of course, things can always be better. The Ubuntu developers seems to have fixed a bug that would prevent some laptops from reconnecting to ethernet after a wake-up, but in my opinion, there are at least 2 more (reported and confirmed) bugs that are still open and they should have been deemed “show stoppers”. For example:
* On some hardware (especially on some models of the popular IBM laptops), when waking up from sleep, the USB subsystem is totally dead and only a reboot fixes it.
* S3 3D support is broken, while the 2D driver is full of bugs & limitations (and occasionally gets major visual artifacts after a wake-up).
Most of the annoying-type-of-bugs I encountered on the 5 systems I tried Feisty Fawn on (including DELL, IBM and LinuxCertified.com hardware), have something to do with ACPI. This is the Achilles heel of Ubuntu and Linux in general, the way I see it. It is the last frontier for… world domination and this is where the main focus must be put for the next version. Nvidia/Ati/Intel/S3/SiS graphics cards’ bugs after a wake-up must be fixed. All of them.
As I said in the beginning of this article, Ubuntu brought desktop Linux into new heights and millions of users will get a taste of Linux thanks to Canonical and their community. But it’s bugs like the two mentioned above that make me wonder if Canonical has all it takes to play ball in that new market stage against XP or OSX. You see, under no circumstances I would expect Microsoft or Apple to ship an OS with these kinds of bugs in them. It is time for Canonical to realize that when major bugs still exist, they must first fix them and then release. While what is a “major bug” is a subjective issue, the point of measurement must always be Microsoft and Apple. As an editor of OSNews.com where we report on all kinds of OSes, that’s my measurement. Not just SuSE. Not just FreeBSD. Not just Fedora. But mostly XP/Vista and OSX as the market leaders that they are.
Another aspect of Ubuntu’s fame explosion is the fact that their bug system gets about 4,000 new bugs per week these days. I am not sure that they can deal with all those bugs in a timely manner. Maybe they should put their bugzilla’s “karma” feature into good use and only allow new bug reports from users with enough karma. That’s just an idea, not necessarily the best though. I am just pointing to a potential problem.
Nevertheless, if you are one of the lucky Ubuntu users to have a compatible PC with full ACPI support, more power to you. Hold on tight to it and help bring the Linux revolution to the masses. It just started. For real this time. The only way is up from now on.
Read reviews of Feisty Fawn elsewhere online.
Hopefully upgrading from 6.06 some time in the next couple of weeks.
One suggestion that I would make is that they find some way of culling the forums to get rid of the old posts that have built up. It reminds me of contrast between the quality of search results in early days of google and the current situation whereby it is crudded up with every bit of junk on the internet.
Perhaps they could simply mark some of the posts as being over a year old. Maybe they could force the user to click a check box before accessing the legacy archive. Or even allow posters to their froums to tag posts according to their current level of Ubuntu.
I for one am sick of running into all the Ubuntu 4.x and 5.x info that’s floating about the net.
Have a look at:
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX…
It’s not even comparision to any Windows or Mac OS version. This is one person complaining that ACPI and S3 video drivers sucks in Linux.
Edited 2007-04-25 08:30
>This is not a review of Ubuntu
Nobody said that this was a clear-cut review, it is a thought piece based on my experience on Feisty Fawn. It DOES have review elements, but it is mostly an editorial (and in fact, it was filed under the Editorial section). It’s just not your traditional kind of a review. As I said in the article, read my previous, linked, review for the more traditional kind of an article.
>Linux falling in the the MS’s ACPI trap?
Trap or not, users need ACPI to work flawlessly.
Edited 2007-04-25 08:34
Maybe I’m reading it to fast, sure, but if You titled it:
“Linux needs beter ACPI and video drivers” I would say no word, but I saw this “compare it with XP and Mac OS X” and after reading whole thing I scratched my head and thought that it’s not too much compared in it (a least for my understanding of “comparision”).
Anyway it’s never too much of pointing that something is broken in Linux or any other OS, if people won’t complain it will stay broken.
You didn’t understand it right (English is not my first language anyways). The “comparing” part that was specifically mentioned in that paragraph was about the “which OS would have shipped with what bug”, and it was NOT a generic comparison of OSes on all levels. I really thought I made that clear, sorry if it wasn’t.
Edited 2007-04-25 08:49
Perhaps you didn’t convey it right?
users need ACPI to work flawlessly.
Users need to kick Microsoft up the arse.
Seriously Eugenia, within the previous few weeks we’ve heard that Microsoft sabotaged implementations of ACPI for Linux (and other alternate operating systems), why re-iterate the problems we already know about.
People are working hard enough as it is to get around this issue without yet more pressure from people who can not wait.
Your system has problems after sleep? So don’t let it sleep! It’s not a long term solution, but it’ll have to do.
I completely agree. The fact is, if a user has been used to ACPI working on their Mac or Windows laptop, there is no way in hell you’re going to be able to convince them to switch to Linux if suspend/resume isn’t reliable. (I put up with it out of principle, and it works better on Feisty than previous Ubuntu versions, but it still doesn’t work reliably enough for me. And most users out there don’t care about principle–they just want it to work. This one issue alone is enough for my non-tech girlfriend not to switch from her Windows laptop–regardless of what other “benefits” Linux might bring.) Of course for desktop users it’s probably not a big deal.
The next version of Ubuntu will be a Long Term Support[ed] release. If they can address these major bugs by then, Ubuntu will be flying. Hopefully Compiz will be ready to be the default Window Manager by then too, and Ubuntu out-of-the-box will be as good looking as Windows Vista and Mac OS X, but also more featureful.
I am switching all my machines to running Ubuntu Linux. It is the future for me and my business.
My understanding is that the next LTS is likely to be 8.04.
I agree wholeheartedly with this editorial, although with a few points.
Microsoft is apparently having many driver issues with Vista, despite uber market share and mega bucks… and MacOs only has to worry about the hardware it specifies. While this doesnt change what the author says, which are the cold realities of competition, it indicates how mammoth the task really is for OSS, and how well OSS is doing all things considered.
IMO with any PC purchase, whether you are going to run Windows or Linux, a little internet research pays big dividends in terms of stability and expectations.
On another note, I am glad ubuntu hasn’t opted for compiz or beryl yet… esp. now that there is a merge planned. moreover, i wont really feel 100% comfortable running compiz until its as good as metacity but opengl turbocharged.
jepp, next version will NOT be a LTS version:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2007-April/0…
“Gutsy will not be an LTS (Long Term Support)
release, but it will nonetheless see a lot of server work and be useful
for fast-moving server deployments.” — Mark Shuttleworth
I read an interview with Shuttleworth a while back in which he said that he expected Gutsy+1 to be an LTS release, but he would not commit to it, as the final decision was not his.
This would put the next LTS release about a year away, and about 24 months from Dapper, the last LTS release. This is in line with the policies of the Enterprise distros RHEL, CentOS, and SLES, which have a policy of releasing every 18-24 months.
The next release will hardly be a LTS one.
First of all, it is to close to the last LTS (only 16 months if 7.10 were to be a LTS).
Secondly the next LTS shoudl have Compiz/Beryl enabled per default and it does not make sense to make the first release with Compiz/Beryl enabled per default a LTS as you _will_ have some initial problems.
Thirdly it would make sense to include a stable version of KDE4 in the next LTS and we won’t have a polished KDE4 (with 3rd party KDE-apps using the features of KDE4) until some time next year.
Therefore, I expect the next LTS to be released around this time next year.
It’s a typical piece which can be summed up as :
“As soon as these many showstoppers (plus the many I didn’t mention) are fixed, Linux will dominate!”
Year of the Linux desktop? Zzzz…
I think it’s more focussing on the fact that Ubuntu shouldn’t ship with bugs of the level of severity that it does.
How ironic, you could help them out in development and test and file bug reports for them you know. That is if there are any bugs that are show stoppers for you. That’s what I did on a few occasions specifically dealing with SATA2 and boot issues and lo and behold, the problem got fixed.
Ubuntu 64 has as many bugs as my other x64 OS, namely Vista. Niether are without problems and if I had an ability to run my chosen software on either platform, then Ubuntu x64 would be my platform of choice.
That’s not irony…saying something is buggy when they have a chance to fix it really isn’t irony.
Er, I do. I run the development releases and here’s my launchpad bugs page:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/~slight-/
Am I allowed to have an opinion now?
[edit: And including bigs that have had fixes released : https://bugs.launchpad.net/~slight-/?field.searchtext=&orderby=statu… ]
Edited 2007-04-25 14:58
So when Windows Vista ships with crappy driver support, you guys blame the ‘lazy’ 3rd party component manufacturers who suddenly have to pay to rewrite their drivers.
When Ubuntu ships with drivers are aren’t perfect, then it’s all the fault of the OSS commies?
I don’t understand.
WTF has that got to do with my comment? I use Ubuntu as my desktop, on my laptop and on my house server. Who do you think I’m rooting for?
Ubuntu does ship with too many bugs, and I make a noise about it because I want it to be fixed so Ubuntu works better for me.
But you’re such a bloody fanboy you just see criticism and react without thinking don’t you?
I definitely agree with Eugenia, Ubuntu is by far the most usable, hassle-free distro I’ve ever used. I’m one of those lucky guys who experienced no bugs whatsoever, and I’m pretty happy with the first Linux distro able to replace XP. What I really wonder though is how much canonical would matter in the overall linux developement environment: they have vision, they understand consistency, and I believe they probably know what a desktop OS should be more than anybody else in the linux world. But do they have the strentgh to drive the overall community towards a unified goal? What about innovation? Will they be able to keep the helm and create a new paradigm of desktop experience instead of gazillions of Vista – OsX clones? we’ll see.
I have no doubt ubuntu is leading the linux world in new directions go look at the distro watch and see all the ubuntu derivatives. As for someone mentioning the year of the linux desktop. It will probably go the year of the small business linux destop, followed by big business, and finally home desktop linux year.
I don’t want to use Gnome. Ubuntu forces Gnome on its users. I want ethical software on my PC, not software that makes choices for its users.
Feisty is good, sure. Still many things don’t work and you find some usability issues. For me it works as long as I am using a slim desktop.
You see, under no circumstances I would expect Microsoft or Apple to ship an OS with these kinds of bugs in them.
Vista has major problems with both hibernate and sleep… doing a quick google search brought these up:
http://neosmart.net/blog/2006/vistas-hideous-wakeup-support/
http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/erwyn/archive/2006/12/11/Windows-Vis…
And yes, its caused by problems with drivers, just as in Linux 🙂
I think you mean, Windows is just as bad, which I agree. That doesn’t mean the entire company is, as your comment title would suggest.
Well, that’s a matter of opinion
It’s an overstatement. One would have to be exceptionally cold to argue the charity work that Microsoft and Bill Gates do is bad.
The charity work that *Gates* does, not Microsoft.
Even then, there is some valid criticism about some of the investment decisions made by the B&MGF. Some of the companies the foundation invests in have been denounced for environmental degradation as well as fostering serious social issues.
That said, I still think Mr. Gates means well, and that the *overall* impact of his foundation is positive, but it’s not all black-and-white…
I was jokingly talking about MICROSOFT not the ‘Bill and (Ben) Melinda gates foundation’.
Eugenia Loli-Queru mentions graphics drivers after suspend/hibernate withs he argues should be show stoppers for a distrobution. I think sound should allso fall into this catagory. I have tried many distro’s on my Toshiba and Thinkpad, not one have been able to restore my sound out-of-box, but ubuntu is the first one to hibernate and resume my toshiba, so they have done some nice work and it is now my choice for the Toshiba, but the Thinkpad is still good old debian testing, nothing beats the real thing
I think Eugenia is pointing out the real issue.
Will Canonical deliver a product where they will fix major bugs or will they push for time-based releases above all?
If they stick to the current form, people will complain about the bugs. If they adopt the Debian form “release when ready”, people will also complain that is too slow.
Regarding the number of bugs: there are a lot of duplicates filed and also a lot of useless bug reports so I think this problem needs better attention. Microsoft doesn’t allow “ordinary” users to file bug reports for a reason.
Perhaps there should be a middle ground. Maybe they should have a ‘Ubuntu “codename” Bleeding’ and ‘Ubuntu “codename” Solid” or something. Let people have their bleeding edge, but release alternatives with long term bugs fixed only and well chosen and stable “must haves” from the bleeding build?
Ehum, that’s what 6.06 is for…
What was their excuse for breaking usb and media:// in 6.06 for months then? People I know *had* to migrate to get around these issues – migrate to other versions of linux or to Edgy.
Seriously – I think ubuntu has done a lot of great work making linux accessable by “the people,” but they have a history of simply not fixing semi-major and show-stopper bugs until release+1. This is one of the most major drawbacks of the 6 month release cycle.
I don’t like the way ubuntu does their cycle fiesty is a release canidate right now. It’s not really finished till gutsy comes out. That is why you download and get a crapload of updates and fixes. So if you want stability stay a release back or use debian.
Edited 2007-04-27 07:47
I don’t think Canonical can fix ACPI problems on all laptops. ACPI is one of the biggest hardware problem for Linux, and to my knowledge, it’s once again related to manufacturers NOT using standards (please correct me if I’m wrong…). You can’t really solve this problem if manufacturers don’t give some help. Some do, some don’t. The only way to fix this is to have enough market shares to force them to consider Linux as a “must-support”. That’s where Dell could really help if they decide to put Linux as an option on most laptops and desktops. If it works, others will have to follow. Go Dell go!!!
“…no major googling before doing the big step”
Sure, sure, but it happens to be that I’m the grandchildren, and two days ago some friend, following my advice, installed the new Ubuntu. Actually I’m a Gentoo user, but for newbies recommend Ubuntu (I do not recommend any distribution, but people continues asking).
Well, my friend says: “hey man!, it soo slooow to starts (boot), and the keyboard is ‘hard’ to type”
Yes, very slow indeed, and the keyboard was a living hell to write any simple command. Found the problem in ‘hald’ and after some googling found this:
https://launchpad.net/hal/+bug/92647/comments/9
The model of my friend is a IBM Thinkpad R40e 2684, he likes Linux, is happy but Ubuntu, but he won’t forget the problem that, some module unrelated to the keyboard could make his computer sluggish, and the grandchildren had to waste two hours to find the problem.
SO, not so polished, or masses ready I would say. But anyway is better than nothing.
Use Linux, feel the power.
krom wrote, “the grandchildren had to waste two hours to find the problem”.
Of course, I also spend a lot of time fixing “friends and family” computers, most of them running Microsoft OS versions. I’m afraid that a general purpose computer is simply a complex piece of machinery, and you’ll need a grease monkey occasionally to fix it.
I’ve found Linux overall to be more stable once correctly installed than any Windows OS to date. That’s remarkable, since virtually all hardware is specifically designed for *Windows* compatibility. The free software folks have done incredibly well by my book.
I installed 7.04 Fawn on release day to my backup machine, and it performed beautifully. I set up my production machine the following day as dual-boot, and have had no problems at all with Gnome. Not using S3 video might help, of course. 😉
Beryl was lots of fun, but it occasionally blacked out a dialog in OpenOffice, so I sadly turned it off until next release. Can’t wait for the stable version, though… 🙂
“Well, my friend says: “hey man!, it soo slooow to starts (boot), and the keyboard is ‘hard’ to type””
No, the original “heavy” IBM keyboard is hard to type, and joy to use. 🙂
“Yes, very slow indeed, and the keyboard was a living hell to write any simple command.”
Just install xvkbd and let your friend click on the letters. But who still uses keyboards today? 🙂
“Use Linux, feel the power.”
Know and use it to feel the real power.
* On some hardware (especially on some models of the popular IBM laptops), when waking up from sleep, the USB subsystem is totally dead and only a reboot fixes it.
* S3 3D support is broken, while the 2D driver is full of bugs & limitations (and occasionally gets major visual artifacts after a wake-up).
That’s nothing. Before shipping I would suggest that they fix these problems:
– Incorrect ISOs served by mirror. (I got my first bad download since changing from modem years ago. And not just a bit bad, 10 mb off the correct size.)
– S3 driver can’t play videos in Totem/Xfmedia/etc without SERIOUS artifacts even when NOT using suspend features.
– rt2400 driver causes a complete hang (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace doesn’t help) when activating the network connection.
– Autoconfiguration of S3 cards gives the wrong bit depth.
– Failed resume (after suspend) causes missing files.
And don’t forget the plethora of people that get no screen upon booting the cd’s. I’m not talking proprietary drivers here, we’re talking incorrect vga settings
The forums are littered with them.
6 months is just a ridiculous time frame to put out a polished product, but then we are talking about a service/support business model I guess.
The installer’s screen detection still does need some work I agree. I have long since given up on using the Live CD installer in favour of the Alternative CD as a work around.
I also agree with comments regarding Compiz that, whilsit would be great to see it stable and even switched on by default. In my experience of using it on Intel and Nvidia chipsets is that it’s still some way off this stage.
I thought ACPI was an issue with PC laptops in general. On mine it’s got issues on Linux, and issues on Windows. From what I’ve heard there’s disagreements on how to implement the ACPI standard, and there are also problems because of that in Windows.
Just wanna throw in some feedback on the review too:
It’s a bit short, and much of it describes this problem with ACPI. I think I would also throw in more details about new features and other enhancements, like how good Compiz worked for you.
Edited 2007-04-25 11:03
Read the first review.
I’ve been with linux since 2000 and I must say that Ubuntu has a great future and is a real competitor to other proprietary OSs.
I wanted to install it on a home machine, that is
Asus A8N-E, AMD 3500+, ATI X850XT. First I installed it
with -noapic -acpi=off parameters passed to the kernel, otherwise X would crash in every 10 seconds, apps freezing and keyboard locking up. I thought it was because of ATI Drivers, I downloaded binary drivers but the problems still continued. I could not find any usefull info in the internet about my problem. My hardware is ok because I’ve got XP in dual boot and it does not expose such problems. So my verdict is use Nvidia card with linux and you’ll avoid many problems.
Strangely ubuntu runs fine on my work computer that is
Asus P5B Deluxe, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, Nvidia GeForce 7600GS. If anyone know the cure please post.
Edited 2007-04-25 12:00
I have been using Linux for some years now, and agree that Linux once was not very userfriendly. But today there is no problem compared to others. Really …
But for some reason, people not only expect more ease with installing Linux than Windows … but utter perfection.
Come on people …
Have you ever tried to install Windows?! That normally takes a long time just to get a basic setup, with looking on drivers on different vendors websites. If they no longer have it online, you have to look through all sorts of obscure websites, and hope that you can find a driver that will work. Trust me … I have done A LOT of Windows installation at work.
When you finally get Windows to start working, then you begin with the application installation hell, this means cd-keys, activation schemes, dependencies etc. if you are unlucky you can even risk breaking your system. After that, you can start cleaning up the Start Menu mess and Desktop mess that all these applications leave.
The problem for Linux is that there are not any real OEM stuff going on. OSX comes with hardware, most Windows installations follows with hardware, Linux does not. This gives the illusion that Linux is the hardest to install. Dell will be changing that, and hopefully others will follow.
EDIT: Typos
Edited 2007-04-25 12:51
Have you ever tried to install Windows?!
Yes. And when I find drivers they work instead of crashing my computer. Also, hardware comes with cds with drivers for Windows. Just don’t throw them away and you don’t have to look online.
That’s a lie in a lot of cases. I’ve seen Windows drivers completely hose a system, to the point that safe mode won’t work and a full re-install is the only way to go.
Also the CDs that come with the hardware most of the time have drivers so old that most of the features of the hardware aren’t even supported by them. ATI is particularly famous for having drivers on the CD that don’t drive all the features of their graphics cards.
Just have a look at HPs all in one printer drivers for a good example of drivers that can hose Windows.
Thats the funniest thing I’ve ever read. I guess you never installed ati drivers before. Trust me installing drivers in windows is anything but smooth. It can be smooth for certain things but for the most part its rough, its tedious and its time consuming. Windows is not easy to install, especially XP, Vista is easier to install and it sees more hardware so it does support some hardware out of the box, but hardly as much as Ubuntu. You still have to go through the process of tracking down drivers for your hardware, and crossing you fingers and hope it works without any issues.
is that they’d stop patching Kubuntu to take access to certain things *away* from the user. Well, I also wish they’d stop breaking KDE to suit their whims, too, but I digress…
Use plain Ubuntu, this fixes KDE in the best possible way
Nice. At this point, if gnome was my only option for a desktop on my linux boxen, I’d probably just buy a Mac.
That was the biggest reason that I couldn´t stand Kubuntu for more than 02 weeks. It must be the worst implementation of KDE known to man. And I really mean it!
“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” should be “With Great Power Comes NO Responsibility” ]:D
You don’t get to the ‘NO responsibility’ bit until you are the size/power of Microsoft.
How about a “not working/bug” chart for Linux distros for ALL the major Linux distros about what works in them and what doesn’t. This would give a very clear showing of where the Linux needs work (like with ACPI).
It would also give everyone a better idea of the different distros. Obviously it would only be for the hardware that was tested. But if it was put up on a site where people with different hardware could post it (noting the version they tested).
This would be great because there would be one place where we could go and look and see which distro of Linux works best with my hardware.
The idea might be goof, but it surely wouldn’t work, since when someone would say this doesn’t work, another can come and say that it does. E.g. I managed to get everything working OK on a T23 with Debian (admittedly with some amount of extra work), while Eugenia had lots of issues with a T23 with Ubuntu. What does that say about Linux ? Nothing. It would work only if the same group of professionals (no, I don’t mean self proclaimed professionals which we find by the dozen, but real ones) would test those distros and be able to draw conclusions not based on their incompetence but on the actual capabilities of the various distros.
The fact that you mention the two of you tried different distributions with the same hardware is EXACTLY what I’m talking about. One had some problems and got it to work and the other had lots of problems and maybe got it to work?
This is a perfect example. Then to have a link to a page when you list items by item what you did to fix it would tell other people what it took at that date and time. Pricess!
Ubuntu has that bugzilla thing that pops up when you encounter a serious bug. I think every distro should have this and that the bugs should be sent to both he distro makers own bug repo and to a separate organization where all bugs get reported to and their job is to delegate the responsibility of the bug. Is it gnome, send it upstream, is it distro specific, send to the distro maker, is it kernel related send it to the kernel devs, is it xorg, send it to the xorg devs. The issue is that this work is boring and getting a organization to do this will take money. I think all distro makers should bite the bullet and cough up the cash. The issue is that sometimes something that works in one distro, doesnt’ work in another, if the bug reports and fixes were shared across all distro’s then the choice of distro would be more about features, not who works better.
Don’t give them too much credit: I have a Mac G5 tower whose USB is completely dead after waking from sleep. In fairness, it may be a hardware issue rather than the OS, since I’ve run every compatible version with identical results; it runs 24/7 and all is well.
As far as not expecting MS to ship a product with major bugs, neither of those would surprise me at all in Windows. I have a Dell (XP) that usually blackscreens for several minutes when waking (it’s not supposed to go to sleep either, but it usually starts to after a week or so of uptime.)
I would expect Apple or MS to fix things like this promptly (but probably not as fast as the Ubuntu team would.)
I realize from a user perspective, Ubuntu is both Canonical’s modifications as well as the standard software(applications, kernel. drivers). Of course, Canonical doesn’t write the applications, the kernel, the drivers, etc. However, it is open to them to “tweak” all of them. I remember all of the custom kernels, etc. that Mandrake/Mandriva used to create (and probably still do). It was a blessing and a curse. By all of the “tweaking”, Mandrake[iva] could fix or customize all kinds of things. On the bad side, it messed up many applications that now would not work with all of their tweaks.
So har far does Canonical go? How far do we want them to go? It would be nice if they could redo all of the drivers for the Video/Sound/Network/USB/IDE etc. for my Laptop so that I could finally suspend and resume properly. But do they have the staff/resources/time to redo all of them? And even if they could, would we want them to? If every distro had their own set of customized drivers fo hardware, things could get very messy very fast!
Microsoft and Apple have the luxury of being THE OS – in addition to having hardware companies making the drivers for their OS. On Linux/BSD it is much more complicated.
Maybe it is time for all of us in the wild and wooly PC world to start standardizing on hardware. Just as Macs have a known subset of hardware, maybe we should do the same. Maybe we don’t need as many Video Card, Sound Card, Network Card choices. Maybe it is time for Linux-Compatibles to be sold. Maybe Dell could lead the way – start selling Linux-Compatibles. On these machines, _everything_ works. AND, all you hackers, only a limited set of hardware is supported. You can’t go down to Best Buy and get a new Video Card and Sound Card. If you do, you are on your own. I for one am tired of the crap-shoot that is the PC experience – Windows or Linux! Let’s narrow the hardware field, standardize the hardware, and start having a more “Mac-like” experience – stuff just works!
Dell Ubuntu, Dell Suse, Dell Red Hat – I really don’t care (well, actually I prefer Ubuntu ;} ) – let’s just get some stuff that works, works, works!
Anyone who makes major improvements to the software should push the changes upstream.
Fretinator check out system76 they make ubuntu certified laptops and desktops they have a place on the ubuntu forums too.
That is exactly what I want to do when I buy my next laptop. I know of three main vendors that specialize in Linux laptops – System76, LinuxCertified and EmperorLinux. Who knows, by the time I go to buy my next laptop, maybe Dell will be one of those. EmperorLinux seems to be a little out of my league price wise, but LinuxCertified and System76 have several models in my price range.
Wow, an Ubuntu Feisty laptop with all the hardware working – sounds awesome!
System76, LinuxCertified and EmperorLinux.
You might as well have a look at: http://uk.zepto.com/Shop/Notebooks.aspx
I went to the site, and I didn’t see Linux even mentioned.
we can read: “it is one of the most (if not the most) successful Linux distro release ever”
why?
*buntu is not easier to use that mandriva, suse, xandros, linspire…
*buntu doesn’t have tool to manage hardware, system like mandriva, suse…
*buntu is less polished than mandriva, suse, xandros, linspire…
if i compare kubuntu to other kde centric linux distriubtion: mandriva, suse, xandros, linspire, it has a lot more bug than others…
you want a proof?
http://bugs.kde.org/
so *buntu is just another distribution….
there are a couple of years it was mandriva, now it’s ubuntu and tomorrow?
Ubuntu has more packages and high availability mirrors than any other distro except debian.
If Kubuntu was so terrible, it wouldn’t be so widely used. I truly believe this, particularly as it’s FOSS software and there’s no sort of lockin or unfair competition.
There’s a REASON Mandrake/Mandriva isn’t king of the hill anymore. The same goes for Suse.
Why?
Well, I think there are a ton of factors – maybe marketing is one of them.
The biggest thing for me was a low barrier to entry (particularly back in the Warty days, Debian had a reputation as a more advanced user’s distro) and amazing package management – I LOVE Apt.
Kubuntu was never that bad to me…And I used it full time for over a year (Hoary to Dapper, I think).
AS for less polished…I’ve never had a smoother, quicker, and simpler experience than with Ubuntu Feisty…And I’ve used A LOT of distros commercial and non, on more than a few different machines.
The codec/plugin/restricted drivers installation actually clinched it for me and I’ve since replaced XP COMPLETELY.
I was almost dissapointed that my new comp took less than an hour to fool with to get it running the way I wanted. Almost
“But it’s bugs like the two mentioned above that make me wonder if Canonical has all it takes to play ball in that new market stage against XP or OSX. You see, under no circumstances I would expect Microsoft or Apple to ship an OS with these kinds of bugs in them. It is time for Canonical to realize that when major bugs still exist, they must first fix them and then release.”
I’ve been saying this for some time now – the distros – all of them, not just Ubuntu – need to get their quality control act together. And that starts with not throwing in stuff that simply doesn’t work from the beginning – not just tweaking bugs in those products.
Concentrate on making sure that the stuff that a new user will use from the beginning is rock solid – that is, the installation process, the package update process – and everything on the menu.
Next up should be making sure wireless and laptops work as far as manufacturer drivers will allow. Do NOT ship buggy native drivers. Do NOT ship buggy software like the Wireless Assistant when you know it doesn’t work well with WEP. Do not ship wireless at all if it doesn’t support WPA, let alone WPA2.
If a device doesn’t work well with the distro, SAY SO UP FRONT – not buried in a Release Note or Errata or even Known Issues. Known Issues should be at the top of the list of any distro’s release notices, so people can see immediately what the problems are. If that hurts your standing among distros, tough. Maybe it will motivate you to fix your problems. The first thing people should see in the documentation for ANY software or hardware is Known Issues.
And the count of 4,000 bugs is just pathetic – especially when you realize that Ubuntu is a “stripped down” distro that doesn’t even include everything the larger distros do. The count of these bugs could probably be reduced dramatically by simply not including buggy packages in the first place.
The distros are throwing everything in but the kitchen sink in order to compete with other distros in a mad emulation of Windows “featuritis”. This is hurting Linux adoption by pissing off new users unnecessarily.
Quoting how many bugs per week a distro gets doesn’t say anything. Ever since Ubuntu came out they have been encouraging people to submit bug reports. More users means more bug reports. If other distros had as many users, they’d have as many bug counts.
In addition, someone/thing in the Ubuntu community seems to have encouraged more of these “enhancement bugs” where the problem isn’t that something isn’t working right, it’s that a user wants it to work differently. Seeing as how, by some polls, most Ubuntu users’ last OS was XP, you can guess that there’s a lot of these “bug” reports. They should be separated from real bugs.
It really boggles the mind why some folks truly believe that the Buntu’s have what it takes to beat MS or even that they think its the best distro out there. It is a decent distro, but it certainly is not better than a host of others who are far ahead of it in functionality and performance. Is it because it has Corporate backing? Is it because it spews out masses of cd’s to whomever will take them?.. This certainly should not be the justification for naming it “the leading distro”?! Here is something to think about..
1) The Buntu’s dont preconfigure a users video card (nvidia/ati) on install. This is not just foolish, it is stupid and makes no sense! Do you really believe an MS user is going to drop windows over a distro that cant even do this?.. HAH!
2) The buntu’s dont preconfigure flash or flash apps,and java. See #1 above. Things like Youtube will not work out of the box on install!!! Flash cant be installed at all on amd64 machines on the Buntu’s.
3) The buntu’s are backed by a Corporate entity. This makes them suspect for a number of reasons, foremost of which is — What are Canonicals intentions? Do you really believe they will continue to push thier pet distro for free? Isnt what Canonical is doing, the same as what MS did during the late 80’s/early 90’s?!
4) The Buntu’s do not preconfigure Compiz/Beryl and in fact, quite alot of hacking is required to get it up and running properly on a 64 bit system. Eye candy goes a long way with the MS and MAC crowd and sells! Other distro’s such as Sabayon do not suffer from any of the above and in fact, all things work out of the box — So again, what makes the Buntu’s better than a system such as Sabayon, or PCLos, or SuSe, or SimplyMepis, or PuppyLinux, or Mint?!!!…
Brainless hype on an inferior distro wont get the Linux world any closer to beating MS on the desktop folks! Please stop the FUD and start pushing distro’s that are far better and more well thought out. Better yet, STOP PUSHING linux distro’s and leave us real Linux lovers in peace! TBH, I could care less if Linux dominates the global desktop Market. The implications of that will, in the end, destroy the concept of Linux and open source as we enjoy it today because lawsuits will start to fly, the open source apps we all love to use will go proprietary or get shut down from litigation, the distro’s we love (like the Buntu’s) will no longer remain free. Think about this before you all get in some mad rush to kill MS because right now, thier bumbling about is more of an ally to Linux than ever before (aka Vista).
One more thing and ill shut up. Linux is about freedom. Dont any of you ever forget that please. By pushing and touting one distro over another, you are killing that freedom for new users in one form or another. By telling a Linux know-nothing, “Ubuntu IS the Linux distro of choice”, you are in effect sending the impression to the noob that Ubuntu is the end all – be all of linux distro’s, which truthfully is NOT the case. That noob will form his/her impressions on thier experiences from that mess and then decide to return to windows because of it. You do the Linux world a great disservice by doing that because that same noob may have gone full bore Linux had he/she tried a real distro like Sabayon, SuSe, PCLos, Mint, PuppyLinux, SimplyMepis, etc. and enjoyed the experience of a fully functional and WORKING system out of the box that Ubuntu does not offer.
Apart from apparent bug issues with Feisty, why do we even need two releases of Ubuntu every year?
Not many seems to wonder why they don’t simply deliver one more or less bug free release a year instead of ‘rushing’ out more or less unfinished (or at least more or less unpolished) releases ….
Perhaps it’s the sometimes wild pace of open source development, but sometimes I’d wish for a more ‘laid back’ release schedule that would allow more of the annoying bugs mentioned by Eugenia and others in this thread…
Apart from apparent bug issues with Feisty, why do we even need two releases of Ubuntu every year?
Not many seems to wonder why they don’t simply deliver one more or less bug free release a year instead of ‘rushing’ out more or less unfinished (or at least more or less unpolished) releases ….
Ubuntu follows Gnome’s release schedule. When it first came out Ubuntu was Gnome only. Us Gnome users like that. We get the new Gnome release when it comes out (assuming one upgrades to the Ubuntu beta which I always do).
People keep saying Ubuntu should do a “stable” release and other people keep telling them that’s what 6.04 (dapper) was. But people keep suggesting Ubuntu should do a “stable” release….
I enjoyed this article. Things are getting exciting on the Linux desktop front.
I suspect that although we can continue to refine our installation routines and support for various hardware capabilities, we are far enough along to have reached a point of diminishing returns; There is always going to be a certain latency between when hardware is released to the market, and when we are able to make it work well, and without any fuss, out of the box.
There really is no substitute for the hardware manufacturers actually caring, and caring greatly, that their hardware works with Linux. Same thing with systems integrators like Dell, HP, and Lenovo. We’re never going to see top quality of the finished product without companies like Dell ensuring that when you unbox the machine and turn it on, everything is going to ‘just work’.
Fortunately, in addition to distros reaching a certain level of polish, it looks like Dell might really be taking Linux seriously this time. (I’m cautiously optimistic on that bit.)
I’ve said before, and I will say again now, that I do not believe in a “Year of the Linux Desktop”. I believe in slow and steady progress.
However, it looks like 2007 could be a very significant year, indeed, for Linux on the desktop.
Edited 2007-04-25 20:41
My biggest complaint about all of these Ubuntu reviews is that the major point keeps being missed:
The average user does not install the OS themselves.
Windows is pre-installed, unless you have a clone or a white box solution.
Nor should the expectation be made that they should.
Bill Gates unfortunately set the expectation that consumers should be able to install the OS, and that’s just an incorrect assumption.
Yes, I do understand that Eugenia is more than an average user; however the expectation that everything is going to work out of the box without struggle is using this comparison with Windows again, and you can’t make that comparison.
If you were to install Windows (which I’m planning on doing as a test) by itself, you would still run into issues with drivers and with pieces of hardware that wouldn’t work out of the box.
Frankly I’m amazed at the feats of reverse engineering to get Linux to where it’s at right now.
For companies providing limited to no information, Linux is doing pretty good.
I think the real test will come when Dell does pre-installs.
>The average user does not install the OS themselves.
The OSNews readers do. We have a specific readership.
True.
However, the basis of comparison in most of these reviews (at least what I’ve interpreted) is whether or not the average user could install this as an out of box solution, which is very much highlighted in both the reviews and some of the comments.
I understand the OSNews reader is generally more than an average user, but I see a lowest common denominator being used in reviews.
At home, I have been using Ubuntu as my primary desktop and server for a couple of years now. The changes I see are subtle, because I am not doing fresh installs and I already have most everything configured the way I want it (upgrades respect that, for the most part) so there is little, if anything, for me to do or notice after an upgrade. But, . . .
Today, I showed Ubuntu (the live CD) to a co-worker. While demoing this for my friend, I rediscovered how easy Ubuntu is/was. I was absolutely floored. I was able to RDP to my Windows boxes and run RDP sessions (terminal server clients) in full screen mode from a CD faster than I normally do from my XP or 2003 box. Linux (and Ubuntu) just amazes me. It’s everything you want, but stays out of your way. Just for the Hell of it, I installed Apache on the Live CD. In moments, I was serving web pages from my Live CD. Try that with Windows. I clicked on the “Enable Desktop Effects” and it noticed that I didn’t have the Nvidia drivers installed, so in a matter of seconds, it had them installed.
I have installed Windows serveral times on these boxes. And, I am here to tell you that I have to do a lot more work to get Windows drivers installed after install than I do Linux.
So, yeah. I want everything to work 100% perfectly out of the box without any end user configuration. Non-technical people will expect that. But, if it isn’t quite there yet, that’s OK. It beats Windows in almost every way.
I just can’t say enough great things about the Linux hackers, Ubuntu and the overall community.
Having been a developer for many years, I can say that what is a major bug is indeed very subjective and can cause a lot of angst. People will argue passionately for or against certain bugs being “show stoppers”. On the receiving end, people who encounter a bug can’t believe that the product would ever be shipped with that bug. Others, who aren’t having problems, wonder what all the fuss is about.
Having used the last 3 releases of Ubuntu, I can say it is a very nice and fairly easy to use. Personally, I think Mandriva (and PCLinuxOS) did a better job of dealing with wireless cards, especially those requiring the use of ndiswrapper. Wireless continues to be a big problem. I think some would say not being able to get their wireless working easily is a major bug.
I work at a large company that has a customized Linux distribution available for internal use. It is optional. The threshold for what is an acceptable level of function for someone to make the leap from Windows to Linux can vary greatly. For some, like you it appears, the hibernate/standby support is critical. For me it is not such a big deal, but I don’t move my laptop around that much and the boot time has gotten fast as well. For others it is the ability to process and create Word and PowerPoint documents without issue. I generally use the OpenOffice generate PDF facility and send around PDFs. Obviously, how much you like or dislike Windows can be a major factor as well.
Obviously installing Windows XP and more likely Vista on a machine can lead to quite a few issues. Ubuntu gets easier and easier but it seems unlikely that every adapter will get supported well, especially as long as the manufacturers don’t support Linux.
Although I hope I am wrong, I’m afraid it is going to take some major vendors preinstalling Ubuntu and people being willing to buy and use them for Ubuntu and/or Linux to get far past the early adopter stage. Yeah, I know, everyone has anecdotes where they set up a machine for someone and they used Linux happily ever after. I have too. Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily lead to widespread adoption.
One of the things I like about Ubuntu is the community seems more helpful/friendly. It probably doesn’t hurt that there is some private money (Shuttleworth) behind it as well.
Is this a user forum for Ubuntu come on now about every other article is all about Ubuntu I guess the other distro’s do not exist.
I will never use Ubuntu, no plans I run Fedora on my work laptop/workstation and at home. Why not any articles about it, oh I forgot unless you fit a cookie cutter mold on here you get modded down all the time.
Where are the articles on Fedora/RedHat/OpenSuSE/SLED and so on they do exist you know.
Ubuntu is the most popular distro today and so naturally gets a lot of coverage. On top of that, they just had a new, very successful, release. Put these things together, and you end up with the answer. It has nothing to do with cookies. I am on a low-calorie diet:
http://eugenia.blogsome.com/2007/04/23/weight-tracker/
😉
Please forgive me for being impatient I know at times I guess I need to settle down and be a little more open.
🙂
“””
Where are the articles on Fedora
“””
In about a month we’ll be swimming in them. It’s cool that you are a Fedora fan, but please have the courtesy to wait your turn for Fedora’s time in the limelight.
Patience is a virtue you know.
Fedora will get it’s spot light. Personally I will look at how they are going as it effects Linux in general just as success with Ubuntu effects Linux, but, I will not install it.
Bitching between Distros does nothing for the bigger picture which is to deliver a decent computing experience to the general public.