Ubuntu Linux is a new Debian-based distro sponsored by Canonical Ltd. NewsForge spent a week using Ubuntu and came away impressed, despite some of its obvious teething pains. Update: A release candidate of Ubuntu Linux 4.10 is now available.
Ubuntu Linux 4.10 RC Released; Review: Should you do Ubuntu?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Of course it’ll have teething pains, it’s still a cute little warty warthog (preview) at the moment
I tried the live cd and it worked pretty well.
The latest gnome is much better, but it is still lacking a couple of things.
1. Windows don’t center when you open them and there is no option to turn this on, probably related to metacity.
2. Does not have the option to group similar task bar items like KDE and XP have. I really miss this when using gnome.
If 2.8 can do either of these let me know as I would for sure try ubunto if I knew Gnome could satisfiy my KDE addiction.
I hate this feature:
“2. Does not have the option to group similar task bar items like KDE and XP have. I really miss this when using gnome.”
Why is this important?
“1. Windows don’t center when you open them and there is no option to turn this on, probably related to metacity.”
I won’t kid myself that a couple of features would make KDE fans switch to GNOME. It’s like culture, experience, necessity, etc, that make oneself use one or the other. No feature alone is that important. 🙂
“2. Does not have the option to group similar task bar items like KDE and XP have. I really miss this when using gnome. ”
As far as I remember it does that, but I may be wrong since I hate that feature anyway
I’m a longtime KDE user. I’m using Ubuntu right now and I really like the slickness of GNOME 2.8. KDE could clean up a bit.
I, too, hate the grouping feature. It takes away my overview of what I have active and what not.
It’s taste allright, but not limited to being a KDE user.
Do check out the following screenshots of the new theme which has already raised a lot of controversy in the mailing list. Check them out and you’ll see why – I’m not going to spoil it for you 🙂
http://img62.exs.cx/img62/4553/screenshot4.png
http://img61.exs.cx/img61/7370/screenshot-1.png
http://img51.exs.cx/img51/4012/screenshot-2.png
Lot’s of fun. That’s what life is all about. 🙂
I confirm, the taskbar items group by default.
Hehe, well that’s somethings I’ve never seen in a distro before. But it makes clear what the logo actually means. Wonder if that truly will be the default theme.
United Colors of Unbuntu !
…so sick of it you feel compelled to read every ubuntu article and then post about it?
Are they frikin serious?? Man, I thought the original ‘human’ theme a bit blandish, but this?! No problem with the inter-racial thing (in such a marriage myself), but come on, have some decency.
Ok, call me a prude now, but I do believe clothes lend the human being dignity and respect.
I used Ubuntu for awhile and was very impressed. I just didn’t like how I had to manually install java and eclipse. I know that not everyone is a java programmer and that eclipse isn’t the most popular ide, but there are many developers out there that use and in some cases depend on these tools “not just limited to eclipse and java.” A distribution, in the desktop/workstation arena, to be succesfull must support widespread technology Besides that I think Ubuntu was a very interesting distribution and well done.
Ignore those screenshots, I sincerely doubt those are going to be in the official release. Remember that Ubuntu is targeted at being a commercial distribution at some point.
Welcome to Debian. If it isn’t free it isn’t there. So if you plan on installing Ubuntu remeber you will be manually installing mp3 support, java, flash, etc. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Flash is easy, especially with firefox. Java isn’t to hard either, although I tried unsuccessfully to use the java-package(or whatever it is called this week) tool. mp3 support is as simple as adding another apt repository, which is cake with synaptic.
If you want a nice linux environment for java development Gentoo is the way to go. The java tools in the Gentoo distro are superior to any other distro. It has never been so easy to install and manage several jvms and compilers. That said I have standardized on Debian. I was twidling with Gentoo too much.
On an unrelated note I have been pleasently suprised that I have not shot myself in the foot yet using packages from other apt repositories. I have added support for my ATI AIW 7500 w/the gatos project, installed xawtv, as well as added mp3 support. My next project is a vocp telephone answering system.
I installed this, but it wouldn’t give me a resoluition higher than 640×480! I have an nvidia card, and xorg was using the “nv” driver. Anyone else experience this?
oh, yes, it mad em think of throwing the comp out the window more times than gentoo.
My god, I tried it one day and it made me hate Gnome, somewhat ironically. Crashed 5 times and I threw Xandros on it. No root account is a bad idea, unless I’m ignorant, if you modify /etc/sudoers with sudo, if you make a mistake you’re locked out of doing anything worthwhile unless you have Slax/Knoppix handy.
*Not to say KDE isn’t unstable, but I attribute that to using an older version (3.1.3 is in Xandros OE)
(for people who like Gnome, Dropline/Slackware is very bearable, I am not anti-Gnome but these crashes are unacceptable in a shell)
The current preview release of Ubuntu, Warty, does not use x.org. I did not realize builds of the next release, Hoary(which will use x.org), were circulating. Perhaps you ought to consider installing the current preview release.
The installer is pretty much the new beta debian installer. It autodetected everything fine, except the syntaptic(sic) touchpad doesn’t do double-tap properly.
I like how they put ndiswrapper in the repository and set up the symlinks for me so I could just goto Gnome network settings, bring up wlan0 and I was good to go on the wireless front.
Project utopia(D-Bus/HAL) is cool. I love how I did a mount -t vfat… and nautilus popped up with the mounted partition. The device manager is cool too.
And the nvidia and ati drivers are in the repository so whoever was saying “welcome to debian, if it ain’t “free” it aint in there” doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
This Shuttleworth fellow has deep pockets, the beta looks awesome. All in all this distro has a bright future.
Maybe someone can convince this shuttleworth guy to hire a couple guys to fix fonts on linux once and for all. Linux still has major problems with small fonts at high resolutions. Tahoma-10 at 1600×1200 on a UXGA screen anyone?
Now that I have one of the daily ISO snapshots installed am I going to have to install a new ISO when the first release comes out…or hopefully will it be as easy as apt-get update; apt-get upgrade? The transition to X.org might be a pain.
Bruce Perens needs to get in touch with Shuttleworth and merge the two projects (rather UnitedLinux getting folded into Ubuntu). I don’t see why these two should be separate.
UserLinux wants to remain totally vendor neutral, while Ubuntu obviously favors Canonical.
Upgrading between releases (and throughout the development branch) will just be a matter of dist-upgrading. Mark and Bruce have spoken previously; for various reasons, it is unlikely that the efforts will be merged.
Hmm…, well, in fact the GDM screenshot looks kinda ok and even nice to me (reflecting the idea of humanity…), though the persons might have a bit more clothes on… Anyway, I suppose that the Ubuntu logo is indeed based on that idea/image of three persons (of different ethnic backgrounds) forming a circle with their hands, right?
The other two theme screenshots? Eh…, rather not… But what else could you expect from a distro that names its releases as “Warty Warthog” etc..?
(yeah, I suppose those images are not to be taken seriously though…)
Brings new meaning to Ubuntu.
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/support/documentation/faq/meaning-of-ubu…
http://img51.exs.cx/img51/4012/screenshot-2.png
The current preview release of Ubuntu, Warty, does not use x.org. I did not realize builds of the next release, Hoary(which will use x.org), were circulating. Perhaps you ought to consider installing the current preview release.
good to know. though isn’t debian like gentoo? the only difference between one version and the next is the version of the packages shipped with the install cd?
cupsys-driver-gimpprint will be installed by default now? Many printers don’t work without it, including my Epson CX3200.
Tahoma-10 at 1600×1200 on a UXGA screen anyone?
What DPI? Tahoma looks fine on my machine at 8-pt, which should be close to the same as 10-pt at 96 dpi.
I installed this at work and my boss looked at me funny…. not cool
So you installed a really cool Linux distro, and your boss looked at you funny? Then there must be something wrong with your boss…
I liked the screenshots, pretty stylish. I don’t know what the big fuss is about… People without many clothes on. How very *shocking* Seriously, get over it..
I wish I could find a linux distro with good wireless support, I half thought I would find it with Ubuntu because of the nice HAL stuff going on, but sadly I didn’t… I found it insulting that the Howto for setting up wireless cards on the Ubuntu site ask you to download the needed packages… If I could download those packages, wouldn’t that mean my internet connection is ALREADY working?
As someone that keeps up on the Ubuntu users mailing list, here are a few tidbits of info about the “controversy”.
The objectionable (to some) background is NOT the default. It’s apparently a monthly calendar image that will change regularly.
To some it appears to be the default, but this was unintentional. If you had changed the previous default background image, you get the nekkid background image when you update via Synaptic/apt-get/etc.
These answers don’t apply to the new GDM and Gnome splash images, but I don’t think those are as shocking to some people as the desktop. It has already been discussed on the mailing list how to change these defaults, and that info has been added to the FAQ.
Hope that clears a few things up. 🙂
Otherwise, you should try it. Ubuntu ROCKS!!
Wow, I like the new theme 😉
(It’s not a sarcasm, I really like that)
And the nvidia and ati drivers are in the repository so whoever was saying “welcome to debian, if it ain’t “free” it aint in there” doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
My bad, the nVidia(although not the ATI) non-free drivers are in the Main/Restricted. There is no non-free java(or wrapper pkg), no flash, no mp3, or other non-free goodies. No Debian based distro is as friendly toward non-free software as Gentoo.
Speaking of repositories, the ubuntu.com repository has been less than stable of late, but switching to a North American .edu repository has solved that problem for me.
good to know. though isn’t debian like gentoo? the only difference between one version and the next is the version of the packages shipped with the install cd?
Another difference is the apt repository. When Hoary comes out individuals will need to change their repository from Warty Main/Restricted and Security to Hoary Main/Restricted and Security. But yes, transitioning between one release and the next can be quite seamless. This is one of my favorite features of Debian and Gentoo as compared to an rpm based distro.
No, the Default is the default. New installations and new users will
get the Ubuntu Default Desktop background image.
The only reason you’d see the calendar is if you’d installed Preview
(which had the Calendar as the default) and opened the desktop
background dialog — this would’ve saved the Calendar as your personal
setting; so when the default changed with the Release Candidate you
wouldn’t have inherited it as you’ve made your own choice.
One thing that needs to be clear is that the Calendar image is not the
default desktop, it worked out that way unexpectedly for those of you
who had installed a previous release and then upgraded. My sincere
apologies if that caught anyone off guards, especially if it came at an
awkward moment. For new users the default desktop is the image with the
Ubuntu logo on it.
(I posted the previous anonymous post as well, sorry)
If I could download those packages, wouldn’t that mean my internet connection is ALREADY working?
Actually you being able to read the Howto on their web site is pretty much the indication that your internet connection is already working. I guess this Howto and download would be pretty useful to people who have a wired connection and want to go wireless or may have another way to connect to their site.
Tahoma-10 at 96 DPI too. I use 96 DPI on XP and tahoma-10 is perfect, but notice how small fonts on linux just don’t look right. The curves of various character glyphs are either too thick or too thin. I didn’t try Tahoma-8. That’s pushing it even for my good eyes on a 15″ screen at 1600×1200. The best I’ve gotten so far is Bitstream Vera Serif. It’ll do, but its far from perfect. Linux still has work to do on the fonts.
Maybe I have to enable bytecode hinting or fanagle the fonts some other way, but when I look at screen shots of various linux desktops here and other places they all look horribly bad, except for the XFCE screenshot of those HP thin clients.
At this point, I’m willing to pay someone to get me some fonts on Gnome that look as good as cleartype-enabled XP fonts.
I right-clicked on the Windows List applet and opened the Preferences dialog. There’s an option there called Window Grouping. Is that what you were referring to?
no, other people determine decency and afford respect. Clothes keep you warm.
for synaptics touchpad, there’s a program that makes double clicking work (and enables other things too). I guess ubuntu has it packaged somewhere, or if not debian does. It’s just called synaptics itself (or at least, the MDK package is).
oh, and as someone else said, point sizes are *relative*. the correct fix for this would be to get dpi settings properly set on install (though Linux is generally already a lot better at this than Windows, which has universally decreed that every monitor in existence is 96dpi…)
The Splash screen, wallpaper etc in the updated theme actually gives me the creeps. Maybe I am not in touch with my humanity or something. But the idea of these arty pictures just does not go down well with me.
If only I knew how to change the GDM theme or whatever it is called.
Hmm. You’re right that Tahoma-10 doesn’t look very nice in Linux at 96dpi. I couldn’t tell you why, though, probably because it’s so small. I’ve got the same resolution panel (15″ 1600×1200), and running at it’s native 133dpi, I find Albany-9 to look quite nice: http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg990h/albany-9-133.png
Not all that different from Tahoma-8 at 133dpi, which I use in XP.
Personally, my biggest gripe against freetype is it’s problems rendering italics properly — something which Cleartype does relatively well.
My bad, the nVidia(although not the ATI) non-free drivers are in the Main/Restricted. There is no non-free java(or wrapper pkg), no flash, no mp3, or other non-free goodies. No Debian based distro is as friendly toward non-free software as Gentoo.
Some of the non-free stuff is in multiverse as well. I didn’t have any problems finding and intalling any of the things you mention.
Speaking of repositories, the ubuntu.com repository has been less than stable of late, but switching to a North American .edu repository has solved that problem for me.
Hmmm… I’ve been using Ubuntu since the day the Warty Preview Release came out and I haven’t seen or heard of any problems with the repositiry.
Aaron
The display of multi-culturalism on the new theme is a mistake. The implicit egalitarism is considered by many people to be a destructive fiction. Mark Shuttleworth, the owner of Ubuntu, was the first African in space – so perhaps calling him a Space Cadet is more than warranted.
If you don’t like it… don’t use it? How about focussing on things that matter?
I took a look at the screenshot you linked. It’s not bad, and something I would consider for using on linux but the fonts are just too thick for me. And even on that high DPI, you can notice the shadowing which is always exacerbated with smaller fonts.
I sent you a screenshot of my XP desktop in an email. Notice how the smaller/thinner tahoma-10, Large fonts, 96 DPI fonts are absolutely crystal clear.
I’m almost to the point now where I need to start doing some research on this stuff on my own because linux fonts still aren’t cutting it for me.
By the way, I believe it was Owen Taylor over at Redhat, that wrote a paper on font problems that was linked here a while back.
The font screenshot you posted has the character glyph thickness relatively uniform, but if you notice on something like tahoma-10 at 96 DPI its absolutely screwy with various curves of a character being way thicker than others.
Bitstream Vera Serif is about the best I can get out of my Ubuntu desktop, but I’ll continue to play with various DPIs (which I have already)
Some of the non-free stuff is in multiverse as well. I didn’t have any problems finding and intalling any of the things you mention.
Which of the items I mentioned are in universe? A non-free java (i.e. sun)? mp3 support? flash? ATI binary only drivers? None of these are in universe.
Read the ubuntu wiki to understand why the above are not included in ubuntu, and how one might go about obtaining them:
http://wiki.ubuntulinux.org/RestrictedFormats
I do not fault ubuntu for not including legally questionable software. Quite the opposite, I run ubuntu everyday. I support the Debian social contract. But don’t confuse people, there is software not included in ubuntu, and it is not included for some very good reasons.
Hmmm… I’ve been using Ubuntu since the day the Warty Preview Release came out and I haven’t seen or heard of any problems with the repositiry.
The entire ubuntu.com domain was down for a short period this past weekend. This was confirmed by several individuals in #ubuntu on freenode.
Well said, I can’t agree more. Using Linux to push your own political agenda, like Ubuntu is now pushing egalitarism, is allowed and legal of course, but should not be promoted. Linux should stay neutral – in that way, it’r really for everyone, not just for representing some political idea.
Maybe somebody should tell RMS and the FSF that software shouldn’t push a political objective.
I can’t articulate how awful that theme is, ESPECIALLY as a default. It’s terrible as is, but to use it as default is throughly braindead.
Quite frankly, it makes me ill. How anyone thought this was a great idea is beyond me. Canonical/Ubuntu needs to hire some serious graphic designers _now_. Perhaps they should spring for Peter Saville (http://www.saville-associates.com/) like Adobe did (I wish!). Or just anyone who isn’t 90% blind in one eye and 100% in another.
You guys are mad. Or maybe you are joking?
Ubuntu’s philosophy is humanity. You know, people. All kinds of people.
I don’t like the theme much aesthetically but to see a ‘political agenda’ in this is just screwed up.
Individual impressions of font displays are affected by so many things, especially the quality of our own vision and the location and lighting of the monitor, that it is difficult to find a solution that meets the needs of everyone.
I’m using a 17-inch 1280×1024 flat panel and fonts in Gnome look much better to me than in XP w/ClearType. I use the Bitstream fonts for Gnome and the desktop. and Tahoma in browsers and other apps, all set at 12-point on a 96×95 screen.
If you’re using Gnome on a flat panel, use the Fonts preference gizmo to set smoothing to subpixels and hinting to none. Subpixel order is usually RGB, but might not be, so try each of the four options.
Don’t run your flat panel at anything other than the default dpi settings. As I understand it, LCD’s dither to adjust to nondefault settings. Looks awful here. Ditto running in analog mode.
That said, fonts in Linux are much better these days, but there’s still too much variation in how the same fonts on the same machine appear in different apps and different environments. E.g., I’ve never been able to get fonts in XFCE to display as they do in Gnome, even running Gnome-settings-daemon under XFCE. If someone takes a poll, I’d vote for confining all font display to X or some other tool and preventing any applications from managing their own fonts.
I like the theme. That blonde chick is *hot*
“Maybe somebody should tell RMS and the FSF that software shouldn’t push a political objective.”
Indeed, software does not push a political objective.
Software writers/publishers/vendors DO have agendas, and WILL push them. Anyone thinking this not to be the case is severly naive.
The whole point of the FSF is to push a political agenda.
I have a recent Ubuntu installation, and I must say it feels so much faster than with Windows. The program with Ruby and GTK+ is 3 times faster on this Linux than on Windows 2000. If this is the future, I must say that I like it. 🙂
I agree. I ran xp pro on this same machine and ubuntu feels much faster (I have no empirical evidence to support this of course).
What I find great about ubuntu is that “it just works”. (At least for me). I’ve had issues with other distributions… the only other distro. that worked out-of-box for my setup (without glitches over upgrades, etc) was FC. But FC is noticeably slower and certainly a much LARGER distro., loading all sorts of daemons at startup (admittedly many of them can be disabled). With ubuntu it installed quickly and easily and I have not had any problems with it since. (I had a couple minor issues early on, but it turned out it was my own misunderstanding, not a problem with the distro).
It feels slack or gentoo fast, but it’s easier to install and prettier.
Mike
I like it so far. The bootup music is annoying though
Yes, same feeling! 🙂
My bad, the nVidia(although not the ATI) non-free drivers are in the Main/Restricted. There is no non-free java(or wrapper pkg), no flash, no mp3, or other non-free goodies. No Debian based distro is as friendly toward non-free software as Gentoo.
ATI non-free drivers are in restricted (fglrx-driver). LAME is in multiverse (lame,liblame0). mp3-playback support is in universe (gstreamer0.8-mad). I don’t know what you mean with wrapper packages, but java-package and the debian/ubuntu-specific jre-packages are in multiverse (all you need to download from sun is the java .bin-file). flash is in multiverse (flashplayer-mozilla).
Point is: You can get great multimedia support without touching third party repositories. The only thing thats really missing is the w32codecs-package, but you can get that from marillat. if you also install mplayer from there and the mplayer plugin from multiverse (mozilla-mplayer), you also have embedded videos working. Gentoo isn’t really better in that regard.
Multiverse:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ warty multiverse
Marillat:
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ unstable main
I have a recent Ubuntu installation, and I must say it feels so much faster than with Windows. The program with Ruby and GTK+ is 3 times faster on this Linux than on Windows 2000. If this is the future, I must say that I like it. 🙂
What program with Ruby?
Victor.
I didn’t say universe. I said multiverse. Read carefully before you flame back.
The most likely reasons for fonts appearing different are:
1) Incorrect settings.
Open the Font Preferences dialog (Computer -> Desktop Preferences -> Font on Ubuntu) and select the Rendering setting that looks best to you — people with LCD/TFT screens should select “Subpixel smoothing”.
Also click the Details button and make sure the resolution is correct for your monitor (10pt should be the same size no matter your monitor size or resolution) and the subpixel ordering is correct for LCD screens.
2) No hinting.
This is a little complicated to explain, but basically fonts aren’t just a set of bezier curves, but include microcode that adjusts the rendering of fonts. There are some patents covering some aspects of this, so your distribution may not include the possibly encumbered code.
Edit (as root) /etc/fonts/local.conf and ensure the following is there and uncommmented:
<match target=”font”>
<edit name=”autohint” mode=”assign”>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
Without this you’ll see something like:
http://www.netsplit.com/tmp/fonts_autohint_false.png
With this you’ll see something like:
http://www.netsplit.com/tmp/fonts_autohint_true.png
(note that I have an LCD screen, so subpixel smoothing is on, you might want to try it for yourself)
Mplayer from marillat is not installable because it (as of today) has dependencies on newer libs which are in SID but not in Ubuntu’s universe/multiverse. Thus it’s not trivial to install it. One has to run a mixed Ubuntu/SID or build mplayer from source or find on older mplayer package.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
mplayer-k6: Depends: libartsc0 (>= 1.3.0) but 1.2.3-1 is to be installed
Depends: libggi2 (>= 1:2.0.5) but 1:2.0.4-3 is to be installed
Depends: libungif4g (>= 4.1.3) but 4.1.0b1-6 is to be installed
I realize I wasn’t clear. Any of the programs that I have written that do some heavy processing or use a TreeView to show a somewhat large table or hierarquical structure. The performance gains seem to be shared by GTK+ and Ruby. I have an abstraction layer on top of Ruby/GTK+ which allows me to be lazy enough and avoid much of the work that other people need to produce equivalent programs, at the cost of not being very optimized compared to other solutions. So, any “free” performance gains are very welcome. I wonder when Ruby gets its VM. 🙂
This setup could easily become my recommended platform for my programs.
Mplayer from marillat is not installable because it (as of today) has dependencies on newer libs which are in SID but not in Ubuntu’s universe/multiverse. Thus it’s not trivial to install it. One has to run a mixed Ubuntu/SID or build mplayer from source or find on older mplayer package.
Yep, saw it a few minutes ago. mplayer got updated maybe yesterday. Someone should really bring a marillat-like repository with packages build against ubuntu online.
But FC is noticeably slower and certainly a much LARGER distro., loading all sorts of daemons at startup (admittedly many of them can be disabled).
—-
obsolutely every service/deamon can be turned off if not required. this is not the only reason ubuntu *could* be faster
Not all fonts should be smoothed. At some sizes they have to be crisp to be easy to read. This applies to icons, too.
It seems that developers and interface designers tend to have all the forms on the screen smoothed. This is a contradiction with the principles of visual perception.
Totem-xine from universe works for many video formats (including encrypted DVD). The package will replace totem gstreamer. It will also remove ubuntu-desktop, but dont worry, it’s a meta package that only is useful to make sure that you have the default desktop installed.
But FC is noticeably slower and certainly a much LARGER distro., loading all sorts of daemons at startup (admittedly many of them can be disabled).
—-
obsolutely every service/deamon can be turned off if not required. this is not the only reason ubuntu *could* be faster
Isn’t that a bit backwards, though? That’s one of the big complaints about Microsoft security, in fact, so many things are turned on by default. Now I’ve used Fedora at Core 1 only briefly, but it seems to me daemons should only be turned on as needed, either by automatic configurations or the user. Hopefully Ubuntu will take this approach when they get their services tool.
“<match target=”font”>
<edit name=”autohint” mode=”assign”>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>”
My local.conf looks like this, a bit like HTML:
<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM “fonts.dtd”>
<fontconfig>
<dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts</dir>
<!– Uncomment below to enable subpixel rendering –>
<!–
<match target=”font”>
<test qual=”all” name=”rgba”>
<const>unknown</const>
</test>
<edit name=”rgba” mode=”assign”><const>rgb</const></edit>
</match>
–>
<match target=”pattern”>
<edit name=”prefer_outline”>
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>
Should I still copy all the “<” symbols in?
Yeah, since I have an LCD I obviously have sub-pixel smoothing on.
If you look at the second screenshot you posted, you’ll notice that you have characters that are running into each other. Some pairs of characters are spaced or rendered properly, but then other character pairs are on top of each other.
I’ll try looking at my font.conf and see if anything can be done, but there’s still much work to be done on Linux to reach the font quality of cleartype-enabled XP….especially with small fonts.
I tried the live cd and it worked pretty well.
The latest gnome is much better, but it is still lacking a couple of things.
1. Windows don’t center when you open them and there is no option to turn this on, probably related to metacity.
2. Does not have the option to group similar task bar items like KDE and XP have. I really miss this when using gnome.
If 2.8 can do either of these let me know as I would for sure try ubunto if I knew Gnome could satisfiy my KDE addiction.
Totem-xine does _not_ play encrypted DVD’s. I have tried and so have many other people. Read the Ubuntu Multimedia guide if you want to play dvd’s. (It can only be done with 3rd party installs a’la mplayer – totem can not easily be set to do it)
Just install libdvdcss. Then totem-xine will play encrypted dvds.
The main problem I see with ubuntu right now is the lack of documentation. I just installed it and it’s basically useless to me because (a) I can’t run xmms (b) I can’t access my windows drives [ntfs] (c) I can’t install any non-free stuff
Problem (a). I installed xmms through synaptic (which is not included in the menus for some reason), but when I run it:
benjamin@ubuntu:/etc $ xmms
libmikmod.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Inconsistency detected by ld.so: ../sysdeps/generic/dl-tls.c: 72: _dl_next_tls_modid: Assertion `result <= _rtld_local._dl_tls_max_dtv_idx’ failed!
Problem (b). I created a mount point for each of my 2 ntfs partitions. I ‘chmod 777 /mnt/win’, I ‘sudo mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/win’ etc, mounts fine. Then gnome pops up a nautilus window to browse the folder and it says i dont have access to it. i can acess it from a term, but i want to access it through nautilus.
Problem (c). Well to install anything non-free I have to add some sort of host to my apt sources file. Ubuntu dosnt tell me where this file is, what it does, or the name of the host. There is no official documentation to read to try to find this info. I am not about to read the whole apt-get man page, and this wouldn’t even answer all my questions.
I want, no, I need my mp3s. If I can’t listen to mp3s on ubuntu very soon, it’s back to gentoo.
Who would have thought gentoo would actually be easier than this more-newbie-oriented distro.?
Hi,
First of all, I’m no expert.
“The main problem I see with ubuntu right now is the lack of documentation.”
Yeah, they could improve it, but I like the available resources, though direct help is welcome sometimes (I’ve enjoyed some info that some guys have posted in this thread, for example.)
Here is their wiki: http://wiki.ubuntulinux.org/
Their users mailinglist: http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/
And finally, they seem to be very helpful at irc.freenode.net #ubuntu (IRC.)
“Problem (a). I installed xmms through synaptic (which is not included in the menus for some reason), but when I run it”
They prefer Rhythmbox. It’s better integrated. I could add the support to play mp3 to it. Get gstreamer0.8-mad. I tried to install XMMS and its support for mp3 (xmms-mad), and it has worked fine, even though I get an error message like the one you showed.
“Problem (b). I created a mount point for each of my 2 ntfs partitions. I ‘chmod 777 /mnt/win’, I ‘sudo mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/win’ etc, mounts fine.”
I searched google and found a different approach, which I tested successfully. Add this line (with the necessary modifications) to your /etc/fstab:
/dev/hda1 /home/dewd/win ntfs ro,user,umask=022 0 0
And reboot.
“Problem (c). Well to install anything non-free I have to add some sort of host to my apt sources file. Ubuntu dosnt tell me where this file is, what it does, or the name of the host.”
Now you have reminded me… You need to check the universe repositories in your synaptic configurations, if you haven’t done so.
Besides these, try to read the informative posts on Ubuntu. And join us on the IRC. 🙂
Cheers.
That’s like asking if you should do your neighbours daughter, or your classmate or whatever, you get the point. Why in the world does OSNews use such wording? How about “Should you use Ubuntu”, or since Ubuntu Linux wasn’t for so long around, how about “Should you use Ubuntu Linux?” I think it has something to do with the wording, don’t you. I don’t really mind it, as I don’t mind the so called “default” theme, with those three naked people…. After all you can’t see any of the intimate body parts, so I don’t get all the fuss about it… I really don’t the hypocrits who feel offended by such things, when in real they are just people, and do what people do…. You get the point…..
As far as the wording goes, I feel that it’s not right….
If you have libdvdread3 installed (it is in main) you can download and install decss by running: sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/examples/install-css.sh
Actually, I did a test on my Matrox Parhelia that has hardware GlyphAA. I compared the fonts through the Matrox rendering with the ones from the WinXP Cleartype. Cleartype and the GlyphAA really only affect fonts at a 12+pt value (at least on my 21″ CRT they did) I tried in various resolutions as well as many different fonts. With Cleartype, the font was a little bit more red. Whereas with the GlyphAA was nice and shaded all grey, which is more like what the linux fonts look like. For me, and several others that have posted here, the linux fonts look much nicer. So indeed, smaller fonts aren’t smoothed out in windows. At least at 96dpi.
” benjamin@ubuntu:/etc $ xmms
libmikmod.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Inconsistency detected by ld.so: ../sysdeps/generic/dl-tls.c: 72: _dl_next_tls_modid: Assertion `result <= _rtld_local._dl_tls_max_dtv_idx’ failed! ”
Not sure about the Inconsistency detected by ld.so…. but you’ll want to download (through synaptic or apt-get install) the libmikmod2 package. Though I’m not sure it’s in the Ubuntu repository, as I use Debian SID. Also, rather than use XMMS, if you don’t like Rhythmbox, then you could see if Ubuntu has Beep Media Player. It’s gtk2, so you don’t need those gtk1 libraries..
I have been using Zinf, and enjoying it quite a bit.