Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn - Desktop Linux Matured

Posted by Zonk on Sat Mar 17, 2007 01:58 AM
from the hello-distro-my-old-friend dept.
Software Linux
Provataki writes "It seems that Linux on the desktop is getting there, with Ubuntu. Eugenia of OSNews fame wrote a glorifying preview about Ubuntu's next version, dubbed Feisty Fawn. The review talks up the new features, like the restricted drivers/codecs management, easier package management, and good laptop support. The review also lists some of the distro's flaws in the current beta. A good read for those who are curious about what's next for Linux on the desktop. The piece concludes: ' Ubuntu is a distro that obviously has paid attention to detail ... and has found a good middle ground between hard core Linux users and new users from the Windows/OSX land.'"
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn - Desktop Linux Matured 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Boot up speed? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cheapy (809643) on Saturday March 17 2007, @02:03AM (#18383727)
    "A positive point about the new version is the booting speed: Feisty boots in 40 seconds on my laptop, while Vista needs about 50 (with McAfee turned off)." How does the current version of Ubuntu compare to this? I have a new laptop and it seems to take over two minutes (while plugged in) to boot up. Oddly, it takes ~1 minute to boot up when it isn't plugged in. I don't understand how that works, but alright. For comparision, Windows XP boots in about 45 seconds.

    • Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by killjoe (766577) on Saturday March 17 2007, @02:56AM (#18383893)
      My XP used to boot up fast too when I first installed it. These days it can take as long as five minutes to boot and display the desktop icons.

      Come to think of it I guess I haven't re-installed it in about six months now so it's about time to do that.

        • Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Antique Geekmeister (740220) on Saturday March 17 2007, @07:36AM (#18384903)
          And Adobe pre-loader. And the MS Office pre-loader. And all the "download assistants". And all the adware and spyware. And the boot-time tools that try to pre-index your file system, which will definitely slow things as your system gets more files on it.

          The list goes on, and some of it is very hard to get rid of. I love SpyBot for blocking it: they don't have the legal fears of calling spyware and adware by their right names, even if it's "selected" by ignorant users who don't know it's incorporated into other downloads. Some commercial anti-virus packages have taken on this business of blocking adware, but it's a legally nasty business for them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kasperd (592156)

      I have a new laptop and it seems to take over two minutes (while plugged in) to boot up. Oddly, it takes ~1 minute to boot up when it isn't plugged in. I don't understand how that works

      You mean it boots faster when running on battery than otherwise? How often do you boot that machine? Some distributions have startup scripts to ensure that background jobs, which would normally be run overnight, does also get run on machines that are always powered off overnight. The details probably differs between distribut

    • Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Informative)

      by an.echte.trilingue (1063180) on Saturday March 17 2007, @07:07AM (#18384785) Homepage
      I found that Ubuntu booted initially in +/- 50 seconds, but then that as I installed software and services, it slowed to around 4 minutes. The reason for this is that Ubuntu uses readahead to read all of the required files into memory in one sweep as the machine boots, but as you install stuff, files move around and it doesn't know where files are physically located any more. So, the OS needs to ask the disk to read each individual file as the boot scripts ask for them. The solution to this is very easy:

      http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=25426 3&highlight=grub+profile+speed+boot [ubuntuforums.org]

      That alone took my boot speed back down to 80 seconds. Then you can install the package bootchart to see what is taking so long to load and tweak those services to load faster or not at all, depending on what you need. For example, I saw that fsck was taking around 25 seconds on boot, and I gained back about 15 seconds by modifying /etc/fstab so that fsck would not check the FAT32 partition that I use to share files with XP. Bootchart will help you figure out why your box takes so much longer to boot when plugged in, as well.

      Now I have a laptop that boots into a usable kde desktop in 47 seconds. I am sure you can do this too. If you need more help, go to the Ubuntuforums, they are full of people who want to help.

      Take care

      -mat

      • Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Funny)

        by eraserewind (446891) on Saturday March 17 2007, @09:48AM (#18385777)
        ... he writes in response to an article saying that there is finally a distribution you don't have to tweak :)

        • Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Funny)

          by an.echte.trilingue (1063180) on Saturday March 17 2007, @10:53AM (#18386179) Homepage

          I found that Ubuntu booted initially in +/- 50 seconds
          so Ubuntu can reboot in -50 seconds? beat that ms!
          To be fair to Microsoft, I have Ubuntu running on a quantum computer (a Beowulf cluster of quantum processors, more precisely), so it regularly performs tasks before I ask it to. The problem is that whenever I look at the screen the quantum state collapses, which is making it really hard to surf pr0n.

  • no NO NO! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2007, @02:06AM (#18383749)
    Not yet, 2008 is the year of Linux.

    • Re:no NO NO! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by unoengborg (209251) on Saturday March 17 2007, @03:03AM (#18383923) Homepage
      The year of Linux arrives the year Adobe ports their software to Linux.

      Linux is already more usable and easy to use and install than windows. The
      problem is that windows is good enough for most people, and it have the advantage
      of having a lot of applications the people already know how to use.

      To make any dent in the Windows dominance it doesn't only need to be better than
      Vista, it need to be significantly better.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by LingNoi (1066278)
        Theres already a few things that I like, although everyone is different of course these problems really bug me on Windows XP and wish/hope they fixed them in Vista or Vista+1..

        - No need to defrag your system.
        - Can have lots and lots of files in the same folder without limit (not so important for everyone I guess)
        - When you cut and paste DVD movie files from one folder to another on the same Hard Drive its almost instant (as in doesn't copy anything just reallocates it).
        - When you copy files from one locatio

        • Re:no NO NO! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by MostAwesomeDude (980382) on Saturday March 17 2007, @06:29AM (#18384643) Homepage

          - No need to defrag your system.
          - Can have lots and lots of files in the same folder without limit (not so important for everyone I guess)
          - When you cut and paste DVD movie files from one folder to another on the same Hard Drive its almost instant (as in doesn't copy anything just reallocates it).
          - When you copy files from one location to another and theres no space left it doesn't delete all the files that you just copied.
          - When you copy files to a new location it checks that there is enough space for it to copy all the files.
          - When your doing something CPU intensive it doesn't slow down the GUI. You can watch a movie even though the CPU is at 100% doing something else.
          The first two items are general attributes of ext3 and reiserfs. The next two are part of the kernel's generic FS layer (if I remember correctly.) That last one is just due to Linux's thread scheduler being very intelligent.

          Microsoft is not likely to adopt ext3 or ext4 support, much less reiserfs support. File copying is fairly old and not likely to be updated. It's feasible, though, that Microsoft could improve their thread scheduler, but it's not going to be a high priority because they will be busy for a while writing security patches for Vista and I highly doubt they will release kernel optimizations for the newly obsoleted XP.

              • Re:no NO NO! (Score:4, Funny)

                by LingNoi (1066278) on Saturday March 17 2007, @12:18PM (#18386887)

                Actually, in my experience Windows XP does not delete the files it already copied. However, since it copies files in disk order (rather than alphabetically) it's near impossible to figure out which files were already copied and which were not. One solution if I recall correctly is to use xcopy from the command prompt, which does result in an alphabetical copying process, thereby making it a lot easier to pick up where you left off.

                No, no, no..

                A user shouldn't have to touch the command prompt. This is why Windows will never be "ready for desktop".

                Just joking but I couldn't miss such an opportunity. :D

      • Re:no NO NO! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gbulmash (688770) <semi_famous.yahoo@com> on Saturday March 17 2007, @03:56AM (#18384067) Homepage Journal
        To make any dent in the Windows dominance it doesn't only need to be better than Vista, it need to be significantly better.

        It's not just being better, it's making the move more painless. Face it, even if your application is better, if there's a learning curve to do simple things, people won't switch. If your life revolves around ACT!, you'll be using the OS that supports ACT! (or more pointedly, the OS that ACT! supports).

        I've said it before [brainhandles.com] and I'll say it again. Most people don't learn to operate computers and software from a conceptual and fluid point of view that allows them to adapt easily. Then learn it by rote, step-by-step in a sequence of operations. They may not understand why they perform those operations. They just know if they follow the steps they've been taught, they'll get the result they want/expect.

        Some people see life as an adventure of learning, but they're a minority. Having to learn new programs (via learning new steps) scares people. It makes them unhappy. And if they've been doing a set of steps for a few years, those steps have become habitual. So you not only have to teach them the new steps, you have to break them of the old ones. Breaking habits is unhappy work.

        Furthermore, if you read TFA, look at the various driver problems she had. If the hardware and software don't play nicely "out of the box", the deal is off for most people. And you can angrily tell them to buy different hardware, but Joe Shmoe is going to buy what looks neat to him. If Linux won't run on it, Windows probably will, and since he knows Windows already, it's just the path of least resistance.

        Being "better" is immaterial. Either sticking with Windows has to get so painful that people exceed their tolerance level and will switch to anything that promises (and delivers) less pain, or Linux has to make it SO easy and painless to switch over, that people will do it just to save a few bucks.

        - Greg

        • Option #3 - the government (Score:5, Insightful)

          by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Saturday March 17 2007, @06:02AM (#18384531)
          Your comment about "Joe User" is accurate ... but premature.

          The group that will initially drive Linux adoption (whether *buntu or other) will be governments and businesses.

          The majority (99.9%+) of workers in those two categories will not be focused on the latest hardware and toys. They use wired connections, 2D graphics and save their data onto a central server. Their users do not maintain nor upgrade their boxes. They have experts who do that for them. And being Debian-based, *buntu is very easy to upgrade/maintain.

          The only features missing for those categories are email / calendaring / scheduling (similar to Outlook/Exchange, GroupWise or Lotus Notes) and directory services (similar to Active Directory or eDirectory). The directory services may be here soon from Red Hat's Directory Server http://www.redhat.com/software/rha/directory [redhat.com]. But the email segment is taking a bit longer. Eventually that will be here also.

          At which point, non-US governments will be heavily pushing to get off the Microsoft upgrade treadmill. Particularly since they'll be able to invest in their LOCAL developers to polish Linux for their specific needs.

          As the government / business workers gain familiarity with Linux at work, they'll be more comfortable using Linux at home. But the home market will be the LAST market that Linux will crack. And it will take YEARS (literally).

          If you want to bring the home market around quicker, you need to focus on bringing WINE up to speed for their applications (and the home users have a LOT of different apps, each with slightly different requirements and almost NONE of them written in an easily portable fashion). Or you can work on near identical apps for them (which addresses your point about them "learning" by rote).

    • No, at least not for Ubuntu Re:no NO NO! (Score:4, Informative)

      by GreatBunzinni (642500) on Saturday March 17 2007, @05:35AM (#18384435)
      Ubuntu will not be ready for any decent work while it still has bugs like the infamous overheating bug [launchpad.net]. I mean, I love Kubuntu and I adopted it as my main OS but seriously, it still suffers from a showstopping overheating bug which is almost 2 years old. I mean, what good is an OS for if it simply can't cope with any mildly CPU-intensive application (i.e., compiling, encoding sound files, running any 3D application, etc...) before hanging, crashing and endangering the hardware itself?

      • Re:no NO NO! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by EsbenMoseHansen (731150) on Saturday March 17 2007, @02:55AM (#18383889) Homepage

        Perhaps the thing you are missing is that some of us thinks that OS X is a) horrible to use b) costly c) closed? Until those three issues are resolved, I don't see OS X on any of my desktops. Ask, and I shall explain any of those 3 grievances, and why e.g. KDE+linux (and who knows, maybe Beryl some day) does not have that flaw.

        /me waits for the hordes of the OS X lovers to mod me down to oblivion :)

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by cheater512 (783349)
          I agree with you completely. GP's argument is that because Mac can run everything else inside it, it therefore is the ultimate OS.
          Get VMware and Linux is the ultimate OS using the same argument.

          The ultimate OS should be determined based on merits of the operating system itsself, not what other operating systems you can run to get required features.

          Personally as a guy who has on average 6 - 10 consoles open at any one time, Mac OS X isnt flexible enough to be the ultimate OS.
          You just cant get the necessary p

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by the_womble (580291)

        I find it hard to believe I'm the only one who is going to find it hard to take an OS with the name Feisty Fawn seriously!
        Unlike an OS that has serious codenames like: Snowball, Dolly, Longhorn Blackcomb, etc.

        In case you did not know, Feisty Fawn is will officially be Ubuntu 7.04 once launched.

  • My experience with 6.10 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Matt Edd (884107) on Saturday March 17 2007, @02:09AM (#18383757)
    I decided to try Ubuntu (my first unix experience) two days ago. I spent two days trying to get it to use a proper aspect ratio for my main monitor and to use my second monitor as anything but a clone of the first monitor. All I could do was the former. I may go back to it someday to play but I just spent the evening learning how to get grub to boot into windows automatically and to hide the grub menu. Granted there may be an easy solution to all unix problems but they are not intuitive. I love (and use) many open source programs but until I have 9-5 job, I don't have the time to learn even Ubuntu.
    • decided to try Ubuntu (my first unix experience) two days ago. I spent two days trying to get it to use a proper aspect ratio for my main monitor and to use my second monitor as anything but a clone of the first monitor.

      I'm presuming you have an ATI or nvidia card. I've come across this bug on my laptop also. I'm not sure what the linux community can do about software they have absolutely no control over.

      I know this advice is too late now, but next time you make a hardware purchasing decision, I suggest investing your money in video hardware from a company that supports linux instead of a company that provides buggy, incomplete closed source drivers.

    • Re:My experience with 6.10 (It's the preinstall!) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quixote9 (999874) on Saturday March 17 2007, @08:53AM (#18385439) Homepage
      Matt Edd's issues are real. Windows is PRE-INSTALLED. That's why it doesn't have them. That's also why Microsoft fights like Godzilla to keep any other OS from being pre-installed. If people had to do their own installs of Windows (any version), the whole world would already be using Ubuntu, even with the well-documented problems for new users (manual edits of some config files and the like).

      There's no point carping that such and such is "not a *nix problem" or "is a closed-source driver problem." Only we care. Lots of people out there want it to just work. Where we should be directing our energies is getting anti-monopoly laws applied to OEMs who won't provide specs so that drivers can be written, and to companies who kill people when they pre-install anyone else's OS.

  • If I were MS, I would be running scared (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rolfwind (528248) on Saturday March 17 2007, @02:16AM (#18383781)
    It's amazing how, since Ubuntu hit the scene, that the Linux Desktop has just dramatically improved. Before Ubuntu, things were meandering along without much focus it seems, with the best out of the box experience being Knoppix, which unfortunately was too complicated for the average user to install (being focused as it was as a Live CD).

    It seems now that every six months brings as more improvements as Vista has to XP. And for most users, I would consider the Linux desktop as "here", if not for some applications which have little to do with the distro itself but have me asking - when are developers going to step in and provide ports or at least make sure they run fine in Wine without much modification? Do we Linux users have to signal to them that we are more than willing to pay for some things? Will Click-n-Run, when ported to Ubuntu later this year, spur this on? Will CnR maybe bring up a new crop of Linux developers servicing the Linux community with specific pay-for apps in the vacuum of development houses staying loyal to MS? Not every App lends itself to having the developer do support contracts afterall.

    It's frustrating to be ignored, I already "converted" 3 people to Ubuntu this year - but these are types who simply want to browse the web and one had their MS OS trashed by malware and wanted something secure but convenient (FYI I don't delete Windows, just shrink the partition if they ever need it). But these are side converts, it really doesn't matter what OS they use - they won't ever go out and buy software - so for all intents and purposes the development houses can ignore them.

  • Not a nice middle-ground (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Burz (138833) on Saturday March 17 2007, @02:21AM (#18383797) Journal
    Ubuntu is still its own OS (as are the other distros): See Ian Murdoch essay. [ianmurdock.com]

    As such, no platform exists for PC software vendors to target.

  • If only Ubuntu weren't abandonware (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alex Zepeda (10955) on Saturday March 17 2007, @02:23AM (#18383805) Homepage
    Case in point, the 3dfx xorg driver. Worked fine in Dapper. Broken in Edgy. A two line patch to add the proper prototype for a function fixes the problem in Edgy. Bug report is closed because it's been fixed in Feisty.

    Or how about the USB hot plug stuff missing a bunch of digital camera IDs? Pretty well documented, but nope. Not fixed in Edgy. As a result, using a digital camera with Ubuntu requires lots of digging.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by LingNoi (1066278)

      Broken in Edgy.

      I know your angry. I have a problem also with my Edgy Ubuntu laptop where I have to have wireless on to boot otherwise the whole thing freezes on boot (The reason for this bug is because of a closed source Intel wireless driver, not open source). This has also been fixed in Feisty but not Edgy.

      BUT

      Edgy is a Beta product and it is said many, many times on the Ubuntu website that if you want a stable version of Ubuntu to use Dapper Drake LTS (version 6.10... LTS=Long Term Support). I know its no

        • Re:If only Ubuntu weren't abandonware (Score:4, Informative)

          by N7DR (536428) on Saturday March 17 2007, @10:42AM (#18386109)
          He's got a point though - Dapper is supposed to be the big "supported for years" release.

          This "Long Term Support" thing is almost universally misunderstood by users. I agree that any normal person interprets "LTS" to mean that the distro (dapper) will be kept up to date. But that's not what it means :-( As has been explained several times (and not doubt will be explained many more) on various ubuntu reflectors and fora, Canonical says that "LTS" means that they will continue to provide security patches for a long time, not that they will update any apps.

          They should make this much clearer than they do, because the natural interpretation is the one you suggest, not theirs. Someone on one reflector defines "LTS" to mean "Long Term Stagnation", which does unfortunately seem to be a defensible expansion of the term. It's not that simply applying security patches is bad or evil or wrong -- it's just not what the typical user expects "Long Term Support" to mean.

          FWIW, I have some hopes that cnr.com will fix this, IMO one of the biggest failings of Linux distros: the inability to keep current with applications without being forced quite quickly to update the entire distro to the most recent version.

  • my experiences on a laptop (Score:5, Informative)

    by squidinkcalligraphy (558677) on Saturday March 17 2007, @03:07AM (#18383937) Homepage
    I got an IBM r52 recently; I tried installing XP on it - initially with the supposed foolproof system restore image, then from scratch, and three or four hours later, still had no usable system. The drivers just wouldn't install or download and I couldn't find a way to transport them from my other machine. Then I put an ubuntu 6.10 disc in, and bout half an hour later, without little to no interaction, had a perfectly working system. Even wifi worked out of the box. (WPA authentication took a little bit more digging, but was surprisingly easy once I found the package to use).

  • Don't pat yourselves on the back yet. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Inoshiro (71693) on Saturday March 17 2007, @03:37AM (#18384029) Homepage
    "By manually entering the vertical and horizontal sync in the xorg.conf file it fixed the problem for my 1440x900 screen and I was able to load the LiveCD and finally install Feisty on the hard drive."

    If Windows is too hard for people (and it is), what on Earth makes you think mortals will be able to do that? That's not a mature product designed for end users, despite how (otherwise) nice Ubuntu is.

    • Re:Don't pat yourselves on the back yet. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by houstonbofh (602064) on Saturday March 17 2007, @04:06AM (#18384095)
      Comparing a user install to a factory pre-install is not a easy win. Have you installed Windows lately? Without the manufactures driver cd?

        • Re:Don't pat yourselves on the back yet. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Telvin_3d (855514) on Saturday March 17 2007, @04:37AM (#18384233)
          I agree with everything you just said but I have a comment on your last point. I think the vast majority of developers know exactly who their target end user is... themselves. There is almost no one working to 'dumb down' the amount of knowledge needed to run the OS because that is not how the developers themselves run the OS. They are designing an OS for their own use which sounds to me like a fine thing to do. The problem is that there is a group of developers and a few end users who are so out of touch with anyone outside the technology field that they are working under the assumption that everyone has the same basic skill that they do.
    • That's not a mature product designed for end users, despite how (othere wise) nice Ubuntu is.

      Uh? One bug for one particular hardware type in a beta release and it's 'not designed for end users'?

      Jeepers! I guess vista [planetamd64.com] isn't a mature product designed for end users - it's beta had bugs. I guess osx [wikipedia.org] isn't a mature product designed for end users either - it's beta had bugs.

  • I've been using it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chas (5144) on Saturday March 17 2007, @03:46AM (#18384051) Homepage Journal
    I've been running the Herd releases for Feisty. And I just can't say enough good things about it.

    Wireless just works. Automatically. No dicking around with swapping config files if I switch between an open AP and a WEP/WPA-locked AP.

    Beryl. With the underlying AIGLX support, Beryl installed and just worked right out of the box on my laptop. SWEET!

    Ubuntu has drastically reduced the hassle of just getting a Linux system into a usable, functional configuration. If they keep going, they're going to be a credible replacement for Windows, even for mega-luddites.

  • Just a minor correction, it is not beta yet (Score:5, Informative)

    by vivaoporto (1064484) on Saturday March 17 2007, @04:38AM (#18384241) Homepage
    From the Ubuntu forums [ubuntuforums.org]:

    Ubuntu 7.04 Alpha 5 CD image testing started
    ** FEISTY IS NOT SUITABLE FOR EVERYDAY USE RIGHT NOW IT IS ONLY IN ALPHA. **
    If you are interested in helping to test CD images for the upcoming Ubuntu release you can find more information here [ubuntuforums.org]:

  • Xorg (Score:5, Interesting)

    by feranick (858651) on Saturday March 17 2007, @04:53AM (#18384287)
    This is a very serious problem of Ubuntu that is overlooked by the developers. Problems with specific hardware like those in the TFA, can be common especially these days with so many different combinations of monitors and video cards. I'd like to see some sort of "safe mode" that kicks in when there are problems, and a GUI to allow proper reconfiguration. If you expect a windows user to manually edit Xorg.conf, you're wrong.

    • Re:Xorg (Score:5, Informative)

      by kripkenstein (913150) on Saturday March 17 2007, @07:18AM (#18384825) Homepage

      This is a very serious problem of Ubuntu that is overlooked by the developers. Problems with specific hardware like those in the TFA, can be common especially these days with so many different combinations of monitors and video cards. I'd like to see some sort of "safe mode" that kicks in when there are problems, and a GUI to allow proper reconfiguration.

      You are correct about this problem, however, the developers are not ignoring it. In fact they were considering implementing more or less what you suggested for Feisty. This has been deferred, however, and for good reason - X.Org, in a future release (7.3, IIRC) will offer related functionality. So Ubuntu developing it themselves would be a lot of effort, for just a few months.

      Hopefully with the next X.Org and the next (after Feisty) Ubuntu we will see many of the typical X problems disappear.

  • Hardware problems (Score:5, Funny)

    by petrus4 (213815) on Saturday March 17 2007, @05:51AM (#18384489) Homepage Journal
    For people experiencing hardware problems preventing them from having the usual effortless Ubuntu experience, I offer the following advice. Linux still *does* have a few blind spots where hardware support is concerned, but if you can maneuver around these, you'll be fine.

    1) If you can get non-USB replacements for your USB hardware, you might want to consider doing so. Obviously with things like cameras and memory cards, that's not an option...but for such devices as keyboards, it is. You might even have less problems under Windows if you do that as well.

    2) Use non-wireless network hardware where possible. I myself have a RealTek Ethernet card, which has very solid support under both Linux and the BSDs...it is also one of the core hardware drivers included with the Menuet OS.

    3) If you can avoid a need for printing entirely, you'll be a lot happier. I don't own a printer, and I am deeply gratified to be able to make that claim. I consider printers genuinely evil things. I've been using different types of computers on and off since the early 80s, and in all of that time, the one type of hardware that I've seen people having more consistent difficulty with is printers. That is still true under Linux.

  • ubuntu missing APT pdiff?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mennucc1 (568756) <d3@tonelli.sns.it> on Saturday March 17 2007, @07:00AM (#18384743) Homepage Journal

    Only problem with the refreshing of the repositories is that each time you refresh them, you need to download 5 MBs of data (that's with the restricted and multiverse repositories enabled)
    That is peculiar. APT introduced pdiff downloading long ago (in "experimental", in Debian); then in May 2006, in version 0.6.44, apt pdiff support from experimental was merged in the unstable version: so this feature will be available in Debian Etch. If Ubuntu Feisty is shipping a reasonably new APT, all they need to do is to start generating the appropriate pdiffs in their repository.... and no more 5MBs download.

  • ... the Average User ("AU") will start adopting it. This really should be the goal of Linux now that it is well into its teens. Time to stop being a geek-only, tinkerer OS and streamline the process. Now, admittedly, this is a beta... but I have dealt with these problems in all kinds of final Linux distros over the years. With that in mind, I am not so inspired by this review. Consider the following from the article:

    By manually entering the vertical and horizontal sync in the xorg.conf file it fixed the problem for my 1440x900 screen and I was able to load the LiveCD and finally install Feisty on the hard drive.

    Fortunately, I have not had to do this since about Slackware 8 or 9 (and that was on an old 486 Dell). Even then, it was NOT fun. You will not get a mom to edit xorg.conf. You will not get your typical manager/supervisor to edit xorg.conf. You will get them, however, to call the MCSE tech to fix a driver issue in Windows or a problem with Exchange.

    ...the bootloader should be installed it could use some friendlier "names" rather than just (hd0,0)...

    The AU doesn't know hd0,0 from eth1 from lpt. Why even have these as default names if you want the AU to know what it is? It is intimidating for an AU to decipher tech names for hardware. They just want to see "Wireless" and know that is what they configure to hook up at the local coffee shop.

    I would personally go with AIXGL and Beryl instead of the slower-evolving Compiz (after re-writing Beryl's pref panels of course to be more humane/sane)

    What is a resistance to a consistent interface and making things look at least somewhat like Windows by default in the Linux community? It always seemed to me that consistency and a default Windows look and feel would encourage AU adoption. Looking at the desktop of a Linux distro for the first time is like getting into a car with the break/accelerator pedals reversed and the radio and other interior controls located on the door. Let's get some consistency and start it up looking like Windows so the AU can find everything. Then let them move everything around!

    I manually installed libdvdcss
    Yeesh! Never happen with an AU... and an AU would never adopt an OS they couldn't just watch a DVD (or rip an MP3 or whatever) from first boot.

    I had to blacklist the BCM43xx driver before I could successfully install ndiswrapper and finally get WiFi support.
    Again, see "manual installation" issue above.

    There were very few the times that I had to pop to the terminal to carry out an important action.

    This should be a "never" for AU adoption. Geeks want to run everything from the terminal, moms, wives and bosses do not.

    I am 33 years old and I just don't have the same energy as I used to to deal with stupid issues that they should not be there, or with removal or non-development of conveniences for no good reason.

    Isn't this what ALL computer users want!?!

    I am 35 and I write this on a T23 with Ubuntu Edgy Eft installed. Five or six years ago I would have spent hours getting Linux installed on a machine b/c I liked the challenge. Now, I have enough to do without fighting over all the stuff mentioned in this article (and hey for Edgy Eft on the T23, wireless was the only real difficult thing)! AUs of all ages are the same way with maybe the younger ones have slightly more intestinal fortitude to configure Linux under the hood.

    My hope is that they clean this up in beta and Feisty installs as (more or less) easily as Edgy did for me, but this is not an article that inspires me to believe the Feisty is a transformative release for purposes of Average User adoption.

  • Gem from a comments list attached to this article [zdnet.com]:

    You are kidding arent you ?

    Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?

    That sounds preposterous to me.

    If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.

    Microsoft just spent $9 billion and many years to create Vista, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Windows. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft.

    Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible.

    I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.

    So, apparently, like man-caused-global-warming, the discussion about Linux is closed.

  • Too mature? (Score:4, Funny)

    by stim (732091) on Saturday March 17 2007, @10:18AM (#18385947) Homepage
    I recently installed feisty fawn to take a look, what I found disturbed me greatly. From install to finish I never had to touch a terminal. I got my 3d drivers, aixgl and video codecs working all in the comfort of a gui. This is unacceptable to me! If i don't have to edit my fstab, apt, or xorg config files, how will i look super smart to someone sitting over my shoulder? I switched from windows so that I would look smart dammit!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by houstonbofh (602064)
      Since the default install is one big root partition, your problem was one of your own making. Hard to blame that on Ubuntu. I have sold several Ubuntu systems that have been rock stable, with no problems. If you buy the right hardware, and don't get fancy with the configuration, it is rock solid. If you compile your graphics drivers, you just might have graphics problems. A long time ago, this used to be called common sense. I guess really-fucking-rare sense just doesn't roll off the tung.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by VON-MAN (621853)
      "Why is it that everyone is so focused on linux desktops, and not the core internals of the OS?"

      Core internals? Hah, I know where you're from. So, a question for a question: where are all the Windows fanboys raving about the fantastic core internals of Vista? That is right.

      "I hear many linux geeks whining about how bloated the windows vista system is"

      You do? Well, it must be true than, eh? I remember geeks complaining about how bloated XP, 2000, ME, 98SE, 98 or KDE, Gnome, 2.6, 2.5, Red Hat, SuSE etc.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fabs64 (657132)
      The difference between the Linux bloat, and the Vista bloat, is that I can (and do) still use fluxbox as my wm if that's what I prefer.
    • Eugenia's claim to fame is that she's been writing about Linux desktops and distros for a long time. Not that she's very balanced or objective. To me, her reviews are allways very opinionated without really being to the point.

      A real woman in other words...


      Ducks...

      • Re:Linux Mint (Score:5, Informative)

        by johnw (3725) on Saturday March 17 2007, @05:33AM (#18384425)

        GPL doesn't allow you to distribute closed source software with the GPL lisenced software
        Nonsense. Users of the GPL have no authority to make such a restriction and there is none in the GPL. Remember, the GPL is a licence not a contract, so it can't restrict what people can do with other stuff, only what they can do with the stuff covered by the licence.

        (The reason why other distributions don't have codecs and drivers with them.).
        The reason is slightly more subtle than that. The GPL does not allow GPL-licensed code to be incorporated into a larger work where other parts of the work are under a more restrictive licence. There is much debate about whether a device driver with a closed source licence is a derivative work of the kernel, but most distributions err on the side of caution and don't distribute them.

          • Re:Linux Mint (Score:4, Informative)

            by johnw (3725) on Sunday March 18 2007, @02:56AM (#18392761)
            The chunk which you're quoting you've taken out of context. It refers specifically to modified versions of the original work and describes the circumstances under which chunks of that modified version might be distributed under a different licence. It's thus not relevant to the issue under discussion.

            HTH

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.