Ubuntu Feisty Fawn - Desktop Linux Matured

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.'"

Boot up speed?

"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?

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?

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:Boot up speed?

It is and it is a BAD idea to clear the prefetch folder.

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000743.html [edbott.com]

Re:Boot up speed?

On Linux it *should* be daemonizing and doing it in parallel.
dhcpcd I know for a fact does this but I havent tried the other clients.

Re:Boot up speed?

On Linux it *should* be daemonizing and doing it in parallel.

Great. Another article demonizing Linux!

Re:Boot up speed?

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?

... he writes in response to an article saying that there is finally a distribution you don't have to tweak :)

Re:Boot up speed?

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.

Linux Mint

Linux Mint [linuxmint.com] is an Ubuntu-based distro with all the codecs & drivers you should need for desktop use, it's worth checking out!

Re:Linux Mint

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

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

no NO NO!

Not yet, 2008 is the year of Linux.

Re:no NO NO!

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:no NO NO!

- 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!

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!

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

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!

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!

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 :)

My experience with 6.10

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.

Re:My experience with 6.10

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!)

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

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

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

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:If only Ubuntu weren't abandonware

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.

What is it about Ubunto

I don't get it really. I use linux for quite some time. Occasionally I look around to see what suits me best. And yes we have come a long way.

Ubunto is...nice. I mean, there is nothing wrong with it (I even have it installed on one of my PPC machines). But lately it seems like every one and his mum is using it (or trying to). But it is neither the most powerful nor the most userfriendly distro out there. What is it that makes people want to use Ubuntu.

It is also not true that it just "works". As depending on your hardware each distro can have problems. And with respect to easy system installation or configuration Ubuntu is much much worse that for example SUSE or especially Mandriva (the config tools are sometimes a bit ugly, but they are OSS and the best ones I have seen).

So what is it about Ubuntu that makes ppl like it so much?

But has it matured quickly enough?

I have used Ubuntu on a couple of machines, its the most polished distro I have seen but it has also been a fucking persecution, mostly with peripherals such as printers and wireless cards (gotta love ndiswrapper induced kernel panics). If you stick with it then its okish but its been annoying enough for me to uninstall on occasion. So if I adopt the attitude to windows common round here that 'it didnt so what i want so fuck it' what is the compelling argument to try it again.

problems with ubuntu

I'm now running a system that has two installations of ubuntu on it. 6.06 lts decuided it wasn't going to allow me to log on anymore, so on another drive I installed 6.10 and used the recommended partition sizes. Later it decided it wouldn't let me load xwindows so I was stuck in a shell trying to figure out what going on.

I had a fat32 partition so to move files between ubuntu and windows, a swao partition, a root partition and a home partition. But something went haywire, the system got confused as to which partition was to be used for what. I got locked out of xwindows because the root partition ran out of space, though I gave it a bit more than it said it needed. Seems it was using the root partition for home too, ignoring the much larger home partition and the fat32 partition had a problem too, I don't recall ATM exactly but it ended up having some files on it but I don't think I was able to access it or something.

I was able to get xwindows working by deleating some files

I figured some of this out using dynebolic but eventually decided to just reinstall ubuntu 6.10 and this is where I discovered the home partition wasn't being used at all. I left the fat32 partition and made the home partition and root partition just one partition for root.

I still haven't dug into trying to fix 6.06 lts, as Its still on the system, as a slave drive.

Come to think of it, I have another system that has two or three knoppix installs on it, for what ever the reason one stopped working...or maybe it was not having an upgrade from one version to the next without a wiped drive and I didn't want to lose my files... Which is why I haven't just wiped the ubuntu 6.06 lts drive.

But having two versions of ubuntu stop booting all the way in such a short time had in affect on my fandom of ubuntu.

As a matter of upgrading a linux system, it seems a clean install is the typical method. And as such there really should be a better way to insure a users files don't get sacrificed (the point of trying to use the home partition.)
 

my experiences on a laptop

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).

OT: Too Old?

In TFA...

The point of the matter is, I am now older. 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.

...Eugenia Loli-Quer is claiming that 33 is tool old to be doing some classes of work. Now I have to say that I didn't use unix at all until I was 33 (it was vms and rsx up to then) and I don't plan on slowing down.

I appreciate the low maintenance nature of ubuntu. But that just liberates time for me to get more hacking done.

REALLY!?

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

Well if Eugenia said it, it must be true!

Don't pat yourselves on the back yet.

"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.

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.

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.

Re:Don't pat yourselves on the back yet.

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.

Re:Don't pat yourselves on the back yet.

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

Correction Alpha Release, Betas haven't started yet. :D

I've been using it.

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.

Good for newbies coming from Windows...ummm

First paragraph of the review says this

..There was a problem though and X11 would crash on load -- and the graphical safe mode would not work either (confirmed bug). The 915resolution hack was not needed for my Intel graphics card, but I needed to have more information for my laptop's LCD. 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.

Yeah, that sounds really easy for an average Windows user...I'm sure you wouldn't lose 99% of them right there. If you honestly think that an OS which needs a "hack" or "manually entering the vertical and horizontal sync in the xorg.conf file" beofre it will install is ready to compete with one that installs with nothing more challenging than "what time zone are you in", you're fooling yourself.

Windows user won't switch without pain or epiphany

I'm a Linux newbie, but very knowledgeable with Windows. I've been using kubuntu edgy exclusively for about a month and it's been anything but easy on a Thinkpad T30 laptop. My IP2200 wireless card connects to open APs, but won't work with WPA(XP works fine), there's an overall lack of polish and too much work is required at the command line. I'm really hoping Fiesty helps with some of this. Improving OpenOffice should be next. It doesn't hold a candle to MS Office 2003. I would also love to see Fiesty have an import tool so it could use the Windows and MS Office settings. Making the OpenOffice keyboard and toolbars identical to MS Office as an option would be a big help. Windows users will stay with Windows until the security problems get overwhelming(pain), upgrade costs get too high(pain) OR they see something obviously better(epiphany). If Fiesty is solid and OpenOffice is made to work like MS Office then Microsoft is in trouble. Otherwise Linux will remain nothing more than a mosquito.

Just a minor correction, it is not beta yet

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

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

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

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??

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.

When we stop hearing this about Linux...

... 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.

new user

I'm looking forward to the new version to possibly sort a couple of bugs plaguing me. I'm a recently converted, long time Windows user, and was very intimidated by other distros and their overwhelming sense of complexity, sometimes needlessly so. Ubuntu was a good fit for me with a combination of control and user-friendliness.

Are you serious about "this Linux" thing?

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.

So Eugenia is a pirate?

Check out her first screenshot http://www.osnews.com/img/17505/feisty1.png [osnews.com]
Unless she's figured out a way to get the file from iTunes into Linux I bet she's downloaded that Lost episode.

Will It Run on My Mac?

My guess is that it won't run on my Mac. I've used, and appreciated, Ubuntu. I'm using a late-model PPC iMac, which I bought thinking that I'd use it to run Linux when Apple moved on. Now, it looks like that's not going to happen, as some developers can't be bothered to figure out how to control the fans.

Too mature?

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!

To paraphrase Mr MonkeyBoy.

Applications! Applications! Applications! Applications! Applications!

Most people I know don't care at all about what OS they're running. Not one bit. That's something that we here at slashdot do. Most people will choose the OS that has the applications that they need. 90% of the time that's windows.

Let me go through the usual "selling points" of Linux and their typical response from a normal user.

Linux evangelist: "Linux is free"
Normal user: "So?"

Linux evangelist: "Linux is more secure"
Normal user: "So?"

Linux evangelist: "Linux is faster"
Normal user: "So?"

Normal user: "Does it run application X that I use?"
Linux evangelist: "Well, sort of, and if you combine this app with that and do this random hack then....." by which time the normal user have stopped listening.

In my humble opinion KDE4 is a great step in the right direction for Linux. In KDE4 (from what I understand) there shouldn't be any problems recompiling things for windows. This means that we can first hook them on free, secure, fast applications, and by doing that we have lowered the threshold for them to come over to our free, secure, fast platform.

.haeger

3d desktops are a waste of ... everything

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).
 
Compiz/Beryl/AIXGL all really serve no purpose other than slow your system down to a crawl, introduce instability, and waste your time. I played around with them and see no benefit other than the "Whee, look at the cube!" which is boring as hell in about 5 seconds. So, can anyone actually tell me what's the point?

Kubuntu Feisty on a brand new ASUS laptop

Might as well put in a plug for those of you looking for butt-kicking Linux laptop setups.

I just ordered this rebranded ASUS Z84JP [powernotebooks.com] and immediately installed Kubuntu Feisty Herd 5 on it.

I am very happy with the result. With very little tweaking, it recognized everything I care about:

* Firewire -- I've captured DV video with it
* eSATA -- ordered a SATA-2 drive and an Icy Dock enclosure from Newegg. It's twice as fast as the internal drive and huge, perfect for video editing
* 3D -- glxgears gives over 5000 fps, only drawback is the proprietary kernel module
* Bluetooth
* Sound
* Standard stuff -- DVD, USB, etc

Haven't yet tried the camera or external video output.

I think Herd 5 is already very close to production quality, but I had a scare when updating with Adept. Fortunately it got worked out. When it is truly final I will be heavily promoting Feisty to friends. :)

Feisty fawn

I was hoping for Cheeky Koala.

In case anybody is interested...

LiVES is already ported to Feisty:

http://www.getdeb.net/release.php?id=470 [getdeb.net]

Ubuntu's working like a charm!

Am I the odd man out? Believe me, I am less of a nerd than I want to be but I have been an Ubuntu user for over three years without any major problems. I don't even have a dual boot anymore because I simply expect Ubuntu to do anything I need. I have used various digital cameras without issue, my wife's ipod and a new printer that I picked up at a big box store. Whenever I have run into problems I have been able to find solutions or suggestions on the web and I can proudly say that I've even posted a few responses and suggestions of my own now. In all honesty I can't image ever returning to M$. I'm very happy where I am!!!

It's good for noobs

There's no doubt, for people trying to migrate to Linux too, but just at user-level, never for server-level or company...

Here's the response I just posted on the site

What's wrong with this picture?

"I needed to have more information for my laptop's LCD. 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."

"Compiz is now part of Ubuntu although turned off by default because it still has major problems."

"installing new apps is now a breeze. Although Ubuntu has 5 GUI applications that are package-related and that can create some confusion..."

"I manually installed libdvdcss because this is not included in the restricted list and Totem now refuses to playback any DVD if you try to load it via Totem's menu"

"Please note that Ubuntu mistakenly loads the BCM43xx driver for my Broadcomm/Dell 1390 WiFi card and that resulted in a lot of errors in the terminal by the system (missing firmware?). I had to blacklist the BCM43xx driver before I could successfully install ndiswrapper and finally get WiFi support. [Update: I installed the bcm43xx-cutter package and installed the required firmware and WiFi now works with the open source driver which unfortunately is not stable (I lose connection after a minute or so)"

"Another fine moment is that Ubuntu supports suspend-to-RAM (sleep) on my laptop out of the box, although I noticed that once every 5-6 wake ups some stuff can get screwy (e.g. X dying, network card not responding etc)"

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

"Some of these problems include: the i810 driver would not playback HD video (Xv crashing) if I would not add the Cachelines option in the Xorg.conf, copy/paste from Firefox does not work if Firefox is then closed down (this was fixed last year for Gnome apps, time to fix Firefox too), Gossip does not connect to anything else but jabber.org (e.g. no gtalk), digicam's RAW files open by default with the wrong applications (only Cinepaint and UFRaw can handle these but they are not set as defaults for the RAW mime types), I have bad AC97 "scratchy" sound with most SDL games (e.g. Neverball, LTris etc), Bluetooth would not work at all here if you don't run "hcitool hci0 reset" before loading the service, there is no option in the gnome-mouse pref panel to disable tap-to-click on touchpads (gsynaptics is really buggy so I prefer to not mess with it), HAL is not built with libsmbios and so the new Gnome "brightness applet" does not support any DELL laptop, FFmpeg is built without AAC (so it's not possible to encode videos for my cellphone) etc. However, these are not problems that I can't live with or not find workarounds."

Excuse me, folks, but this is a litany of screwed up stuff nobody should have to tolerate on ANY OS - even Windows.

Why is it that the distros STILL do not have a database of every commonly used monitor with an effective method of detecting - or EVEN ASKING THE USER - to identify the monitor and installing the correct horizontal and vertical sync? I mean, I can understand it that my old ViewSonic 6 isn't detected properly in every distro, but the latest monitors? NOBODY can get the proper HV sync figures into the hardware database? C'mon!

Why does Ubuntu need FIVE package management programs? That is just ridiculous...I thought Fedora Core 5 was braindead for having TWO! What, we can't get ONE program to function properly, so we cover that up by installing FOUR MORE?

WHY is Totem, the least competent media player, the default? Why is Kaffeine demoted when it obviously can play encrypted DVDs without hosing itself just because libdvdcss is installed?

Why are so many obviously crippled and not ready for primetime packages being included in so many distros - like Compiz? Is it just because of "featuritis" inherited from Microsoft?

And we see that Wi-Fi and laptop hibernation STILL do not work properly? What is this, rocket science? Linux finally got the printer problem licked so that now you just select the printer and

Ubuntu is leaving my PC

Hardware and software support under Ubuntu seems to be getting worse, not better. My Epson CX5400 scanner used to work, now it doesn't. Gaim used to be able to log in to MSN, now it can't. These are both long-term bugs which haven't been addressed. I am buying an iMac next time round.

Re:not quite ready

Hmmm....
Gaming... Anything by Id, and most Unreal. Quake Wars?
PS: World of Warcraft runs in Wine.
DVR... MythTV?

Yep... Linux has a way to go. Now excuse me while I go to play RTCW:ET in Ubuntu.

Re:More desktop - yay?

"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. etc. etc. is. So, when I hear someone complain about bloat, i don't take them serious, it really was the only thing they could think of. And it sounds really professional, like you actually only care about serious server-like stuff.

"Why do we then go and focus so much on the same aspects of linux?" Sorry, what's your beef??? I can't parse the logic of your comment. First you complain that linux geeks are preoccupied with Vista bloat, then you state we do the same with linux (or don't do the same)?

"I read the malloc man page, and the big memory mapping issue still remains, and as a result I still need to continually reboot to keep my ram defragmented....." Yeah, I read the same, you know how much work it is to keep that ram defragmented? I do it by hand(!!), can you believe how much work that is!

Re:More desktop - yay?

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.

Re:Can Feisty be installed, though?

Sounds nasty. But it may have more to do with your burner or burning software (at least in the first case - if it crashes while burning it can not be the fault of the file you're trying to burn).

You're better off asking for help on the Ubuntu forums than on Slashdot.

Re:More Evidence

2. Linux is NOT getting there and will NEVER get there so chill out.

I strongly disagree. As long as you avoid unsupported hardware, (which is extremely easy to do) Ubuntu's level of maturity is becoming genuinely amazing. Have you actually used it?

Install Edgy Eft with Beryl, VLC, and the multimedia codecs from Automatix2. Then after you've used it for a few days, get back to me about how backward Linux still is. ;-)

Re:Ubuntu is hard

Which version of Ubuntu was this? I've installed both Dapper and Edgy and they did this automatically.

Re:Ubuntu is hard

Just try the 'Kubuntu' version....
Thats Ubuntu but with KDE instead of Gnome
And last week I tried KDE and I was lost too, with my 15 month Gnome experience.

The (ubuntu gnome) disk-management has recently been moved from system/administration to applications/system_tools

Re:Can Feisty be installed, though?

try the ubuntu install.exe [cutlersoftware.com]

no need to burn a CD at all.

Re:new users from windows land?

"Ndiswapper (which I've used before) comes in a nice package and is easy to install but no-where does it tell you that they didn't bother to include the firmware for the most common cards. And after that little problem I still couldn't get it connected. I finally ended up writing a script to force it to connect to my router with the mac address."

Yup. Had similar problems trying to get wireless to work with a VERY vanilla Linksys router and card on a Dell Inspiron 1200 for a client.

And for this particular card, the firmware WAS included - but the latest version was buggier than the earlier version. Took me a day of research to track that down on launchpad and the Ubuntu forums.

Then the stupid Wireless Assistant doesn't work worth a damn with WEP...

They need to automate this crap big time, just like the distros finally did with printer setup.

Re:Can Feisty be installed, though?

Definitely a hardware - or wetware - problem.

Nobody goes through all that and can't get a working boot CD unless they've got hardware or brainware problems. Either your box is weird in some way, or your CD burner is messed up, or...

Wait a minute! You tried burning an ISO with "XP's builtin software"? XP does not HAVE builtin software to burn ISO images! You DO KNOW what an ISO image is, don't you?

Beyond that, once you presumably got a burned ISO CD, if it locks up the system, either your CD drive is crap when you burned the CD or any other CD drive you burned it on burned it badly or is incompatible with your CD drive, or your CD drive is crap and isn't reading it properly, or the CD media you're using is crap.

In short, find someone who knows what they're doing and get them to show you how.

This is definitely not a Linux or even an Ubuntu problem, it's a problem between the keyboard and the chair.

Re:Ubuntu is hard

I've never used GNOME, as I started with KDE on Red Hat 7.3 and feel no need to switch desktops.

However, you shouldn't have had that much trouble finding where to mount a disk, no matter what desktop you're using. I've read that GNOME is weird in their handling of file management windows and the like, but the system settings, even if moved around in the menus, should have been locatable.

However, doing a quick Google, I see that there is NO instructions available on using the GUI mount facilities, apparently. All the instructions are how to edit /etc/fstab to mount NTFS partitions using either the native support or ntfs-ng.

So maybe there isn't an easy way to do this in Ubuntu.

In Kubuntu, you do System Settings, Advanced, Disk and File Settings, and then enter Administrator mode. Right click on any partition to change its options.

This is the second time I've read someone saying that they couldn't do something in Ubuntu which is relatively straightforward in Kubuntu. Why is there such a disconnect between usability in Kubuntu and Ubuntu?