Ubuntu Is Hyper-Active At OSCON 379
ruphus13 writes "Ubuntu and Canonical have been very active at OSCON this year. They showcased a new distro, announced improvements to their code-hosting platform, and made Mark Shuttleworth available for a couple of talks and panel sessions. Quoting: 'Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a complete distribution designed to run on Atom-based Netbook PCs. The main difference that sets it apart from its big brother Hardy Heron is the Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) Launcher, a user interface created specifically for use on the teensy screens and keyboards of today's popular ultra-portable computers.' Canonical also announced Version 2.0 of Launchpad, their code-hosting platform. Enhancements include 'a planned API that'll allow third-party applications to authenticate, query and modify data in the massive Launchpad database, without a user needing to manually access the system via a browser.' Mark Shuttleworth went on to state that Linux's market share will grow when it has better eye-candy than Apple's."
Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not a big Apple fan, but that is the one thing they definitely did right. Plus their Apple stores have 1-on-1 training for quite cheap.
Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/webforums [ubuntu.com] http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/chatirc [ubuntu.com]
for something like that they might actually reply, they(the community) never reply to MY problems with ubuntu.
Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy. (Score:2, Informative)
no graphical sudo out of the box
$ gksudo $COMMAND
Installed by default.
ume-launcher isn't bad (Score:3, Informative)
I'm using ume-launcher (the Netbook Remix launcher) on my Eee PC 701 right now, and it really isn't bad at all. It's still quite buggy though:
Apart from that, it's very efficient, and either way it pwns Asus's default Eee launcher: it's prettier, less resource-intensive and more space-efficient.
Re:Netbook Remix... (Score:2, Informative)
It's your lucky day!
http://www.eeebuntu.org/ [eeebuntu.org]
You can download v1.0 of the distro right there. There's a post-install script you have to run to get the sound drivers set up then you're off to the races.
Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, if you're looking for a global menubar for GNOME, there is one, it's just not an official part of GNOME.
http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/ [google.com]
Install some deb files, add the applet to a panel, and you're done. Menus will automatically reappear in their own windows if you remove it later.
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Informative)
It's probably useful to note that now, whenever you go to download Ubuntu 8.04 from the official site, you're actually downloading the refreshed ISO known as 8.04.1. This ISO has all the updates up to the beginning of July, which means it also has the final release of Firefox 3, a much better working PulseAudio and many other fixes out-of-the-box. From this point of view, the LTS is now much more polished if someone uses the refreshed ISO.
You forgot #5: hardware compatibility (Score:5, Informative)
Shiny, and fast, and cheap, and useful.
And compatible.
Ubuntu (and many other popular distros) have been trying to get there. Last missing part was "Shiny" - Compiz and other similar eye-candies may get them there.
Are you sure that was the last missing part? There's still a problem with getting manufacturers of PC components designed for home use to work wholeheartedly with the Ubuntu community. I don't see penguin logos on boxes, and not everybody has a working printer and enough paper to print out a distribution's hardware compatibility list and carry it into a local computer store.
Re:Installation over eye-candy (Score:5, Informative)
You make no sense. They would have to chose their player anyway. Synaptic is not harder than google to use just search for video player ans install any of them. How is this any harder than on a Mac? It even downloads it for you.
Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy. (Score:3, Informative)
Whilst I know this isn't the fault of Linux or Ubuntu I wish I could get decent NVidia drivers for my Geforce 8800 on my desktop box, there is always one lib files that doesn't get unpacked by default and crashes X (I have a script to fix this quickly but still, NVidia fix your driver). Also the Ubuntu forums are good, the search engine could be a bit better but I am yet to fail to find a solution since I started using Ubuntu (6.06)
I personally hate the idea of global menu bars, I prefer to have the menu bar at the top of the application I'm working on as I often arrange multiple windows so that I more easily veiw the information from multiple apps easily, I don't like having to move my focus away from what I am doing just to access the file menu. Having to switch to another app or to the desktop to get access to the system/navigation menu's is one of my pet hates and biggest time wasters with Apple so I'm quite glad that it's not integrated into ubuntu.
Re:Installation over eye-candy (Score:5, Informative)
And i forgot because i do not use it, but in Ubuntu there is an "Install applications" somewhere in the menu which is another front end for apt. Way more simpler than synaptic and way more simpler than anything else i saw on any OS for the non-technical people.
OSCON keynote video (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the only video of OSCON 2008 [google.com] I could find.
It's a shame really since I myself would never be able to go to the US to one so I wished they'd put more stuff up.
If anyone finds any more videos please reply.
Re:Where do you see those advanced Compiz settings (Score:1, Informative)
Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility (Score:1, Informative)
Doesn't Compiz make the distros just as resource hungry as Vista? Rendering a non-compiz comparison ... invalid?
No it doesn't. Also compiz works and looks a shitload better than Vista...
better looks for the same resource suckage? altho that is doubtful considering the machine i'm runnning it on now
looks like linux/compiz wins again...
Re:Installation over eye-candy (Score:1, Informative)
It's "Add/remove...", at the bottom of the Applications menu.
And, yes, it really does look pretty hand-holding and simple.