What Normal Users Can Expect From Ubuntu 8.10 511
notthatwillsmith writes "With Ubuntu 8.10 due to be released in just a few days, Maximum PC pored through all the enhancements, updates, and new features that are bundled into the release of Intrepid Ibex and separated out the new features that are most exciting for Linux desktop users. Things to be excited about? With new versions of GNOME and X.Org, there's quite a bit, ranging from the context-sensitive Deskbar search to an audio and video compatible SIP client to the new Network Manager (manage wired, Wi-Fi, VPN, and cellular broadband connections in one place)."
Newbie Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Is Ubuntu the easiest version of Linux to set up? I like the ease of just clicking "install" and everything automagically takes care of itself. (Like my Windows XP disc.)
PowerPC Ubuntu Help (Score:2, Interesting)
We can also expect the PowerPC distro to fall further behind, unless the outside community helps the ubuntu-cell project [ubuntu.com], which has taken over from the main Ubuntu project (run by Canonical,Inc) in maintaining that architecture's distro. Which means not just PS3 Ubuntu, but also PPC ubuntu on other platforms, including rack servers and workstations, and embedded PPCs that might use a stripped-down downstream distro (but benefit from Ubuntu's APT repos), or any other Cell machines, from workstations to supercomputers.
If you've got a PPC machine, please try installing the current ubuntu-cell snapshot, as the project explains. At the very least you can file bug reports. If you can, you can patch some bugs. That's why the source is open, after all. And what the community is really for: not just getting free SW, but giving something back so everyone can get some free SW, including you.
Re:Newbie Question (Score:2, Interesting)
You never just "click install" on windows xp..
1) Pop in disk
2) First you have to setup a partition to install windows.. lets assume it's an empty disk so you'd press c (create partition) and number the number of disk space for that partition then enter, then you press enter again to install on that partition.
3) Windows installs some files then reboots into a install setup. On this page you setup your computers name, organisation, location and language setup, keyboard setup, etc.
4) Windows installs more files
5) You get to the desktop at which point you have to put in your Microsoft Office disk
6) Follow the installer to get Microsoft office installed
7) Run windows update to install important security updates for Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows xp
To say that is a one click install is horribly misleading.
Ubuntu on the other hand contains much less steps
1) Pop in disk
2) Wait for desktop to appear and click on the install icon and choose your keyboard, location, username and password
3) If it's an empty disk it'll ask if you want to use the whole disk. No ugly dos based program.
4) Wait for installer to finish then restart taking out the disk.
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:5, Interesting)
When using previous Ubuntu versions, the first thing I would do after installation was the theme to something less brown. I downloaded and installed the 8.10 beta the day it was released and it was beautiful - no need to change a thing - I loved it.
Sadly an update replaced the beta's wallpaper with, what I imagine is, the wallpaper for the final release. It looks like crap so I changed to a solid brown background.
Ubuntu are employing people to do design work now and it really shows. Yes, you get a brown desktop background, no, this isn't what Microsoft or Apple would sell you (unless you've got a Zune, I guess), but yes, it looks wonderful.
An operating system is more than the colour of the background image, of course, so I really shouldn't be labouring the point so hard, or feeding the troll; if you don't like it you could change it - don't judge the whole thing on its theme. Having said that, in 8.10 brown works well.
The one Ubuntu feature I want most: (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't care if I have to pay for it. I just want to be able to play all Bluray media, including stuff with only HD audio codecs that are currently unsupported in Linux.
Now, I know some of you think this is unnecessary fluff. However, if Linux wants to compete with Windows it has to tackle the crucial stumbling blocks that force people to continue using Windows. Linux has lots of great home theater software and many aspirations towards filling that niche, but they amount to a hill of beans without support for all HD media.
Re:Newbie Question (Score:5, Interesting)
In my experience it's more JustWorkish than Windows. My ancient Bt878whatever capture card and Chinese junk Bluetooth adapter were both a pain to set on Windows. On Ubuntu I just get a recognized capture device and a nice little BT icon on the tray. :-)
Haven't looked back since. Kudos to Shuttleworth and employees.
Re:Newbie Question (Score:3, Interesting)
"Any time I've installed XP from a normal disk, it requires at least agreeing to some license agreement, partitioning, formating, configuring your network to some degree, choosing username, clicking "Next" a bunch of times, some other random stupid things I'm preobably not remembering"
any big name OEM install includes about exactly picking your username, waiting while installs tons of garbage, (trial ware everything, stupid OEM software, those drivers you mentioned, etc) and then removing all the crappy software that they preloaded because they got paid $1 to install it, default.
some people don't remove the crappy software, and i don't know how many times i've seen this software not get patched, and wind up letting some hacker get into their system, because they had unpatched software they didn't even know they were running.
the nice thing about ubuntu/kubuntu is that everything updates, if you run the updater. the down side is i've had ubuntu break working systems in updates. ah well.
Eclipse (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish Ubuntu would get their act together on Eclipse.
From http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1265/ [ubuntu.com]
My attempt to run Ganymede from a folder was unsuccessful. Maybe it was the AMD64 thing, I never figured it out, and I don't want to.
Ibex appears to be stuck at 3.2.2. That's Callisto from July 2006. If Jaunty remains stuck at 3.2 in April 2009, I'll begin to seriously wonder about things. Does July 2002 to June 2005 ring any bells with Ubuntu management?
I've read other threads which suggest that Fedora enjoys a small monopoly on the developers who are proficient at packaging Java applications.
[[Had some problems posting from a public terminal. Sorry if my repost ends up becoming a dup.]]
Re:Newbie Question (Score:5, Interesting)
You never just "click install" on windows xp..
1) Pop in disk
2) First you have to [...]
Almost correct.
1-5) as you said.
6) Look at the popup that says lsass.exe will shut down your box in 30 seconds
7) Pull the box off the network
8-12) Do step 1-5 again
13) Download antivirus without connection to the network. Pixies and leprechauns are helpful here.
14) Install the antivirus
15-16) step 6-7
Based on a true story. I can't tell you how much I hated windows when I saw the sasser popup.
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:3, Interesting)
I like Ubuntu's warm theming. Other distros and OSes are so cold by comparison. I like red and orange as well, though, so right now I'm using the Kin Dust theme created by a member of Ubuntu's art team along with a GNOME wallpaper of a red/orange flower.
Re:The one Ubuntu feature I want most: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a problem, but I'm not sure it's a technical one. Even though AACS is trivially broken by AnyDVD, Cyberlink probably doesn't get a HD license for Linux because of piracy BS. They do sell a regular DVD player in the Ubuntu Store if you didn't know. On the open source side there's some progress going on, but it's slow work and to be honest I don't think there are that many Linux PCs with a Blu-Ray drive. But there are interesting developments going on, hardware acceleration is coming soon [phoronix.com] to ATI cards. If we want to talk multimedia, I'd much rather get rid of flash.
Re:Very little apparently (Score:2, Interesting)
2. X.org: Hotplugging mice/keyboards "works now"?
What's truly sad is that Windows 98 had that feature, and it took the Xorg people so long to implement it. Its XFree86 all over again.
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the problems Ubuntu has from a selling standpoint is that Gnome's look, even with the Ubuntu customized settings, look like a dull hodgepodge ripoff of Windows XP and OS X Panther.
If you can't get people to use your distro because it looks like it's way past its prime, then it doesn't matter how useable it actually is. People need to see past ideology and make something that looks like what people are likely to want to use.
In other words, brown is bad in this instance.
The article is... not so great (Score:3, Interesting)
X.Org 7.4 [...]. Hotplugging support for input devices actually works now, so you can plug in mice and tablets and use them without having to reboot.
Having to reboot? Wouldn't that be a kernel issue and not an X.org issue? I can imagine why you'd have to restart the X server, but the kernel? Haven't the kernel had hotplugging support with hotplug or udev for a few years now?
Improvements to X.Org also allow for the easier to manage display control panel, which allows users to adjust resolutions and screen placement for single and multiple monitor displays easily.
This is next to this image: http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u7/resolution.jpg [maximumpc.com]. Who wants to bet that the control panel is part of GNOME, not X.org?
The new Network Manager is a great improvement over the previous release. It allows your Ubuntu machine to connect to the network before a user logs in.
Still no easy bonding? I submitted a request for that [/me feels indignant].
A bit seriously though: bonding rocks. Wanna pick up your laptop and not break the sshfs connection to your file server? Sure. Wanna have bandwidth that doesn't suck while you're tethered down by the ethernet cable? You can have that too.
But not with NetworkManager unless you hack some of its dispatcher scripts. Only for the techies.
Better Support for Web Video and Audio
Ubuntu now supports the high-quality setting in YouTube! We shall celebrate by watching videos of other people's animals at a better quality level. Additionally, now Ubuntu users can view the programming the BBC puts online in Totem. That's right, you can enjoy fine shows like Scotland Outdoors and The Archers from your Linux PC.
Cool! Uhh... what was updated again? Firefox? Flash? GStreamer? Totem? firefox-gstreamer-totemish-flv-plugin?
Type ecryptfs-setup-private in the Terminal, and you can hide and encrypt a folder in your Home directory. [...] This folder gives a secure location that you can use to store sensitive files, without paying the performance penalty that full-disk encryption incurs.
I wouldn't trust that. Applications may not know to keep data secret beyond umask, and so will store stuff in /tmp. Or your secret data will be put on the non-encrypted swap partition. And in my experience, full-disk encryption works fine, very little is noticable; a few .5s-delays when saving in emacs.
Config-less X.Org
Awesome!!1!
No seriously, I really think it is. Not much use to me now, but it'll probably be in the future.
[I'm still going to have an xorg.conf because it's a great place to cast spells that makes my trackball kick ass. EmulateWheel springs to mind, which is really a must with a Logitech Marble Mouse that has scroll _buttons_ instead of a wheel; no repeated scrolling otherwise, but with EmulateWheel I have it, and I have horizontal scrolling. Check out Battle for Wesnoth with horizontal scrolling, I wrote that :)]
Not the greatest written article. But I look forward to upgrading. Last time I did that, though, something broke. My plan is to pick a new package each day [or maybe every eight hours or so] and upgrade just that one. Then, when something breaks, I can limit it to one package plus dependencies, instead of all $BIGNUM packages.
Has it been half a year already? :)
-- Jonas K
Re:The one Ubuntu feature I want most: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:...there are many others that do [like it]. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Newbie Question (Score:2, Interesting)
You install nLite in windows. You create your disk with SP3 and every other thing you'll ever need integrated into it, then you remove what you don't need with it (usually about 200MB of useless junk). A normal SP2 Microsoft disk is about 580MB I think, whereas my SP3 slipstreamed in with nLite + my drivers is only about 250mb after massive compression. Install takes about...ehh...5 minutes, including the reboot.
Then you use the same disk over and over and over again :)
Re:Newbie Question (Score:3, Interesting)
Or just use a Linux CD which is effectively the same thing without any mucking around.
Also if you use Linux then you wont be reinstalling your computer very often in the first place. :)
Typed on a 5 year old Gentoo install.
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the problems Ubuntu has from a selling standpoint is that Gnome's look, even with the Ubuntu customized settings, look like a dull hodgepodge ripoff of Windows XP and OS X Panther.
If you can't get people to use your distro because it looks like it's way past its prime, then it doesn't matter how useable it actually is. People need to see past ideology and make something that looks like what people are likely to want to use.
In other words, brown is bad in this instance.
Unfortunately I don't think you've really got the gist of this thread, nor used the software in question. The OP was talking about the colour of the desktop wallpaper - let's not bring ideology into this. Also I don't agree with you when you say that Ubuntu looks "look like a dull hodgepodge ripoff of Windows XP and OS X Panther."
Yes, previous brown Ubuntus looked bad, that was the starting point of my original post, but in this instance brown Ubuntu looks good.
And that's ignoring the fact that I've shown 8.10 to a number of people, both highly technical and those who find double clicking hard, all of whom seemed to be impressed by the default look of the software. To repeat myself then:
In other words, brown is good in this instance.
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:5, Interesting)
yes, changing your desktop wallpaper is a sure sign of intelligence and creativity. i approve of the logic of your statement.
i mean, changing your desktop from its default background is much more important than configuring your firewall, re-installing device drivers/your personal applications, restoring backed up files & documents, or setting up your network connection.
and nothing says "i'm a tech savvy hipster" like changing your desktop background to one of the throwback stock wallpapers that came with your OS--like a close-up shot up of wet leaves of grass/a frog/a butterfly, wind-blown sand dunes, tranquil autumn leaves, or any of the other kitsch backgrounds that expresses your personality--after all, what better way to show your sense of individuality than by personalizing your computer with a determined set of wallpapers, user avatars, and desktop icons?
so are you the skateboarder, guitar, soccer ball, or the chess pieces?
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:3, Interesting)
sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install ubuntustudio-desktop ubuntustudio-audio ubuntustudio-audio-plugins ubuntustudio-graphics ubuntustudio-video linux-rt
Re:Newbie Question (Score:5, Interesting)
13) Download antivirus without connection to the network. Pixies and leprechauns are helpful here.
Which is why you should always install XP with at least one of the following:
a) Behind a firewall (may not be completely safe, though).
b) With a laptop besides you.
c) With an Ubuntu LiveCD.
Option c) is specially funny though, all things considered, but it's the one I usually recommend. In fact, many of my friends' PCs used to have a relatively small FAT32 partition for LinuxWindows file exchange during install/troubleshooting, before Linux got reliable NTFS support.
Just when did Linux get 'normal' users? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:4, Interesting)
Um...
Not to try and troll or anything, but while Ubuntu Studio is cool and all, particularly if you are doing sound mixing, wouldn't it be easier to just install Compiz Fusion and then pick from DOZENS of cool skins?
I guess it's just a matter of what you want/need your machine for.
(Although Ubuntu Studio DOES look pretty)
Re:Newbie Question (Score:4, Interesting)
2) First you have to setup a partition to install windows.. lets assume it's an empty disk so you'd press c (create partition) and number the number of disk space for that partition then enter, then you press enter again to install on that partition.
As an interesting anecdote to back up your point: a friend/roommate bought a new computer and got ahold of a warez XP 64-bit install CD. None of the cd keys from my secret stash worked, naturally, so he decided to go buy a legit copy of XP. Because the 64-bit installer had already loaded stuff on the drive (yeah I know real technical language—it's the weekend jeez) the legit disk refused to do anything.
So I got out a handy Linux livecd to nuke the partition table so the legit XP CD would install from scratch. So he was all set.
A few weeks later he motioned me into his room after I got home from work and explained that Windows wasn't seeing his whole drive. I immediately noticed that Windows had only created a 300 GB partition on his 750 GB drive! I mentioned a few tools I could get together to expand the NTFS filesystem, but he decided to just make the other 450 GB a D: drive.
Moral of the story is that installing Windows is, as you suggest, not just hitting some big red "Install" button.
Re:What I noted about upgrading from 8.04 to 8.10 (Score:5, Interesting)
I never upgrade Windows OR Linux - I reinstall both on a clean partition.
I have two partitions, for the current and previous install respectively. When it's time to upgrade, I copy my user data from previous to current; reformat previous and install the new OS there; and flip partitions in the boot loader.
That way, if the new install isn't all I'd hoped, I can easily boot into the previous partition from the grub menu. And I don't have to worry about a Windows or Linux upgrade almost working (yes, I've had problems with both).
Out-of-the-box is overrated (Score:2, Interesting)
One thing that a lot of people seem to enthusiastically remind others about when it comes to Ubuntu or Linux in general, is how good it is at supporting drivers "out of the box". Yes that's nice, but what I've found is a lot of those drivers lack functionality that I can immediately access in Windows after installing the drivers manually over there.
For example:
* I have a crappy Canon inkjet printer, but it still works so I keep using it. Both Ubuntu and Vista detect it and support it out of the box, however Vista is able to show extra details such as the ink levels, as well as allow me to perform deep cleaning/head alignment operations on the printer if required. I don't have any of that functionality in Linux - as far as the hardware support goes it just allows me to print, and that's pretty much it.
* My laptop uses an Intel X3100 integrated graphics chipset. Nothing fancy, but it works quite well. Ubuntu has an advantage where it correctly identifies the chipset, and not only enables the 3D stuff immediately but also correctly sets the resolution. In Vista/XP I'm required to install the drivers manually. However, in Ubuntu I'm unable to do things such as force the screen to keep its aspect ratio when running in a 4:3 resolution on a 16:10 screen (which is kinda important with games which don't have widescreen support for example). I don't have any ability to rotate the screen, which is easy to do with the Intel control panel in Windows, but none exists in Linux. There's probably a way via Xorg or xrandr but goodness knows I can't find it. Also, the OpenGL extensions aren't fully supported in Linux, which means certain games won't even run there but they will in Windows. Again, not a big deal for a laptop which isn't really designed for games, but there you go.
* The power settings available in Vista is incredible. It allows for very easy to tune control over how the machine powers down elements to save power, plus overall I can keep my Vista system running longer with Aero running than I can in Linux with Compiz.
Those are my experiences, and of course others will vary. Having said that, I'm sure there are people who don't care about such features with their computers, and in such a case, having minimally supported features on hardware is probably OK to them. To me, I want to have EVERYTHING the hardware can do.
Re:Newbie Question (Score:2, Interesting)
You forgot a few lines under windows:
8) Installing drivers for the various third party cards(nvidia,ati,linksys, etc).
9) Updating third party drivers from their various websites.
10) Installing disc based third party applications(games, antivirus, etc) and net applications(skype, anti-malware, etc)
11) Updating disc based third party applications from the net.
There's often several reboots during steps 8,9, and sometimes 10.
And two under ubuntu:
5) Update ubuntu from net.
6) Installing various third party applications from repositories.
It's definitely easier to install Ubuntu than WindowsXP.
Re:What normal users can expect (Score:3, Interesting)
I prefer this [gnome.org] one.
Re:Newbie Question (Score:3, Interesting)
If two ACs argue on /. do they make a sound?
Re:Newbie Question (Score:3, Interesting)
Your problem is that you're just not reading anything I write....
If you buy a new hard drive and install windows on it, it is not partitioned to NTFS. I'll quote what I said since you didn't read it, hopefully you will this time..
You see those words? "empty disk", this was so that everyone knew what I was talking about.
and what the fuck has an OEM disk got to do with any of this, it's a cheap answer. An OEM disk (if you're lucky enough to have kept it or not have a custom PC) does not come in the retail box of Microsoft Windows.
Guess what also comes with an OEM disk, that's right! Ubuntu.
Because it's one less piece of junk you need to install before you can start doing your work.
Ease of installation?! What a joke and did you even check out some of the other comments? I was being very restrictive in my list of steps, yet you lack any kind of thought in your response as though when people reinstall windows they don't need to take any of these steps.
You start making up hypothetical situations of people having OEM computers with special install disks. I notice that when you give these lame situations you never give a balanced view of Ubuntu either..
Where is the OEM version of Ubuntu in your response? You're comments are simply more bias then my original comment in this thread.
Oh right I get it now, you've seen the ubuntu article and in typical BSD and Mac user fashion come to troll. Get the fuck out.
Re:Newbie Question (Score:2, Interesting)
Dual screen works mostly fine for me here on my Intel 945GM laptop (though I don't use DS often).
The only problems is the limited virtual desktop size of 2048x2048 for Compiz so I can only have the second screen above/below, and that I have to play with a setting in ccsm to get Compiz to draw windows across both screens correctly.
If it helps your Compiz problem the setting in question is under General>Display settings, untick detect outputs and add outputs for each screen or just one to make windows maximize across both screens (eg: 1280x1024+0+0 1280x800+0+1024).
The 2048x2048 problem requires me to edit the xorg.conf to get Metacity to draw a bigger desktop if I want side by side screens (but no Compiz). I read that it's a hardware limitation and the workaround never worked for me.
Re:Newbie Question (Score:1, Interesting)
In my personal experience PCLinuxOS requires more fiddling than Ubuntu, and the latest version of Mandriva will neither logout nor shutdown, instead choosing to hang indefinitely. I hope Ubuntu does *not* look too closely at either distro.
Re:Newbie Question (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Newbie Question (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not that hard. You just add one line to your xorg.conf (something like "Virtual 2048 768" to the Display Subsection of your Screen section). Then you do a `xrandr --output VGA-0 --left-of DVI-0'. This gives you one X screen split across your two monitors. I have this working fine on multiple machines with the open source radeon drivers. The only hiccup from compiz is that if your total screen size if bigger than the maximum texture size of your card, you get some strange artifacts in the extra screen area. It's still quite usable, and a reasonable workaround is to just stick some window there pinned to all workspaces (I use an Eterm tailling /var/log/messages pinned using devilspie).
It used to be possible to run each monitor as a separate X screen using a little more hackery in the xorg.conf file. I thought that was nicer than using a single screen; however, Xorg broke that sometime in the past 10 months. Now trying to make that work (at least with the radeon drivers) will cause X to crash, which is really just pathetic.
Re:kubuntu? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just as well clue everyone in. PearsonComputing [pearsoncomputing.net] are hosting their own deb repository for KDE 3.5 in Intrepid.
I fully expect the slashdot effect to kick in by November 1, 2008. I am positive that the repository will shit the bed when thousands of Kubuntu users who finaly see that their cam is supported in Intrepid running a 2.6.27 and still want KDE 3.5. Hardy won't cut it or them. Ubuntu will not have published a 2.6.27 Kernel for Hardy. They will still want 2.6.27 AND KDE 3.5.
I am set, already have my wifes Acer One on Intrepid in Xubuntu and KDE 3.5 added. As for me, it does not matter I run fluxbox or xfce. Besides, I am alrady running 2.6.27 with Hardy.
I will further add. When I do switch to Intrepid in a few months. I will probably use Linux Mint's Fluxbox or XFCE edition. Gives me a better looking desktop and I don't even have to spend an hour downloading codecs to get video codes, mp3 and flash working.
... a system lock-up if you invoke NVIDIA drivers? (Score:3, Interesting)
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SLASHDOT BUG: I hit "Get 376 More Comments, but only got five more.