Google Talks About Its Ubuntu Experience 230
dartttt writes "There was a very interesting session at the Ubuntu Developer Summit by Google developer Thomas Bushnell. He talked about how Ubuntu, its derivatives and Goobuntu (Google's customized Ubuntu based distro) are used by Google developers. He starts by saying 'Precise Rocks,' and that many Google employees use Ubuntu — including managers, software engineers, translators, people who wrote the original Unix, and people who have no clue about Unix. Many developers working on Chrome and Android use Ubuntu. Ubuntu systems at Google are upgraded every LTS release. The entire process of upgrading can take as much as four months, and it is also quite expensive, as one reboot or a small change can cost them as much as a million dollars across the company."
Bushnell also mentions that Google Drive will soon be available for Linux. Other news out of UDS: there was discussion of a GNOME flavor of 12.10, Electronic Arts reaffirmed that they "won't delay their Windows work for Linux," and Unity 2D is likely to disappear in 12.10.
Re:Precise (Score:5, Interesting)
There is much more to ubuntu than the default desktop environment, right from their hardware support to their extensive list of software and ppas. Even then, it's always good to have a modern but simple DE for people just getting into Linux, and Unity is one of the best DEs for that. (I personally use gnome shell)
Re:No more Unity 2D? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think they mean that Unity isn't going to support legacy (pre-2009ish) video hardware. That makes sense. There's a lot of cool stuff you can do on the desktop, but you need the oomph to push it. At some point you need a cutoff, otherwise you end up making a lot of comprimises to help the perhaps 1-2% of your userbase.
Re:Upgrades do suck (Score:4, Interesting)
I jump around distros a lot. But I have had poor upgrade experiences with Ubuntu. Not so good with Fedora either. On the other hand, I have had decent upgrade experiences with openSUSE since they introduced 'zypper dist-upgrade' (not perfect, maybe about 4 out of 5 upgrade seamlessly, including upgrading 2 versions forward.)
What makes them so different? The package management system? Or maybe just the love and care given it?
Re:No more Unity 2D? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a UI, not a video game. There's no reason why a UI should require that much oomph to work. At this point if your UI can't run on a decade old computer, that's a pretty good indication that you don't know what you're doing.
Forget Unity and KDE (Score:2, Interesting)
Ubuntu 12.04 + Cinnamon. Better than Linux Mint 12, though I'm anxious to see what LM13 will look like.
Ads in the desktop (Score:5, Interesting)
The last update to Ubuntu brought advertising into my desktop. I tried to search for an application and the unity dashboard presented me with music albums from the music store.
Fucking hell.
I understand if they pack rhythmbox chokefull of advertising for their music store. I would hate it but I'd at least understand it. But when the simple task of starting an application, the most basic task of graphical shells, is used as an opportunity to advertise to me, I've had enough.
That's jumping the shark twice.
I already ditched Ubuntu for LinuxMint in my desktop but used Ubuntu in my media center. I'm changing OS next time.
Hypocrisy (Score:4, Interesting)
Love the joke at 7:30: they're blocking Ubuntu packages that phone home, since they cannot afford to let work-data leave company premises... however, they CAN use Google Drive.