Ubuntu Feisty Fawn - Desktop Linux Matured 413
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? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Though you can get quite a bit of improvement just by going through the add/remove list and getting rid of all the cruft you've installed and forgotten about.
Or had installed for you. (I'm talking to you Wild Tangent and your scummy scam.) System performance is directly related to how much task bar space is still empty.
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Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000743.html [edbott.com]
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From a performance standpoint, yes it does seem like that based on your accurate technical description of how the prefetch folder works.
However, it would seem that there might be some kernel of truth to the misconception that cleaning out this folder will improve performance. Here's what you said in your article:
When you run a program, Windows creates a .pf file for it in the Prefetch folder. When you run the program again, Windows looks for this .pf file and uses it to determine how to load the program. The hash doesn't contain any portion of the original program code. If you never run the program again, that .pf file never gets used, and in fact it gets deleted eventually.
If you're one of those people that tries a lot of programs in a 1-off fashion, much like writers for tech news sites might do, you will pro
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I'm using Ubuntu Edgy on a Laptop and a Desktop. I don't think it loads as fast as XP but again, I don't really care about how fast it boots when its only a couple of extra seconds.
For the record I would guess my boot speeds to be as so..
Desktop:
Ubuntu Edgy - 35 Seconds - To the desktop and ready to launch.
Windows XP - 25 Seconds - To show the desktop
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With that said I can't for the life of me understand why the boot up doesn't try to acquire an IP address as a parallel process.
Re:Boot up speed? (Score:4, Informative)
dhcpcd I know for a fact does this but I havent tried the other clients.
Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Funny)
On Linux it *should* be daemonizing and doing it in parallel.
Great. Another article demonizing Linux!
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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)
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=25426 3&highlight=grub+profile+speed+boot [ubuntuforums.org]
/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.
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
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)
Re:Boot up speed? (Score:5, Funny)
Linux Mint (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Linux Mint (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Linux Mint (Score:4, Informative)
HTH
two words: (Score:3, Informative)
Read the GPL. Things are not black and white as you are construing them to be.
no NO NO! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:no NO NO! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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- 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)
- 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.
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.
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Unless you are using FAT you should not be defragging your filesystem at all. NTFS is pretty efficient about how it stores files on the hard drive. Modern filesystems do a pretty good job at storing files and preventing fragmenting. They spread the files out over the hard drive and leave space between so they can easily be expanded. Once you defrag and compact all your data to the beginning of your drive, the filesystem will have to write data elsewhere if you expand a file
Re:no NO NO! (Score:4, Funny)
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)
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
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The good news is that Linux is slowly trickling in mainly in government.
More and more people are getting exposed to it and they will learn the new step by step procedures out of necessity.
Option #3 - the government (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:no NO NO! (Score:5, Insightful)
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 :)
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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
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Please define 'power' and how OS X falls short.
PS I wouldn't call OS X the 'ultimate' OS either, but you seem to be dismissing a hand-waving argument with another one about power-users.
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You must be new here. Bashing anything always gets modded up. It's positive comments that get buried.
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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)
Re:My experience with 6.10 (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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My laptop runs Windows XP and ATI's drivers work for shit with multi-monitor support. I can spend a lot more than 2 days trying to make it work, and it will randomly stop working months later without cause.
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Intel.
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/ [intellinuxgraphics.org]
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But do you think you'd be able to do that in two days if you had never used windows before in your life? It's a pretty uneven playing field that you're judging it on.
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But you are absolutely r
Re:My experience with 6.10 (It's the preinstall!) (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
As such, no platform exists for PC software vendors to target.
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The Ian Murdoch essay focuses on C/C++, which is where the main problem lies. If one develops in the 'bytecode' family of languages/environments - Java, Python, C# - then porting between Linux distros is actually quite simple, in my experience at least. Using a cross-platform GUI toolkit - WxWidgets, GTK+, Qt - can even allow porting to Windows and others. For exam
If only Ubuntu weren't abandonware (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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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
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I have had problems with Dapper Drake and Edgy because I am using a laptop and every bug I have reported has been taken seriously. Please tell me so I can look into it for you.
I hope you will give Ubuntu another go when the next Long Term Support release comes out.
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I have been reporting bugs whenever I run across them in every distro I've used, and only Ubuntu consistently follows up on the bugs. I used RHEL for many years and never got the kind of attention paid to the bug issues that I had the way Ubuntu does.
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See also the bug report: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gphoto2/+bug/ 6602 [launchpad.net]
These are pretty stupid regressions to be making, if only because they're so trivial to fix to boot. I certainly d
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Thankfully at least I didn't have to compile from source, which is what one of the howtos suggested. Hooray for de
Re:If only Ubuntu weren't abandonware (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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This, of course, it to ensure that there's at least one good reason to upgrade to Vista.
(*) Yes, I know drivers can be slipstreamed, but why should we have to do that?
OK... enough trolling for one day....
REALLY!? (Score:2, Funny)
Well if Eugenia said it, it must be true!
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A real woman in other words...
Ducks...
Don't pat yourselves on the back yet. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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It's bizarre to me how this article somehow gets doublethink-titled "Destop Linux Matured" when you've got problems like that (and the wireless problem he detailed which no average user would possibly comprehend). When Vista had all its problems in beta (and in release), Slashdot didn't give it a
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Re:Don't pat yourselves on the back yet. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Everything works in Windows on the otherwise standard Apple hardware, although not as well as it does under MacOS (the brightness and volume settings seem to have much coarser settings, an
Re:Don't pat yourselves on the back yet. (Score:4, Insightful)
Usability Labs (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft formed their Usability Labs for exactly this reason. Perhaps these guys [wikipedia.org] can work together on something like this?
Re:Don't pat yourselves on the back yet. (Score:4, Insightful)
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. (Score:4, Informative)
Correction Alpha Release, Betas haven't started yet. :D
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Thanks for backing up the point of my post tho'
Feisty isn't remotely close to being released, it's undergoing testing.
I've been using it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, that sounds rea
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The screen resolution problem he was having was because he was using alpha software. Its like comparing Windows Longhorn as the final product for the end user. This version of Ubuntu still has a lot more testing to do before its being released.
So far we've had the following of Ubuntu Feistry Fawn: Herd 1, 2, 3, 4 and are currently on 5. These are "Alpha"s?
Next there is going to be "Release Candidate"s. These are "Beta"s? I can assure you
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If this bug is still around when it's released, then that's an issue.
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(98% being strictly a number pulled from my ass, but it's likely close)
Windows user won't switch without pain or epiphany (Score:2)
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I'm saying that if OpenOffice works like MS Office then Microsoft is in trouble because it will be easier to move to OpenOffice. People will not change to OpenOffice unless it is familiar. Besides, from a polish and maturity perspective the MS Office interface(2003, not 2007) is a lot better than OpenOffice.
Just a minor correction, it is not beta yet (Score:5, Informative)
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)
Re:Xorg (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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.
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I've been around Linux for many years now so have seen it when you REALLY had to be picky about the hardware you bought. To offer your 3 points of advice these days is seriously wide of the mark.
1) I've not had a USB device unrecognised under Linux for a while now. And I don't EVER remember a USB keyboard or mouse failing.
2) Wireles
ubuntu missing APT pdiff?? (Score:5, Interesting)
When we stop hearing this about Linux... (Score:4, Insightful)
... 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:
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 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.
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!
This should be a "never" for AU adoption. Geeks want to run everything from the terminal, moms, wives and bosses do not.
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.
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Do you notice that all those config things, are stuff the AU doesn't even know about? My mom still uses 800x600 as resolution, certainly doesn't know what resolution is (In fact, when I increased hers she complained because stuff was small and she couldn't read) . And she never heard of 'installing drivers' Fact is the AU needs a lot of help in windows even to play DVDs (specially to play DVDs now that everything is moving to that DRM crap). In fact, the AU still has a lot of issues in windows with stuff li
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Why? Vista still exists. If you want Windows, use Windows. Linux isn't Windows. It's an entirely different OS. Nobody's forcing you to use Linux, either. If you want Windows, it's still there for you. Use it and enjoy it, and allow Linux to be itself, rather than insist that it become something it isn't.
I
Are you serious about "this Linux" thing? (Score:5, Funny)
Gem from a comments list attached to this article [zdnet.com]:
So, apparently, like man-caused-global-warming, the discussion about Linux is closed.
Too mature? (Score:4, Funny)
To paraphrase Mr MonkeyBoy. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
3d desktops are a waste of ... everything (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
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When you find out exactly why these things happen, you can become the world's richest individual more or less overnight.
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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.
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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.
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Oh, yes, and you can also strip down windows by either hacking up the registry, or using fancy third-party [litepc.com] Frontends. I recall sliming 9x to a 45m