Walt Mossberg Reviews Ubuntu 642
sciurus0 writes "Mainstream technology journalist Walt Mossberg recently reviewed an Inspiron 1420N with Ubuntu installed by Dell. Citing problems such as an oversensitive touchpad and poor multimedia support, he suggests that 'from the point of view of an average user, someone who wouldn't want to enter text commands, hunt the Web for drivers and enabling software, or learn a whole new user interface' Ubuntu isn't a good choice compared to Windows or OS X."
There may be issues with Ubuntu (Score:2, Interesting)
Simple stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
That's all the complaints the author has. Not bad, I have seen Windows users with a lot more.
Re:To be fair ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The main thing is the codecs in my opinion. Ubuntu needs to have a $10 version that includes non-free codecs that they can then sell to Dell for installation in pre-installed computers, because spending hundreds on a computer and not being able to play an mp3 is just retarded.
Re:How far we've come (Score:3, Interesting)
How many people around you know what a CODEC is? How would they react if the operating system warns them that the program about to be installed may dammage their installation? What would they say if they can't sync their Ipod with their PC? Why would they say if the volume controller crashes each time the screen saver appears?
We all know the reality...The weak support Linux enjoys amongst manufacturers but consumers simply don't care, don't understand, don't want to know. It has to work period.
The Ubuntu founder recognizes that his product isn't ready for the mass-market yet (see the article).
I'm using OpenSUSE on my desktop for 10 months now. I don't have enough words to thank of all of us who have contributed to free software. Such a beautiful development environment (Eclispe, MonoDevelop, to name few) but...If you ask me If it is ready for my nephew and his Ipod, my sister in law and her pictures, or my brother fond of DVDs, I'd probably say no. I don't want to spend hours/days/weeks doing technical support for the whole family for such dumb things like syncing a Ipod, transferring pictures or print them.
Re:You can't deny it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:For the non-RTFA folks (Score:5, Interesting)
Notice what he didn't say (Score:2, Interesting)
Dell may be well-served by pre-installing common codecs and a decent DVD player by default, but the two minutes it takes to install such things under Ubuntu strike me as far preferable to the time I typically spend 'cleaning' a default XP machine from Dell (read: formating the drive and starting the XP install from scratch).
Re:There may be issues with Ubuntu (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, yes, this is a pain, but what is Dell supposed to do? Ship it with all the "bad" and "ugly" codecs? If I were a PC manufacturer in the US, I sure wouldn't want to do that. You're just asking for the mafiaa to come after you.
Actually, with feisty, I just opened up RhythmBox and it prompted me to install the other codecs. IIRC, I didn't have to anything in the CLI.
He should have reviewed PCLinuxOS - has all codecs (Score:1, Interesting)
PCLinuxOS is great for people who have never used a computer before. I've set it up on old junked computers many times in under 20 minutes a pop and no one has complained - they think it's Windows.
The review wasn't fair in my opinion. By comparison, I tried and failed to install Windows XP on some of these same machines as I could not get its ethernet to work without a long lost driver disk from Dell. I've been on computers for 20 years now and I could not figure it out - a novice user cannot possibly install Windows these days. It must come pre-installed or they are screwed.
I don't get it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Low quality of software (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to admit that your post reminds me yet again of the gap between myself and many computer users.
Especially when you say "Just call Microsoft and for 200 dollars they will fix it", I know that for a business, 200 dollars is nothing, but I think for me, and many other people, that is a lot of money. Two hundred dollars is about how much I have spent on computers, totally, in the past two years.
Which is another thing about GIMP and OpenOffice, they are free. And if you are just using them for their basic functionality, (which is what most people do), I don't know of any major flaws they have. A copy of MS Office goes for 500 dollars, which is about one month's rent for me. What functionality can I get out of Office that I can't get out of OpenOffice, that is worth one month's rent?
Of course, (and I've said this many times) for most people, when I get into a discussion of Windows vs. Linux, or closed vs. free software, it is illegal use of Windows vs. legal use of Linux. If people had to pay the 1300 dollars for a commercial copy of Windows, Office and Photoshop, instead of getting the disks from their brother-in-law, how many of them would pay it?
And, I believe I might have drifted away from your points a bit...but it is something to consider.
Re:There may be issues with Ubuntu (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a problem here somewhere... Dell buys PowerDVD, resells it, and makes a profit in so doing. Dell uses Open Source products for free, sells them with Dell hardware and... Makes even more profit. If Dell does have to pay licensing fees for certain codecs, those fees could easily be reflected in the price of the computer. I don't know how codecs typically price, but it can't be much. Looking at some links posted above, an individual could purchase most of what they want for about $35. Bulk agreements are usually less. That kind of price increase would not be considered daunting.
Re:Yes! (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who's worked with Linux both professionally and personally over the last 14 years, I often give Linux a try on the desktop. Each year or so, I'll switch to the current predominant "desktop" Linux. I tried Ubuntu, and for the first time in those 14 years, this was actually a Linux I could use. Unfortunately, though, "use" was it. I'd say it was "ok" as a desktop experience. Ready for the average user? Not without a Linux geek to help them out. I ran into problems with almost every update that I'd have to dig around to find a fix for, and few were issues that the average user could fix. When I bought my new laptop, I had actually planned on using Ubuntu on it, but I started playing around with Vista, which the laptop came with, and I decided not to even bother. Ubuntu offered me nothing that I couldn't do on Windows. Add to that Ubuntu didn't support a bunch of the hardware on my new laptop (fingerprint reader, webcam or the digitizer. Since it's a tablet, the last was key.) It's been a month and a half with Vista, and I've decided to give up on Linux as a desktop OS. Ubuntu brings Linux closer to the desktop, but it's still years behind Windows in terms of features, performance and stability.
Re:This is something new? (Score:2, Interesting)
The first thing I want to say is that I have mod points, but I'll drop them elsewhere tonight, because all of the messages/posts on this topic, tonight, are really good reading, and seem very thoughtful. So, I would mod everybody in the article up +1.
That being said, I run two Apple laptops at home. One is a garden variety OS X, and the one I'm on now is running OS X, Windows 2000 Pro (aka NT 5 heheh, in VPC), and dual-boots into Ubuntu (Feisty). I love playing around in Ubuntu Linux. No kidding. It's just a stone blast, and I get a real genuine kick out of it, and it plays well into the my mindset regarding the possibility of a better future for people, machines, information sharing and availability, freedom, etc. hats off to everyone involved.
But I agree, 100%, with the poster I quoted here. Further to that, I don't care if Linux is 'ready for the Desktop', and I won't debate, or be judgmental about, whether or not this is the "Year of Linux on the Desktop." In my opinion it is far from 'ready' and i think its best years are ahead of it, still.
I haven't used the numerous GUIs that this poster mentioned. But KDE and Gnome are obviously based on NT, and maybe Gnome has a little OS X feel to it. But so what? Greater minds than mine have come up with the statement that 'All ideas are based on other ideas' and who am I to argue. The beautiful thing about Linux, as it stands, is that the fragmentation of the desktop metaphors is also its saving grace. Anyone is free to get out there and innovate. what more could you ask for?
But the average desktop user is going to freak the first time they want to do something simple, like, say, get rid of those annoying tool tips on the Desktop, and then, not seeing anything relevant in the System admin menu or the Applications menu, going into Ubuntu/Gnome "help" and finding out that they have to dust off their non-existent 1966-era text input skills (launch VIM, in other words) and drill down into the correct gconf file and fiddle about. [Oh, and if Uncle Fred or Aunt Millie is reading, for God's sake, if you even find the gconf file, instead of the xml 'tree' that opens in your browser, for Christ's sake don't forget to launch VIM as 'root'... they forgot that part in "Help"... {laughs}]
Do you see where I'm going with this? It's not ready. Not yet. Part of me says, "Big deal" and the other part of me hopes that somebody, somewhere, comes up with a GUI that even the ''average' user can comfortably navigate, alter, and use. Because we need this. Windows has destroyed the enjoyment of personal computing and information sharing (via the Internet) for a good part of millions of people's lives. It would be illegal if sanity was any consideration. And Apple is slowly destroying their 'fork' of Unix, so it's going to be up to you folks, to come up with a Linux for the 'other', for the 'masses', and we'll still be able to do make installs of the kernel, and hobbyist-away our time on the Planet, if we so desire.
I didn't mean to go on and on like this, but I go back quite a ways; I've used SGIs, SPARCStations, a boatload of Apple gear, and I still love NT 4.0, so, I guess I grant myself the freedom to take liberties when I say that Linux is way good enough for me, already, a couple years ago in fact, but for 'them'... Out There? Uh, no. Not yet.
Automatix is dangerous to the system (Score:3, Interesting)
You should be recommending Easybuntu or preferably Medibuntu. [ubuntu.com] With Medibuntu, you just switch on universe and mulitverse and restricted, copy/paste the Medibuntu source lines into the package manager, then install w32codecs and libdvdcss. Upgrades then won't cause your system to self destruct.
The system will work with multimedia at this point.
That leaves one remaining hurdle, the video driver for 3D games. I agree that Dell could have taken care of this detail, but what are they going to do when the kernel gets upgraded and the video goes *poof* ? Sounds like a tech support nightmare. Forgetting about games support seems acceptable for the time being.
Re:Reviews make Linux stronger (Score:3, Interesting)
Though one point he does miss is that even non-tech users sometimes have friends or family who are techies, and in that situation Linux might be a better fit. Windows is still generally easier to use out of the box, but when it doesn't work and the help just says "consult your system administrator", Linux can be easier to find fixes for.