Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" Is Out

Many readers are sending the news that Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon has been released. Download options include mirrors and torrents. Wired has a review based on the release candidate: "Gamers and hardcore media hounds may still feel left out... but we found playing music and watching movies in the new Ubuntu to be every bit as pleasant as it is under OS X or Windows... Wi-Fi, printing, my digital camera and even my iPod all worked immediately after installation — no drivers or other software required... I did have to install additional codecs to get MP3 and Windows Media Audio support."

What?

[3p1ph4ny]

TFS: hardcore media hounds may still feel left out...

Amarok. There's nothing like it on any other platform.

The summary contradicts itself

[GPS Pilot]

If you have to install additional software to get MP3 support, the music-playing experience is, almost by definition, not as pleasant as it is under OS X.

Re:The summary contradicts itself

[betterunixthanunix]

Well, that is the price you pay for living in a country where software patents are allowed. MP3 is a patented format, so you can never truly listen to an MP3 for free. Part of the cost of Mac OS X is MP3 support, same for Windows Vista. A Linux distro can never distribute software that requires royalties, and so, technically, no Linux distro can legally distribute MP3 software in the US.

Lucky for you, there is Ogg Vorbis, which is technically superior to MP3 anyway, in terms of quality per byte.

Re:Just do ....

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it would be a good idea to build the torrent protocol into the Debian package management ? That way we could get the best of both worlds, fast download on days like these and and great package management.

Re:What?

[DuncanE]

Yeah, but what about us gamers. I still boot into windows everyday at home. Most of the time I'm browsing the web (Firefox), playing media (VLC) or using office software (OO), but every day or so I want to start a game (currently Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes). While the browser and the office stuff runs fine under Ubuntu, the games don't.

So while I can compile Kernels and grep across the OS in too many ways to remember... I still boot Windows.

I don't really have a solution. MS seems to have the games all locked up. WINE is making slow inroads but with the arrival of DirectX 10 they are another gen behind.

And why are games REALLY important? Because if I boot to windows then what am I gonna recommend to my family and friends?

Re:The summary contradicts itself

[Tim C]

A Linux distro can never distribute software that requires royalties

Not true, there are a number of options:
1) Charge for the version of the distro that includes the software, pay the licence fee to the licensor, disallow redistribution of the licensed code
2) Give the distro away for free, pay the licence fee to the licensor, disallow redistribution of the licensed code
3) Reimplement the required code, distribute only in countries with a more enlightened attitude towards software patents (eg the EU)

Lucky for you, there is Ogg Vorbis, which is technically superior to MP3 anyway, in terms of quality per byte.

Superior or not, that doesn't help me with all the music I have in mp3 (and no, I'm not about to re-rip it).
The OP's point is valid - the experience is not as good out of the box as that of OS X or Windows, with regards to music playing.

Re:will it wipe my /home?

[speaker of the truth]

I'd recommend backing it up regardless of what people say. I've never heard someone complain about having a backup they didn't need, yet I've often heard people complain about not having a backup they needed.

Re:What?

[SpiritGod21]

Also, Cedega. I subscribe for the sole reason of furthering gaming on Linux. The more support they get, the better games will work on Linux.

Re:Just do (n00b question)....

[murraj2]

While the video drivers should just work and probably will for most people. I had a different experience, after the upgrade(which I did on Sunday) was done it prompted me to reboot, after I did this it went to grub, and then the ubuntu screen with the loading status bar. Afterwards I got a black screen on my laptop. Rebooted, same thing. Plugged it into my dock to try that, and the monitor didn't receive a signal. The only thing I could do was get into recovery mode and get to the console.

I would recommend that before you upgrade, and just in general, you burn a live CD, so that if something wrong you have a way of at least connecting to the internet and getting to ubuntu forums. I actually had to use my Wii to post to the ubuntu forums where someone was able to give me an hpkg reconfigure command that I could use in recovery mode. Wasn't too fun typing on my Wii.

Re:Does it Support My Wi-Fi Adapter?

[Anonymous Coward]

If not, Linux fans, please STFU until things like a wireless adapter I bought at Best Buy works on a default install of your OS.

Yeah, right, because you and your hardware are the only important things in this world. BTW, does Windows come with drivers for this thing?

Re:IU Mirror

[nschubach]

I thought they were for porn and warez?

Re:Has support from Dell and Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody who writes code for a living and can afford to buy a commercial IDE probably does not care whether they have to pay for a Windows license or not.

Re:What?

[0100010001010011]

You mean it would be nice if people would buy hardware media players that worked on the computer they used?

Last I checked Apple doesn't support Linux. If you bought an iPod, you knew it didn't support Linux, so why did you buy it?

This is akin to the people that buy houses next to airports then complain to the city about the noise.

Gaming Falls to the Winner

[mecenday]

I see many weakish answers to this post, but the simplest answer is that Linux simply isn't a gamer's OS right now. And that's fine.

It isn't something anyone developing Linux or working on Ubuntu can just fix. Gaming is always going to fall to the OS with the biggest installbase because of the money involved. All the Linux folks can do is keep polishing and pushing to make desktop Linux a better experience... so that one day they'll have a profitable userbase for the gaming companies to address.

Maybe it seems like Linux geeks are underestimating the importance of gaming, but I don't think that's the case. Projects like Wine and Cedega strive to hit a moving target in the dark, just in efforts to bring you folks over... But we'll only ever see mixed results from that.

From my point of view though, gamers may overestimate their own importance to the adoption of Linux at this time. Because gaming will fall to the biggest (desktop) installbase, how is it going to help an OS that is currently running third? All it can really do is solidify the lead of whoever is in first. Right?

And, contrary to the opinion of many gamers, there are throngs of people who never-ever game... or never-ever game on a computer. Judging from the folks I know, it'd be the vast majority. Most folks just use their computers to communicate, to budget, to work, and to just dink around on the web. Those are the folks Ubuntu is going after right now.

Gamers are important, sure. It's a userbase that is a bit more knowledgeable and a bit more experimental, which would make them a good fit for Desktop Linux early-adoption. We'd love to have them. But, unfortunately, they are going to be forever tied to whatever's most popular... and, further, they are not the end-all of computing.

We'll be happy to see all you gamers again once we hit... sayyy 25%-50% installed. See ya then. =)

Re:Stay out of the forums for a while.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly why more people don't drop Windows for Linux. Try welcoming them and being patient rather than being a smart-ass and pissing them off from the get-go and the market share for Linux might actually increase. Which is the goal, right?

Re:Has support from Dell and Novell

[ZipprHead]

Perhaps I am wrong. But having used a number of other development environments, I've never seen a better debugger. I can be running a 3 tier application in debug mode, tier one a DLL, tier two a SOAP server, tier three a client Application. I can step through an entire request process setting break points at each tier in the application, heck ( though I have to see it) you can even use Visual Studio to step through stored procedures inside of Microsoft SQL server.

There are some things in VS that annoy me too, but IMHO, it's the least annoying development environment I've ever used.

Re:Potential Linux user thwarted once again

[TheMoonRat]

That isn't going to attract new users to Linux! Asking them to replace expensive (but well known branded) hardware because it doesn't work. If Linux cost money I wouldn't be trying it. Needing to get new hardware that works for Linux is effectively giving the Operating System a cost.

I know giant strides have been made (and are being made with the recent AMD/ATI announcement); but unfortunately I still seem to have the back luck in the hardware I have

Which Vorbis player in US B&M stores?

[tepples]

A Linux distro can never distribute software that requires royalties

Yes it can; it's just not a 100% pure Free or 100% pure free distribution.

Lucky for you, there is Ogg Vorbis, which is technically superior to MP3 anyway, in terms of quality per byte.

I want to walk into a Best Buy store with cash and walk out with an audio player that plays Vorbis. Which model do you recommend? A lot of people on various wikis swear by Cowon and iRiver, but the Best Buy stores in Fort Wayne, Indiana, don't appear to carry those product lines. They do, on the other hand, carry a full line of MP3, WMA, and AAC players. In fact, the only pocket-size Vorbis player sold in Best Buy is the Nintendo DS Lite with the Games n' Music accessory, which supports Vorbis as part of downloadable DSOrganize software.

Re:What?

[0100010001010011]

Why not lots of tools that that do one thing instead of one tool that does lots of things? I thought this was the Unix/Linux way.

Developers could create 5 tiny applications:
ipod_mount
ipod_music_sync
ipod_video_sync
ipod_pictures_sync
ipod_unmount

Each would do what they're supposed to do *very* well. They could have some command line flags that would let you do about anything
ipod_mount
ipod_video_sync -device /mnt/ipod -folder /user/me/Videos/
ipod_music_sync -device /mnt/ipod -file LedZepplin.mp3
ipod_unmount.

Then you could write a nice pretty wrapper around that. In my opinion nothing would be very bloated because each program would do one thing and one thing very well. You also get the nice 'feature' of having command line tools available to anyone that wanted to use SSH or a Web interface or an Ncurses interface.

I'm a die hard OS X fan. It does everything I need to and I don't have to fight it. I also love the command line if there's a way to do it via command line I probably do. My debian server is headless I only have SSH access. I'd love to be able to plug my iPod into its cradle go back to my chair and do everything via ssh. Most new applications I find are KDE or GNOME only. I finally found someone who wrote a nice perl script to convert *.avi to iPod video files. I wrapped that in a shell script to create iPod videos.

to_ipod.sh Transformers.avi Pulp\ Fiction.avi

And in a few hours I have Transformers.mp4 and Pulp\ Fiction.mp4, but then I have to transfer them to my Mac to sync them via iTunes.

(See also off topic rant in same thread)

Re:Does it Support My Wi-Fi Adapter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you should send your opinion on this to the hardware manufacturer whose product doesn't work for you in Linux. It could be that you will not get an answer from them, but if noone complains about this to them, they might not even start to consider fixing the situation

Re:Has support from Dell and Novell

[shutdown -p now]

On a more serious side, they're not on par with VS2005 C++ IDE, either. The only other editor that I know of which can properly parse moderately complicated C++ templates (i.e. Boost) is SlickEdit, but nothing in the Linux land comes close to VS2005 for C++ debugging.

Re:Bittorrent client

[Anonymous Coward]

I posted it because I noted the majority of my peers were using Azureus while downloading the new iso. Obviously, people were just not aware there are robust alternatives, because not many people choose Azureus if given a native alternative that works.

Huh, interesting. So you think the only reason people use Azureus is because they're not aware that alternatives exist? Weird. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I like Azureus?

Aside from having a nice interface whose speed doesn't bother me at all because I've got a nice computer, I also like the remote Swing and HTML interfaces, built-in tracker (with SSL), auto-speed plugins, advanced seeding rules, and the fact that the interface works the same way on my Windows, Linux, and OS X boxes. (yes, I have computers running all three, and yes, I've used all of them for downloading torrents) How many other torrent programs do that? And do they do it well enough that I'd want to bother learning a new interface?

Re:7.2Gbps via official torrents

[Anpheus]

Can't you just mount the image and save yourself the trouble of burning a CD? (Serious question.)

Jeezuz, People! It's FREE!

[Fantastic Lad]

I think Mark Shuttleworth is one of the few people this world has today who can be looked upon as genuinely heroic.

The man put up his own millions, fought to bring computer technology to the third world, and will mail you a free copy of the Ubuntu CD if you ask.

Yeah, talk about shortcomings and areas where it doesn't work, etc., but for crying out loud! It might be wise to treat it in a tone of constructive criticism rather than bitter complaint. A little respect is due here. Heck, a lot of respect is due here!

And sheesh, I'm not even a regular Linux user. (Not until the Gimp does more than 8 bits and builds a better layout and includes CMYK. And changes its creepy name.)

-FL

Re:Has support from Dell and Novell

[ookaze]

On a more serious side, they're not on par with VS2005 C++ IDE, either. The only other editor that I know of which can properly parse moderately complicated C++ templates (i.e. Boost) is SlickEdit, but nothing in the Linux land comes close to VS2005 for C++ debugging

This is nonsense. VS2005 C++ IDE is left behind by these IDE as soon as you try to compile code for a GNU platform, with gcc for example. You're right, nothing in the Linux land comes close to VS2005 for standard C++ debugging, as VS2005 it's just left far behind.
Your statement wouldn't be true, even if C++ debugging was reduced to graphical step by step C++ debugging.

The only case in which any Visual Studio is better than a FOSS IDE is when you're programming only for a Windows platform.

Re:What?

[SanityInAnarchy]

I also don't want file transfers interrupted or services abruptly halted because of the task I choose.

That much is fair. I suppose I'm unique there in that I have another machine set up as a server (fileserver, among other things), so I can simply tell it to download something, then reboot my desktop (gaming machine) as many times as I want.

Being able to do it all on one OS is certainly preferable, but I decided that Ubuntu was worth the hassle (though I did already have that other box).

I'm also running Ubuntu (and reccomend it to others) specifically because it's the laziest distro I've stumbled upon.

I do, because it's that lazy, but also because when I want to get under the hood, I can. A Debian base isn't bad.

I used to use Gentoo, but I found that I really don't give anything up by going to Ubuntu, and I gain laziness. However, going to Windows, I do lose a lot, and I am far too lazy to spend much time trying to make my Windows work as well as my Linux did -- in the places where that's even possible.