Ubuntu 9.04 Is As Slick As Win7, Mac OS X 871
An anonymous reader writes in with an opinion piece from ZDNet Australia. "Here's what the official press release won't tell you about Ubuntu 9.04, which formally hit the streets yesterday: its designers have polished the hell out of its user interface since the last release in October. Just like Microsoft has taken the blowtorch to Vista to produce the lightning-quick Windows 7, which so far runs well even on older hardware, Ubuntu has picked up its own game."
screenshots? (Score:5, Insightful)
its designers have polished the hell out of its user interface
and the link is to an article without a single screenshot....
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, why doesn't he just post a screenshot of slick animation?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
Animated gif? Did I wake up in 1997?
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
I wrote a library adding support for MNG to IE - called MINGE [urbandictionary.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Animated gifs are the future!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
troll:
Probably because there are no good tools for making an animation of the user interface in Linux/X.
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know you didn't RTFA, cause nobody does, but that was EXACTLY the point of the article. They didn't mean "slick" as in shiny and pretty and cool effects, they even said so. They said don't bother looking at screenshots, because that's not the kind of "slick" that they meant. They meant "slick" as in responsive, windows pop up quickly, feels quick instead of sluggish.
They made some comparisons like:
Vista - oh so not slick
Mac OSX Tiger - Very slick
Mac OSX Leopard - Not as slick as Tiger, but slick
Windows 7 - surprisingly slick
Ubuntu pre-9.04 - Not slick
Ubuntu 9.04 - Very slick
The guy who wrote the article apparently uses Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows 7 on a regular basis, and he was focusing on user-interface improvements. He noted that Leopard, while it added lots of "cool features" over Tiger, the usablility slipped in a few areas. He noted that the MS team got it right for once, and the Windows 7 UI is impressive. He noted that the Ubuntu team dedicated the UI that was formed last September has made some great improvements, and it should finally be competative with the other two brands' user interfaces.
The theme itself though, sadly, hasn't changed. Fortunately it's a heck of a lot easier to customize the theme in Ubuntu than it is in Windows or OSX. :)
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
The theme itself though, sadly, hasn't changed.
What do you have against the color brown?? Other than it happens to be the color of dog poop laying on dirt.
Hmmm.... Brown is also the color of delicious chocolate, and benevolent, life-giving coffee, and the hazy morning sky over Newark, New Jersey....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
you mean like how Windows XP and Vista has almost no support for touchscreens as well?
I had to go digging for the drivers and apps for my tablet for XP and vista. they did not magicanny install and work without effort.
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
I had to go digging for the drivers and apps for my tablet for XP and vista. they did not magicanny install and work without effort.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
In fact, I don't know what that word means.
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who gives a shit why he needs a touchscreen? This is just excuse-making. Maybe he IS working on a kiosk. Maybe he's working on a POS cash-register app, or the next generation of surface-based interfaces. Maybe he just prefers touchscreens.
Honestly, I get sick of this attitude from developers when someone suggests a useful feature - "why would you need that?" That's why Linux will always by a system "by programmers, for programmers."
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, wait. . . did you just make an argument that because some random poster on /. downplayed a request for touchscreen support, that Linux developers don't care about requests for less-popular but potentially useful features? I agree that the GP's response of essentially 'who cares about touchscreen support' is kind of dumb, I fail to see how his post on /. has anything to do with developer attitudes?
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Interesting)
In answer to your comment about desktop use, I know many artists who do most of their work in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet. They hate using a mouse for that kind of work. If you question these users' importance overall, I can only direct you to the frequent conversation about 'I need apps that don't work in Linux! You can't use GIMP as a replacement for Photoshop!'.
I agree it's not that huge of a deal, but it might be a dealbreaker for a not-insignificant number of people.
Re:screenshots? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a tablet PC, with a multi-touch display (Touchsmart Tx2). Windows 7's support is light-years better than Windows Vista... and that would be a deal-breaker.
You say it stresses your arms, but it really doesn't. After about two weeks of practice, I could touch-type reasonably quickly on the onscreen keyboard (with a couple of quirks), and when I'm working, it's so much easier to lift a finger from the keyboard to touch the screen than it is to lower one hand to use the touchpad.
I'll never get another notebook that doesn't have a touchscreen, and I will never use an OS on it that doesn't have at least reasonable support. Touch is a godsend.
Re:screenshots? (Score:4, Interesting)
For nothing really, just for very specific tasks. I would love a touch screen in my laptop to perform live using Ableton Live.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, then how about a screencast? It is 2009 you know, you're allowed to put video on your web page. This **is** CNET, you'd think they have the resources to make that work.
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Informative)
Youtube demos this pretty well, IMHO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h905pHzkXPw [youtube.com]
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Insightful)
why? It's worked for Apple users for years....
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ubuntu- Text Editor,OSX- Professional Page Layo (Score:4, Insightful)
Never mind aqua, brushed metal, grey slates and black HUDs don't look the same either ...
Re:Ubuntu- Text Editor,OSX- Professional Page Layo (Score:5, Interesting)
Brushed metal doesn't exist anymore. When it did, it was for applications containing a source list or emulating some real world device, so there was an intended consistency. Around the time brushed metal disappeared, black HUDs showed up in Apple's media applications, allowing you to make edits without obscuring too much of what you're working on. The deviations in OS X have a purpose.
The inconsistencies the person you're responding to is talking about is stupid crap like the way fonts are rendered. There is still uneven kerning and bad font choices after all these years. Applications don't follow a standard interface paradigm. You know how a Mac app is going to look and feel, even when it deviates from the norm, such as Delicious Library [delicious-monster.com].
Ubuntu is odd because it's a project trying to take all this third-party work and make it feel like it's cohesive and meant to go together. I'd rather use the stuff in "vanilla" form and not make-believe that it was all created by the same team.
All of that stuff is just hard... (Score:5, Insightful)
PRoducing a highly polished UI, with consistent colors, shading and graphics is hard and takse time and talent. Most of the people with these skill don't want to work for free (as in free software) and would rather earn a living for their talent (or time).
It also requires a degree of central coordination and control--most lacking in free software. Even MS Windows (where some may consider the interface not as polished as the Mac) sweats a lot of the details--does it work in 8 bit color mode? does it scale to low res screens? black & white? is there a high contrast version for visually impaired? And then there are all the internationalization issues...
Writing polished software, with a highly integrated interface has never been free software's strength. Too many programmers who aren't designers, too many "but I really like orange and green and pink" windows.
Firefox probably comes closest (or meets) the requirements for "Joe or Jane User". But most of the stuff just doesn't have the polish of really high quality commercial software. (Compare, Gimp with Photoshop, OO with MS Office).
FOSS is great for infrastructure stuff--apache, MySQL, etc., but it's been 5 years away from the desktop for the last 20 years...
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't have to. You can just download and install it. It is free you know and extremely simple to set up. I own and operate a small business where I do repairs, upgrades, and sales. Linux is tremendously easier to get up and running than Windows. I've been involved in computers for almost 25 years. You can't beat the value and ease of use of Linux today, on the desktop at that.
Re:screenshots? (Score:5, Funny)
Way faster than 8.10 (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't it strange (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article: I particularly noticed the Ubuntu difference when I put the operating system to the test by simultaneously launching and using multiple applications, listening to music and more while using my spare CPU cycles in the background to encode high-definition video with Mencoder. Ubuntu still felt very fast--even with traditionally sluggy pieces of software like OpenOffice.org.
Isn't it strange that people are still surprised that their computers are fast? Computers have gotten ridiculously fast compared during the last 20 years, and still they seem slow to many of us. Is that just the result of crappy programming, or is there more to it?
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what I want to know, too. If I had known in 1995 what the specs for my 2009 system would be, I would have freaked out and expected it to boot in milliseconds and do everything else instantly.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Interesting)
If you use Coreboot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS), optimized kernel settings, optimized glibc settings, and stick to a lightweight window manager on X, you should get exactly what you're describing.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Funny)
If the hardware manufacturers weren't so bent on making Coreboot a PITA then I would consider it. I do have an IBM eServer 325 that I'd like to put coreboot on. Problem is, last time I followed the build guide I received a MASSIVE FAIL... kind of like trying to build Angstrom linux. OpenEmbedded? Embedded in my eye.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Insightful)
We are also doing things that are rather unheard of on these old systems.
So lets compare Windows 95 system with today.
1. Real-Time Semi-Transparency. Doing stuff back in 95 would have taken at least a second to render. .exe or .com file.
2. Anti-Aliasing fonts. Back in the day we knew what text was done in Photoshop and what was rendered on the fly.
3. Wobbly Windows. (or similar effect) That would take crazy computing power back then
4. Disk Indexing, We knew how to index back in 95 it just took to long to be useful
5. Complex interpreted language programs. If it wasn't in binary format then it was too slow.
6. Multi-tasking. Windows 95 just barely had working multi-tasking. Burning a CD back then was a crap shoot. because chances are your computer would freeze up and mess up your PC.
7. Security. Back in 95 a Buffer overflow would mean your program would crash, and if you had a password protection you were considered secure. Viruses only infected
8. PCI was the new kid on the block and plug in play was plug and pray.
9. Configurability. Go work with windows 95 and even compare it with XP you will realize how much stuff you have taken for granted over the years.
I bet if you take your old 486 and run 95 you will realize how slow it was.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"... simultaneously launching and using multiple applications, listening to music and more while using my spare CPU cycles in the background to encode high-definition video with Mencoder ..."
How many of those things would your computer do at the same time 20 years ago? We expect a lot more now than we did then.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Insightful)
10 years ago I expected my machine to simulaneously...
Rip/transcode CDs.
Play mp3s
Browse the web with bloated browser.
Manipulate documents with bloaded office suite.
The only thing that's reall changed in the last 10 years
is that the tools have changed in appearance. Some are
more snazzy, and some are less snazzy but more automated.
However the basics are pretty much the same as well as
the expected level of concurrency.
I expect the computationally interesting stuff to run
for as long as it needs to without crashing and without
negatively impacting the "end user experience".
Unix had that part covered 10 years ago.
"using spare cycles for something useful" is what Unix does.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Insightful)
10 years ago I expected my machine to simulaneously...
Rip/transcode CDs.
Play mp3s
Browse the web with bloated browser.
Manipulate documents with bloaded office suite.
And yet, in Firefox 3 running on Ubuntu Jaunty, I cannot scroll down this page without pauses because some other website is loading in a background tab...
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing that's reall changed in the last 10 years
is that the tools have changed in appearance. Some are
more snazzy, and some are less snazzy but more automated.
However the basics are pretty much the same as well as
the expected level of concurrency.
Yeah, I've got to say that I find it pretty depressing to find the base OS being more resource hungry every time I upgrade. There is some increase in priddyness, such as Compiz Fusion, but I'm sure a lot of the bloat is behind the scenes stuff such as HAL, UDEV, PulseAudio, etc. To the end user they don't offer a really noticeable advantage and they do add to the bloat.
A quick look down my process list (Fedora 11) shows top bulky processes are:
* FireFox with a resident size of 184MB
* Xorg with a resident size of 125MB
* Lots of Gnome bits and pieces totalling maybe 100MB
* Nautilus with a resident size of 33MB
So you're looking at a fairly significant memory consumption just to surf the web - this is something that my old P166 laptop could do with 64MB of RAM around 1998 (and it was faster at it then than my 2GB Athlon XP 2100+ is now!)
There are a whole load of processes running and socking up memory that just don't need to be there too - the PC Card daemon (this is a desktop machine with no PC Card slots), the Bluetooth daemons (this machine has no bluetooth interface), gpm, gnome-power-monitor (why do I need this on a desktop machine?), etc. Sure, these processes do useful stuff in certain situations, but there's absolutely no need for them to be running all the time. Take Nautilus, for example - I never actually use it, but Gnome wants it to be running all the time just in case.
And yes, I know I could spend hours tuning my system, but my point is that I shouldn't have to - there's no need for modern systems to have all this bloat running all the time, it's just there because it is easier to be lazy and tell people to get better hardware than write efficient systems.
There's also a trend towards using much less efficient languages - for example, a lot of stuff is now written in Python and Java. As far as I'm concerned, there is absolutely no sane reason to use a system like Java with the overhead of a VM when you already know what architecture the binaries will be running on when you build them.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Interesting)
HAL, UDEV, PulseAudio, etc. To the end user they don't offer a really noticeable advantage and they do add to the bloat.
HAL and UDEV make devices work better and easier. Things like being able to plug a USB hard drive in, and have it autodetected and ready to mount, is directly the result of udev.
Also, udev isn't slow. I've used it on incredibly weak hardware. Trust me, it's not the bottleneck.
PulseAudio, you might have a point -- at least in that the user-visible improvement isn't there yet, unless your soundcard is too weak to handle multiple audio streams -- I know I configure everything to just use ALSA.
But it will come. Like Vista -- having a volume knob per-app would be very useful.
There are a whole load of processes running and socking up memory that just don't need to be there too - the PC Card daemon (this is a desktop machine with no PC Card slots), the Bluetooth daemons (this machine has no bluetooth interface), gpm, gnome-power-monitor (why do I need this on a desktop machine?), etc.
That is true -- it would be very nice if these things could be handled by some sort of hotplug script (which you still need HAL and udev for), so that the moment a PC card slot appears, you're ready for it.
Interestingly, I see absolutely no bluetooth icon on my Kubuntu 8.10 machine (can't risk upgrading yet), until I turn it on (via the hardware switch).
And yes, I know I could spend hours tuning my system, but my point is that I shouldn't have to - there's no need for modern systems to have all this bloat running all the time, it's just there because it is easier to be lazy and tell people to get better hardware than write efficient systems.
Well, yes and no. I used to spend hours tuning my system, when I had a 200 mhz machine with 256 megs of RAM. I even carried these same habits to my 1.7 ghz machine with 512 megs of RAM.
Now I have a 2.5 ghz dual-core with 4 gigs of RAM. The slowest it will run is 800 mhz. And it's a laptop.
It is simply not worth my time to run around tuning this stuff. It's not a personal itch I feel like scratching. Just let it eat 200 mhz (more than my old machine even had) and a gig or two of RAM -- better than me having to spend hours tweaking it.
If someone else wants to, that's great! Certainly, I'll tend to use more efficient alternatives when they work -- for example, as I'm in KDE, I'm writing this post in Konqueror, rather than Firefox. But for the most part, it's just not worth it.
a lot of stuff is now written in Python and Java. As far as I'm concerned, there is absolutely no sane reason to use a system like Java with the overhead of a VM when you already know what architecture the binaries will be running on when you build them.
Firstly, Java can actually do some runtime optimizations that (for example) C can't. There are even circumstances where a garbage collector is faster than manual malloc/free. So purely from a performance aspect, it's not quite as clean as you think.
Second, there's still Python. And I don't know about you, but I'd much rather most of my system be written in Python than in C. Just by virtue of the respective languages, less code to do the same things means less bugs, garbage collection means fewer memory leaks and fewer segfaults, and really no sane possibility of buffer overruns...
I don't know about you, but I'll almost always trade a few more cycles for a bit more reliability and security.
The reason? With apologies to Churchill: My Ruby script may be slow today, but it will get faster as the hardware and interpreters improve. Your C program, however, will still be ugly. (Uglier code, more of it, and buggier...)
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Interesting)
PulseAudio, you might have a point
The only thing wrong with PulseAudio is the way it is implemented in Ubuntu. The Ubuntu packagers have clearly not understood (or perhaps even read) PerfectSetup [pulseaudio.org]. PulseAudio worked perfectly for me in Intrepid (not making this up) and still works perfectly in Jaunty, but in both cases I had to follow the PerfectSetup guide in order to make it so. This was especially egregious in Intrepid, where pulseaudio was installed by default. I had to install it to get mixing working on my laptop (HP 8730w with snd-hda-intel) and now everything is beautiful.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing wrong with PulseAudio is the way it is implemented in Ubuntu.[...]
Er, no.
Another feature^W bug of PulseAudio is the automagic resampling to $whatever_frequency_it_decides.
Which is marvellous if you want 44.1kHz system beeps on your VIA-powered mini-ITX lounge jukebox system to blend perfectly with 48kHz audio recorded off a DVB radio stream. Or a DVD.
So, PulseAudio decides to lock your audio to 44.1 kHz on startup, and then 48kHz audio stutters and skips because the poor (600MHz) processor (which makes a meal of just about everything) really doesn't like realtime re-encoding.
And the really Homeresque thing about this is that the onboard sound can play 48kHz audio natively. Of course, I'd be only too happy to tell PulseAudio to use 48kHz all the time, but for the ripped CD collection on there too.
In fact, an ideal solution would be to somehow, magically, on-the-fly, send audio files sampled at frequencies it knows the sound card can handle, directly to the card and not resample them arbitrarily.
Just like it did in 2007.
Grrrr.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing that's reall changed in the last 10 years
is that the tools have changed in appearance.
What the average user expects from web browsing is considerably different to what it was 10 years ago. If you showed me Hulu in HD in 1999 I think I'd have passed out - you can do that in a browser? My Mum and Grandfather have both just bought new computers because their old ones couldn't do BBC iPlayer SD in high quality, let alone the new iPlayer HD content.
The personal computing industry owes a lot to YouTube, Hulu, iPlayer and the like: outside gaming, these are the only mainstream killer apps that actually require 21st century hardware.
Re:More than 10 years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Huge amounts of "exciting new" PC tech is arguably just a rediscovery of stuff that was being done on big iron ages back. The difference, and it isn't a small one, is that the new stuff is crazy cheap.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Go back and look at what the GUI was 20 years ago. Lots of that increased speed went to support flashy GUIs and desktops that do more. Lots more processes running, too.
I'm not running Compiz and Ubuntu runs perfectly fine for me on an old hand-me-down 2.4G P4 single core.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that just the result of crappy programming, or is there more to it?
Feature creep?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Moore's Law: Every 18 months, the speed of hardware doubles.
Gates's Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Re:Isn't it strange (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, let's say, I wanted to sell this program. Firstly, I would need to put a pretty interface on it, then I would need to write in all of the error and exception handling required to make sure it didn't crash when the user starts randomly hitting keys on the keyboard. I would need to write in new features that, while I might not necessarily want them, to make the program commercially competitive, have to be there for other users. And on and on. That's how a 300 line script turns into a 10's of thousands of lines bloated nightmare. At least that's how I see it.
OT: Debian Squeeze (Score:5, Informative)
I just upgraded from Lenny to Squeeze and it's in decent shape already.
At the moment there are no show-stopper bugs for your plain-vanilla desktop use. You can pull kde4.2 from sid too.
I'm having no performance issues with KDE4.2 eye candy on a Thinkpad T42. Way to go!!
Note, last week's build of the Squeeze net installer didn't work. Do a basic Lenny install then upgrade into Squeeze.
Still Brown (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still Brown (Score:4, Funny)
Very Impressed with the update (Score:5, Informative)
I just installed 9.04 on my work machine. The upgrade had one minor hiccup, which was quickly fixed(the PCM setting in the volume control was muted). Compared to the 8.10 upgrade, which was an unmitigated disaster, this was refreshing.
I haven't really seen a noticeable improvement like the article's author has yet; maybe that will change. I can say that this is the first upgrade yet that hasn't required fiddling with Envy or the Restricted Drivers Manager to get my Nvidia card humming nicely.
Consider me impressed. (Score:5, Informative)
Not bad, not bad at all.
Re:Consider me impressed. (Score:5, Funny)
my lease forbids livestock and the downstairs neighbors frown upon blood dripping through the ceiling
Sacrificing the neighbours would avoid both problems. I'm just sayin'...
Re:Consider me impressed. (Score:5, Funny)
Human sacrifice is only necessary if you're installing Gentoo.
There, fixed that for you...
Re:Consider me impressed. (Score:5, Funny)
You should use the bath tub.
Re:Consider me impressed. (Score:5, Funny)
OK, that +5, Insightful is just plain fucking scary.
Following my earlier rant... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am, however, still at odds with a few of KDE 4.2.2's features (namely KPackageKit, Amarok, and the way removable media is handled), but I think I can at last live with it. If you've been pondering whether to upgrade from Hardy (which I know some people have been), I'm sure you'll find 9.04 acceptable.
(in future though, I must remember not to upgrade on the day of the release. A presumed 45 minute upgrade turned into a 3.5 hour slog)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Lightning Quick Win7? (Score:4, Insightful)
These comparisons don't help Linux.
The phenomena of giving someone a third choice often drives them to choose from the first two is well known.
They should have used a summary with the new features in this version instead of more comparisons that don't matter.
I'll take the kernel with *no* Digital Restrictions Management.
Can I run WOW out of the box? (Score:4, Insightful)
Give the nerds that and many more would try it, especially if you promised more fps during raids.
Yes, I am being serious.
I love Ubuntu... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have it on both my laptops, and even installed it on a virtual machine on my work Mac.
BUT... I won't be recommending it to friends and family until they get the damn sound working immediately upon installation. If people can't use Flash and watch Youtube on it, it might as well be green letters on a black background.
Re:I love Ubuntu... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I love Ubuntu... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well considering XP came out several YEARS before these laptops and desktops you downgraded, it's hardly surprising is it?
You can't really compare installing the latest copy of Ubuntu (which has probably the latest hardware drivers included) with software that is running on hardware 5-6 years newer it was first built to run on.
Re:I love Ubuntu... (Score:5, Informative)
Best desktop distribution IMHO.
Screenshots (Score:5, Insightful)
As for being as slick as OS X, well, spoken like somebody who obviously doesn't own a Mac. It's nice, but there's no way it's even in the same neighborhood that the ballpark for OS X is in. I'm gonna light a small fire here, but I wish a super talented artist would redesign the widget set for Gnome, it's very very dated as it stands now. KDE is far better looking but even it is getting long in the tooth.
doesn't own a Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
"I am starting to prefer using my Ubuntu "Jaunty Jackalope" desktop over the similarly slick Windows 7 beta (which I am currently running full-time on one desktop) and Mac OS X Leopard operating systems, which I also use regularly" [cnet.com]
Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice, but there's no way it's even in the same neighborhood that the ballpark for OS X is in. I'm gonna light a small fire here, but I wish a super talented artist would redesign the widget set for Gnome...
This is an interesting quote because it illustrates how much many users consider "eye candy" to be a critical component of "usability". If only the widget icons were more up-to-date with current styles, Gnome would be more usable?
Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Insightful)
As for Ubuntu, the real thing keeping me back from using it is the gnome interface. There are basically two problems I have with it, the first is right what you point out, to be blunt, I find gnome and to a lesser extent, gtk, to be ugly. I really don't like it. It works, but QT is much nicer looking. That said, my other major problem with gnome is the minimalist design paradigm. Whenever I use gnome apps, I often find myself getting irritated at the lack of options. It wouldn't kill them to have a few more clicky things on their preferences windows. For the record: I use e17 as my desktop manager and run a mix of gtk, qt and kde 3.5 apps (won't use kde 4 because they nuked the konqueror, which is my favorite file manager of all time).
Re:Screenshots (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking of Macs, the Gnome widgets have always reminded me strongly of Mac OS 9. In fact, remind might be too weak a word- they look outright copied. That is probably why many commenters here think they look dated.
Re:Screenshots (Score:4, Insightful)
As for being as slick as OS X, well, spoken like somebody who obviously doesn't own a Mac.
I'm typing this on my home Mac. It's nice and all, but I look forward to being back on my Kubuntu machine at the office where everything works the way I think it should.
Personal preference? Certainly! But no more so then claiming that OS X is inherently more polished than Ubuntu.
It's damned fast (Score:5, Interesting)
I would hope so (Score:4, Interesting)
Because Microsoft had been woken up with Windows 7. For a long time, Windows had a huge loophole that allowed competition - rampant security and stability holes while it's huge benefit was that most software ran on it. Exploiting this weekness allowed Apple to get back into the game.
We all joke about the BSOD, but tability, except for the odd driver, has been mostly a non-issue to the vast majority of users since XP. Security, otoh, seems to have been mostly fixed to the point of being good enough (hardly perfect) in Vista, especially if you don't run as admin all the time. In the days of XP, I had to reinstall my OS once a year just to keep it running at a tolerable rate, 2 years of Vista and the computer is still running fine without running antivirus or antispyware.
Still, this is behind a firewall and I'm not sure I would trust it out in the wireless world or on the road.
I'm glad Ubuntu is upping it's game. Coming out as it did in 2004 probably was probably close to the last point in time that a new linux distro could have been launched, aimed at joe user, that would have gained a significant following. Perhaps if came out in 1998, we'd be seeing Quickbooks for Linux on Walmart shelves by now. But that's making a lot of assumptions about the underlying packages at the time that no single distro could do anything about.
They also don't tell you about nVidia drivers (Score:5, Informative)
An upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04 hosed my polished UI yesterday because there were no nvidia glx drivers available for download. That was a bit of a shock and annoyance, but it's my own fault for not checking its availability before hitting upgrade.
Seems like there is one now in the repos but I think there's a lot of traffic because I can't seem to update.
Patiently waiting... still love Ubuntu.
Re:They also don't tell you about nVidia drivers (Score:5, Informative)
Now the driver has downloaded and it looks fantastic! I spoke too soon.
Dual Monitors - No Sweat (Score:5, Interesting)
At work, the boss gave the developers extra monitors and a video card with dual DVI output. One guy got it working under Ubuntu 8.04 after some hackery. Another guy's Windows XP picked it up without much trouble. My Ubuntu 8.04 workstation wasn't so cooperative, even with the other guy's config options.
Last week, I installed 9.04 beta and it picked up the dual monitors without breaking a sweat. It even put the size/manufacturer in the upper-left corner of each monitor as the display options were being adjusted.
All it needs now is a "Launch World of Warcraft from my Windows partition" menu entry, and it'll take the world by storm.
Re:Dual Monitors - No Sweat (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that you can do this with Wine, right? It's how I play. I never ran the installer in Linux, I just told Wine to launch Wow.exe on the NTFS partition and it worked.
Its okay ... still unaddressed issues (Score:4, Informative)
I like the speed and the new interface. Both are very nice. I was really excited when I read there were improvements to handling multiple monitors and the evolution-mapi plugin that would finally let me use the office's exchange server. Sadly both have missed the mark.
I use the Nvidia driver which means the fancy new monitor settings are not available to me (it pops an alert that tells me I have to open the Nvidia utility). The good thing is I don't have to hunt for the utility, it opens it for me, the bad is the utility is mostly useless. X sees my two screens as one huge screen, which is fine when I have two screens but sucks when I undock the laptop. No way to switch to one screen without hand-editing xorg.conf
I've always had high-hopes for evolution and I don't know why because its always been buggy and slow. This time is no different: "We have REAL exchange support this time! I promise". Sadly while I was able to install the mapi plugin and it shows in my settings, evolution helpfully crashes when I try to login. There are bugs filed against it ...maybe it will get fixed ... someday
And no, I have no love for exchange but I'm forced to use it. I have used the evolution-exchange package that connects through OWA ... its slow and buggy. Often refusing to download my mail, losing the connection to "the backend process" requiring me to delete a certain file. All in all, not worth the hassle.
For now I'm stuck using Outlook in an XP virtual
Re:Its okay ... still unaddressed issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually using KVPNC I've had no issues with Cisco VPN connections.
I find it sad that Exchange support is still considered a "specialized need" :). Personally I wish Mozilla would add it to Thunderbird. T-bird is a much better mail client anyway. (IMHO)
The problem remains... groupware (Score:5, Interesting)
I am grateful that Ubuntu and Fedora have world class support, improvements, and update frequently. Ditto for OOO, and many other open source projects (cluster ssh, firefox, openssh, apache, etc...) As long as the support for exchange mail is an OWA connector, I can't leave windows behind. OWA sucks, OWA sucks from IE on Windows, it double sucks with evolution-exchange.
No, I won't virtualize WIN/Outlook. No, I won't run 2 desktops. No, the Exchange server is not going to be replaced with insight or kroupware or any other open source replacement.
While I am happy for the 9.04 release, I can't help but not being too excited because in spite of all the goodness that Linux is, if it can't meet my needs, it's simply not a viable option.
If I can't run it, how the hell am I supposed to get my wife, kids, or parents on it? Yeah, thats a loaded question, and in actuality my kids PC is Fedora 10. I still have to continually answer the "why do you use Windows" style questions from them.
Re:The problem remains... groupware (Score:4, Informative)
The new Evolution, included in Ubuntu 9.04, uses MAPI to interact with Exchange, it no longer needs OWA.
Terrible Article (Score:5, Insightful)
From the summary I expected at least a snapshot gallery, maybe even video and benchmarks since it was a CNET address, of this latest release.
But this article is complete shit. It's a crappy fanboy blog post with no numbers, no pictures, and just breathless "it works for me, and I'm emotionally committed to this platform, so it's the best thing ever" anecdotes.
Here's a counter-anecdote to the OS X Leopard (10.5) bashing: I'm running 10.5.6 on my 12" PowerBook G4 and it is great. The machine only runs at 1.33GHz with 768MB RAM. The only time it feels slow is when more than one Flash animation tries to run at once (Fuck you, Adobe). Otherwise I can have more than a dozen apps open, a video podcast playing in iTunes in the corner, promiscuous network monitors saturating the resources, and the only time I wish I had a newer machine is when I'm stuck with audio-only chats with my wife while on the road because this box doesn't have the built-in iSight and I don't want to pack an external one.
Stacks have been great since the 10.5.2 update (which came out in Feb 2008, BTW) added several options to how they work. I use them all the time. Folders that have lots of files and subfolders are set to display as a menu very similar to Windows's classic Start Menu. Folders that have few items, like certain subfolders that hold a category of applications or my Downloads folder, display in a grid for quick access. Stacks are awesome, and they are the reason I have stopped hating the Dock and wishing I could turn it off.
Spaces was updated in 10.5.3 (which came out in May 2008) and addressed many of the criticisms the initial feature faced when 10.5 launched several months earlier. I admit it isn't as good as some virtual desktops in Nixland. But it is very, very solid and waaay better than anything available for Windows.
To avoid "your just an OS X fanboy! Nyaah!" flames, let me say that I do love OS X. But I am also running the last LTS of Ubuntu at home and find it a very nice environment. At work I actually prefer OpenBSD, but Windows is currently on my main workstation at the office following some pointy-haired unpleasantness (OpenBSD is still usually the active window, running in a VM; Its main mailing list is also a source of entertainment all day long). I admin several servers running CentOS. I also have to touch Windows Server frequently, which is more often than not a pleasant experience.
Slavish OS fanboyism and an inability to admit to the faults as well as the strengths of an OS is a symptom of a weak mind.
font rendering (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know what it was due to, but for some reason, when I was running the previous version (Ibex?), various bits of text wouldn't render properly. They looked "fuzzy". Actually, Facebook (of all sites) had it the worst. Capital Rs were indistinguishable from capital Ps, for example.
Not so now. Cleaner and crisper text across the board. I was delighted to see that the upgrade cleared that particular issue up. So 9.04 is starting off on a good foot!
(One continuing gripe, though: the Mahjongg tiles still look like they're straight outta 1990.)
agree with some of the praise (Score:3, Insightful)
i do agree that Ubuntu 9.04 looks slick. i installed a few of my favorite fonts (Futura, Droid) and adjusted the theme. (it's really simple... anybody who complains about the default really needs to learn how to click System -> Preferences -> Appearance and choose one of the alternatives, including *gasp* blue/gray themes! That's right, THEY'RE INCLUDED! YOUR MAIN GRIPE AGAINST UBUNTU IS SOLVED! :-P ) I must say though, those Gnome folks have really improved the font situation in Linux over the years, to the point where fonts look just as nice in Linux as they do on a Mac, IMHO.
but what isn't slick is support for some webcams (mine "works" but in an unusable state), media codecs that must be installed separately and then don't always work (in my personal experience, even VLC has run poorly)... which may be caused by still inferior (to Windows') video card drivers (even when using 1st party drivers from ATI/nVidia). The sad truth is that a hacked together osx86 install gives better media performance and capabilities than a legit Ubuntu install.
I would love for a release of Ubuntu to focus primarily on multimedia and drivers. this is where Ubuntu must concentrate in order to convince users to switch from Windows (if that is in fact a goal). i understand the licensing issues that prevent some codecs from being included. but is there really a need for my Dell's onboard sound card to be listed as a Pulseaudio device AND an ALSA device AND an OSS device? Why not unify this? I plugged in a webcam which had it's own mic, and suddenly i have a dozen possible devices to choose from as an input device in every application that can use a mic. how about just two?
medibuntu repositories should be available by default. people DO want codecs and 3rd party software like Skype, despite what people like RMS might think. they don't need to be installed by default, but at least have the capability there by default. (Totem does go out and search for codecs now at least, which is a good thing.)
in my experience, it's still not there as a desktop OS yet, but Ubuntu is progressing. with each release, we get closer.
review of Gnome, or Ubuntu? (Score:5, Insightful)
To most people the GUI is synonymous with the OS, but they're two separate things. By far the bulk of the review seems to be talking about how he likes this version of Gnome better. Well, that's fine, but Ubuntu isn't the same thing as Gnome. I run Ubuntu, but I don't use Gnome.
He also seems favorably impressed with the performance of the GUI, but again this mixes together a lot of stuff in a pretty uninformative way. He's got a particular nvidia card. I don't have that card, so his perception of "windows moving around without jerkiness" probably means nothing to me, even if I were to use Gnome.
This part baffles me. "No package management or dependencies." Since when have you ever had to worry about package management or dependencies on an ubuntu machine? Dependencies are taken care of automatically by apt. "No apt-get. Point and click." Huh? For years and years now, you've been able to install packages on a debian/ubuntu box by clicking around on a gui, if that's what floats your boat. (Personally I prefer to use apt from the console, since, e.g., it lets me install fifty apps at once just by cutting and pasting a string of package names.) Why is he using apt-get in contradistinction to point and click, as if it was a new thing to be able to access apt via a gui?
Re:review of Gnome, or Ubuntu? (Score:5, Insightful)
To most people the GUI is synonymous with the OS, but they're two separate things.
This is what is holding Linux back on the desktop though. The public wants a consistent, intuitive, and responsive interface with their computer. The major aim of Canonical is to simplify Linux for the common user. That means working on configuring Gnome (as that is their GUI of choice) to meet those requirements. So a review meant for the public of the latest Ubuntu is going to focus on how it will look and act to a general user. While the bulk of it may be Gnome, the underlying system has to get everything right as well.
Desktop Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Something doesn't add up (Score:5, Interesting)
As we've noted in earlier articles, Microsoft has also brought its best to the table with Windows 7. However, it's a pity that Apple didn't seem to do so with Leopard.
Ubuntu comments aside (I use and enjoy it myself), this hardly seems like a well written piece. The author talks up Windows 7 and complains about the current version of Mac OS X. It seems a bit biased to ignore the Vista debacle, talk up Windows 7 before its release, then complain about Leopard without doing more than mentioning Snow Leopard. It's not like Apple is being secretive about what they have in store for Snow Leopard [wikipedia.org]. Apple seems to be addressing just about every complaint the author made about the current version of Mac OS X. Both Windows 7 and Mac OS X v10.6 are most likely due out sometime this year, so comparing them would be much fairer than comparing a future version of Windows to the current version of Mac OS X.
Re:Something doesn't add up (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems a bit biased to ignore the Vista debacle,
The "Vista debacle" is only a "debacle" on Slashdot. Everywhere else, it's at best a "minor inconvenience." Please don't fall into the trap of believing that Slashdot represents reality in any way.
Re:Polish & slickness are buzzwords (Score:5, Informative)
Well, the author did specify a meaning:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
everything simply being where it should be in the user interface.
I think this sentence describes exactly my problem with this kind of "reporting". Not all users are created equal.
Let you know? (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, but you'll need to post some information so we can notify you. Your mailing address, phone number, something. I mean, come on, how do you expect us to add you to the "notify when usability is better than Debian+e17" list if you don't give us something to add?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm going to give it a try (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I hated how when I installed, it didn't recognize my video card, and I had to go hunt down the drivers.
Oh wait, that was XP SP3.
Re:Something lacking (Score:4, Funny)
It's being compared to Windows 7. Do you REALLY want screenshots, or painkillers?
Re:It's the software stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
The linux community needs to create a standard set of controls and application frameworks.
The linux community has already created at least two standard sets of controls and application frameworks. Why would we need to create any more?