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Ubuntu 11.10 To Switch From GDM To LightDM 236

Posted by timothy from the getcher-choosin'-action-on dept.
dkd903 writes "Earlier, during the Natty development cycle we reported that LightDM is being considered as a replacement for GDM. That did not happen for Ubuntu 11.04, but today it has been confirmed at the Ubuntu Developer Summit at Budapest that LightDM is finally replacing GDM in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric."
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Ubuntu 11.10 To Switch From GDM To LightDM More

Ubuntu 11.10 To Switch From GDM To LightDM

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  • Unity Vista(tm) [newstechnica.com] is Canonical’s response to the GNOME 3 shell, which uses 1 gigabyte of RAM and four processor cores to exquisitely render a single button in the centre of the screen in beautifully anti-aliased text; when pressed, GNOME tells the user to switch off the computer and do something useful with their life, such as showering.

    “This was just not up to the user expectations of Canonical’s vision of the desktop,” said Mark Shuttleworth, from his castle high on a crag in West London. “So we added a ‘minimise’ button too.”

    Design is at the centre of Shuttleworth’s roadmap for Unity Vista. “I woke up one day and thought, ‘Gosh, I’d really like to make using my universal general-purpose computer that I can do ANYTHING with feel like I’m using a locked-down three-year-old half-smart phone through the clunky mechanism some l33t h@xx0r used to jailbreak it, I can’t think of a better user experience.’ We’re not quite there yet, but this gets Unity a lot of the way.”

    Shuttleworth foresees an exciting future for Linux for the general Internet user. “It’ll be a whole world of Linux devices, which millions of people will use all the time, everywhere! Of course, at the moment those are called ‘phones’ and run Android.”

    • Re:Ubuntu Vista defies expectations (Score:4, Funny)

      by 0123456 ( 636235 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @01:27PM (#36109974)

      when pressed, GNOME tells the user to switch off the computer and do something useful with their life, such as showering.

      But does not actually provide a shut down option, because that might confuse users too much.

      • > But does not actually provide a shut down option, because that might confuse users too much.

        Ah, but if you are one of the advanced users (who GNOME wishes would just take the hint and switch to another desktop) who insist on a shutdown option, you can go read the arcane lore on a blog that describes in perfect detail how to download a non-supported third party plugin that will add a shutdown option. Of course the blog post isn't easy to find on Google and documents a procedure that doesn't quite work right with the current release and the link to the actual download is now a 404 error with herbal viagra adverts on it.

      • You're joking, right? Just hold down the Alt key or log out first. Shutting down is a really superficial thing to do and rarely needs to be done (relative to other computer functions), so complaining about a couple milliseconds difference is rather pointless.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mldi ( 1598123 )

          Just hold down the Alt key or log out first.

          So I suppose there's something wrong with wanting a convenient discoverable (keyword) button to do all that in one shot, huh? Then let's just get rid of all GUI elements on the desktop screen and resort to nothing besides keyboard shortcuts. The mouse is really just a superficial input device that has no point.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Hatta ( 162192 )

            The mouse is really just a superficial input device that has no point.

            This is true. Mouse free environments suck less [suckless.org].

            I still can't figure out what's wrong with using 'login' as a login manager.

          • >discoverable

            This.

            I mean, Ubuntu (and Gnome) have really jumped over the deep end on this:
            -menus that are hidden until you move your mouse all the way to the top of the screen
            -scrollbars that are hidden until you move to a specific position near the side of a window (what happened to Fitts Law there?)
            -typing and searching for applications that you don't know are there
            -removal of the window control menu (used to be non the left side). Now you're supposed to know to do Alt+Space, if that'll even work in th

        • Sorry, what? "Just hold down Alt"? Or log out first?

          All this, and also the blather about how they're making it easier for newbs? Too rich.

          Why do you call shutting down superficial? Most people have their own computers, and they don't log out so someone can log in. The common use scenario is not a public library computer. People want to turn their computers off, hopefully in the "approved" manner that we geeks have been drilling into them.

          It's not a couple ms to log out. It takes many seconds, often fraction

    • I really like the Ubuntu Unity shell. I am a 20 year plus unix programmer and also like OSX. Their approach is excellent. Keep it up ubuntu! and never mind these "developers" who have an extreme dislike of anything new. You'd think computer experts would be up to realizing evolution happens, but alas, are as stuck in their ways as their windows counterparts. Alas.

      • Eh - I have a few less years than you - been programming IN GENERAL for 20 years but only on Unix for about 12 now. I like the Mac OS X interface pretty good. Unfortunately Unity is NOTHING like the OS X interface. Blending the title bar of maximized windows into the top pane is DUMB. The new "overlay scrollbars" are DUMB. The unity dock needs to have the ability to switch to the bottom of the screen rather than the side (where on widescreen monitors we have the least amount of space).

        Overall, a singl

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Homburg ( 213427 )

          Blending the title bar of maximized windows into the top pane is DUMB. The new "overlay scrollbars" are DUMB.

          Why?

          • Because it breaks the consistency of the workflow. When a window isn't maximized it looks one way. It's a trivial adjustment when maximizing to assume that it will look and behave identically when maximized, just that it will takeup the entirety of the open screen. Now, they instead cause the window to adopt two different control schemes between the two modes, AND mingle the window's controls with a distinctly different element of the UI (the base Ubuntu launcher menu).

          • I happen to like being able to look over at a glance and see where the scroll bar is without having to find that tiny thread. I also hate themes that make the scroller "hide" on the bar by making the colors match. Horizontal screen resolution is not a concern. Not sure who thought it was. There's plenty of room for a slider bar.

            I'm also not a fan of the menu items up top. It breaks the flow of an app. When you have multiple windows open and you have to go to the top of the screen every time to operate

        • We'll have to agree to disagree. I might agree that Docky could sub for their launcher, but that's about it. I like the other paradigm changes and really like the spotlight-esque approach and unified menu system.

          I don't use multiple monitors so I can't speak to those problems, but i'm running it on VirtualBox (3D turned on of course) on a NVIDIA IGP 320M, and it's usable as much as the first few versions of OSX and will only get better. I DID have to turn off (replaced the graphic with nothing) the shado

        • Blending the title bar of maximized windows into the top pane is DUMB. The new "overlay scrollbars" are DUMB. The unity dock needs to have the ability to switch to the bottom of the screen rather than the side (where on widescreen monitors we have the least amount of space).

          Overall, a single Gnome 2 panel a the top of the screen combined with Docky and Compiz was ALL I EVER NEEDED. It was a paradigm that was never broken to need fixing.

          Amen. I installed 11.04 (upgraded from 10.10, actually), tried to work with Unity for a few hours, hated it, switched to "Classic" mode, noticed the stupid scroll things were still there, nuked it and installed 10.04 LTS. I think Ubuntu just seriously jumped the shark.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Luyseyal ( 3154 )

        I can see how it might work if you only need one desktop and don't have any weird monitor configuration. Unity was sucky on my two monitor system with the secondary on the left, rotated 90 degrees. I couldn't figure out how to move the bar and its interaction with the Gnome panel was odd. I just gave up because I was busy and didn't have time to screw with it.

        It's hard to make everyone happy. I'm still irritated that there is no easy way to put a different picture on different virtual desktops anymore. I us

      • The best part of Unity (Score:5, Interesting)

        by iceaxe ( 18903 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @02:35PM (#36110948) Journal

        I really like Unity, too. It got me to finally try Xfce, and I'm very happy with the change. (I've been meaning to try it out for ages, but never got around to it.)

        After switching back to 'classic' I just fired up synaptic, installed Xfce and whatever recommended additions I thought looked good, logged out and back in using Xfce, and I haven't had an urge to go back yet. Granted, it's only been a few days, but the things I do every day work as well or better.

        I liked it so much that I installed Xubuntu on another system, and really like the defaults they put in place there.

        I think the next time I reinstall the OS on my 'regular' computer (as opposed to just upgrading Ubuntu) I'll be grabbing Xubuntu.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by celle ( 906675 )

        "I really like the Ubuntu Unity shell. ...You'd think computer experts would be up to realizing evolution happens, but alas, are as stuck in their ways as their windows counterparts. Alas."

        A heretic.
        Kill the heretic!!! Kill the heretic!!!

        "Boiling people in oil. Those were the days weren't they?" -- Carlin

        commentary/
        Come on guys!(and girls) (on slashdot--ah!!) It's just one Gnu/Linux distro(distro?-ick, ah well). How many others are out there? Ubuntu is largely controlled by Mark Shuttleworth

        • Uh... Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, not vice versa...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by JonJ ( 907502 )
            And Slackware certainly isn't a 'derivative' of anything besides SLS. I think it's just poorly placed. The sentence should have been something like this: "make your own or switch to one of the scores of other ones(Slackware, Fedora, Debian) or Ubuntu derivatives(Mint etc.)".

      • I really like the unity shell too, for casual computing. Trying to do serious work on it actually pushed me back to KDE for the first time in ten years.

  • Why is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ex Machina ( 10710 ) <jonathan.williams @ g m a i l . c om> on Thursday May 12, 2011 @01:28PM (#36109976) Homepage

    I understand "big changes" in Linux distributions that have a day to day impact on all users like switching to X.org or Unity are important events. But most people spend about 10 seconds tops interacting with Gdm every day. It's just not that important for most users.

  • GDM (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 0123456 ( 636235 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @01:30PM (#36109996)

    Considering the number of things that get broken in GDM in every new Ubuntu release, this may not be a bad thing. For example, going from 10.04 to 11.04 gdm started displaying every single user in the /etc/passwd file, except when it randomly only displays the last one who logged in.

  • Extinction-level event (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MonsterTrimble ( 1205334 ) <monstertrimble@h ... m ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday May 12, 2011 @01:44PM (#36110158)
    Natty goes from Gnome to Unity
    Oneiric goes from GDM to LightDM, Firefox to Chromium and X to Wayland.

    While it's not quite on the level of OS9 to OSX and definitely not without losses, 2011's Ubuntu releases will change the landscape of Linux for the better.

    • Re:Extinction-level event (Score:5, Interesting)

      by c6gunner ( 950153 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @02:01PM (#36110388) Homepage

      Dunno about LightDM or wayland, but Unity and Chromium are a massive step backwards rather than an improvement. Unity is buggy and a pain to use, and Chromium has shit for extensions and still won't work right with adblock. No thanks. You want a better experience, install XFCE and XDM with Compiz Fusion for the eye-candy. You want bloated garbage that makes your computer completely unsable, install the new default Ubuntu or Kubuntu distros.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by LordLimecat ( 1103839 )

        Chromium works fine with adblock and has for the last year or so. It is also significantly faster than Firefox.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by JanneM ( 7445 )

          Chromium works well enough, I agree. But I use Chromium and Firefox in parallel (long story) and I just don't notice any speed difference at all. As far as using them, they seem all but identical to me.

        • Er what? Chromium is _slightly_ faster if at all than Firefox if you don't adblock anything or almost anything. Once you get rid of hidden junk, Firefox becomes a whole deal faster.

          Sample numbers, from loading CNN's main page on a slow machine with no memory pressure, the page was visited just before closing the browser and starting it anew:
          * empty adblock: Firefox 37 seconds, Chromium 35
          * configured adblock: Firefox 8, Chromium 35

          And then, Chromium has a number of deficiencies that make it pretty useless

      • Re:Extinction-level event (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @04:17PM (#36112292) Journal

        Wayland is a massive step backwards too. Everyone's just going to run an X server on top of Wayland, so it will do nothing but add another layer to slow things down and break.

        If people start writing native Wayland apps, that's another massive step back since Wayland doesn't have network transparency, forces clients to provide their own window decorations, etc.

    • Re:Extinction-level event (Score:4, Insightful)

      by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @02:31PM (#36110874) Journal

      2011's Ubuntu releases will change the landscape of Linux for the better.

      I'm not sure everybody would consider those changes better.

      • Re:Extinction-level event (Score:5, Interesting)

        by MonsterTrimble ( 1205334 ) <monstertrimble@h ... m ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday May 12, 2011 @02:57PM (#36111296)

        While I like the idea behind LightDM & prefer Chromium over Firefox, that wasn't why I said it would change Linux for the better.

        I think there is a lot of dogma within the Linux universe which needs to be shaken up once in a while. Survival of the fittest and all of that. We've seen recently where LibreOffice forked away from OpenOffice in a move that was almost universally welcomed and which has breathed an incredablt amount of new life into the project. Ubuntu's move to Unity, while much less warmly received, caused a large amount of navel gazing within the Gnome ranks and I believe it will pay a lot of dividends in the near future especially with interoperability.

        Is Wayland ready for primetime? Nobody thinks so yet. Is Chromium better than Firefox? Depends on your opinion. But with the major trend setting distro making these changes, it forces everyone to re-evaluate and that is the best thing that can happen.

        • Evolution is better than revolution, at least if you're doing anything well and have any user base. The whole move to Unity by Ubuntu was a colossal embarrassment. It was pretty clearly rushed to meet an arbitrary release schedule and looks really amateurish compared to what they had. I'm not really sure that it made any sense to default to using Unity rather than making users install it or manually switch to it if they were interested in trying it out.

          I can only imagine how they'll screw this one up. Perso

          • You are missing the point. While I do not care for the Unity interface, you are missing the point. Unity was rushed, because gnome3 and gnome-shell were so, so late. Then, because of the delay, Ubuntu, look at what they found problematic with gnome-shell (both functional and political) and made their own shell. Again, while I don't care for Unity, it is pretty usable and was made so in a relatively short period of time. From that perspective, the developers should get recognition. Again, if gnome3 had

            • Not another post about LTS!

              First, LTS are no better than so-called "normal" releases in the area of bugs or refraining from adding stuff that breaks (PulseAudio).

              Second, who directs them to their LTS releases? "Their" must refer to Ubuntu, and they certainly don't direct anybody [ubuntu.com] to an LTS release.

              re: LightDM- this actually seems like a sensible move, like the old Ubuntu would make (things that improve functionality without sacrificing compatibility, like Upstart).

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by idontgno ( 624372 )

          it forces everyone to re-evaluate and that is the best thing that can happen.

          Disputable.

          What, precisely, are we re-evaluating? Novelty for novelty's sake is a disease. Stability can be important, even overridingly so.

          Please provide a concrete example of an actual problem that these "innovations" purport to solve.

          Ubuntu is in danger of rendering itself irrelevant to any but the "Oooh, shiny" crowd, and Apple already has a lock on that.

        • >But with the major trend setting distro making these changes, it forces everyone to re-evaluate and that is the best thing that can happen.

          OK. Whatever. Trend-setting, fancy, etc. Great.

          But explain this:
          "Ubuntu for business [ubuntu.com]: Secure, reliable and with no licence fees, businesses everywhere are using Ubuntu to reduce costs and boost performance."

          "Perfect for business use, Ubuntu is safe, intuitive and stable. Easy to integrate, you'll be able to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations and share t

    • Re:FUCK YES! BROWSER EXPLOITS AT LOGIN! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jmorris42 ( 1458 ) * <jmorris@[ ]u.org ['bea' in gap]> on Thursday May 12, 2011 @01:57PM (#36110340)

      > Need I say more?

      In a sane world I'd disagree. But I know we live in an insane one and it won't take long for the idiots who thought using an HTML rendering library to render the login screen will start adding net based content as plugins to the login screen. Why not put a weatherbug up? Or a news ticker. Or the phase of the moon, and getting it locally is just too much trouble. Stock tickers? Why not. Until an exploit.

      Bet WebKit's squalid bulk didn't go into the 5KLoC vs 50KLoC size difference.

      • Bet WebKit's squalid bulk didn't go into the 5KLoC vs 50KLoC size difference.

        From the docs it looks like WebKit might be optional in LightDM. But if WebKit is used on Ubuntu, then I don't see why loading a 25MB HTML engine (+ it's dependencies!) is a good thing. WebKit is pretty bulky. And this is a login manager we're talking about!

        And it's not like WebKit will be loaded later anyhow. Even if you do use a WebKit based browser, that is most likely Chrome, which bundles it's own copy of WebKit - so no sharing with apps that use the system WebKit like LightDM.

        • Webkit is most definitely not required for lightdm. It is just one of several presentation layers. However, if used on something like a netbook or tablet, it would make a lot of sense, since the browser would be one of the first things opened on the device. As for exploits, again, if the user is going to be doing pretty much everything in the cloud, which seems to be Ubuntu's opinion (and many others), then a webkit exploit is just as exploitive at the login screen vs the actual desktop. However, since a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MBCook ( 132727 )

      Why in the world are you allowing unprivileged users to set the theme for something that runs as root?

      It's not like you're on the internet browsing random sites, it's pulling a few things from disk you have to be a privileged user to set.

      If the user has the privileges to change the theme, they had the privileges to corrupt/delete important files.

      • You could let root install the themes, and just let an unprivileged user choose between them.

        You could also run the GUI as an unprivileged user and the core as root, similar to xscreensaver.

  • Why not SLiM? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lolcutusofbong ( 2041610 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @02:01PM (#36110394)
    It's a normal X login manager without all the extra crap from gdm and kdm, and since it's in the Ubuntu repos already, all it needs is a good theme.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )

      Not supporting remote logins is one good reason.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Because that wouldn't fuck shit up enough.

    • It's a normal X login manager without all the extra crap from gdm and kdm, and since it's in the Ubuntu repos already, all it needs is a good theme.

      I agree 100%. The needing a good theme, that is. The default webkit and gtk themes really suck.

  • The good news (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dkleinsc ( 563838 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @02:14PM (#36110564) Homepage

    If you like GDM, you can use it. This is free software (in both senses), and just because Ubuntu's main branch is going a particular direction doesn't mean you have to. If you want to be based off of Ubuntu, you could do a kubuntu-like fork. If you want to do something completely different, you can switch distros (e.g. I switched to ArchLinux because I didn't want all the eye candy and complexity of what Ubuntu was doing).

    And if you're really not seeing the choices you like out there, you can always roll your own [linuxfromscratch.org]. I've done that too, it's time-consuming but not particularly difficult. And if you really like doing that, you can fairly easily set up your installs with a package manager, set up a repository, and all of a sudden you're well on your way to having your own distro.

    As it stands, I'm interested to see what Ubuntu comes up with, but I don't equate them to desktop Linux. There are just too many good options out there for that.

  • Some disagree with the decision: (Score:4, Informative)

    by Yfrwlf ( 998822 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @02:20PM (#36110678)
    http://www.advogato.org/person/mjg59/diary.html?start=296 [advogato.org]

    To summarise, their argument is that LightDM is light on code because it can't do as much as GDM and the others, and if you removed those features from the others they would be light as well.

    If that's true and that is the main difference, maybe it'd be easier to strip out, or turn off, parts of GDM if Canonical wants to dispose of certain features to achieve a faster boot time.

    11.04 is SO SLOW to boot in comparison to 10.10.

    • http://www.advogato.org/person/mjg59/diary.html?start=296 [advogato.org]

      To summarise, their argument is that LightDM is light on code because it can't do as much as GDM and the others, and if you removed those features from the others they would be light as well.

      If that's true and that is the main difference, maybe it'd be easier to strip out, or turn off, parts of GDM if Canonical wants to dispose of certain features to achieve a faster boot time.

      11.04 is SO SLOW to boot in comparison to 10.10.

      I don't think stripping out parts from GDM would be a good idea, no matter how much it needs to be done. They've already caught a lot of flack about stripping out parts from gnome3 (by using Unity instead of gnome-shell).

      As for 11.04 being slow to boot. I believe that is a kernel regression. A lot of other distros are having similar issues with boot time and also ath5k and 9k wireless. Once it is fixed upstream it will resolve itself in all the distros.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Yfrwlf ( 998822 )
        Interesting, I hadn't heard about that. I wonder if it will be fixed in that main kernel version or if it's too big of a change and will have to be fixed in .39 or something.

  • Does it have user switching? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by doti ( 966971 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @02:31PM (#36110872) Homepage

    Many a time I searched for a replacement for GDM, but none of the alternatives provide the switch-user feature that I need (that is, the ability to have multiple users logged in at once, with an option to switch from one to another; useful for when there are more users than machines at home).

    • User switching is implemented in both Gnome and KDE. Maybe you mean user switching without having multiple X servers though? I don't know much about X, but I can't see why that couldn't be implemented somehow.. Maybe there are security issues though.

    • Re:Does it have user switching? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by massysett ( 910130 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @09:47PM (#36114690) Homepage

      Any display manager can do this on Linux. Using good ol' xdm on Debian, just edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers and have xdm start an X server on multiple virtual terminals. Typically :1 will be ctrl-alt-F8; :2 will be F9, etc. If you start an xdm on multiple terminals and just switch to a new one when someone new needs to log in, you'll be covered. (What I don't know offhand is if there is a way to arbitrarily start a new X server by hitting a key, rather than having to configure a set number of servers ahead of time.)

      In your home, if you have, say, 4 users, you can agree that each user has a particular vt.

      On my desktop I have ctrl-alt-F12 load up a "guest" account with xfce. Once the guest logs out, root removes the home directory and drops in a clean new one. The guest automatically loads up firefox. It's great for visitors who get rather confused when they saw my old xmonad desktop. (my current awesome is a bit less confusing, at least.)

      Often it seems that newer programs implement newer functionality, when really the old Unix programs were doing the same thing twenty years ago.

  • I have been planning to make XFCE my default session in 11.10 since Gnome 2.32 will no longer be an option. Combine that with the news that GDM will be replaced with LightDM, my system will be relatively Gnome-free. I can't find too much information on LightDM, but I hope it is easily customizable and that it isn't ugly-as-sin or too-basic out of the box. I have been disappointed in 11.04 on the lack of easy customization/configuration of GDM. I know I can always edit the raw conf files, but I'd like a nic

    • Almost gnome free. Xubuntu has a number of apps that still have gnome-dependencies, like the administrative tools, the package manager (both their own and synaptic), evince (although a gnome free version is in the repository), etc. That said, these would only run a gnome session when actually used, whereas gdm runs all the time. LightDM doesn't have a configuration tool, but it is easy to configure. I would expect themes to become available without much delay. The lack of GDM customization is not Ubunt

  • I still prefer text mode and typing startx command to start my X. Am I the only who still does this in Linux? :P

  • IT'S A CONSPIRACY!! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheDarkener ( 198348 ) on Thursday May 12, 2011 @06:07PM (#36113356) Homepage

    So I have this theory that Mark Shuttleworth is actually an undercover Micro$oft operative that is being funded to create a huge community around Ubuntu and it's "sponsor", Canonical. Over time, when so many people are using it, loving it, promoting it....things start to break. Things break in Ubuntu that don't break in other distributions.

    But it's not only the things that break, but Ubuntu starts changing things - not too much change all at once, but little things here and there. Not too much to move distros (at first), but things to slowly start to eat at your sanity.

    More and more, Ubuntu breaks things, changes things...just enough for people to get very annoyed at "Linux". After all, Ubuntu is Linux for human beings (AKA n00bs?). People slowly start to complain to anyone who will listen that "Linux sucks".

    And Ballmer does the penguin dance yet again.

  • i'm not a fan of the pim/osx interface gnome has become any more then most people i've talked to. now that enlightenment has reached its goal e17 i thought i'd give it a shot. it is really nice. i like ubuntu. they are doing good things for people that are not just fed up with microsoft. that being said, i think making the desktop more like os/x is worse. but hey. it isn't my project and it is a free distro so it isn't my place to bitch.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lennier ( 44736 )

      but hey. it isn't my project and it is a free distro so it isn't my place to bitch.

      Er, what? Whyever would it be "not our place" to talk to others about our experience using a particular piece of software and why they might choose to use or not use it?

      Are free software developers some kind of new aristocracy who are somehow immune from all criticism by virtue of it being their project, while we the mere users must silently obey and revere all their decisions?

      Surely one of the first freedoms of Free Software must be the freedom to talk about the software?

  • Around 06 or so Ubuntu was pretty cool. I had high hopes for it, and expected it to become the "linux on the desktop" that we've been ranting about for years.

    But slowly, yet methodically it just got more sluggish, buggier, dumbed down and overcomplicated. It seemed like every release had a different set of apps for everything, and things like network configuration kept jumping between the "preferences" menu and the "system administration" menu. Not a huge deal, but having to relearn the layouts ever time

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