Slashdot Mirror

That is simple sounding process, indeed. But i bet it took you more than just 3 minutes for the download alone, let alone creating a bunch of DBs, users etc.

Your fingers can type only finitely fast, and your hand can move the mouse only finitely fast, and your internet connection finite bandwidth, and your macbook is only finitely fast.

The reboot alone most likely took way more than the 3minutes.

Either all of the above, or i would like to know where to get the timebubble device you are using aswell.

Comparison CentOS, no gui installation:

Ahh, an unbeliever ;) No, my Mac reboots quite faster than three minutes. I got rid of my 1200bps modem back in 1992. I can type 140wpm. I can click with the best of 'em.

But, who knows -- perhaps its more difficult in Linux then!! Lets test that theory, using an Ubuntu 9.10 virtual machine I happen to have on my Mac:

brian@ubuntu:~$ time sudo apt-get install postgresql-8.4
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
postgresql-client-8.4 postgresql-client-common postgresql-common
Suggested packages:
oidentd ident-server postgresql-doc-8.4
The following NEW packages will be installed:
postgresql-8.4 postgresql-client-8.4 postgresql-client-common postgresql-common
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4,957kB of archives.
After this operation, 18.2MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ karmic/main postgresql-client-common 101 [49.8kB]
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ karmic/main postgresql-client-8.4 8.4.1-1 [811kB]
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ karmic/main postgresql-common 101 [85.6kB]
Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ karmic/main postgresql-8.4 8.4.1-1 [4,010kB]
Fetched 4,957kB in 6s (764kB/s)

Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously deselected package postgresql-client-common.
(Reading database ... 125720 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking postgresql-client-common (from .../postgresql-client-common_101_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package postgresql-client-8.4.
Unpacking postgresql-client-8.4 (from .../postgresql-client-8.4_8.4.1-1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package postgresql-common.
Unpacking postgresql-common (from .../postgresql-common_101_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package postgresql-8.4.
Unpacking postgresql-8.4 (from .../postgresql-8.4_8.4.1-1_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot
Setting up postgresql-client-common (101) ...
Setting up postgresql-client-8.4 (8.4.1-1) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/share/postgresql/8.4/man/man1/psql.1.gz to provide /usr/share/man/man1/psql.1.gz (psql.1.gz) in auto mode.

Setting up postgresql-common (101) ...
Adding user postgres to group ssl-cert
Building PostgreSQL dictionaries from installed myspell/hunspell packages...
en_au
en_gb
en_us
en_za

Setting up postgresql-8.4 (8.4.1-1) ...
Creating new cluster (configuration: /etc/postgresql/8.4/main, data: /var/lib/postgresql/8.4/main)...
Moving configuration file /

Any then current/former Ubuntu users probably wanted an app store or four.

1. Download an Ubuntu Live CD: http://www.ubuntu.com/
2. Boot from it and open a terminal
3. Run: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M
4. Enjoy optimization

It may well be slashdot's favourite animal.

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/110/

> It's hard for people to grasp "there is nothing you can do to protect yourself except become a techie" You can browse the web with Java,Java Script,Flash,etc etc turned off and still have an APP that has a security hole that will infect your system.

Yes there is something you can do, run a base system from a read-only device, like the LiveUsbPendrivePersistent.

> what really needs to happen is better enforcement of the network and better law enforcement involvement

Since did when did laws prevent the crooks from breaking the law.

LiveUsbPendrivePersistent ...

3rd World thanks Mark for https://shipit.ubuntu.com/login

1. You're just being cute, but I'm still going to say it: if you had followed the LTS release cycles closely, you'd know it never was like that.
2. Read the Lucid release planning. Nice summary here: http://anotherubuntu.blogspot.com/2009/11/lucid-lynx-this-is-plan.html and you may also be interested in this http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1916 and this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

1. You're just being cute, but I'm still going to say it: if you had followed the LTS release cycles closely, you'd know it never was like that.
2. Read the Lucid release planning. Nice summary here: http://anotherubuntu.blogspot.com/2009/11/lucid-lynx-this-is-plan.html and you may also be interested in this http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1916 and this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

here is the schedule: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule

and from a link on that page, here is the details of the LTS release: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

So yes, your wish is granted, but it had nothing to do with Jane becoming the CEO. The LTS will import from Debian testing rather than unstable, and there will be two beta cycles. I suspect that all the Ubuntu specific projects were actually released in Karmic, even though they may not have been ready. That way, they will be sure to be ready for Lucid.

I heard that Karmic was a bit of a testing release, so this LTS will kinda be like Karmic Stable. (I don't mean to imply anything, good or bad, with that)

here is the schedule: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule

and from a link on that page, here is the details of the LTS release: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

So yes, your wish is granted, but it had nothing to do with Jane becoming the CEO. The LTS will import from Debian testing rather than unstable, and there will be two beta cycles. I suspect that all the Ubuntu specific projects were actually released in Karmic, even though they may not have been ready. That way, they will be sure to be ready for Lucid.

I heard that Karmic was a bit of a testing release, so this LTS will kinda be like Karmic Stable. (I don't mean to imply anything, good or bad, with that)

Ubuntu is an offshoot of Debian. Not a fork, exactly, more like a companion:

http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/debian

After having done some testing, and having other esteemed professionals verify the test results, we've come up with two methods to PREVENT this malware induced issue from occurring: Solution 1: http://www.apple.com/mac/
Solution 2: http://www.ubuntu.com/

  * Please be aware these solutions have not yet been approved by Microsoft. Use at your own risk.

You had an i915, or maybe an r200. Lots of turn-of-the-millennium chipsets couldn't deal with total framebuffers larger than 2048x2048

Just for completeness: 965, and an upstream driver bug of the genuine and generic intel driver:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/universe-bugs/2009-May/094108.html

(I was actually pondering if I were to post this, because /.-ers might then say: "See, just a bug, only". While the great grandpa was asking about something else.)

fglrx and nvidia are *not* our fault or our problem. Go bitch at nVidia for a while instead.

I'd expect you wrote 'go bitch at KDE for a while', because the Gnome 'Desktop' is clever enough to tell me that there's another, possibly better, applet for this. While KDE is blind; blind to the nvidia driver, and blind to
(--) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a
(--) NVIDIA(0): at PCI:0:18:0:
(--) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA TV Encoder (TV-0)
(--) NVIDIA(0): Samsung SyncMaster (DFP-0)
(--) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA TV Encoder (TV-0): 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(--) NVIDIA(0): TV encoder: NVIDIA
Meaning, KDE is pretty blind.

I have not documented my settings, but I've followed community develop documentation to get my setup going.

Also, I did not install the Ubuntu Studio Distribution, I instead installed Ubuntu 9.10 first, then used the repositories to upgrade my desktop with the ubuntu studio package, and the Linux realtime kernel.

My sources are as follows:

Upgrade Ubuntu to Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Multimedia Forums

Excellent Tips/Tutorials from one of the users

jackd home page

Ardour Homepage

These are good starting points. The major issue with documentation and tutorials is that Ardour and Jackd are changing so rapidly that the documents outdate themselves very quickly. Like I said, 4 years ago I wouldn't even think about using Linux for DAW work. In the past two years, especially since the freebob and ffdao projects, the scene has exploded.

If you still have questions after this, feel free to mail me. Depending on your hardware I may be able to help with jackd settings and with general questions.

No, as Ubuntu Releases are version-stable, and backport security fixes only (Firefox being the exception of that rule). You may install the kernel from the mainline kernel PPA though: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
Just fetch the .deb that fits your architecture, and install it via `sudo dpkg -i /path/to/your/downloaded/archive.deb`.

I have found the Ubuntu Community Documentation to be pretty good for cookbook procedures. Their forums pick up the slack for acute issues.

I am pretty sure that if there were tech support for Ubuntu, you would hear the same sorts of things.

Funny. There is tech support for Ubuntu.

And soon after that, Ubuntu will reach out to the furries with Ubuntu Yiffy Yaffle, which will come with a wallpaper from Dark Natasha and Second Life as part of the default install.

I don't see request for Tor by default in Ubuntu. What about other distros or other onion routers? That would increase the base. Amnesty or Human Rights Watch or The Democracy Center all have a stake in onion routing. To take the thread in the same direction, but further, the group that backed Bush may have left the top offices in the administration, but it has not entirely left power. And the voting machine problem is not yet solved. Those are still under their sphere of influence.

Phil Zimmermann's Why I Wrote PGP and OpenSSH's SSH FAQ are two works that come to mind first about privacy. Most countries recognize the natural right to peaceable assembly. Do the corporations that now have larger budgets and more political clout than some small countries also those rights? You know the answer. The price of freedom is not just eternal vigilance, the cost also includes acting to proactively resolve threats to that freedom.

It's Linux! Why do you need to work on Mom/Dad's computer? Did they try to compile and a semicolon got in the way?

NO!

It's the crap that is the circus of Windows. Phishing, viruses, bugs they won't fix. Time to re-think.

Get them onto OpenOffice and Firefox. Let'em get used to that a couple of months. Then when you're there, put'em onto Ubuntu Linux. You and them will love it!

I support two houses here, three miles apart. I'm the only tech in either place. I've *never* had to clean out viruses, reload machines, or get to a point where "I don't know why it's doing that.". It's been at least 8 years.

They can't use Gator. They're not able to "speed their computer up where it used to be!" it never got slower. In short, all that crap out there doesn't matter.

Now, at some distant point you still WANT to remote-control the PCs, install Webmin; it's safe, secure, and very effective. And all this stuff is just simple.

Did ya really think Windows would always be the answer to every computing question? Why then, are there still viruses after 20 years?!?! Why do you still go buy something from someone else, just so you make it through the day?

I'm tellin' ya man, it's time to think about it. There's never been a better time. http://ubuntu.com/

http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/f-spot

Personally I use digikam, though I might be tempted to use Picasa if I were starting fresh now with a photo-manager. Picasa's quick fixes are, er, very quick! They work well too.

The Windows Vista machine across the street requests this: http://www.update.microsoft.com/v9/windowsupdate/selfupdate/wuident.cab

And my Windows 7 workstation requests these:
http://download.windowsupdate.com/v9/windowsupdate/redir/muv4wuredir.cab
http://download.windowsupdate.com/v9/windowsupdate/a/selfupdate/WSUS3/x86/Other/wsus3setup.cab

Those are technically web pages, as is this one requested nightly by a bunch of Linux machines at my house:
http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/karmic-updates/multiverse/source/Sources.bz2

None of those are in HTML format, but they're served via http from a web server - just like the Google updates. Also like the Google updates, the "update service" can be set to install updates found on those "web accessible pieces of data" (aka "web pages") with no user interaction.

Google updater installs either the "google pack" (which is not a web page) or just Google software (also, not a web page). It can be configured: http://www.google.com/support/pack/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46708 and works pretty much the same way as synaptic, windows update service, adobe updater, java updater, symantec live update, etc etc etc.

They all work pretty much the same way. There's an initial setup - in which you chose what you want automatically installed - and then something that runs automatically thenceforth (is that a word?) and requests updates from a web site. If that site's hijacked, your DNS is comprmised, etc; there's varying levels of bad things which can happen.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
(remember Debian NetInstall ? this is it for Ubuntu)

You don't have Internet ? There is a MegaUbuntu DVD available somewhere.With it you can install almost everything from the disk.
Problem is, easiest way to get it is to download it...

One of the ways of introducing people to alternative software is to install it and have in sitting there on the menu. By removing the GIMP, they're just encouraging people to think that linux is "not ready for serious users."

I agree 100%. And judging from the response from the "monomaniacs" elsewhere on this topic you have identified a very important way of introducing people to FOSS. But one that runs counter to their apparent goals.

Part of the apparent goals of the monomaniacs is to steer any loose strays back into Microsoft lock-in, and ideally wholly back into MS Windows. The specious reasons offered for removal of GIMP look grounded in the idea that Ubuntu must become top-to-bottom Microsoft technology. Microsoft hasn't done much of any technology right during the time it's been around. Is it a wise choice to start letting them gut two fine distros, Ubuntu and Debian, to fill them with expensive, defective sublicensed software?

One confrontational approach might be to take Canonical to the Better Business Bureau for this fraud : it is not allowed to send someone a product, unsolicited, and then ask for payment later. That's what's happening with F-Spot (the M$ competitor to Solang, Digikam), Tomboy (the M$ competitor to Zim, Getting-things-gnome, Knotes and BasKet) or Banshee (the M$ competitor to Amarok, Rhythmbox, Totem and XMMS). Use now, pay later. If you compare the individual applications, you'll also see that the M$ version rather sucks, especially in regards to performance, but even in function and usability. The M$applications aren't built with reliable technologies. The regulars are and use python, c++ or java.

Mono, to name one of the problems, has a paper trail back to Microsoft via Novell and years of payments from Novell to Microsoft for said products. You use Mono with the understanding that it is a sub-licensed product that must be rented. The payment for the right to use it is paid by Novell for the time being. Who may be asked to pay may be up for grabs in the future, but patent law says it is the user and 5 years of receipts say that the payment is not just obligatory but accepted by the community. And standard business practice says that if it has become indispensible, then price is what the market will bear...

Lucid is not out yet, so there is time to undo or head off the damage done by the "monomaniacs"

The claims of removing Gimp are just smoke and noise to hid the damage the monomaniacs are doing elsewhere in Debian and Ubuntu.

Microsofters always try to present their schemes as a done deal. It's documented in their bag of tricks. The relevant trick is from plaintiff's exhibit 3096 from the court case Comes v Microsoft. Microsoft appeared prepared to ignore the last state, Iowa, indefinitely in the last unresolved class action case for over-charging. Roll down to page 45 and start reading. Or download the song version.

Regardles, Ubuntu 10.4, Lucid Lynx is just starting. There are several channels through which the mistake can be corrected. One is through brainstorm: Idea #110: No Mono by default in Ubuntu can use your vote.

The claims of removing Gimp are just smoke and noise to hid the damage the monomaniacs are doing elsewhere in Debian and Ubuntu.

Microsofters always try to present their schemes as a done deal. It's documented in their bag of tricks. The relevant trick is from plaintiff's exhibit 3096 from the court case Comes v Microsoft. Microsoft appeared prepared to ignore the last state, Iowa, indefinitely in the last unresolved class action case for over-charging. Roll down to page 45 and start reading. Or download the song version.

Regardles, Ubuntu 10.4, Lucid Lynx is just starting. There are several channels through which the mistake can be corrected. One is through brainstorm: Idea #110: No Mono by default in Ubuntu can use your vote.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/f-spot

Except when Ubuntu was leaving the primary sudo admin password unencrypted in a world-readable plain text file. That was far worse than this issue with Fedora 12. Ubuntu issued an update for that gaping security hole, yet continued to ship the CD iso image with that bug long after it had been reported.

Even better, you can take the load off of Fedora's servers by downloading Ubuntu instead.

Last time I checked, Ubuntu is all about the PPAs now. The backports aren't very interesting. Notice that the list is very short, and the only interesting backport I saw in my quick scan was Amarok. I didn't see Pidgin, Banshee, Filezilla, OpenOffice or Netbeans (all of which are out of date in Jaunty's stable repos).

I used Jaunty as the example because Karmic hasn't really had time to get behind.

The problem with this is that due to the exclusivity of linux, linux training is also exclusive, and thus costs are high.

[Citation needed]
You even have Canonical's desktop training for not that much. Get one of your teachers trained and let herself become the teacher.

OK, I've reviewed my posts from your reply to the top of the thread and nowhere did I say it was Microsoft's fault. It is an observed fact. It is, and to Russians to whom the blame belongs is irrelevant. They can choose to use free software or they can choose the risk. Microsoft has backed off some for now and so the risk is less, but eventually the risk will return because the software is not free and their Russian channel can never be reliably honest. In the Russian language corrupt government provisioning is so assumed that the reverse must be made explicit. I believe Chinese languages are similarly cynical. The safe choice is to be free forever. Free contains no risk.

If you want to fix the blame on Microsoft for not dropping the suit after finding out that the affected individual was in no way to blame for the piracy, that's on you. I didn't say that.

As to Microsoft's ROI, well, I don't know what to say here. Given the current state of free I can see how they must struggle to prove where they add value - especially when dealing with the malware ecosystem mounted against them which at some accounts is larger than the Windows market itself. I'm sure it's hard to deliver on this nine year old commitment when you can't even get your network software geeks to check their inputs on the most basic service they provide or even read the licenses of the software they publish.

You should probably check the corkboard on the way out of the blog center. I think there's a note there about me. Take your stuff with you when you go or you might not see it again.

I was plucked from my career in Chicago to become Mom's caregiver, a little over 8 years ago. I'm tech support for two houses, separated by 3 miles. But in that time I've never removed a single virus, an errant program, much less malware, and when things get weird, it's because the underlying hardware is failing.

Linux. There's GOT to be a reason I keep talking about it.

Go get a copy of Ubuntu's "Karmic Koala" version of their desktop software. Install it and get used to OpenOffice instead of MS Office, Firefox instead of InternetExploder, and learn what it's like to have no unsafe places on the net. To enjoy downloaded TV at your leisure, without being denied by your OS.

Seriously: it's SO simple. It's solid. Heck, wouldn't it be cool to check out how the other folks live?

http://ubuntu.com/

Enjoy!

It's interesting that the patent examiner was perfectly aware of su, sudo, gksu, kdesu, Ubuntu integration with gksu to call it as needed automatically, etc. Look at the "Other References" section of the patent:

"GKSU: A gtk+ su front end Linux Man Page" retrived at http://www.penguin-soft.com/peguin/man/1/gksu.html

Lawrence, "Using Sudo", Linus Tutorials, May 12, 2005, retrieved at http://web.archive.org/web/20050530041932/www.developertutorials.com/tutorials/linux/using-sudo-050511/page1.html

Miller, "Sudo Manual", Jul. 11, 2004 retrived at http://web.archive.org/web/20040711020526/http://www.gratisoft.us/sudo/man/sudo.html

Miller, "Sudoers Manual", Jul. 11, 2004, retrived at http://web.archive.org/web/20040711020555/www.gratisoft.us/sudo/man/sudoers.html

Quick HOWTO: Ch09 : Linxus Users and Sudo, Dec. 23, 2005, retrived at http:web.archive.org/ web/20060203023004/http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/

"The KDE su Command", Nov. 20, 2004, retrived on http://www.linfo.org/kdesu.html

"The Ubuntu Quick Guide. Chapter 3. Applications Menu: System Tools.", retrieved on http://people.ubuntu.com/.about.mako/docteam/quickguide/ch03s07.html

Good grief. Canonical offers ALL security patches to EVERYONE, including leechers, and also offers many other patches such as stability and performance updates to everyone as well.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading

In a Kano analysis, this functionality is Basic. If Microsoft denied it to paying customers; they would start losing them. It's just that simple.

Here, let me fix that for you.

I can see why people are going to get up in arms about this.

Pun indended? http://www.ubuntu.com/news/arm-linux

You're confusing multiarch that Debian has been developing for quite some time with AMD64 running 32-bit binaries. It's not the same https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MultiarchSpec

You should try one of the mirrors. I cut my download time down from 4 hours to 45 minutes. I like that they are classified by location and speed. Find them here. Source.

This solution works, please see the links below. However I would reccomend seing what your settings are on your system
$ sysctl -n vm.mmap_min_addr to find what your setting is.
On Ubuntu 8.04 LTS servers (including Xen kernels) and on 9.10 desktops it is 65536. Not a big deal.
http://wiki.debian.org/mmap_min_addr
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-July/025805.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/26831/info

I could not agree more.

I remember reading the upgrade notes. They recommend to disable third-party software sources prior to running the upgrade. And I cannot find the reference right now but I also remember reading somewhere to disable restricted drivers as well (Nvidia, etc.)

How many people who got burnt did that?

I upgraded an IBM M-series desktop from 9.04 to 9.10 without any issues by disabling restricted drivers and disabling the third-party sources. In 9.04 I could not enable the desktop effects for an Intel 915 integrated graphics controller but in 9.10 they work fine. I got burned upgrading this system from 8.10 to 9.04, but the 9.04 to 9.10 upgrade worked well.

If your system has a lot of custom wizardry, e.g. encrypted partitions, LVM, etc., I'd recommend backing up your data and doing a clean installation anyway because there is no way Canonical can test everything. I'm planning on upgrading my Acer 6920G laptop running 8.04LTS with a clean install soon since many issues I have with 8.04LTS appear to work with 9.10, most of these issues are with sound.

And then I thought Ubuntu was too slow, so I switched to Arch (rolling release) and it's more stable. That may seem strange to you, but only if you don't know how Ubuntu/Debian defines "stable". Stable on Debian and Ubuntu means old. If it was release a year ago, it's stable.

No, stable means that the code does not change very much (the code is stable), except for security issues and critical issues. And that's not even true for Ubuntu, where many bugfixes are added during a stable release and official backports exist.

[...] Mozilla release are remarkably stable and always contain security updates.. but sorry, Firefox 3.5 wasn't old enough until this release. Every version of the nvidia drivers add more stability, but I think we'll stick with the old versions.. you know.. because they're old.

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 was included in Ubuntu 9.04 "universe" and updated in jaunty-updates to 3.5.4, the same version shipped in Karmic. Nvidia drivers are problematic because they are closed source; you simply cannot judge how much code changed and whether it could break systems; therefore it's safer to live with known issues instead of creating new ones. If you need a new one, you can request a backport (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports)

And that's not to say that sticking with old versions is always bad, it's just that the method of deciding what's stable is literally "is it old?". Why not test things and then update, instead of arbitrarily picking a version and declaring it to be stable? Or keep track of projects that release safe code and give them 2 weeks to make sure there's no horrible bugs, and then update (like what exactly is the reason for holding back Firefox and Pidgin?).

Updates can break existing things, that's why Debian only does security updates in a release; and critical bugs are fixed in point releases. Fixing a bug that affects a minority of users and risking a new bug affecting more users is no good idea. In contrast to this, Ubuntu even offers bugfixes for their stable releases (in -updates). Ubuntu also offers feature updates (in -backports) and something similar is available for Debian at backports.org.

Who cares if sound doesn't work on your computer, at least it's stable! Who cares if pidgin-facebookchat crashes every couple minutes, in Debian-land it's stable (this is a particularly interesting case because pidgin-facebookchat was added right after the project started, and then Ubuntu arbitrarily stopped adding new versions to the repos even though the plugin still isn't done, so every release adds to the stability).

About pidgin-facebookchat: I can not see any unhandled bug reports in Ubuntu's bug tracker about crashes. There was a bug in Jaunty (#358043), which has been fixed in karmic. I can see that it was nominated for Jaunty, but the procedure from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdate was not followed and thus no action was taken (as the ubuntu-sru team was not even subscribed to the bug). There is #357495 for which no solution exists at the moment. All in all, I don't see any problem here.

And then I thought Ubuntu was too slow, so I switched to Arch (rolling release) and it's more stable. That may seem strange to you, but only if you don't know how Ubuntu/Debian defines "stable". Stable on Debian and Ubuntu means old. If it was release a year ago, it's stable.

No, stable means that the code does not change very much (the code is stable), except for security issues and critical issues. And that's not even true for Ubuntu, where many bugfixes are added during a stable release and official backports exist.

[...] Mozilla release are remarkably stable and always contain security updates.. but sorry, Firefox 3.5 wasn't old enough until this release. Every version of the nvidia drivers add more stability, but I think we'll stick with the old versions.. you know.. because they're old.

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 was included in Ubuntu 9.04 "universe" and updated in jaunty-updates to 3.5.4, the same version shipped in Karmic. Nvidia drivers are problematic because they are closed source; you simply cannot judge how much code changed and whether it could break systems; therefore it's safer to live with known issues instead of creating new ones. If you need a new one, you can request a backport (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports)

And that's not to say that sticking with old versions is always bad, it's just that the method of deciding what's stable is literally "is it old?". Why not test things and then update, instead of arbitrarily picking a version and declaring it to be stable? Or keep track of projects that release safe code and give them 2 weeks to make sure there's no horrible bugs, and then update (like what exactly is the reason for holding back Firefox and Pidgin?).

Updates can break existing things, that's why Debian only does security updates in a release; and critical bugs are fixed in point releases. Fixing a bug that affects a minority of users and risking a new bug affecting more users is no good idea. In contrast to this, Ubuntu even offers bugfixes for their stable releases (in -updates). Ubuntu also offers feature updates (in -backports) and something similar is available for Debian at backports.org.

Who cares if sound doesn't work on your computer, at least it's stable! Who cares if pidgin-facebookchat crashes every couple minutes, in Debian-land it's stable (this is a particularly interesting case because pidgin-facebookchat was added right after the project started, and then Ubuntu arbitrarily stopped adding new versions to the repos even though the plugin still isn't done, so every release adds to the stability).

About pidgin-facebookchat: I can not see any unhandled bug reports in Ubuntu's bug tracker about crashes. There was a bug in Jaunty (#358043), which has been fixed in karmic. I can see that it was nominated for Jaunty, but the procedure from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdate was not followed and thus no action was taken (as the ubuntu-sru team was not even subscribed to the bug). There is #357495 for which no solution exists at the moment. All in all, I don't see any problem here.

Run this: gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

This is in the release notes release notes.

The Koala doesn't work even in a virtual machine.

Blanket statements like this tend to bother me. Here is my experience with the Koala release:

- On my netbook ( Gateway LT31, vista, 2GB ram, 1.2GHz AMD L110) I grabbed the desktop i386 torrent and started the d/l.
- While that came down I downloaded and installed virtualbox.
- Booted the koala ISO as LiveCD and created a bootable USB drive.
- Rebooted from my thumb drive and did a quick install which included shrinking the single ntfs partition; took about 20 minutes.
- Rebooted, got the Grub menu, booted Vista to make sure everything was functional, rebooted back to Ubuntu to finish configuration and add more packages ( eclipse, python3, etc...)

Everything has run very well; sound, ati accelerated driver, and atheros wifi drivers all function. My desktop system is still running ubuntu 9.10-rc, my older laptop is still running ubuntu 8.10. I ran 9.10-rc from my usb thumb drive on several different systems prior to the release and was quite impressed with the wide range of hardware support.

I've been running linux since 1994 and have been through about all of the common distros as well as commercial UNIXes, OS/2, most versions of DOS and Windows starting with 1.0, C-64, Vic-20, TRS-80s, TI/99-4a and a couple of Macs thrown in. Guess what? There have been various problems with every single platform and release version.

A bit of googling would have pointed you here concerning the lack of LTS 8.04 Kubuntu. I'm not trying to pick on you, but good answers to many questions may be found with just a little effort.

I have never encountered WiFi cards that did not work

The Ubuntu forums are filled with people having trouble getting their WiFi working. That was one of the problems I ran into for installing Jaunty on my Mac. I found solutions but wifi doesn't work out of the box so to speak. There are other hardware problems such as with fan control, touchpad, the Apple keyboard, sound, and suspend

I am sorry but I do not understand you. Maybe I am a little dumb, but it' s actually true what I said. I pointed out facts... I think it's for the better not to lie and point at the problems...

You may of pointed out how things went for you but you did not point out the facts of others, Fact is is Ubuntu and other Linux distros have trouble with some hardware. Before installing any Linux distro on a computer it's wise to make sure there is compatibility with the hardware Linux will be installed on. Which is what I've been doing in order to prepare for when I install Ubuntu myself.

>But if I walk into BestBuy after work *today* and I grab any piece of hardware, off the shelf, it will come with a disk that provides drivers for Windows. How many will include drivers for Linux?

None because they are included with distro's, so what's the problem?

As linked to above Linux does not come with drivers that work with all hardware. That's why it's also recommended people try out a live disk before trying to install Linux. If a Live CD works then Linux can be installed with a minimum of fuss.

As we used to say in construction, measure once, measure again, and measure a third tyme before cutting. Measuring 3 tymes first then making a cut is better than measuring once, cutting, then having to measure and cut again.

Falcon

Beta version of Firefox

Which almost everyone considered it polished, it wasn't like they decided to include something unpolished.

Pulse was introduced and was flakey, introducing all Ubuntu users to pulseaudio -k && pulseaudio.

Pulse audio actually worked quite well for me, it was just retarded stuff like adobe flash (packaged, but not considered supported) that gave me problems, since it wanted to use OSS which hasn't been apart of Linux in over decade and everyone knows the ALSA compatability layer doesn't like doing mixing with it.

Flash sound interfered with Pulse, so libflashsupport was introduces, but wouldn't work for more than an hour, so was dropped a day before the final release, leaving Flash to tie up ALSA.

Amusingly I replied to this point before even getting to read it.

F-Spot (the default photo manager) didn't launch on 64-bit due to a late change in Mono.

My experience on 64bit is limited admittedly. Never saw the point in using it when I didn't have the RAM to make using 64bit worthwhile.

Don't pretend that the LTS gets any more love than the regular releases do.

Download a recent rebuild of LTS iso, you will find that it works quite well and has had the very few rough edges that that I first encountered, fixed. Certainly a lot more love than the non-LTS releases.

Here is what I went through on my last attempt to install Ubunutu...four pages long, at least one other person posting saying he has the same problem. Zero solutions.

http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1253711&page=1

I know this thread is getting pretty long so I thought it might help if I consolidated everything into a single post so that people who see this don't have to read through all 4 pages of posts.

Ubuntu 9.04 Install Problems Summary

1. Download the Ubuntu 9.04 i386 ISO
2. Burn ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn
3. Reboot, try to install Linux
4. Install fails - I see an error message about ACPI and find myself at a command prompt.
5. Read - Edit BIOS - I'm directed to https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/install...ios-setup.html - I read and find that I didn't disable my 'Memory Hole' so I do that.
6. Reboot, try to install Linux
7. Install fails - I see an error message about ACPI and find myself at a command prompt.
8. Read - Edit BIOS - After visiting this and other forums, I found that by enabling AMD Quiet N Cool the ACPI error would be resolved. This information was not included in the 9.04 installation-guide linked to above.
9. Reboot, try to install Linux
10. Install fails - I see *no* error message - so that's a good sign (I think) - but I still end up at a command prompt.
11. Read - At this point, it seems like the install disk itself is the most likely source of my problems. I'm told to check the md5 of the download and the CD itself though the install screen.
12. Install winmd5sum And use this to verify that my download was correct (and it was).
13. Reboot, try to have the Ubuntu installer verify the disk.
14. Disk Check Fails The same as with the install, I end up at the command prompt. Unsure of what to do next I...
15. Re-Burned ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn on a separate PC, hoping that the burn was bad. As recommended, I use a low speed burn to reduce the chances of errors. IMG Burn 'verifies' that the burn was successful (I'm not sure if that means anything or not).
16. Reboot, try to install Linux (with the new disk)
17. Install fails - Same as before, no error message that I can see - just the command prompt.
18. Read the forums and end up directed to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions - without really understanding the boot options in the F6 menu
19. Reboot - Install fails Same sort of fail as before, did this a bunch of different times with the different options.
20. Read the forums again. I end up at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto - I have three hard-drives two are configured in a RAID 0 though my BIOS. I'm unsure if the FakeRaid would impact the installer or not (I'm trying to install to the un-raided hard-drive).
21. Read the forums again. It's suggested that I try the alternate download.
22. Download the Ubuntu 9.04 i386 alternate installer ISO
23. Use winmd5sum To verify that my download was correct (and it was).
24. Burned ISO to a blank DVD using IMG Burn
25. Reboot, try to install Linux
26. Install fails - This time I end up stuck in an infinite loop. The text based installer says it can't mount the CD and to insert the CD, but the CD is in. My DVD drive seems to be functioning though - I used it to install Windows 7 two day