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That will never happen because the natural brown of Ubuntu is so beautiful:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/12326/

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-studio-users/2007-September/000472.html says that the difference between gksudo and sudo is that gksudo doesn't require invoking a terminal first. I.e. you can run the graphical application directly rather than inside a shell.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/graphicalsudo also points out that sudo often preserves the original users environment. As a result, running it with an application with a configuration file (very common for GUI apps) can cause the configuration file to end up owned by root (particularly if you run it under sudo before running it as a normal user).

Seriously, make a really bitchin' system. Some monster multi-core hi speed interfaced to a powerful GPU or 2, tons of cache, and a big giant chunk of ram. Make one that is awesome, and then make 80 billion more of them. They obviously have tons of production capability. Don't make it x86 at all, Make it a Field-programmable gate array, with so many CPU and GPU cores that it can perform like a multi-core x64 x86 chip. Do that and release a machine with a custom built Ubuntu derivative, complete with Pidgin, VLC, Open Office, Virtualbox, Iceweasel, Rhythmbox, Brasero, Gimp, and Milkdrop. The FPS could be insane. Put that massive chip in an iphone form factor, with a USB 3.0 out that connects to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and utilizes wifi VOIP and Speex and H.264 for real time video chat. Sell it for $100 with all FOSS software, and the upgrade option to buy an XP license to run as a VDI. Meanwhile you could include an improved ReactOS VDI for free out of the box, including all the most popular FOSS Windows apps and games. Work on customizing the hardware for improved Wine performance. Take down Apple and Tom Tom and Microsoft and Intel and ATI/AMD all at once.

Give the device ad hoc p2p wifi capabilities, and remove ISPs out of the equation while you're at it (at least for short hops). Put Zsnes on there out of the box, with touch screen buttons, or an option for a real honest USB gamepad, or even wiimote. Sell a docking station with surround sound speakers and an LCD projector.

We should be farther along than we are right now. Really where are the technical or practical difficulties in eliminating all these Cyber-monopolies with technology that frees us and is cheap, abundant, and open source?

Why doesn't Canonical or some other corporations step up to the plate and deliver us?

And while they're at it, why don't they LOSE THE BROWN:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/12326/

Did you somehow miss me saying I don't want to rehash this over and over again?

And yet, here you are. If you really didn't, there's a solution: Don't push reply.

Instead, you wrote quite a lot of rehashing here.

Again, like many other areas I ran into with the distro, it locks you in and removes choice.

I haven't seen anything in any of your other comments which lock you in to anything, or remove any choice, except this one, which I'm still not convinced of.

In fact, maybe 30 seconds on Google, and here you go. Notice the section called "Rebuilding linux-restricted-modules" -- which isn't even required -- but if you really need to, it links to yet more detailed instructions on how to build them.

Search terms were: custom ubuntu kernel howto. That was the third link down. Which raises the question: Are you even trying?

Shuttleworth always says that Ubuntu "just works", yet the Hardy release was a very bad example of that.

Again, citation needed. Because it did just work for me.

What about it doesn't just work?

Did you somehow miss me saying I don't want to rehash this over and over again?

And yet, here you are. If you really didn't, there's a solution: Don't push reply.

Instead, you wrote quite a lot of rehashing here.

Again, like many other areas I ran into with the distro, it locks you in and removes choice.

I haven't seen anything in any of your other comments which lock you in to anything, or remove any choice, except this one, which I'm still not convinced of.

In fact, maybe 30 seconds on Google, and here you go. Notice the section called "Rebuilding linux-restricted-modules" -- which isn't even required -- but if you really need to, it links to yet more detailed instructions on how to build them.

Search terms were: custom ubuntu kernel howto. That was the third link down. Which raises the question: Are you even trying?

Shuttleworth always says that Ubuntu "just works", yet the Hardy release was a very bad example of that.

Again, citation needed. Because it did just work for me.

What about it doesn't just work?

Suddenly Ubuntu moves on a version or two and people still running the old gadget are left in no man's land with support issues.

Yeah, if only Ubuntu would commit itself to some kind of Long Term Support for their operating systems, or maybe a way to upgrade to new releases as they come out then that wouldn't be such a problem.

Oh well, we can only hope that some time the fat cats at Ubuntu Corporation will pay attention to something other than all the money they are making selling their broken, unsupported, un-upgradable operating system and start to really care about the users for a change.

Suddenly Ubuntu moves on a version or two and people still running the old gadget are left in no man's land with support issues.

Yeah, if only Ubuntu would commit itself to some kind of Long Term Support for their operating systems, or maybe a way to upgrade to new releases as they come out then that wouldn't be such a problem.

Oh well, we can only hope that some time the fat cats at Ubuntu Corporation will pay attention to something other than all the money they are making selling their broken, unsupported, un-upgradable operating system and start to really care about the users for a change.

Wireless doesn't work OTB. You need to fool around a bit with either madwifi or ndiswrapper.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC/Fixes

Reportedly this should work OTB come version I later this year.

Vista is abysmal. It's slow, it's buggy, it's bloated, it's over-priced. It's the worst OS out of Redmond since ME, which I've been trying hard to forget.

Ubuntu is so many light years ahead of Vista, it's hard to fathom.

That being said, for most enterprise uses, XP is still the number one choice:

Clean simple layout, start menu quick launch taskbar systray clock.

NOT BROWN.

Ctrl Alt Del opens task manager.

If Ubuntu solved that and the GIMP and Open Office were just SLIGHTLY better at integrating with the PS and MS Office world, I would not recommend any version of Windows for any user, ever.

If you feel the same, here are the brainstorms about fixing Ubuntu:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/12326/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11784/

(And yes, I'm shamelessly promoting my own ideas, even though they are dupes... :P)

Vista is abysmal. It's slow, it's buggy, it's bloated, it's over-priced. It's the worst OS out of Redmond since ME, which I've been trying hard to forget.

Ubuntu is so many light years ahead of Vista, it's hard to fathom.

That being said, for most enterprise uses, XP is still the number one choice:

Clean simple layout, start menu quick launch taskbar systray clock.

NOT BROWN.

Ctrl Alt Del opens task manager.

If Ubuntu solved that and the GIMP and Open Office were just SLIGHTLY better at integrating with the PS and MS Office world, I would not recommend any version of Windows for any user, ever.

If you feel the same, here are the brainstorms about fixing Ubuntu:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/12326/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11784/

(And yes, I'm shamelessly promoting my own ideas, even though they are dupes... :P)

I can see why. You're wrong and you seem to be uninterested in learning this.

I was civil and asked the same of you. You've failed in that regard.

No it isn't. What gave you that idea?

Talking to the devs and hearing them complain about how few people work on the project, and how they don't have communication with the Ubuntu project enough to include the major Ubuntu features in their releases. The facts are pretty clear here. Fedora, Debain, openSUSE, and every major distro pretty much includes both major desktops. Ubuntu gives you zero choice. There is no option to install KDE. That option does not exist. You must download a separate project from a separate site. It does not include the same features. Cannonical places all their eggs in one basket, and a few guys have developed a KDE spin of Ubuntu. However Kubuntu and Ubuntu are not the same. Where as Fedora, openSUSE, Mandriva, Slackware, Arch, Debian, Gentoo, Sabayon, PCLinuxOS, etc. etc. etc. have one distro with both desktops, and then some.

You officially have no clue what you're talking about, while at the same time trying to talk down to me. Don't be that guy.

Oh, so "vanilla" means "like debian".. that's ok, I like debian. Sounds like you have a different personal preference. This is probably the most legitimate thing you have said in this thread.

You don't know what the term "vanilla package" means, and missed my explanation that it means similar to the upstream packages. Since I'm a guy who likes to be factual, I gave Ubuntu credit for actually not having a vanilla kernel or toolchain, yet those benefits come from Debian. Here I explained that Debian is not vanilla, which is a good thing. Go re-read what I posted. You clearly didn't comprehend it.

When was this? I have a machine with ATI drivers, Ubuntu installed them by default and alerted me that it had done it.

If Ubuntu includes proprietary drives by default, that is seriously news to me. The entire purpose of forking Mint was to include proprietary drivers and codecs. However, I acknowledged this could have changed since the last time I tried it.

However, a quick check on Ubuntu's own website shows that Ubuntu doesn't do this by default.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

Are you lying, or is their documentation wrong? See, it isn't polite to call someone a liar. It certainly doesn't feel nice to be called a liar. Seriously, don't be that guy.

Things improve rapidly in the open source world.

It still remains the single worst distro experience I've ever had, and I see no major feature in *buntu to convince me to try it again. In fact, even the KDE devs were bad-mouthing Kubuntu for putting out bad KDE packages. Diplomatically they said certain distros had trouble building and compiling the right packages. It wasn't Fedora, and it wasn't openSUSE. Kubuntu was the only other distro to push out KDE 4, and those packages were universally trashed by people.

Ubuntu has likely improved overall. But so have other distros. openSUSE 11 is a major improvement over 10.x

Well, the official policy of Ubuntu became much clearer about 2 years ago when they started shipping proprietary drivers by default. This is about the time that Jeff Waugh left in a huff. Any strong statements you heard against proprietary drivers or codecs was likely coming from him. I believe the official policy now is "if you want people to stop using proprietary drivers, provide a better free driver" and this happens to match with my own personal opinion on the matter. Other people are militant about remaining pure and are willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve it, but I personally think this was one of the biggest reasons why Ubuntu broke away from Debian in the first place.. that and the insanely slow pace of development.

Perhaps the

gOS has a place, much like Puppy Linux, DSL, etc. But gOS is heading to as much proprietary-ness as you can get with Free Software. Compare the gOS homepage with Ubuntu's, http://www.thinkgos.com/new/ and http://www.ubuntu.com/ . gOS has no obvious place for developer participation on the home page, while Ubuntu clearly advertises it. The main page for gOS nowhere mentions Ubuntu or even Debain, heck, Linux isn't even mentioned! The main page for Ubuntu clearly states that it is A) Linux and B) made from Debian, as of now it even has a banner celebrating Debian.

Generally -- except in one notable case, and expected in Debian lenny. As you can imagine, this caused a lot of complaints. From what I skimmed there and other places, the attitude is that /bin/sh under Debian should be a fully POSIX-compliant shell, and if you want to use bashisms, start your program with #!/bin/bash.

FYI,

Install the apt-file [1] package and you can search contents of packages.
$apt-file search sftp

[1] http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/apt-file

I authenticate my Debian, Ubuntu, and Mac OS X systems to a Windows 2003 AD using standard LDAP and Kerberos with no problems. I use the same, AD username/password and UID/GID across all systems - all maintained in AD (using the free MS SFU).

It was a little tricky to set up (I'm not a system administrator by trade), but there are plenty of instructions on the Internet to walk a Linux-handy person through the process.

Mac OS X Leopard is just drop-dead easy to integrate; it has built-in mechanisms to do so.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1189857&postcount=8
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ActiveDirectoryHowto

I believe it's being added to the Canonical repository rather than the Ubuntu repository. This is where other commercial software is available, such as RealPlayer and VMWare Server. It's not enabled by default, however.

See Restricted and Multiverse:
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/components

"Canonical, which sells subscription support for Ubuntu, a Linux operating system that scores high marks on usability and 'the cool factor,' will re-distribute Lotus Symphony via their repositories. Symphony 1.1 will be available through the Ubuntu repositories by the end of August."

However, the distro states that (http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/philosophy):

At the core of the Ubuntu Philosophy are these core philosophical ideals: 1. Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees. (...) 3. Every computer user should be given every opportunity to use software, even if they work under a disability.

also:

For Ubuntu, the 'free' in 'free software' is used primarily in reference to freedom, and not to price - although we are committed to not charging for Ubuntu. The most important thing about Ubuntu is that it confers rights of software freedom on the people who install and use it.

More (http://www.ubuntu.com/):

The Ubuntu promise: Ubuntu CDs contain only free software applications; we encourage you to use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on.

And also (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1):

Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry. A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu.

--Mark Shuttleworth

"Canonical, which sells subscription support for Ubuntu, a Linux operating system that scores high marks on usability and 'the cool factor,' will re-distribute Lotus Symphony via their repositories. Symphony 1.1 will be available through the Ubuntu repositories by the end of August."

However, the distro states that (http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/philosophy):

At the core of the Ubuntu Philosophy are these core philosophical ideals: 1. Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees. (...) 3. Every computer user should be given every opportunity to use software, even if they work under a disability.

also:

For Ubuntu, the 'free' in 'free software' is used primarily in reference to freedom, and not to price - although we are committed to not charging for Ubuntu. The most important thing about Ubuntu is that it confers rights of software freedom on the people who install and use it.

More (http://www.ubuntu.com/):

The Ubuntu promise: Ubuntu CDs contain only free software applications; we encourage you to use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on.

And also (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1):

Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry. A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu.

--Mark Shuttleworth

Interesting that Ubuntu will make Symphony available. It is not Free Software.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Symphony

Currently the Ubuntu Philosophy allows non-free software only for drivers.

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

You probably won't need books or irc. Linux is getting pretty accessible these days. The best thing is to have a buddy who is already comfortable with Linux. Lacking that, I'd recommend taking a look at the very noob-friendly Ubuntu forums and Ubuntu wiki. You should probably start by toying around with a virtual machine in windows, where you won't have to worry about things like drivers. You could also try playing around with a live boot CD.

After that you can take the plunge and install Ubuntu to the bare metal. In case something (eg: wifi) doesn't work, it's a good idea to have a laptop with internet access and a USB flash drive at hand when you start. Also make extra careful special sure you don't kill your mission critical Windows partition. Not yet anyways :D I got another old hard drive for Linux while I was still getting used to it, and disabled the Windows hard drive whenever I was going to do something maybe possibly risky.

Don't expect everything to go super smooth - there will be some hang up somewhere. Even if it's more user friendly than Windows, it's different, and there is stuff to learn.

Alsa? What about the up and comming Pulseaudio. While it's great, it's a configuration nightmare waiting to happen. Especially with ESD and ARTS in the mix (no pun intended).

Pulse has esd compatibility, so just get rid of esd: http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/pulseaudio-esound-compat

Not for arts, though: http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/FAQ#WhataboutcompatibilitywithaRts

4. A big "fuck you" to all underpants gnome pusrists

http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/FAQ#IsPulseAudioaGNOMEprogram

Thanks for playing.

If all you can do is say "this sucks" but not say why or how it can be improved, then I agree, you have no business in software.

I disagree, but not strongly.

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ is useful IMO. A lot of it is users saying "this sucks". If you want to improve, then if people say what the worst bits are you know where to focus your attention. That's helpful. Not half as helpful as suggestions on how to fix it, not a patch on a patch (sorry). But it helps, doesn't it?

Yes, but the software itself is not illegal. Does Blizzard have a right to ban you from WoW if you cheat? Yes. Can Blizzard ban you in real life... no.

Hmmm... Lets see about BNETd... http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=bnetd oh wait... I can install it in Debian

Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: bnetd 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. Need to get 363kB of archives. After unpacking 1102kB of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ gutsy/universe bnetd 0.4.25-6 [363kB] Fetched 363kB in 2s (151kB/s) Selecting previously deselected package bnetd. (Reading database ... 100562 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking bnetd (from .../bnetd_0.4.25-6_i386.deb) ... Setting up bnetd (0.4.25-6) ... [: 17: ==: unexpected operator Starting Battle.net(R) gaming server: bnetd.

OMG! I just installed it from Ubuntu!!!

Sure, development may have stopped, but you can still get it.

I wonder if they mean any and all P2P applications? Not all P2P activity breaks copyright laws. World of Warcraft patches are distributed via its own P2P system, and Operating System Destros, such as Ubuntu http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/, can be downloaded via torrents

I had nothing but problems with it when I was testing it a couple of months ago. I couldn't get the networking to work in NAT mode, and bridging mode on a laptop ain't always the best idea. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

Getting the networking system to work is a bit of a pain, but I've only had minor difficulties when using the host interface. NAT will work, but you won't be able to ping or access any resources in your own network (which is a bad thing if you have a fileserver at home and wish to access it on a VM). There are, however, a few tutorials that can help you get started with bridging your network for Windows hosts or a variety of Linux hosts.

FreeBSD is the only guest OS I've had difficulties with (even MSDOS will work, but it requires some additions to prevent it from eating up your cycles like crazy--FreeDOS plays nicely, though). I could only ever get the NAT-based networking to work and even then it would freeze whenever IO operations peaked.

Take a look at some of those articles, and you might be able to get networking up and running in VirtualBox! I have to say, for something of a FOSS offering, it's really nice.

At the moment, if you want to create a virtual appliance, you basically need a VM with a mini "OS" containing the kernel and all the userspace tools such as libraries and programs required by the application you are running. See for instance JeOS.

What if you could move such "dependencies" (libraries, files, other programs...) to another VM? A "shared library" in a "shared VM"?

What if you could make such migration "transparent", as in X, so that the actual application does not care whether the "dependencies" are local (within the same VM) or not (other VM on the same machine or even a remote one)?

What if any required modification to the "system" (shared VM) is done (optionally) to the local VM in a COW style?

What if you could adapt legacy apps to this new way of working without recoding everything? By translating on the fly library calls and other resource requests into messages to be dispatched to the appropriate target? And in an efficient manner?

As an alternative experience, I tried to install Ubuntu the other night and got as far as partitioning. Turns out it doesn't see "fakeraid" partitions. I was lucky I knew a little about my partitions etc or I might have tried to continue the install, which I'm sure would have completely wiped my Windows partition. Anyway, I did a little research, got a little drunk, got to this page and gave up. I'll give it another go when I've got a bit of time on my hands.

Desktop installation of operating systems is not properly ready for the masses. My Windows Vista 64 installation didn't go right either, for entirely different reasons.

A Friend of mine recently tried Ubuntu Hardy. He wasn't too fond of Vista, and couldn't get his hands on a copy of XP. He's quite familiar with computers, but I would not describe him as technically minded. Expecting a short and brutal install process followed by a hasty retreat back to Windows, I was frankly blown away by what followed.

Firstly, he installed it, via the Windows installer, without undue hassle and was initially very impressed. He ended up having problems with wireless network card drivers, but before then he discovered the compiz window/eye-candy manager and the whole cube desktop thing, as well as dual monitor and window tiling features. He even ended up compiling an add on for compiz from source, and this someone who to my knowledge has never even written a Hello World program (though he has edited game ini files and the like).

He has seen Macs, and though he's impressed, the price is off putting. Anyway he is now using Vista, and has found its visual effects fairly pleasing. But, he still wants to go back to Ubuntu, due in no small part to the compiz cube, which he considers superior. In fact, even his girlfriend actually prefers Ubuntu. This last remark, while somewhat sexist, is in this particular case a justified testament to the wide appeal of Hardy.

In short, I remain shocked, bewildered and pleasantly bemused by this state of affairs. Desktop Linux is here right now. No actually, it's over here. It is not an exaggeration to state that Aunt Tillie can use and actually enjoy Ubuntu Hardy, as though as it might be for us to accept it.

I personally thought that with Microsoft's Vista difficulties, Apple and OSX would be in the ascendant. Right now however, I foresee the migration of a sizeable fraction of home desktop users to Ubuntu in the short term. You would be surprised just how fast Ubuntu can spread once people see those wobbling windows and desktop cubes.

Remember how you though that Bittorrent would be too complicated from the average desktop user? Yeah.

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/webforums http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/chatirc

for something like that they might actually reply, they(the community) never reply to MY problems with ubuntu.

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/webforums http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/chatirc

for something like that they might actually reply, they(the community) never reply to MY problems with ubuntu.

10-12 years or so ago I was a Linux user. My first distro was Slackware, then I moved to Redhat because certain software I was using only ran on that distro. At the time compiling your own kernel was quite a normal thing to do. I've had a long long break since where I've touched on distros from time to time but not run anything seriously.

Well my work's meant I've been doing some heavier C coding of late, and in looking up something or other I came across the LinuxChix kernel hacking tutorial and realized how short a step it was from compiling a kernel to modifying some code (at least to add printk debug statements). Heck I'd installed many distros and compiled custom kernels many times in the past. How hard could it be? Right?

So I've been trying lots of distros on VMWare with an aim to compiling a kernel and adding some debugging. First of all what the fuck happened? The process use to be bog standard and simple. Now you don't even get the option to install the build tools when you install the system. You have to go and install a bunch of packages manually on all the distros.

Second of all, what's with Ubuntu not providing kernel sources, then doing so for a short while, then breaking them? Currently the correct way to install kernel source is to clone the whole Ubuntu git repository. We don't all have unlimited bandwidth.

See:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Kernel/Compile
"NOTE: This method has been broken since at least June 14th, 2007. Details are here. Use method #1 above ("git") instead."

I thought this was Linux for human beings. Apparently in catering for end users, they've decided to leave developers out in the cold. That's not smart! One extra step to download the source I could understand, but I didn't want to spend lots of time trawling through a tutorial working out which packages I need to apt-get. I wanted to spend that time looking at a kernel.

I finally did get a kernel compiling and building correctly, and put my couple of printk statements in - on Debian, not Ubuntu. Only took about 3 days to get my head around things. The distros are more diverse in their way of doing things than ever. (For example no link at /etc/grub.conf to /boot/grub/menu.lst on some). Sure, my lack of familiarity with 10 years or so of development didn't help but this is why I quit Linux in the first place - I don't have the time or inclination to deal with incomplete, out of date tutorials. (For example my kernel compiles weren't working without initrd. Had to find out that was my problem by trial and error, then had to work out the debian specific way of building initrd.)

So Linux for human beings and year of the Linux desktop my backside. It's nice that the software now installs less problematically on more hardware and that things aren't completely broken out of the box. However to me that seems like 2 steps forward, one step back.

Mod as you will.

... then troll with something that can't be trivially disproven by checking the changelog. There have been six kernel updates for Hardy released since mid-April, when it was released, which comes out an average of roughly one every two weeks. Not all updates are security-related. Non-kernel updates don't require a reboot.

I propose Offset 2000 version numbers, i.e., "(y-2000).mm[.dd]". The first number is the year minus 2000, followed by "." and a two-digit month, optionally followed by "." and a two-digit day when there's more than one release in a month. So version 8.07 would be the first release in July 2008. If you made a later release on July 17, it'd be 8.07.17 (so if a project makes many releases in a month, you can again determine how old yours is).

Date-based version numbers have a lot going for them, because at a glance you know when it was released (and thus you can determine how old something is). If you choose the ISO order YYYY.MM.DD, the numbers sort very nicely; Debian packages often use YYYYMMDD for versioning. But there's a problem: full year numbers, or full dates in this format, are annoyingly large. For example, version numbers 2008.07.16 and 20080716 are painfully long version numbers to remember. That's not necessary.

So, use dates, but shorten then. Since nothing today can be released before 2000, shorten it by subtracting 2000. Note this is subtracting - there's no Y2K-like rollover problem, because the year 2100 becomes 100 and the year 3000 becomes 1000. The second number is the month; using a two-digit month means you don't have the ambiguity of determining if "2.2" is earlier or later than "2.10" (you would use "2.02" instead). If you need to disambiguate day releases (or you make additional releases in the same month), add "." and a two-digit day.

These version numbers are short, they're easy to compare, and they give you a clue about when it happened. Ubuntu already uses this scheme for the first two parts, so this scheme is already in use and familiar to many.

If you use a time-based release system, using this version numbering system is easy, and you can even talk about future releases the same way. But what if you release software based on when the features are ready, or want to talk about the system under development? You can't easily call it by the version number, since you don't know it yet, but that's not really a problem. In many cases, you can just talk about the "development" version or give a special name to the development version (e.g., "Rawhide" for Fedora). If you need to distinguish between multiple development versions, just give each of them a name (e.g., "Hardy Heron" for Ubuntu); on release you can announce the version number of a named branch (e.g., "Hardy Heron is 8.04"). This is more-or-less what many people do now, but if a lot of us used the same system, version numbers would have more meaning than they do now.

Or do you think that those commercials are an accurate display of the Mac vs. PC world?
If you do than you've been fooled by one of the great showmen of our times.

Accurate? I give up... you mean the guy in drag in PCs home video isn't really a blond???

Heck, I think those ads are more fun than most of what's on television..

Maybe I just have a strange sense of humor?
Even XP has made me laugh: "Keyboard not found, press any key to continue" MS has its own kind of innovation I guess.

But ya know it doesn't really matter what we think, it is the people who DO relate to "PC" that are the ones replacing PCs with Macs... They're who those ads are created for. Much of the total market or not, those are about half of the people buying Macs.

But maybe you'd give more credence to serious statements from people like from Mark Shuttleworth (Mr Ubuntu!).

A submission here the other day for a Mark Shuttleworth interview was presented as relating to the Linux desktop, the linked page title line is Shuttleworth: "Apple is driving the innovation"

OS X related clip (from page 2 of 3) of interview with Mark Shuttleworth (the Ubuntu guy!):

derStandard.at: If you look on the desktop market today there is one operating system that is growing significantly and it's not Linux. It's OS X. What do you think is the reason for that?

Shuttleworth: First of all, we should really understand this, as it's an important observation: The fact that OS X is growing, tells us that Windows is weakening. The fact that OS X is growing and Linux isn't, tells you that OS X is offering things that Linux is not. One of those is the pace of change, the level of innovation. You really have to give credit to Apple for driving innovation. Another of those things is their focus on the web as an experience. They recognize very strongly that the web is the killer application of the PC today and not Microsoft today.

There is a real opportunity for us to deliver a great web experience, but we have to focus very strongly on getting this done.

derStandard.at: So OS X is more interesting for you than Windows?

Shuttleworth: For me OS X is more interesting. I believe that free software is the most amazing platform for innovation, but I believe that that innovation also tends to follow a "lazy path", people often choose the path of least resistance, they want to express their ideas and they want to find the easiest way to do that. And at the moment we don't offer a particular easy place to go and express your technology.

--
I hate to post this as AC, but the corporate shills be dangerous when they get mod points!

Lets not forget 1 fact, Ubuntu guys dropped official PPC support all by themselves stating Apple's switch to Intel. There is no "Evil Sony" intervention there. Zero. You drop a fairly modern architecture which is supported by the vendor of OS X, the "evil" Apple in Leopard all by your choice.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCReview

It can't get more developers or even more users because of that simple fact: There is no Ubuntu official support for PPC. FUD will end once the decision makers say they made a MISTAKE on that very same page and apologise PowerPC users like me.

I was not very interested in Linux as a Quad G5 OS X user but I remember the lack of logic in that decision made me nuts and smile same time.

Yellow Dog Linux on Cell really works fine, fine enough that people can even run Java applets inside their browser or run some sort of Flash (Gnash).

I don't think actual POWER users are remotely interested in Ubuntu like distros but Ubuntu people should see that the PowerPC is not only Apple. People saying "Altivec optimisation is pointless, look Apple dropped PPC" should also remember even that monster POWER processor will have Altivec.

Try using GNU/Linux

I thought a "pure" desktop was the aim of Gobuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/gobuntu

Canonical's Netbook Remix has a ton of proprietary codecs and crap. Although, I think there is a non-proprietary version of it as well, perhaps sold as a different product.

There will always be people who will install proprietary software on their GNU systems, but distributions really have no need to distribute it!

Ubuntu for example, is even shilling for the likes of Opera on its own website.

If we want free drivers for hardware, we need to be prepared to not buy the hardware in the first place, because as long as nVidia and the like can get away with distributing proprietary drivers, they will.

The theory that somehow, magically, eventually nVidia will concede on this and Ubuntu and others can then replace everyone's proprietary drivers, retroactively with free software is an illusion.

Proprietary software companies and distributions are now working hand in hand to seduce users and lock them into particular vendors.

Ubuntu recently stopped work on Gobuntu, it's free distribution, and instead is making this an option in the Ubuntu installer... sadly, this should BE Ubuntu, not an option in the installer that most people will miss.

There will always be people who will install proprietary software on their GNU systems, but distributions really have no need to distribute it!

Ubuntu for example, is even shilling for the likes of Opera on its own website.

If we want free drivers for hardware, we need to be prepared to not buy the hardware in the first place, because as long as nVidia and the like can get away with distributing proprietary drivers, they will.

The theory that somehow, magically, eventually nVidia will concede on this and Ubuntu and others can then replace everyone's proprietary drivers, retroactively with free software is an illusion.

Proprietary software companies and distributions are now working hand in hand to seduce users and lock them into particular vendors.

Ubuntu recently stopped work on Gobuntu, it's free distribution, and instead is making this an option in the Ubuntu installer... sadly, this should BE Ubuntu, not an option in the installer that most people will miss.

If I say "I'm going to to A, B, and C" for this next release, and don't implement D, I've failed.

Yes, you have, if the missing D is what any sane software user and developer would expect from anything called release. If you bought a car without the wheels, would not you be upset, even if the absence of wheels were outlined in fine-print somewhere in the purchase agreement? (Where would we be without car-analogies!)

As far as your gripe about Plasma... well, it's new jackass!

Thanks, love you too, fellow Slashdotter.

New software has bugs.

Would you be as charitable towards Windows Vista? I don't think so... Why? They have marketing spin-doctors too...

"Plasma" may be a new product, but KDE is not — it's current version is 4.0.4. Since Plasma is not ready, then either it should not have been made part (the non-optional, affecting everyone part) of KDE4, or KDE4 should not have been released. End of story... No amount of spinning: "oh, we are fixing this in the upcoming versions," — is going to cover up the fact, that they "released" a year too early.

instead of just knee-jerk repairing the damage, it would get fixed.

Yes, it is all the users' fault, is not it... If I'm setting up a new computer for my mom, you bet I'm going with a "knee-jerk repairing the damage", instead of leaving her without a computer until the next release. And why did I install Kubuntu Hardy Heron for her? Because KDE-project lied to me by calling KDE-4 a release. That's why... Should've stuck with the good and trusted FreeBSD (with KDE-3.5.x), that she had on her old computer... I could've taken the hint from FreeBSD's KDE-team not updating to KDE-4, and from Ubuntu themselves not offering commercial support for KDE4, but I thought, those guys are just being overly conservative and sabotaging the progress of the wonderful project...

And yes, I have provided a bug-report to KDE. The response is: "yeah, we know, this is scheduled for 4.1" (or 4.2!) That's normal for a test-version, a pre-release. Not for 4.0.2 release of anything.

Wake up and have a little perspective.

First you call me a "jackass" and now you ask me for patience... Awesome. All I can say, once again, is that the much-derided Microsoft has not pulled anything like KDE4 upon their users in 15 years — and their Windows 3.1 was just as "ground-breaking". If I gave it to Microsoft then (until switching to Unix for good), then why should I hold the punches, that KDE is deserving today even more?

If I say "I'm going to to A, B, and C" for this next release, and don't implement D, I've failed.

Yes, you have, if the missing D is what any sane software user and developer would expect from anything called release. If you bought a car without the wheels, would not you be upset, even if the absence of wheels were outlined in fine-print somewhere in the purchase agreement? (Where would we be without car-analogies!)

As far as your gripe about Plasma... well, it's new jackass!

Thanks, love you too, fellow Slashdotter.

New software has bugs.

Would you be as charitable towards Windows Vista? I don't think so... Why? They have marketing spin-doctors too...

"Plasma" may be a new product, but KDE is not — it's current version is 4.0.4. Since Plasma is not ready, then either it should not have been made part (the non-optional, affecting everyone part) of KDE4, or KDE4 should not have been released. End of story... No amount of spinning: "oh, we are fixing this in the upcoming versions," — is going to cover up the fact, that they "released" a year too early.

instead of just knee-jerk repairing the damage, it would get fixed.

Yes, it is all the users' fault, is not it... If I'm setting up a new computer for my mom, you bet I'm going with a "knee-jerk repairing the damage", instead of leaving her without a computer until the next release. And why did I install Kubuntu Hardy Heron for her? Because KDE-project lied to me by calling KDE-4 a release. That's why... Should've stuck with the good and trusted FreeBSD (with KDE-3.5.x), that she had on her old computer... I could've taken the hint from FreeBSD's KDE-team not updating to KDE-4, and from Ubuntu themselves not offering commercial support for KDE4, but I thought, those guys are just being overly conservative and sabotaging the progress of the wonderful project...

And yes, I have provided a bug-report to KDE. The response is: "yeah, we know, this is scheduled for 4.1" (or 4.2!) That's normal for a test-version, a pre-release. Not for 4.0.2 release of anything.

Wake up and have a little perspective.

First you call me a "jackass" and now you ask me for patience... Awesome. All I can say, once again, is that the much-derided Microsoft has not pulled anything like KDE4 upon their users in 15 years — and their Windows 3.1 was just as "ground-breaking". If I gave it to Microsoft then (until switching to Unix for good), then why should I hold the punches, that KDE is deserving today even more?

I totally agree with this. And actually I play more or less the same role on my job, being a relay between users and devs (and for the same reasons as you: I am a crap coder myself, but I can talk to them. And I worked in the users' jobs for a long while and understand them and their needs). Surprise, sometimes bickering on /. does have positive effects :)
FWIW, Ubuntu is probably on the right path regarding such a relay: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/

Here you go. You're welcome.

This is not the default.

Yes, it is the the default for the product called KUbuntu Hardy Heron. Version, mind you, 8.04.1 at the moment — not "beta" or "pre-release", not even a x.0, which we've learned to be wary of by now.

And yet, the beta-versions of the much-derided Windows are a lot more stable and feature-complete than this. And it is not even Ubuntu — their only fault is attempting to "turn shit into chicken salad". KDE-4 remains a poor ingredient — it was "released" a year too early, evidently, because even 4.1 (still in beta right now) is not offering the same features, that KDE-3.x has.

If you don't like it, deinstall it

Same can be said about all free software — are you suggesting, all criticism of it is "baseless"?

...or that can be mailed to your house in disc form completely free of charge.

Its also nice to have a nice shiny permanent CD ROM instead of a less then permanent CDR.

Cannonical has had for a number of years now a "request a disc" program on their website where one could have shipped to them a nice set of install media in high quality color printed disc folder. If people are more comfortable paying money they can buy ubuntu on CD or DVD from canonical's webstore in packs of 20 disks, or in nice commercial packaging from amazon. All these options have existed for a not insignificant period of time. And for those with long memories this isn't too much different from slackware's distribution through Walnut Creek CDrom (cdrom.com) in the early 90s.

Its also nice to have a nice shiny permanent CD ROM instead of a less then permanent CDR.

Cannonical has had for a number of years now a "request a disc" program on their website where one could have shipped to them a nice set of install media in high quality color printed disc folder. If people are more comfortable paying money they can buy ubuntu on CD or DVD from canonical's webstore in packs of 20 disks, or in nice commercial packaging from amazon. All these options have existed for a not insignificant period of time. And for those with long memories this isn't too much different from slackware's distribution through Walnut Creek CDrom (cdrom.com) in the early 90s.

"Marketing" implies making money. Normally non-profits use phrases like "spread the word" and call for campaigns to "get the word out", but they usually don't call it marketing, so, that'd be why. It is of course marketing though since spreading Linux means the gaming and software industries as well as the hardware industry can get more money from selling Linux-compatible stuff, but if it's something more "grass roots" instead of company-funded, it's usually not called "marketing", at least from what I've ever heard.

Canonical has been promoting campaigns to "get the word out" for quite some time now via grass roots teams which do several different things, one of which is to pass around fliers and copies of Ubuntu, and in general spread knowledge of the existence of Linux. In Lawrence, Kansas, of all places, I actually came across a copy of Windows Vista in a Walmart that had a long Ubuntu sticker wrapped around the top of it.

Though now that I think about it, spreading knowledge about Linux in the middle of the Bible Belt might be a good place to start. After all, it's "middle America" which is probably the least informed about the existence of Linux. Now if it starts being sold in actual stores, then they can actually get a hold of it. I hope the "put flat circular object in CD tray (or cup holder) with label facing up and close tray, then turn off then on 'puter, then double-click 'install' then 'next' every time it appears" won't be too difficult for them to follow.