Slashdot Mirror

... somewhere visibly on one of the main Ubuntu pages.

These images (for Mac PPC, Playstation PS3 and IBM POWER hardware) are kept current by the community, and they are right here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/

And no, linking there shouldn't be an issue for a "brainstorm" submission.

... somewhere visibly on one of the main Ubuntu pages.

These images (for Mac PPC, Playstation PS3 and IBM POWER hardware) are kept current by the community, and they are right here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/

And no, linking there shouldn't be an issue for a "brainstorm" submission.

... somewhere visibly on one of the main Ubuntu pages.

These images (for Mac PPC, Playstation PS3 and IBM POWER hardware) are kept current by the community, and they are right here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/ports/releases/7.10/release/

And no, linking there shouldn't be an issue for a "brainstorm" submission.

Slashdot didn't evolve into a "Microsoft sux" since you joined. It always was one. You're still here after all these years.

It's self moderated and you're right -- posts that disparage Microsoft and discount Ballmer do fly to the top of the moderation. That's not because some corporate sponsor has a geek lab in Bangalore with 1,000 blogdrones astroturfing the moderation. It's because Slashdot attracts geeks and that's what the geeks really think. That's honest opinion survey for you. I think a lot of that is because the observation that "M$ sux" actually is insightful, and the Ballmer's futile thrashing of a chair in helpless frustration over Google really is funny.

When you add that slashdot is still one of the popular sites on the intertubes you have to ask: does Microsoft have a problem?

And remember, an answer to every Microsoft problem is available all over the web.

They have to be running scared now. Vista has been out for a year and a half and OEMs are still introducing new machines that not only don't run Vista -- but never will be able to, and people are buying them up like crazy.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardyUpgrades#head-e7f287c730b93116f89de7ea7e05efbe95fa6dd1
Remember, Hardy is still alpha software.

LTS to LTS upgrades have always been part of the plan, and LTS without it, really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/faq (scroll down to "Enterprise Release" which is marketspeak for LTS)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardyUpgrades#head-e7f287c730b93116f89de7ea7e05efbe95fa6dd1
Remember, Hardy is still alpha software.

LTS to LTS upgrades have always been part of the plan, and LTS without it, really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/faq (scroll down to "Enterprise Release" which is marketspeak for LTS)

But I'd like to be able to upgrade one LTS version to the next without having to do either the intermediate upgrades or a wipe-install. I know that would require a lot of testing, but for a lot of users who rely on the LTS release it would be a godsend.

The first paragraph of this Wiki entry says that it can be done:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DashAsBinSh

Nevermind. My faith in the ubuntu community has been restored.

The problem is - so far there has been no place except the forums for non-techies to participate and make their voices heard.

Not true actually. I investigated Linux distros a while back and was quite amazed at how hard it was to get your ideas for nerw features heard; Ubuntu was actually one of the only ones that did anything to listen. They've had the Idea Pool for a while now.

Only slight problem is, no one reads it. My idea has been on there for about a year now.

8.10 is intrepid ibex.The announcement is found in this message

Please do not compare a computer crash to a car crash or a drug that has dangerous side-effects. There are obvious reasons why cars and drugs are recalled and your commercial operating system isn't.

Try Ubuntu.

Someone should decide to run another OS rather than put up with such crappy performance. You can make your life a lot easier if you take a look at Ubuntu or the many other options.

btw, even the "Vista Premium Ready" specs are a bit low for the bloated mess that is Vista.

ubuntu.com

If they slow you down after the first 20 seconds into a 700MB iso download, might I suggest:
false; while [ $? != 0 ] ; do wget -c http://ubuntu.com/foo.iso & ; export X=$! ; sleep 20 ; except kill -9 $X ; done

This runs wget in continuation, sets the PID of wget to X, sleeps for 20 seconds, kills wget, and finally quits when wget isn't around any more. Possible problem: if something else gets wget's old PID during the sleep period (after wget finishes normally), kill -9 will kill it, and run through the loop once more.
My ISP was throttling after 5 seconds, preventing me from doing OS updates, so until they fixed their policy, I had to do something similar.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

Follow these steps to play most common multimedia formats, including MP3, DVD, Flash, Quicktime, WMA and WMV, including both standalone files and content embedded in web
1. Go to Applications Add/Remove...
2. Set Show: to All available applications
3. Search for ubuntu-restricted-extras and install it. Note that there is also xubuntu-restricted-extras and kubuntu-restricted-extras.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/Microsoft_Fonts

Microsoft Fonts
To acquire the Microsoft Core fonts, install the msttcorefonts and ttf-xfree86-nonfree packages after enabling the Multiverse repository.

As for samba, I looked at the community documentation (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpSamba) and yes it could use some work. On the whole though, I'd recommend going with the official docs before trying all the forums...

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

Follow these steps to play most common multimedia formats, including MP3, DVD, Flash, Quicktime, WMA and WMV, including both standalone files and content embedded in web
1. Go to Applications Add/Remove...
2. Set Show: to All available applications
3. Search for ubuntu-restricted-extras and install it. Note that there is also xubuntu-restricted-extras and kubuntu-restricted-extras.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/Microsoft_Fonts

Microsoft Fonts
To acquire the Microsoft Core fonts, install the msttcorefonts and ttf-xfree86-nonfree packages after enabling the Multiverse repository.

As for samba, I looked at the community documentation (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpSamba) and yes it could use some work. On the whole though, I'd recommend going with the official docs before trying all the forums...

... and then they'd ask me how much it was... and when I told them it was free, they'd be disappointed!

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/paid
Then tell them it's $250 with a years support package, but because you're a licenced distributor, you can install it for nothing, just for them. Then it has percieved value, it's a good deal and they're getting it because they know an insider! While people don't want to get something of no value, they love getting something of value for nothing and they love "knowing the right person". Either that or tell them the price of a Dell with Ubuntu preinstalled, which is not nothing and definitely has credibility as "value".

1. Debian
2. Ubuntu
3. Red Hat
4. ...

Or how about instead of whining you spend 5 seconds on Google, or even searching your distro's package repository. On Ubuntu 7.10, we have displayconfig-gtk. Fedora 8 had something similar, if not identical, when I tried it recently. You can position your screens any way you like with these tools, never having to touch xorg.conf.

Maybe you have heard about this groups of people called `distribution makers'? You can check http://www.redhat.com/, http://www.debian.org/, http://ubuntu.com/, and so on. I hear there is a whole site dedicated to simply listing linux distros! They surely are not the developers of all the code they package, you know.

The fact that the GPL is a license on distribution is a hardly a semantic point: it is essentially the whole point of the license!

You claimed that "the developer is the party bound by the license, not the user": one can but conclude that you have not even read the license (nor the many faqs out there explaining in painstaking detail what the license says...)

I think this has already been invented: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

It's open source. Is there a licensing issue that keeps this from becoming popular on various distros?

Apparently, there is. See the Ubuntu wiki page for ReplacementInit. In it, they listed launchd as a possible candidate for a replacement init, but decided against it due to "inescapable licence problems".

It's licensed under the Apache license -- I can't see what is wrong with that, but I can't imagine that Canonical would spend $$$ developing their own init system if it wasn't a big hurdle to use launchd.

You've got to be kidding, right? You can install kvm without having to reboot and be installing a guest OS (given that you have the cd) in mere minutes.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM

All of two commands after you've installed kvm:

1. create disk image
2. launch installer

Maybe a little more description of your experience with 'one of-if not the- hardest to use productively' claim might persuade folks that the above is not trivially simple.

Linux is just the kernel, right? GNU/Linux would be an operating system.

Ubuntu is an Operating System, that uses the Linux Kernel.
So is Gentoo, RedHat, CentOS, Mandrake, etc...

Is Linux From Scratch easy to use? I would say "not really"
How about Ubuntu? (Ubuntu, in the live disc, was able to recognize and use the wifi card and odd screen resolution on my laptop, so it very much gets my vote for "easy to use")

Does Linus speak for Red Hat, Novel, and SuSe? I wouldn't think so, unless he has invested enough in those companies to have a large enough share of the stocks.

Of course Linus speaks for Linux, since he is in charge of which patches get accepted into the stock kernel.

Ubuntu MX1000 Doc I used this doc from the ubuntu community site and it worked perfect. Only has to be done once, small price to pay to get full functionality. Also doesn't cause issues with video driver updates to xorg.conf

I've always used this guide to enable the buttons on my MX1000 https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MX1000Mouse Unfortunately, even Ubuntu hasn't gotten to the point where mouse configuration doesn't require diving into the CLI.

I deploy sytems and operating systems for a living -- more than 6,000 units a year. Of course I am prepared to deploy Vista, SP1 or original, should that need arise.

Not only hasn't it been asked, even the question hasn't been asked. All of my customers are looking for an excuse to avoid this version of Windows.

When they ask, of course I say "well, I use Linux" but the conversion cost for them... We will see. I the mean time they don't usually ask. They're looking for an escape from Vista and they don't get that an escape from Windows is the same thing as an escape from Vista.

XP in a virtual machine does all of the things you expect from XP, without most of the securty vulnerabilities. It makes sense to run it under a real OS like ubuntu.

I don't see it.

$ apt-cache search truecrypt
$

http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/search_contents.pl?word=truecrypt&searchmode=filelist&case=insensitive&version=gutsy&arch=i386

What's the package called?

What is the name of the package? In my 64-bit Ubuntu gutsy install, I don't see anything.

Nothing on:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/base/

that looks like TrueCrypt either.

Unfortunately, Hardy falls at an awkward time with respect to 4.0 (or vice versa) - 4.0 isn't ready for long term support, but 3.5 isn't likely to be relevant for 3 long years. As a result, while Ubuntu 8.04 will be a Long Term Support (LTS) release, Kubuntu 8.04 will not be.

"The KDE upstream position appears clear, KDE 4 is the focus of developer attention; KDE 3.5 will be supported as long as KDE 4 isn't suitable for support."

Yea OSS is getting a few new converts but overall F/OSS comunity has really dropped the ball. Its current poster child Ubentu Linux, (which I never have gotten a sucessful install of btw..., But Debian, Slackware, Fedeora... all seem to work right out of the box) while has all the elments of a modern OS it just doesn't have it in the right place.

I think I see your problem. You might try a little something called Ubuntu, instead of this Ubentu, whatever it is. Also, judging from your poor spelling and grammar, and the fact that you're ranting about a product you freely admit that you haven't used, my assumption is that you're either 8-10 years old, or not quite playing with a full deck to start with.

Case in point:

OS X pages Finally after many years and decades of existance in Linux/Unix they just this year have virtual screens. When you change virtal screen there is a quick scroll where you see the windows shoot up/down/Left/Right/diaganaly depending how the virtual screen is set and a little box shows which screen you are moving to. Ubentu has this huge 3d Cube thing. It looks way cooler sure, but it isn't as functional because you can only really see up to 3 virtual screens at once and you need to rotate the cube to see the others.

Ok, now that we have this travesty of a communication attempt (your English teacher must be so proud), let's explore the meaning of what you seem to be saying, shall we?

We'll assume, for the moment, that you have a clue what you're talking about, and let's also pretend you managed to express yourself clearly.

You claim that Linux has "just this year" "finally" managed to get "virtual screens". Funny, I seem to have some quite clear recollections of switching workspaces and consoles *years* ago... on a Linux machine. And when I say "*years*", I mean to say "nearly a decade". This is, of course, my own experience and recollections, so I may be off by a few years.

I have no idea what this "Ubentu" thing you keep referring to is, and google doesn't give me any info on it, either... unless you count "Did you mean: ubuntu ?". I fear you may be installing something other than what you think you are, and gathering incorrect conclusions from that.

In the Ubuntu Linux desktop I'm running, the cube isn't there by default, and unless you dig into the "Add/Remove..." feature of the program menus (or maybe even synaptic, a GUI tool that allows installation and uninstallation of software, available in Ubuntu in the "System" menu under "Administration"), and install the advanced graphical suite (aka compiz/compiz-fusion), it's not there at all, and won't be. Even when the cube is present, you still have a workspace changer at the bottom of the screen that shows what windows are open on which workspaces, and allows you to click to select a virtual desktop. There are other features, as well, such as dragging apps from desktop to desktop inside the panel app, or pressing ctrl-alt-left and ctrl-alt-right to move between workspaces. Pressing ctrl-alt-down will unfold all the desktops, and pressing the meta ("Windows") key and E at the same time will give you a very nice presentation, resembling a three-dimensional "wall" of all your screens (Disclaimer: Some of these features are available only in advanced graphics modes, and will only function if they are installed and enabled).

It is my understanding that these features are actually not even specific to Ubuntu, but are available on a number of platforms; specifically, anything supporting the XOrg GUI, which, unless I miss my guess, is *any* flavor of desktop Linux. The desktop cube feature is actually supported under Windows XP, via a third-party utility (there are any number of them out there now, just google for "desktop cube for windows"). As far as eye-candy alone goes, there's a "Vista Transformation Pack" available to give your Windows XP machine a Vista-like interface, and I'll leave the Vista-th

That's why I carry around extra "official" (silkscreened from Canonical https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ ) Ubuntu CDs in both my coat and laptop bag. Never lose an opportunity to evangelize.

Let me guess: Microsoft Virtual PC? Yes, Ubuntu on Virtual PC 2007 has some configuration issues that you need to manually fix.

This is more in depth than the above link, but is more for older editions of Ubuntu.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Earlier today, I read Ubuntu Hardy Heron, Alpha 4 release announcement (due in two days). Vinagre is going to be installed by default... it looks like it might be inherited from Gnome.

Faster than XP how?

You know plenty of games (crysis,hellgate, etc use their full DX10 capability on DX9 and DX10 capable hardware and also in windows XP, right? It's not like vista uses up a drastically larger amount of memory or actually adds features you couldn't find in say linux, is it?

All DX10 has done is added small graphic effects for transparency with water and smoke, that although they look beautiful, aren't the real reason DX10 was created. DX10 was created with virtualization in mind so microsoft could twist their patent deals with virtualization.

Sheesh, and you people wonder why Vista is an absolutely failed attempt at an OS from more perspectives than just people who hate microsoft.