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Upstart is similar in concept to Launchd, but was written from scratch by Ubuntu. It is event-driven, not runlevel driven, which gives it some very interesting abilities that I'm sure will be exploited in creative ways in the future. I would be surprised if we don't see it included in Suse and Fedora in the near future, and a package is already in Debian experimental.

For more on Upstart, check out its website: http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
The original Ubuntu feature request that lead to it is here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReplacementInit (Discussions at the bottom as to why Launchd was not used.)

Except, of course, that the inclusion of flash redistribution in Ubuntu breaks the ridiculously specific OS requirements of Adobe's Player Distribution License.

Still, as long as some people are happy to sell their Freedom for the shiny I guess Ubuntu will thrive.

Actually Xorg 7.2 is currently on its way to feisty, thanks to efforts by a community member, working together with Debian and helped by some Ubuntu core developers: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/200 7-February/023252.html

The xserver-xorg-core is already version at 7.2 (or "1.2") now, with the rest of the modules going in gradually. With the modularity of X.org nowadays, it's not certain that all the newest driver work will be in, though. For example the ati driver has seen only some important patches backported to feisty, while there has been a lot of development and reworking without a proper release of xserver-xorg-video-ati lately.

As I said above, I think it's only because of this partnering with Microsoft. Canonical already offers the option of paid support and now, certification. How long can a rationale of partnering with Novell or RH on that basis really hold anymore? Other vendors like this one are actually proving that going with the most popular distribution makes economic sense. Who's choosing SUSE for their Perhaps the real motivation for going with SUSE is that they don't actually want Linux on Dell to work, at least too well.

Are you saying that ffmpeg isn't included in ubuntu?
http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/search_packages .pl?keywords=ffmpeg&searchon=names&subword=1&versi on=edgy&release=all

Announced only a couple weeks ago. You're right, it is an interesting development.

http://www.ubuntu.com/news/LinspirePartnership

Beware: fedora.redhat.com is not the proper cleaning site. The two proper cleaning sites are http://ubuntu.com/ and http://debian.org/.

The only way to get XP is to go with a used, refurbished, or off lease machine, or like another person said, go to the business machine section.

I ended up doing this:

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/`apt-cache show netris | grep Filename | awk '{print $2}'`
dpkg --extract netris_0.52-5_i386.deb netris

Just a random package I chose there.

Wine is in the repositories of pretty much every distribution that has repositories (and actually, Oracle is in Ubuntu's repository). As for the specific Windows applications, the discussion is package management, not what programs are available for Linux. If you are very attached to Windows apps that don't work with Wine, then unfortunetly Linux is not for you. We should continue to complain to software developers to make Linux ports and make our own equivalant programs, but that's a seperate issue from the best ways for users to install the software that is for Linux.

Yes, but how is one to know that "xorg-driver-fglrx" is the correct package? Other than experience, or trial and error? A non-default package description search for "ATI" in the debian package repository gives 12,000 hits, but a package name search for ATI doesn't return this package.

And yes, I know a description search for "radeon" would bring this up, but the results are certainly confusing for Joe User, even if he is fairly experienced. It isn't clear that "xorg-driver-fglrx" is what is needed, rather that say "xfree86-driver-fglrx" or "xserver-xorg-video-ati". Yet Ubuntu is probably the easiest Linux distro to use.

The announcement says "new infrastructure will be implemented which allows the user to trivially enable both enhanced desktop effects and the necessary driver support"

So driver installation should come closer to being always very easy.

Extracted from announcement message here https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-announce/ 2007-February/000098.html:

      * There is a clear need for wider testing of open source software under
          development in this area, including both desktop tools and video drivers.

and
      * However, some of the relevant software necessary to implement this
          proposal is not yet considered mature enough to deploy in the default
          Ubuntu configuration.

And also Ubuntu plans to support Nouveau, which is great news (still, we have rather long way to usable driver, so don't hold your breath yet).

Also maybe I have to point out that Ubuntu drops official support for PowerPC platform, which is not so great, but not so bad either, because community have done much more effort to it than they. In result, everyone wins - Cannonical has more resources to get right PC version, which, I think, matters more now.

Actually, in the original post, Nouveau was explicitly mentioned. Both ATi and intel have open sourced drivers that are sufficient to run composite desktops. If Nouveau was ready for prime time in Feisty+1, then it's entirely possible that we wouldn't need the binary drivers for anything but bleeding edge video cards.

And that Linux box will run iMovie, GarageBand, iTunes, [Microsoft] Office, require no command-line knowledge, and work out of the box with most major peripherals without having to download or install any drivers, right?

Ah, but by default Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu et al do not ship with anything but Free software. If you want things like Flash, media codecs, etc. you have to figure out how to set them up yourself, or use a helper script like EasyUbuntu.

This is, IMHO, the biggest weakness in the Ubuntu/Canonical strategy -- they have two desires ("a distro for Linux newbies" and "a 100% Free-as-in-Freedom distro") that in many ways are diametrically opposed. (And I say this as a happy Kubuntu user.)

http://shipit.ubuntu.com/

You will be mailed five official Ubuntu CDs for free, or more if you simply request it. I tried Ubuntu and it never worked for my hardware, but you just need to keep trying different distros until one works and works really well for your setup.

pclinuxos and freebsd worked really well for hardware detection. I was happy, then tried openSuSE 10.2 and it blew my socks off! openSuSE is an awesome OS.

• Fix your laws
• influence changes in Linux communities
• Go about creating your own distribution of Linux that violates laws.

Fix your laws

influence changes in Linux communities

Go about creating your own distribution of Linux that violates laws.

SP1 for Vista will correct the problem and the Internets will be free again....

Kill the flamethrowers. The article is about Ubuntu, not Gentoo. If you have a burning need to build a package from source, Gentoo-style, in a Debian or Debian-daughter system, consider apt-build which will get the job done for you.

Otherwise, the article was a very sensible discussion on installing the guts of a 'modern' distro--in this case Ubuntu--on some less than current hardware. Another such discussion is in the LowMemorySystems page in the Ubuntu wiki.

The important thing to take away, in any case, is the non-trivial lesson that you cannot have your cake and eat it, too: installing on limited hardware means understanding your hardware limits and considering your packages accordingly. (I hear bearded Slackers in the back chortling. Hush, you, let me finish first.),

Interestingly, the article confirms what I've been doing on my own IBM Thinkpad 570e lately. My only question to whomever still might be reading this is: is there a lightweight CSS-compatible browser that's not a memory pig on the order of Konqueror or even Firefox? Dillo works well enough, but I'm wondering if there isn't maybe a browser between Dillo and the heavyweights.

Gah, it added spaces. Lemme try that again.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1062799 &postcount=100
http://nsaunders.wordpress.com/2006/11/06/a-usb-st ick-grub-and-ubuntu/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveUsbPendrivePersistent

That was one of the first things I thought, indeed. But according to the MD5 sum, everything is fine.

Completely off subject, but is there some magic trickery involved with getting these CDs to actually boot? I decided to try Ubuntu a couple of weeks ago after hearing everyone and their mother talk about it, so I downloaded the LiveCD (on dialup, no less!), burned the image, and... nothing.

Now, I know how to burn the image files - done it plenty of times with, ahem, "other" downloads and never had any problems. However, every time I try to burn this particular image, one of two things happens:

1) It fails with some sort of "bad sectors" error.
or
2) It successfully burns, but it's not bootable (and according to Windows Explorer, the disc is empty).

I've already thought of the obvious stuff: tried using a different burner (Nero and the suggested Infra Recorder), tried a different batch of CDs (even though I also tested other burns with the same spindles, no problems), confirmed that my computer will boot from the CD before the HD, confirmed the MD5 sum of the download... hell, I even copied the actual ISO file to a CD, took it to another computer, and tried burning it there in case the drive itself was being stupid. Still, after all this, I have yet to try Ubuntu thanks to these burning problems.

So, any suggestions?

It's too late for "Linux on the desktop". Now it has to be "Linux on the Laptop". With WiFi. And that just doesn't work very well.

Yes, there are resources for running Linux on laptops. And they're very funny.

• Linux-Laptop.net This is a collection of links to blogs of people who were able to get Linux to run on a laptop. Really.
• Tuxmobil.org A collection of links to other sites about Linux. With ads.
• Linux.org's laptop page. Most of the listings are for machines that are no longer manufactured, or even for defunct manufacturers. Compaq and DEC are listed, but Leonovo isn't.
• Ubuntu's support wiki for laptops. Big table of laptops, what doesn't work, and what hacks might make them work. Dell's current laptop line, the Inspiron 1501/1505/1705, isn't listed. Even for ones that work, there are instructions like this: This is installation instructions for Hoary. I was unable to complete a successful install with Warty, and I looked, but was unable to find anyone else who had completed an install of Warty. You must first upgrade to BIOS version A32. .... For information on doing this without a windows partition, go here: ... Type in at boot: linux pci=noacpi noapic to prevent it from freezing partway through install (this seems to be a recurring problem with Dell laptops). ... Debian will detect the screen resolution incorrectly. ... To fix this once everything has installed, boot to the Root Terminal or use Applications-System Tools-Root Terminal. Once logged in, type (without quotes) "sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf" and edit...

This is no better than it was four years ago. Maybe worse. You can't even get the WalMart Linux laptop any more.

Linux on the server, sure. Linux on the desktop, maybe. Linux on the laptop, not ready for prime time.

If you haven't, give some consideration to actually ordering the cds for Ubuntu, their free, and I almost installed linux by accident with one.

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

Wasn't five years long enough? XP came out in 2001, DX9 in 2002, why couldn't the industry produce compatible alternatives over that five year period? Doesn't it seem reasonable to conclude that a market which couldn't produce alternatives in five years is not going to produce them at all?

Microsoft are constantly innovating. A day doesn't go by that we don't have thousands of people looking at our products and saying "how do we make this better?" - because that's our job. That's not going to stop. Even if we wait ten years to produce an upgrade, we're going to be innovating and improving for that entire ten years.

So if the industry does happen to produce a clone of our current generation, we just have to look back and find the last RTM-quality build. Then we dump it on the market, and your alternative immediately becomes obsolete. You may as well have never had one at all.

Copying other people is a road to failure. It doesn't lead anywhere else. It's the major reason companies don't want to go open source, because their competition could copy them more easily, and the open source community has a huge body of very intelligent explanations as to why this reason is STUPID. Copying doesn't work. It's a bad business model. It doesn't serve consumers.

Besides, why would I buy a cheap copy of Windows instead of the real thing? After all, you get what you pay for - or, more precisely, you pay for what you get. What am I not getting when I buy this cheap Windows clone? Clearly I'm not getting SOMETHING, or it would cost the same.

Microsoft is in a major bind with piracy - they MUST make it easy for large-scale, unattended corporate installs. This means no serial number to punch in every time, and no major verification routine. As long is this is the case, pirates (aaaarrr) will just snag these installs and run with them. When you're trying to get something like 50 million corporate installs, your bread and butter, going all streamlined and easily, you're never going to be able to adequately protect against piracy.

Ubuntu needs Debian and vice-versa. However, I agree with you that developers should focus on Ubuntu and Debian. They're very well established, value Free Software, and tend to work better than a lot of other distros do. I don't really see why anyone would want to devote their time elsewhere.

You were misquoting. The phrase "Ubuntu's sister project" links to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/install.exe, which indeed is Ubuntu's sister project of Debian's "goodbye-microsoft.com".
You turned Debian itself into Ubuntu's sister, which simply is not true.

Ok. Yes. It was inevitable...
(So mod me an AC Troll, if you like.)

They're still good solutions for this perniscious problem.

http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://fedora.redhat.com/
http://www.mandriva.com/
http://www.debian.org/

or any other flavour of choice:
http://distrowatch.com/

You can even try CD-based versions to see how you really like it before touching a thing on your current system:
http://ubuntu-releases.cs.umn.edu/6.06/
http://www.knoppix.com/

__________

Booting your machine from a CD or DVD ISO to try it out - free.
Selecting your Open Source OS of choice, installing it, and using it however you like - free.
Discovering that, for most things*, it just 'works', will never blue-screen again, and that you've escaped the Microsoft lock-in treadmill - priceless.

* seriously folks, if you want esoterica, it's there too, and yes -- as with all things -- 'your mileage will vary'. But for sane and reasonable interpretations of 'most' this is still true, and not an exaggeration.

You know, these fine operating systems (and others of their family) will never put you in the situation of being kicked out of your own box:

Debian GNU/Linux
Ubuntu

You might say it's against their "business plan" to behave that way towards users.

For Ubuntu try this:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/install.exe

For Debian, the sister project of Ubuntu's project:
http://goodbye-microsoft.com/index.html

*disclaimer, I've not tried either one. Just thought they might be of use to you in this situation.

Is there an easy to install, easy to use OS X clone that is actually Linux? I love the interface with the remote control that I saw on my friend's mac yesterday.

As far as I am aware the only way to get close to the mac UI is to buy a Mac. There are many free Linux distributions you can try. Ubuntu is the best for newcomers IMO. The gnome desktop offers a clean, uncluttered environment. KDE is more busy, but has more features. There is plenty of choice.

Simply follow the directions outlined here.

Once you have updated your software, send a letter thanking them for motivating you
to update your OS and Applications to the latest and greatest software.

More and more people are up-to-date with help from the New Improved Windows Updater.

I don't agree with your first problem. My 'pay-up-front-model' doesn't remove the profit motive for those who want to make a profit. There a billions of people who are willing to spend to lots of money for new 'content'. If you want to be rich, you'll have to play the game in such a way that the donations cover more than the mere costs of making your product. Or even better, go for break-even and earn your big house and five cars with sideprojects like merchandise or whatever.
More importantly (and perhaps this is something we disagree on), I think that art in its basic form should be 'altruistic not-for-profit' as you call Wikipedia. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind artists making a living from their talents, or even if some get very rich. But an artist should not start out for a profit. A young film maker should want to make movies because... he wants to make movies! Not because he wants to be rich or famous. If he's good enough, he'll find ways to get himself bigger budgets.
Your second problem is a good point. My only riposte is that the current model isn't doing too good in this department as well. I have seen a lot of good movies with budgets of less than a million and I have seen a lot of very expensive special effects in movies that were absolutely worthless. The decision over what movie is going to get money is not made by us movie-goers, but anonymous suits who think they know what we want. And they get it wrong a lot of times. Still, Spore would have a harder time, yes. On the other hand, think what a project like Ubuntu would cost if it was done by a purely commercial organisation. And yet, it exists, it's free and yet Mark Shuttleworth thinks he will make some money out of it.
Your final problem, for me, is the same as the first. New entrants in the market shouldn't be there to make a profit.

My 'pay-up-front-model' is something that I think could work, but it is only one example of ways to get projects funded and to make money on art without DRM. I'm sure that there are many more ways the creative industry would come up with. And don't forget, the current models of releasing movies, games, music etc. won't die. Release games and charge money for each DVD. I don't care. I'll even buy some, except the ones that are DRM'd.

anyone know if this does:
1) resizes the windows partition so you can still access it from debian?
2) scans windows for your settings and replicates similar ones in debian?
Anything else, and why not just use the damn CD?

Here ya go

Try this

Sorry, I just had to do it.

Ubuntu.

If the comics that Microsoft comes out with are not funny enough perhaps other people should try to create their own more amusing alternative comic advertisements. They could be done in a style that is somewhat similar to the comics that Microsoft hands out. They could be a spoof of the Microsoft comics. Of course when doing a spoof they should probably check how to best do that legally.

The comic might start out with an employee of some unmentioned software company lecturing some children about how using pirated software is stealing. He would then ask the children what they would do if they owned a computer and WGA discovered discovered that their were not using a genuine version of Windows Vista and would only let them connect to the Internet for one hour at a time. A young boy might then raise his hand, and say "one hour would be just enough time to download a free copy of Ubuntu Linux. I could stay legal by using free GPL licensed software instead." A young girl might then raise her hand and say something like this. "There are hundreds of properly licenced free Linux programs that you could then easily dowload and easily installed using Synaptic (with a screenshot of Synaptic in the background). It is a complete alternative ecosystem of free GPL software." The first boy might then add that "their is also tons of properly licensed free GPL software for Windows users too. In the final frame of the comic another resposible adult might give this final moral advice (as the disapproving exasperated software company employee looks on). "Don't be a software pirate, if you can't afford to pay for commercial software use the free properly licensed GPL software instead."

Underneath the comic strip it might metion that this comic strip was created with the following properly licensed free software:

• Gimp
• Inkscape
• Scribus

Near the bottom of the comic strip there might also be something about this comic strip having been released under the Creative Commons license. "So feel free copy make copies of this comic stip and share them with your friends at school."

Don't be a software pirate, stay legal and properly licensed by using the various free open source GPL licensed programs instead that are also available in Windows versions. Many of the best free GPL licensed open source programs which have been developed for Linux users have also been released in Windows versions. Not everyone is ready yet to move from Windows to a free GPL licensed alternative such as Ubuntu Linux. For them, a first step to freedom would be to keep on using a properly licensed copy of Windows, but to start using the various free GPL licensed alternatives to their various favorite programs. Someday, if they decide to move to a totally free operating system such as Linux they will then be able to use the Linux versions of those same programs. There is now an amazingly large complete alternative free software ecosystem of free GPL licenced software legally available for free to everyone.

Here are just a few examples of free (mostly GPL licensed) programs which are also available in Windows versions:

• OpenOffice the free office suite
• Mozilla Firefox web browser
• Thunderbird email program
• Clamwin free antivirus
• Gimp image mainpulation program for photo retouching and image composition
• ImageMagick software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images
• Inkscape open source scalable vector graphics editor
• PuTTY: A Free Telnet/SSH Client
• FTP client and server
• 7-Zip file archiver which can handle compression formats such as 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
• Scribus open source page layout application
• AbiWord the free word processing program
• Gnumeric the free spreadsheet program
• Stellarium free open source planetarium
• Celestia free space simulation and space exploration program

Thanks Microsoft,

I double checked my .iso files for my linux downloads,
and they work just fine - they are Genuine Linux Live CDs.

Ubuntu is working just fine on my desktops.

Puppy is The Best upgrade for laptops I've
ever installed.

Puppy Linux loads completely from a keychain flash drive,
and runs everything from a RAM drive, no hard drive needed.

All Genuine Linux, working very nicely, thank you.

"Again, that'd be WONDERFUL if that's what they were planning to do."

This is the page that made me think they may be adding some packages that weren't currently in ubuntu. (Adding them to ubuntu that is.)

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/ToPackage

Is it semantics? The are only going to use packages that are in ubuntu, not add any special ones to ubuntustudio. BUT, they are going to add ones they want but are not currently in ubuntu to ubuntu instead. Is that what is going on?

all the best,

drew

Intel Macs use EFI instead of the legacy BIOS, so the versions of GRUB and/or LILO shipping with any current Linux distros do not work

Not entirely true; Ubuntu Edgy works with GRUB if you follow these directions, specifically steps 6 and 7 where you sync the partition tables while the installation is in progress, which allows GRUB to install successfully. Edgy works great on my MBP, except no wireless support. (And Beryl is *slick*).

What Boot Camp does is it provides BIOS emulation

BIOS emulation is provided by the firmware, not Boot Camp itself; see here. Also, Boot Camp's partitioning tool is just a GUI wrapper for "diskutil resizeVolume"

You don't need Boot Camp to boot or install Linux. It's just a set of Windows drivers for Mac hardware, and a front end to the existing nondestructive partitioning capabilities in Tiger. My Core 2 MacBook Pro arrived Friday, and yesterday I installed Ubuntu using these directions, except I created the partitions manually using diskutil (see the "resizeVolume" option) instead of Boot Camp.

Ubuntu, an African word from Zulu and Xhosa, is pronounced "oo-BOON-too". See the other FAQ on its meaning, it's a worthwhile read, and no, you're not the first person to wonder.

I think "works when SFTP won't" is the only other big advantage.

I did some quick Googling on the subject of Fish versus SFTP, and apparently: "The fish kio...relies [only] on the ssh [server] providing a unix shell, then it uploads a simple server program written in perl. A beautiful hack and handy if sftp is not available on your ssh server, but nowhere near the performance or reliability of sftp." From here.

So if the server you're connecting to supports SFTP, and you're only going to be doing file transfers, you might as well use it. But FISH will work even in situation were SFTP isn't supported, and your only way in is via SSH.

Running tzedit.exe isnt that difficult.

Like what? A shitty version for people who don't want to pay up? One that turns itself off if you go to unapproved websites? One that takes 5 min to boot? One that you will need to buy a whole lot of additional software to use productively? One that uses a supercharged, re-designed, re-written, and vastly more efficient worm and adware propagator? One that requires a 3 MHz quad-core cpu qith 256 Mb cache, 4 Gb of RAM, and 1 Tb of HD space?

I'll stick with Ubuntu and Firefox.

So you're saying that you spent 2 hours acquiring and gathering hardware, assembling hardware, installing the OS, installing & configuring the software, networking the box, and settting it up in your living room w/ a remote control? If so, then you should do that for a living. But I really doubt it. Maybe you spent 2 hours on the actual myth-config part of that, but you have to include everything else.