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Thanks for the reply.

Have now tried the archives. No luck but may have given me a hint.

A deeper serach shows other people having ubuntu printing issues.
Eg http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread .php?t=304809 says localhost:631 disabled by default in ubuntu
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/Print ingRoadmap?highlight=(print)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/Print ingRoadmap?highlight=(print)

May have lucked onto something in my archive search though - looks like I may need Ghostscript installed or activated or something - is hard to tell if it is enabled by default in ubuntu. And maybe a special driver for the canon not sure.

The Kyocera well it may or may not have a life.

PS: both are work issued for home so looking for linux support before buying wasn't on the cards.

Thanks for the reply.

Have now tried the archives. No luck but may have given me a hint.

A deeper serach shows other people having ubuntu printing issues.
Eg http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread .php?t=304809 says localhost:631 disabled by default in ubuntu
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/Print ingRoadmap?highlight=(print)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDownUnder/BOFs/Print ingRoadmap?highlight=(print)

May have lucked onto something in my archive search though - looks like I may need Ghostscript installed or activated or something - is hard to tell if it is enabled by default in ubuntu. And maybe a special driver for the canon not sure.

The Kyocera well it may or may not have a life.

PS: both are work issued for home so looking for linux support before buying wasn't on the cards.

Although I've only got a pair of 80 GB spindles, its supported out-of-the-box by debian and redhat... And last I checked you could put 4 x 200 GB spindles in a single standard case... Sounds like 400 or 600 GB to me (raid 1 vs raid 5)...

Maybe you'd like to try that with Ubuntu?

I recently got my webcam set up on ubuntu, without using v4l.. it might work for other distros.. found a much easier method at a place you should've looked too (like google).. Howto

Ekiga, formerly known as gnomemeeting, is a full SIP Phone as well as a videoconferencing application. It works with usb webcams as well as firewire attached digital camcorders.

I've had good luck using this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Webcam utility to install the latest drivers for many consumer webcams.

IM clients that do video Chat include aMSN and kopete.

the people at Cygwin [cygwin.com] have put together a great version of Linux for the average user to use

Look at the following two links: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/ThunderbirdNewVersion and http://wiki.ubuntu.com/FirefoxNewVersion.
The page on Thunderbird still refers to 1.5rc1, but I think the same instructions apply (with the obvious changes).

Look at the following two links: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/ThunderbirdNewVersion and http://wiki.ubuntu.com/FirefoxNewVersion.
The page on Thunderbird still refers to 1.5rc1, but I think the same instructions apply (with the obvious changes).

>Surely there is a group/company more appropriate than Symantec
>to scrub for bugs?!?

You damn skippy! Matter of fact, it's hard to think of a company which has used more FUD to push their products who could actually be a *worse* choice than Symantec. (Okay, I'm sure we can all think of one company that would be worse...)

What would be cool is if they funnelled the money through something like the Ubuntu bounty system.

In fact in the newest Ubuntu, thats one of the best wireless cards to have....I would love to find an external version for my own use.

I admit I have never used Ubuntu but I have used Debian for many years and guessed it was roughly the same. From the ubuntu site

When you finish your Ubuntu installation your system is immediately usable. You have a full set of business productivity applications, internet applications, drawing and graphics applications, and games. That one CD gives you a very good desktop environment out of the box, with many applications for business, home and personal computer users installed by default.

Does Windows now come with all those application in all those domains installed by default?

Perhaps we have become complacent because every Linux distro comes shipped with a ton of applications. It would be simple enough to make a Linux distribution that has a similar number of default installed applications as Windows.

What about Luminocity? It was an experimental window manager created so that some of the Gnome guys could start work on using compositing and to begin to understand the connection between Opengl and the Linux Desktop.

I wrote a guy to install it if you want to try playing with it. Once you do use it you see what it really is- a tech demo. Its not a full window manager (it does not replace Metacity) and it actually seems that the compositor that is going into Metacity borrows almost nothing from it, so now it seems like it was a fun dead end.

Try it, you will see what I mean.

The site currently lists only Gnome, projects.

Nope.

Nevertheless, they could also put the Ubuntu Dapper bounties on the page.

Also, if someone were to create a gnome-multimedia-server that lets clients control the playlist, and (optionally) puts multiple clients in sync (i.e. put three songs into the playlist on one PC and see the change reflected on another), I'd be willing to donate a 1000 extra bugs. However, it's absolutely necessary that this works with GNOME audio players like Muine and Rhythmbox, with all features enabled (i.e. the server needs to provide tags, album images, etc.). If the guy from the Bounty County site reads this, feel free to add this. For more information, contact me.

Well there is no point just giving the money to the EU so they can have new offices, extra caviar or whatever. What would be better would be for the EU to then donate the money or a portion of it to F/OSS companies (like Ubuntu) or Mandrake or whatever. Also that would hurt MS even more because things like Linux distros would get even better because they could hire more developers and buy more licenses for not open source programs. That would allow them to compete with MS on a much fairer ground, which would make MS much more likely to open it up as they would be basically paying for thier rivals and competitors to expand and become better.

We currently make some money offering certification related services (certifying developers, administrators, applications, and hardware) as well as customisation services (you want your own distro, based on Ubuntu, let's talk). Demand for those services is growing. I'm pretty confident that I can get Canonical to break even on that basis...It's also important to distinguish between Canonical, which is a for-profit services operation, and the Ubuntu Foundation, which has capital from me, on a non-profit basis, to continue Ubuntu's work. With the announcement of the Ubuntu Foundation, I was basically saying "OK, this project has legs, I'll commit enough capital to keep the core going for a long time no matter what happens to me or Canonical". So we have plenty of time to grow sustainability around the project. If you want to help on that front, send work to Canonical next time you need something done with Ubuntu.

Ubuntu looks like it is aiming to be a for profit distro.

I'm amazed how often that rumor comes up. From the Ubuntu Wiki:

Canonical has signed public undertakings with government offices to the extent that it will never introduce a "commercial" version of Ubuntu. There will never be a difference between the "commercial" product and the "free" product, as there is with Red Hat (RHEL and Fedora). Ubuntu releases will always be free.

"...but there is no fucking way I'd tell someone 'Yeah, I'm running Breezy Badger Ubuntu on my desktop'."

Uhhh..

You don't like Breezy Badger? Then say "5.10" instead....

http://releases.ubuntu.com/breezy/ is a/k/a:
http://releases.ubuntu.com/5.10/
(or is it the other way around?).

Also maybe a good massage is in order? You seem a bit uptight..... ;-)

Dude, what the hell are you talking about? Ubuntu comes with mp3 decoders. Gnome just refuses to support them in their players for philosophical reasons, even though one of the decoders is free as in beer and the other is free as in speech, because they object to the patent, even with a free license.

Get your facts straight. The Gnome apps play the restricted formats quite nicely if you have the codecs. It's Ubuntu who can't supply them legally.

Pango-ERROR **: file shape.c: line 75 (pango_shape): assertion failed: (glyphs->num_glyphs > 0)

When I try to run the IA32 version from firefox.com, I get this error.

Pango now depends on Cairo for Firefox's SVG support. Check to see if you have libcairo2.

• http://www.ubuntu.com/
• http://www.ubuntuforums.org/
• http://ubuntuguide.org/

Or get a free Ubuntu Live/Install CD for x86, x86_64 or PPC shiped to you ^.^

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

By the way, yes, it is true that Slackware does have a community that is more than willing to take over if anything bad happens to Mr. Volkerding. (Sorry if this is redundant, but it is true.) As for my own distribution, a good number of packages are indeed hand-built, and it may in fact become independent of Slackware if worst comes to worst. Ubuntu, on the other hand, has stated explicitly that they would be nowhere if Debian were to disappear.

By the way, I will admit that while Shuttleworth does raise a few good points about binary compatibility, I would rather have a distribution that is compatible down to the very last bit with its "parent" – that way, if a package is available for the one system but not the other, one can simply download and install the package that's already available.

For example (correct me if I'm wrong), let's have a package pika which is in Debian but not Ubuntu or Libranet. If Libranet is indeed binary-compatible with Debian like I've heard, I could just download pika from Debian and install it on Libranet. Ubuntu, on the other hand, I'd have to either Google it, or if no one else had the package, build it from source, which can be a mess – especially with my favorite example of wireless drivers, which involve a lot of low-level stuff that can fail pretty easily if done by someone with little experience.

The same thing holds true with Ultima/Slackware, by the way – may as well just put in a quick shameless plug here while I'm at it. Let's say that someone wants FVWM2 on Ultima Linux, which doesn't have it in the default install [because I don't use it much, and Ultima's based mostly on what I use]. Rather than being forced to build it from source or Google it, the user could go to Slackware's site and download the package from there, because FVWM2 is included in Slackware proper. Because I try to develop Ultima to be as close to Slackware as possible, including using the same compiler and glibc versions and all that fun junk, it should work without a hitch.

OK, now to try and get back on topic, the point I'm trying to make is that if I were to choose a Debian derivative, Ubuntu or Libranet, I'd go for Libra. Really is too bad that they're closing... :-(

This is a data capacity issue right now; Ubuntu is bigger than Mepis and can't squeeze everything on a single CD-R. If you download the Ubuntu DVD, it includes an expanded version of the Live CD with more apps, as well as the installer. You need a DVD drive to use it, of course, but as long as you have that hardware and can burn a DVD-R somewhere it works great.

http://us.releases.ubuntu.com/cdimage/dvd/current/ is where the DVD torrent is at.

Recently Nvidia cut off all support in their drivers for TNT cards. There is a solution that Ubuntu has that some other distro lack- a legacy driver. Have a nice day.

I'd use it to download a copy of Ubuntu Linux and burn it to a CD so I could install it over the ad-Supported Windows installation that came on the discount computer I just bought.

And then, having a CD and a machine with a working download capability, I'd never have to do that again.

So what did Microsoft pay for the 1 or two visits its advertisers got to the back of my eyeballs? $4? $8 billion?

Some business models are fat and ugly.

FWIW, one of the developers has finished Breezy (5.10) packages of the final release version.

Stick "deb http://people.ubuntu.com/~doko/OOo2 ./" in your sources.list and it'll upgrade your pre-release to final (with one small bitch about a package being needed, but since its just replacing pre-release with release counterparts, I ignored it :-)

Found this on the Ubuntu Backports forum, don't know if it'll be included in the Breezy Backports repository when it starts up properly or whether it'll just stay as a developer package.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLap tops

there you go

Have been using ubuntu on my desktop and laptop now for over a year.
The realase every 6 months and ship it for free https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ sold it for me.
Ubuntu is also now Certified for IBM DB2 and is moving into Enterprise computing with IBM's certification of Ubuntu as "Ready for IBM DB2 Software for Linux"

Have also helped about 30-35 people get up and running with the help of the cd's live/install x86 64bit machines

http://thepiratebay.org/
Uh, so you mean I can't download it legally?
So, where do I order the free CDs?
well, they aren't free? So what kind of user support comes bundled with the purchase?

Umm, have you checked out help.ubuntu.com? Check out the Ubuntu FAQ Guide for one.

Umm, have you checked out help.ubuntu.com? Check out the Ubuntu FAQ Guide for one.

Funny since Canonical Ltd. will give you Ubuntu CDs for Free.

Our current plan is that the Dapper Drake (Ubuntu 6.04 if we hit our April 2006 release date goal) will be the last of this first "set" of releases. So post-Dapper we have the opportunity to define a new "feel" or overarching theme. It would be unlikely to be... blue. But it might be substantially different to the current Human theme. For the moment, let's stay focused on the road to Dapper, polish up the existing Human theme to the max for that, and then break new ground post-Dapper.

It seems some of your problems might be solved with a little help from the excellent Ubuntu Guide and Ubuntu Forums. Packages like DVD::Rip and avidemux sit in some repos that are turned off by default (at least DVD::Rip is; haven't checked avidemux as I pulled my deb install from a forum user). A quick edit to /etc/apt/sources.list and an apt-get update should help.

Ubuntu Guide has a lot of great tutorials for practical tasks (e.g. -- getting DVD functionality to work, setting up DHCP client, installing nVidia drivers), and any questions I've had not found there I can usually find at the Ubuntu Wiki or the Ubuntu Forums. And it's all pretty much top-notch. The forum people and IRC people are really helpful and friendly too -- I've not encountered any of the sort of snobbery that I found in other distro support forums and channels *cough*Gentoo*cough*.

Totally agree with the kernel bit. One of the first things I do after an Ubuntu install is install a new kernel. So, if any Ubuntu devs are reading this, more kernel options for an install would be greatly appreciated kthx :)

Its not just you; if you look at the last screenshot, you'll see they're still using OpenOffice.org 1.9.129 instead of 2.0.0 which was released over three weeks ago... If you check Ubuntu's entry on Distrowatch you'll see (under "snapshot") that they're still also using Firefox 1.0.7 instead of the nearly finished 1.5

To be fair though, after Breezy was released, a lot of the main people involved with Ubuntu went to Canada to attend UbuntuBelowZero, so they're just now getting back to business ;)

The Ubuntu developers don't make it particularly easy to find, but they do have DVD releases to download, which include much more software than the traditional CD image.

Multiverse apparently, but it seems tahoma isn't there. http://packages.ubuntu.com/breezy/x11/msttcorefont s

"However, can the brown default theme please die?"
Mark Shuttleworth's reply https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarkShuttleworth:
Why is the default desktop in Ubuntu BROWN?
The overarching theme of the first set of Ubuntu releases is "Humanity". This drives our choice of artwork as much as our selection of packages and decisions around the installer. Our default theme in the first four releases of Ubuntu is called "Human", and it emphasises warm, human colours - brown.
Yes, that's rather unusual in a world where most desktops are blue or green, and the MacOSX has gone kitchenware. Partly, we like the fact that Ubuntu is different, warmer. The computer is not a device any more, it's an extension of your mind, your gateway to other people (by email, voip, irc, and over the web). We wanted a feel that was unique, striking, comforting, and above all, human. We chose brown. that's quite a high risk choice, because to render brown your screen has to render subtle shades of blue, and green, and red. Even slight variations from the norm can shift the "brown" substantially. But monitors and LCD screens these days are increasingly of a standard that we felt the risk was acceptable. In Hoary and Breezy we have gone with a richer, redder brown, based on feedback from lower-end laptop and LCD screen users.
Will brown always be the default desktop colour?
Unlikely that ANYTHING will be static forever, given that we expect Ubuntu to be around a long time :-)
Our current plan is that the Dapper Drake (Ubuntu 6.04 if we hit our April 2006 release date goal) will be the last of this first "set" of releases. So post-Dapper we have the opportunity to define a new "feel" or overarching theme. It would be unlikely to be... blue. But it might be substantially different to the current Human theme. For the moment, let's stay focused on the road to Dapper, polish up the existing Human theme to the max for that, and then break new ground post-Dapper.

Yeah, it would've been much better if it was a dragon!

But that wouldn't really fit GNOME, I guess.

"Why isn't there an Xfce version of Ubuntu?"

There is.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu

Seriously, Ubunutu is one of the reasons GNOME has made so much progress recently with users and now we are back to square one with splitting the userbase. Stupid move. I could care LESS which one they choose, just choose ONE.

I guess your probably don't want to hear about Xubuntu then?

On a more serious note, stop. "Back to square one" and "splitting the userbase"? Give me a break. The underlying parts of K/X/Ubuntu remain the same - they all are using the same kernel, can use the same apps, and all of the programs install with the same "sudo apt-get install" syntax (or YOUR CHOICE of graphical installer). How is that splitting? As long as the "guts" of Ubuntu stay consistent and allow me to do what I want, I'm happy with my 5.10 Gnome desktop with k3b and Amarok installed, or switching to KDE and using Synaptic and Firefox.

Or look at it another way - what happens when things don't work "best" in GNOME? For example: this thread on the Ubuntu forums. In order to get some programs working, such as FreeNX, a remote desktop program, an alternate window manager (XFCE 4 in this case) had to be used. If GNOME was the only option, it wouldn't have worked as easily. Having choices about desktop environments allowed this particular project to work, and allowed other people to try it out, (hopefully) leading to further development of FreeNX (which kicks ass, btw). How is that a bad thing?

Try a little research Captain Holier than thou.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/
Newbies are the only people who would go to the Debian site for help with Ubuntu or Debian. Anyone with experience would know that some jerk like you would shout them down for asking questions. The whole idea of Debian was to provide a community for support and growth of Linux and now you want to be bitter because Ubuntu is providing a FREE distro that has become useful and popular because of that community. Try helping them out next time and they may not stay clueless forever.

Learn how to install Linux software yourself, then there's no "vendor lock-in" as you mis-characterize CNR.

IMO its better than expecting Korean teeny-boppers (who have much better things to do with their time) to learn arcane installation techniques in order to play non-free media formats in the varied ways a modern OS does.

The full Linspire may not be free, but you won't have people pulling their hair out linking rtsp:// type protocols to their browser, and getting threatening warnings from their friends when they ask about installing DVD playback wares. And that doesn't even address browser plugins, a sane working sound system (its not just a choice between oss, alsa, esound and arts...but how they and the apps are configured by default), and the sometimes critical nonfree device drivers. You want Flash? You want Java and Real? How about WMV and QT? How about just encoding MP3s???

None of them? Then Ubuntu is perfect. Your neighbors will surely be happy to install AND license everything piecemeal. No wait! Give them OpenOffice to access their media... It's "fully functional"! Or just maybe raw Ubuntu is unsuitable for consumers.

I found a good deal on Linspire, and though I don't use it and much prefer Xandros, I know that any Linux I choose from now on (Ubuntu, MEPIS, etc) I can pull down win32codecs and libdvdcss and still be "licensed". As for integrating that stuff, its still a headache even on Xandros but at least some of the work is already done for me and I'm a grown-up techie who can take care of myself.

Of course, I do dream of having whole nations clamoring to pay me to personally keep their Linux desktops working and configured. But I doubt they would consider it much better than Windows.

click

I think you are arguing a niche case. Software that is not included in the repositories of major distributions falls into one of two categories in the vast majority of cases:
    1) software is in alpha stages, under heavy development, the working code is in CVS, or the code is otherwise not intended for general consumption
    2) software like, for example, tnimage, uses an old proprietary toolkit making it hard to package on a modern system, and/or software like ygl that just isn't used by more than a handful of people and isn't on the radar of the packagers

The vast majority of the software I use (from office suites, to chemical drawing software, to SNES emulators, to compilers, to obscure libraries for doing different kinds of data analysis) are all available in the Debian repository. I just browse/search using the graphical packaging tool (Oh look, there is even an entry under the Administration menu in Gnome) and the software is installed with no problems. I think the reason you find that most Linux users don't care about this is because the packaging system works great >95% of the time (100% of the time if you use only stock applications). There are problems that various people have acknowledged, but it isn't a high priority issue when it works most of the time and there are a lot of other outstanding issues to worry about.

I agree that in cases where there are no packages, software installation is a bit of a pain. As a couple of people have already said, Autopackage is trying to solve that problem. But, as with any tool, the developers have to actually use it if it is going to be an effective solution. If the software falls into one of the above cases, chances are it isn't going to happen, and that just isn't the fault of Linux. The tools are there, but the projects aren't using them. It's just like if a couple of hackers put together a neat Windows program, didn't bother making an MSI installer, and said "Well, just compile this little program, copy a bunch of files here, here, and here, add this registry key...." You wouldn't say that is the fault of Windows. That is a few people not using the tools available.

Oh, and as for cross-distro compatibility, the main Ubuntu guy has a blurb about binary compatibility in his FAQ. Basically, his stance on the matter is that Open Source is about source code. There have been several attempts to get binary compatibility between distros, but it is a difficult process and in the end prevents distros from doing a lot of things that might make them better for the particular groups they serve. If you look at the Linux kernel, they break the ABI all the time, which is a pain for driver developers, but it allows them to fix things that need fixing, optimize things that need optimizing, and to introduce new features. So they focus on maintaining the API and not worrying about the ABI. With a standardized API, drivers can always be recompiled.

Statically compiling applications is one solution that has been used, as in the cases mentioned with Opera etc.... But that has its own problems. In the end distributions have decided to stick with dealing with dependency hell problems rather than static compiling problems.

That's not quite true. https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ It happens to include also OpenOffice.

Windows doesn't "come with everything" because the vendor wants to maintain it's trade secrets and control.

Linux doesn't have to come with everything. The base Ubuntu install, for example, does not come with developer tools. Even if it did, you don't have to use them or install them even. The plus is that if you want to have everything, you can. You have a choice without having to spend money.

Windows requires more money to exersize your choice.

The Google Summer of Code fitted in with northern hemisphere student
timetables.. what about Southern Hemisphere students?

- South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Brazil, New Zealand,
and Brazil (no particular order, and by no means exclusive) are some of the
countries that would have students that could participate.

Maybe Canonical/Ubuntu could run a Southern Hemisphere Summer of Code?
or, in the spirit of open source and open markets, southern hemisphere students
can hook into Ubuntu's bounty program.

http://www.ubuntu.com/community/bounties/view?sear chterm=bounty

A 'do it yourself' summer of code... anyone want to sponsor the T-shirts?

I think Red Hat is doing a lot for the Open Source community, but I think there are enough of us lazy geeks that just want to download a CD .ISO of open source software and be able to freely distribute it without having to change the name just to appease a license agreement.

Once again, this impression is caused by lazy people like myself, who simply download Ubuntu ISOs, burn it to CD, give/sell it with all of the logos in tact to whoever I want, then if they want support, the company sponsoring Ubuntu offers it for an additional fee on an annual basis. This is more OS-Community friendly because it is not only open source and free as in freedom, but it is also easy and free as in beer. Too often people associate Open Source with easy and free as in beer.

Also, let's keep in mind that the Novell is more than likely not pushing their free SUSE Linux, but is pushing the Novell network compelete with Open Enterprise Server and the Novell Linux Desktop. None of which is free. I had it installed on my machine here at work, and the registration process was a pain, they had 5 different license numbers refered to by 10 different names, making me try all 5 numbers until I finally found the one that was tied to their update service. (otherwise I would not have been able to upgrade or patch any software on my system) They are basically doing what Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, and others are already doing, but are charging for it. This turns a lot of us cheap and lazy geeks off, so the "of course" is warranted considering the audience here at slashdot.

Novell is doing what Red Hat and other "enterprise linuxes" do, which is create a service that already exists and is freely available, then charge for it pretending theirs is better quality because they put their logo on the box. While their money and manpower helps, I still see no need to pay to upgrade to OOo 2.0 on my Novell Linux Desktop (through the registration fees when initially installing the OS) when Ubuntu does the same thing and offers cheaper support on a wider array of software.

If anyone can tell which side I'm on, please let me know, because I bounced around a bit too much this post, but I still agree with it all. This is too long anyway so nobody will read it anyway!