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Select no to auto detect our setup.

If the nvidia driver isn't already selected, select it with the arrow keys, hit tab and then enter to continue.

Continue with default options until you are asked if it should use a kernel frame buffer. Select no and continue.

Go ahead and click yes to have it detect the keyboard.

For the mouse use the PS/2 and to emulate the 3 button mouse.

Click yes to writing default files section to configuration file.

Click no for attempting monitor detection.

Go ahead and give your monitor a name.

Now we're at the important part. Scroll down the left side with the arrow keys until you see "1280x800". Hit the space bar to check that box, a little asterisk will appear. Now uncheck all the other boxes, hit tab and enter to continue.

Select medium for setting the monitor up, we're not entirely dumb. Scroll down to "1280x960 @ 60 Hz", hit tab and enter. This might not be nut on, but it'll work. If you're absolutely certain of your screen's max resolution and refresh rate and it's in the list, go ahead and try it. Worst that'll happen is it won't work and you'll have to do this over.

Select yes for writing monitor ranges.

For desired color I chose 24. If you feel like you're getting slow performance you can come back and choose 16 later.
7. You should be in good shape. Run "sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start" and you should come back to the login screen.

I should add that I did not come up with this, I found it here. I hope it helps.

It would be nice, but it is probably not going to happen anytime soon... A few problems would be that some at KDE are still behind KHTML instead of WEBKIT, let alone be interested in a Gecko version. An other problem is that someone (Dirk Muller - http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Firefox+KDE+Integration) already did something like that, but at mozilla you need to do a lot of difficulty to get your code checked-in. He probably wasn't interested in spending days, finding someone. They would give him an CSV account...

The easiest thing would probably websites like the following:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Integrate_Firefox_with_KDE
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=110353

(there are a few more, could find the one I wanted...)

Im a ubuntu user, but i completely agree! its shocking how much support a bunch of freeloaders can get, I get the impression that they get their fixes into Debian but that's about it. I get particularly pissed off when Shuttleworth slags off other distros like novell ( which gave him compiz, which was probably the biggest peak in Ununtu adoption ).

There community was thier strongest asset, but unfortunately either ive reach expert level in about 2 years or more likely the influx of new users has really reduced the effectiveness of the community to the point your more likely to get bad help than good help ( and that's if you even get bad help instead of being told to do something else )*.

The only good thing is thier marketing and ease of use, they do contribute users back to linux, i just hope that these user go on to more productive distros ( i intend to switch to gentoo (not a productive distro i know but im sure they contribute more than canonical) & maybe a RedHat/Novell distro, when i have the time )!

*here is a thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=684739, where i asked for something i know is possible i just need to get it right 1st time ( im more a 3rd/4th time guy when i try stuff ), i got told 1) it was imposible 2) to buy a piece of hardware!

I frankly don't believe you when you say everything's perfect now. That's good, because I never said that. Please make sure you read my post before you begin typing your reply in the future. I will not say that everything is perfect with Linux. Nothing will ever be perfect. I said it is better. Give it another shot. If it doesn't work out of the box, there may some solution you gotta find (I would recommend ubuntuforums.org for support), but isn't that generally the case with computers anyway? Windows always sticks me in a catch-22 situation whenever I reinstall on this machine: The onboard network card is not recognized by XP, so I need to get the drivers from the site (because I forgot to back them up), yet I can't get to the site to get the drivers because I need the drivers to get to the site... I have yet to encounter any operating system where everything worked perfectly out of the box (I have not set up an OSX system on Apple hardware, I hear that's just about as perfect as can be), but things ARE getting better on all fronts. Give it another shot, do not let people tell you things are "perfect" because they are misguided fanboys, and don't go in expecting salvation. Besides, like you said, that was a couple of years ago. Things have changed. Maybe it may still not work for you, maybe it will. We won't know until you try, will we?

There is a thread on ubuntuforums.org with a similar discussion you may want to check out. Keith

I wouldn't bother with this guy - he's an arsehole. See his comments history or his posts on the Ubuntu forums.

Well then lets do what we do best & path around the damage like we did with mp3s. There's already a GUI out for kernel building. Someone add a button for "Build with ZFS support." Isn't it just that simple?

"This is why Ubuntu is more popular then other distributions, because Mark S. has associated Ubuntu with larger brands."

As someone who actually uses Ubuntu and has in the past used (trying some extensively, some still in use) such Linuxen as PCLinuxOS, puppy, DSL, SUSE, CentOS, Mepis, and probably a few others I forget, I think I'm qualified to say that the difference is not just in the branding. I've also developed nothing in Ubuntu nor hold any financial interest in its success. I have used it solely for about 6 months and the last time I booted my XP HDD for any reason was at least 4 months ago. And I really didn't want to like it because of the ugly default shit brown theme, the name and icon seemed like something more appropriate to a Michael Jackson music video than an operating system, and just because it was too popular already. But in the end I succumbed.

Ubuntu succeeds because it is amazingly polished and stable compared to other linux distributions, with a focus on the newbie and a shockingly vast array of software in the repositories that Just Works. No one uses an OS to use an OS, they use an OS for their favorite applications.

If you want help, you are more likely to find success through googling ubuntuforums.org or posting there yourself. This is because the forums are moderated in a specifically newbie friendly fashion where RTFM is banned.

http://ubuntuforums.org/index.php?page=policy

And now network effect is reinforcing the utility of Ubuntu. Basically anything FOSS gets a concerted effort to put it in the repos if it is any good, or a howto gets written for it. And any hardware has someone using Ubuntu having a hack at it to get it to go first.

--(1951:Sat,12 Jan 08:$)-- ./Micropolis
Starting Micropolis in /home/petri/dev/micropolis/micropolis-activity ...
Welcome to X11 Multi Player Micropolis version 4.0 by Will Wright, Don Hopkins.
Copyright (C) 2002 by Electronic Arts, Maxis. All rights reserved.
sh: Syntax error: Bad fd number
sh: Syntax error: Bad fd number
Adding a player on :0.0 ...
Cool, I found the shared memory extension!

Been trying to see if I can fix it, but so far I haven't had a lot of luck. I started a thread on the Ubuntu Forums for Micropolis too.

Look, you gave IRIX and Solaris as evidence that a Linux port of Photoshop made sense. But IRIX and Solaris versions of Photoshop flopped,

Is IRIX still in production? Last I heard SGI stopped building PCs and now concentrates on supercomputers. And what is Solaris' market share? Especially in graphics. But Adobe still makes a version of FrameMaker for Solaris, they even make an educational version. I don't know if all the open source graphics programs available for Linux can also be used on either IRIX or Solaris. However their existence as well as people paying extra for CrossOver Linux to run Photoshop indicates there is a market for Photoshop on Linux. People even jump through hoops to get PS running in WINE. Here's a Ubuntu forum on running PS CS3 in WINE.

I was flamed for this, but I'll state it again: Ubuntu tried PulseAudio by default before Fedora. The Ubuntu developers set it to default in Hoary until a huge flow of bug reports came in. I am curious whether Fedora will suffer the same fate, or if PulseAudio has matured enough from when it was called Polypaudio.

Consequently, Hoary was the release of Ubuntu with horrible audio problems ranging for ESD lag to polypaudio not playing sounds in some programs to OSS emulation causing only one program being capable of playing sounds at a time.

Ha! I've got an OptiPlex G320 and an HP 9000 laptop. You can do a search and find the problems are cross-distribution.

The OptiPlex works just fine with Windows. You can even install Windows XP without the necessity of SATA drivers. No idea how, since it's an SATA hard drive, but it just works. With Linux (and I've tried Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora) none of them recognize the hardware without specific bootloader arguments. And even then when you install, You *must* use LILO. GRUB simply doesn't work.

The HP, well, there are literally no drivers for anything in the damn thing. Often the LiveCD works just fine with the display and the network, but I've never done a default installation and had a usable system. Most often X just pukes and displays a black screen. Mandriva, I think, refused to boot at all. Windows XP, even though it hasn't got any drivers for anything in the default installation, fails safely and displays something usable. The touchpad works (it didn't on several Linux installations) and the display functions (even though it's a horrible 640x480 or 800x600). Then all I need to do is go to HP.com and get drivers, or go to the hardware manufacturer's site and get drivers. I can't do either of those with Linux.

I don't use Linux on these two machines because it's ridiculously difficult to and I get more functionality out of Windows on them for no effort than I do in Linux. I would love to be running Linux on all my systems, but they lack the hardware support I need for even the most basic tasks. Linux doesn't work here.

Ha! I've got an OptiPlex G320 and an HP 9000 laptop. You can do a search and find the problems are cross-distribution.

The OptiPlex works just fine with Windows. You can even install Windows XP without the necessity of SATA drivers. No idea how, since it's an SATA hard drive, but it just works. With Linux (and I've tried Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora) none of them recognize the hardware without specific bootloader arguments. And even then when you install, You *must* use LILO. GRUB simply doesn't work.

The HP, well, there are literally no drivers for anything in the damn thing. Often the LiveCD works just fine with the display and the network, but I've never done a default installation and had a usable system. Most often X just pukes and displays a black screen. Mandriva, I think, refused to boot at all. Windows XP, even though it hasn't got any drivers for anything in the default installation, fails safely and displays something usable. The touchpad works (it didn't on several Linux installations) and the display functions (even though it's a horrible 640x480 or 800x600). Then all I need to do is go to HP.com and get drivers, or go to the hardware manufacturer's site and get drivers. I can't do either of those with Linux.

I don't use Linux on these two machines because it's ridiculously difficult to and I get more functionality out of Windows on them for no effort than I do in Linux. I would love to be running Linux on all my systems, but they lack the hardware support I need for even the most basic tasks. Linux doesn't work here.

If you run many windows-applications under linux via wine, the (windows-)virus threat surely matters. As you usually don't launch wine as root, $malware will only have limited system access, but write access for a wine-run virus on /home/$user can a real pain in the ass :-)

Ok, in IT, there's essentially two paradigms. Microsoft and !Microsoft (which that alone is a sign on how successful MS are).

I talked about this with a friend yesterday, and we noticed that this was a very badly written article that gets basically everything wrong. But that's tech journalism for ya.

Here are some relevant links from his blog:

• Dutch Government and Parliament: Open standards in 2008
• Our governement has seen the light: Open Standards and Open Source!
• Netherlands adopts open-source software <-- the same bad article!
• Thread on ubuntuforums

A solution to the FreeAgent spin-down problem was published on Ubuntu forums back in July 2007: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=494673 It works for me very well. Importantly, it does not disable disk's power control. Instead, it auto restarts the disk whenever needed.

But I think in part the whole idea here is we shouldn't have to fix anything. But it is also a supreme strength of Linux, it will work around such games vendors play.

Because I really don't think Seagate didn't know this. There is enough Linux and Macs out there this was done with some deliberation. Heck, if Michelin only mad tires for Ford, and not GM, Chrysler and others the trade commissions would be on their tail with anti-competitive practices.

In the interim, I will blacklist the devices on my recommendation lists. Besides, I hear there are other problems with them too.

Oh, and of course, a few seconds of searching brought up this link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=494673

Complete with udev support.

A solution to the FreeAgent spin-down problem was published on Ubuntu forums back in July 2007:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=494673
It works for me very well. Importantly, it does not disable disk's power control. Instead, it auto restarts the disk whenever needed.

the problem has been solved, I run VmWare workstation on gutsy with no problems

the solution is here:#
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3558604

I just install VmWare Workstation as normal, when it fails at configuration I run the patch and it does the trick.
It's easy.

1. M2N-E Asus Motherboard + 1 Gbyte DDR2 + AMD X2 5000+ CPU with unlocked clock multiplier. No Graphics card.
2. Antec Nine Hundred case with 450 watt energy efficient PS. 6 Seagate Sata2 500 GB disk drives.
3. APC backup unit with 1000+VA, like the XS1200. APC is the preferred brand, since driver install is easy.

Assemble hardware, and temporarily install a DVD-ROM, keyboard, and graphics card for installation of Ubuntu server. I've used 6.10, 7.04, and 7.10 successfully. Boot your favorite version of alternate install CD of Ubuntu AMD64 server and install it, after partitioning all the disks with small partitions of 1024 cylinders as partition 1, and the rest of the disk as partition 2. Then create RAID1 arrays on partition 1 (partition type FD) of disks A & B, and another RAID1 array on disks C & D. Partition 1 of disk E is a swap partition, and partition 1 of disk F is spare. After creation of the RAID1 array on A & B as /dev/md0, then use this for the root mount point. /dev/md1 on C & D can be used in the future for upgrading to newer releases without having to trash the original on /dev/md0. I don't bother with a LAMP installation, since I want pure file services. I do add DHCP, TFTP, SSH, NFS, and Samba services either during the installation, or after. After a successful install and reboot, then modify the grub menu to set up a serial console. http://www.howtoforge.com/setting_up_a_serial_console

Yank out the DVD, graphics card and keyboard, hook up a serial cable, and verify that it reboots with output directed to the serial port. The whole point of making the server headless is to remove all temptation to run an X-Server on the machine. This way lies madness and disk corruption. Preservation of the data takes precedence over convenience. You can do everything you need via SSH, or in a pinch, with the serial port. After beheading the machine, I usually continue configuration via SSH from another box on the network. Next, create a RAID6 array on the 6 disks using the 2nd partitions, which will give you a little under 2TB of usable storage. RAID6 may seem a bit of overkill, but RAID5 arrays usually have their moment of truth during a rebuild after a drive failure, and this is when unreadable sectors usually rise up and bite you very hard. With Raid6, you still have a margin of error after a disk failure, and we all know it's not a matter of if, but when.

Now install loop-AES. This always requires a build from source code, and instructions can be found on the ubuntu forums . Loop-AES is more complex to install than LUKS, or other linux disk encryption schemes, but the performance and security are the best available. This is why the OS should be in 64 bit mode, since this gives a little faster speed to the AES256 encryption. Creation of a suitable encryption key is covered elsewhere, but I strongly recommend 65 keys, a good random salt value, and a high iteration count on "losetup". I use an iteration count of 2,000,000, which takes about 2 minutes for the CPU to perform. The keyfile & salt value should be stored on an separate USB key, stored in an encrypted filesystem with a different salt value, a high iteration count, and a 20 character strong password. This combination is military grade, and places the weak link of the security chain squarely in your head. In other words, your password and the USB key become the only possible method for recovering your data, so making copies of the USB key is strongly recommended. I keep a copy at the bank, in a deposit box, as well as

UbuntuDupe seems to have a major attitude about Ubuntu. For anyone who doesn't know the story here's why. Basically, UbuntuDupe ran into problems installing Ubuntu and, when he asked for help on Ubuntu Forums, immediately started attacking the people that were sincerely trying to help him. Even with his major attitude the Ubuntu folks still tried their best to help him until they just couldn't put up with him any more. Read it for yourself and you'll see UbuntuDupe's Slashdot postings on Ubuntu in a new light.

Yes, I hate it when the touchpad activates unintentionally. I've always wondered why the engineers don't put the touchpad at the TOP of the keyboard, rather than the bottom? Then it would not be accidentally activated when you are typing? (Hey, I want to copyright, patent, and trademark that idea! :-) You read it here first! :-) Also, linux KDE users have several options:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=50914
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=271052&highlight=disable+touchpad+while+typing

Et cetera...

Non-Annoymous Coward,
Ed Montgomery, Neo-pseudo-noobie-wannabe-laptop designer keyboard engineer

This seems to be the main thread, there are a couple hundred posts now.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=599025

It just screws up the resolution when I use my GeForce 7600 GT.

Are you sure its Ubuntu? I had the same problem two weeks ago with xUbuntu and a no-name el-cheapo monitor. I cast an incantation and then replaced the monitor with a spare SAMSUNG and now have resolution goodness.

BTW,
You should be posting on the Ubuntu forums http://ubuntuforums.org/, not slashdot.

Enjoy,

Exactly. It's a flawed analogy.

Another solution is to block ads via /etc/hosts http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=110440

Here's the fix http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=596602

• 8.42 : is currently *being* released, links are not updated everywhere. But a few google request may bring you to forums where it is already available. For exemple, Phoroinix have published a link to the driver they did test. I think the release is not official yet because of the reported problems with 2.6.23 kernel. The same google search can also bring out patches to circumvent those problems and even howtos about using the new AIGLX for desktop compositing.
• 8.41 : Is the previous release. It was mainly centered around bringing RadeonHD support on linux. Thus some bugs may have managed to slip by with older chipsets. IT IS available on the ATI website. But it comes with a caveat explaining the situation, that this driver is mainly targeting Radeon HD and that it's "use at your own risk" with previous chipset generations. You're still free to try it on X800XL if you want (Phoroinix did it in their).
• 8.40 : is the latest release using the older code base. Currently it is what has been the most widely tested and debugged for older chipset, so that's why it's the first thing you land on.
• There's a nice wiki about ATI on Linux, with distro specific pages, links to the latest bleeding edge versions and such.

Trust me, I was waiting for it too. But the new configuration utility doesn't seem to be working at all for many ATI boards.

So until I can figure out how to fix it (along with a few dozen other Ubuntu users), my secondary display is stuck as a clone of my primary.

The great thing about open source is that if you do a search such as "The greeter application" in a forum you'll get a quick answer on how to resolve issues you have.

Here are a few links I found for your problem.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=585899 - This guy suggests re-configuring X server.. since no one responded I assumed it worked
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/48936 - There is a bug report about this here and lots of suggestions on how to fix it.

It has been exactly 6 days since Gutsy was released and it's great to see people working hard to fix your problem.

If that was a problem with Vista it would be an issue that wouldn't get fixed because it's an upgrade issue and you would most likely be forced to completely re-install your OS. That's why you should use Linux. Of course the choice is up to you. :)

to VOLUNTEERS trying despite his abuse to help him:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=122473

If you're using Ubuntu I'd suggest the Ubuntu Forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/

AFAIK, dual-core processors show up as just one processor to the OS. Otherwise, you'd have to have an SMP-enabled (Symmetric Multi-Processor) kernel, and I'm not sure that the default Ubuntu one does that. The rule so far seems to be one processor slot=one processor as far as the OS can tell, regardless of the number of cores.

I know that AMD64s and the dual-core variety of the same can be run in x86 mode with minimal slowdown. The only big differences are reduced memory size availability (but you probably don't have enough for it to matter) and slightly slower processing of certain very heavy number-crunching activities, like video encoding and such. I assume that Intel's Core Duos can do the same thing. So yeah, you can do x86. I run x86 Windows XP for gaming on my single-core AMD64, for instance.

As for Flash on Gutsy 64, this thread on the Ubuntu forums makes it sound like you just need to type in one command to get it working now.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=575765&highlight=acer+laptop

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=530772

You gonna be a bit more polite, now?

I was flaming you for not taking two seconds of your time to google the answer instead of bitching about it here.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=61049
There you go.
Remember to use a version number that is higher than the ubuntu-desktop that is in your distribution and end your packages version number with a ~, so that it doesn't cause problems when you dist-upgrade.
Good luck.

Things are getting easier and easier in Ubuntu. mp3 codecs are installed automatically the second you try to open an mp3 file, graphic card drivers are installed for you when you first boot up the system. Flash works practically out of the box on every Ubuntu flavour.

I still laugh when people tell me that Linux is hard to use. Yeah, Gentoo is hard to use. But the most popular distros have made leaps and bounds in the last 5 years. A comparison:

After a fresh Ubuntu install on my PC:

• Graphics card is fully functional after a simple two click confirmation of restricted driver install.
• Audigy 2 soundcard works perfectly.
• DLink network card works perfectly.
• Audio players and movie players are installed already.
• Open Office is installed and ready to work.

After a fresh install of Win XP:

• I have to find my graphics card installation CD to install the drivers.
• I have to find my SoundBlaster CD to install the soundcard drivers.
• I need my DLink disc to install the NIC drivers, which can't be downloaded off the internet without a functionning network card, of course.
• I spend a few minutes downloading and configuring iTunes/Winamp
• I then spend another 5-10 minutes installing MSOffice, typing in a very long activation code.

I'll stick with Ubuntu, thanks

It's along weekend up here in Canada, the perfect time to try something fun. After hearing endless praise of Ubuntu I decided to download an ISO and try it out on my G4 Powerbook.

I spent close to a half hour on the Ubuntu web site, on the download page, the Ubuntu home page, the FAQ, and anywhere else that seemed likely and couldn't for life of me find a download link. Searches for PowerPC and Powerbook turned up nothing.

Finally in the Ubuntu forums I discovered that Ubuntu no longer formally supports the PowerPC architecture, that PPC is "community supported", and that judging by the forum comments there some issues even though Apple hardware is pretty much standard from one machine to the next.

Is it too much to ask that Ubuntu add a comment and link on their download page directing PPC users elsewhere?

Really it's stupid things like this that seem to crop up every time I decide to try out Linux.

Know your role.

I'll tell you what, when slashdot gets around to enabling OpenID support, I'll sign up for an account. But since you aren't worth the effort of keeping track of another user/password pair, I will remain Anonymous.

Anyway, I found some resources. Here they are, for posterity:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=122473
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=180444&cid=14936948&pid=14936948&threshold=-1

This guy has very grave attitude problems. To the point where he probably needs clinical help.

1. His comments do rub me the wrong way, not just what he says but how he says it. It was true in the Ubuntu Forums thread, and it's true now. UbuntuDupe is focused on being right, in following the instructions: for example, he says:

   I would have been able to still load Windows (and burn CDs!) if I hadn't followed the HIGHLY RECOMMENDED advice to install GRUB on the mbr.

   So, he wants to show that he is in the right.
   
   When others try to be helpful, they toss out ideas, seeds of a brainstorm that might invoke some sort of suggestion about what might work. However, UbuntuDupe shoots down the ideas. For example:

   Do you have access to date on your hard disk, using a live cd (Ubuntu Live CD). If you do, can you go into your linux partion and post your /boot/grub/menu.lst. It sounds like Ubuntu may have screwed up on you grub install. Error 25 refers to a problem with the Windows part of grub.

   Then UbuntuDupe says:

   I don't have a Live CD. Naive me, I thought that by downloading just the install disc, I wouldn't be locked out of both Windows AND Linux. But it's my fault, really. I should never have believed all that crap about "providing access to all".

   
   This is his response to the very first person trying to help. Other responses to comments are similar, in that while telling erstwhile helpers that their suggestions are not helping, he includes snide remarks about Ubuntu: "Naive me..." or "I should never have believed all the crap," etc. Thus he is discouraging the very people who are trying to help.
   
   I don't think that UbuntuDupe is deliberately being unpleasant toward people trying to help him; it seems like he is simply intrinsically so. I wonder if he interpreted the comments from others, subconsciously or otherwise, as a sort of criticism or a sign that he was not "1337" enough, and became defensive.
   
2. Wasn't this with the Breezy version? Since then there has been Dapper, Edgy, and Feisty, and they're about to come out with Gutsy. Not only has Ubuntu become more advanced and refined, but the community has grown, too. This whole thing is a old news; it's like saying, "I know you'll get a bad experience with Ubuntu! I tried it four versions ago, and I had a bad experience!"
   

Does Ubuntu come with tools to aid administration on a headless server, or would I end up just using the standard Debian ones?

I just want to know if it's a sane choice for what I'm trying to do. I'm most familiar with the Gentoo Way...

now all i need is a version of flash that works consistantly on 64 bit hardware.

You may want to see these 2 links:

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/27/0248218
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=148177

I don't have my screen inverted, but I have a screen flipped 90 degrees to make better use of a second monitor. The second link was exactly what I needed.

Linux, or at least Ubuntu, has bigger problems.

It should not be possible for a fresh install of an OS to not have any video whatsoever.

But try installing the current version of Kubuntu on a Dell Latitude D630. This is possibly the most commonly purchased corporate laptop in the universe at the moment.

But do an install and just nothing ... black screen. Cant even open a terminal. I'm not sure how this is possible. Even windows has a software framebuffer driver that will do 640x480 on anything.

To get past this initial problem, I had to (after consulting with the local linux expert) actually go into the grub boot editor, and remove the /splash from the boot options. Otherwise, no video whatsoever, ever.

At that point, I could get a terminal, but still no X.

So right out of the bat, a standard nvidia video card, and the Intel a/b/g 3945, dont work out of the box. These are the two most common video cards and wifi cards in existence.

The broadcom 43xx gigabit nic was wonky as well, and it would cause error messages to flash across the terminal every 30 seconds or so. Even inside Vim, right across my content! I had to blacklist the drivers there.

And look at the insanity that has to be done to get it working:

http://www.control.aau.dk/~jdn/linux/d630/index.php?id=startside

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=481651&page=12

Video should always work, always, under every circumstance. There is no excuse not to have a generic framebuffer driver to fallback to. There is no excuse for an obscure grub startup setting to stop you from having command line access.

I'm not expecting everything to work out of the box, but there has to be generic fallback drivers.

I will say that the experience once I got the nvidia drivers downloaded and started was outstanding. NVidia makes a really nice script/program to build and install drivers, and fully configure X. That was really nice.

But why do I need the windows driver for my wifi card to use it under linux? Doesnt Intel open source their linux drivers?

Then after all that, everything was flaky and buggy. Gaim/Pidgin would randomly duplicate its own windows. Thunderbird crashes alot. Evolution would just 'disappear' after like the 3rd install wizard screen. No crash message, no warning, no complaint, just 'poof' and its gone.

And its not like I'm doing anything tweaky to install these apps, just apt-get install whatever. Not sure how I could be doing that wrong.

And dont even get me started on standby/hibernate. And how LVM will sometimes decide that it cannot install itself ... because it just cant. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Now ... all that being said, apt-get is wonderful. But honestly ... thats the only really compelling thing I could find with Kubuntu on that 630. Everything else was just a time sink and a royal pain in the ass. I'm sure it'd be better if I had a machine with certified drivers on a disc for everything.

This column is written for mainstream, nontechie users of digital technology. These folks aren't necessarily novices, and they aren't afraid of computers. They also aren't stupid. They simply want their digital products to operate as promised, with as little maintenance and hassle as possible.
Isn't this a contradiction?

No. It means they want their stuff to work with no maintenance and hassle. What's so hard to understand about that?

So, I have steered away from recommending Linux, the free computer operating system that is the darling of many techies and IT managers, and a challenger to Microsoft's dominant Windows and Apple's resurgent Macintosh operating system, OS X. Linux, which runs on the same hardware as Windows, has always required much more technical expertise and a yen for tinkering than average users possess.
Isn't this biased and patronizing? And is there proof of the last claim? I can set up most Linux distros such that a user needs no knowledge at all of Unix. How is that different from OS X?

No. It is the darling of many techies and IT managers because it does its job for people who know how to work it. It does require either a more technical expertise or a like of tinkering, because otherwise you can't get things to work. To get Ubuntu working on my santa rosa macbook pro I need to boot to the terminal, edit a config file, download and install video and power management drivers, then download, compile, and install sound drivers from source. If you truly want Linux to be better, make it so that people don't need to do this. Someone in the Ubuntu forums has started getting wifi info from the community so that auto-detection of wifi can be done, but that is only one aspect of installing Linux. People arn't going to switch from something familiar (Windows) to something foreign (Linux) without that foreign being much better. You may have to download a bunch of exe's and install to get the same thing working in XP, but thats what people are familiar with, so they put up with it.

Lately, however, I've received a steady stream of emails from readers urging me to take a look at a variant of Linux called Ubuntu, which, these folks claimed, is finally polished enough for a mainstream user to handle. My interest increased when Dell began to sell a few computer models preloaded with Ubuntu instead of Windows.
Translation: I'm going to stomp all over you so stop bugging me

No. Thats you putting words in his mouth.

I've been testing one of those Dell Ubuntu computers, a laptop called the Inspiron 1420N. I evaluated it strictly from the point of view of an average user, someone who wouldn't want to enter text commands, hunt the Web for drivers and enabling software, or learn a whole new user interface. I focused on Ubuntu and the software programs that come bundled with it, not on the hardware, which is a pretty typical Dell laptop.
How can he claim to be something he's not?

He's not claiming to be an average user. He's evaluating it from the point of view of an average user.

My verdict: Even in the relatively slick Ubuntu variation, Linux is still too rough around the edges for the vast majority of computer users. While Ubuntu looks a lot like Windows or Mac OS X, it is full of little complications and hassles that will quickly frustrate most people who just want to use their computers, not maintain or tweak them.
Again, lets enumerate what those are[.] Walt? We'll get to those later.

Which he does. Almost immediately ac

The main issue with Gimp is simply that you can't have one window for everything, you always need half a dozens of windows, even if you are just editing a single image, that simply annoys.

The method in this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=bdc43eafb b07fae7210ceb4946c3838d&t=419709
worked perfectly for me.