Ask Ubuntu Founder (And Astronaut) Mark Shuttleworth

Mark Shuttleworth isn't one to rest on his laurels. Founder of Thawte Consulting, Shuttleworth has used the wealth generated by Thawte's 1995 sale to Verisign to start a venture capital firm, to further South African science education (and education in general) with his eponymous foundation, to push for the acceptance of open source software in South Africa, and to become the first citizen of an African country to visit space with his 2002 flight to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz shuttle -- basically, to live life as a Neal Stephenson hero might. His latest project is Ubuntu Linux, a Debian-based distribution designed for ease of use, extensive language support, and thorough cooperation with the larger Debian organization. Mark's agreed to answer questions from Slashdot readers about these projects -- Ubuntu seems to be chief on his mind -- so please add your questions below, one per post (but as many questions as you'd like). We'll forward 10-12 of the best to Mark for his answers, and post them verbatim as soon as they're ready.

Comments

Shuttleworth...

[apanap]

That's a good name for an astronaut I guess... Too bad the shuttle isn't worth flying...

Africa & the world economy

[H_Fisher]

A lot of Americans, unfortunately, focus on the continent of Africa as "poor" or "third world" - which isn't the total truth. How do you think the various nations of Africa (together or separately) will change this image by embracing technology? How are they already doing so?

Re:Africa & the world economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Is he the nigerian astronaut lost in space?
http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stori es/2004/ 05/24/daily45.html

Re:Africa & the world economy

[Anonymous Coward]

It also isn't the total truth that alot of Americans think Africa is poor or third world. Infact, most Americans don't think at all, let alone about poor Africa.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[erroneus]

I think the images burned into our brains of skinny children with flies in their eyes has a lot to do with the image Americans of the U.S. maintain... that at that other stuff we see in National Geographic... something about extreme body mods (plates in ears and mouth, hoops around the neck, scarring and such-like) doesn't do much to help shed the image... then there's the seeming lack of control over the nigerian bank scam... well okay, maybe that doesn't belong since most spam money is to and from U.S. American pockets.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[Anonymous Coward]

South Africa is much different than the majority of Africa. I would not even condiser SA a typical African country.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[mios]

Unfortunately, when you take Africa and look at it through the looking glass of "The World Economy," it is "poor" and "third world."

Though it shouldn't be, should it? If you look in terms of natural resources, Africa is quite rich (which is why, I guess, it was such an attractive target of colonization ... isn't the human nurturing spirit so inspiring!) Now they are in the unfortunate situation of exporting their resources then buying them back after they are 'processed' by the 'developed' world ... I'm not an economist, but I reckon it's quite difficult to strenghen the economy in that fashion.

Africa is rich in culture and /true/ humanity (with the unfortunate exception of a few civil wars and 'ethnic cleansing' .. which we can also thank the colonial visionaries for as well!) ... however that doesn't translate into economic surplus ...

Good book to read, The Shadow of the Sun

Anyway ... embracing technology is a catch 22, though. Before you can rely on the technology, you need to build the infrastructure, and well, how do you do that?

How /do/ you do that? And how do you get/encourage/convice a Country to do that, and that that is the best thing to do, while there is still a need to provide basic necessities such as clean water and health care to other parts of that same country?

On one hand, it's easy to see the importance of adopting and adapting to a technology based/driven economy, but how to leap frog there is a conundrum.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[aldoman]

Sadly, any hope Africa had in becoming a real 'developing' continent, is over thanks to AIDS. Egypt, Tunisia and some other northern countries might 'survive', but AIDS is basically like a nuke to any dreams that sub-saharan Africa has/had.

There is no way that an economy can cope with 40% of it's population (and around 60-75% of it's real labour force) being severely incapacitated, or dead. Think 40% is a bit high? It's not. Botswana will have reached that level by the end of this year or certainly next year. The really tragic thing is that before AIDS was widespread, Botswana was a jewel in Africa - one of the best growing economies.

And before you tell me that generic drugs are the solution, it's not. The current best solution to AIDS is to give people a cocktail of drugs, and keep on hoping that new ones get invented that the virus is not immune to. Sadly, that a) requires huge investment from the drugs companies, which they won't bother with if they are forced to give away all their R&D, and b) there is probably no way that even with generic drugs most people could afford them, especially now that all the 'easy to manufacture' combinations have been made and now it requires advanced production facilities, which are too expensive.

Africa is also a heavily divided continent, with the spread of Islam coming in through the north. Northern Africa is a very different place to central or southern Africa.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[zogger]

It'll get there. Look at zimbawe today, that is what SA will look like in the future. Not sure when, but it will get there.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with a lot of the points above. I come from the Southern African region (Not South Africa) and there is a growing number of IT professionals and a lot of Linux LUGS. One thing thats stifling the use of technology is not it's availability, but local governments. Some governments do not want to see a fledgling IT industry because it gives people freedom of speach and expression particularly the internet. For many people, the web is seen as a medium that people can express their views against their governemnts because to do so elsewhere could have dire consequences.My government charges unbelieavable fees to start businesses such as ISP's or run cybercafes, so that people don't have access to alternative media or new technology. If you can afford to import computer equipment (which many people can't due to mishandling of the economy by most governments) you are almost always guaranteed to have to pay a hundred percent of the value that you bought it for on customs duties. That money is not used to develop the IT industry, it's probably misappropriated for other purposes.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[cindy]

I agree that AIDS is destroying Africa. However, I have friends who work there (for aid organizations) and their efforts to educate Africans about AIDS or to get Africans to change their sexual behaviour has been met with charges of "cultural imperialism". The concept that low-cost (or free) drugs will solve everything is a happy fantasy.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[Anonymous Coward]

(-1, Flaimbait)

Oh, shove off. Our ignorant plebians are just as ignorant as any other country's. They're just less poor, so somehow that means they're expected to be less stupid. Go figure.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Correcting certain misconceptions ...

South Africa, after rejecting their previously
apartheid government, also abandoned their
quest to become a nuclear power. The embargo
of that apartheid government, however, spawned
the development of patents and processes to
convert coal (which they have plenty of) into
gasoline. Both the USA and the PRC would likely
make use of such technology when oil hits $60 -
$65 per barrel.

Nigeria, will soon be the leading IT nation of
Africa (please no 419er jokes). With better
government management, Nigeria could use their
vast oil wealth to create a 1st World country
(presuming G.W. doesn't find an excuse to invade).

Re:Africa & the world economy

[mdfst13]

"The current best solution to AIDS is to give people a cocktail of drugs"

Err...no. The current best solution to AIDS is not to share bodily fluids with someone who has AIDS. In particular, do not have sex with someone who has AIDS. Drug cocktails are not a "solution" to AIDS; they are merely a response.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[armondf]

I am appalled at this writing. I live in South Africa, a country considered to have one of the best democracies in the world. We enjoy perhaps greater freedoms than many western countries. AIDS is not just an African problem, and it saddens me to see that there still exists this perception that AIDS is fundamentally an African problem. The AIDS epidemic is a global threat, and drug companies are doing R&D to combat this disease. The next scheduled crew on the International Space Station is tasked with various biological and medical experiments, including one focusing on research for a vaccination against the virus that causes Aids.

Your comment "Africa is also a heavily divided continent, with the spread of Islam coming in through the north" is rather naive. Most African countries have a large ethno- and religious diversity. In South Afrca, we have various Christian religious groups, as well very large concentrations of Islamic, Moslem and even Jewish Faiths. In fact, one of the successes of South Africa's very highly regarded Constitution is that it does not include factions from specific religions. South Africans (as many other African countries citizens) enjoy freedom both of expression and religion.

It's about time that people from non-African countries stop taking what they see on *old* National Geographic Africa specials as African fact. There are many many Africans who are technologically more qualified than many American PHd's.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[erhnamdjim]

I know it's all very trendy to blame the colonial powers for all the problems in Africa (incidentally, you say that Africa is rich in natural resources when

<sarcasm> everyone knows that the colonialists left Africa a gutted corpse </sarcasm>

), but some problems Africans have made for themselves (I am one, so I'm allowed to talk).

Tribalism in Africa is unavoidable, and there is no way to put down national boundaries that wouldn't have resulted in war and genocide. And since when wasn't hatred and violence part of '/true/' humanity? That rich culture you think so well of is a contributing factor to tribal strife.

Before you can start thinking about how to get a country to move towards bettering their infrastructure, you need to root out the endemic corruption that seems to plague most African countries. A number former colonies have seen their infrastructure get worse since independence because of this.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[erhnamdjim]

Whilst I agree with a lot of what you have to say, I just wanted to correct you slightly about the current infection rate in Botswana - It has actually dropped (by some fraction of a percentage) and we now have only the second highest infection rate in the world (after Swaziland). It may not sound like much, but it does show that we can roll this thing back. And those drugs are definitely helping - The government provides them free to infected citizens.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[famebait]

Sadly, any hope Africa had in becoming a real 'developing' continent, is over thanks to AIDS

In the short term, yes, but further on, I wouldn't know. Many consider the culling provided by the medieval plagues to have been instumental to the subsequent dominant position og Europe and the West. No, not in a Darwinistic sense by refining us, but simply in eliminating overpopulation and freeing up space and resources necessary to build a different society.

This of course in no way lessens the tragedy happening in Africa, and I certainly don't mean to be cynical about it. Just careful in predicting what its effects might be in the long run.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[aldoman]

Like Sudan, an amazing integration of tribal Africa and Islam?

As for South Africa being the worlds best democracy, was it before 1994?

A continent can not survive with 20-40% of it's workforce dying. That is the fact. Did I ever say some African PHDs were worse? No I didn't. I'm not talking about your little house with your security camera's everywhere, I'm talking about the slum a few miles down the road.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[aldoman]

AKA: Within the margin of error. It doesn't matter if it's 38.6%, or 53.56% - either way it's a lot of dying people and a crippled economy.

I do doubt that any drugs can roll this thing back. It can perhaps give us some time, but any more than this is plain optimism.

Re:Africa & the world economy

[sigaar]

Which country is this?

Curious to know - I'm a Southern African too....

Re:Africa & the world economy

[sigaar]

Big problem we have here in S.A. is the way racism has increased [yes: INCREASED] since the ANC came into power. The race card is being used for everything you can imagine, and the president is setting the worst example and being the worst racist imaginable.

Recently some report on AIDS statistics (can't remember the details) by a group doing aid work, was interpreted by our president (who by the way studied at Oxford, so presumably has a clear understanding of the Enlish language) as follows:
White people/the West see black men as savages who have a culture of rape.

Now where he pulled that from, I can't even begin to imagine. Yes, there are many more black people in S.A. who are HIV positive, but then, there are roughly 10 times as many black people in S.A. as white people, so it goes without saying.

How can the country ever get over its past if the president keeps holding on to it?

Re:Africa & the world economy

[sigaar]

"A continent can not survive with 20-40% of it's workforce dying."

Of course it can. Europe survived the plague?

Africa is overpopulated or overpopulating (depending on which way you see it). In every single country in Africa, the largest part of the population is unemployed. And it's not getting any better.

In the history of the world, some or other natural disaster/plague/disease has always kept population under control. I don't think AIDS is any different (although I do have my doubts as to how "natural" AIDS' origin is).

Dear Mark

[stratjakt]

Why does everyone need to copy the Debian tree, and give it a new name? Is it an ego trip, that everyone needs their own distro?

IOW, Why not just contribute to Debian?

Re:Dear Mark

[thephotoman]

Um, they do actually contribute to Debian. Their version of GNOME 2.8 is the one in the Experimental repositories, and yes, it actually works.

However, this is also about giving the developers a paycheck, something that Debian cannot do.

Re:Dear Mark

[Daengbo]

I "upgraded" my Debian Unstable to Ubuntu by adding the repository, so I could get Gnome 2.8 and some of the mods they'd done easily, then removed the repository just as easily to stay with Debian. Everything cool, but my Gnome splash screen says Ubuntu now.

Re:Dear Mark

[rsidd]

Because Debian gives you a choice of "unstable" and "outdated software"? (I use "unstable" quite happily but I can see it would make some people nervous. There's a market for a stable but cutting-edge distribution.) Because "contributing to Debian" means a long, painful "democratic" voting process? Because Debian has a sucky installer and suckier system-management tools?

Have you used Ubuntu or any of the other Debian clones? You'd know the difference.

Re:Dear Mark

[stratjakt]

Fine, then why not work with one of the other clones.

I don't see how 900 000 000 000 competing distros does anything but slow linux adoption down. They're all the same on the inside to someone who started out installing linux by hand (way back before there was any real "distro")

Whoopty do, /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d. The differences on a technical level are so trivial.

Re:Dear Mark

[Jeedo]

Just for the record ubuntu uses the new debian installer, it is simply still in release candidate stage over at debian.

Re:Dear Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't exaggerate. There aren't more than about three billion distros out there, maybe four billion tops.

Re:Dear Mark

[RAMMS EIN]

It's not just an ego trip; it serves a good purpose.

The reason you want to roll your own distro, rather than just contributing to Debian, is that Debian is "The Universal Operating System". Contrary to what this slogan implies, that means it's not perfect for everyone; there are always people who are better served by a special-purpose distro.

Ubuntu is such a distro, and it's advantage over Debian is that it is less flexible, making it easier to understand and use. It's disadvantage is that it's less flexible, making it less adaptable to people's needs, i.e. less universal. It does what it does better than Debian, and what Debian does less well than Debian.

The reason you want to use Debian is that it's a good distro, with solid package management and a huge collection of high quality packages. Ignoring this makes creating a good quality distro much harder - in fact, I find all other distros inferior for this exact reason, but that's just my opinion.

Re:Dear Mark

[mrroach]

FYI, the Ubuntu installer _is_ the Debian (Sarge) installer.

-Mark

Re:Dear Mark

[bubkus_jones]

Yeah, I've tried several Debian clones. Ubuntu was a pain to install, Debian was worse (this was before the "new" installer), I've only booted Knoppix from CD (and, since it gives just about everything except the kitchen sink, useless to me for installing onto my hard drive. It's still the best rescue/admin disc I've ever used). My favourite is still Libranet. It's a good mix of easy-to-install, and up-to-date.

Re:Dear Mark

[Lispy]

Ubuntu uses are very sane (to use the buzzword of the month) defaultinstallation and comes remarkabely close to what I was always looking for in a slick Linux Distribution. I am amazed how Hal and Dbus actually work and what power a clean menu with only a few capable apps can unfold. Ubuntu is awesome, and it could have a very bright future. It's exactly what Lindows failed to be.

Re:Dear Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

How on earth is Ubuntu "a pain to install"? It's so simple you don't have to do hardly anything, sure it's not a pretty interface but it's only pushing the arrow keys a couple times followed by Return (it's nothing like Slackware for those reading) it's extremely fast and simple, it's just text-based until the next release.

Parent is total FUD.

Re:Dear Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it an ego trip?" Man, what kind of a question is that? Seriously, is it supposed to be an interview or a flame war? This is Score:5, Interesting?

Re:Dear Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Score:5, Insightful? This is supposed to be a question for the interview?

Re:Dear Mark

[Mr.Ned]

You're a troll and should be modded as such.

Re:Dear Mark

[bubkus_jones]

Pain to install as in while following all the on screen directions, there were still parts of the install that were unmentioned and still required.

Pain to install in comparison to the Libranet installer that had better hardware detection, an easier, more straight forward hard disk partitioner (with automatic partitioning), graphical package selection (with detailed descriptions of available packages) and a "minimal" install option. Then there's also the trouble I had getting sound to work, and my network card didn't detect (both of which were detected and installed first try, with the adminmenu sound and network configuration tools).

This is not FUD, this is my personal experience, and my telling others the troubles I had, and how it compared to other distros. I have no problems with text based installations (hell, I used Red Hat and Mandrake when they were text based. I had Gentoo up and running on three different systems. I know how to work a text based install).

Just to let you know, Yoper, also installed quite easily, as well as Fedora and Mandrake.

Ubuntu, unfortunately, wasn't easy to install. Maybe it will be in the future, and I'll try it again, but right now, no.

Updated Packages

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu doesn't stick to the official Debian packages, so will you guys make the switch to X.org and Gnome 2.8?

Re:Updated Packages

[DrPascal]

Their first release's big deal was that it was Debian with GNOME 2.8 bundled. So yes, I can answer half of that.

Xorg might still be a good question though.

Re:Updated Packages

[Coneasfast]

it already has gnome 2.8, but still ships with xfree86 as shown in the package list

Re:Updated Packages

[MartinG]

You can find the answers to these using google.

They currently have gnome 2.8 already, but not xorg yet. xorg is planned for the next release.

Re:Updated Packages

[Red Alastor]

X.org will be included in the next version of Ubuntu according to their website.

CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

A while back there was a post on slashdot about official Ubuntu CDs, I ordered a few but have not yet received them. I'm curious when we can expect to receive them? I plan to give a few to friends that are curious about Linux.

Re:CD's

[Jeedo]

They will be send out at the end of november.

Re:CD's

[qopax]

Actually they will be pressed and ready at the end of october, and it should take 2-4 weeks for them to be delivered to your doorstep, if you live in North America, according to some Ubuntu devs on their mailing list.

Re:Astonaut?

[deman1985]

Maybe they're trying to dissolve any connection with the Astro van.

Why Linux?

[Coneasfast]

why not create a freebsd-based distribution, or maybe even an OS designed from scratch for the desktop? you have the resources to do so much. what made you choose linux?

Re:Why Linux?

[RAMMS EIN]

Good reasons for using Linux for Ubuntu:

Linux has a lot of mindshare. It's probably the most popular kernel among computer enthusiasts, and of all open-source Unix kernels it's the most popular in the commercial world. It has lots of contributors, and is backed by large corporations such as IBM. Most importantly, switchers coming from Windows are most likely to know Linux.

Linux is flexible. The number of modules available for the Linux kernel is astounding. Linux has been used on everything from watches and potato-powered web servers to the world's fastest supercomputers. I think neither characteristic is shared by any other open-source kernel.

Linux is well-understood. This kind of relates back to Linux's mindshare, but this point is more a developer's than an user's advantage. People who can hack Linux are ubiquitos. Several documents provide insight in the Linux kernel exist. There is wide-spread knowledge and documentation on developing for the Linux kernel.

Re:Why Linux?

[arose]

Why do only one thing? Haiku OS is in the works, should we all just use the MS OS until than?

Re:Why Linux?

[NonSequor]

For years now, many people and companies have chosen Linux simply because it is more popular than the BSDs. No, it's not really fair, but that's the way it is. Of course, this is also one of the biggest problems Linux has faced in competing against Windows.

While popularity shouldn't be the primary factor in choosing what software to use, it isn't irrelevent. For companies its easier to hire people familiar with popular software. Home users will have an easier time finding someone to help them with Windows than they will with Linux or any of the BSDs.

Re:Why Linux?

[xbsd]

why not create a freebsd-based distribution, or maybe even an OS designed from scratch for the desktop

Because, except for the kernel, Linux is pretty much an OS designed from scratch. Using a *BSD will force you to keep adapting an arcane design forever just top keep up with today's ideas. Li

Re:Why Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Because, except for the kernel, Linux is pretty much an OS designed from scratch.

Err... Linux is the Kernel Not the O/S and it's GNU/Linux. How many times do you have to be told.

Re:Why Linux?

[Lproven]

Why not xBSD: drivers, hardware and software support, expertise and knowledge, polish of existing systems.

Why not a new OS: there are dozens of people doing this. Look at OpenBeOS, Blue Eyed OS, Atheos, SkyOS, Syllable, AROS, etc. etc. The problems are the same as for BSD, but worse: no drivers, no apps, no-one knows how to use them/install them/tweak them/fix them.

Re:Why Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Linux isn't any kind of a new design. All of it's command line userland is an attempt to be like the various Unixes. It's windowing system is a literal port of the X Consortium's reference implementation. It's desktop enviroments are constantly chasing Microsoft's or Apple's offerings, exactly who depends on which of the two most recently showed some eye candy.

How's it compare to Peren's userlinux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bruce Perens seems to have a similar project in picking&choosing (something like "userlinux") pieces of Debian. How does your project compare. Just from the names, it sounds like his is focused more on users and less on businesses.

Re:How's it compare to Peren's userlinux?

[Red Alastor]

He said on Slashdot that user mean that any user can change things in userlinux but that he target more business than home users.

After than, half of the comments were about how silly the name was and that he should have named it something like "businesslinux" or at least something that gives a hint that he targeted business.

I agree that it is a bad name, user is really unclear in that context.

Hmm, I'm an Astonaut

[agent dero]

I live in Aston Hall at Texas A&M, so...I'm an Astonaut TOO!

My question though, is what are the main goals of Ubuntu, I was a member of the ekkoBSD, and we died quickly because of lack of manpower, but moreso from lack of a definied focus.

It doesn't really matter where Ubuntu is today, where do you really see it going?

Re:Hmm, I'm an Astonaut

[Hooya]

hmm... but are you shuttle-worth?

Re:Hmm, I'm an Astonaut

[Anonymous Coward]

05 WHOOP!

Re:Hmm, I'm an Astonaut

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a member of the ekkoBSD, and we died quickly because of lack of manpower

Is that some kind of a post mortem holographic message or what?

"...and world peace!"

[ChipMonk]

With that kind of resume, it seems obvious to me that you take a grand vision of things. Beyond the obvious (learning to tolerate differences, being polyglot), what would you recommend to us lesser beings for furthering the cause of, if not peace, at least a better world for our children?

Re:"...and world peace!"

[tanguyr]

bicycles

So Mark

[Scrameustache]

... what's a shuttle worth nowadays anyway?

Sorry, couldn't resist. : )

Re:So Mark

[EnigmaOne]

...about 300 bucks if you plan on using it as a print/file server under your desk, and about 800 bucks if you're going to beef it up for LAN parties.

Re:Money?

[wankledot]

Post your home address and phone number, and maybe a picture of yourself. Might not get $100, but I'm sure someone on /. will send you something :)

Re:Astonaut?

[SharpFang]

One trully astonishing person!

Re:Money?

[dr_dank]

My question is: Can I have a hundred bucks?

Only if you buy Timothy a dictionary with the word "astronaut" highlighted.

What's so special about Ubuntu?

[Fished]

This is a question that's sure to come up in many different ways, but I'd really like to know what is so special about Ubuntu that its purposes could not be as well served by contributing to the Debian tree? I'm assuming you have your reasons - is it about having control of the packaging, more frequent releases, what? Do you see Ubunutu supplanting Debian someday, or will it just be a branded form of the more open Debian (akin to Fedora/Redhat)?

Also, becoming aware of your financial resources, I can't help but wonder whether Ubuntu is intended to be a money maker, or it seen as a gift to the community?

(My new Athlon 64 system is coming any day now, and I've decided to try Ubuntu first. So far, it looks very nice from afar.)

Re:What's so special about Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to preempt Mr Shuttleworth, but I've read reports that Ubuntu will feed improvements upstream to be considered by Debian developers. As such, I gather it has the potentil to act as an 'incubator' for making the default Debian installation more friendly to the masses. Can Mr S. confirm or deny?

FLOSS jobs

[kanaka]

Do you have any pet projects you are funding
or want to fund that might provide a living for
a software engineer? And on a related note, do the
core Ubuntu developers get paid?

Re:FLOSS jobs

[Daengbo]

The ubuntu home page has a "bounty" section, mostly for Python work, but I don't think that's what you want.

Re:FLOSS jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't waste your questions on things you can find out already.

> Do you have any pet projects you are funding or want to fund that might provide a living for a software engineer?

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/bounty.html

> And on a related note, do the core Ubuntu developers get paid?

Canonical employees do indeed get paid.

Hurdles

[Daengbo]

What were the major hurdles you encountered while developing this Debian offshoot and what sets it apart from the original?

Re:Hurdles

[Anonymous Coward]

Shuttleworth doesn't develop Ubuntu, he wouldn't have a clue about dev issues. He just pays other sto develop it.

Uniqueness..

[turboflux]

Other distributions offer relatively fast and easy installers, as well as pre installed business productivity applications and so forth... What is really unique about Ubuntu, aside from its name?

Re:Uniqueness..

[MmmDee]

I can only add one comment about Debian vs other distros. I'm mostly a Windows person now (outgrew command line stuff back in VMS and Unix days--sorry, but anyone who things console mode is the wave of the future is mistaken), but thought I'd give Linux a try. I was going to try Red Hat since I'd previously downloaded the iso's a year ago, but I've read that Red Hat was becoming too commercial these days and leaning toward becoming "non-standard". So, my first attempt was Suse 9.1 from the downloaded "Personal CD". Sadly, the machine I'm dedicating to this trial is an older Pentium/166/32M/2G. Suse Yast is too much of a memory hog (needs 64MB) to run on that handicapped machine. Tried Suse Yast in text mode...arrrgh. Downloaded Debian (Woody) CD #1 and it installed without problems (generally). Now its package manager is another story. It's my understanding too, that Debian is one of the very few, absolutely completely OSS distros with regard to kernel (obviously) and packages too.

I'm not trying to generate any distro vs distro discussion, just offering one viewpoint on why someone might pick Debian as a starting point.

Now if I can just figure out how to change screen resolution with Gnome/KDE (right-click on desktop certainly doesn't do it).

Re:Uniqueness..

[Daengbo]

In Gnome for me, it's in the Computer menu, under System Configuration --> Screen Resolution. I'm running unstable, not Woody, however.

Re:Uniqueness..

[Anonymous Coward]

outgrew command line stuff back in VMS and Unix days--sorry

So you really forget how to read in old age grandpa?

Re:Uniqueness..

[Anonymous Coward]

Man you are a compleate retard or a newb in the computer world if you are trying to argue that you have outgrown *the comand line stuff*. There is absolutelly no other way to do a *low level* system maintanance or system debuging (even in windoz). Oh and buddy the Unix days are far from being over. Check some server stats if you don't believe me. Also if you are complaining that linux cannot run in graphical mode well on 64mb ram on an ancient machine I would suggest trying to run one of the latest versions of windows on the same configuration. You might have somewhat of an awakening experience.

Oh yeah and if for some reason you were expecting that Gnome or KDE would mimic every dumb idea that m$ has ever introduced just don't. There's alwasy more than one way to get from point A to point B and just because you paid for windows doesn't meant that windows is taking the shortest/best way. Same goes for any other OS/software of cource.

Re:Uniqueness..

[MmmDee]

Hmm, thanks AC for the kind words, you express yourself so eloquently using words like "retard", "windoz", "newb", "M$". My original statement about having "outgrown" text-based commands was simply a reflection upon not personally doing systems-level work anymore. My current job makes me more a computer user than a developer, but if you'd bothered to read my profile, you'd have seen that I hail from a background of systems/driver programming (VMS/Unix) of many years (too many; reams of paper, can you say LA-120, and bloodshot eyes following cryptic dumps in kernel/executive-mode debuggers).

I see the world of computers migrating away from error-prone console commands/programming and moving toward the idea of "concepts" that can be manipulated graphically. Each "concept" can be a tried/tested predicate and our "programming" will be simply (ha) to arrange concepts or include a group of concepts to accomplish higher-level tasks. "Concepts" will NOT be instructions, but rather expressions of ideas/thoughts, along the lines of natural language expression, but without the inherent natural language ambiguity.

You say there's no way to do system maintenance without "low level" commands... well young grasshopper, it wasn't that long ago we were toggling in boot loaders from front-panel key switches and diagnosing system problems by looking at register display lamps on those front panels. So, even "low level" is evolving. I'm just saying it's going to continue to evolve, despite your apparent reluctance.

In my original post, I was simply lamenting (for a Linux "newb") the nature of older hardware and the difficulty of loading some versions of Linux (I'm not the only one to notice this, here's a recent example from a "Linux expert" who discusses Linux/Gnome/KDE bloat here). Incidentally, the machine I described installs and runs Win98 (dual booted w/Debian) without any problems. Yes, it appears to be faster running Debian, but then I don't serve pages on it when running Windows (though I did play with Xampp/apache/php/mysql a bit on this machine). I also recall running VMS on a 6MB 11/780 and thinking it was handling 20 users, several large digital circuit simulations, etc quite well), so the fact that Linux can handle one user on a 32MB machine doesn't impress me much.

Correction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shuttleworth was the second african to visit space.

Dont forget the bravery of starvin' marvin

Cooperation

[dr_dank]

I know that the Ubuntu project cooperates with Debian. Are there any alliances with the other Debian-based distros like Mepis or Knoppix?

Re:Cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any alliances with the other Debian-based

what is this? 'survivor' or something?

Re:Cooperation

[Lproven]

Not that they're talking about publically, no, there aren't.

However, the goals are quite close to those of UserLinux, so some cooperation there might happen some day.

There's not much common ground with general-purpose catch-all Debian-based distros such as Libranet or Knoppix, though, so I see little point in that.

There is some cross-over with commercial efforts like Xandros and Linspire, but being [a] commercial and [b] KDE-based, I see little room for cooperation there.

Why Debian based?

[kanaka]

Why did you choose Debian and not Gentoo as the base
of the Ubuntu distribution? What do you think of
Gentoo in general?

Re:Why Debian based?

[gnu-generation-one]

"Why did you choose Debian and not Gentoo as the base of the Ubuntu distribution? What do you think of Gentoo in general?"

foreach ("Mandrakelinux ", "Fedora", "Knoppix", "SUSE", "Slackware", "Gentoo", "MEPIS", "PCLinuxOS", "Damn Small", "FreeBSD", "Xandros", "Vine", "Yoper", "Red Hat", "SLAX", "Linspire", "Gnoppix", "Feather", "Turbolinux", "Vector", "Aurox", "Lycoris", "KANOTIX", "Arch", "Onebase", "Buffalo", "Sun JDS", "Lorma", "Libranet", "Vidalinux", "Conectiva", "GeeXboX", "Puppy", "Mandows", "Devil", "Ark", "CRUX", "SAM", "White Box", "Yellow Dog")
{
print "Why did you choose Debian and not $_ as the base of the Ubuntu distribution? What do you think of $_ in general?";
}

Re:Why Debian based?

[ThomMay]

http://grumbeer.dyndns.org/ftp/linux/dist/debian/1 .1.1/debian/Debian-1.1.1/Packages - search for Shuttleworth ;-)

Re:Why Debian based?

[lintux]

Because "Ubuntu" stands for "people", and the average "people" won't really be interested in compiling their own operating system together for a 0.5% performance increase...

Re:Why Debian based?

[mrroach]

Oh, I got this one. It's because then people would think that those Ubuntu people were really annoying for always bringing it up in unrelated threads. (Ha, ha, only serious)

-Mark

Re:Why Debian based?

[Lproven]

Because Gentoo is aimed at expert users who want to compile their own code for optimal performance and don't need hand-holding.

Ubuntu is meant to be an easy simple beginner-friendly distro for non-technical users who are unfamiliar with Linux.

There is no common ground between these two.

Re:Why Debian based?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what a fucking idiot.

95% of Gentoo users give the rest a bad name.

Re:Why Debian based?

[grokster]

(extract of debian 1.1.1 package listing):

Package: apache
priority: optional
section: net
maintainer: Mark Shuttleworth
version: 1.0.5-1

Re:Why Debian based?

[grokster]

Why did you choose Debian

See this Debian Weekly News listing thawte.com as a high-profile Debian user...

Re:Why Debian based?

[agraupe]

Just to be clear here... for me (an avid gentoo user), I don't think I can even tell the difference in speed. I might notice it if I spent enough time on another system, but it really isn't important to me. What *is* important to me is the ability to have from-source (therefore more configurable) builds of everything, surrounded by a package management tool at least as robust as apt. Not to mention the fact that every single thing is documented for the most part; I think, even if I switched to another distro, I would still rely on Gentoo for a lot of documentation.

Re:Why Debian based?

[Lproven]

Well...

[1] Source. Why bother? I have no problems installing from binaries if the resolutions are sorted for me. Why use source? Why waste your time compiling? What do you gain? What does "more configurable" mean?

[2] Documentation - and indeed Gentoo in general. Let's put it this way: I've been using & supporting Unix for 15y+, know multiple distros and commercial variants and literally dozens of OSs. I'm not a Linux guru but on computers in general I'm pretty good. My main desktop is Linux.

I spent 2 days+ trying to install Gentoo & I couldn't even get it to boot.

Configurability: a choice of CRON daemons does not a configurable distro make. Let's talk real differences: I'd like to bin the System V init and use the BSD init of Slackware instead. How about that? That's what real customisability means, not a choice of versions of one component.

Documentation: the handholding intro guide doc goes into masses of length about irrelevant parts like boot managers, which don't really matter, and then skims over critical Gentoo-specific stuff like USE flags. I thought it was, generally, not very good at all, and given that I couldn't even install it, my impressions of the distro were - well, unfit to print.

So let it just rest at this: I disgree with your comments regarding Gentoo, or its suitability as the base for a beginner's distro.

Why Debian?

[Daengbo]

With so many distros being offshoots of Red Hat (including my favorite localized one, LinuxTLE), why did you choose Debian over Fedora for your base?

profit?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you plan to make money off something that is free?

Common Efforts?

[meggito]

How are the nations of Africa working together to promote technological growth? Are there any common intiatives in place or will there be or are the nations still working independantly instead of building a common infrastructure? Are the current methods succeeding or do you beleive there should be change to the way the continent is approaching their technological challenges whether they are seperate or cooperative.

Linux in Deep Space?

[Pan T. Hose]

You are an expert on the issues related to promoting Linux and open source software. What do you think should we as a community focus on to make Linux percieved as an operating system capable of reliably controlling space shuttles and space stations? Would you have visited the International Space Station in 2002 if you had known it was controlled by Linux? Would you visit it now in 2004? How in your opinion the perception of Linux among people in big business and politics changed during those years? How do you think it will change in the future and what do we have to do to make it change as you would like it to and why? Also, as a matter of comparison, would you visit a space station controlled by Microsoft? Would you feel safe? Thank you very much for all of the outstanding work you are doing. We need much more dedicated and influential people devoted to the propagation of the free software and open source movement as yourself. Thank you very much indeed.

Re:Linux in Deep Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

make Linux percieved as an operating system capable of reliably controlling space shuttles and space stations

Would you have visited the International Space Station in 2002 if you had known it was controlled by Linux?

Are you saying the Linux kernel has drivers for space shuttles and the International Space Station? I don't see that in the source tree. Woo, that's going to be my next hardware upgrade then!

Let me rehprase that: What the hell are you saying?! The critical systems on these platforms will NEVER be controlled by a mainstream personal computing or mainstream server operating system. They will always be designed from the ground up, hardware and software. The non-critical systems are another issue, but also a non-issue as they have next-to-nothing to do with safety.

Another thing: Read the guidelines next time. ...please add your questions below, one per post (but as many questions as you'd like)

eh?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

WTF is an Astonaut?

Modifications

[Daengbo]

After I installed your distro recently, I was impressed by the attention to graphical detail. The gdm login screen, the default theme and the wallpapers chosen for the desktop were all very nice.

One thing that stood out was the choice to eliminate desktop icons and change the required trash icon into a panel applet. Why was this choice made?

Re:Modifications

[Red Alastor]

Because the most often used icons are always hidden by windows when you need them. Far more convenient to have them in the "Computer" menu IMHO :)

Re:Modifications

[zerblat]

This is answered in the FAQ.

Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Shuttleworth, my question is - what designer drug were you on when you decided to name your Linux distribution "Ubuntu?"

Re:Ubuntu

[pertinax18]

From the Ubuntu Linux Website

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.

The question on every male hetero /.er's mind...

[seanmeister]

Who is the blonde?

Why Arch?

[Anonymous Coward]

On your website, you "encourage [your] developers to keep track of their patches using the Gnu Arch Revision Control System and to publish their patches that way." What made you decide to use Arch instead of Subversion, Darcs, or any of the other new revision control systems?

Re:Why Arch?

[Tony Hoyle]

Arch is actually quite interesting as a concept.. it's a bit too alien for me, though (I had a look at it and couldn't work out what the hell was going on!).

Re:Why Arch?

[Anonymous Coward]

(I'm grand parent for what it's worth.) Just so you know, I wasn't actually asking anything along the lines of "why the hell did you choose Arch? Subversion is so much better". Personally, I like Arch more than subversion or other alternatives, but I thought it might be more appropriate to try to keep the question agnostic. I wanted to simply get an objective response on what advantages Mark saw in Arch.

Re:Why Arch?

[ultrabot]

Arch is actually quite interesting as a concept.. it's a bit too alien for me, though

It's actually quite simple and transparent, conceptually. If you understand "diff" and "patch", and realize that you can apply patches to a version of the file different from the version against which the patch was made, you are all set.

Arch just needs a better interface, but I believe such a thing is in the works...

Re:Do you really think

[jonr]

That is so politically incorrect and funny! I would have given you +1, Funny if I had moderator points! :D

Nice indeed

[Visceral Monkey]

Personally, I've been an avid Gentoo user for the last year or so. I decided to re-install linux on a new machine and tried out Ubuntu first for shits and giggles.

I've decided to stick with it instead of Gentoo now, it's that nice. Ease of use and package availability appeals to everyone, linux n00bs and people use to building their own systems alike. As for the much discused "speed" advantage of Gentoo, my anecdotal observation is that Ubuntu is no slower than Gentoo. I would never have bothered with Debain and the chain of egos that come with it had it not been for this well rounded adaptation of it.

Re:Nice indeed

[i_should_be_working]

this is almost the exact thing i would have written about my transition from gentoo to ubuntu. on the ubuntu forums is a thread asking what distro people used before ubuntu, and most of them used gentoo.

i wonder what the connection is.

Re:Nice indeed

[Visceral Monkey]

I think I know the answer to this. The unavailability of GNOME 2.8 packages in Gentoo for so long caused a lot of Gentoo users to install Ubuntu to at least take a look at 2.8. It's my personal belief that many people liked what they saw and decided to stay with Ubuntu just as I did.

Re:Nice indeed

[thinkninja]

Greenfly needs to make a new page then.

or:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wah. Why didn't you choose *my* favorite Unix clone? Wah.

Arch

[ultrabot]

I read somewhere that Canonical these days employs Tom Lord, of Arch version control system fame and thus funds the development of Arch. Do you have some more far-ranging ambitions regarding Arch *cough* Linux Kernel *cough* than the simple fact that Canonical is using Arch themselves?

Re:Arch

[tlord]

> I read somewhere that Canonical these days
> employs Tom Lord, of Arch version control system
>fame

They do not. What you recall reading is not true.

-t

Re:Arch

[Anonymous Coward]

Arch kicks ass!

thanks a ton

The bottom line...

[Bollie]

This might be a bit of a sensitive issue, but do you plan to make money off this project, and other open source projects eventually, or is the funding a (VERY GENEROUS!) gift to the community? I assume that profitability would be a long long long term (10+ years in the computer industry!) goal of any project, but I get a sense "profitability" is not monetary only in this case.

Re:The bottom line...

[Anonymous Coward]

Their web site answers the question. Ubuntu is going to offer paid support for their distro however the distro itself will stay free and OSS. They are taking the road that SuSE once wanted to go down only I hope they have better luck that SuSE did at collecting revenues and don't have to resolve to the same cheap tricks with a scaled down free distro ans a better one that you have to pay for.

Nominative Determinism

[sepluv]

I think...

www.farcorner.org

[Anonymous Coward]

www.farcorner.org

Third World Telecomms

[bushboy]

Is is possible to bridge the digital divide ?

Going to space or fixing Earth?

[gspr]

As an astronaut, you must been drawn to the mysteries of the universe outside our own planet. But as a South African, you must also feel drawn to the problems facing your home continent (I KNOW this sounds very ignorant and Western, and I'm not trying to say "Africa is a place full of problems", I'm just referring to the huge problems that exist for a large portion of the continent).

Do you think space exploration can be justified when so many people here on Earth suffer? And why?
This is an important question to me, as I dream of space, and definitely think Mankind should explore all we can. However, I am having a moral problem (which I'm just ignoring at the moment, for the sake of continued dreaming) justifying spending huge amounts of resources when billions of people right here on Earth lack access to clean water, and millions are infected with HIV.

Re:Going to space or fixing Earth?

[dustinbarbour]

I know this sounds very ignorant and Western, and I'm not trying to say "Africa is a place full of problems", I'm just referring to the huge problems that exist for a large portion of the continent.

Africa is, in fact, a place full of problems. Africans need to realize that. Don't qualify your remarks when they're absolutely true. And Africans.. Don't be offended 'cause you're not the Garden of Eden. Just remember that every nation/continent has their problems.

Re:Going to space or fixing Earth?

[dustinbarbour]

And as far as the moral dilemma--sorry to double post--don't worry about it. In everything there are winners and losers. The ecosystem depends on the winner/loser dynamic. Humans are a product of that system and remain a part of it. Accept it and make your life as good as possible for yourself 'cause, if you were destitute, no one would care. It's human nature. Why we try to fight it, I don't know.

Re:Going to space or fixing Earth?

[Cragen]

Excellent question. To seque a little, I think topics such as "Ask Famous Persons some Questions" should have the +5 upper limit suspended to let the truly best questions float to the top. Just a thought.

Re:Going to space or fixing Earth?

[TuringTest]

Do you realize that you are opposing almost all ethical systems?

I would say that we try to fight nature's "law of force" because we understand that in a cooperative environment, your own chances to survive are much better.

Re:Going to space or fixing Earth?

[Lproven]

It's simple, really.

Capitalism works better than socialism or communism. Field trials show this.

Capitalism depends on growth; growth requires new supplies of resources and room.

There is nowhere else to grow in the world. It's getting pretty full.

The only way is up.

Short term, it creates money and resources for those on the ground. Longer term, it is the only thing that'll give their kids somewhere to go.

Re:For crying out loud

[Scowler]

There are millions and millions of AIDS cases and genocide in Sudan and massive rape and slavery, and you are worried about some silly comments on Slashdot??!! Unbelievable!

Question about space...

[Ploum]

Flight into space... What a dream..

Mark, has your space flight changed anything in your perception ? Do you see the world differently ? Are your interest in OpenSource and space related ?

Debian packages

[renelicious]

I read that you guys are rebuilding your own version of all the debian packages you use instead of using vanilla debian. Apparently this means that Ubuntu will not work with general debian apt repositories. Is this true? If so, what is the reasoning behind this and will you in the future be considering changing this policy?

Re:Debian packages

[pyros]

Ubuntu will not work with general debian apt repositories. Is this true?

Most pure debian packages will work on an Ubuntu system. You just can't mix apt sources. See my earlier post.

my question for Mark

[Recovery1]

I'm curious to know how business and individuals have responded to the open source campaign you started. Has there been any interesting success or failures that have encouraged/discouraged your campaign?

I'd also be curious to hear from fellow slashdotters who may be from South Africa. How has his push for open source made inroads in the computer community?

I am interested because I recently find myself in a situation where I will be promoting open source in my own community.

Re:my question for Mark

[rooijan]

I'm a South African myself, and Mark Shuttleworth is truly an inspiration to us all. I can't speak too much for what kind of impact he has had on open-source adoption in terms of raw numbers and so forth, but the government has started making serious noises about taking it up, some of which can probably be attributed to our Afronaut's efforts.

He also supports Go Open Source a South African website devoted to promoting OSS. Lots of info is available here about the spread of OSS in SA, if you're interested.

His Shuttleworth foundation also supports other OSS and related projects, such as Digital Coast and various others. Plenty of information can be found at The Shuttleworth Foundation.

Furthermore, he also supports Hip2b2 which aims to encourage schoolkids to take an interest in and study science, and provides tools to allow more of our youth to study science (and indeed to study in general). So many of our schoolkids face crippling poverty and bleak prospects that Hip2b2 might well be some of the most important stuff he is doing. He actually did a roadshow around the country some time ago to try and personally promote the study of science and was very well received. Next to Nelson Mandela, he may well be the most popular and recognisable person in SA today (well, maybe not quite, but I'd like to think he's up there.)

I seem to have written way more than I planned to, but there is so much good stuff you can write about this man. We in SA are very fortunate to have him.

P.S. - did you you know he is also a Slashdot user? He is user markshuttle, with a personal website here.

It may be obvious from this post that I have the utmost respect for this man.

Re:my question for Mark

[Recovery1]

Thanks rooijan.

Re:my question for Mark

[rooijan]

pleasure Recovery1 - anything I can do to push my own little southern corner of the globe, or one of its citizens :-)

Re:Do you really think

[Karn]

Billy Joe, is that you?

Hey, did you and your sister ever settle the child support mess? Did the judge accept the "I'm his uncle not his dad" defense?

Health care open source?

[mspohr]

I do a lot of work in South Africa and other parts of Africa with health care information systems. There is a pressing need for open source information systems for AIDS treatment and also health system management. The existing proprietary solutions are expensive, not suitable, not customizable, and don't build local capacity.

Would you be willing to branch out from education into heatlth care open source projects? I know people in South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia, and other countries who would be willing to participate.

Re:Health care open source?

[Red Alastor]

Somebody already started what you want, it's called GNU Med.

Check their website for more infos : http://www.gnumed.org/

Re:Health care open source?

[mspohr]

There are actually quite a few open source medical projects in addition to gnumed but unfortunately, most of these don't meet the needs of Africa for AIDS treatment and for health system management.

I am asking if Shuttleworth would be willing to support open source health care software that would specifically meet the needs of developing countries.

Re:Health care open source?

[Red Alastor]

What is so different about AIDS in Africa that would need a brand new project ?

Re:Health care open source?

[mykingdomforahorse]

Also look at openemr , an open source medical record management system. (Also on sourceforge .)

Re:Health care open source?

[Tete-a-tete]

One open source health information system, started in South Africa and now active in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, India and Vietnam is HISP. So far it does not specifically target AIDS, but new versions are under development. It would be fantastic if Shuttleworth would channel some of his energy and resources into the creation and spread of open source health care systems.

Re:Health care open source?

[mspohr]

I have worked with the HISP people and they are absolutely spot on! They are now in the process of re-writing their software completely in open source.

(http://sourceforge.net/projects/jdhis/).

I agree that this would be a great place for Shuttleworth to start supporting open source health care in Africa.

/Mark

Re:Health care open source?

[mspohr]

I have been working with OpenEMR to help design modifications to meet WHO guidelines for AIDS care. I identified it as the best platform for AIDS care software for use in Africa.

Re:Health care open source?

[mspohr]

There are a lot of differences in Africa. The disease AIDS is not much different but the available resources for drugs, personnel, training, lab, electricity, communications, etc. are all problematic. The developed world health care packages all assume that you have a much wider range of drugs, lab, and higher skill levels so they really aren't useful in Africa.

/Mark

Re:Health care open source?

[Red Alastor]

I guess that some of these thing can be set in the existing applications. Or maybe a fork of an existing one could fill the need. In any case, the question was : Is a new project started from scratch really necessary.

Re:Health care open source?

[mspohr]

Of course you wouldn't need a brand new project. One of the big advantages of open source is that you can build on what others have done. This is a big attraction for open source in Africa. They can take existing software and tweak it to meet their needs and pass the improvements on.

/Mark

Money

[FortKnox]

Since you have an awful lot of money, how does an average joe, such as myself, convince you to simply give me.... oh.... $500k or so?

Re:Money

[jimand]

Why do you need money? You're already FortKnox.

Ubuntu KDE Support

[twener]

What will the KDE Support of Ubuntu will look like once it's more sophisticated?

Re:Ubuntu KDE Support

[pyros]

What will the KDE Support of Ubuntu will look like once it's more sophisticated?

From the FAQ.

Re:Ubuntu KDE Support

[twener]

What does your posting answer? I'm not interested in the current state but this "more on that".

Stumbling blocks

[Bollie]

My personal view is that there is only two stumbling blocks for Linux, neither of them technical or really solvable without (it seems) large amounts of money for bribes^H^H^H^H^H^Hinvestment. The first is hardware drivers (which might be solvable by throwing money at developers) and the second is patents and associated legal hassles. Would you suggest that we take the battle to the politicians/policymakers eventually? Or do you think that it wouldn't be a problem in the long run?

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[Anonymous Coward]

Every straight male is only interested in white women now?

ubuntu

[visi]

Apart from the Ubuntu Distro what kind of services will you offer, what about support to the local populace?What is your Grand Plan and what kind of support or interest do you have from other local companies?

The Digital Divide

[Rico_za]

Ubuntu, SchoolTool,Translate.org.za are some of the projects you support that seem to tackle the digital-divide head-on. Do you have any views or ideas on how to make Internet access cheaper so more people in developing countries can have access to it? More specific, any plans on convincing the South African government that not over-regulating the telecoms industry will be good for everyone?

Going Debians is succes of failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have an exit plan once your fed up throwing money away on a Debian based company wich is invariably due to failure because debian core eventually catch up to you ?

what make you think you can do better then corel , linspire , mepis , xandros, who are all company going bankrupt or are bankrupt on going Debian ?

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question isn't "Who is she", a far more pressing question for slashdotters is wheres her gallery pages? ;)

What do you think of this idea?

[xutopia]

I switch from distro to distro whenever I find one that is better than the current one. I just moved from Slackware (with dropline gnome) to Ubuntu because of the latest gnome and kernel. My brother is so impressed with Ubuntu that he's switching from Windows. Well he's also partly unimpressed with Windows security. He's currently backing everything up and the transfer of files and all is rather tedious. We thought of an idea to make the process faster and would like your opinion on it.

Would it be possible to have an Ubuntu install CD which checks a Windows or Linux installation, migrates its users/files and "converts" their system to Ubuntu? I realize there are some hurdles to overcome this in the Windows world but it seems feasible from one distro to the next. What do you think of the idea?

Thanks in advance.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[dilute]

Windows I can't help you with, but if you are migrating from one Linux distro to another, just create separate partitions for / and /home. Then, you can switch distribitions, and so long as you keep your /home partition and mount it as /home, many of your settings from the prior installation will simply carry right over.

Of course there may be benefit to backing up /home and starting everything fresh. You may like the default setups in the new distro better than what you had cobbled yourself under the old one. One way to try this out in advance is to run a live CD of the target distribution before installing it.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[xutopia]

There is a tutorial for moving your home on that matter. I used it before but I find that tedious. Imagine if you have 14 users on a workstation and you want to migrate all of them. A little automation could migrate all users in a few seconds. I think Ubuntu would be the distro to introduce such a feature.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[Milton Waddams]

this is why god invented partitioning schemes. i have a 3GB partition for / and the rest of my HD goes under /home so when i switch distros or do reinstalls i don't need to backup.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[xutopia]

I know that! What I'm asking though is how we could automate the process, keeping usernames and password for existing users. Automation is what a computer can do for us and the initial effort here is but a few easy scripts. Wouldn't you like it if you had 8 users on one machine not to have to *re*create the users and migrate manually their data? Sure you can have partitions but the new system doesn't have any idea who uid=102 is anymore.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[W2k]

Sorry, but whenever I see someone switching to a Linux-based distro from Windows because of security, I just wonder where the logic is in that. Linux-based OS are harder to configure and maintain than Windows (that's subjective, but anything requiring console hacking is "harder" to Joe User). Someone who can't keep a Windows box secure will have a harder time keeping a Linux box secure. Someone who can do neither will need qualified assistance running his system no matter what OS he chooses.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[Knuckles]

I don't know whether this is FUD or not, but let me say this: It depends. Sure a user with no clue and a text editor can wreck linux security. The user type you describe however will in all probability not configure fancy servers. Therefore it all depends on the default setup. Most modern distros are much more secure than a default windows installation (which, as a recent study posted on /. found, survives for 20 minutes on the internet when not patched). Ubuntu in particular has a very secure default setup with no unneeded services running.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[xutopia]

The logic is that in Windows you can open an email, without even double clicking the attachement and your computer becomes a spam relay. At least in Linux you don't have such stupid mess. And my brother is certainly capable of installing a firewall in both Windows and Linux.

Anyways if you think that an anti-virus and a firewall is all you need in Windows think again. There are ample proofs that even when "well protected" the Windows system design flaws will make your computer complete hell.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[W2k]

If even a "well protected" Windows system degenerates into "complete hell" due to inherent design flaws, then you may explain why all Windows boxes I administer, both those used by myself and by the people I work for, are working flawlessly after years of daily use.

Obviously your theory of doom fails to account for the fact that in the end, regardless of OS, it depends on the user if the computer works or not. I won't disagree with you if you claim that Windows has a low treshold for "breakage". I will however continue to smack down on the ignorant people who claim that it's "impossible" to maintain a Windows system in working condition for YEARS without a reinstall, even if the system is used heavily and for many different tasks.

This was true even for older versions of Windows, though to a lesser extent; I had a three month uptime on Windows 95 at work, mostly because I only ran MS Office and IE on it. Anything more exotic and it'd probably have crashed. :)

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is easier and way m0re c0mm0n for a windows b0x to be 0wn3d!!!!!!! Chill 0ut buddy, get laid if you can or at least get yourself checked for rabbies or s0methin.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[W2k]

The "recent study posted on /." must have used an old version of Windows. Install the current version (XP w. SP2) and not only is it pretty secure by default, it's also firewalled by default, and will alert the user to new security updates by default.

Your argument is valid for a completely unpatched Windows box, without any sort of protection from the horrors of the 'net. However, it's not quite as bad as some make it sound. Even minimal "protection" like a NAT box (home broadband router) is enough to keep a completely "raw" Windows box safe for long enough to install all applicable updates, anti-virus+firewall software, and a decent browser/mail suite.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[Knuckles]

What shall I say, anecdotal evidence etc. I work in a quite large organisation (15,000 users worldwide) with a pretty tight administration (not fascist though). At my location we have 40 PCs running basically Office, Notes, IE, and Sametime. We have to reimage ca. 1 per month due to random breakage. The WMI subsystem in XP seems to be especially brittle, refusing to work arbitrarily.
In addition, running Adaware shows that it is impossible to keep a box clean that has IE and Internet access

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[Knuckles]

Here is a link to a news report of that study.
As you say, my argument is valid for a completely unpatched Windows box, which covers most PCs you buy at a large retail outlet. No, they won't open up every cardboard box they have on stock whenever there is a new patch. Which means that for the naive it is not possible to go to Walmart, buy a PC, go home, plug in and be safe.

I note that you don't try to insist on your previous point to which I replied, which said "Someone who can't keep a Windows box secure will have a harder time keeping a Linux box secure".

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[W2k]

I haven't felt the need to insist on my previous point because you haven't made any convincing arguments against it. :)

The "unsecure default install" argument is weak because it was only true up until Windows XP SP2, and even before only true assuming no kind of exterior protection (even a weak one such as NAT), and even otherwise not a Windows-specific vulnerability; it's quite easy to find a Linux-based OS which isn't secure by default by today's standards, if you go back far enough in time.

You're correct in that Windows boxes can't be patched while they're sitting in the crates at Walmart. Fine. But Microsoft are handing out free SP2 CD's (which can be installed w/o a net connection) and so any responsible store should be handing those out with new PC's that haven't been previously patched. Also, the fact that you can't patch a box that's sitting in a crate is not a Windows-specific problem. That's true for any operating system. That Linux-based OS don't come preinstalled on many computers isn't (only) Microsoft's fault.

In summary, Windows has the specific issue that up until the last SP, it didn't automatically download patches and didn't erect a firewall by default. This, I won't argue - Windows has been insecure by default. To be fair however, we should judge each OS by its merits of today.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[W2k]

No reimages here in more than two years, all works well. The workstations only run IE, Office and AV/FW software though. Some boxes have more exotic stuff on them but haven't needed reimaging either. The worst we've had was a secretaries' son who came in and installed Kazaa - easily dealt with. I only check each workstation twice per month, Ad-aware only finds tracking cookies... maybe your users need a bit of education on what websites they're best off not visiting? :)

(Btw: We don't use any kind of Internet filter. All users have admin rights on their own machines. The users are all lawyers and their secretaries, which means they're not techies, but they are smart people who do understand information security.)

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[Knuckles]

I haven't felt the need to insist on my previous point because you haven't made any convincing arguments against it. :)

I thought the fact that a current desktop-targeted distro like Ubuntu is very secure out of the box (since there are no services running) was a pretty good point. Maybe it does not mean that it is easier to get secure than a current Windows install, but anyway it is not harder, which is what you said.

Re:What do you think of this idea?

[wasabii]

That's odd. I still have to run adaware to remove spyware from my XP SP2 box. Wonder why!

Scared

[fimbulvetr]

Why are the debian guys so scared of -funroll-loops?

Re:Scared

[Knuckles]

Because they know what they are doing

Is Shuttleworth your real name?

[lashi]

Come on, you made that up when you decided to go into space, didn't you?

Ok, serious question time.

1. Would you support the idea of an African Union. The European Union is generally considered sucessful. Would you consider an African Union similarly promote the interest of Africa and help other African Nations?

2. How do Africans view the Suddanese civil war? The civil war has been ongoing for a number of years and it's only recently pushed to the limelight in the west. Are other African countries interested and have they attempted to help? What about the situiation in Zimbabwe?

3. Are you investing in private space travel? and what possiblities do you see in the future of space travel?

4. Can you loan me some money? See, I got this great start up idea. Can sell you shares cheap... cut me own throat...

Re:Is Shuttleworth your real name?

[pjt33]

See, I got this great start up idea. Can sell you shares cheap... cut me own throat...

Does this start-up involving selling sausages on sticks?

Re:Is Shuttleworth your real name?

[WoKKiee]

There is actually an African Union with an African Parliament.

BTW, I am a South African. In 1999, during my studies at Stellenbosch University (close to Cape Town) I attended a talk by representatives from Thawte. If only I quit my studies and stated working there... (Each of the Thawte employees, including the gardener, got awarded 1 million South African Rand (Probably about US$ 150k at the time)

Re:Is Shuttleworth your real name?

[lashi]

>Does this start-up involving selling sausages on sticks?

To be sure, to be sure, my start-up will also sell dragon-finder on a stick. Guranteed to work or your money back, in person only.

Free ShipIT CD's

[Espectr0]

How much funding do you have assigned to create these free cdroms, and even pay for shipping? I couldn't believe it when i saw it, so i requested 10 cd's, and i live in Venezuela, so this is very nice.

Will this be only available for the current version, since Ubuntu is new?

How do you get support for the less popular work?

[cheros]

Hi Mark, as with any (F)OSS project you're almost entirely depending on volunteers. That's OK for popular projects, but to work on, say, an admin or accounting back-end someone still needs to do the heavy lifting without the promise of the kind of glamour and street cred that the likes of Firefox offer.

Have you found a way to get support for the less sexy projects and if so, how?

Nature theme

[Espectr0]

Who came up with the idea of the nature theme, which included 3 people naked (but not showing anything) in the gnome startup splash screen? Didn't you think the community would respond negatively to it? At least you heard the community and removed them from the final release

Re:Nature theme

[zerblat]

That would be Mark himself. And they weren't actually naked-as-in-no-clothes, only naked-as-in-no-burkhas.

Science Education in South Africa

[Bravus X]

I do a lot of professional development work with science teachers in South Africa. There seem to me to be two key things that will build SA science education: (1) Simple, appropriate resources for laboratory work (2) Teachers' own science knowledge and professionalism Is your foundation focused on either or both of these?

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the blonde.
I'd love to know who the gorgeous woman on the right is!

Everything free - what's the business plan?

[HoserHead]

How does Canonical plan on making money? Ubuntu seems to be completely and utterly free, in both senses of the word. In my mind at least, the 'services will pay for development' business plan for Free Software went out of style when the dot-com bubble burst. How will your company be different?

Re:Everything free - what's the business plan?

[benhurd]

Great questions. Ask this one please.

Re:Everything free - what's the business plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/index_html/view?searcht erm=sponsorship

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[SunPin]

A more important question is: "After putting two hot chicks on the login screen, why did you have to ruin that picture with the dude? Have you considered a Lesbian-based distribution?"

Coordination of intiatives

[marknewlyn]

Education intiatives are crucial for any sustainable development in Africa (and boy do we need it!). Now that Southern Africa has finally exhausted its supply of wars a bloc of (relatively) stable countries has formed. The Shuttleworth Foundation Education division is supporting a large number of small projects (which is good in that they are community based and best able to respond to the needs of their community) but given that many intiatives have overlapping needs (for example educational content) why don't you start a small undertaking to improve coordination between the initiatives you support? Combining projects would just create an administrative mess but there are alternative ways. For example one project (I am unashamedly gonna plug my own project http://www.nongnu.org/fhsst ) could produce the core content which would make the situation significantly easier for other projects. A large pool of resources could be created.

Why GNOME?

[RAMMS EIN]

I think Ubuntu looks very slick, is user-friendly, and works well. In large part, this is due to the use of Debian and GNOME.

I have to wonder, though, why GNOME? You must have considered KDE as well; what made you decide for GNOME?

Just for comparison purposes, I made a separate install using Debian testing and mimicked Ubuntu's package selection, but using KDE instead of GNOME. I compared both installations in terms of startup time, memory usage, responsiveness, integration, and looks. My conclusion: Konqueror is a faster browser than Firefox, GNOME has better themes, KDE has better integration. Other than that, I found systems are both equally impressive (I don't use either one myself).

How did your comparison fare; what were your criteria, and how did both environments score?

Re:Why GNOME?

[justsomebody]

That one is simple:)

Gnome uses HIG, KDE does not. Having 3 separate settings dialogs with god forbid how many pagers for every application is not the way.

Konqueror faster - yeah, maybe but is konq w3c compliant as firefox

Integration - you should check ubuntu bounties, you might read something usefull.

Re:Why GNOME?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I have to wonder, though, why GNOME? You must have considered KDE as well; what made you decide for GNOME? "Because Qt is non-free." "No, that's not true." "Oh, it's not? Damn you ! !"

Re:Why GNOME?

[Lproven]

One answer: there are literally many dozens of KDE-based distros out there. There are few GNOME ones.

Another: as someon who's just migrated from KDE 3.3 (on SuSE 9.1) to GNOME 2.8 (on Ubuntu), GNOME is rapidly pulling ahead in simplicity, speed and elegance. KDE is getting steadily bigger, slower and more complex and that is a *bad thing*. GNOME isn't - it's getting more streamlined, elegant and usable. And right now it feels considerably faster.

The latter is all IMHO but it's an opinion based on lots of use of both systems since they were in their respective versions 1.0.

Re:Why GNOME?

[whichpaul]

I agree, KDE is fine but it's incredibly busy - there are menu options everywhere. Although I don't like everything about GNOME 2.8 it's definitely a more commercial feeling interface than KDE. KDE is good for those who like to tinker.

Re:Why GNOME?

[Lproven]

Agreed.

Tho' I *do* like to tinker, I don't want to *have* to to make it work acceptably.

Mind you, KDE is notably better at desktop accessories like chat programs and so on. GNOME's handling of these is poor - but then, so it Mac OS X's, relatively. OS X 10.4's Dashboard might fix this.

Dear stratjakt

[justsomebody]

don't see how 900 000 000 000 competing distros does anything but slow linux adoption down.

True, but if you'd botter to try ubuntu you'd notice one thing. This is gnome based distro aiming for the same goals as Lycoris and others. And after few minutes I was hooked up. The only downside for now is xfree instead of xorg. But even that is gonna change in next release. I believe that I'm not wrong when I say that it is the most cleaned and polished distro out there (and I tried preview release)

If you'd botter to search for your answer on ubuntulinux.org (or try ubuntu) page it would be easier to understand

But let me outline you:
- Fedora like ^^STABLE^^ release timeline (every 6 months)
- 1 cd setup, and no install options
- synchronized with Gnome releases
- Selected software only
and here why debian:
- Access to debian apt repositories
- Large community

Re:Dear stratjakt

[pyros]

I believe that I'm not wrong when I say that it is the most cleaned and polished distro out there (and I tried preview release)

In some areas, not so much in others. There are quite a few people who have had persistent trouble with CD burning. The Nautilus interface works for just about everyone. But that is really only usefull for burning ISOs and data discs. If you want to do an audio or video disc, then you probably want k3b, and that only works reliably (in Ubuntu) when you run from a root shell. If you don't run from a root shell (as opposed to opening a regular terminal and running 'sudo k3b') then ~/.ICEauthority ends up with the wrong permissions and you can't log back in until you fix them.

- Access to debian apt repositories

Using the debian repositories will most likely break your system. Ubuntu took a snapshot of unstable, and patched/rebuilt much of it. A core set of which is the main and restricted sections of the Ubuntu apt sources. The universe section is apps that have been rebuilt but are unsupported (no updates for security/bugfix in universe). If you add a pure debian repo, you run the risk of having the same package name/version from both the Ubuntu and the debian apt sources, and apt will select one at random. Unfortunately, these packages are likely similar in name/version only as the Ubuntu version has been at least rebuilt against other Ubuntu packages, if not also patched.

If you're just looking for some specific set of pure debian packages which aren't in the Ubuntu apt sources, or maybe the Ubuntu ones are too old, the safest solution is to go through dependency hell and download them manually (the debian debs) and install with dpkg -i.

Re:Dear stratjakt

[arose]

Random? Who had that idea?! Why not have preference options for the repositories, or ask the user?

Re:Dear stratjakt

[Sharth]

you can use apt pinning to give the ubuntu mirror preferance.

Re:Dear stratjakt

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for kicks, why don't try setting up your prefernces correctly.

There are lots of improvements particularly in the init scripts that need to get back into debian unstable. If that happens, and other improvements also get back in, than ubuntu will be able to enjoy the work of thousands of debian people for their "universe". If that does not happen, both debian and ubuntu loss.

In other words we have to chip in and help the improvements get back into debian.

Mod THIS UP!

[Cuchullain]

This is a superb idea, and one that I have often wondered about. Mod this fellow up!

Error in the story

[joeflies]

Verisign acquired Thawte in 1999, not in 1995

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[SunPin]

And call it what: Lesbian Hat, Lesbiantoo, Lesbiandrake, Lesbianutu, Lesbianian?

In their respective order...

--more pleasing to the imagination than "asshat."
--too many useless toys for the average observer.
--orders of magnitude better than the original.
--lesbians for all.
--just "Lesbian" will suffice here.

Dear Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a Shuttleworth?

Re:For crying out loud

[marknewlyn]

These problems are largely caused by the fact that the worst influences of the west (i.e. oil demands, modern weaponry) entered a largely uneducated, tribal society. The AIDS problem can only be solved through education of future generations - this is crucial. ARVs will not solve Africa's issues but hopefully can keep things functioning long enough to raise a well educated generation. Corruption, violence etc. must be eradicated through raising well educated generations in peaceful environments. Southern Africa has achieved relative stability - now is the time for decisive education.

Why choose this over Gentoo?

[otis wildflower]

I'm a happy Gentoo user. Why would I choose this distro instead of Gentoo?

Re:Why choose this over Gentoo?

[ScumericanNazi]

On AMD64 (64 bit), it's no contest. Debian-derived Ubuntu is the clearcut winner. Gentoo, Red-Hat, Debian, Mandrake, they all crash within 1-3 hrs, especially if I do something CPU intensive. My Ubuntu has been going for the last 7 days inspite of all sort of loads... clearly they've done something to make it 100% stable.

I love Gentoo's wealth of packages and Ubuntu does lack in the latest packages esp. on AMD64, ... but Ubuntu keeps the kernel going and that is priority #1.

I am switching my home machines to ubuntu. I think the perfect distro is finally here. and I've always been a Gnome fan, so this is purrfect!

Re:Why choose this over Gentoo?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're happily using Gentoo, then don't bother looking for another distribution. It's been my experience that people who enjoy wasting extra clock cycles under the guise of additional control over packages or better optimizing their systems will never be convinced how wrong they are so I won't bother.

Re:Why choose this over Gentoo?

[mightymik2]

Gentoo dumps you to a command line. There's a steep learning curve there i think. Ubuntu attampts (some more successfully than others) to get you thru the install process better. I ran into a glitch w/ Ubuntu's installer, but i did go and install Sarge. (similar installer). This distro has the potential to bring more people into the LINUX tent. I don't find a command line installation very friendly.

Re:Why choose this over Gentoo?

[warrax_666]

Gentoo [...], they all crash within 1-3 hrs, especially if I do something CPU intensive.

You must be doing something strange or possibly have flaky hardware which Ubuntu doesn't "excercise". Gentoo has been absolutely rock solid on my AMD64 (64 bit) using the recommended gentoo-dev-2.6.8 and gentoo-dev-2.6.9 kernels.

But hey... use whatever makes you happy! :)

Let me answer:

[Anonymous Coward]

She's one dumb fugly american cow.

Why Ubuntu?

[smcavoy]

Why not pour resources into user Linux, or Debian directly? Does the world need another Debian based distro.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[pyros]

Why not pour resources into user Linux, or Debian directly? Does the world need another Debian based distro.

UserLinux is community developed, just like Debian. Ubuntu is company developed. So basically, Ubuntu is the corporately funded version of the same concept that drive UserLinux development (Debian-based, new-to-linux user-friendly, GNOME desktop).

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[smcavoy]

I thought one of the ideas behind UserLinux was that companies could be created specifically to support it.
It seems like their reinventing the wheel

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[pyros]

I thought one of the ideas behind UserLinux was that companies could be created specifically to support it.

Right, outside companies can come to the table to offer support services, but they don't develop/maintain the distribution. Support companies can offer consulting services for any ditribution they want. Debian tends to be too much to bite off for those companies though, hence UserLinux. I don't think Bruce is being paid to develop UserLinux, but his consulting firm will (hopefully) make money supporting it.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[Lproven]

1. Development effort *is* going back into Debian. Many Ubuntu developers are Debian team members.

2. If UserLinux had come along earlier, or Ubuntu later, maybe they would. Maybe they yet will. But for one thing, Ubuntu has clearly been underway for quite some time, and for another, by keeping its efforts within a privately-funded company, it's come a lot further than UserLinux has so far. (Saying this, I don't know when the two projects started.)

Since when is Gentoo newbie friendly?

[RAMMS EIN]

Gentoo is an excellent distribution, and I learned many things about the organisation of GNU/Linux distros from it. However, I think it would be completely unsuitable as a basis for Ubuntu.

Ubuntu clearly aims to be newbie-friendly. Gentoo is clearly not. Just the fact that it made me learn so much kind of proves my point. You don't go and bugger newbies with bootstraps stages and compile cycles.

If you engineer the distro to hide the install stages, it would not be Gentoo anymore. This means that, each time Gentoo is modified, you need to port these modifications to your distro, or fall behind.

If you hide the compilation of packages, you essentially leave people with a system that feels like the current Ubuntu, except that package installation would be really, really slow and resource intensive.

Re:Since when is Gentoo newbie friendly?

[Quattro Vezina]

Ubuntu clearly aims to be newbie-friendly. Gentoo is clearly not.

Since when has Debian been newbie-friendly, either? That's not stopped people from making Ubuntu, MEPIS, Libranet, Xandros, Linspire, etc. It's also not stopped people from making newbie-friendly Gentoo derivatives such as Vidalinux.

Was it worth it?

[jmichaelg]

Two questions:
1)Asking you "was it worth it?" is going to get an affirmative answer regardless of how you really feel so let me ask you, what happened on the flight that made the trip worth $20 million?

2)How much would you pay to go up a second time?

right, but you forgot the link to the webpage...

[1qa2ws3ed]

http://www.lesbian.mine.nu/

mark vs microsoft

[bani]

your foundation is the complete antithesis of everything microsoft represents. how long do you expect it will be before microsoft comes after you?

Multi language

[Anonymous Coward]

Many Linux distributions seem to take hold regionally. Redhat more in the U.S. , SuSE in Europe, Turbo Linux in Asia. Is Ubuntu starting to gain such a hold in Africa? I was also wondering what sort of internationalization problems encounted in supporting African countries.

Completely OT

[^chuck^]

What do you think Red Sox chances are of winning the world series?

Approach

[b4jts]

As someone who promotes the use and development of open-source, do you really feel that in this stage of consumer awareness the best approach is to make an open-source OS?

Many average consumers will not want to take the step away from Windows, even if they hate it. Would it not be wiser to focus on easier markets, such as browsers and office suits for example?

Ideally, wouldn't it be best to help out excisting projects like OpenOffice.org and Firefox with their development?

Gcc and three naked people...

[Baavgai]

I've been playing with Ubuntu for the last month. One of projects for TheOpenCD I had a hand in got onto it, so interest was piqued early.

Questions:

1. I enjoy focused nature of this distro. One desktop, a rather spartan Gnome. No multiple redundant program groups, clean graphic login, etc. However, while I admire this restraint, what is the rationale for not including gcc in the basic install? This drove nuts me when trying to set up VMWare, so had to ask.

2. This may be a small thing, but the default splash screens are not appropriate for some work environments. The three folks holding hands is nice, but the loading screen with said folks sans clothing is not really anything I'd want to install at work. In the states, we may be a little prudish about that sort of thing, but it's still an issue. Any plans for something more professional looking?

3. Will there ever be a time that the Debian source tree will be useless for this distribution?

Corporate Usage

[TheFlu]

I've been a Red Hat/Fedora user for years now, but I decided to give Ubuntu a try, as it had some of the most recent packages included (Gnome 2.8 and Evolution 2.0) by default. Needless to say, I was very impressed by the polish of a pre-release version, and I have switched my workstations at work, and my Linux boxes at home over to Ubuntu.

I was, however, disappointed by the lack of "corporate" tools currently included with Ubuntu. All of our client machines here are currently running Fedora with a customized install script written using kickstart, so when a machine dies,I can pop in the custom install CD and have a blank machine back on the network in 5 or 10 minutes. Are there are plans to include kickstart-like features and NIS support inside of Ubuntu's installation routines? I would switch our entire company over to Ubuntu in a flash if that were the case. I'm sure other companies would enjoy seeing the addition of such features as well.

Re:Corporate Usage

[Red Alastor]

According to the FAQ, it is planned. And it *should* be compatible with Red Hat kickstart if possible.

Required?

[pjt33]

Why do you say that the trash icon is required? I never use mine.

Re:Required?

[Daengbo]

Do you change the default behavior of Nautilus to permanently delete, "rm -Rf .Trash/*" manually, or just waste disk space?

Re:Required?

[pjt33]

I manage files from the terminal. IMO file management isn't a task for which GUIs are well suited.

Re:Required?

[Daengbo]

Then Nautilus is unnecessary for you, in addition to the trash ;)

Re:Required?

[burns210]

why does the GUI, by default(in Mac, Win and Lin) resort to a 'recycle bin' while the CLI straight gets rid of the file? It always seemed awkward that the two system(in Mac and Linux they are very co-existant, Windows hides it as much as possible) would have contradictory processes for deletion.

Any thoughts?

Re:Required?

[Daengbo]

GNU does have a utility, libtrash, which adds a trashcan to the CLI. The processes don't have to be contradictory.

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better, why have people on the login screen at all? I haven't used Ubuntu (have read about it and was considering it after this article until I saw the login screen), but I would consider having such a login screen by default as incredibly poor taste. If it makes you feel any better, I similarly dispise the KDE mascot that shows up on my OS every now and again.

Please, keep it free of any sort of symbolism!

From the look of it...

[Phil John]

...it's a stock photo from one of the thousands of different image corpi, so probably some no-name part-time model who also does the sears catalogue every now and then.

Re:From the look of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

The plural of corpus is corpora. Most Latin nouns ending in -us are pluralized with -i (those are second declension masculine nouns), but there are some exceptions (some third and fourth declension nouns).

Re:From the look of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Go home, Roman!

Re:From the look of it...

[bbc]

Isn't corpus neuter?

Re:From the look of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Re:From the look of it...

[smurfi]

Who says it's a stock photo? I got the impression from the discussion about it that it's been done for Ubuntu specifically, (a) because it mirrors the Ubuntu logo, and (b) because you usually don't find pictures like the other two in the collection in stock image catalogs.

Commercial manned space industry

[sab39]

How closely are you following the nascent commercial space industry (SpaceShipOne, Virgin Galactic, etc)?

How soon do you see private industry making it to orbit?

New User

[erick99]

I don't have a question, but I do have an observation. I am a brand new Linux user with 21 years experience in the Windows part of the world from workstations through networks. I tried and discarded a lot of distro's for my first Linux workstation which is the fourth node on my home wireless network. Ubuntu was the only one that I could load from start to finish without a hitch that also detected the network. I have been very happy with Ubuntu and I am sure as I learn more about Linux I'll understand why I couldn't use the other distro's. Ubuntu is very easy to use and supports a lot of peripherals. I am able to see the shared volumes on the network doing nothing more than browsing to them. I can also use the printer attached to an XP desktop that is on the network. So, for me, Ubuntu was/is a great experience.

Developing nations and Infrastructure...

[kayser_soze]

With Ubuntu's appeal as a totally free distibution that is geared towards easy use, and internalization - it seems ideally suited for use in other less developed countries.

Will you be pushing for Ubuntu as a good, free alternative OS for getting these developing nations computerized?

Also, would you and your company be interested in helping develop the hardware side of the infrastructure problem - i.e. low-cost computers and wireless mesh networks?

It would seem the ideal pairing for both your software ideas and your company's goals.

[C]

Yet Another Distribution?

[squisher]

I am wondering, what was your decision to create yet another distribution?
The short answer is probably that you think something is lacking with the current ones, but I wonder if there really is space besides RedHat,SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, UserLinux, Slackware, etc. What makes you think that you can enter the list of significant distros while i.e. progeny has IMHO not yet received this status?

Thawte root in IE

[Jacco de Leeuw]

How did you convince Microsoft to accept the Thawte root certificate into Internet Explorer (or Netscape for that matter)? Would you say that this was a crucial moment in your career?

Not an astronaut...

[One Louder]

He wasn't an astronaut, he was a space tourist. There's no way he'd have been in space if he hadn't simply paid the Russians for the trip.

Group him with Lance Bass, not John Glenn.

Open source in South Africa

[debio]

I'm a South African ex-pat currently living/working in the US. Still, South Africa is never all that far from my mind (particularly as a northern hemisphere winter rolls in), and I try and keep an eye on developments back home as much as possible. Certainly, your impressive achievements inspire me with no small amount of pride. Very well done, oke!

I know that many slashdotters might be inclined to ask you about Africa, and its myriad problems, as a whole. Perhaps this is somewhat unfair... Although there is an indefinable common African spirit that infuses the whole continent, a more diverse region politically, economically, and technlogically one would be hard pressed to find. South Africa has a GDP of US$456b which is more than 10 times that of the sum of its four neighbouring states, and is comparable to that of the Netherlands at US$461b. Talking about Africa's problems *as a whole* is like asking an American to talk about the problems of North and South America taken *as a whole*.

Still, South Africa is very much a part of Africa, and presents I believe, a glimpse of what the continent can achieve.

So, my question: what is open source adoption like, *really*, in South Africa? I remember during my most recent visit back home, walking into "Incredible Connection" (the South African version of say "Frys Electronics" or "Microcenter" here in the US), seeing row upon row upon row of Microsoft software. When I asked one of the sales people about RedHat Linux, he was totally confused. "I'm not sure about that. Isn't that like an Internet browser for Windows?" was his response. I did manage to find a bundled RedHat hidden away at the bottom shelf at the back of one of the aisles. It was also a major release behind the at-the-time freely available download.

With an attitude like that in one of *South Africa's* leading computer retail stores, what hope OSS for the rest of continent?

Open Source in Government?

[shapr]

Mark, do you have any suggestions for getting Open Source accepted and used by governments and schools, both local and national?

I heard you speak at EuroPython 2004, and you said that coordinated schools were good schools, but that well-funded schools were not necessarily good schools.

Do you have advice on using open source or other resources to bring that coordination to the schools, governments or other civil organizations around us?

Developers & GUI

[identity0]

Interesting project, I have been thinking of trying it out because I use Debian, but would appreciate something that isn't so much "everything and the kitchen sink"-like. However, I am worried about the fact that you use a different apt repository and you don't recomment mixing Ubuntu and Debian packages. One thing I definitely like about Debian is the amount of testing they go through, and I was wondering about how many volunteer developers you have, and how much time you spend on testing the distro?

On a completely different note, do you have any radically different philosophies regarding user interfaces than other distros? All or most 'desktop distros' out there seem to want to imitate Windows or Mac in terms of GUI, sticking to the same types of interfaces with different eye candy. GUIs do not seem to have fundamentally changed since the early 90s. Do you feel that this standardisation is a good thing, or it it mediocrity stifling innovation?

Re:For crying out loud

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations. You have been successfully trolled.

Linux and the Enterprise

[thed00d]

How do you feel about Ubuntu Linux in the enterprise environment? How will security and managability be handled, will you release your own tools for this? or will you use exsisting packages, optimized for Ubuntu? Or is Ubuntu going to be more geared twords the home user, with Redhat gaining in the area of Enterprise desktop viability. Also, as a whole, what is your opinion of linux in the work environment as an enterprise desktop?

Where is the Indian?

[halothane]

The screenshots of Ubuntu show two caucasians and a native African. You are South African, aren't you? You do know that Indians have contributed substantially to South Africa, that the African National Congress was founded by Mahatma Gandhi, that Indians have been part of the struggle against apartheid at the very beginning, don't you?

My question to you is simple. Where is the Indian in the screenshots?

Internet Access in South Africa

[kobus]

Hi Mark,

This is a question combo suggestion.

I'm a programmer from South Africa, working in the Bay Area.

I had dialup Internet in South Africa already in 1994. However since then not much has changed. In fact Internet access is appalling. Its very expensive compared to the average income of middle class, and ISDN or ADSL is just too expensive and at the same time pathetically slow.

Internet access is really holding our country back! I believe it is critical to schools and families to have access to better Internet.

As a South African entrepreneur and someone who is successful in the IT world, have you ever given this problem any thought, or considered starting an initiative to provide better access to the Internet?

Kobus

question

[Anonymous Coward]

Put my name as carey please.

I had a good friend in my undergraduate days, a Maasai, evidently very important in his community, as he owned many cows inherited from his father, and a man who felt a great deal of responsible as a senior member of his community.
He was pashionate about the history of his country, and critical what he percieved as the pervasive beleif that africans are somehow less able then their european counterparts. How much do you feel the negative opinions held by the west about the ordinary african's abilities have held africa back in the technological era?

Ignore the grandparent!

[ultrabot]

They do not. What you recall reading is not true.

Ok. Good to get it straightened out then :-).

Sertain things that bug me about Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

I found out Ubunty about 2 months ago. At the time I had used Slackware as a my primary operating system for over 2 years. Started getting anoyed with the slow aboption of new software in slackware and the way they chose the software that goes in the distro. There were a couple of other factors but my point is that I was looking for a better distro so I gave Ubuntu a shot. Install is easy enought and things work out of the box and if you are comfortable with linux it's a good distro. However, you guys are even further befind slackware in some things. Being the first distro to addopt Gnome 2.8 and project Utopia is a great thing but it's a shame that you are still using XFree 4.3. If you are sticking with xfree86 you should at least go to 4.4 and if not adoption of xorg is way overdue. Don't you think so?

Also my other question is about the choise of distro. Debian has a decent install manager but apt is by no means any easier that rpm to use. The thing that bugs me most about apt is that you have to know the addresses of the servers that host the install pkgs in order to have an easy install option. Unfortunatelly that is not as easy as it sounds. Often you have to do extensive searches in order to find a not very popular package. Ubuntu has their own server so I seriously think that the distro would have worked a lot better if it was based on gentoo. Gentoo is not without flaws either ( the constant config files maintanace ) but the freebsd idea adopted in portage make it worth all the trouble. So, to sum all this up what attracted you to debian and repeled you from rpm based distros and gentoo?

He's not an Astronaut...

[Anonymous Coward]

...aboard a Soyuz, you are a Cosmonaut.

Space tourism

[Tet]

With the X-Prize being won, and interest from Virgin, there appears to be a new era of space tourism about to dawn. Naturally, this will not be without its teething troubles. My question is, how do you think the first fatal accident involving a private spacecraft will affect non-governmental space flight? A minor setback, or years of stagnation as the various authorities refuse to grant launch permits while they try and regulate the industry? If it's the latter (as I expect), what can be done in advance to improve the situation?

Can you borrow me...

[pajeromanco]

ten grand?

As a fellow South African...

[beuges]

... what is your opinion on Telkom (South Africa's only fixed-line telephone operator for those who dont know) and their (government-enforced) strangle-hold on telecomms in SA, especially regarding the astronomical (no pun intended) prices that we pay for internet access? Do you think that 3GB of shaped ADSL traffic is enough per month, and is it worth the almost R1000 (~$150) per month that we are forced to pay for it? Although this isnt related to Ubuntu Linux, is there anything that the Shuttleworth Foundation can do to change or influence the direction that South African telecomms is facing? Perhaps getting involved with the second national operator application, which seems likely to never take off because of new lawsuits everytime some progress is made?

How has his push for open source made inroads ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks,

Mark has made quite a few efforts in the open source arena - most notably (in my opinion) in efforts at putting Linux classrooms down in township schools. See Schools' Linux Users Group that uses K12LTSP - a for-schools offshoot of the parent LTSP project, and chases Fedora. They have done around 70 schools so far - basically a big fat server, a 24 port switch, and a 20 client classroom.

Wizzy Digital Courier is piloting a low-cost internet access system in these schools, initially using overnight dialup using cheap rate phone calls, but enabled to use USB memory sticks to carry data using the UUCP protocol. This means that the price of connectivity can come down to zero, and is not dependent on a wireline telephone company pricing.

Disclaimer:I do wizzy, and I have mod points today so I can post anonymously. Tee Hee.

andyr@wizzy.com

Damaging Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alex Treme (a Ubuntu employee and the main dev behind morphix) has some reservations about the relationship between ubuntu and Debian.

Could ubuntu have a negative impact on debian, are you concerned it might, and if so are you doing anything to prevent/minimize this?

From their website:

[greechneb]

Why does Ubuntu install Gnome by default? Do you support KDE and KDE apps?

The default desktop environment for Ubuntu is Gnome. You will find all the KDE packages you could want in the universe component of Ubuntu. We don't at this stage have the resources to put the same level of post-freeze work into the KDE packages as we put into the Gnome packages.

We are working with the KDE team to collaborate on that, so that Ubuntu will be an excellent platform for KDE users too... more on that in due course.

Re:From their website:

[RAMMS EIN]

You know, I think it would be a bad idea for Ubuntu to try to support both environments. Currently, Ubuntu adheres to the KISS principle, and I say leave it that way.

The advantage of Ubuntu over Debian is that it's a better fit to some users. Trying to be a good fit to all users is only going to make it a less good fit to the users it fits now. "The Universal Operating System" already does this - it fits everyone, though not as well as a specialized system could.

Re:From their website:

[Lispy]

Amen. I think that Ubuntu rocks exactly because it settles for one of the desktop environments. With Slackware dropping Gnome support it fills the gap, and Gnome is a good choice for a modern desktop. Just stick to the KISS principle. Don't try to be like SuSE and all the other distros that "just don't get it!".

this is off the wall...

[zogger]

...but I'll throw it out anyway. There is another SA based product out there that is quite unique and practical, the Baygen windup a spring to get electricity radio. I own two of them and they are quite spiffy. I wonder if Mark is familiar with this product, and if so, has considered or *would* consider to be more accurate, a similar product to have a low priced and easily powered computer "for the masses" which would ship with Ubuntu pre installed?

A computer without software is an expensive paperweight, and software without a computer is an exercise in vapor herding, it's the package deal that is important and what makes a complete product.

Let me tell you why I'm downloading it

[xant]

I'm downloading it right now, and I intend to install it on a couple of different systems in our intranet to see how it behaves as a server and as a desktop.

I am a hardcore Debian fan (in fact, I maintain the aap package in Debian unstable) but I find the installation procedure--in particular the hardware detection--to be junk. I am knowledgeable enough to work around the problems with the installer, but I share the Unix environment at my workplace with people who would be very frustrated at best and completely mystified at worst by the hoops you have to jump through to get some hardware to work.

Knoppix, Gnoppix and things like Morphix all have good-to-excellent hardware detection, but they have only fair-to-middlin' compatibility with Debian packages. By contrast (or so I've been told) Ubuntu uses the unstable Debian archive so it is very compatible.

In Ubuntu I hope to find a system that autodetects hardware, makes it *easy* to install hardware that isn't autodetected (this state of affairs being almost inevitable), has a sensible default set of packages for both servers and desktops, and provides security updates for packages. My interest was piqued when I was told by people I trust that this is indeed the case with Ubuntu.

I'm probably hoping for too much. We'll see how it goes ....

the third world part of the truth.

[Hooya]

"poor" or "third world"

the phrase "third world" has not to do with economics yet it has everything to do with economics. mostly, when most people hear the word, it immediately conjures up a picture of really dire living conditions. the actual meaning of the term refers to the fact that there were two major schools of economic models. the capitilistic and the socialist. "third world" was a way of saying neither.

question

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is the blonde [ubuntulinux.org] and are those real?

Why is Ubuntu so hard to install?

[vertical_98]

Why is Ubuntu so hard to install? I downloaded the CD, I checked the MD5Sums, I read the how-to, and for some reason, it always stalls on BSDUtils.

I'm glad you decided to invest in Opensource, but would a little beta-testing cost that much?

Sincerely
Vertical

Re:Why is Ubuntu so hard to install?

[mightymik2]

The installer can use a little tweaking...mine would stall right at the kernel. I d/l'd Debian 'Sarge' whch uses the same (w/o the tweaks) installer, and now i have Sarge working, even if it's Gnome 2.6, not 2.8.

Standards

[Andrevan]

Linux has encountered difficulty in the commercial sector due to its lack of uniform standards across distributions, or even within one distribution. Is Ubuntu going to help change that, and if so, how?

The Shuttlework Foundation and the West

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Do you see your efforts towards African regional self-sufficiency crossing the interests of the International Monetary Fund, as well as all other such mechanisms for keeping the "Third World" subservient to the Western-governed financial machine?

What is your purpose?

[wamatt]

- Dot com billionaire (Check) - Astronaut(Check) - OSS and education evangelist (Check) So what now Mr Shuttleworth? Do you feel your biggest endeavour still lies ahead or do you feel you've accomplished enough?

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine and I thought about how to make
a very profitable Linux-based distro. We eventually settled on Pornography + Linux ==
PAL (Porn Again Linux), a Linux distro
with either KDE or a Gnome desktop with pornographic themes (you know, like Lesbian themes, Gay Men themes, Group Sex themes.) The
important attributes were
a) Good pictures
b) Good sound effects (Ex. You open an Xterm,
and this beautiful, sultry feminine voice
starts to groan with sexual heat "Oh yeah, Baby.
I like that! Do me again like that!", and when
you log out, the voice cries in frustration
"No! Don't stop! I'm almost there!"

Anyway we figured the porn sites would be the logical distributors and sources of funds for
this commercial distro (Think about all the
forks of Porn Again Linux: PLayboy PAL, Penthouse PAL, Skanky Women PAL).

I know it sounds silly, but I really believe it
would be the most profitable of all the Linux distros: All the GNU software for the hardcore
hackers + all the porno to satisfy the pent up
sexual frustration.

--Johnny

What about content?

[evil ai]

Hi mark, there has been lots of talk about the digital divide and the reality of being on the wrong end of the divide is pretty grim. So it's really encouraging to see you and your organization working so tirelessly too address the situation. the one area i see that could use more attention is that of content. the real value of the internet is access to information. but where does your average south african kid go for locally relevant information, especially kids from our rural areas where language comes into play?

Of Medals and Future plans

[Wise Dragon]

Mark,

A brief google search shows that in 1997 you recieved the Italian Air Force's Long Service Medal. Did this have anything to do with training for space flight, and can you explain how you recieved this honor? Most importantly, do you have any plans to return to space, and when?

Your Fan,

Wise Dragon

Ubuntu target is... ?

[ewanrg]

I'm curious who you see as the Ubuntu target user/audience? It seems that from the ease of use, and "price", that you are trying to target the audience that doesn't care for Microsoft, or that is trying to do things and can't afford Microsoft.

With that, I'm a little curious as to why Ubuntu has chosen Gnome as the desktop? On older machines (such as my HP Kayak), Ubuntu runs passingly well, but simply having an option that probes the machine and then picks a desktop like XFCE or IceWM using a similar theme to the Gnome one would help refurbished/recycled machines really shine.

Similarly, it would seem that there are some software choices that could be tuned as well. As much as I like to use Open Office on my newer machines, selecting a more modest office offering for lower specification machines seems like a reasonable option.

Interested in your thoughts on this...

Re:Ubuntu target is... ?

[Lproven]

ISTM that Ubuntu is a business/corporate-focussed desktop. There is no server functionality, there's good basic productivity/web/email+PIM/chat, there are few games and modest multimedia support. It's a workmanlike OS for basic office/productivity use, or SoHo. It's not a multimedia system or a gaming system, but you can add that stuff if you want.

It's an all-Free answer to Sun Java Desktop System, SuSE Linux Office Desktop or Red Hat Enterprise Workstation. It's much like UserLinux but it's actually here and works now, and that's in the first preview release.

Why another distribution ?

[clarkie.mg]

Why another distribution ? From distrowatch :

DistroWatch database summary

* Number of Linux distributions in the database: 344
* Number of BSD distributions in the database: 9
* Number of discontinued distributions: 42
* Number of distributions on the waiting list: 77

Re:Why another distribution ?

[VAXGeek]

Why another post ? From http://slashdot.org/~clarkie.mg :

Clarkie.Mg post summary

* Number of posts: 197

Isn't 197 different posts enough for everyone?

Ask and Ye shall receive...

[robochan]

Lesbian GNU/Linux
;o)

Ubuntu Linux versus other User Friendly Linuxes

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a number of Linux distributions available or under development such as Xandros, User Linux, Fedora and Linspire which are aimed at desktops, and have as part of their goals the intention of being easier for the non-technical user to use. Aside from price, how is Ubuntu Linux similar, how is it different, and why should we pay any more attention to it than any of the other "user friendlier" distributions?

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not blonde, he's just bald.

Minimal Hardware Install

[DaWorm666]

Have you considered a minimal hardware install version? Something that would run on less than up to date computers, such as Pentium 133's with 500MB and 16M RAM? Something akin to the RULE Project ( http://www.rule-project.org/ ) or VUM:Box ( http://www.vum.at/ ), where older computers can be repurposed to allow more people access to modern technology, without being forced to have the latest and greatest hardware.

Installer

[BeowulfSchaeffer]

Since YAST has been open sourced, why not use it and modify it for your use rather then your present system? For that matter, why Anaconda to Debian that Progeny has and is developing?

Nice distro

[Is0m0rph]

I've been using Ubuntu 4.10 for a couple weeks now. Nice easy install and I haven't had any issues. What made you choose Gnome to focus your resources on rather than KDE?

Do your friends share your interest

[biehl]

I see you live in London wikipedia on you - and I presume that you socialize with friends that are rich and maybe even fellow filantrhopists - do any of they share your interest for IT and open source? Do you seek to make them take interest? (because my favorite projects KDE and Wikipedia could use benefactors of your kind - sorry for the shameless plug - the question was serious. You are the only IT-filanthropist I can think of)

Brain drain and growing the grass-roots

[Isofarro]

Over the last ten years there's been a significant brain-drain of talent from South Africa to Europe and the United States, mostly in medicine and IT. Universities are churning out a succession of high quality graduates into an country unable / or unwilling to utilise those skills - so emigration was inevitable.

Does your long term vision include reversing that exodus - creating an economy whese skills are wanted ?

Its good to see the South African government taking a look at open source solutions. South Africa is a virtual Microsoft monopoly. With open source, there's a far better chance of growing the grass-roots - but is there going to be a future in South Africa for the ever increasing "knowledgeable computer folk"?

Python Everywhere

[eventDriven]

I'm vey interested in your vision for Python in Ubuntu Linux. After up-to-date Debian and Gnome, the Python emphasis is the most compelling feature for me. Could you elaborate on future plans, packages or interfaces for Python in Ubuntu Linux? Thanks.

Ubuntu, South Africa and Microsoft

[theolein]

Hi Mark, I'm a South African living in Europe and am both proud and pleased that a distro started by a South African is getting such good press and that you care about the progress of our country.

While others have asked about the problems in SA related to the Telekom monopoly and the astronomical rates which directly inhibit internet growth in SA, I am interested in your thoughts on the general developing country problem of the abundance of pirated Microsoft software giving Microsoft a cheaply gained monopoly in those countries which it can exploit when the countries' wealth grows. How do you propose to get people, schools and businesses interested in using Linux over Microsoft?

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[Anonymous Coward]

A more important question is: "After putting two hot chicks on the login screen, why did you have to ruin that picture with the dude?

I am gay, you insensitive clod!

Same people, different results?

[xbsd]

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Debian or Ubuntu developers, but I don't understand why you decided to build a team of software "enthusiasts" when thats the common denominator in 99% of the Linux or BSD projects out there?

I mean, don't you think that you had a great opportunity to mix some blood and inject new ideas to the free software movement? Why among a tremendous pool of talented CS engineers, designers & architects worldwide, some of them making great innovations already, you had to choose the same type of people for the same type of distro following the same type of ideas and a 30 year old design philosophy and yet expect to achieve something different?

Just checking.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to know what operating system you are currently running on your laptop?

Furthermore I would like to know, that being on the Advisory Council for President Mbeki, whether concerns about conflict of interest should NOT be raised. After all if the government switches to open source, somebody is bound to make money.

I would also like to know, how South Africans like me can trust you to give the best advice for South Africa, given that you prefer to live in London.

High Level Languages on the Linux Desktop

[mainlylinux]

Hi Mark - I'm a fan of Ubuntu, thanks for sponsoring it. My question is this: Do you have any plans or ideas about the future of higher level managed languages on the Linux desktop? Specifically either .Net, Java, or a homegrown equivalent? I remember there was some talk of this a while back, and I'm really excited to think of how having a portable higher level language with a very large installed developer base might speed application development on OSS. Thanks for your time, Dan

questions

[mcraig]

Hi Mark

First I'd like to say a heartfelt thankyou for helping to pioneer space tourism for the rest of us.

My question is with all the recent SCO debacle and Microsofts increasing concern over Linux are you worried that with Ubuntu you could be stepping into a potential legal minefield ? and is this the reason you chose Debian because of its completely free software roots ?

I'd also be curious to know in what way your looking to support private commercial spaceflight, and when/if you plan to return to space ?

Best of luck with Ubuntu

Non-technical questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for taking the time to read and answer some questions.

1. How can we help with Ubuntu adoption?
2. Is large scale adoption what you want? Why? Why not?
3. Is Ubuntu Lindows/Linspire done right?
4. How many installations do you estimate exist of Ubuntu as of October 1, 2004?
5. How many downloads / CD's have occurred or been shipped?
6. What was your first thought / words when you saw the earth from space?
7. Have you spoken with Mr. Branson re: commercial space flights?
8. Someone said "The world will be a peace when a phone call to the other side of the planet costs no more than a local call". Awareness of essentially free telecommunications is coming, how might you revise this quote?
9. What do you want your legacy on earth to be? Computer/Network access for people at all economic levels?
10. Ubuntu is a Me-Too With-A-Twist kind of product. Is the "Twist" that it will always install on lots of hardware and just work out of the box? That would be great by the way.
11. If I were to write an educational PR piece about Ubuntu, what are the top three solutions that should be emphasised?

Quesiton: why KDE and Gnome?

[Yankel]

Disclaimer: I prefer KDE and Konqurer over Gnome and Nautilis

I installed Ubuntu this weekend and I'm really impressed with the interface - very little tweaking was required (mostly Nautilis) to get things working 'my way.'

I read on Ubuntu.com that you were planning on implementing KDE as a second desktop option, and my initial reaction was "why?"

I think the strength of Ubuntu is its focus. A limited selection of applicationa on an easy to navigate Gnome desktop. Most distros try to be everything for everybody, and stretch their resources too thin to make a meaningful contribution, or arrive at a unique product.

Couldn't "Ubuntu with KDE" be someone else's project? Wouldn't it be better for Ubuntu (and Debian overall) to focus your resources on doing what you do best, Debian integration with Gnome, rather than pleasing everybody?

Re:For crying out loud

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right there was no slavery, war, genocide, etc, etc, in Africa before they were influenced by "the worst of the west (i.e oil demands, modern weaponry)". Also, it's irrelevant that "uneducated tribal societies" in countries in other areas did not produce the same problems when they were exposed to the same "worst influences". The truth is that all Africa's problems are really the fault of western powers. The rapid economic and social advancement of African countries under colonial rule and the subsequent crash back to the Stone Age under independence is coincidental.

CORRECTION: VeriSign bought Thawte in 1999

[securitas]

... Thawte's 1995 sale to Verisign ...

A minor correction.

Thawte was founded in 1995 and had about 35% of the digital certificate market at the time. VeriSign bought Thawte in 1999, turning VeriSign into a virtual monopoly with about 95% of the SSL digital certificate market.

Re:CORRECTION: VeriSign bought Thawte in 1999

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting in the wrong thread we are?

space ?

[sla291]

Hi Mark ! Your trip in space is very symbolic, and means a lot to most people, you know, it's kind of heroic ! (Even if it's becoming usual nowadays with SS1...) So do you plan to link this to Ubuntu ? I mean some humoristic mantra like "Ubuntu, the only distro that comes from space !" ? Regards, and thank you for your commitment to free software among other _great_ things !!

space ? - WELL FORMATTED ONE, SORRY !

[sla291]

Hi Mark !

Your trip in space is very symbolic, and means a lot to most people, you know, it's kind of heroic ! (Even if it's becoming usual nowadays with SS1...)

So do you plan to link this to Ubuntu ? I mean some humoristic mantra like "Ubuntu, the only distro that comes from space !" ?

Regards, and thank you for your commitment to free software among other _great_ things !!

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[dabigpaybackski]

A more important question is: "After putting two hot chicks on the login screen, why did you have to ruin that picture with the dude?..."

Since when is procreative racial deconstruction a bad thing? They're all smiling.;)

Mark, is this story true or or not?

[mav[LAG]]

I don't know if you've heard it or not but if you have then I'd like to know the truth of it.

Once upon a time a very bright young lad decided he wanted to work for a young startup in Cape Town. The Internet was getting big and he thought the company was going places. Ultimately he didn't because his parents talked him out of it - too risky, too far to travel, this startup looked dodgy, blah blah blah.

However this career move (or lack thereof) deprived him of the million dollar bonus that you paid to your employees when the sale to Verisign went through since Thawte was the startup! I hear it left his relations with his parents quite strained.

Keep it up with Go OSS and Ubuntu and tell Craig he needs to work harder :)

Heck, I can answer that one for you.

[Max Threshold]

4, Interesting? Please. How about troll or flamebait?

Forking a distro is not an ego trip. Every distro has a unique purpose or focus, or else it wouldn't exist. Ubuntu's stated goals are different from Debian's. Debian aims for the ultimate reliability. Ubuntu walks the tightrope between stability and cutting-edge eye candy. The result is, IMO, by far the best desktop distro available. Maybe even the long-awaited "Windows killer."

Ubuntu 64 bit Linux.

[Sterling_Aug]

I tried Ubuntu twice during the time I was trying to complete my dual Opteron 64 bit computer.

The first time was a few weeks ago and I had trouble installing it. The second time it installed fine, but there was no support (that I could find) to use the second processor.

Is there any plans on making the Ubuntu kernel SMP capable?

My bigest complaint about the release, is that the install process assumes to much (to make the install simpler in the ads). I would prefer to have more control during the install process to add/remove/change the settings and configurations.

Debian binary incompatible?

[Doc Ruby]

The Ubuntu FAQ says that after building Ubuntu binary packages on a different machine from Debian's, and with possibly different packages/configurations, some Debian/Ubuntu package binary incompatibilities might prevent mixing them in a single installation. Is there a way to plan around this? Although apt-get might not manage separate package archives well enough, can a savvy sysadmin minimize the binary incompatiblity risk to zero, or close enough not to care?

why not use a single CD instead of live & inst

[Anonymous Coward]

- why not just have an install available from the live-CD?

- are you going to do a mini-CD ubuntu?

(this is being posted via Ubuntu from an old StinkPad, Linky Wifi card, etc. - works great!)

I have a better question :^)

[Anonymous Coward]

And on a related note, do the core Ubuntu developers get paid?

Can you please tell us more about IBM's recent purchase of Canonical?

How do I know Ubuntu will survive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in about 2000, I'd been a Debian user for a few years, and was getting a new computer, so I decided to try installing Progeny on it. Progeny was Debian-based, and supposed to be more usable and have shorter release cycles or something like that (sound familiar?).

Before too long, Progeny died. I think they decided that they didn't have the resources to maintain a separate distribution that was much different than Debian. So I had to go back to Debian. Sadly, you couldn't upgrade Progeny back to Debian, so I had to reinstall. Ugh.

So my question is: How do I know Ubuntu will survive? Why am I to believe that Ubuntu will survive longer than Progeny?

Does Ubuntu make any money on their own? How long do you plan to fund Ubuntu out-of-pocket?

If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, is Ubuntu dead too?

Are your bounties for real?

[Anonymous Coward]

I emailed your program manager about one of your bounties a couple months ago, as the page says to do. I've gotten no response of any sort.

Are these bounties for real?

Or do you guys only check your email every 6 months?

Re:For crying out loud

[Scowler]

Better to be trolled than to be a coward.

My comment was a parody of parent, but the parent was removed (even worse than being trolled).

African technologists ignored and unsupported

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

I became an advocate in Ghana for FOSS some time ago. I was just trying to get work done and gain a decent living, somewhere along the line I realized that in order to reach that ordinary goal, a lot had to be done.

I've tried many ways to gain traction but not much luck. It seems that the powers that be, who are in a position to make some difference, such as OSI, are simply not interested.

I think that you obviously have to have had vision in order to get where you are today (with some little luck as well) and I also like to think that I could have done the same, given the right starting conditions (absent in my corner of Africa).

I'd like to make it possible for others after me to have the opportunity of at least having a better chance and have arrived at some ideas.

http://sohne.net/A%20Silicon%20Savannah.ppt
http://sohne.net/WOS3-FreeSoftwareInAfrica.ppt

Perhaps you may find them interesting, perhaps not. Either way, thanks for everything, including Ubuntu.

Influence and leadership

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, I want to thank you for hiring a large number of developers. Eating is good.

The free software community is a meritocracy where technical skills and good taste naturally rise to the top. These natural leaders attract support of those who share in their vision, or see a way of scratching their itch. If the leaders get out of hand, developers say sod off and go elsewhere.

You come in with a bunch of money and some stated good intentions.

How can we be certain of your taste, since that will inevitably be a factor in who you fund or hire? I firmly believe that the strength of the free software movement is due to its distributed non-centralized nature.

Derek

Where's my CDs?

[drinkypoo]

I ordered several Ubuntu CDs as per your suggestions and, well, they never showed up. Did the demand simply exceed the supply? Or are you still shipping them out, slowly?

Re:Where's my CDs?

[jonasj]

According to #ubuntu on irc.freenode.net: Give it a couple of weeks, and your CDs will be there.

Security issues of Debian

[meridian]

When will we see... Signed Binary packages By Default gnupg checking of Release.gpg files Cokers SE Linux policy packages configurable during install Default chrooting and ran as a user for standard services such as Bind and ntpd Use of Kernel Capabilities and userspace tools patches already available but unmerged to drop unnecessary permisions by default in programs such as tcpdump and ntpd Use of propolice within gcc Updated libpam-cracklib installed by default for strong passwords Ability to run portmap only on loopback for local programs that require portmac (eg libdrac) Installation of TLS by default for services where this is avaialable (such as the creation of files /usr/lib/ssl/cert/ftpd-rsa.pem and /usr/lib/ssl/private/ftpd-rsa-key.pem to get TLS working in proftpd) User supported but vendor managed daily updated "rules" packages for things such as snort/clamav signatures, and spamassassin/razor lists

just a minor one really

[l3v1]

Two questions.

1. Why do you think Ubuntu is better than Debian. I'm an old-timer Debian user, I also tried Ubuntu (as I have tried many other distros over the years, and do so continuously as my time permits), but I don't see any reason I or anyone else should choose Ubuntu over Debian specifically. Please convince me.

2. Why isn't Ubuntu able to set itself up normally on a pretty regular (really nothing unusual in it at all) x86 pc with a single ide hdd and specified xfs-formatted partitions with grub ? Grub just hung itself, I restarted the install (ctrlaltdel-d the darn thing after >30 minutes (!)), chroot-ed on a console, installed lilo, but all I got was a kernel panic when it tried to mount my root.

I also tried rc versions of 4.1 earlier, which installed nicely on ext3 but it had package problems I didn't have time to check after.

All in all, I consider myself pretty skilled in linux and not just in setting up some distro from around the block. But Ubuntu just couldn't convince me.

You try :)

Giving it to Verisign

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you feel about delivering a monopoly to Verisign?

Python

[thisfred]

As I understood from your talk at Europython 2004, one of the goals for what since then has turned out to be Ubuntu, was a Python layer, that would allow novice programmers to easily script large parts of the OS. Is this already there, or is this planned for a future release?

Ubuntu vs Progeny

[Sunnan]

Is there talk of a merge, or cooperation? How will it turn out between the two of you?

What about Bill and Melinda, etc...

[gp310ad]

I'm a former Peace Corps volunteer and wonder if you will be working with Peace Corps and other volunteer agencies (China, Australia, NZ, the UN, non-secular, etc) that are involved in education in '3rd world'.

I have noted a fair amount of corruption in both GO's and NGO's when it comes to contracting, including computer software and hardware. How will you break into this 'market' with open source software when there is so much profit via graft and nepotism associated with specifying Microsoft products. Along the same lines, are you reviewing applications that GO and NGO are presently using or wish to use that are proprietary and assembling migration tools and manuals for those who wish to change or avail themselves of a less expensive alternative.

Bill and Melinda are involved in Africa and i wonder how you reconcile promoting open source with their charitable efforts. With, against, truce, coop, ???

What about communications. Do you have plans and are you working with telecomunication portion of govts. to make it easier to implement wireless. Traditionally the P&T in many 3rd world countries has a monopoly and history of fighting competitive telecom, tooth and nail.

What about information resources. Computers are fine, but computers in a rual school, without internet access, are little more than out of context office equipment for all except the rare individual who may take an interest in programming. Will you be collecting pubic domain and copyright waived for particular use materials for the students?

In the USA, schools have a difficult time managing their IT infrastructure. The technical expertise, as limited as the requirements are, is just not there. How do you address this in a pre-industrial setting? Do you have plans to educate local 'IT professionals' in open source and requisite general C&C to support users who view the application as a tool for their other projects?

Back to communication. Are you meeting any resistance to networking these systems by those who would prefer to control news?

I could ask questions all day :-)

Orbital Space Travel

[ZeroGee]

Mark, With Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites' recent accomplishments, when will a push be made to invest in orbital tourism? How far off is this? The problem has a much higher magnitude of difficulty, but isn't atmospheric tourism just a passing fad on the path to true orbital travel?

Broadband for Africa

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark,
While some form of open source ***x is useful for SA, access to the internet is even more necessary for the growth of economic opportunity.
With the likes of Kader Asmal in the cabinet, there is a real opportunity for BPL (Broadband over PowerLine). A nudge by your foundation might just get it going.

So what do you think of such an opportunity???

Bugzilla + Moodle

[chaosmind]

Hi Mark, 2 questions:

1) You founded Thawte, right? How come I get a broken certificate warning every time I visit bugzilla.ubuntu.com?

2) I commend your SchoolTools project, and wish it were on Ubuntu by default. (Not a conflict of interest; schools are an excellent way to propagate interest in a new free OS!) But right now Moodle is quite the poor cousin, with a woefully out-of-date version only available through the "universe" Ubuntu packages. Any chance of more educationally-oriented software bundled in the default set?

BTW, thanks for the most fun and easy to use Linux distro yet!

drivers

[wikinerd]

How will you approach the issue of non-Free/non-Libre hardware drivers that plaque the GNU/Linux community? Will you take any initiatives to encourage hardware manufacturers open their device specifications or provide OSI-approved/GPL-compatible drivers to the community?

How's it much different than MEPIS?

[Quattro Vezina]

Here's a question--

How is Ubuntu different from other newbie-friendly Debian derivatives such as MEPIS, Xandros, etc.? Is Ubuntu just MEPIS with GNOME instead of KDE, or is it something more than that?

Adoption of open source in developing countries

[flow_now_bro_ya]

Mark, I am working in the Solomon Islands, and have been impelementing open source solutions as much as possible. I am also just finishing a Masters research project on the adoption of OSS in developing countries and there is a lot of research out there that highlights many benefits that OSS delivers in developing countries. The problem is that software piracy is so pervasive, user awareness about OSS is low, and techs' skills here are not good enough to load and support anything other than Windows, that there is no incentive for anyone to use anything other than Windows on their desktops. How do you plan to overcome the barrier of people wanting to stay with Windows?

Re:How do you get support for the less popular wor

[theantix]

Have you found a way to get support for the less sexy projects and if so, how?

Easy answer: he pays people to do it. There are 5-10 people employed by his company to work on Ubuntu, doing all sorts of unsexy things like answering peoples questions on IRC and mailing lists and actually paying attention to bugfixes and getting out a release on schedule.

Why Yet Another Distribution

[Thunderbear]

I have now played a bit with the Ubuntu live cd, and found it very similar to Knoppix (but with less applications), and quite nice.

I would like to know why all this effort was put into creating Yet Another Distribution instead of boosting an existing project (like knoppix). Is it a question of being project owners, and being able to set the course?

Re:The question on every male hetero /.er's mind..

[mikefe]

They obviously don't see very well, they're smiling at you... ;)

Not such an "easy" answer ..

[cheros]

You're right in that Mark could possibly do that, but consider it a generic question, and there's much need for charity work than even Mark could possibly fund (another reason for the community driven approach).

There are more projects "out there" that could do with help, and not (for instance) every charity has spare cash - or is even seen by a Government as sexy enough to fund, especially if it's for a minority). In some cases it's a matter of just giving charities some more affordable advice - the usual suspect have there too been busy selling 'the habit' that they now need to kick in order to keep their money for their original charitable goals..

I have to declare an interest here, I've just picked up 5 old PCs from a bank in central London which will be used to set up the IT for a very small school (3 classrooms, all volunteers, funded entirely by donations - and all NOT in English) - after, of course, mil spec datawiping of the hard disks ;-). I'm doing this with the help of some friends and we'll rather chip in than ask for money - about the only cost we have is an ADSL pipe ;-)

Re:Not such an "easy" answer ..

[theantix]

I think you meant to reply to someone else. If not, I have no idea what you mean in context the context of my post or its parent.