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New Ubuntu Foundation Announced
AccUser writes "Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Ltd, founders of the popular Ubuntu
Linux-based operating system, have today announced the creation of The
Ubuntu Foundation with an initial funding commitment of US$10m. From the article: 'The Ubuntu Foundation will employ core Ubuntu community members to ensure that Ubuntu will remain fully supported for an extended period of time, and continue to produce new releases of the distribution. As a first step, the Foundation announces that Ubuntu version 6.04, due for release in April 2006, will be supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server.'"
They offer CD's on their site and say they will send out as many as you want. They seem to encourage you ordering lots since it costs the same to mail one as it does 20. I thought this was great. I could hand them out to people. Well I never got them. It has been months. I understand they might have some problems since it is a non-profit or whatever... but I guess I relied on their offer too much. Hopefully they are getting better.
I am very impressed by Ubuntu ease of use, and even more, by their commitment. When you have such an active community and big money behind such a project, it has a very good chance to succeed. It is amazing how much the folks at Ubuntu pay attention to minor usability issues.
If Linux ever becomes mainstream, it will be because of distributions like Ubuntu.
Isn't it time that some of those efforts were combined to get some kind of weight behind Linux as a whole, or are companies like IBM and Novell already moving into their respective trenches when linux on the {Desk, lap, floor}top takes off? While i can understand these companies having their own distro as has been traditionally the case, but do we REALLY need another non-profit foundation that thinks it can topple the 800 pound Red Gorilla on it's own while trying to reinvent the wheel and juggling a mix of community support and paid support? I'm not trying to be an anti-linux jerk, i'm just wondering what Ubuntu has to offer that isn't in another distro already.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
IMO Ubuntu is the distro most likely to break out into the main stream. I recently switched from Gentoo and can personally attest to the simplicity and ease of use of Ubuntu. The typical non-nerd doesn't want a command line; doesn't want to compile a custom kernel; doesn't know what "compiling" means. Ubuntu is perfect for the mainstream, and a guarantee that the project will continue is great news.
Long live Ubuntu! (And Kubuntu too)
I'm very happy that Ubuntu has come out of the gate, and done everything right. Since I've been using linux (1998) I've never seen any company so behind Linux as Cannonical have been, and I have a good feeling about this. Funny thing is, yesterday I just recieved my free Ubuntu cds; I 'ordered' 15 x86 versions, and 6 powerpc versions. I'm giving them to friends to try the 'live' option, and dropping them off at coffee cafe's, music stores and colleges. It's a good time to be using free software, and I think it can only HELP the world in coming together.
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
LAUNCH OF $10m UBUNTU FOUNDATION
08 July 2005
Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Ltd, founders of the popular Ubuntu
Linux-based operating system, have today announced the creation of The
Ubuntu Foundation with an initial funding commitment of US$10m.
The Ubuntu Foundation will employ core Ubuntu community members to
ensure that Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com) will remain fully supported for an
extended period of time, and continue to produce new releases of the
distribution. As a first step, the Foundation announces that Ubuntu
version 6.04, due for release in April 2006, will be supported for
three years on the desktop and five years on the server.
The Foundation was established on July 1st 2005 with an initial
funding commitment of US$10 million, to ensure the continuity of the
Ubuntu project and create a legal vehicle that represents the
community structures of the project.
"It's important for us to distinguish the philanthropic and
non-commercial work that is at the heart of the Ubuntu project, from
the commercial support and certification programs that are the focus
of Canonical Ltd." said Mark Shuttleworth, who is founder of the
project and is making the initial $10m commitment to the
Foundation. "The core team members employed by the Ubuntu Foundation
will ensure that we can meet public commitments to keep Ubuntu
entirely free of charge, as well as meeting commitments of support for
extended periods. I'm very excited at the progress that has been made
in bringing free software to the global marketplace, and pleased to
continue my support for the project in this way."
Ubuntu has quickly become a leading distribution in the free software
world, taking the #1 place in DistroWatch popularity rankings over all
timescales which are published. The distribution focuses on usability,
security and stability on desktops and servers, and on making free
software widely available for individuals and organisations who are
ready to switch from proprietary platforms, such as Microsoft Windows.
Ubuntu has also become the basis of many other derivative
distributions, particularly those backed by govenments for widespread
deployment. The government of Andalucia, Spain recently announced that
its own version of Linux would be based on Ubuntu, and deployed in all
educational operations.
LONGER SERVER SUPPORT CYCLE
One driving factor behind the creation of the Foundation was the need
to ensure that an Ubuntu release can be deployed on servers, which
demand much slower release and upgrade cycles. "In order to support
the use of free software on database and other servers, we will be
offering security support for the Ubuntu base and major server
components for a full five years", said Matt Zimmerman, CTO of the
Ubuntu project.
As Ubuntu and free software in general become more mainstream, it has
become costly for companies and large organisations to keep track of
the rapid pace of development. In the desktop environment the problem
is more manageable, and steady improvements in the usability of
desktop office and productivity applications have been welcomed. In
the datacenter, however, where Linux and free software are considered
mature, deployments have a preference for fewer releases with long
lifecycles. Ubuntu version 6.04, to be released in April 2006, will be
aimed at meeting those requirements with a full five year commitment
to provide security and other critical updates for servers. This also
meets the needs of OEM distribution providers and ISVs, who have
expressed strong interest in supporting free software environments but
who prefer to be able to plan for releases and support them for longer
periods of time.
The extended service support for Ubuntu version 6.04 will remain free
of charge, under the same terms as the support currently provided to
every release of Ubuntu. The extended service support prog
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
If they send their security fixes upstream it may help debian.
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
$10m will make sound work out of the box :p
I am a bit confused because I see some people here give high praise for Ubuntu over Debian, things like how Debian is way too slow to release while Ubuntu is up to date, while others have pointed out that Ubuntu has the advantage where they can cherry pick the best things out of the x86 code that have gone through the rigorous testing in Debian.
From a support standpoint, when a security flaw is found, does Ubuntu fix it themselves (and thus make it available for Debian), or do they have to wait for the Debian packages to be fixed?
3 Years of desktop support and 5 years of server? The fact that Ubuntu is looking at long-term development for their OS instead of the usual 6-month fire-and-forget releases of many other Linux Distros subscribe to is an encouraging sign that Linux is coming of age.
Longer lifespans for Linux provides a level of security that will allow many users wary of switching over from Windows to start looking at a Linux distro as a serious replacement for their current OS. Just think: there IS an alternative to warning users that they have to buy a new OS for new features and security updates.
I'm only worried that theyll spend all $10m on pretzels and beer.
------
Amadaeus
The last bastion of Mathie-ism
Great! Now linux has more distributions than users!
I just got a really cheap laptop and Mandriva(running on my desktop) didn't like it. Ubuntu just worked. And installing ndiswrapper for the wireless card was a piece of cake.
I've used Ubuntu as a rescue cd at work very reliably.
Can't wait until October for the next release.
This type of (financial) commitment to linux will do great things to silence (corporate) critics of FLOSS who say that there is no "structure and support" for linux. That's alot of money, and a solid commitment behind Ubuntu now. I'm glad that there are linux distros out there that are putting such an emphasis on having a product that is long-term, stable, and that will be patched/supported for a long time.
From my experience with Ubuntu (installed it with a friend on a brand-new powerbook), it is easy to use and works well. I really hope that the momentum Ubuntu is generating will continue... it is quickly becoming the best option for converting new users over to linux.
I've heard nothing but good things about 'Ubuntu'... But for some reason I can't bring myself to try it out because of the funny name.
Is anyone else out there in the same boat?
I guess I'll just stick with my Yoper distro.
Ok, so now we have Ubuntu, Gentoo, Suse, Red hat, Mandriva, colinux, Yellow dog, Caldera
If they merged we could have UbunTuseYellowCoDrivaDeraDogHat.
If nothing else the domains should be readily available.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Ubuntu is limited by Debian's progress.
They freeze a version of Sid. Then make it really stable, then release it. More Ubuntu developers != more Debian progress.
Ubuntu is built of Debian and therefore if Debian continues to worsen it will be a bad thing for Ubuntu. This is why it is one reason all those thousand of Debian based distros are bad, too man developers doing the same thing - polishing a frozen Debian release for their own distro.
Hopefully, Ubuntu and Debian can become closer linked and Ubuntu fund Debian developers.
One thing I'd like to see is a looser coupling of the apps. and the O/S. I'm happy with a five year-old version of Windows, because I can trivially install new applications. Linux distributions encourage one-stop shopping, which is nice at first, but I shouldn't have to upgrade the entire O/S to get a newer version of Emacs. You can upgrade components piece meal; however, you lose some of the benefits of a tested distribution.
Shuttleworth coughed up the $10m himself if I haven't misread TFA. Not just a beau geste, I hope. This directly addresses the concern a lot of us lukewarm Linux wannabe users have: product life. Where and when do Shuttleworth and co. get back their $10m marketing investment? [RH's support is not free, is that where Ubuntu is going to get paid back?] They must think so to lay out that much cash.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Why don't they just put the money into Debian? I guess I don't understand their motivation. Are they trying to become the next RedHat? Fair enough if they are I suppose, but the Debian/Ubuntu divide is a confusing one. I ended up installing Ubuntu just because the CD was free, and I didn't have to buy 20-something CDs.
It's only a shame it has such a nutbag of a name.
For someone here in Australia, where you have a choice of Microsoft Windows 2003 Server (various editions), FreeBSD, Linux (as a generic proposition, assuming you don't go into the name), or if you're going to go into the name, this thing called Ubuntu.
Now, I dunno if Mark Shuttleworth and his paid mavens receive as much nigerian spam as I do, but anything that begins with U as a name and ends in "buntu" isn't making it past the spamassassin, let alone onto the server.
Keep the attitude, drop the name, and get on with things.
First, let me say I really like ubuntu(it's edged out gentoo as my perfered linux distro) and have nothing but respect for its developers.
/etc/modules.
But with that out of the way, I really think there's room for improvement in the bug-squashing/support department.
For example, I reported a bug about three months ago that made it impossible to enable DMA support on devices connected to my ATA controller(i knew it wasn't a hardware problem, or bios misconfiguration since i had a gentoo install on another partition where everything worked fine).
Several users promptly confirmed the issue, and a nice person linked to a thread on the forums where the issue was debated. The issue wasn't too complicated, and was bacially a hotplug bug that was fixed by blacklisting the ata controllers driver module and then adding it to
The "problem" is, that it seems this bug is relevant for most i875 based motherboards(when the distro is installed on a sata disk, its then impossible to enable dma on the ATA devs), and its still not fixed in the repositories. To this day you still need to fix it manually, eventhough the bug is confirmed and very easily fixed.
Thats not very impressive if you ask me.
It should be: http://www.canonical.com/
I've been playing with Ubuntu lately, and I like it. There are some problems though:
Sound. I have to kill -9 the ESD process to get some applications to work. A lot of applications had to be tweaked individually after install.
Synaptic. Synaptic does its job, I can say that. But the user interface leaves a lot to be desired. I upgraded to Hoary yesterday. Why did that have to involve editing sources.list by hand?
Applications. Why the hell do newly installed applications need to be added to the menus manually? This is Ubuntu's biggest flaw. When you install a new program, you'd better know how to invoke it from the command line -- and good luck finding that out from Synaptic's description, which disappears after install anyway.
Firefox. Ubuntu's web browser of choice, Firefox, is unresponsive after opening new tabs. Firefox is much nicer in Windows. And IE for Windows is far more responsive than either.
Menus. I like the start menu organization. The "Places" menu is great. I was beginning to think that Linux was congenitally incapable of setting up the most important bit of UI on the system. The menu is even better in Hoary.
Folder Navigation. I don't like the fact that there is no back or up arrow when exploring file folders. This is massively stupid UI design.
All in all, it's a nice system. It's a million years behind Windows in usability; there is clunkiness present everywhere. But there are lots of free applications. As usual with Linux, it is so impossible to install or change anything without expert knowledge that you can safely recommend the system to your grandmother without the slightest fear that she will be able to mess anything up.
I ordered 5.04 CD's when 5.04 was released...didn't get them until about 2 weeks ago.
I would have though they could do better than one cent.
Oh... 10M$!!! Well then.
additional data point: I ordered the new OpenBSD CDs and a T-shirt [I am such a tourist!] the day their puffy write-up hit /. It was a month before they showed up...from Alberta .CA not Berkely, CA.
... that is the way to go if you have the bandwidth and want your "free" OS PDQ.
Amazon.com these guys are not.
When I downloaded Mepis, I paid a bit extra for the high speed
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
WhoopDeeDoo for Ubuntu
Critics concur---"Gramps" is an indie masterpiece. "Truly an American icon," remarked Gary Niger, as he zipped up his fly.
I am very excited about the new foundation. I have used many distros and ubuntu was by far the easiest to install, configure, and maintain. Redhat, Fedora, Suse all have similar features, but were not as easy to configure. The sudo feature took a little to get used to, but I can see the benefit of doing so. (Especially if they were targeting windows users who think using the administatror user is good.) All in all the ubuntu foundation is a very GOOD thing.
I am new to Linux, been around computers since the 80's, used to a functional system "out of the box" and don't have time to figure out how to get my network card to work. I installed Sarge on my laptop and couldn't get the NIC to work. I'm not saying it was impossible, just not worth it to me. In tried Ubuntu and, sure enough, it (to quote a phrase) just worked.
Since then I've put Ubuntu on my main desktop as well, because my experience has been so positive. Did Ubuntu stop two potential installations of Debian? No. Debian stopped that.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Red Hat Enterprise already has a 7 year life cycle, and SLES has 5 years.
Asides from installing software, which is easier in Ubuntu, RHEL 4 or Fedora 4 should be easier than the current Ubuntu, as there's more system-config-* tools than Ubuntu GUI config apps.
My biggest critique of Ubuntu is that it seems to almost handicap anyone who wants to be a software developer.
While yes, we can grep through apt-cache and try to find all of the development packages we need, why can't they just provide a pseudo-package "ubuntu-devel" that has everything (gcc, make and friends, gtk2 dev libraries and docs, etc) wrapped up into a neat little package? This is one of the things I loved about UserLinux that hasn't quite made it into Ubuntu yet.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
I still don't understand why the Ubuntu project isn't just the upgrade to the Debian project.
Debian's biggest problem, by far, is how long it takes to relase a new version (years). That's a packaging problem, because the new version is just a package of the packages already tested/debugged by the time the distro package is ready. Which means the bottleneck is testing the packages. Debugging is what consumes time, but testing and repackaging is what holds up the process.
Ubuntu now has the most agressive developers and distro team. And now it has $10M to work with. That goes a long way towards project management, getting Ubuntu releases every 6 months (their promise), rather than Debian's 3 years. All on top of Debian's base work. Many of Ubuntu's founders came from Debian core team members; more will likely join the better-funded project with the sparkling new brand name. I expect Ubuntu's pitch to their funders went quite along these lines.
The funders probably see a chance to take over as Debian's successor. They can get Debian's developers and userbase - that's practically all there is to Debian. Of course they won't get all users, because the Debian brand has loyalty, unless Debian terminates. And some users will leave a crippled Debian for a distro other than Ubuntu.
So unless Ubuntu can generate more users than Debian has, their move will result in a Debian2 smaller than Debian1. Quicker releases and a new start give them a chance. But that will really just let them stay the course.
Ubuntu needs a project that really takes off in their platform, the way APT did with Debian. I suggest an autoapt (easier)
or closely hyperlinked documentation (harder, but consolidates value much better). The autoapt, installed during the OS install, would subscribe users to patches, which would send email with recommendations, a changelog and hyperlinks to the source and installer. Making upgrades a snap, and reducing the TCO of the distro. As well as making that sysadmin task so easy that any user can do it, even if they aren't even expert enough to install the OS. Which will expand manifold the market of users skilled enough to use it, while making it more valuable to them. And to package developers whose SW will be "marketed" better. And to everyone using the platform, as security patches are more up-to-date in the field.
If Ubuntu replaces Debian, I want it to be better than Debian.
It's been a long while since Deb and Ian were an item. I wonder how long Debian itself can hold it together.
--
make install -not war
Just curious.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
They don't just support Debian because it's a different product to the end users. To spread Linux, you need a Ubuntu product, not a Debian.
I understand Ubuntu needs Debian to survive, and Debian doesn't need Ubuntu. Debian has many other users and uses in server installations, and probably always will. Ubuntu does support Debian, more than most Debian users, with patches, etc. Spending money to spread Ubuntu spreads Debian, and will eventually strengthen Debian.
So the divide isn't confusing to normal non-uber-geeks like me. Ubuntu is a relatively clean, simple Linux install. That's all I ever wanted. I don't want ~300 apps installed by default just because they're free. And I don't even know where to begin to uninstall things in Linux without package dependency nightmares. And in 2005, you SHOULD be able to use Linux without the command line if you want. In which case, Debian isn't like Ubuntu at all.
And I think they're non-profit, so it's more like firefox/mozilla comparison than a Fedora/Red Hat comparison - Ubuntu is building a cleaner product from an aging superstar.
This is a sincere question. Please don't mod me to flame bait. I have been a gentoo user for quite sometime now and am not sure what the difference between ubuntu and debian are. Is there much? Why is ubuntu so hyped?
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
nt and no mod points to mod it up.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I like Ubuntu (the name, and yes, the distribution). But about the name, they're from Africa, and it sounds African and you can basically sound it out without screwing up. But SUSE is soo-say? right? Or Suzy? And Linux is Lynn-uks? And is the G in GNU silent? I forget. Is it SQL 'sequel' or S.Q.L.? And if it's the latter, why not make a 2 syllable word out of it instead of a 3 syllable acronym?
I've seen several complaints about the name 'Ubuntu' here. If you haven't visited ubuntu.com, then you should know that the name means "humanity to others" and "I am what I am because of who we all are". Semantically, this has a lot more to do with what Linux is than coloured hats or dogs.
ubuntu is my choice - I have it on all my computers which include a ppc - it's hardware detection is great - better than redhat's in my opinion - why do you think fedora finally came out with a ppc version their last version.
it is ONE cd - which I love - I am so sick of burning four of five cd's - boy doesn't that sound spoiled - oh well - ubuntu is light and fast and anything you need - in fact more than anything you will ever need is just an apt-get install away.
great job Ubuntu - I recommend you to all the newbies I meet. I also like the whole philosophy behind the distribution along with they only have one version - no enterprise this or professional that.
thanks again and keep up the great work - my donation is coming.
Does your mind actually think the way you type ? Have you smoked extreme amounts of marijuana at any period in your life ?
Okay, I just checked, Canonical plans to provide paid support for Ubuntu, but I still can't see any return on this investment? That would require something like 20,000 folks @ $50 a year to get a decent return. Is this closer to a charity? If so, 10 million is an awful lot of money to plow into a linux distribution. Is this money going into a trust that will support developers for the long term? Am I missing some key politics/agenda?
Sorry, I'm just taken aback by the sheer size of this contribution and am wondering what the catch is I suppose. If there is none, rock on!
Jeff
The only MAJOR difference between RedHat RPM and Debian .deb/apt-get is merely the distributions they work with. They are both package management systems that keep a database of the software and corresponding dependencies installed on your system, and handle automated binary installation of said packages for their respective distros (as opposed to installation by compiling source code).
As for ricers...have a look at funroll-loops.org
This news is of great interest to me. Though im clearly sure that Shuttleworth will continue to fund the project, it having its own foundation seems proper. Of course Redhat is doing the same similar fashion with Fedora, and perhaps that will help its ailing problems.
"It's important for us to distinguish the philanthropic and non-commercial work that is at the heart of the Ubuntu project, from the commercial support and certification programs that are the focus of Canonical Ltd." -- Shuttleworth speaks volumes with this statement. Its clear to his intent for the project to stay stable and current.
Im reading and I see a lot of bad talk about ubuntu in here. Disgruntled Debian users that dont like the product because it upstages their own distrubtion , while still using debian as its base? perhaps. Other users that think that it sucks because its not what they are used to or that what they use is better? Sounds like Distro-Wars to me. Gentoo is better than Redhat, Kanotix is better than Knoppix. MiniSlack is better than Vector. Vidalinux is for users that want to use Gentoo but are too chicken to try to install it. If we stopped all this constant infighting with each other and actually tried to support each other, I think taking out the monster that is Microsoft would actually be easier.
Only through standardization, documentation, and some loose sense of unity coupled with the Freedom and choice of FOSS can this end be met.
Ubuntu is doing a damn good job. I have 4 Ubuntu boxes on my 15+ machine network, and the better that ubuntu gets, the more machines get converted. Ive introduced this product to over 50 people, 30 or so of which are now standard to power users. I consider that to be a clear sign of the Dist's ability to capture an audience. Would you say so?
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
Daniel Robbins develops Gentoo, project never sees profit, helps establish non-profit foundation to oversee distro, gets hired by Microsoft.
... OH MY GOD!
Mark Shuttleworth develops Ubuntu, project never sees profit, helps establish non-profit foundation to oversee distro,
p.s. Good thing for us Shuttleworth appears somewhat solvent.
The apt suite is Debian's package management system. Actually, I'm not sure if Red Hat came up with RPM or not. RPM.org isn't immediately clear on that point. But Red Hat is the distribution most strongly associated with RPM. I wish I could offer a comparison, but I couldn't offer a fair one. I tried Red Hat a few years ago and fell into "dependency hell," which is when a package manager can't figure out what needs to be installed. But this was several years ago. From what I gather, RPM is much better now. I've had no reason to switch from Debian though, so I haven't tried it since. Still, apt is nice. :-)
Strictly speaking, "ricer" is a racist term for asian youths who extensively modify their cars. The term has been picked up other uses to mean people who obsessively customize to gain minimal performance benefits. Gentoo is a source based distribution (for the most part) -- as such, the user must compile the software he plans on using. Gentoo was designed to facilitate easy optimization for your hardware/needs during the compile phase. This tends to cause much obsessiveness among its users.
I don't know what your goals are for Linux, but for desktop use, it would be hard to go wrong with Ubuntu. Debian is great for just about everything, but ideally you'd have some more experience (or enough patience to RTFM enough to ask smart questions). There are obviously other great distributions. Once you figure out what your needs are, check out http://www.distrowatch.com/ to help you pick a distribution.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Great! I can't wait to "employ" the "core" of certain Ubuntu community members!
1. it's nice to see another distro with some resources behind it.
2. I've installed the Kubuntu a few times on a few different boxes with numerous permissions problems that I've eventually fixed one-by-one.
-Control panel doesn't allow login as administrator. Despite applying updates.
-Can't use printers as a user (permission denied)
-On my first dialup machine install for a friend (ouch) last night kppp simply didn't work. wvdial did as su, but that's a non-starter for this smart but average user. Debian install went without a hitch.
-And then there's the mysterious sound problems.
As of last night, I'm all done with Kubuntu for a few years.
3. Is this really a non-profit as in charity or a new business arrangement that is expected to make one of the principal backers wealthier?
4. I predict the profit-seeking-motive related to the foundation will make the foundation the red-headed-step-child to the "subscription-linux" profit seeking parent.
Note to self:
Kill my television.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Mark Shuttleworth is fairly rich and his backing has made Ubuntu into a major player, but imagine if some with even more money backed a distro... Bill Gates could make the mother of all distros, reducing the competition to dust if he wanted... thereby sealing world domination...
I use Ubuntu on my machine at home and at work on my laptop. On both machines Ubuntu was a total success. I like the fact that Ubuntu seems to focus more on the desktop than on the server side of things. A server has totally different needs than a desktop and shouldnt be mixed up in my opinion. The hardware reporting tool is really nice. All in all Ubuntu is a very nice distro to use on the desktop.
Disclaimer, i havent used either Linspire nor Xandros but i guess i should try those out too.
HTTP/1.1 400
Since Ubuntu was included in the Google Summer of Code, maybe Google will step up and make a pledge.
Would this be a great step or what? We can hope can't we!
Gentoo is all about tailoring GNU/Linux to your needs, and not so much about "ricing" (an unfortunate term).
I have done my own mini-review of KUbuntu, also an analysis of why I think Ubuntu will succeed where commercial distros have failed.
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
Thanks. These are the kind of responses I was looking for. I've never been a huge fan of debian, but perhaps I'll give ubuntu a shot.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
Already Modded.
For the fiftyleventh time. Mark Shuttleworth, was a founder of Thawte, an SSL Certificate company. Thawte was purchased by Verisign for I believe the $400 million range. I think he has made it clear that he does not need to 'work' for the rest of his life.
I think it is proper to think of the efforts so far as purely philanthropical. Over time, I think it is very likely that Canonical will offer commercial support for Ubuntu. Yet the difference between RedHat and Ubuntu will be that the Operating System will always be free and unencumbered. You won't have to remove any trademarks, graphics and repackage in order to use Ubuntu. Hypothetically, it means a girl in New Guinea can use the same operating system as a physicist at CERN (yes I know CERN repackages RHEL (for now)).
Sound.
Sound is the biggest problem in Hoary, and it is the thing that WILL be fixed in the next release. I know that that certain answer is considered to be lame in OSS circles...but its true.
Synaptic. Synaptic does its job, I can say that. But the user interface leaves a lot to be desired. I upgraded to Hoary yesterday. Why did that have to involve editing sources.list by hand?
You don't have to edit the sources.list by hand- it can be done in synaptic. The problem is that it takes ten minutes to fix in all the little boxes in synaptic with the info, while it takes all of one minute to copy and paste a new sources.list...so that is the preferred method. You might think "why isn't it easier than that?" The reason is that all of those things you are adding in the sources.list are unofficial and unsupported, so the developers are scared that if they made it any easier then they will have people thinking they are responsible for those other repositories (they are not- the pay support only covers whats in the main).
Applications. Why the hell do newly installed applications need to be added to the menus manually? This is Ubuntu's biggest flaw. When you install a new program, you'd better know how to invoke it from the command line -- and good luck finding that out from Synaptic's description, which disappears after install anyway.
A lot of time you have to kill gnome-panel to see newly installed applications (killall gnome-panel) and the new installed things will show up. In other cases (things from the Universe repo) you need the ugly, disorganized Debian menu to see the program- it was left out because its a unsupported mess. To get it-
sudo apt-get install menu
Firefox. Ubuntu's web browser of choice, Firefox, is unresponsive after opening new tabs. Firefox is much nicer in Windows. And IE for Windows is far more responsive than either.
Firefox is the new OSS standard browser. It is more of a resource hog than IE I admit...but its not your only choice.
sudo apt-get install epiphany
and your problem is solved. Epiphany is even a supported application.
Folder Navigation. I don't like the fact that there is no back or up arrow when exploring file folders. This is massively stupid UI design.
Thats Gnome's design. I dislike spatial nautilus as well...but one command fixes it:
gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser true
There now it is as you want. If you have any more questions...please come ask them on the forum.
Open Source Sushi
Disclaimer: I know a pretty good bit about the project seeing as how I'm a moderator (and one of the largest posters) on the forum.
For me personally Ubuntu just does a lot of the little things correctly. Its based off of Debian, so it has access to the what might be the biggest package repo in the land (I don't know about Gentoo , but Ubuntu has 15000+ packages in all of its repos together), but the developers only support a small part of that so unlike Debian there are timely releases. Like Fedora and Dropline, Ubuntu has a great Gnome desktop (I'll admit that Kubuntu isn't as polished) that is very useful from the start.
It has a great community (can't compare it with Gentoo, its a different crowd) that is more than willing to help. Our how to section is excellent.
It supports important things like Mono and Python, and helps Debian catch up to the modern era (by adding things like Xorg).
Finally, Ubuntu is easy to use out of the box (for most nerds) but can be VERY configurable (though probably not as much as Gentoo) and is a happy medium between a Xandros and a Slackware.
Thanks for you time.
Open Source Sushi
This is great news for Ubuntu. Up until now its fans knew it was in good hands (Mark has a lot of money) but we didn't know his level of commitment. Now we do. I think part of the reason the foundation was made was because of Ubuntu's success as a new distro (few have their name so known in such a short time) and because there will be a push in the future to get Ubuntu in places that demand stability in organization- businesses and schools. In particular, the next release Breezy will begin Edubuntu a goal of Mark to turn Ubuntu into an OS that can meet the needs of schools.
Hopefully this will once and for all establish Ubuntu as one of the big players in the Linux scene, and further legitimize its claim to the great Debian heritage.
I personally hope that some of this money will be spent on creating more bounties to create some of the GUI tools the distro currently lacks.For now this is a great thing.
Hip Hip Hoary and long live Ubuntu!
Open Source Sushi
Linux is so great because it is diverse.
If I don't like Fedora, I can switch to Debian, Gentoo or any other of a myrad packages.
However, I DO think that it would be smart to try to get a unified package management system so that binaries can be somewhat universal.
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
One US based employee is about $200K per year, all costs included (that's if employee's salary is below $100K). You can only have 50 employees for one year with $10M.
I'll just lay some points down once and for all, and I don't care what anybody says, these are the facts as I observe them with my own eyes and the common-sense that logically concludes from those observations:
(a) More Linux = Big Win for everybody! I don't care what it is, how it works, how narrow it's market is, who funds it, who writes it, what they believe, or whether they make money. More Free/Open software enriches us all.
(b) Bill Gates must surely be laughing his fat moneycat ass off watching all the Linux tribes bicker and flame each other. Just try to keep this in mind, when Linux fights Linux, Bill Gates wins.
(c) Every distribution I've tried that was derived from/based on Debian worked for me. I've never heard the complaints about Debian-based distros that I've heard (and experienced) with Debian itself. It is indeed in Debian's best interest to take a backseat and continue maintaining the base packages, but leave assembling them into released operating systems up to other distros.
(d) If the above statement makes your blood pressure pop your eyeballs out of your head and steam shoot out your ears, the person you are mad at is the Debian founder as I read in his own personal blog. And you have no right to be mad about that, it's his distro and he speaks much good sense about it and I am agreeing with him and emphasizing his point. If Debian is that precious to you, then just download it's packages and make your own system, because that's all anybody else has ever done, anyway! Isn't that the selling point, you can customize it?
(e) Linux wouldn't be Linux if everybody doing something with Linux didn't have the right to do it. If you're mad at all the distros, there's nothing to stop you from downloading the tarballs and building it yourself. You can even call your arrangement the One True Linux, and say everybody else is a hypocrite and a poser and a lamer. I can download the exact same tarballs and say the same thing about my arrangement and about everybody else. The point being: The source and kernel are GNU/Linux. United! Completely! Steady as a rock! Everything else is what we make out of it, because Linux is and will always be a ball of clay. You can use that clay to build an idol to worship, or a toilet bowl, but you also can't stop anybody else from doing the same. Don't be surprised if somebody pisses on your idol or worships your toilet bowl.
(f) This has been a Public Service Announcement. Flames will be printed out and shredded into hamster litter, because /dev/null is mailing me bounce messages.
Sit Ubuntu sit.
I've *never* actually manually edited sources.list, and that includes a full-out sytem upgrade from 4.10 to 5.04. You can do all that from within Synaptic, and then you don't have to remember sudo or any of the other stuff. And you don't have to risk potentially botching the entire file through some stupid editing error.
The old-guard debianites will tell you to edit sources.list manually, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing it that way. But criticizing Ubuntu for doing it the old way, when they do have a new, more user-friendly way of doing it is a straw man. It's like complaining about how hard it is to push your car down the street. There's another way to do it; maybe you should try it before giving up on cars altogether.
with all this money .. i wonder how they get it ( yea i know mark is a billionair )
Life is like a bag of chips you never know whats next
Speel
After reading the ubuntuforums for many hours I found out that you had to mute the "IEC958 Capture Monitor" with alsamixer.
No logic, no explanation.
Except for that and my troubles figuring out how to install software that is not RMS certified I am all happy.
I also belive that Ubuntu will show the way to wider adaption.
I don't, and havn't for a long time, used any software on windows that wouldn't run on a linux box. I only had trouble finding a distro where everything would actually work without more hassle than a w2k reinstall (and that is quite a bit).
It took Ubuntu about 3 months to get my CD's out... but they arrived. All 25 of them.
I love Ubuntu. Favorite Gnome desktop distro.
MadOgre.com
apt-get build-dep packagename(s)
problem solved.
I'm not sure if Red Hat came up with RPM or not. RPM.org isn't immediately clear on that point.
I always thought RPM stood for Red Hat Package Manager, but you're right RPM.org doesn't mention that. Wikipedia states 'RPM Package Manager (or RPM, originally called "Red Hat Package Manager")' implying that "Red Hat" was dropped and now I guess it's just a recursive acronym.
ubuntu at cafepress
I've never used Ubuntu before, but have heard many good things about it. I hope they do become the next Red Hat. Red Hat used to be THE distro. I was a user since verion 5.2.. but when they did the whole Fedora thing... I was doing nothing but chasing down bugs and installing endless updates and quickly got fed up and went looking elsewhere for a distribute simular to Red Hat.
..BUT they put limitations on the CD burner (2X max? WTF?!?) in the free version. I don't think anyone should HAVE to pay $90 for linux no matter how well setup it is. I'll be more than happy to donate time and/or money if I like the distro.
Installing gentoo sounded too difficult... Wasn't interested in the "old, but stable" philosophy of Debian.. could't find iso's for SUSE at the time...Installed Mandrake and it worked for the most part, but i got annoyed that everytime I rebooted, the windows key on the keyboard stopped working. Heard about Xandros being simple, so I tried that and sure enough, it had by far the best Linux desktop environment i've used to date. Was also impressed that it was only 1 CD, installed in under 20 minutes and pretty much everything was setup as default the way I had spent a good hour or so setting up mandrake as. (firefox as default browser, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, windows short cut keys, etc)
so.. I hope Ubuntu becomes big. I hope they become the next Red Hat.. be the #1 player in linux desktop and server market and make lots of money... but please, please, please...don't follow in Red Hats footsteps and forget who got you there... users who like their software free!
There's no place like ~/
"Ubuntu's web browser of choice, Firefox, is unresponsive after opening new tabs. Firefox is much nicer in Windows."
;)
I'm writing this post from Firefox on ubuntu; the window currently has SEVEN tabs open and shows absolutely no sign of even being slow, let alone unresponsive. Firefox in Windows is practically indistinguishable from Firefox in ubuntu; in fact, the identical behavior is what attracted me to ubuntu in the first place; I wouldn't have to give up the web browser that I like so much.
"And IE for Windows is far more responsive than either."
LOL! Responsive to DirectX commands to install spyware anyway
"[Ubuntu is] a million years behind Windows in usability; there is clunkiness present everywhere."
That's really funny because its just so blatantly false. Of course, for someone running Windows, it would scare them because they don't know any better... Hey Windows users, ever get a Blue Screen of Death? You won't in ubuntu...
"As usual with Linux, it is so impossible to install or change anything without expert knowledge that you can safely recommend the system to your grandmother without the slightest fear that she will be able to mess anything up."
OK, now you'd let your grandma (who, if she hasn't used a computer before will, I guarantee you, need to spend a couple days learning to use a mouse... this isn't a put-down, this is based on my experience) use MS Windows "without the slightest fear that she will be able to mess anything up"?!? LOL! That's what so great about Windows; it messes up your system for you ^_- Just wait until she gets spyware and viruses and worms (oh look! Outlook says someone loves me! Let me just open that e-mail...)
All OSs have learning curves; ubuntu's is no worse that Windows and is far less likely to give you grief in the long-run. Once you learn how to use Synaptic (and its really not that hard), its a *breeze* to install programs (in fact, I'd say a LOT easier than most install programs in Windows for someone new to computers).
If I had to set up a computer for my grandmother, you bet I'd put ubuntu on it. Show her Firefox, set up webmail, maybe put some MP3s on it and install a card game or two (or just the card games extension for firefox)... stuff like that. I wouldn't need to teach her how to use (or have to go over all the time to) run and update Ad-Aware and Spybot-Search & Destroy and an Antivirus program...
oh wait.
It took 7 or 8 weeks for me to get the CDs I ordered. They just take some time, that's all, and they're well worth the wait. The packaging looks good, and the instructions are detailed yet simple to follow. Just be patient.
I live in the Philippines and I got my 10 CDs of Hoary last June 25, which is about one month after they were shipped out from The Netherlands. I ordered them about a week after the official release.
If you login to your shipit account, you can check the status of your order there. If it says your order has been shipped out, then it has. If it didn't make it to you, then it probably got lost en route to your place. It's rare these days, but it still happens.
You'd like to think so, but it truely isn't.
Microsoft and even Apple include complete GUI developer's kits, full documentation, et all, in a single package. Linux (specifically Ubuntu) doesn't.
While build-dep might get some of them, as no GNOME application deals with all of GNOME, you're still left grepping through apt-cache to find a library you need.
Some people say this is an advantage of Linux; you only "get what you need", but when you're trying to learn a new platform, I often find it's good to have everything you could possibly need already at your disposal, along with the help documentation so that you may read about it.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush