Shuttleworth on Ubuntu's Direction and Intent

cj2003 writes "Mark Shuttleworth has released a FAQ about Ubuntu's Direction and Intent. It comments on the discussions of funding, of being a Debian-fork or not, of the strange names, and many other 'hot topics' relating to Ubuntu. In his own words: 'This document exists to give the community some insight into my thinking, and to a certain extent that of the Community Council, Technical Board and other governance structures - on some of the issues and decisions that have been controversial.'"

Comments

Professional Addition

[Slashdot_Gandhi]

  If you don't make a commercial "Ubuntu Professional Edition", how can Ubuntu be sustainable?

I am puzzled, don't Home Editions make money?

Re:Professional Addition

[aichpvee]

Not if you give away the discs with free shipping.

Re:Professional Addition

[agraupe]

Professional addition? I mean, humans can be fast, but I thought calculators kinda put an end to all those professional adders.

Re:Professional Addition

[Anonymous Coward]

> all those professional adders

In fact, the original meaning of "computer" was a person who did math calculations for a living.

Re:Professional Addition

[FidelCatsro]

The tagging of "Professional Edition" on to an OS or piece of software is the equivalent of " FROD LOCUST GT EDITION ... 2.6 cam engine Car " .There is likely no real advantage for most users and perhaps a few disadvantages , but people like to think they are getting the best .
The easy answer ;Name the normal version "Professional " or "Power user" and name the true pro version "industry " or such like .

Re:Professional Addition

[ettlz]

Whoa — or, "Ubuntu Starter Edition"!

I think we're on to something here!

Re:Professional Addition

[JPriest]

How about "Ubuntu Reduced Media Edition"?!

Re:Professional Addition

[Anonymous Coward]

You lose a little money with each one ... but you make it up in VOLUME!

Re:Professional Addition

[joe_bruin]

The tagging of "Professional Edition" on to an OS or piece of software is the equivalent of " FROD LOCUST GT EDITION ... 2.6 cam engine Car "

2.6 cams? Wow, I didn't realize they come in fractional values.

Re:Professional Addition

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

They have a foundation that helps take care of some of the administrative costs. One of the ways they make some money back is by paid tech support as an option from a third party provider (Canonical is technically that in this case). There is also free tech support, boards, etc at no cost. Their intent is that if you have no money you should not be denied anything from them - its nice to just see people being nice in the world for a change.

Re:Professional Addition

[citog]

Must be some kind of logical partitioning, I hear you can do it on many platforms now (surely a Frod Locust runs Linux?).

Re:Professional Addition

[MichaelSmith]

its nice to just see people being nice in the world for a change

I am sure he will get nailed to a tree in the end :)

Re:Professional Addition

[thumperward]

Ubuntu runs in this mode by default. No mp3, no Quicktime, no DVD.

  - Chris

Re:Professional Addition

[TheRaven64]

It comes on smaller CDs? Compact Flash, maybe?

Re:Professional Addition

[zlogic]

Actually, they don't have divx or mp3 codecs installed by default (at least on my 5.04 distro).

Re:Professional Addition

[kworces]

No, this time it'll work--and no one will have to get nailed to anything.

Insightful indeed...

[menorikey]

Personally I think Ubuntu is great, probably one of the better distros of Linux that I've seen to date. The only problem I've run across is that it doesn't want to play nice with my Inspiron 9300, but that's not specific to Ubuntu; I have the same issue with SUSE as well, so mod me down if you think it's a dig (which it's not).

(As an aside, Ubuntu "Live" was great for testing out that OS X x86 release that was going around, so in that regards, kudos to Ubuntu for being straight-forward to provide the means to get OSx86 up and running.)

Re:Insightful indeed...

[sik0fewl]

...so mod me down if you think it's a dig (which it's not).

I won't mod you down, but I probably would have if you had said "digg".

Re:Insightful indeed...

[Bobzibub]

being a Redhat->Fedora person, I'd tried ubuntu on a dell d610 laptop with mostly success. Modern enough to support the i915. (as long as the crappy Dell cmos can init the video to the video of the laptop you're golden.)

The biggest problem I've had is with environment vars.... I just want to put a system wide set-when-you-boot-env-var and call a command reliably at boot time. /etc/bashrc.rcsomething is great if you want your bash shell updated. /etc/profile is ignored. /etc/profile.d/ is non-existant. /etc/init.d/mySpecial_file.sh doesn't export anything (can you tell I'm getting desperate here?) /etc/environment play with your PATH and it will have nice things like: /usr/local/bin:$PATH:/usr/local/bla/bin...... And you're gnome will be screwed. "Can't find ls!" what? oh ok.

But on the plus side it does also do that intel centrino crap (very smooth) and probably do mp3s.

Another big plus is that it is slick, has an emergency boot to root shell where you can change your root password. (Hey. Good for desktops.)

It does have great potential......

Later!
-b

Re:Insightful indeed...

[wasabii]

The proper way is to use /etc/environment in conjunction with pam_env.

Pam, being responsible for the initialization of all login sessions is in hte perfect position to do this. /etc/environment is not a shell script however, and for good reason... what you are launching when you launch gnome is not a shell script. You are launching a binary named gnome-session. There is no bash involved.

Re:Insightful indeed...

[SquadBoy]

Name a *nis that does'nt have single user mode? There maybe one but I can't think of it. Now I'll admit to not hating Ubuntu but it sounds like you've not used *nix very much.

Re:Insightful indeed...

[Eideewt]

He meant there's an option in the boot loader to boot up straight into a root terminal. As a matter of fact, I find that much more unsettling than useful, but it's there.

Re:Insightful indeed...

[Bobzibub]

thanks for the clarification. I'll check it out.

-b

Re:Insightful indeed...

[intangible]

Just set a root password, or password protect the option in grub.

Re:Insightful indeed...

[erikdalen]

that's pretty easy to do on any distro. In Lilo yo type "linux init=/bin/sh". voila, booted straight up in a root shell. unless you have password protected your lilo.

Re:Insightful indeed...

[kormat]

Hi, I'm on the laptop testing team for ubuntu, and i also have an inspiron 9300. For the most part, things just work in breezy. Check out https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/DellInsp iron9300. I'd be interested to hear if you have any issues that aren't on that page. Thanks, Steve

Re:Insightful indeed...

[Eideewt]

Right -- that's not just an Ubuntu thing.

Re:Insightful indeed...

[cortana]

FTY, ~/.gnomerc is sourced during login, so you can put any per-user environment stuff in there if you want.

Jambo Ubuntu

[Doc Ruby]

Ubuntu 5.04 was like Windows 2000, and before that Windows95, and MacOS7.0 before that (and Win3.1 before than, and DOS, and VMS, and CP/M...): each of those was a desktop OS that "finally arrived". Easy enough to install, reliable enough to use all day, integrated enough not to miss the predecessor it supplanted. So when each of those rolled around, I switched. This time, I quarantined my old Windows machine in a closet, just opening an Ubuntu VNC window on it when absolutely necessary. If Ubuntu could just include a Multisync that syncs my Treo 600 (including Calendar and noncorrupted Contacts) to Evolution properly, I wouldn't even have to look in the VNC rearview mirror.

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[crimsun]

Please give a daily build of the live CD (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/) a whirl if you have time, and be sure to update your packages using System> Administration> Update Manager. A slew of GNOME 2.12.1 packages were uploaded today (including Evolution updates). If you can still reproduce your issues, please file bugs in Ubuntu's Bugzilla. Thanks!

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[Doc Ruby]

The Ubuntu Update Manager says: "Your system is up to date!"
evolution --version says "Gnome evolution-2.2 2.2.1.1"
Should I file a bug report on that ;)?

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[crimsun]

You need to click Reload.

$ evolution --version
Gnome evolution-2.4 2.4.1

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[Doc Ruby]

Pretty obscure - I guess that red icon that shows up in the taskbar needs 48 hours to expire before reminding me to OK an update.

So I click Reload, and get 7 packages to install: 5 GTK packages, openoffice.org-debian-files, and update-notifier (maybe it will automatically "Reload" on startup...).

After I tell "Software Updates" to "Install" those 7 updates (and even reboot, just to see whether that's necessary for all those GTK updates), evolution --version still says "Gnome evolution-2.2 2.2.1.1"

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[C_nemo]

I think tha gradparent is assuming you have set up your Ubuntu installation with the breezy repositories in sources.list. The updates you describe is todays updates in Hoary (which im currently using). Wait about a week and breezy should be ready for prime time

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[Doc Ruby]

Ah, thanks for clarifying that.Ubuntu's upgrade policy is "every six months", unlike Debian's "whichever year we get around to it". So I've stuck with just Ubuntu's "stable", rather than upgrade some packages to "unstable" like I did in Debian. In fact, I don't even really know how to upgrade only some specified packages to "unstable" like I did in Debian - I just download source tarfiles and build, navigating dependency hell manually. How can I tell Ubuntu to give me the unstable version of a package?

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[C_nemo]

Ubuntu's stabe distribution doesn't chage except from security updates once it's released. You should check with the upstream source which versions of the packages are considered stable, but i would assume that Ubuntu includes what is considered stable at the time of release. You could probably upgrade some packages by pointing apt at the unstable repositories once and then pointing it back to stable aftervards.
Ubuntu doesn't follow Debian's "stable"/"unstable" way, they release a distribution with a codename, then they start work on another release (with a new codename) which I would consider the "unstable" branch. Ubuntu wont upgrade your stable distribution if you dont change the release name you are going to track. Warty is for all time, so is Hoary etc... and now we have Breezy comming up. So to upgrade from stable hoary to the new stable, breezy, you must change the release name in sources.list from hoary to breezy. Ubuntu wont feed you any "unstable" packages if you track/upgrade only "stable" release names

Ubuntu also has a backports project which brings a small selection of packages from a" unstable" release to a "stable" due to public demand for a new gaim/mono etc.. packages. But you will need to enable this manually.

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[Doc Ruby]

Thanks again for the tips. So I can't keep a sources.list file with pointers to both Hoary and Breezy, and tell apt-get or Synaptic to upgrade against one or the other? I have to keep sources.list.hoary and sources.list.breezy files, then maybe run a script that symlinks to one or the other as sources.list, apt-get update against the new sources, then upgrade, then symlinks back to my default? If so, is there an alternative to Synaptic that manages multiple sources? Strange that Ubuntu would be less user-friendly in that operation than is Debian. Especially when Ubuntu's main advantage is focused on more timely upgrades. Maybe the Ubuntu team replaces easy "unstable" upgrades with their "faster releases" policy. Or maybe I just don't know how to use their corresponding system.

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[C_nemo]

I think the Ubuntu way of thinking is that you should be happy with the latest stable release and backports if you are expecting a stable environment. As to the source.list questions, I dont know, I have been happy with a reasonably frequent release cycle, only using the unstable version the last weeks before it hits stable on my home machine, and jsut stable to stable for my work machine.

They state quite rigiorusly that the development branch/unstable is just that. however, you may have luck with changing the release and upgrading packages with "not so system core" dependecies. I think that this would be madness under the recent hoary to breezy development since a lot of core packages has seen a major revision jump.

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[cortana]

There's nothing magical or broken about the Ubuntu branch of apt, you can put in a zillion repositories into sources.list and use apt pinning (see apt_preferences(5) and apt-get --target-release) as usual, if you really want to.

Re:Jambo Ubuntu

[Doc Ruby]

I've gotten kinda hooked on Synaptic, mostly as it integrates "apt-cache search" and "apt-get install" for quick combos. Is there a way to get Synaptic to target a release when representing those operations?

Propietary Software Industry

[knightinshiningarmor]

From the article: I have no interest in taking Ubuntu to join the proprietary software industry, it's a horrible business that is boring and difficult, and dying out rapidly anyway.

I agree that some tactics of the proprietary software industry are less than desirable, but how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?

I also agree that many businesses (Google for example) are offering a free interface while keeping their proprietary software on the back end. However, the majority of companies AREN'T going in that direction (Adobe for example). That they're "dying out rapidly" is a ridiculous statement.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[Xtifr]

> I agree that some tactics of the proprietary software industry are less than desirable, but how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?

From available evidence, the outstanding majority. In fact, a majority (approx. 90% by some counts) of all programmers already do earn a living working directly for companies that use the software, rather than for those companies which sell software for others to use. Beyond that, of course, I'm sure companies existing and new will learn to adapt as the market changes. Once, all computer companies sold their own, incompatible, proprietary machines; now most sell open, compatible, semi-generic systems. And yet, the industry is hardly any poorer for that.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[Spy der Mann]

I agree that some tactics of the proprietary software industry are less than desirable, but how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?

See here.

Trend: Products (before) -> Services (after)

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[gl4ss]

yeah.. in finland, there's wide amounts of software production.

but a tiny, miniscule amount of that software ends up packaged on store shelf.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[frank_adrian314159]

In fact, a majority (approx. 90% by some counts) of all programmers already do earn a living working directly for companies that use the software, rather than for those companies which sell software for others to use.

And, in fact, about 7 or 8% of the other 10 are niche products in very niche markets (think computational chemistry, IC design, fixed-income securities analysis, etc.) where the programmer encapsulates fairly complex domain knowledge. These apps are also not going away.

As for the rest - well, who needs another WordPad or gedit? And, if you do come up with the next killer text editor app, I'm sure you'll find someone to pay for it before someone codes an open source look-alike. The only difference is that you'll need to have initial payoff in 6 months rather than 6 years and need to actually improve the product afterwards if you want the revenue stream to keep flowing.

In short, the market isn't dying. It's only building YALAA (yet another look-alike app) and trying to keep the revenue stream from it going forever that is.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[david.given]

From available evidence, the outstanding majority. In fact, a majority (approx. 90% by some counts) of all programmers already do earn a living working directly for companies that use the software, rather than for those companies which sell software for others to use.

Don't forget the third option: I work for a company that produces software that is licensed to hardware manufacturers who then ship actual devices. Mobile phones, in my case. The software is never sold directly to the primary users of the software.

I suspect there's a hell of lot of this going on, too.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[kfg]

. . .how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?

Pretty much all of you. This may come as a shock, but the majority of people in the world manage to get by without ever writing a single line of code.

This may also come as a shock to you, but the world doesn't give a flying you know what about what you wish to be paid to do. In fact, it works the other way around, you either have to take care of yourself or be willing to do whatever other people are willing to pay you for.

I do not owe you a living. I have a hard enough time scraping up my own.

KFG

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[MarkJenkins]

but how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?

All of us.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[kfg]

. . .how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?

Most of you. We've invented this stuff called "Work."

KFG

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[kfg]

. . .how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?

All of you? Although some of you might have to turn to something known as "work." This may be hard to believe but there are many ways to earn a living other than writing code.

Remember, jobs are not there as a means for you to fulfill your fantasys. They are there because someone else finds you useful in acheiving their ends.

. . .a free interface while keeping their proprietary software on the back end.

Which somebody has to write, no?

KFG

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[mrbooze]

In what way are the people developing directly for the companies that use their software not developing proprietary software?

Open source software notwithstanding, what percent of corporations give out their internally-developed business code for free?

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[Xtifr]

This is a fair response, but I think the important thing to keep in mind is that free/open source is absolutely no threat to the in-house software market -- in fact, it's a great benefit to it, since even the most narrowly-licensed open source software (i.e. GPL'd software) can be used and modified for in-house applications without releasing the source.

The central point remains: free/libre/open-source software is no threat, and has potentially great benefit, to nearly all programmers.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[Jason Earl]

The answer to that is simple. Free Software allows the small custom developer and the in-house developer to deliver large and complex custom applications (based on Free Software frameworks) with more functionality and a lower cost than proprietary software. Parts of these applications will probably always remain "secret" to the company, but it is almost always advantageous to share improvements to the framework and core application. As someone who has tried to maintain their own parallell version of a popular Free Software library I can guarantee you that it is often easier to simply share and in return get some help maintaining your patches.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[digitect]

Indeed, in fact Shuttleworth is apparently blind to the contradiction he offers through two examples in adjacent paragraphs:

There will never be a difference between the "commercial" product and the "free" product, as there is with Red Hat (RHEL and Fedora). Ubuntu releases will always be free.

....There are likely to be many specialised versions of Ubuntu, under other brand names, that have commercial or proprietary features. They might have proprietary fonts or software or add-ons or integration with services, etc. There is also likely to be quite a lot of proprietary software available for Ubuntu.

[Emphasis mine]

So how is Ubuntu's model any better? He paints Red Hat as evil for offering both a commercial and a free version, but then expects Ubuntu to be extended in exactly the same way (or worse)!

The only difference here is that Red Hat is a single shop. But since the GPL guarentees the same enduring freedoms for Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu and Ubuntu-derivative distributions, why should we care who encourages an effort, especially when they have everything to gain by doing so? I would think the collection of talent working on both together would have a better synergy: design, bug fixing, packaging should all be improved.

To top it off, Shuttleworth then waffles his philisophical comments by closing with:

It's also important to distinguish between Canonical, which is a for-profit services operation, and the Ubuntu Foundation, which has capital from me, on a non-profit basis, to continue Ubuntu's work.

Uh, if Ubuntu is so free, why is it necessary to make this distinction? Does it mean Ubuntu's leader could be associated as having the same commercial structure previously vilified in the competing distribution?

Look, I have nothing against Ubuntu or Shuttleworth. The distro is solid and working hard toward the goal of free software that does what people need. But this continuous bashing of Red Hat serves nothing. It is especially ironic when it comes from individuals who have to equivocate on their own position to avoid appearing the same way! These arguments are naive, poorly constructed, petty, and generally irrelevant. They only stir up trouble and are the perfect distraction from the real work at hand.

Please Ubuntu cheerleaders, focus on your project and stop bashing everybody else. There is plenty to do and many good people working alongside.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[styrotech]

So how is Ubuntu's model any better? He paints Red Hat as evil for offering both a commercial and a free version, but then expects Ubuntu to be extended in exactly the same way (or worse)!
The only difference here is that Red Hat is a single shop.

And? It sounds like what you are calling "the only difference" is what is actually the whole point - especially in the context of the cross distro collaboration efforts he talks about. The contradictions are entirely in the way you chose to interpret them.

But since the GPL guarentees the same enduring freedoms for Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu and Ubuntu-derivative distributions, why should we care who encourages an effort, especially when they have everything to gain by doing so? I would think the collection of talent working on both together would have a better synergy: design, bug fixing, packaging should all be improved.

If you read the rest of the stuff about the relationship with Debian and the amount of work they're doing to develop ways in which different distros can work together you'd have your answers. No one distro can fit everyones needs, so they're working to ensure that improvements can be shared easier for everyones benefit.

Uh, if Ubuntu is so free, why is it necessary to make this distinction? Does it mean Ubuntu's leader could be associated as having the same commercial structure previously vilified in the competing distribution?

and

But this continuous bashing of Red Hat serves nothing. It is especially ironic when it comes from individuals who have to equivocate on their own position to avoid appearing the same way! These arguments are naive, poorly constructed, petty, and generally irrelevant. They only stir up trouble and are the perfect distraction from the real work at hand.

Huh? Did you even read the thing? Where is this vilification and continous bashing? It seems like you're in a reactionary paranoid delusion where every mention of your beloved RedHat is an attack on it. You're reading far too much into this stuff.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[Matt Perry]

In fact, a majority (approx. 90% by some counts) of all programmers already do earn a living working directly for companies that use the software

Where did you get the 90% figure? I've seen comments like this before but I've never been able to find details on the studies that arrived at numbers such as this.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[Gnuosphere]

knightinshiningarmor said:

"I agree that some tactics of the proprietary software industry are less than desirable, but how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?"

Please don't associate the expression "make a living" with the "proprietary software industry". Proprietary software is about explotation toward the maximization of profit. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "making a living".

If one is not able to make enough income from free software, then get another job until you are able to. It's that simple. If proprietary software developers were honest with themselves, they would say - "But how am I supposed to squeeze the absolute maximum amount of money out of society to put in my bank account if I don't oppress computer users?" rather than, "But how can I make a living?"

Asking the latter in the context of proprietary software is disingenuous.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[Beatbyte]

I agree that some tactics of the proprietary software industry are less than desirable, but how many of us would be able to earn a living without them?

If the business model is wrong, don't force it down the customers throat. Your question sounds like something out of the RIAA handbook.

Re:Propietary Software Industry

[bogado]

In my impressions it did not "bash redhat" in the first place, it simply said that he will not follow the same model as redhat. This can be considered bashing if and only if you believe that this model is "evil", and if you think like that then you have the right to bash (since you believe that the model redhat follows is evil). ... untie knot in head ...

The point is, he is answering the question about "Will Ubuntu ever demand licence fees or royalties?" and he goes on explaining that he will not do so, but if you want to pay there will be others that will have ubuntu code that will require you to pay (he cites then linspire). It is not he's plan, but he thinks that other people, who he can't control, will do it. Ubuntu is free, and if someone starts a distribution that come with, say oracle, based on ubuntu it will not be free (in fact it will be probably very expensive).

I use fedora, but I am pondering about changing to ubuntu. Fedora with the police that avoid the slightest legal (in the US) threat (to RH) is very annoying. Having to add a few (2, 3 or even 4) off-site sources to have MP3 or a driver for my wireless is very annoying to me. I really love Fedora, but the simplicity to install ubuntu on my laptop and have wireless working "out of the box" got me. If ubuntu had come with "Network Manager" I would be using it on the laptop by now.

I disagree.

[Henry V .009]

Windows has taught the world that "Home Edition" is synonymous with "Crippled Edition."

Re:I disagree.

[ettlz]

Windows has taught the world that "Home Edition" is synonymous with "Crippled Edition."

Come on now, XP Pro has, what, Active Directory/Windows Domain/whatever-else-Microsoft-tried-to-replace-LD AP-with support? A nice GUI for managing NTFS ACLs which you can manipulated in XP Home with cacls? As far as I know, Pro is only really useful if you're managing a large gaggle of Windows boxes. For instance, at home I run all my network services under Linux. I've a few boxes dual-booting with XP Home, and one with XP Pro. Pro sees no benefits whatsoever in this environment; it's no more stable, functional or secure.

Re:I disagree.

[Henry V .009]

Remote Desktop is very nice in all sorts of situations. It is far more forgiving on slow connections than X over ssh. The other thing I find myself using is XP Pro's built-in file encryption.

Re:I disagree.

[kubevubin]

Although I don't quite agree with you considering "Home Edition" crippled, I must say that it would make sense to "cripple" a home version of Windows (or a user-friendlier version of Linux) to aid in helping newbies learn the ropes. It may seem a little drastic, but you'd be surprised just how many people honestly don't read the plethora of popup dialog boxes and system tray bubbles that appear.
And - funny as it may sound - you'd be surprised just how intimidated newbies are whenever the Start menu automatically pops up the first time that they boot into Windows XP.

Re:I disagree.

[BridgeBum]

The only thing I miss in Home Ed vs Pro is Remote Desktop. VNC will do (of course), but sound integration in RDP is nice.

Re:I disagree.

[Skye16]

gpedit.msc

compmgmt.msc

I'm not positive, but I don't think either of those extremely useful utilities are in XP Home. (Can anyone confirm?)

Re:I disagree.

[JFitzsimmons]

Home edition also only supports two CPUs max, is missing software RAID, and cannot be configured to host Remote Desktop connections. It has remote assistance, but not RDP. I'm sure that there are several more features that are sorely missed in XPHome.

Re:I disagree.

[GrungyLotG]

Just tested it on my XP Home box, yup, neither utility exists.

Re:I disagree.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pro sees no benefits whatsoever in this environment; it's no more stable, functional or secure.

When XP came out, the logic was that anyone on 98/ME could move to XP Home, while XP Pro was for those who needed 'that weird esoteric enterprise stuff' that was only in windows 2000 professional.

So when all these users got their new laptops and desktops with xp home preinstalled it was a pretty rude awakening that MS had actually removed the webserver and disabled the ability to connect to a domain entirely.

It wasn't simply that Home was a watered down version of XP Pro (people were pretty much expecting that)...in some significant respects it was a waterned down version of 98!!! "Upgrading" from 98 to Home actually removed 2 pretty major features.

A lot of hobbyists, tele-communters, home-based web developers, power users, savvy gamers, and so forth got burnt by Home Edition. It was aggravated by the price difference, and the fact that many system builders didn't offer XP as an option in their more home-consumer targeted products... yet many "home consumers" needed XP Pro, but had no reason to pay 60% more for an 'enterprise workstation model of pc/laptop' ... forcing them to accept the bundled home edition and then buy XP Pro separately... (and at a rather ridiculous price considering how similiar the products are.)

Additionally the watered down security model, the lack of support for encryption (what?! Home users don't need privacy??) and limiting users to the "Microsoft Way" of setting up shared folders etc (hiding all the details where users literally could not meaningfully get to them -- yet all the details were there for misbehaving software to bungle up) was a real disservice to consumers.

Finally the loss of remote desktop, has saved the day for countless thousands as more clued friends family are able to solve their problems. (Sure home comes with remote assistance which is much much much clumsier and more of a pain to setup, especially when all parties are behind NAT boxes. Getting RD up and running is a few checkboxes and an easy nat/firewall tweak...)

Home solidly deserves its reputation for being crippled.

Re:I disagree.

[mikek3332002]

I agree it makes sense to MS to cripple a windows versions so they become expensive demos. If you want IIS pay(IIS is useful if you're playing around VS.net, apache much better though), if you want RD pay, if you want lock your kids accounts pay.... Though its not cripp,ed if all you want to do is download porn, spyware, addware, surf the net, check email, piss off the *AA.

Re:I disagree.

[pherthyl]

Two hugely important differences (for me anyway):
1. Remote Desktop
2. IIS (yeah some people have installed IIS on XP Home but it sure didn't work for me)

Re:I disagree.

[cloudmaster]

I can tell you for sure that I'm pissed that I can't run Windows XP Home on my quad Opteron machine. Pissed, I tell you! And the lack of software RAID, which is clearly better than spending a few bucks on better performing, platform-independant hardware RAID? Why, if it weren't for the availability of VNC servers for free, XP Home would be totally useless.

Re:I disagree.

[suitepotato]

CACLS is useless if you aren't booted into safe mode. The changes won't take properly. Try and make OpenSSH for Windows work with strictmodes=yes and key authentication only set in sshd_config. The trick? You run it with user/pass authentication to create the directories and copy the key file to make the permissions correct. CACLS fails every time. They well and truly crippled any sort of controls on XP Home.

Re:I disagree.

[Bad to the Ben]

Pro sees no benefits whatsoever in this environment; it's no more stable, functional or secure.

It is more secure. The Pro version supports Encrypted File System, which is quite useful because it's not a cooperative security measure like NTFS permissions. If I use NTFS permissions to secure a folder, then browse the folder under Linux, I can read everything. This doesn't work if you encrypt the file with EFS, unless you take the time to crack it somehow. EFS has it's faults, but IMHO it's a useful feature that Home lacks.

Re:I disagree.

[CFrankBernard]

I have a dual PC running XP Home; only one CPU is recognized in Task Manager.

Re:I disagree.

[shadowmas]

maybe you're more knowledgeble about this than me but i dont like NTFS encryption becasue its very difficult if not impossible (AFAIK) to recover a encrypted file if the os crashes.

Re:I disagree.

[hcob$]

Pro sees no benefits whatsoever in this environment; it's no more stable, functional or secure.

Ahem... Home is single processor ONLY.... I'm not even sure if it supports the two "virtual" processors made in hyperthreading.

Re:I disagree.

[Henry V .009]

Export your EFS keys to a CD. Without them, it is hopefully impossible to recover that encrypted file from just the hard-drive. That's actually the whole point.

Re:I disagree.

[harrkev]

Translation: I don't like NTFS encryption because it does what it is supposed to do...

Encryption is SUPPOSED to make files difficult to recover if you don't have the key. Need I mention the word "backup?"

Re:I disagree.

[ContraBass]

Maybe home users are crippled...

Re:I disagree.

[Zerbs]

Windows 98 did not have the ability to join a domain, in the way that NT Workstation, 2000 Pro, or XP Pro do, 98 did have the networking protocols that let you login to and utilize a domain and its resources though. Back to the topic at hand, XP Home does allow you to use the remote desktop connection program, it is available from Microsoft's website, it just doesn't come with it pre-installed like XP Pro does. Microsoft also phased out the Personal Web Server that came with 98, I imagine because of security considerations and the development of .NET. The web services that come with XP Pro are actually a slimmed down version of IIS, which is a significant upgrade from the wimpy web server from 98.

Re:I disagree.

[dtfinch]

Windows 98 also had a stripped down but usable copy of IIS, which they removed in XP Home. My mom (known by some as Grandma) was pretty upset that she'd either have to buy XP Pro or use her Win98 laptop to test her .asp pages.

Re:I disagree.

[swillden]

better performing, platform-independant hardware RAID?

It's common wisdom that hardware RAID is better than software RAID, but I'm not so sure. Performance may or may not be better, depending on workload, but I think the "platform independence" of hardware RAID is highly overrated. Hardware RAID solutions are platform-independent in the sense that you can theoretically access the data with any other operating system, but they're extremely dependent on the hardware platform. If your hardware RAID controller craps out, your data is inaccessible unless you can get another controller from the same manufacturer, and you may even need to get the same model. So, with software RAID, you're tied to the OS, with hardware RAID, you're tied to the device. Which is more likely to change? And even if you did want to change operating systems, what are the odds that you're using a file system that can be accessed by a different OS?

I think for a lot of situations, software RAID is not only cheaper, it's *better*.

(BTW, I didn't mistake your post for a serious comment. It was funny, I laughed. Then I started thinking about hardware vs software RAID).

Re:I disagree.

[cloudmaster]

You're right - modern procesors are fast enough that software RAID really is comparable or better in several cases. I'm partial to hardware solutions in general, and in the case of RAID for a couple of reasons. First, there are generally more channels and dedicated channels on a hardware RAID card (or, at least, more are available than on a regular motherboard). Second, the OS agnostic part is useful in this specific situation - I've had problems where the Windows 2K host OS on a separate drive couldn't boot, but I needed to recover the data. With a software solution, I'd have to get into a Windows rescue system and work from there. Since I use hardware solutions anything anything's important, though, I can use the Linux recovery tools with which I'm more comfortable (they're not neccesarily better - they're just better for *me*).

Anyway, yeah, there's really not one good RAID solution to rule them all. But, as you observed, a hardware bias is funnier. :)

Re:I disagree.

[swillden]

First, there are generally more channels and dedicated channels on a hardware RAID card (or, at least, more are available than on a regular motherboard)

Heh heh. My home file server has six IDE controllers in it... two on the mobo and four more on two PCI cards. It's occurred to me to wonder what would happen if I got three of those quad-controller PCI cards, for a total of 14 controllers. The first 13 master channels would be hda/c/e/g/i/k/m/o/q/s/u/v/y, but what would the 14th be?

I'm not curious enough to look into the code to find out (the udev code, I suppose), and I can't fit that many disks into the box anyway, but the thought makes me chuckle for some reason.

Re:I disagree.

[JFitzsimmons]

It has it, except it is crippled in that you can only do striping. Unless you open up some choice DLLs with a hex editor and change a couple of bits.

http://www.petri.co.il/software_mirror_in_windows_ xp.htm Officially, You Don't

http://www.vttoth.com/mirror.htm Unoficially, You Do! ;)

Re:I disagree.

[cloudmaster]

This little chunk from ide.h might help you out some:

#ifndef MAX_HWIFS
# ifdef CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEPCI
#define MAX_HWIFS 10
# else
#define MAX_HWIFS 6
# endif
#endif

If you've included support for PCI IDE controllers, the maximum number of supported interfaces is 10, giving 20 drives. That's why systems that have /dev populated manually (rather than running devfs/udev/etc) have drives from hda to hdt. Further devices aren't supported without changing that definition in ide.h

However, if you change the maxium number of interfaces, the name is calculated by adding the drive's index to 'a' - so after hdz you'd get hd{, hd|, hd}, hd~ - not such a pretty thing, and not something anyone rational's gonna see anytime soon anyway. :) It might be worth pionting out that /dev/hdt is major number 91, and major number 93 is used by /dev/iscc*, so there isn't room for two more drives after that using contiguous major numbers anyway (though the first, second, and third controlers sure jump all over the place)

You're also limited to 64 partitions by the device minor numbers, though it's further limited in ide.h, in case you're curious about that too. :)

Money Talks

[mpapet]

And it sure does make it easy to build a better distro.

He's certainly made me believe he's sticking to Debian for the heavy lifting then Q/A and patching to make the packages perform the way he wants them.

I do wonder though if the Debian volunteers will really stick around and still take pride in working on the distro that makes Ubuntu so good.

Re:Money Talks

[tvon]

So someone finally made a great distro out of Debian and it's a bad thing?

Re:Money Talks

[agraupe]

The debian devs/fanboys seem to do this in exchange for the opportunity to mercilessly tear to shreds anyone who asks about Ubuntu or Knoppix in #debian. Just speaking from experience here...

Re:Money Talks

[EvilSporkMan]

I do wonder though if the Debian volunteers will really stick around and still take pride in working on the distro that makes Ubuntu so good.

I'm inclined to believe that merging with Debian Unstable every six months will be the downfall of Ubuntu. That was cool when Debian had taken forever to get a new release out and unstable was more like testing is now, but unstable is now much more "broken". They'll be wasting a lot of effort rushing to a release before the Debian people (who are, in some sense, experts on the topic) consider it appropriate, so they'll just duplicate a lot of effort, at best.

Re:Money Talks

[ScrewMaster]

Well, they call it open source for a reason.

And who knows ... if what Unbuntu is doing is really so good, maybe some of it will end up back in the parent distro. Stranger things have happened.

Re:Money Talks

[BiggerIsBetter]

It not quite as simple as leeching and rebranding. Debian isn't what makes Ubuntu good, it's what makes the system gel as a whole, IMO. What makes it good is the enormous focus on the user-experience, and the responsiveness of the developers. That's not so much about pretty icons, but about usability and stability ( and some automagic hardware support - Debian? I think not! ;-) ).

I'm not really involved with Ubuntu, but I submitted a bug report for a package that was sent upstream to Gnome - not Debian. They're not officially binary compatible, many many packages are different, and they offer the changes back to Debian. Remember also that Mandriva (ex-Mandrake) was originally a Red Hat "based" distro once.

Re:Money Talks

[Examancer2]

Actually, if you had read the interview, there is compelling evidence that this is already happening. Debian is already incorporating a lot of the advances from Ubuntu.

Re:Money Talks

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, but if I had done that my comment would have been well-informed and insightful, leaving no room for anyone to complain. This being Slashdot, I felt it was my duty to shoot from the hip, as it were, and simply fire off my post.

Re:Money Talks

[bcrowell]

I'm baffled by the Ubuntu buzz. I was running Debian testing on my desktop at home, and then I tried installing Ubuntu on my desktop machine at work to see if was really any better. Actually, some stuff that worked fine in Debian testing didn't work in Ubuntu, and posting on the Ubuntu forums resulted in zero responses on how to solve the problem. As far as I can tell, it's just a slightly more bleeding-edge version of Debian testing, which doesn't do me any good, because I don't need any of the new bleeding-edge features.

Re:Money Talks

[lspd]

I realize that #debian has a reputation as a terrible place to visit, but why would you expect that questions about Knoppix or Ubuntu would be answered there? Would you expect RedHat's support staff to diagnose problems with Mandrake or CentOS?

Re:Money Talks

[macshit]

They're not officially binary compatible, many many packages are different

They're about 99.9% the same. I've moved back and forth between Debian and Unbuntu, and honestly speaking there's little real difference (maybe the installer/default install is different, I didn't try those).

I didn't even re-install, I just use apt-get to upgrade from Debian to Ubuntu (and later back to Debian when I realized how little was different in Ubuntu). Things were quite compatible.

Ubuntu's certainly done some nice stuff, but I think if anything they've gotten rather more credit than they deserve.

Re:Money Talks

[KFW]

Just like Debian lets Linus, the Apache Software Foundation, XFree (and soon, X.org), etc., do the heavy lifting. All they do is some Q/A and patching to make the software perform they way they want...
/K

Re:Money Talks

[agraupe]

First of all, mandrake (at this point) is a completely different distro, and secondly, paid support staff is much different from a bunch of people in an IRC channel. I know I've seen ubuntu questions and even debian questions asked in #gentoo without a bunch of flames. Also, realize that it's not so much that they do it, but the rudeness with which they do it. A simple, "we limit this channel to debian questions only" would suffice, but instead we have like 20 people saying "OMG!!!! Ubuntu is *NOT* debian, don't ask questions here!". Half of the time, the question doesn't involve anything distro-specific (even apt-get, when talking about ubuntu vs. debian, is hardly distro specific), so anyone could answer the question for the most part.

Re:Money Talks

[cloudmaster]

Yeah, I'd imagine that the people who make a big deal out of ensuring that all of the stuff they release is free, open, and reusable - I'd imagine those people would get pretty irritated about deriviative works. Well, assuming they're hypocrites, anyway. :)

Re:Money Talks

[51mon]

"Half of the time, the question doesn't involve anything distro-specific (even apt-get, when talking about ubuntu vs. debian, is hardly distro specific), so anyone could answer the question for the most part."

Whilst I know what you are complaining about, my experience is the majority of such questions ARE about problems that simply don't happen if you run Debian, and stick to "testing" or "stable". "Release when ready" has its advantages.

Even questions about "apt" can have very different answers because the distros have very different release structures.

But it is all beside the point, even if the people in #debian know the answers, even if the problem happens to be the same across both distro, if they wanted to answer other peoples Ubuntu questions they would presumably also be in the Ubuntu channels.

Grumpy Groundhog info

[jtatum]

Mr. Shuttleworth mentions the as yet unannounced Grumpy Groundhog project in TFA. He says it's ToBeAnnounced which I took as a hint that info is in the wiki:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GrumpyGroundhog

It's an ubuntu distribution for developers that has the daily builds of everything:

Upstream development in the open source world moves at a tremendous pace. Many developers like to keep up to date with specific upstream products, but the work involved in building from CVS every day is substantial. With The Grumpy Groundhog Project, Ubuntu provides those developers with a ready source of packages containing the latest upstream code.

These same packages will allow cutting-edge developers to keep track of changes in the upstream codebase that might affect the distribution later down the line. For example, these packages can be auto-built with the latest compiler and toolchain packages to test compatibility with the versions that may be used for the next release of Ubuntu.

Funky Fairy!

[jonasj]

Now we are on the naming thing, what's with the "Funky Fairy" naming system?

Funky Fairy would be an AWESOME name for Ubuntu 6.10! :-)

Re:Funky Fairy!

[Tribbin]

Hey, at least it'll be a fantastic name...

fantastic: Existing only in imagination; fanciful; imaginary; not real; chimerical.

So which is it?

[bshellenberg]

From the article: "... will never introduce a commercial version of Ubuntu." followed immediately by: "There will never be a difference between the commercial product and the free product..." and then: "We have been contracted to produce customised distributions..." So what *IS* the deal??

Re:So which is it?

[muszek]

they will customize ubuntu for some org that wants some tweaks or new features. they'll collect money and that's it. it's not like they're gonna sell it later on as an "improved" (pro/plus/whatever) version.

imagine you're rich and you want to have phpMyAdmin with a pink theme. the easiest way is to go to PMA's devs and tell them "modify it for me to be pink and I'll give you $xxx.

Re:So which is it?

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

At a guess, a customised distribution would be one with the companies logo as a background, and only the apps the company deems nessecary to run. Having run the installer a couple of times, (Both times for desktop, must have a look at the server install) you are not prompted for which applications you want. I'd say in a business environment, the games would go. So businesses are paying for *LESS* functionality than typically available.

That's what I think anyway.

Maybe now

[i_should_be_working]

we won't have to hear questions of why Ubuntu isn't part of the 'DCC', From TFA:

Why is Ubuntu not part of the DCC Alliance?
I don't believe the DCC will succeed, though its aims are lofty and laudable. It would be expensive to participate, and it would slow down our ability to add the features, polish and integration that we want in new releases. I'm not prepared to devote scarce resources to an initiative that I believe will ultimately fail.

Ouch. I thought the simple fact that DCC is based on Sarge, and Ubuntu on Sid was reason enough.

Also, this FAQ should put to rest the question of leeching and other dumb shit that Ubuntu has been accused of.

Re:Maybe now

[bcrowell]

And what exactly is DCC? I'd never heard of it until reading Shuttleworth's FAQ.

Debian Cello Conservatory?

Desktop Cruft Collection?

Dramatically Capable Computers?

D C Cisnotanacronym?

Don't Clutch your Crotch?

Re:Maybe now

[Qwavel]

On the whole it's wonderful what he's doing, but I'm sorry he isn't being more supportive of DCC.

If DCC does fail he will have contributed to this by not supporting it in some manner (even if just giving it his moral support).

In my opinion, DCC is good for debian, and good for LInux.

Re:Maybe now

[lspd]

In my opinion, DCC is good for debian, and good for LInux.

IMHO, DCC is great for end users (more support and preconfiguration options for Debian Stable) and great for the derived distributions (pooled resources), but completely irrelevant to the Debian Project.

Any work done fixing Debian Stable is worthless to Debian. Debian will not allow anything other than security fixes into stable, and a patch against the stable version of a package is useless for updating the unstable version of a package.

The people in DCC...they're great folks and do lots of spectacular things for Debian. DCC itself though, its goal is to improve Debian derivatives, not Debian.

Re:Maybe now

[StrawberryFrog]

I've used the DCC program. It's the Delphi Commandline Compiler.

Or that might just be a different DCC. I have no idea what he means by DCC.

Re:Maybe now

[Qwavel]

http://dccalliance.org/

I think it's an organization trying to promote cooperation amoungst the debian based distro's. Cooperation towards better coordination (eg. bug fixing) and some standardizaton to make things easier for the end-user. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

All the major debian derived distro's belong to it other than Ubuntu. Obviously this is a major ommision which, on it's own, is enough to kill it.

Re:Maybe now

[wild_berry]

Considering Linus' recent words about specs and meaningful code, I reckon that Mark Shuttleworth's pragmatic efforts with the multi-distribution bug tracker (bazaar) will do much better for software compatibility among the Debian family, and possibly even outside it.

In the fine article, Mark makes the great point that the strength of FLOSS stuff is the source code, which can be compiled to whichever architecture it supports. It made me wonder if ABI compatibility in LSB is a silly x86-centric mistake.

Re:The strange names...

[Spetiam]

Slashcode is really screwed up. I posted this earlier, and it got submitted with someone else's sig and didn't even show up in the thread. As I write this, both submissions have not yet appeared in the thread.

use rdesktop for windows

[Splork]

vnc isn't idea. you should try windows remote desktop with the open source rdesktop client. it works better.

What a nice guy

[barkholt]

How wonderfull the world would be if his behaviour and attitude was the default among rich people - using his money with a vision to improve the world, instead of getting 8 sportcars and a larger penis.

Re:What a nice guy

[Eric Pierce]

Actually, he has all that too.

Re:What a nice guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but once you have the larger penis what's the point of the sportscars?

Re:What a nice guy

[thue]

instead of getting 8 sportcars and a larger penis.

Or... instead of using $20 million on an 8 day trip to space? ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth

That said, I am very gratefull for his sponsorship of Ubuntu :).

Re:What a nice guy

[harrkev]

And just who are you that you can comment on the "larger penis" comment? Inquiring minds want to know...

Re:What a nice guy

[Rxke]

It could be argued his flight was a good way to promote Ubuntu, and in-orbit, IIRC he did carry with him some science-packages from South-African schools, and he had to negociate quite hard to be allowed to... Again his whole idea to 'educate' the world etc... The flight wasn't 100% for his own fun, sod the rest, great guy...

The crux of the article...

[sweetnjguy29]

The most important part of the wiki is towards the end, when Shuttleworth states that the real reason for funding Ubuntu is to solve the "distro collaboration problem" by collaboring with other distros on bugs, translations, technical support, revision control systems. These tools will allow Ubuntu to make its work available easily to Debian, Gentoo, and the rest of the upstream community.

The should be...

[saleenS281]

If they're doing it for the reasons they claim they're doing it, it shouldn't matter. If they're all talk, well, you'll see the mass exodus. Guess it's a nice little "trial by fire".

Ubuntu Talk at Debconf 5

[jooon]

If you want to see and hear him talk about many of the things he mentions in the FAQ, you should watch his Ubuntu talk at Debconf this year. Theora 132MB, MPEG 257MB

They're CODENAMES!

[a.different.perspect]

You know like Windows Whistler, or Longhorn? I mean, Longhorn could be the name of a porn movie. I certainly wouldn't want my child using it, especially if Bill were in it. But it doesn't matter, because the actual release is called Vista. Similarly, Ubuntu codename "Breezy Badger" is, officially, Ubuntu 5.10; "Hoary Hedgehog" was Ubuntu 5.04; "Warty Warthog" was Ubuntu 4.10. As you so astutely notice, naming as a matter of "marketing"; how much marketing do you want them to put into the names of unreleased software? When the final releases are professionally, numerically named, what, exactly, are you complaining about?

Re:They're CODENAMES!

[nutshell42]

When the final releases are professionally, numerically named, what, exactly, are you complaining about?

Go to the official download page.

Now what do you find there?:

Download the latest Ubuntu!

Ubuntu 5.10 "The Breezy Badger" Preview Release

Ubuntu 5.04 "The Hoary Hedgehog"

MS never put their codenames on the boxes

Re:They're CODENAMES!

[Signbarn]

The CD I received for free from Ubuntu doesn't mention the codename on its case. It's simply Ubuntu 5.04

Re:They're CODENAMES!

[thephotoman]

Er...The codenames aren't on the offical pressed CD packaging for the Ubuntu discs. It really is purely internal.

Re:The strange names...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's complete bullshite...

It's been the number one distro on distrowatch.com for some time now and it's only had two releases. It's already well on it's way to becoming mainstream (if it isn't already). No one would care if it had homosexuals dancing on the cover burning American flags on it, it is a polished distro that you can install on a wide variety of systems and have all the various components Just Work (TM).

The amount of work you have to put into a distro post install is what "talks" when it comes to the desktop market, the stupid development names and half naked dancers are what "walks". It could have purple monkies and I would still use it just for the simple fact that I need to do next to nothing after an install to get my hardware up and running. A lot of other people no doubt feel the same way, otherwise there would not be big debates about it or high numbers on distrowatch for it. Call us back when you figure out what really makes desktop Linux tick.

Call me a fan boy - I just want a nice, clean, no fuss desktop distro where I won't have to think "well, it's not windows so no wonder some stuff doesn't work".

Re:The strange names...

[i_should_be_working]

Ubuntu might be popular within its own community, but the distro won't go mainstream until its image matures past high school sophomore.

Or until some people become less anal-retentive. Did you read the part about NASA being one of their customers? And is an interacial menage a trois somehow worse than a single race one?

With all his wealth

[Trogre]

You'd think Mr Shuttleworth could afford to buy wiki.ubuntu.com a real SSL certificate...

Re:With all his wealth

[BigGerman]

Especially since his wealth came from Thawte ;-)

Unstable: Perfect Storm

[dmaxwell]

There are a quite a few major transistions all happening at the same time. Debian is adopting the GCC 4.x ABI for C++, going from XFree86 to X.Org, and there are new releases of KDE and GNOME. Because of when Sarge froze, these all started hitting Unstable at the same time. I went through this with Breezy over the summer. There just isn't a smooth way for a development distro to handle this many at once. I'm sure Gentoo's dev branch went through it to but I bet they only got them one at a time. Come to think of it, they went GCC 4.x pretty early. That is the ugliest one and has directly affects KDE and GNOME.

Once these are over, Debian Unstable will be its usual not-really-unstable self.

Re:Unstable: Perfect Storm

[jsight]

I'm sure Gentoo's dev branch went through it to but I bet they only got them one at a time.

Yes, basically. The exception is GCC, as Gentoo is insanely slow about that. They are currently on 3.3 (not 4... not 3.4... 3.3!). :)

Re:Unstable: Perfect Storm

[thomasweber]

> They are currently on 3.3 (not 4... not 3.4... 3.3!). :)
Switching from 3.3 to 3.4 *is* the hard part -- the ABI change for C++ happens there. Going from 3.4 to 4.0 might break some software, but that usually is an upstream problem.

Re:Unstable: Perfect Storm

[jsight]

Actually, as far as I know, it doesn't have anything to do with the ABI. Gentoo is primarily source-based anyway.

In the forums, they've claimed that it is due to too many bugs in 3.4 and 4.0.

Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering if any one out there has made the move from a RedHat/Fedora Core based desktop system over to Ubuntu? Was it worth the effort? Is it better? Is it worse?

I use Fedora, with freshrpms, kderedhat, and some other public repositories. I like some of the Ubuntu concepts such as the warm fuzzy humanity thing feels really good to me. But I'm wondering if it's practically worth the effort switching? The hype is enticing, but what's it really like?

thanks

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[TrekCycling]

It's like a better distro than Fedora. I use it on my laptop and it works great. CentOS goes on my desktop.

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[tfiedler]

I have migrated two servers to Ubuntu 5.04 and they run spectacularly well. I will be migrating some more later this fall too.

I hold RHCE for 9 and Enterprise 3 and while I like certain aspects of Red Hat, I can't justify the cost when Ubuntu is perfectly suited.

The problem with Fedora/RHEL is that I have to pay to get easy updating. I know I can jump through hoops to make it work without paying, but it's not worth it to me, especially when Ubuntu's apt works wonderfully. I plan on asking my employer, in exchange for not buying licenses each year for our servers which in turn saves us considerable cash, if I can give back to the community by hosting a mirror for Ubuntu. Of course, this won't happen quickly but I believe that since my employer is an edu, it will happen.

In short, switch. In long, test it for awhile and you'll answer that question for yourself.

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[concept10]

I will proudly say that I moved from Red Hat/Fedora Core and not because of the hype, but for very good reasons that I will explain.

* Centralized resources: Everything is one spot. You say that you use 'public' repositories. Almost all of the packages that you could ever want are available within the Ubuntu ecosystem. Fedora Core uses yum and I preferred apt-4-rpm. Some repos support apt4rpm, some do not. I do not know what the case is now. APT is much faster and mature than yum. Also, you may run into trouble with mixing repos with Fedora Core. Everyone doesnt package apps uniformly.

* Superior hardware detection: Developers test, improve and fix alot of thingsand as a result, more functions work out-of-the-box. The latest development release automatically configured many items I could'nt get working with Fedora Core. Examples: Processor Speed Scaling (P4 mobile), the laptop Function keys for display dimming, volume, CD eject, etc. YMMV with wireless.

* Community: The best community ever. Nice people that help anyone out. Everyone is welcomed. From power-users to noobs. Server, Desktop, Gaming, programmers. Everyone is welcomed. Less corporate politics and leet-ness with user contributions. I will admit that I still use Debian Sarge for servers.

* Vision and milestones: Criticise if you like, but Mark Shuttleworth has a great vision of what he wants to accomplish with the distro. He gives so much back to education and people. Everything also happens in the public.

If you want a stable Linux distro based on Debian with a great selection of packages and easy install, you can't go wrong with Ubuntu.

Most people just criticise the color of the default theme, or Debian ABI compatibilty or the stupid controversy regarding the codenames. These are all ignorant arguments IMHO. No one rants this much about Linspire, or Xandros..

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[SiChemist]

Since you mention kde-redhat I assume that you are a KDE fan (like myself). In that case you should try Kubuntu which is basically Ubuntu with KDE in place of Gnome. You COULD install Ubuntu and then apt-get the KDE metapackage, but then you would have both environments and you may not want that.

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[spauldo]

What keeps me with debian is the QA and integration of _everything_. Unlike using a public repository, everything in the debian project is made to work with everything else. It's not perfect, but it's damn close.

FC3 came on four CD's, I believe. I think sarge comes on 11, if I remember right (I only download the first CD and apt the other stuff I need, personally). All that extra software is part of the debian project and fits seamlessly into it. Everything is available from one place, which makes searching for and installing packages a snap. Damn near everything I use is part of the system (which is a lot, lemme tell you), and while there are other apt sources out there for the things debian doesn't include, I usually just install those from source.

That said, change sucks, so if you're used to the redhat way, then it'll drive you up the wall at first. Use it for a while and then see what you like better.

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[chaud lapin]

Can Ubuntu be set up to run both KDE and Gnome apps on the desktop the way Fedora can? I prefer Gnome as an environment but like being able to use K3b and a few others...

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[spauldo]

It'll run both, yes. I can't say about the integration of the menus and themes, but there's no reason you can't run KDE apps in a GNOME environment.

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[Terrasque]

Most people just criticise the color of the default theme, or Debian ABI compatibilty or the stupid controversy regarding the codenames. These are all ignorant arguments IMHO. No one rants this much about Linspire, or Xandros..

I think that when people complain about things like that it just shows how good Ubuntu really is :)

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[harrkev]

Well, I would also like to complain about lack of support for MP3, DVD, etc.

I know that they have good legal reasons, but they should just make the "Unofficial Add-On CD" an official extention that is considered optional.

It would be nice to get the add-on CD from the same servers that host the distro itself.

Re:Moving from RedHat/Fedora to Ubuntu?

[harrkev]

It can without any problem. In fact, you can intall Ubunto and then just apt-get the Kubuntu desktop (check the wiki). I have had a couple of minor problems after doing this (GnuCash fonts hosed, but fixable), but it works.

My suggestion, let Gnome still handle the log-in screen. Life will be much happier that way.

hmm

[xant]

Sadly, a Fairy isn't technically an animal, so I don't think it'll be accepted. (I agree though. :-)

I wonder if we could get Clumsy Clawshrimp accepted?

Good idea.

[Kadin2048]

Let's call it ...

Linspire.

DCC...

[Junta]

I'm glad to see that explanation. A lot of people gave Ubuntu flak for not being part of it.

Honestly, I agree with him. It has marginal chance of success over the attempt that was UnitedLinux, by not having the commercial interest muddying the waters. However, the crux of the problem is that it flies somewhat in the face of the whole point of different distributions. The theory may be that distros distinguish themselves at a higher level and by forcing common underpinnings doesn't impact the ability to differentiate, but if that were truly the case, there wouldn't be such variation today.

For example, let's assume a member of the DCC is a tad more enthusiastic about GNUstep than the others. Hypothetically, GCC 4.2 releases with ObjC++ support as a significant feature. That distro may want to break with the conservative members to provid the GCC that would allow easier porting of a wider range of OSX apps. What's perceived commonly as a 'boring underpinning' becomes a potential significant factor in differentiation for a distro, but requires breaking compatibility with the rest of DCC.

Just as UnitedLinux made it impossible for the members to meaningly be different, everything ending up essentially being SuSE with different artwork and corporate propoganda, the DCC just simply can't occur and preserve meaningfully unique identies of member distributions.

Debian has always been about open source, and by not even having the illusion of binary compatibility amongst them, it perhaps encourages practices of distributing description files, tarballs, and diffs rather than binary .deb packages...

Re:DCC...

[Burz]

I see this whole line of thought as the old "User-friendly == Dumbed Down and Locked Down" gripe... just from a new angle. This reflexive response does hold considerable sway in the Linux community, as the many Linux users who have migrated to OS X could probably tell you. But its stupid: No committment to ABIs and 6-month revision cycles amount to an unstable platform, where an individual must increasingly resort to arduous compiling/dependency-checking as their repetoire of Linux applications grows: If 10% of their favored programs aren't being added to the Ubuntu repositories, then that user's functional possibilities on that distro are decimated (or their time is being chewed-up). Over time, that adds up to a lot of frustration.

The usual Linux elitists, of course, are not phased by any of this. They have their symbolic/API compatability, and lots of ./configure --option --option --option, the lingo of our geek-ghetto.

Also, I don't see why DCC would hurt the ability of a distro like Xandros to implement its exceptional SMB/ADC support, home-folder encryption, WiFi and VPN configurators, or any number of other GUI kparts they have developed for managing services. More than anything, Xandros and the others will receive additional guidance in where to tread carefully, if a new feature has the potential to impact the core's compatability.

If YOU so easily pulled that hypothetical conflict out of your behind, don't you think that distro maintainers are capable of identifying the problem as well?

Since when does adding features to the derrivative of a basic core functionality make it the same? Are you really trying to tell us that Caldera OpenLinux and SuSE were the same?

The danger of becoming too conservative exists with any effort for end-user consistency, whether FOSS is involved or not. That is why on occasion products go through major whole-point revisions; in-between them users can enjoy years of relative stability and incremental advances, and the avergae programmer (not to be confused with kernel/distro enthusiasts) doesn't have to hit such a fast-moving target.

Re:DCC...

[Junta]

While distros of the UnitedLinux family were not the same, they were so similar as to be near pointless. If they did differentiate too much, they would pose dilemmas to third-party developers in how to proceed.

Let's use the example of Xandros and the additional features. To a great extent, many of the features you described *should* be transparent. But let's say some enterprise application releases, which could make sense to deal with AD, but not a hard requirement. They face the dilemma of whether to hook into the Xandros-specific ADC support or to skip the feature and be DCC compliant. If they are DCC compliant, they are viewed as lacking a useful feature in Xandros. If they write to Xandros, users will complain they are Xandros-specific when there is the DCC. So third-party development will still be stuck with very similar dilemmas they face today (I don't think the DCC will impact commercial ISV adoption btw, the combined market share of all the members with respect to the professional engineering workspace is too small, sadly). Whatever the case, while simple applications sacrifice nothing to be DCC-compliant, overwhelmingly applications are becoming more complex than the base DCC dare restrict distributions.

The fact also remains that despite your examples of things Xandros can do without deviating, you don't address the point that there are some potentially significant things to particular distributions would want to do that would be impossible when adhering to such a standard, such as a hypothetical GCC release with ObjC++ support that would only matter for an oddball distro that wants to do something aggressive with GNUstep and open source OSX apps. This is just an example I'm familiar with, I'm sure there are many more. In short, if the glibc/GCC/etc choices don't really matter in defining the user experience and should therefore be considered a choice easily given up by distros, why is there any development going on there? The answer is the development is justified and yields end-user experience benefits.

In short, the dilemma to third-party developers is not sufficiently reduced to yield high benefit, while at the same time the restrictions can impact significantly the ability to differentiate depending on the distribution's goals. While all this is going on, effort has to be exerted by the developers to ensure adherence, slowing progress. Ubuntu's choice to abstain from DCC is pretty defensible, and with precendent, UnitedLinux suffered and fell apart, at least partially because of the same reasons Shuttleworth predicts DCC will fail. Best case it degenerates into the top market share member calling the shots anyway, so the practice of cloning with respect for backward compatibility ultimately acheives the same goal as the consortium anyway.

I don't think the distribution people are ignorant to these points, I just think they are overly optimistic about how it will work out. There was a reason in the first place they wanted their own distro, so they obviously have some difference in opinion with core Debian that has a decent chance of conflicting with the DCC at some point.

Re:DCC...

[Burz]

DCC isn't a distro. It's a spec. A 'filter' made specifically for Debian, if you will.

I think DCC will get a bunch of distros to at least adhere to the latest LSB. If they turn DCC into a bit more than that, then great. If not, oh well.

Why would Xandros' handling of ADC impact anything that an app developer writes for DCC? Just because Xandros' execution is very good doesn't mean that it represents some sort of fundamental difference or proprietary API. Its just some K ControlCenter stuff and init.d scripts arranged with the audacious intent of programmatically configuring Samba winbind. (Clutch the pearls!!! Anything other than vi touching our tender /etc nether region is just sacrilige! Why, I can see male *nix admins everywhere slowly crossing their legs in awkward vulnerability.. LOL!! :D )

But let's say some enterprise application releases, which could make sense to deal with AD, but not a hard requirement. They face the dilemma of whether to hook into the Xandros-specific ADC support or to skip the feature and be DCC compliant.

If the app is designed to just access the client's assigned domain then I don't see a problem. Samba is still Samba. If the app assumes they need to muck with PAM configs in a permanent way, then it has lost its focus and isn't just an 'app' is it? In that case, the developer will have to realize that by assuming the role of a system configuration utility they might step on the users/admin's toes and ship the 'app' with the windbind stuff disabled by default-- Perhaps they think that its onerous to pop up a one-time dialog when the app can't get its data, saying "This may occur because your system isn't configured for a Windows Domain... Would you like NetApp(tm) to attempt this configuration?" If they change their mind, they can go back into the apps's preferences and click on a checkbox. The two different roles of the program ought to be seperable in this way.

Oh I know... I much prefer the old-style apps that instead core-dump and instantly disappear. The current crop that might mumble something cryptic about 'winbind' on certain distros is so boring and patronizing.

But then at least you could safely think that to be 'interesting' and refreshingly 'different'. And I'm sure there are many who even consider blinkered apps and shifting platforms to be good for their job security.

BTW - If I ever see ObjC++ support (as its currently engineered) offered by my distro, I'll damn well expect it to be an option and not melded in with the rest of the GNU C++ frontend by default. Of course if you're counting on your ObjC code compiling on just anyone's ABI-less system without extra work, then I can see how a merely optional frontend would look like an obstacle. But then, I don't need an ObjC compiler on a Mac to run even OS X Cocoa software to begin with... Why the hell should I need it on any other *nix system?? Because the latter can't have ABIs? So we see that lack of stable (though not changeless) ABIs is the obstacle. Thank you for that example.

Anyway here's to more XML in /etc! ;-D

Pffft

[Chuck Chunder]

Ubuntu is Linux for Human Beings and thankfully most humans aren't humourless.

Criticising Ubuntu's 'marketing' is ludicrous given that they have had outrageous success in accruing brand recognition very quickly.

I don't think the problem you see really lies with Ubuntu. With your references to "half naked and interracial menage-a-trois" and Dapper Drake being a "gay duck" I think it is you that has maturity problems, not Ubuntu.

My Gawd ... Shocking!

[KwKSilver]

Maybe you should stick to XP & VISTA. Else, what would people think? And lets not even go into the fact that as a Linux variant, Ubuntu is a member of the unix family. Unixs shouldn't be able to have families anyway. Huh?

Re:If only I didn't have to install stuff AFTER

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

try http://ubuntuguide.org/. Kinda handy for all the addons that one needs to be happy.

I want a server edition.

[killjoe]

Where is ubuntu for servers? That's what I want to know.

Re:I want a server edition.

[poopdeville]

Here.

Re:I want a server edition.

[Directrix1]

Just type 'server' at the install CDs lilo prompt.

Re:I want a server edition.

[killjoe]

No I mean a distro that gets updated less often the ubuntu but more often then debian stable. One with a thousand server packages on it.

Re:I want a server edition.

[forlornhope]

Still Ubuntu. We run Ubuntu on 50 some servers and with the release of breezy coming soon we have begun discussing porting our environment to breezy. Normally this would be stressful and we would be starting about a month ago, but with Ubuntu, no worries. They will be supporting hoary for atleast the next year, and I believe they will be supporting breezy for 5 years. So, we will be moving forward at our leisure.

IMHO, Ubuntu is perfect for servers. You know the release cycle, you know you have atleast 18 months of support. Its free, but if you want support you can get it. We never even think about it really because its so easy to manage.

Ubuntu to Supplant Debian?

[Quash]

Mark wrote: "Though Linspire is not (yet) based directly on Ubuntu, it's not infeasible that the Linspire guys figure out what a good option that would be for them sooner rather than later. There are likely to be many specialised versions of Ubuntu, under other brand names, that have commercial or proprietary features. They might have proprietary fonts or software or add-ons or integration with services, etc." If I were a Debian developer and read this, this would not make me rest easy. Mark in a colourful character because he paints his life on a grand canvas and shoots for the moon (quite literally, to boot!). But, it also appears that he'd be happy if most Linux distributions were based on Ubuntu, rather than based on Debian. He talks of the important of Debian, and I think he believes what he writes. But, I'm not entirely sure he sees the roots of his own ambitions. His ambition appears to be THE core distribution, from which all others flow. And if the above quote doesn't convince you, his work on Bazaar and Launchpad should. Mark understands that to paint life on a grand canvas, you need your canvas, your brushes, your paints... you need your tools. And he is building them, in Bazaar and Launchpad. He wrote: Solving the "distro collaboration problem" would really advance the state of open source. So that's what we set out to do in Ubuntu. We work on Launchpad, which is a web service for collaboration on bugs, and translations, and technical support. We work on Bazaar, which is a revision control system that understands branching and distributions, and is integrated with Launchpad. And hopefully those tools allow us to make our work available easily to Debian, and to Gentoo, and to upstream. And also, allow us to take good work from other distros (even if they would rather we didn't ;-)). I admire Mark for what he's doing. I believe he is genuine in his desire to "always" ensure Ubuntu is free, as in beer and liberty. But, I watch him with caution. He is an ideologue and he must be the Master of his own Universe. That combination often matures in to tyranny when a sense of loss of control sets in. When the Ubuntu Foundation and development community matures and begins to have disagreements with him and, like an adolescent, is ready for independence, making different choices and wanting to take a different direction than the father who raised it might like, it will be interesting to see how Papa Mark responds. Rory

Re:Ubuntu to Supplant Debian?

[spauldo]

I don't get that insinuation at all.

Without Debian, Ubuntu wouldn't exist. Debian's an excellent general purpose distribution, but the goals between it and Ubuntu are different.

Linspire, on the other hand, has very similar goals to Ubuntu with reguards to the userbase and applications included. It would make more sense for Linspire to be based on Ubuntu, since most end users can't handle the long release cycle or need the plethora of applications available in Debian. Ubuntu already tracks Debian Sid and makes customizations for desktop users, so it would make sense for Linspire to take advantage of that.

That said, I don't know the guy, but if he does end up being a power-hungry idealist, then so what? It's not like we've got a shortage of them. A lot of people would accuse Theo of OpenBSD fame of the same thing, but it's moving along just fine. If, in the worst case, he ends up killing Ubuntu with ideaology, then people will just use something else. It's not like Ubuntu is the only distro around.

Re:Ubuntu to Supplant Debian?

[1336]

> If I were a Debian developer and read this, this would not make me rest easy.
> His ambition appears to be THE core distribution, from which all others flow

Um... did you not pick up on the major theme of binary incompatability vs source compatability? The distro seems to be of secondary concern to Mr. Shuttleworth; what he really seems to care about is high quality source that improves ANY distro that uses it. To that end, the sharing and collective improving of source code becomes a top priority; hence Bazaar, etc.

Re:Ubuntu to Supplant Debian?

[Asklepius M.D.]

He's so easily corrupted by power that he dishes out a hundred grand to his janitors? Shuttleworth is an idealist, not an idealogue. There is a substantial difference between the two. He strikes me as someone who has realized that Don Quixote had a point. He may indeed have future disagreements with developers, but where would the fun be if we all agreed on everything?

And For A Little More On Ubuntu

[cranos]

[Engage Blatant Podcast Whoring Mode]
If you want to hear from another of the Ubuntu guys check out this interview I did with Jeff Waugh:

laupdate_ep_6_20051001.mp3
laupdate_ep_6_20051001.ogg


[Disengaging Blatant Podcast Whoring Mode]

ObIndy

[sharkey]

all those professional adders

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

Re:ObIndy

[thumperward]

I've had mod points coming out of my ears for months, and now's the time I don't have any?

  - Chris

Re:ObIndy

[sydres]

"Black Adder, Black adder... He's really, really bad"

Re:The strange names...

[be-fan]

What? Are you seriously arguing that a mildly risque advertisement is "unprofessional"? What color is the sky on your planet? More importantly, on your planet, what do "Gap" ads look like?

And please learn the English language. "Dapper" doesn't mean gay, it means stylish!

Re:It's a Wiki??

[Eideewt]

Good catch, sir! I almost reread the article to check for that until you alerted me to the _filthy_lie_ above.

Re:The strange names...

[jejones]

Good grief. I think the brouhaha over the gdm image says more about the people who object to it than to the image itself. Perhaps the next release should show three women in a circle wearing chadours.

Re:Profuse apologies

[legLess]

Well shoot, that's a relief, thought it was me. Your posts are usually like a mini acid trip anyway; this was like an acid trip with an echo :)

You know what makes Ubuntu better than Debian?

[StarKruzr]

Its installer.

That thing is AWESOME.

Re:You know what makes Ubuntu better than Debian?

[Karora]

Its installer.

That thing is AWESOME.

Dude. I don't know what you've been smoking, but the Ubuntu installer is the Debian installer.

At this point, anyway. I believe there are hopes to maybe have a GUI installer for the next version, or maybe the one after that.

Debian can't do this as easily because of the complexity of doing it across all supported architectures. And in fact that was one of the complicating factors for the installer that Debian introduced for Sarge (i.e. the one that is used in Ubuntu), but that work has paid off, and now there is a good modular installer that is a solid foundation for the future.

Re:You know what makes Ubuntu better than Debian?

[shish]

Dude. I don't know what you've been smoking, but the Ubuntu installer is the Debian installer.

But with stripped down options -- Debian asks you what you want, Ubuntu just gives you sane defaults

Re:You know what makes Ubuntu better than Debian?

[zootm]

Having used both (although I have to say that the Debian one wasn't "officially" released when I last used it), I thought you could select "Advanced" in the Ubuntu install and get the same amount of control (insofar as Ubuntu's different choice of core packages would allow, anyway)?

Re:You know what makes Ubuntu better than Debian?

[synthespian]

It's a horrible installer, non-intutive. It ate away some BSD aprtition (I'm glad it was an experimental HD) because it behaves like a bully. /Me/ thinks old Debian installer was much more flexible (I'm not commenting on hardware detection, of course)

That is the most interesting bit

[Chuck Chunder]

but it seems to not be gaining much attention.

It is fair enough that Ubuntu gets a lot of respect for the distro, I've found it to be of excellent quality. I look forward to seeing how these other tools help development.

Even though I'm not a contributor (other than occasional bug reports and financial contributions) to Free/Open Source Software one of the things that attracts me to it is that I can see the development taking place. I can read Kernel Traffic or various planets and see developers working together to produce something great.

So even thought they might not effect me directly, it's always exciting to read about new tools etc that might help the developers do their thing.

Linux Incompatibility

[DavidNWelton]

Hi, if this is a known problem with Linux and that Inspiron model, you mightconsider adding it to the Linux Incompatibility List:

http://www.leenooks.com/

Thanks!

Lets just hope we don't see

[Displaced Cajun]

Lets just hope we don't see a Hemorrhoid Hank release anytime soon.

Re:The strange names...

[Mjlner]

"I think Ubuntu is a decent distro (have it on my laptop), but their "marketing" is unprofessional, to say the least. First it was the half naked and interracial menage-a-trois..."

Even though you might have problems with people of differently coloured skin mixing together, you will find that world has moved on. Many, *many* corporations use advertisements featuring people of both sexes and different skin colour.

Re:The strange names...

[soops1966]

"First it was the half naked and interracial menage-a-trois"

Oh, for pity's sake!

You describe them as if they were missing articles of clothing, they were decently dressed. I've seen worse on the side of a bus advertising perfume.

Then what's wrong with 'interracial' - got a problem with different ethnicities being seen together - OMG they were actually touching each other!! Do you know some of us actually touch other peole during the course of day - without having to wash afterward too! Can you believe that - actually touching someone else!! Sometimes, just sometimes mind -their skins are different colours too - imagine that!

'meneage a trois' - actually amounted to three people standing in a circle with their arms interlinked - ohh how racy was that!

Get some perspective on your life - a different background has always been available for those sensitive souls like yourself and if you believeyou need a professional aura then call it Ubuntu 5.04 or5.10.

Re:The strange names...

[gowen]

Using sex to sell things unrelated to sex?

It'll never catch on.

Re:The strange names...

[Stephen Chadfield]

No one would care if it had homosexuals dancing on the cover burning American flags on it...

I would pay extra for that version. Seriously.

Re:It's a Wiki??

[Make]

Ubuntu 5.11 "Gaping Goat"?

The only one thing I do hate in Ubuntu...

[fernique]

...that every small program (Firefox, CUPS, many others) depends on Gnome libraries and there is no chance to avoid it. Still I am an old Debian and FVWM user, but also have tried Ubuntu Live CD on my HP Compaq nx9020 laptop and was much surprised when discovered that hardware suspending works out-of-box. I can't say this feature works in my current Debian GNU/Linux Sarge.

Thanks, Mr. Shuttleworth, I will probably have to backport ACPI changes into my current system and feel happy.

Re:The strange names...

[Karora]

Ubuntu might be popular within its own community, but the distro won't go mainstream until its image matures past high school sophomore.

To me, the name "Dapper Drake" conjures up images of some big daddy duck, decked out in his finest feathers and preened to the max. Drawn by one of those totally masterful more-detail-than-real-life children's book artists like Jane Hissey.

I've seen some blog review of Ubuntu that endlessly puzzles over the naming conventions, and I think it's just hilarious. For fuck's sake: IT IS A MEMORABLE NAME! Marketing and branding is partly about exposure, but without being memorable that exposure doesn't travel a tenth the distance.

As for it's going mainstream: I am going to have fewer problems rolling out Ubuntu (Warty, Hoary, Breezy, Dapper) to clients than I have had rolling out Debian (Bo, Hamm, Slink, Woody, Sarge, Etch). Not that they hugely care about the release name, and if they do, I'm sure I'll be able to spot their humourlessness a mile away and refer to it as "Ubuntu 7.04, sir".

In fact I think that their version numbering is also masterful. To think this is only the third Ubuntu release coming up, but it's already 6.10 - what an awesome dodge. No mucking around trying to "justify" the version numbers on the basis of swank new functionality! And perhaps even more importantly: no more mucking around trying to justify swank new functionality on the basis of incrementing the version number. Excellent.

Mark has done an awesome thing for the software community by following this model that he has chosen. It may well be chump change for him to have done so, but many wealthier people are considerably less philanthropic. He is so very passionate and involved in this project, and so astutely sticking to his vision that I don't doubt that Canonical will end up paying it's way, eventually, but it will truly be a side-effect of that vision and passion.

I recommend you take a look at the video of him talking at Debconf (or of his informal talk there) which someone linked above.

And in two or three years, when Ubuntu 8.04 is coming out, perhaps Mark will be starting to look around for something else to do. I really wonder what it will be.

What to do about Debian?

[FishandChips]

It's so refreshing to see someone in his position tell things straight and in a way we can all understand.

Even so, I suspect there's a problem here that's slowly appearing on the horizon and that's the future of Debian. It's beginning to resemble an old tramp steamer. Years of sterling, cargo-carrying service but now the crew are arguing on the bridge and some are even trying to force the captain's safe. The engineers (fewer than there were) are desperately trying to keep the ship's rather aged boilers from bursting. And a flotilla of other vessels, some flying the skull and crossbones, are circling, many darting in to nick some of the deck cargo and occasionally a few crew members to boot (although the chief purser has so far proved too weighty to carry off in a pirate lighter). If the old girl starts to founder then a whole lot of people are going to be in a serious pickle.

It may be that simply contributing patches back up to Debian isn't enough. Debian is a huge and amazing project, but for that reason is needs a lot of organization and talented manpower to keep it not merely going but a beacon of excellence. If it catches a cold, so does everyone else. With Debian being pulled in different directions, you have to wonder how long it can hold up for without beginning to suffer.

Re:What to do about Debian?

[synthespian]

Not really a problem. You're being overly dramatic here. If Debian sinks, people jump on the Ubuntu ship. Code is there. Code doesn't die.
Actually, it's not Ubuntu's fault, you know, but Debian has proven itself to be a huge slow boat, because of their design as an organization.
I believe the most fundamental flaw in its design was granting every 'comitter' or 'packager', or 'maintainer' (a better term) 'developer' status. This created a situation where people who aren't really that knowledgeable a right to voice their opinion, and that brings about that halt-to-a-grind phenomenom we see every year. And consider that Debian 'developers' do not even tread in more dangerous paths such as protocols, like the BSD developers do. I think the BSDs have achieved a much better model of organization. Part of Ubuntu's success is reshaping the organization, fixed releases being part of that.

Re:The strange names...

[DataCannibal]

I suspect that your comment really means that you find a half-naked, inter-racial menage-a-trois a bit distasteful and possibly even a bit icky.

I think that a sucessful businessman like Mark Shuttleworth knows a bit more about marketing than some humourless, wee-free, no footie on a Sunday type on Slashdot

Cheerleader

[McLoud]

Backgrounder: I'm 32 and counting, South African, living in London. Most of my time is devoted to the Ubuntu project as cheerleader and chief whip.

So, did you used a mini and pompoms?

Ubuntu as distros go...

[Zarf]

I installed Ubuntu on an old Compaq Laptop (a horrid old Presario) I have lying around and everything just worked! Even my Orinoco Wifi card just plain worked. Even Suspend just plain worked. I couldn't believe it. They're doing something right. I just hope Shuttleworth's profit model works out for him.

Human theme for Debian?

[leoboiko]

Why is the default desktop in Ubuntu BROWN?

The overarching theme of the first set of Ubuntu releases is "Humanity". This drives our choice of artwork as much as our selection of packages and decisions around the installer. Our default theme in the first four releases of Ubuntu is called "Human", and it emphasises warm, human colours - brown.

I agree completely and love Ubuntu's theme. However, I'm a sid guy myself and, though I recommend Ubuntu to all my non-tech friends, I don't want to switch. Anyone knows if the Human theme is available for Debian, or at least independently available somewhere else?

[ot] Naming fun!

[wild_berry]

Would Gay Gannet do? Or Queer Quagga? Or would they get beat up by the Straight Snake and the Exodising Elephant?

Re:If only I didn't have to install stuff AFTER

[DrunkenPenguin]

Everything you need to know to get the applications running.

Google and Ubuntu?

[JamMasterJGorilla]

Ubuntu may well be running all over NASA's Moffett Field soon...

Did everyone miss that are are they just not aware that Google want to build a new campus and research facility at Moffit Field.... (a daily Ubuntu user)

Re:The strange names...

[CharAznable]

The names and pictures aren't so bad if you aren't racist and/or homophobic.