Bruce Perens on UserLinux and Ubuntu

SDenmark writes "Ever wondered what happened to UserLinux, and how it's faring now that Ubuntu has stolen the spotlight? Linux Format has an interview with Bruce Perens, founder of UserLinux, the Open Source Initiative and Linux Standard Base. Perens discusses the impact of Ubuntu, how industry bodies are helping open source and why figureheads are important for the Free Software community."

Comments

Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

That ubuntu... always stealing the spotlight.

Re:Ubuntu

[Savage-Rabbit]

That ubuntu... always stealing the spotlight.

Annoying isn't it. You must work for Novell? ...Red Hat?

Re:Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple...

Money talks

[smokeslikeapoet]

Ubuntu has a huge bankroll behind it. It's great, I use it. But the bankroll helps.

Re:Money talks

[garcia]

Ubuntu has a huge bankroll behind it. It's great, I use it. But the bankroll helps.

Plenty of Linux distributions have money behind them. Doesn't make them any better than the next. In fact, Debian works just fine for me (and has for several years now).

Re:Money talks

[LordKazan]

I tried Ubuntu - it's not great, it's downright crippled

latest version has PAM older than .79 and the latest is .99, the default GCC installed (GCC 4.0) from the default debian repositories cannot build executables, /etc/security/console.perms is missing, /etc/ld.so.conf is missing

that last one was the last straw for me and i proceeded to wipe that ext3 partition and load Fedora Core 5 on it.

For all it's faults atleast things work right with Fedora Core and I can compile mythtv with miniminal effort

Re:Money talks

[secolactico]

latest version has PAM older than .79 and the latest is .99, the default GCC installed (GCC 4.0) from the default debian repositories cannot build executables, /etc/security/console.perms is missing, /etc/ld.so.conf is missing

Odd. My Ubuntu didn't have any build tools installed by default. But when I installed then ("apt-get install build-essentials" or somesuch) they all worked without problem. /etc/ld.so.conf was missing, but I simply created a text file with a dir I wanted to include and nothing bad happened.

The thing is... if you care about those files, then maybe Ubuntu is not really the distro for you. If you want to remain debian-based (my reason to choose Ubuntu), try Mepis or Knoppix. Otherwise, your choice of Fedora Core 5 is probably right for you (haven't tried it, but FC2, 3 and 4 work great for me in production environments).

Re:Money talks

[bwcarty]

How can I gain access to that huge bankroll, too? It does sound great!

Re:Money talks

[Lumpy]

Ubuntu also has newbie love.

i have tried over the years to convert many loved ones and friends to linux. It failed because of the "hard" factor.

Every single one of them LOVE Ubuntu and will not switch back to windows. Why? installing new software is brain dead easy... Far easier than windows and MAC os has ever been, plus they all do not care about running brand name apps but simply something that works.

The biggest thing they all love, no viruses and no spyware.

Re:Money talks

[EnronHaliburton2004]

/etc/ld.so.conf is missing

I blieve this is correct, and is also the new Debian-way of doing things. This has never prevented me from compiling anything. Perhaps you are misusing /etc/ld.so.conf ??? /etc/ld.so.conf isn't needed to run the default OS. /lib & /usr/lib are already included in the default library path, and other libraries are cached in /etc/ld.so.cache .

People tend to overuse /etc/ld.so.conf (and LD_LIBRARY_PATH). Perhaps someone at Debian or Ubuntu finally decided to clean up. Good for them.

Re:Money talks

[dsginter]

Money talks indeed.

My primary concern is how it will begin talking from the other side of the table. Case in point, intellectual property. Now, I'm no fan of the state of our patent system but this discussion was interesting because not a single person brought up the issue of legality. Now, Ballmer recently hinted that Microsoft are putting together an IP war against Linux.

I work for a pretty large company so management is very conservative (side note, I do realize that those aren't mutual - its just the norm). One of the big items on the agenda is the outcome of the SCO/IBM litigation. Simply, management have pinned their decision to implement Linux *bigtime* on the outcome of this case. If SCO loses, then Linux gets a big customer. If SCO wins, then Microsoft maintains their existing customer. I would imagine that many other large businesses fall into this same boat.

If SCO loses, I'll bet that Microsoft will unleash a war on Linux. If this happens, I would like to see the ducks in a row. How much would it cost me to *buy* a version of Ubuntu with complete support for MP3, video, flash and all that other crap? The only reason that I use Linux at all is because EasyUbuntu makes it painless. Yes - I realize that I could go buy Mandrake or Suse but neither of those appeals to me like Ubuntu.

Yes - it seems easy enough to uncomment a few lines and claim that I'm a local resident of Catalunya, but it would be nice to see someone putting money into this side of the equation.

Re:Money talks

[nursegirl]

If you're interested in these build tools, I feel pretty confident in saying that Ubuntu is not for you.

It really is designed to be a distro for newbies, and it is pretty good at that. If I had a classroom of kids and wanted to teach them basic computer skills, Ubuntu would make sense. Cheaper than buying Macs, easier than supporting Windows, easier to learn and support than many other Linux distros.

Re:Money talks

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure what "default debian repository" you're talking about there. What happened to the "default ubuntu repository", you know, where the packages that are tested to work on your distribution are? Anyway, Debian Stable's still at gcc-3, and Sid's currently got 4.1 as "standard". As for the other things, old PAM's not that much of a crime as long as they're backporting bugfixes (after all, it would suck if your "bleeding edge" authentication system locked you out of the computer permanently.) and is probably also older than the console.perms file, hence it's "disappearance". And as the other people said, ld.so.conf isn't necessary for the operation of an average computer (all of the Usual Paths have been hardcoded into ld.so for years now).

Re:Money talks

[towsonu2003]

the default GCC installed (GCC 4.0) from the default debian repositories cannot build executables, /etc/security/console.perms is missing, /etc/ld.so.conf is missing

stop whining and start filing bugs!

Re:Money talks

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, Linspire and Xandros and perhaps some others come with those closed source features out of the box (legally), and you can buy them and buy support. You don't need to wait for ubunutu and use wink wink nod nod servers hosted over in lower elbownia to get DVD and mp3 playback, etc. They went ahead and paid the fees associated, for example I think the fee for MP3 from fraunhoffer is 50 grand unlimited. Any distro could do that, most don't bother and are treading on thin ice (in the US and some places) when it is offered in the "weird" repositories.

Re:Money talks

[yo_tuco]

" I tried Ubuntu - it's not great, it's downright crippled"

Yes, the default installation is. Add the Universe and Restricted repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list and then apt-get the distro whipped into shape. I was shocked too that the default didn't bring in compling tools. Or even sshd when you select install as a sever... sigh. But, hey, you get alsa when you select install as a server. Just what you need for that config, right?

Re:Money talks

[LordKazan]

crt1.so was missing then I selected the build essentials and it installed gcc4 - i installed gcc 3.something from Adept and it started working.

many multimedia applications require /usr/local/lib to be added to your ld.so.conf

Re:Money talks

[LordKazan]

I sholdn't have to file bugs for errors that freaking stupid on a PRODUCTION RELEASE

Like I said - I went back to my favorite distro since it works.

(I was going to use Ubuntu for a mythtv box)

Re:Money talks

[LordKazan]

i said default "debian" repository because that's the package system you are using.

Old PAM IS a crime when it doesn't support a feature you critically need for what you're doing.

Flame On

Re:Money talks

[towsonu2003]

I sholdn't have to file bugs for errors that freaking stupid on a PRODUCTION RELEASE

from my pov, the structure of linux distros give you a chance to increase the quality of the distro you are trying by filing bugs. if you don't like something, rather than ranting about it (no offense), it is better to file a bug. Chances are, that bug will be resolved in the next release, and everyone will be happy. Another alternative is to get feedback from the devels after filing a bug that resulted in "WONTFIX". This is usually accompanied by a reason, and thus you'll know what's not wrong with their implementation.

I personally prefer to file bugs (or post to forums or email developer when no bugzilla is implemented by the distro) in distros I tried and don't even consider to go back/use.

An example would be Slax, and my reason for not going back is simple: I don't have a reason to use a LiveCD... One of their extensions didn't work, and I didn't like their implementation of user accounts (only root, new user cannot be created due to some weird bug, possibly in the filesystem implementation), so I emailed the devel and posted to the forum. They will be fixing the extension and they gave a reason (that it's a LiveCD) for not fixing the issue with non-root accounts.

Re:Money talks

[pembo13]

Because I honestly don't know, how is software installed in Ubuntu? Is is that diff. from other major distros?

Re:Money talks

[zerblat]

Basically, all of your complaints boil down to: "OMG!!! Debian is subtly different from Red Hat/Fedora. It's completely unusable!!"

pam_console (and therefore /etc/security/console.perms) is Red Hat specific and isn't in Debian because of security issues (apparently; I don't know/care about the specifics).

If you need /etc/ld.so.conf, uhm well, why not just create it?

What kind of problems did you have with GCC4?

Re:Money talks

[DrWhizBang]

latest version has PAM older than .79 and the latest is .99, the default GCC installed (GCC 4.0) from the default debian repositories cannot build executables, /etc/security/console.perms is missing, /etc/ld.so.conf is missing ...

For all it's faults atleast things work right with Fedora Core and I can compile mythtv with miniminal effort

I know! My wife said the same thing when I installed Ubuntu on my home computer. "WTF! PAM is really old! We can't let the kids use this!"

I mean really, compiling mythtv is absolutely necessary on a desktop distro. How are the newbs going to get past that? Having no ld.so.conf is definitely not userfriendly.

Re:Money talks

[Anonymous Coward]

It has a nice GUI interface to apt-get. Shows you what all is available, you check it off, and then it goes and does its thing. Rather nice.

Re:Money talks

[Anonymous Coward]

...Far easier than windows and MAC os has ever been...

Apt-get with a GUI is easier than a drag-n-drop install?

Re:Money talks

[eyeye]

I am using ubuntu for a mythtv box and it works fine and does a lot more besides, I had no problem, i'm not sure why you did.

Re:Money talks

[Tolleman]

You got to find the apps before you can drag and drop them.

Re:Money talks

[Damek]

You got to know what you want before you can go looking for it in a list.

The usual thing that happens with me on Windows or Mac OS X: I'm browsing around and find some developer's site with a new game, or I hear about some cool new program that does X, or I'm looking for a program to fill need Y - I download them and run them.

The apt-get+GUI solution: I'm browsing around and find some developer's site with a new game (but there's no version for Ubunto/myDistro, only source, or no Linux version at all), or I hear about some cool new program that does X (but it's not in the repository, and going to the dev's site results in the same problems previously mentioned), or I'm looking for a program to fill need Y (but I have no clue what to look for in the repository).

I find dragging-and-dropping more convenient for me.

Re:Money talks

[ardor]

It must be your fault. I installed dapper, apt-getted build-essentials, gcc & g++ 4, make, and can build both sources from the net and my projects without any problems. No ld.so.conf problems arise.... ever.

Re:Money talks

[OneSeventeen]

To install software in Ubuntu, you click "Applications">"Add Applications"

This requires the administrator (root) password, since we don't want just anybody to be able to install software. (i.e. viruses embedded into emails)

Then, you just scroll through the categories, and the programs in them, and when you find something you might be interested in, you click on it, see the description of the software on the right side of the window, and if you like it, you put a check in the checkbox next to it.

You keep doing this for however many applications you want. Once you are done, you click Apply, and it downloads the required files, installs them, puts them in the main "Applications" menu, then tells you where to find all of your new software.

It is basically a user-friendly version of "package management", and kind of like Windows XP's Add/Remove programs, only you can add software from a variety of vendors, and you use the internet to get the latest version, rather than your install CD to get a 5 year old version. (kind of nice, actually)

I have used that method to install software such as email clients, 3d rendering programs, vector art programs, audio editing programs, and even desktop publishing software.

Re:Money talks

[LordKazan]

yes it's my fault that their official package manager (Adept) is a POS

Caveat: i was using Kubuntu (another idiotic thing: a fork just for a different window manager?)

Re:Money talks

[ardor]

Adept is bad, yes. I use Synaptic.
But, KDE is MUCH more than a WM. You might have noticed the TONS of kdelibs-based programs, the kioslaves, the kparts, etc. etc. This integration is the difference between a desktop environment and a window manager. In fact, a window manager IS PART of a DE (KDE's window manager is called KDM).

Re:Money talks

[asuffield]

Ubuntu doesn't actually do anything different for those newbies. What they do is file off the labels from existing software so that it's not quite immediately recognisable, and then tell all the newbies that it's different. Since these people are by definition uninformed, they don't know the difference.

Ubuntu is little more than a successful marketing exercise. They sell products that already existed to people too stupid to know about them. Most of the rest of the stuff they do is just repainting the bikeshed because they didn't like the old colour ("it doesn't use XML", "it's not written in my favorite language", "I just don't like the author").

When you were trying to convert all those friends and loved ones, what you should have done was look important and lie to them.

Re:Money talks

[Anonymous Coward]

As a professional software developer I feel that I'm not "too stupid" to know about linux apps. I like ubuntu's package manager for several reasons:

* It's put right in the root menu, where it belongs
* It is usually more up to date than debian testing, but still pretty stable
* It contains much nicer descriptions than most distros, I especially like that if a package provides several things they all get an entry. My freecell "package" is really aisleriot, but why would someone think to search for ailseriot if they want to play freecell?

And this doesn't even get into the tons of other things ubuntu does to make things easier to get working.

Re:Money talks

[aCapitalist]

Every single one of them LOVE Ubuntu and will not switch back to windows. Why? installing new software is brain dead easy... Far easier than windows and MAC os has ever been, plus they all do not care about running brand name apps but simply something that works.

It sounds like your family and friends really don't need that much in the way of software. There are a lot of people that can basically live in a browser. That's fine, but once you need to step out that repository universe, installing software becomes much more difficult than on windows or mac.

I never quite understood why something like autopackage wasn't adopted as a universal package format and native package systems could be retrofitted to play nicely with it.

For example, a developer could just package up his code in an autopackage and it would just work with all the major distros. The native package system could go out and find all the dependencies and install them seamlessly. Of course there could be library versioning problems with that scenario, but who knows.

I actually consider Linux (or something like Ubuntu) to be a better fit for newbs than windows. I'll still use windows on my desktop though because I can basically get a full Unix environmnet, plus a whole lot more with windows. I tend to run colinux or an xserver to the machine in the basement.

Re:Money talks

[Breakfast Pants]

I've found they all can't handle it on their own and need me to do things like enable mp3 playback for them. This is completely not Ubuntu's fault, because as a binary distro they can't include mp3/dvd support, but it still sucks.

Re:Money talks

[fredrik70]

google for automatix, should install all that stuff for you automagically

Re:Money talks

[cHiphead]

ALWAYS use Synaptic, its loads stabler than Adept (and its interface is more traditional and not so 'search filter' lamed). Also don't use 'Kubuntu' iso installs, install Ubuntu then apt-get the kubuntu-desktop package.

Coincidentally, if you are doing development from within linux, you should use a distro you are comfortable with and actually know how its configured. Did you spend any time on ubuntuforums.org or (especially) on the irc channel asking for help? I've never come across a more nub friendly free support experience.

Re:Money talks

[Curien]

It's not a fork. It's just an installer with slightly different scripts. All the repositories etc are the same; the only differences are the packages that get installed by default.

Re:Money talks

[Enrique1218]

Far easier than Windows and MAC os has ever been

Dude, you need qualify that. I use Mac OSX, Windows, and Ubuntu. Synaptic is easy if the application exists in the database. However, not all applications are distributed through Synaptic. Take, for instance, doom 3 as an example. Windows and Mac OSX iinstallation involves putting in the CD, running the installer, and following instructions. Linux, first, requires you googling "linux and Doom3" to get instructions, cut and pasting .pak files, running an installer script in cli with sudo. That is assuming it works from there and let's not talk about installing proprietary drivers and making sure configuration file are correct. I have personally had sound and graphics card problems with Doom3 and Ubuntu. I personally think with both open source and proprietary software, Mac OS X is easiest with either drag and drop or running an installer. Then, having it just work there after.

Re:Money talks

[Anonymous Coward]

really? I keep trying to drag and drop the CD icon to the hard drive icon and it does nothing.

so yes, it is. and windows never has had drag and drop install. MAC you click on the SIT and it expands, then open that folder to find the installer click on that (drag and drop? I havent dragged or dropped anything yet!) then answer all the questions. THEN hunt around to figure out where the hell the damned MAC installed the software to.

Oh yeah, FAR easier than MAc and Windows.

Re:Money talks

[Fallingcow]

This requires the administrator (root) password, since we don't want just anybody to be able to install software. (i.e. viruses embedded into emails)

More accurately, it requires the users own password, not root. Ubuntu has root disabled by default. There is, effectively, no root. You can add one if you want, though.

This interface is a dumbed-down (I don't mean that pejoratively) and much cleaner-looking version of Synaptic. The parent is correct in comparing it to the Windows add/remove programs GUI, as it does look a bit like that. It doesn't show ANY "libc-2.7-rc4" type packages, but only the programs that the devs have selected as most-suited to desktop use. There are categories like "Web" and "Graphics", etc, that let a user pick what they want. One or two of the best programs for each task are then shown, with a "more" option at the bottom that lets the user pick from less-well-known or power-user-oriented applications.

It leaves out a lot of good (but maybe not "newbie" friendly) programs and doesn't let you get at some of the system-related packages--which is a GOOD thing--but there's an "Advanced" button at the top that opens plain ol' Synaptic, for users who really know what they're doing. And the command line dpkg and apt-get tools are all there, if you want to use them.

Re:Money talks

[Fallingcow]

Or EasyUbuntu.

Basically the same thing, just a matter of preference (and sometimes one works and the other doesn't, especially if you're playing with the development version [Dapper] :) )

Re:Money talks

[jZnat]

Maybe they were going for an audio server in that configuration? Can't ALSA work over a network analogous to X11's network neutrality? I mean, the first A in ALSA stands for "Advanced", so that's something I'd expect of it.

Re:Money talks

[jZnat]

Autopackage probably isn't so widely used because there already exists two major (and relatively simple to use) packaging formats (rpm and deb). When you go past those two packaging formats, there exists a bunch of methods to packaging source code (usually known as "ports" to BSD and Gentoo users), but the packaging of binaries with any sort of external library dependency tracking is usually done in rpm and/or deb. Of course, you could simpley tar.gz/bz2 the binary files and allow the user to extract that wherever they please (e.g. in /opt), but it's generally best to package the binaries in those two major package formats.

Also, just to dig on Windows a bit, DLL Hell (or whatever it would be called in Linux; maybe SO Messy or something) doesn't exist in Linux et al. because of the sharing of libraries. If incompatibilities are an issue, the binary package and/or the configure script (or autoconf) will usually detect that issue before attempting to compile/install the software.

Re:Money talks

[yo_tuco]

Good point.

Re:Money talks

[Nevyn]

I never quite understood why something like autopackage wasn't adopted as a universal package format and native package systems could be retrofitted to play nicely with it.

Because one of the few things all the package maintainers for distributions can agree on is that autopackage is horribly broken, and even the autopackage people themselves basically say `just use this for addons, it doesn't work for "the system"' ... where "the system" is really code for "the hard cases our broken design doesn't work with".

Oh, and I don't believe that installing an office suite is easier on Windows than on Linux. Sure, installing Micrsoft Flight simulator is harder to do on Linux ... but that's like saying it's harder to install And-httpd on Windows, true but yet totally worthless for the discussion.

Re:Money talks

[pembo13]

So basically it uses a GUI ontop of the package manger (apt/yum) ? This doesn't seem unique to me, I was under the impression that there was a really special method of doing this in Ubuntu.

Re:Money talks

[rsidd]

It sounds like your family and friends really don't need that much in the way of software. There are a lot of people that can basically live in a browser. That's fine, but once you need to step out that repository universe, installing software becomes much more difficult than on windows or mac.

What do you need, that is available on linux at all, and is not available in the universe/multiverse?

Seriously. Apart from some scientific software like Matlab and Mathematica, there still isn't very much popular proprietary software for linux, but for the most part there are excellent free alternatives. The only thing I can think of that you can't get so easily is "restricted formats", which is a legal not technological problem, and there's a helpful wiki on ubuntu's site explaining what to do about that.

Re:Money talks

[rsidd]

I sholdn't have to file bugs for errors that freaking stupid on a PRODUCTION RELEASE

What errors are you talking about? The last production release was Breezy, and I had no problem compiling anything on that (and believe me I do a lot of compiling). I'm now running a reasonably up-to-date dapper (which is not yet a production release) and I still don't see any problems.

Re:Money talks

[rsidd]

Caveat: i was using Kubuntu (another idiotic thing: a fork just for a different window manager?)

Kubuntu is not a fork, it's the same as Ubuntu except for default environment. The base system is identical, and you can just install the KDE packages on ubuntu or the GNOME packages on kubuntu if you want both desktop environments.

Before whining loudly in a public forum, how about getting a clue?

Re:Money talks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah....I used Ubuntu for about 6 months. I then wiped it out, and installed SuSE. SuSE has much more polish than Ubuntu, just is cleaner and a smoother experience. Firefox, on Ubuntu, looks simular to the old Irix distro interface, while on SuSE it is smoother, easier to use, installation is not any harder. I don't see why folks are so up about how easy software is to install, when you have to edit your sources file just to get a browser you want to use, it is NOT easy. Where as, on RPM based systems, you download the .rpm, and install it!!

OSDL Desktop Linux

[anandpur]

Why not help? http://www.osdl.org/lab_activities/desktop_linux/

BP:Well, some of the industry bodies try to help open source. OSDL is actually handicapped in one very important way, which is that the majority of OSDL's membership have a conflict of interest where the agenda of open source is concerned.

Re:OSDL Desktop Linux

[nutshell42]

Why not help?

Because imho Desktop Linux always had the feel of a publicity stunt/political exercise.

I got sick of all the Ubuntu hype (WOW!!!1 With Ubuntu Randy Rabbit stuff "just works"... half as good as in Fedora or SuSE 5 years ago!!~! Ubuntu is like the bestest thing evaRR!! OMGPonies!! - admittedly that got better over time - just like it did with other hyped distros like Gentoo - and *Ubuntu* got better over time so now it can live up to the hype - mostly - which in itself makes it much less annoying) early on but Ubuntu nevertheless always tried to become a better (the best) distro first; the hype, the big statements about the future of mankind and all that stuff was secondary. IMHO that was different with User Linux

Perhaps I just don't like Bruce Perens =)

Re:OSDL Desktop Linux

[ThePhilips]

I can hardly disagree with you on Ubuntu v. FC/SUSE.

As to the BP with User Linux (PR, "IMHO that was different with User Linux" remark) again it was different. User Linux project is *commercial* project. It's targeted at vendors. It's sort'a like OEM version of Linux. Successful or not - different matter. As any commercial project, it can't live w/o advertisement.

Commericial distros need ads to create demand. Community distros need no advertisement since they are created due to lack of acceptable offerings. It's simple as that.

Anyway, Linux was created to allow for more choices in software. We now have more of them. BP tries to achieve something - and that's fine with me. The proportion of his talks to his deeds is still above one. I do not like people who talk more than they do - e.g. RMS - but I guess it's the same to everybody else.

P.S. Amongst all Linux luminaries, I like BP most. Please also note I do not include Torwalds on the long list of Linux luminaries - the Gods and the Semigods are on different list ;-)

Re:OSDL Desktop Linux

[Metrol]

(WOW!!!1 With Ubuntu Randy Rabbit stuff "just works"... half as good as in Fedora or SuSE 5 years ago!!~! Ubuntu is like the bestest thing evaRR!! OMGPonies!!

From what I've seen of Ubuntu, the hype is deserved.

First off, a friend of mine, who isn't the most computer savvy fella, was wanting to install Linux on his laptop. I had him on FreeBSD for a while, but he simply wasn't up to keeping it up to date or configuring beyond what I set up for him. I suggested he try Kubuntu, as he had been using KDE in the past.

Without any assistance from me he got Kubuntu installed, and had a properly working dual boot setup with Windows XP that was already on the box. I've since done a bit of tweaking on there since then, like configuring his E-Mail client and such.

As for myself I had an older Thinkpad that I had previously been running FreeBSD on. I thought I'd toss a Linux distro on there to play around with. Tried Fedora 5, but both the CD and DVD installer kept locking up during the installation. Tried Gentoo, which also suffered the same fate. Even played with the FreeBSD based desktop distros, which were able to install but weren't able to properly detect the hardware. I'm well versed in FreeBSD, so I was able to get them to play... which wasn't the point of my testing. I wanted to see how easy one of these desktop OS's would be to install and maintain for a non-expert.

So, I then decided to toss Ubuntu on this laptop. Jaw dropping impressive so far as I'm concerned. The only OS to properly detect all the hardware right out of the gate. Even picked the correct monitor specs. Windows can't even do that right without the proper drivers. Then, that whole hardware testing utility that sends a driver report back to Ubuntu just seemed like a brilliant idea. Left me wondering why ALL OS's don't do this. Instead of having folks file bug reports, provide them with a tool that reports back all the good and the bad.

I was further impressed with the software installation and maintenance. It really did "just work". The only bad part of that experience was having to open up the Universe and Restricted repositories, which wasn't readily evident.

I'm still a FreeBSD desktop user at heart, but I would HIGHLY recommend Ubuntu to folks without prior Linux experience as an outstanding alternative to being left stranded in the world of Windows.

Re:OSDL Desktop Linux

[wysiwia]

Why not help?

I did, see http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects /2005-December/000349.html but they don't seems to be interested in my way to improve Linux.

See also http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/54009/index.h tml

O. Wyss

Figureheads? Let's do it Hollywood style

[TheSpatulaOfLove]

Figureheads are useles unless they're glamorous. I can see it now - (Pick your favorite Hollywood Floozie) dressed in a business suit touting the wonders of (favorite flavor Linux). Marketing speaks to mouth-breathers.

Bruce Perens

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time that people open their eyes and realize that Bruce Parens is nothing more than a self absorbed head line grabbing nutter with opinions that have as little value as the sense they make. He's nothing more than a blathering histrionic like this guy RMS who spends most of his time fantasizing about Fidel Castro and picking fleas out of his beard. Paren's time is past, he is now just a passé footnote to history. Time to move on.

Re:Figureheads? Let's do it Hollywood style

[STDOUBT]

Debian has a floozy:
http://www.linuxforum.com/linux_wallpapers_full/10 4.php

I used to use aol cds..

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I use Ubuntu cds for coasters.

I can see it now.

[slashbob22]

Fear and Loathing in La SuSE (They've got the lizards, just need some product placement).
Honey I Shrunk the Embedded Ubuntu.
Star Wars XV: Attack of the CentOS (Didn't this happen in Tuttle, OK?)
Miss Fedora Universe (Make the Geeks go crazy for models in Fedoras)
A Beautiful Distro (A Linspiring movie)

OK, I am done. But why not have product placement, much like Apple has done in popular culture for the past few years.

Re:I can see it now.

[Anonymous Coward]

"(They've got the lizards, just need some product placement)."

Did you just save $500 on your car insurance?

"Honey I Shrunk the Embedded Ubuntu."

If you are embedded and find that your ubuntu is shrunken, I have about 7,000 C$IALIS and V1A6RA spams I can forward to you to give you ideas on solving your problem.

"OK, I am done. But why not have product placement, much like Apple has done in popular culture for the past few years"

Negotiations are already underway to turn Manny in "Ice Age 3" into a giant billboard for the forthcoming "Mopey Mammoth' ubuntu build.

"Star Wars XV: Attack of the CentOS (Didn't this happen in Tuttle, OK?)"

Begin, this OS war has.

"Miss Fedora Universe (Make the Geeks go crazy for models in Fedoras)
A Beautiful Distro (A Linspiring movie)"

Is that a secret level in the new Godfather game?

Re:I can see it now.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot The Adventures of Mandriva, Queen of the Desert.

Re:I can see it now.

[Anonymous Coward]

They plugged Ubuntu on Veronica Mars.

What is Userlinux?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Not to be an ass, but what is Userlinux? Is it a Linux Distro? There is no obvious description on the Userlinux webpage. People like to blame Ubuntu for stealing the spotlight, but Ubuntu fame isn't preventing anyone from putting up a quick blurb describing "Userlinux".

Every open source project should have a quick 2 line description at the top of the webpage. It shouldn't take me 6 clicks to get a BASIC description of your project.

Before you criticize, here's what I did:

• http://www.userlinux.com/ directs me to http://www.userlinux.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl
• http://www.userlinux.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl doesn't have a description, but it does say:
  
  "Main announcements have been moved to the UserLinux web site at http://www.userlinux.com/ . "
  
  and
  
  "# See http://www.userlinux.com/ and http://www.userlinux.com/about for more information. "
  
• 
  
  Great, so I click on http://www.userlinux.com/ and end up back at http://www.userlinux.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl . No luck there!
  
  
• Let's check out http://www.userlinux.com/about/.
  
  This site is parked via OpenSourceParking.com .
  No-Cost Parking, only Open Source / Free Software are used.
  Proceeds from advertising will go to political and promotional efforts on behalf of Open Source / Free Software.
  Now, you can do some good with that parked domain!
  
  

I still have no idea what UserLinux is. And that was what, 7 clicks?

Compare this to Ubuntu.com. It took me 10 seconds to read the 2 line blurb at http://www.ubuntu.com/:

"Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and professional support. It is developed by a large community and we invite you to participate too!

Re:What is Userlinux?

[LiquidCoooled]

http://www.userlinux.com/ directs me to http://www.userlinux.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl ...

Great, so I click on http://www.userlinux.com/ and end up back at http://www.userlinux.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl . No luck there!

Good old GNU technology ;)

Re:What is Userlinux?

[data64]

Not to be an ass, but what is Userlinux?

See UserLinux description on Wikipedia. And I do agree with you, there should be a better description on Userlinux.com website. I still don't know why one would use UserLinux rather than Ubuntu.

Re:What is Userlinux?

[data64]

Interestingly enough, its listed under Inactive or Discontinued distributions on Wikipedia.

Re:What is Userlinux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Userlinux was/is a way for BP to sell his consulting services. When he didn't make much off of it he pushed it off to the side.

Notice how every article he agress to has multiple closeups of him? It isn't about Linux it is about BP - if Sun would pay him more he would start supporting Open Solaris.

Re:What is Userlinux?

[int14]

I just went to the UserLinux FAQ looking for the question, 'What is UserLinux?', and I was going to be all smug and reply with some 'read the FAQ you fool' type comment...

but then I realized...

They don't even have that question on the FAQ. Wow, so yea, you're absolutely right.

Re:What is Userlinux?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because it has been inactive for a very long time. In the article, Bruce says that he will try to get back to it.

Re:What is Userlinux?

[TDO48]

I like your comment... actually happends with sooo many open source software: instead of having a quick description of 2-3 lines on the main page that explains the project, we usually find some news/revision history/CVS update or some general blurb saying something about free, hosting, etc.

Somehow in science we learn to convey the key message of an article in its abstract... but apparently in OSS sometimes this is not the case. And without clear description of what is the stuff about, well... unless you've time to loose...

Of course having the news or revision history on the front page is certainly interesting for those guys who know what is the project about, but in this case we might also argue that they could link to whateverproject.org/news and leave the general description on the main page for the casual visitors.

Re:What is Userlinux?

[Anonymous Coward]

So a self-proclaimed figurehead talks about how figureheads are imporant while keeping with the "not invented here" mindset. Bruce, give it up and contribute to the winning side. There is nothing to be gained by creating your own distribution and rolling it out. As it is the world has far too many 10 user versions of linux these days. Let your ego go and help contribute to humanity. Or simply limp back to debian and track those 4 year old packages.

Re:What is Userlinux?

[ModelerRick]

For some reason, reading that Wikipedia article makes me think of the untitled e.e. cummings poem that starts with:

Buffalo Bill's
defunct

Re:Figureheads? Let's do it Hollywood style

[PenguinBoyDave]

I can see how you could put that statement to Stallman...

UserLinux

[bhirsch]

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't UserLinux just sarge (when it was testing) pinning some sid packages? I honestly don't remember it being anything terribly more substantial than that along with some convenient metapackages like graphical-desktop-environment and enterprise-server.

When Perens announced at the Desktop Linux conference in MA a few years ago, it sounded like a pretty half-baked idea.

Re:UserLinux

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a Bruce Perens vanity project that didn't take off. It didn't cause the desired effect which was a giant Bruce Perens masturbation fest. Bruce is a publicity whore who has been skating on accomplishments of a long long time ago, he would very much like you to buy him a fast new car that you can give him blow jobs in. Enjoy.

Re:UserLinux

[bhirsch]

I think that was basically my underlying sentiment.

Re:UserLinux

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd concur with the GP and also note that as is usually the case with Bruce Perens, if he's not the new Bill Gates within six months of having started some new project, he gets bored and walks away.

Re:UserLinux

[wysiwia]

Don't judge too harsh, BP doesn't have some millions left to drop into a project but has to earn some money. Don't under estimate the effect money has on the success of OpenSource projects. I guess there isn't a single top project which doesn't have a sponsor. Just see what happens to FreeBSD after the last sponsor left.

Besides just give me a few millions and I will fix Ubuntu's bug #1 (https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/1) at least to a certain extend (see http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/54009/index.h tml).

O. Wyss

Re:UserLinux

[bhirsch]

Shuttleworth would certainly seem to be willing to put that kind of capital into it, yet the "bug" remains open.

Re:UserLinux

[wysiwia]

Shuttleworth would certainly seem to be willing ...

Hopefully, but I guess it needs a lot of conviction, much more than I'm able to do alone.

O. Wyss

IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[Anonymous Coward]

59 gazillion distros, with different file system layouts, default compiler options blah blah woof woof. Linux is just a nightmare for me. In 2004 I used to use a mixture of Gentoo and a couple of other distros, but got sick and tired of the ever changing baseline which meant using it as a workstation became an impossible proposition for me to actually get any work done.

My workstation is now a locked down install of Solaris 10 on a dual-proc Blade 2000 and all my servers are running OpenBSD-STABLE. No pointless faffing with crappy configuration issues and when I switch the power on I get rock solid secure boxes that stay up and running. No conflicts, no crashes, no module problems.

Mod me -1 Troll, but that is my experience with Linux and no amount of angry moderation will change that.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[hey!]

59 gazillion distros, with different file system layouts, default compiler options blah blah woof woof. Linux is just a nightmare for me.

It's only a mess if you're the kind of person who can't resist the siren call of "something other than what works for me, currently." Fortunately, this doesn't include the bulk of the human race.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[pembo13]

Well I call BS since you didn't have the balls and posten anonymously. Just as you have now stuck to Solaris and OpenBSD, you should have stuck to one distro.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well I call BS since you didn't have the balls and posten anonymously."

What? My experiences with Linux are "bullshit" because I posted anonymously? Yeah, great argument. Well done. So I create a throwaway hotmail account, register some username, and post the same thing and all of sudden I'm not lying? People like you are the reason I don't bother to get an account on this site.

"Just as you have now stuck to Solaris and OpenBSD, you should have stuck to one distro."

Yeah, because I only ever need one screwdriver for all of my DIY uses. I pick the right tool for the job, whereas in this instance you're just *A* tool.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[thomasa]

SunOS 4.1, Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, 2.7, Solaris 8, 9, 10
SPARCworks C Compiler 2.0.1, 3.0.1,..,4.0,5.0
Sun Forte WorkShop 6.1,,6.2a,6.2
Sun ONE Studio 8
Sun Studio 9
Sun Studio 10
Sun Studio 11
gcc versions ???
Intel, Sparc32, Sparc64

different versions? Who is counting?

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[imaginaryelf]

What you've listed are versions of Solaris and its compiler.

For your information, Solaris is very backwards compatible in both categories. If you compiled a solaris application with workshop 5 on solaris 2.6, these 8 year old binaries will run today on Solaris 10.

And 32-bit Sparc applications can run in all Solaris versions that are 64-bit (i.e. all in the last 10 years) with no problem.

Linux (and gcc) cannot touch Solaris's stability and backwards compatibility. Try again.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[Anonymous Coward]

People like you

troll alert, stop the thread

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, get over yourself.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[drooling-dog]

You used "a mixture" of Gentoo and a couple of other distributions? Why on earth would anyone do that? Looks like you went looking for a nightmare, just so you could tell us about it.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to get a more rounded exposure to Linux, I opted to try out Debian, SuSE, RedHat and Gentoo. At the time, it was Gentoo that was all the rage. I should probably clarify that by "mixture" I meant a number of distros on individual machines, not different components from each trying to blend together on a single box (yes, that would have been extremely stupid to even attempt). SuSE had some wierd quirkyness on my hardware, RedHat felt utterly bloated and despite my efforts continued to feel like I was carring too much weight in the kernel. Debian was nice but I had some major issues with adding in additional software (there may well have been a bug, but I found that much of the software I wanted was a couple of versions behind and I wasn't getting good results when transferring app data between systems). Gentoo was working out OK until I emerge world'd my system and something majorly screwy happened with the configs and I lost all my original confs and couldn't revert back (I think the problem was caused some library error and then all sorts of dependencies started failing etc etc).

It appears that my original post has caused much offense to some people who've then gone on to cry "troll" blah blah. Well, yep, whatever. I tried Linux and didn't care for it. I'm the sort of person who wants software that "just works" because I don't have the time to continually muck about getting stuff to install and function properly. "good on you" to those people who have that time to spend on such activities, but for me I want to get my work done and spend time with my wife rather than fiddling about with makefiles and merging diffs from conflicting configs.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[Enrique1218]

I agree. I have been using Ubuntu. From reading how-tos and trying to get things to work, I see the hackers influence on the OS. You see a lot hacks to get things working. But, you don't see people resolving those hacks into a more uniform solution. Hell, the existence of how-tos illustrates this the most. People can't take a howto and turn into a script to do the function automatically for the user because no one can predict what is happening at the low level. Even the how-to's aren't even perfect but rather they bring you into the ball-park. I wouldn't even trust the free distros on a production system. Redhat and Suse would be a better start if it had to be Linux, at least you have somebody to call.

Re:IMHO, Linux is just a mess.

[drooling-dog]

Sorry you had such a bad experience. You might have done better just settling on a single distribution and getting more familiar with it. As a novice, Gentoo was probably the worst you could have picked, since you have to build it from source. Aside from that, the distributions are pretty much the same with respect to the kernel and application software; the major differences arise in installation, package management, and administration tools. That's probably enough to cause some grief if you're constantly switching between them.

Your comments may be sincere, but people are going to suspect trolling when an anonymous poster describes an experience with Linux that is so different from their own. I've used it (Fedora, lately) with very little trouble for a long time, and finally stopped dual-booting several years ago (and without regrets). What problems there have been - with hardware drivers, mostly - were typically resolved by simple Google searches in less time than you'd spend on hold calling tech support for a proprietary platform. So there's no way I'm going back, regardless of how many apocryphal tales of woe I read here and elsewhere. It's like listening to someone insist that learning to ride a bicycle is simply impossible, when I'm out with mine nearly every day.

Huge amounts of money are at stake in markets under threat from Linux and FOSS, and so it would be surprising if there weren't organized efforts afoot to astroturf the "only uber-geeks can learn Linux" meme. Slowing the rate of adoption even a little through FUD can translate into hundreds of millions - maybe billions - of dollars per year, I'm sure. We all recognize this fact of life, and perhaps it makes us a little too quick to cry "troll".

How did this thing modded insightfull ?!

[Alphager]

Hopefully, someone meta-moderates the persons responsible for it.

Re:How did this thing modded insightfull ?!

[Homestar Breadmaker]

Probably because its true?

Re:Figureheads? Let's do it Hollywood style

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree 100% Its only the figure heads that think they are important... the rest just reads their rant once in a while and ignore them.

Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[PenguinBoyDave]

I don't mean to sound like a troll here...I am asking because I just don't know. I have used Ubuntu and I didn't like it. Xandros...I like that. Debian...my primary Desktop. Ubuntu...I just don't see what has people so excited about it. Can someone help me see what I am missing here. If it is better, help me see the light.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[uglyduckling]

Ubuntu does now what we all hope Debian will do in six months... or 1 year... or 6 years... I've been using Debian for nearly eight years now, and for the first four it was my desktop OS as well as my server OS. Then I started getting fed up with the number of packages I needed to use from backports or unstable to get a fairly up-to-date Gnome desktop, Firefox/Mozilla, video player etc., and how often it would break because of the number of packages coming from different sources. I used Mandrake for a while but couldn't stand it. Then I tried Ubuntu. Everything I need for a decent multi-purpose workstation/desktop, fairly up-to-date, good community support, software updates rarely break anything. It's still properly Free Software so I get the warm fuzzy feeling. All pros and no cons. And they contribute back to Debian. I can't understand how anyone would want to use Debian stable in preference to Ubuntu.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[xoundmind]

Special? It seems almost unusable as a desktop OS. Unless you install the new-ish Xubuntu, which utulizes XFCE with all of the GTK stuff set up for you. I tried it again on my 2.4/512 machine and it took forever for any apps. to open and load in Gnome. The KDE side wasn't any better.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

It's easier to configure then Debian, has a nice user interface and has included modern packages like 'x.org' and 'PHP5' for quite some time now. Ubuntu isn't for everyone, but that's fine. That's why you have Debian and other distros.

Myself, I use Ubuntu for my desktop because it is easy to install, configure & upgrade. The install was painless. With Debian, I found that I spent too much time trying to get my video card working, managing packages, and searching for modern packages on 3rd party websites. During Install I'll get stuck at some screen and need to search the web from a different computer to check for some wierd setting.

When I last checked 5-6 months ago, Debian stable was still using PHP4 as the default. PHP5 came out in what, 2004? x.org isn't slated for Debian stable until the next major release, right?

Debian is probably a fine server OS, but for my desktop & home servers I want something more modern.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote another Anonymous Coward

"it just works"

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu appeals to people who like the combination of a distro that is completely free, stable, easy to install/configure, and popular.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[r0dzilla]

I don't like Ubuntu either, I tried to use it, I really have. I even tried kubuntu since I've been using KDE more lately. I just don't like the way it's setup and I don't like what they did with root.

Give me Gentoo any day or Fedora for a faster setup.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Bromskloss]

With Debian, I found that I spent too much time trying to get my video card working, managing packages, and searching for modern packages on 3rd party websites.

Actually, Ubuntu didn't do much better when I tried it. Why can't the Linux distros just recognize my hardware?! buhuu.. :-( It seems like there is always some hardware component for me that doesn't work out of the box. And if it's the network card, it's difficult to fix. I would gladly burn a whole pile of discs full of drivers before installation, if that's what it takes, to be sure the installation process would set everything up for me.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[LiLWiP]

I have been using Ubuntu on my Toshiba Satellite laptop for about 6 months. Ease of installation and updating packages is what makes it great. The problem I have is that it takes longer to load programs than Windows ME! No drivers for my linksys card so I have to use ndiswrapper with NET8180 drivers to get my wireless connection to work. It takes longer than Windows 98 to boot... All of this combined is forcing me to go with either a different distro or put Windows back on the machine. I will probably opt for Windows because my wife wants to use the lappy for work and Linux is not user friendly enough for her. Not to mention she can't use most of the programs she needs for the projects she is working on (MS Project, MS Visio, etc...)

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[everphilski]

It's easier to configure then Debian, has a nice user interface and has included modern packages like 'x.org' and 'PHP5' for quite some time now.

Like Fedora Core ... 4? Thats the grandparent's point. Theres 100 distros that have up to date packages. Whats so great about Ubuntu that have people crazy about it? I don't get it either. OK, I can see Ubuntu over Debian, but why over (other_distro)?

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a retard. sudo is the right way to do things.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, I have a 1.2Ghz Duron, 512MB RAM, and it seems fine and very fast to me, both right after install and now.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[kherrick]

If you are okay with Debian unstable, use Kanotix http://kanotix.com/index.php?&newlang=eng

It is by far the easiest distro I have ever used... over and above Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse or Mandrake. It almost auto configured everything, and I have a hard time thinking about using anything else... it's just too dead simple.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[soupdevil]

If you're going to be a desktop Linux newbie, with any distro, you're going to have to ask stupid questions on forums. The Ubuntu forums are informative, and by far the friendliest that I have encountered. After some forum-surfing, that's why I chose Ubuntu over Suse or Fedora. Mandriva is under too much turmoil, and Mepix didn't seem like it had a large/stable organization behind it.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[uglyduckling]

Like Fedora Core ... 4? Thats the grandparent's point. Theres 100 distros that have up to date packages. Whats so great about Ubuntu that have people crazy about it?

Because there are a lot of people - myself included - who have used Debian for a long time. We like it for various reasons including it's proper Free-(as in speech)-ness, the apt/dpkg package management system, the fairly hands-on approach to system configuration and all sorts of other reasons that vary from person to person. The biggest problem with Debian is that it sucks as a desktop distro because it's too out of date. Ubuntu gives those of us that are long-term Debian fans what we need on the desktop without sacrificing what we love about Debian - except, arguably, a certain level of stability since Debian stable is tested like crazy.

To put it another way, here's why I don't use a selection of other distros: Redhat - too commercial, Suse - ditto, Fedora - can't stand the package management, Mandriva - ditto, Gentoo - would rather spend my time configuring the package well rather than compiling it. I have Debian on my server and love it, and have the closest thing to Debian on my desktop.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Criterion]

"You're a retard. sudo is the right way to do things."

So sayeth the anonymous coward. I prefer that if someone were to somehow gain my user password that it doesn't automatically entitle them to root access.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[hahiss]

FWIW: Ubuntu runs fine on my 5 year old iBook (G3, 500mhz, 384 megs ram). . . . Maybe Apple was right about the megahertz myth.

Of course at this point I don't use GNOME (or any other WIMP window manager) because it/they just get in the way. But that's another post for another day.

(As an aside, you do know that xfce is available through the universe repository, correct?)

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Colonel Angus]

I think it's "so special" because it "just works" better than any other distro that I've tried. And just about every enhancement or add-on that I wanted to implement on my install was found as a HOWTO in the Ubuntu forums. Add to that the fact that whenever I've run into a problem, the folks in said forums are *by far* the most friendly and helpful of any linux help forum I've visisted.

Ubuntu might not be "so special" for Linux veterans who are fine with compiling their own kernels and drivers and whatever else might be old hat for them, but it certainly is for Mom and Dad who can't keep Windows running well for the life of them without a regular "Windows Maintenance Format".

I installed Ubuntu on an old machine before handing it over to them to be able to keep in touch with myself and my sister who moved overseas. They've had it for a couple of months now and have not had to once call me and ask me why such-and-such keeps crashing or why after a couple of hours of being left on their computer grinds to a halt.

For all of those who dream of the Desktop Read Linux... Ubuntu is easily the closest thing that I have seen to it. That is what makes it special. It's not perfect, and it's not there yet, but it's the best effort thus far as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Anonymous Coward]

i personally like ubuntu due to the fact its pretty much a snapshot of an unstable debian image & then fixed up by the ubuntu dev team. im running the dev release at the moment & i enjoy it (with a dual boot to xp for when wine just doesnt cut it). it runs very smoothly & i havent had any problems yet. i had to do some minor configuring to harden it to my liking, but thats about it.
another selling point for your "newbie" friends is their forum is a nice friendly enviroment where people actually try to answer peoples questions without sounding condisending & or rude to your average *nix "newbie" trying to have the ablity to make a choice in technology. with 3rd party apps like easyubuntu & automatix its very easy to get your average "newbie" up & running with multimedia codecs & the works extremely fast. if you need the most bleeding edge versions of x y or z package/lib, you could always add the unstable debian repository or manually download the *.deb's you need & calculate your dependencies?
theres plenty of great distros out there, like gentoo for instance (ive used that on a server box previously, not as my primary desktop), & its all very subjective to what you want & need out of your *nix os.
i really dont like seeing this so called "war" between the users in the *nix community that use x y or z distro, its quite upsetting to me. we're all part of the nix/gnu/foss world, not to sound cliche but... so can't we all just get along? no distro is perfect or completely infallible, so please come to terms with that issue before you have a stroke or become some zealot for x y or z distro.
im a long time debian fan, so ubuntu works out great for me.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[texroot]

Just "sudo passwd root" to enable root. Or "sudo -i" to start a root shell any time you want.

Problem solved.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[Krondor]

To put it another way, here's why I don't use a selection of other distros: Redhat - too commercial, Suse - ditto, Fedora - can't stand the package management, Mandriva - ditto, Gentoo - would rather spend my time configuring the package well rather than compiling it. I have Debian on my server and love it, and have the closest thing to Debian on my desktop.

When you say RedHat too commercial and SUSE ditto I am assuming you are speaking of their Enterprise offerings. Otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned Fedora seperately. Yet, I noticed that you did not include OpenSUSE.. I think you'd like it if you gave it a shot. You could argue the same package management complaint, I suppose, as Fedora. Although, I don't see why people have such issues with it. The standard tools in Fedora and SUSE do decently well, but if they're not up to snuff you have YUM and Apt 4 RPM.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[everphilski]

Thanks for the insight.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[killerkalamari]

Ubuntu got me excited because all my hardware worked, especially sound (which never worked in any Linux distro I had tried before), they were offering free CD's on their webpage (a refreshing difference to the Mandrake installer donation guilt trips), and people want to help. Although I can't always get an answer, people are not rude to me in the Ubuntu help areas, unlike Debian, for example. Thanks to community help and documentation I have completely replaced/removed any past reason I once used Windows. Other reasons are the choice of Gnome (which has problems, but I prefer to KDE) and Synaptic. Of course any distro have have this stuff.. distros aren't really special, but they have put together something for free that works, has a nice feel and lets me enjoy myself while learning how to use it.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[aCapitalist]

When I run desktop linux, I run Kanotix. It blows away Ubuntu as far as out of the box experience, and I would rather stick with the standard debian repositories. And the guy that puts together the distro really has some awesome scripts.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[arose]

I'm using the default Ubuntu on a Celeron 433. It worked acceptably with 128MB RAM, it works good with 256. The thing has an AT keyboard for crying out loud!

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[xoundmind]

Of course at this point I don't use GNOME (or any other WIMP window manager) because it/they just get in the way. But that's another post for another day.

You are severely missing the point. Debian is a wonderful OS, wit the bloat kept to a minimum. Ubuntu ha staken that solid base and added far too many memory hoggers to GNOME.
As an aside, if you are such a a fucking stud, then why are you using Ubuntu in the first place?? It's for newbies. Command line "experts" like yourself should stick with Debian. Or better yet, run a BSD or Solaris environment. Ubuntu is great for newbies. But I suspect you are simply an idiot. You're certainly a damn fool.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[ModelerRick]

I think that uglyduckling hit a key positive aspect of Ubuntu. It takes the Debian package stream and puts it into nice 6 month time-boxed releases. I hope that the slip of the upcoming dapper release is a one-time thing. Further, the introduction of the server "version" of Ubuntu with committed long-term time-based support seems to make it a good carrier for the Debian stream for servers, maybe even better than "regular" Debian. Personally I made the switch from RH/Fedora to Ubuntu, and it feels to me that Ubuntu provided my transition into the Debian world with its advantages. Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't found any reason to wish that I was running Sarge instead of Breezy.

Re: Ubuntu...why is it so special?

[hahiss]

Thanks for the insightful comment, but I have some corrections:

1. What makes me a stud is that I'm a porn star with a HUGE penis.

2. I use BSD at work, thank you very much, but I like the ease of install of Ubuntu on my laptop. (What makes me a stud isn't my computer skills, but my aforementioned huge penis.)

3. I used to use the Gnome interface with Ubuntu, but stopped because I didn't like WIMP interfaces.

4. I do not use the command line for everything (with such a large penis, I sometimes need to take my hand off the keyboard), and I'm using firefox for this post.

Really, there's no reason for you to have been such a jackass, with the exception of the fact that you're not a command line stud and you've got a small penis.

For what it is worth: `FWIW' means ``for what it is worth", and indicates ``here's my 2 cents, no need to be a fucking jackass about them you fucking dickwad"

UserLinux was never going to work

[ProteusQ]

I remember being on the mailing list years ago. The conversations with Bruce can be summarized this way:

BRUCE: I can't tell you who I'm working for, but there's a lot of money behind this project. So, we have to be serious about this. What should we call this distro?

BOB: SuperLinux!

FRED: Enterprise-D Linux!

ELMER: CoolNIX!

BRUCE: No, no, no! You have to be serious about this! There's a lot of money behind this project. I can't tell you whose money, but we have to come up with a name for our distro that they'll like!

FRED: If they have that much money, why don't *they* pick a name?

BRUCE: I want this to be a community effort! How about 'UserLinux'?

FRED: Boring.

BOB: Generic.

ELMER: Ditto that.

BRUCE: But the community has to be serious about this! There's a lot of money behind this, and the companies that I can't name won't use Linux without a professionally named distro!

ELMER: So, this is a community effort, but the decisions will be made by fiat?

BRUCE: No, the community has to be a part of this. Now, KDE or GNOME? My clients only want GNOME. What do you think?

ELMER: That we should take this seriously because there's a lot of money behind this project from companies you can't name?

BRUCE: Exactly! So, KDE is out!

Eventually, there was a big rumble and KDE got shoved back in. I dropped the list some time after that, because it was clear that the community was meant to rubber-stamp a project that some large companies wanted to produce on the cheap.

Re:UserLinux was never going to work

[atoms]

Sounded pretty bad until I got to the "KDE is out" part.

Re:UserLinux was never going to work

[Ploum]

I was on the UserLinux since the beginning and it's absolutely true. Please mod this as "informative", not "funny" !

In fact, the mailing list was more grumbling about the logo and the name than anything else. The only constructive work was done by an Italian guy who did the paperplane logo because he tought it was a good idea (and it was right).

Then, for the next two months, everyone was discussing the color of the plane, if it must point to left or right.

After 6 months of effort, we had ... a paperplane ! woohoo !

Re:UserLinux was never going to work

[mortonda]

In fact, the mailing list was more grumbling about the logo and the name than anything else

Who cares what color the bike shed is....

Times change, people don't

[Itsacon]

I still think it's funny how there's a new `Holy War' between Linux distros every few months.
`Back in the day' when I had my first experience with Linux, you had the Red Hat Camp vs the SuSe Camp. (Real hackers used Slackware then, btw).
Then Red hat became the evil empire, people started yelling `Debian' at each other, while SuSe became something you didn't talk about.
Around then Mandrake finally made a proper installer (albeit a very limited one if you knew what you wanted) and raked in Windows users by the dozen.
Then that position was attacked by Lindows(C), which was so effective it got in trouble with Redmond itself.
In the meantime, Red Hat looked out of the Windows (pun inteded) and started to make some money. So they started Fedora to keep the free code coming (and stay somewhat compliant to the GNU GPL). And Debian went out of the picture again.

Now I'm hearing Ubuntu on all sides (still sounds like an African dictator to me, but whatever), while my work PC suddenly runs CentOS (where did that one come from?).

UserLinux? Never heard of it either, so must have been a pretty weak spotlight in the first place...

Wonder what the next `Must-have-distro' will be.

I'll make the switch when they stick to one for more than a year, until then, I'll use Windows and BSD.

Just my $0.02...

Re:Times change, people don't

[LWATCDR]

CentOS has never been a must have. Too bad really it is a very good choice for a server. It is basicly Red Hat Enterprise but free.
You left out Knoppix and Gentoo from your must have super buzz distro list.

Of course the good thing is each of those distros actually brought something inovative to Linux. The only holy wars left now comes down to desktops Gnome vs KDE vs something fast and light and package systems apt-get vs emerge vs yum and or yast.

BTW if you think that only Linux has these issues you must not have used Windows very long. I rember when die hard DOS people would tell you Windows sucked, then Windows 95 was faster then Windows 98, then we had Windows ME which did suck. Then Windows 2000s users saying that w2k was as good as XP but faster which was true. Now you have the rabid Windows user claiming that Vista will be GREAT but they have never used it.
Holy wars and computers go hand in hand. The sad thing is they are all wrong! The Amiga was the truly great computer!

Re:Times change, people don't

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

You also forgot about Corel's version of Linux, which was supposed to be the first real user friendly Linux that embedded WINE to allow native support of Windows applications (namely, Corel's CorelDRAW suite and WordPerfect).

True, I do agree, Linux distros come and go, but the OS never really takes off. They need one Distro to rule them all, but the Linux camp is so disorganized and filled with too many individuals trying to be the hero that Linux will never be an effective replacement or competitor to Windows. Until you get ALL linux developers concentrating on ONE Linux distro, the very fact that there are 100+ camps will mean Linux will never succeed as a workstation platform. Each distro has its unique claim to fame, but if you had one distribution with ALL these claims, then that would be impressive.

Re:Times change, people don't

[Itsacon]

> You left out Knoppix and Gentoo from your must have super buzz distro list.

I knew I was forgetting something!!
Knoppix is actually one of the distros I DO regulary use. When some WinXP system has crashed again and people have been saving data on their system drive so they don't want to do proper reinstall...

As for different Windows versions, I agree it's a bit the same, but that's talking about different versions, I've seldom heard people shout at each other on which Linux Kernel to use :-P
It's true though, I'm a sucker for Win2k :-)

And VI is better than EMACS!

Re:Times change, people don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, it's just you.

Me:
1. Slackware in the beginning (this is back in the 1.0 days, 13+ years ago). Basically there wasn't anything else.
2. Debian (apt, huge repository)
3. Ubuntu (finally what Debian should have been; still apt; still huge repository but now it's up to date without breaking your system and easy to install and use; closest thing to Windows/OS X popularity and ease of use; all without being anything like Windows or OS X)

A natural progression.

Now, I have tried most distros at one point or another (tried, but not made my primary desktop). Anyone worth their salt could tell all those other distros sucked. RedHat (and everything based on it)? Pffft, how many things can you do differently from every other UNIX-like distro on the planet and still call it Linux?! Gentoo? Pluuease, compiling everything from scratch is so 10 years ago.

Re:Times change, people don't

[mccalli]

...my work PC suddenly runs CentOS (where did that one come from?).

Tuttle.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Times change, people don't

[Karma Farmer]

Slackware in the beginning (this is back in the 1.0 days, 13+ years ago). Basically there wasn't anything else.

You came to linux fairly late, then.

There were several distributions before slackware. In fact, more than a handful of people ran linux even before ready-to-install distributions existed.

Re:Times change, people don't

[swordfish666]

If read "Just for Fun" by Linus you will see where/why Linux failed to take over. Linus did not want to take sides which is is right. But if he had chossen a camp back in 1996/1997 like RedHat or SuSE that distro would be one every desktop and and Vista would be a pipe dream.

Re:Times change, people don't

[Dansteeleuk]

But each new Distro brings something to the table, and they each take things from other Distros. We don't need one Distro to Rule them All - as soon as that happens development will slow. Just let everyone make their own toys, then five, or maybe ten years from now everyone will have them all installed as instances in Xen, and all you'll have to do is run the VoltronLinux System Builder to combine them into one market-shattering UberOS. VoltronLinux. You heard it here first.

Re:Times change, people don't

[Criterion]

Note to Karma Farmer, there is a difference between not knowing about something at it's earliest onset, and being late to the party. I think it's a bit absurd to think that someone who used Slackware at ver 1.0 as coming "to linux fairly late". Please adjust your perception to the true reality field.

Re:Times change, people don't

[Kjella]

I still think it's funny how there's a new `Holy War' between Linux distros every few months.

Well, every time there's a Columbus' egg all the other Linux distros scramble and do it. Despite what all the "one Linux desktop" people want, it's just not going to happen. Imagine that for a little while your distro of choice got a helluva lot of traction, set some groundbreaking standards and united all of Linux desktops under one banner - a rather unlikely prospect to begin with.

What's going to happen? Ten new distros are going to fork off from that, each taking it in some new direction because well... they think their way is better. Imagine you took a current distro back five years in a time machine. Obviously it's vastly superior to contemporary distros and wipe all the old ones off the market. Fast forward five years. Think there'd still be one distro? Hell no.

What you're seeing is the competitiveness of Open Source. You can't just sit around and ship a five year old OS and make free money, like certain Redmond-based companies. If you want to keep your distro popular, you need to improve it constantly, with emphasis on constantly. Because at any time there are competitors breathing down your neck, trying to push your distro out and replace it with their own. It's pretty much a textbook case of free market economy without barriers to entry.

Re:Times change, people don't

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I'll make the switch when they stick to one for more than a year, until then, I'll use Windows and BSD.

Alas, poor wretch. Then misfortune shall be thy lot.

Re:Times change, people don't

[Vox Humana]

Slackware in the beginning (this is back in the 1.0 days, 13+ years ago). Basically there wasn't anything else.

Bah! I remember when people worried about this shiny new distro called Slackware that was going to try to take Linux commercial.

Anybody else remember MCC or SLS?

Re:Times change, people don't

[jbolden]

I'm reading this and you don't seem like a guy who was around during the days of Ian Murdock founding Debian. I wasn't either but I was around 2 years later.

1) Lizard by Caldera was the first graphical installer for a major distribution.
2) Suse was still in German at that point
3) At the time Debian came out the big distributions were stuff like Yggdrasil not Redhat.
4) Suse vs. Redhat (for the US market) was not until United Linux which was in 2000 and by then everyone had an installer
5) Mandrake's claim to fame was not the installer but the KDE integration by the time of Mandrake RedHat had an installer as well (though IMHO Mandrake's worked better).

I could keep going but I thin I made my point. That this was from a few sentences.

Re:Times change, people don't

[jbolden]

Except for corporate ownership Corel Linux is still a very user friendly desktop Linux with embedded Windows support, just under a new name.

Re:Times change, people don't

[sootman]

Also forgot Caldera, which was pretty sweet at 2.2 and 2.3. (1999-ish.) Took advantage of Linux' multitasking abilities right in the installer--once it came to package-copying time, you could play Tetris! That distro was awesome, it even found the sound card on my Compaq 5280 laptop. Too bad they put stuff in odd places, so I couldn't trade notes with my RedHat using buddies. But then, so did every other distro back then. No one could agree on things like where to put Apache's docroot.

When I first started using Linux (1998), RedHat (around 4.x or 5.x) was the "easy to install" one. Then came Caldera, and also around then some people started liking Mandrake (which I never got into), then Corel came out and we thought it was gonna be a real Windows-killer, since they could ship a distro with WordPerfect and (I hoped) CorelDraw, PhotoPaint, but they didn't, of course; then RH became easier again, then Knoppix made a big splash, as did Gentoo at the totally opposite end of the spectrum, and now everyone likes Ubuntu, which I mostly like but still can't get some things to work on. I loved going to LUG meetings--every month were new CDs from SuSE, TurboLinux, SCO, those little LinuxCare bootable business card CDs... ah, the good old days.

In the meantime, I have found true happiness with Mac OS X. :-)
10.0: neat to look at, very slow Finder, no apps.
10.1: sped up a lot. Great. Now I can stand to use it. Kind of. Eventually got Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.
10.2: now *this* is what 10.0 should have been, plus all the apps are here. Very nice OS.
10.3: w00t! this is sweet! Cleaner looking than 10.2, fast user switching, iChat A/V, etc.
10.4: actually, I stuck with 10.3--I don't like Spotlight or Dashboard at all.
And there are nice packages for PHP and MySQL and everything else and it All Just Freakin' Works. Not to mention gorgeous hardware, good wireless and sleep for laptops, iPods, etc etc etc.

Re:Times change, people don't

[LWATCDR]

Yea Win2k was a must have version of Windows. Nice and secure without the kindergarten interface and memory requirements of XP.
VI vs EMACS
Much to my shame I really don't like them. I use Joe for my light editing and eclipse for my development ide. I started with Turbo pascal so the wordstar command set is like an old friend.

Re:Times change, people don't

[Richard Steiner]

Sure. SLS was nice because not only was it available on diskette on BBSes, but you could order a preformatted tape with the distro on it, and tehre was an SLS mini distro that was on a single diskette. It still boots on my boxes today. :-) Of course, it doesn't do much more than boot.

The first real distro I used was SLS 0.99pl13, I think. Took a while to install it, though, and I never did get X to work with my Diamond Stealth VRAM card.

I also remember distros like TAMU, Slackware Pro (Morse Telecommunications?), and something from Yggdrasil whose name eludes me. I've got all of those living on diskettes or CD's somewhere in my basement. :-)

Re:Times change, people don't

[Karma Farmer]

Yggdrasil

There's a name long forgotten. Did Yggdrasil ever actually have a working distribution? I remember them as "open source vaporware", i.e. a product that consist primarily of usenet posts. But I could be wrong.

Re:Times change, people don't

[xoundmind]

Gentoo? Pluuease, compiling everything from scratch is so 10 years ago.

I hope you aren't a systems admin and people are relying on your bloated bianry installs. Seriously. I gave up on Linux (mainly because of Ubuntu and the bloated kernel) and headed for FreeBSD, but I do admire the Gentoo approach. Try compiling KDE from scratch these days and see the real difference.

Re:Times change, people don't

[wed128]

Plenty of people still use slackware, it has imho the most unintrusive package management system around.

Best

[AlterTick]

This is all too confusing. Can't someone just cut to the chase and tell me what the best Linux distro is?

Re:Best

[zpeterz63]

That's not possible. Much like ice cream, the "best" Linux distro depends on the tastes of the individual. Do you want plain chocolate ice cream with it's simplicity and warm feeling of security (minimalist distro)? Do you want a bowl (full install), or would you perfer a cone where once you're done you eat the dish itself and nothing is left behing (live CD)? Do you want sprinkles and all sorts of fun toppings (a "pretty" distro)? It all depends on personal tastes and what is the "best" distro for one person may not meet the needs of the next.

Re:Best

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Cygwin.

Re:Best

[advocate_one]

first define "best"... then we can help you... :)

Re:Best

[somebraincells]

my flavor for example, is gentoo

iv been using it for a year now, and can safely say gentoo has saved my sex life...

Re:Best

[skinnygmg]

Cygwin

i think that's the worst idea anyone's ever had. why would you use this? so you could run linux apps, but keep that windows instability we all hold so dear?

g

Re:Best

[circa1979]

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" - Bill Clinton

Re:Best

[sootman]

OS X.

Re:Best

[Anonymous Coward]

Centos, of course.

Re:Best

[Anonymous Coward]

my flavor for example, is gentoo

iv been using it for a year now, and can safely say gentoo has saved my sex life...

Mine too. Since I switched to Gentoo, I have at least 6 more hours per day to spend with my significant other while something compiles....

Re:Best

[sharkey]

SCO?

Re:Best

[Panaphonix]

You can use it to run gnu/linux apps? How?

Re:Best

[Paul Crowley]

They all went downhill after MCC.

Re:Best

[skinnygmg]

sorry... i misread the info on Cygwin

A wise Linux guru

[january]

I am amazed how pragmatic Bruce Perens is. His paper on the economy of Open Source is much better -- both in terms of being concise, as in terms of being correct -- than anything I ever heard from some other Open Source or Free Software Gurus.

I highly recommend http://perens.com/Articles/Economic.htmlthis paper to anyone who has not read it yet. It is much more interesting than the interview itself (which is short, and, in my opinion, quite uninteresting given the experience and knowledge of Bruce Perence -- the interviewer(s) did not get as much of him as they could have).

The article is quite long, but very well researched, and definitely worth spending some time on it.

Cheers,
j.

Re:A wise Linux guru

[Clansman]

The interview is short because it is an extract. You have to buy the magazine to get the rest of the interview.

Re:A wise Linux guru

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you -- we should all suck Bruce's dick.

Debian based?

[Clinton]

Not trying to troll here, but if you want to remain Debian based, why not just use Debian?

Perens was misquoted

[fortunatus]

i'd just like to point out, the large black lettered quote saying, "I don't feel Linux is the right fit for the enterprise," is a MISQUOTE.

in the article he said:

"I don't feel that Linux is the right fit for a profit-making enterprise."

and the context is that it's hard to make money by distributing a Linux distro.

Re:Perens was misquoted

[Itsacon]

> i'd just like to point out, the large black lettered quote saying, "I don't feel Linux is the right fit for the enterprise," is a MISQUOTE.

Actually, I know that many Navy ships use Solaris, don't know for sure about the Enterprise though... :-D

Re:Perens was misquoted

[Anonymous Coward]

Corrected quote: "I don't feel that Linux is the right fit for a profit-making enterprise."

He is saying we should focus on converting the non-profitable enterprises to Linux?!?

News Flash....

[Anonymous Coward]

....who gives a shit??

Holy misleading excerpt, Batman!

[dougmc]

There's a nice little excerpt in the article, in bold, that says this --

"I don't believe that Linux distributions are a natural fit for the enterprise."

... which seems a strange statement for Bruce to be making. But then I read the article, and see that what he really said is this --

BP: I actually considered going to work with Canonical when Mark [Shuttleworth] was starting it, and there were a couple of problems with that. I think that Mark is eventually interested in having a successful and profitable company, and I don't believe that Linux distributions are a natural fit for for- profit enterprise. Indeed, if you go on my website I have a very long paper on the economics of open source, and one of the things that you can derive from that is the fact that open source works almost worst for a for-profit Linux distribution.

Which isn't completely clear, but it seems that Bruce is saying that making a Linux distribution is not a good way to make money. The excerpt that they took makes it sound he's saying that Linux isn't good to use in a business. (And it's made worse in that they edited his words -- they took out `for-profit', which helped qualify his statement a bit.)

In any event, the writer should consider himself chastized. Excerpts like that are only useful if they give you an idea of what the article is about, and in this case it says (when taken out of context and then edited) something totally different than what the person who said those words meant.

a lot of people seem a little... disillusioned.

[nowhere.elysium]

i've read a few posts saying 'what's the fuss about ubuntu?' - i have to admit, i kinda agree. i use ubuntu, and it's nice. it's not the XP-killer that it's touted as, but it's (almost) a nice parallel. there's still the hardware support issues to deal with, and, of course, the windows-only software doesn't yet entirely have linux-based equivalents. so; it's not gonna take over. yet. the main point of appeal for me is that ubuntu has debian's core, with a more up-to-date series of updates available. it's still a little slow, though; it only updates as far as 2.6.12, last i checked (about a week ago) - i had to learn how to patch and compile a kernel to get up to date, and improve hardware compatibility on my laptop. it's still not perfect, but it's better. incidentally; before i get labelled a n00b - i'm an OSX/windows technician - i don't have to support linux; it's a personal hobby. i honestly think it's going to all level itself out as a competition (in large terms; don't declare a holy war at me) between fedora, ubuntu, and maybe suse. obviously, the other distros will definitely survive, but i'm talking in terms of the larger game here. however, the hype that ubuntu is totally idiot-proof is not entirely true. you *do* still have to put in a fair bit of work to get it running up to speed, especially when it involves laptops, or proprietary hardware. i like ubuntu, but it's not perfect. nor has anyone got the right to say that it is.

Ubuntu is not quite ready for prime time (IMO)

[blueZ3]

I've installed Ubuntu three times now to see if I could get Windows off the one non-gaming machine left in my house that's still running it. So far, no luck. Several problems I've been able to solve myself, but there were a couple of glaring issues that made me think I wouldn't install Ubuntu on a machine for a noob.

First, the support for USB devices is spotty. I've got four or five different USB tools that I regularly use (WiFi, Bluetooth, Card reader, USB key, etc.) and only the USB key was recognized right off. Since Ubuntu relies on network connectivity for getting drivers, I had to go through the annoying process of finding a USB WiFi driver on my PowerBook and then moving it over. Not good. You'd think that an OS that practially requires a network connection to be useful would provide the widest possible array of network device drivers, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The most egregious error, though, was the hardware device database tool. Tabbing through the controls on the dialog boxes allows you to edit the dialog box text. Just as an info point: you shouldn't be able to edit the interface text in a modal dialog box. That's a Bad Thing®. Worse, could someone explain why you can't use the keyboard to select options in the mouse dialog? How exactly am I supposed to tell you I'm having trouble with my serial mouse if I have to use a mouse to select an option other than "works fine"? Sigh.

I really want to like Ubuntu. I have an install at work that I use when I want to fiddle around with Unix text files in an easy way. But I don't think it's to the point where I could give someone a CD and tell them "have fun". Too bad, because I have some less tech-savvy folks I would love to help.

Re:Ubuntu is not quite ready for prime time (IMO)

[Alioth]

The Wifi problem is a general issue with the Linux kernel as a whole rather than a specific issue with Ubuntu. The state of wireless in Linux is pretty bad. This is largely due to the manufacturers - they won't even release specs let alone release a driver for Linux - so you have to be very picky about which wifi dongle you use.

Re:Ubuntu is not quite ready for prime time (IMO)

[robogun]

I've installed Ubuntu three times now to see if I could get Windows off the one non-gaming machine left in my house that's still running it. So far, no luck. Several problems I've been able to solve myself, but there were a couple of glaring issues that made me think I wouldn't install Ubuntu on a machine for a noob.

First, the support for USB devices is spotty

USB is spotty in ANY os. I think Ubuntu would be perfect for the n00b - the install cd includes browser, mail, picture viewer etc & lack of vulnerabilities to the usual Windows vruses. It is the power user coming over from Windows who has trouble, mainly in finding replacement apps.

Re:Ubuntu is not quite ready for prime time (IMO)

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the USB device support of Windows? Let me guess, Windows doesn't work with your device at all, does it? At least not until you install the driver supplied by the device's manufacturer... why don't you complain to the manufacturer, maybe one day, after enough users have complained, they will provide a working, open source driver that can be included in the kernel. Otherwise you only have yourself to blame for buying the wrong hardware. I suspect that this USB-device doesn't work on MacOS either, but I don't see you complaining that "the USB device support of MacOS is spotty", because it actually is (out of the box, linux is indeed better, but still not good...)

Re:Ubuntu is not quite ready for prime time (IMO)

[Fulton Green]

Actually, the latest Ubuntu beta ("Drake") works very nicely on my ThinkPad T41, even when running off a bootable CD. Sound works; the display shows the max res; even the built-in wireless somewhat works, though wireless encryption still seems to be an issue.

Re:Ubuntu is not quite ready for prime time (IMO)

[Enrique1218]

I mod you up if I had points. From reading some peoples posts about Ubuntu is easy, I surmise that they are the luckiest fools on the planet. I tried installing Ubuntu on a computer with USB 802.11g key and it failed. I had to move the entire computer to my router in the basement so as to establish a wired connection. Then, after the installation got done, I spent a weekend of trial and error getting the wireles device to work with WPA. It turns out the Zydas driver included via Synaptic doesn't work. Ubuntu is a far cry from Windows or Mac OS X.

Re:Ubuntu is not quite ready for prime time (IMO)

[Enrique1218]

USB is spotty in ANY os.

Thats is wrong. USB has been pretty well understood with Windows and Mac OSX. Every device has a unique identifier that OS uses to match it with the appropriate driver. The OS identifies the vendor and the device just from that. All you need in those OSes is the appropriate driver and it will just work. An examples is 3com's 802.11g wireless USB dongle. 3com only supports Windows. Windows recognizes the device and uses the appropriate driver provided with CD. If I try to use a different driver, Windows tells me it won't work. Mac OSX isn't even in 3com consideration. But, the OS can still tell me who the vendor is and the device's number. Moreover, you can get the thing to work with a open source driver provided by chipset provider (Zydas). Come on dude, if the usb device is said to work with the OS, then you will get it to work with Windows or Mac OSX with little effort.

Re:Ubuntu is not quite ready for prime time (IMO)

[robogun]

I'm glad it works for you, our problems come from a variety of devices. For instance, it is common in Win2K to plug in a USB2.0 hard drive and get an incorrect function driver error. It is resolvable by repeatedly plugging until the OS finally gets it. Other times, the OS will forget these drives have been installed and demand a driver disk. Win2K ships with the driver. Removing and reattaching a variety of similar drives will sometimes get the OS mixed up and applying the name and drive letter of one drive to another. I do not think the technology is as mature and flawess as all that computer science theory and marketing speak would have us believe. I used to think firewire was the flakier technology but since the varoius 1.0, 1,1 and 2.0 USBs and backward compatibility issues, it is now the other way around.

I'm a User and I'm not impressed.

[ukemike]

I inherited a neat IBM PC with the CPU is in the base of the LCD screen. It had win98 was nightmarishly slow with some problem that caused it to access the HD every 10 seconds even when idling. I decided to do my first Linux install. I got Ubuntu, and wow it runs so smoothly and is nicely designed. Of course the machine's main purpose is to play DVDs for my son. Who would have thought that would be such a problem. Now I've been pouring over wikis trying to figure out what a package is, which one to download just to do something really simple. So it's a dual booter and we still use win98 because the DVD player program works. I'm not some fuzzy brained highschool drop out. I'm an engineer, I built my last PC, and I hate paying for software. I'm the natural market for a "user linux," and I'm telling you it's getting close but it ain't there yet! On a positive note, the IBM machine is more like a laptop, in terms of the gear inside and Ubuntu installed flawlessly and runs much better than the OS it shipped with.

Re:I'm a User and I'm not impressed.

[helixcode123]

(Problems playing DVDs in Ubuntu)

I'm playing DVDs just fine. You need to install libdvdcss2 and may need to use hdparm to enable dma (hdparm -d 1 /dev/dvd). There are docs on this, but contact me if you need some help (ethan at ethanbrown dot org)

Re:I'm a User and I'm not impressed.

[Fallingcow]

Google and download "Easy Ubuntu" or "Automatix".

DVD support couldn't be included due to legal issues. Same with MP3 and some other codecs.

These two programs are scripts to install these for you. They are both GUI programs and are dead simple to use. Download, extract (they're compressed files, that you download), navigate into the extracted folder 'till you find an executable file by the name of the program (EasyUbuntu, in the case of the first one), double click it, hit "run", and it goes. Just tell it to do whatever it needs to do, then select which restricted/(semi|il)legal packages you want, and it does its thing. Might take a few minutes, depending on how good your net connection is and how much you install.

You may delete the program when you are done using it, as you won't need it again.

I prefer Easy Ubuntu, but either will work. I recommend Mplayer or VLC as a DVD playing program, but you can use practically anything you like once you've installed the restricted stuff.

a BASIC description

[greenguy]

10 REM a BASIC description
20 PRINT "UserLinux is a Linux distribution that aims to provide businesses with a freely"
30 PRINT "available, high quality operating system accompanied by certifications, service, and"
40 PRINT "support options designed to encourage productivity and security while reducing overall"
45 PRINT "costs."
50 PRINT ""
60 PRINT "The project was initiated by Bruce Perens in late 2003. It is based on Debian and GNOME."
70 END

Ubuntu/Userlinux comparison from 2005

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Jeff Waugh talks about similarities and difference in philosophy and in positioning

Try Wikipedia Next Time.

[twitter]

UserLinux.

Ethnocentrism at work

[SteveFoerster]

How exactly does ubuntu, a word that means "humanity to others", sound like an African dictator? They don't all have bones in their noses and carry spears, you know.

Re:Ethnocentrism at work

[Nimey]

My guess is that it sounds vaguely similar to Mobutu Sese Seko. I never got that vibe off the name, though.

Doomed to failure

[xenocide2]

You don't have to blame Ubuntu to figure out why UserLinux has gone nowhere fast. The concept was simply doomed to failure: "Lets take a bunch of people too busy to work on this project and give them the opportunity to collaborate!" It's an interesting idea, but its near impossible for a single person to simultaneously develop a distribution of software and OS AND offer contracts to support it. Even Perens admits that he couldn't meet both obligations. You need a team of people, such that some can serve the current contracts, some can add the new features, and some can find the people willing to pay for support contracts with those new features. The critical part here is that the revenue is shared among the group. UserLinux was (is?) a fend for yourself volunteer effort. Sure, it's entrepeneurial, and its egalitarian, but its also inefficient to have everyone do everything.

Additionally, you need every chance you can get to get people interested in your idea. The first step would be a pretty website that suggests you're not a collection of amateurs. Shuttleworth also went out of his way to create ShipIt, which not only operated as a marketing tool of itself, but encouraged others to order more than one and share with their peers, AND made a few headlines. You'll notice that UserLinux still uses Debian repos, and their FAQ suggests that UserLinux *IS* Debian, that's somehow been "streamlined" (I'm guessing this means the installer installs everything they want to support by default). Of course, they're still attempting to brand themselves as UserLinux rather than some Debian ISV project. If UserLinux is really Debian, why not just embrace the fact?

Stock

[ultrabot]

Bruce says:

As far as Canonical is concerned, one thing that struck me about Mark is that he really insists on control. For example, when I considered being an employee one of the things standing in the way was the fact that Mark doesn't give his employees stock in his companies. If I'm going to work for someone I'm going to be a little entrepreneurial about it, so I felt that although Ubuntu and Canonical could do a great deal for Debian and be excellent community members, they were never going to be the core, and we could actually get closer to the core by following what I have set up for UserLinux.

So no stock for Bruce, ergo Ubuntu is never going to be the core? Is there something missing from the interview?

Re:Stock

[Anonymous Coward]

There's something missing from your comprehension of the article. He said that's what prevented him from wanting to work for Canonical.

Ubuntu has all other desktop distro's beat!

[ylikone]

I mean, just have a look at Amazon to see all the new Ubuntu books coming out. I think they've got a good thing going with Ubuntu... forget about userlinux.

Ubuntu Bug #1

[wysiwia]

I really hope Mark Shuttleworth makes any progress in solving Ubuntu Bug #1 (https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/1) albeit I fear he still needs several centuries at the current fixing rate.

See also http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/54009/index.h tml

O. Wyss

Re:Ubuntu Bug #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu, by promoting gnome/gtk, is helping to destroy the Linux desktop. It's time we get away from that constantly broken crap developed by whining, unaccountable developers who think they can and should force everyone on earth to use interfaces just as horribly designed, or worse, than those available on windows and mac.

Re:Ubuntu Bug #1

[Attrition_cp]

To be fair, there is Kubuntu which is official and uses the same bases, but has KDE by default instead of Gnome (still one cd).

Re:Ubuntu Bug #1

[wysiwia]

And there is Xubuntu based on XFCE, so there's no point in flaming Ubuntu because of Gnome. Besides flaming doesn't help fixing Ubuntu Bug #1.

O. Wyss

What about good ol' Knoppix?

[phorm]

While the liveCD concept of Ubuntu is somewhat knoppix-based, and of course Knoppix is Debian-based... I've often wondered what makes Ubuntu so great compared to Knoppix. Running a Knoppix 4.x (or even 3.9) LiveCD with it's KDE-enhanced beauty is a wonderful thing, and even linux newbies can find the web-browser and other commonly used software.

Why is Ubuntu such a big thing in comparison?

Re:What about good ol' Knoppix?

[angrykeyboarder]

I think you're somewhat comparing Apples and Oranges.

For one thing, Ubuntu has had both a LiveCD and a regular Install CD from the beginning (or at least since the "Hoary Hedgehog" release).

Knoppix only has a LiveCD release (although you can install from it, but I've personally found it's a mess to update afterwards).

Ubuntu's goal has been simplicity. Knoppix throws in everything but the kitchen sink and is targeted at power users.

Ubuntu is (supposedly) "Linux for Human Beings" (as their slogan states).

Both Ubuntu and Knoppix are excellent, but for different reasons.

Lots of projects are like this

[tacokill]

Sourceforge is chock full of this kind of funness. I just want to echo the parent poster -- a 2 line decription will do wonders for people picking up and trying out your favorite open source solution.

MANY projects lack this most basic piece of information.

UserLInux was a step on the way to a great distro

[beachdog]

UserLinux came closer to being a simple, successful business desktop than anything before it.

Ubuntu has taken over on my desktop because of better USB integration. Ubuntu handles my USB scanner, printer and camera and UserLinux doesn't.

UserLinux made the extraordinary Debian software and package environment accessible without the without the inadvertent and uncontrolled negative Gurella marketing presence that has undermined the mainline Debian distribution.

I'll tell you a UserLinux story:

Back in the days when Red Hat stopped selling a $50 box I started looking for another Distro.

I tried Knoppix and an interesting thing happened when I mistakenly visited the Debian IRC chat seeking assistance. I was treated with gruff and rude dismissal.

What I think was going on was somebody was engaging in Gurella Dis-marketing. Whoever this was, it was someone deliberately making sure that anybody exploring Debian got a good bitter mothful of rejection. The people in the IRC chat were hybrid child-professional assholes. People who projected a veneer of competency, and had nothing to say except "go away".

So after that, UserLinux looked like a really nice bunch of people with a reasonable tolerance for my interests.

UserLinux has a picture of a folded paper airplane reflecting that it was a careful selection of the best of breed applications from the huge Debian package universe. Unlike Debian it didn't make you "Figure this out if you want to install this software"

The target client for UserLinux was a "business desktop". The charm of the distribution was it installed like gangbusters and you could add anything you wanted from Debian.

I joined the UserLinux project and I contributed a help file. For UserLinux I wrote a help file covering tasks like dual boot setup and Java installation.

So I'll say thanks Bruce Perens and also Linux Format British edition is an excellent Linux publication (sold at Borders Books I think).

Absolutely

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. Pretty much everybody here can.

Not quite.

[Inoshiro]

MacOS still wins.

How do you install Camino in MacOS X?
1) Drag the Camino icon to your Applications folder!

How do you uninstall Camino in MacOS X?
1) Drag the Camino icon from your Applications folder to the trash.

Re:UserLInux was a step on the way to a great dist

[vpalexander]

Another funny thing happened On the way to validation of a cashless check This old fuck said, "I don't care about me, so what the heck." And kudos, cheers, Did your thing never mind the blurs More than half-way there Total emphasis of exactly how you don't care. But the purse was bitten With wenches yet to be smitten From Russia Or wherever spam comes from. But a great man despoiled Grants no feasance to an idea foiled So kudos indeed To the man who let Linux finally breathe.

Re:UserLInux was a step on the way to a great dist

[vpalexander]

And let idiots like me on the scene, muahaha! - The Sexless Angels

Are your friends named Wozniak, Mitnick, & Per

[Anonymous Coward]

That sure is a difficult learning *curve they got there

*raises bent rist and strikes chest.

Who modded that troll up?

[NRAdude]

Brother Bruce has a consulting "business", listed in DEBIAN.ORG, for some amount of money that I believe is unreasonable for the masses but quite competitive to the more aggressive corporations. There is plenty of room for expansion and hope him the best of service and skill.

I find no merit in the apolitical ranting between brothers Bruce, Eric, and Richard, and can say they all have a locke on their respective territories of skill and persona. Work is resolved, the ranting appears to be a perpetual ploy designed by the Evil One.