What Really Happened To Ubuntu's Edgy Artwork?

angrykeyboarder writes, "Many Ubuntu users expressed surprise, dismay, and disappointment when Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl) nixed the popular community-developed artwork during the beta phase of Ubuntu 6.10 ('The Edgy Eft'). Some Ubuntu community members were downright shocked, and many were ultimately dissatisfied with the final product. What exactly happened? Short answer: the Art Team was less disturbed than some other community members were. Linux.com has the scoop." Slashdot and Linux.com are both part of OSTG.

Comments

What happened to...

[Anonymous Coward]

...stories anyone cares about on slashdot?

...

Re:What happened to...

[Frosty Piss]

"...you're new here, right?"

Re:What happened to...

[aldo.gs]

You must be new here... that's not the way it is.

Approval

[Ninjaesque One]

So lacking of red tape, they don't even care about their seniors' opinions!

They should issue an official statement of chastisement against themselves!

Re:Approval

[evansky]

i guess that would be 'graybuntu.' HA!

Behold themes...

[Anonymous Coward]

... do they stop us from using the new goodies?

Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anyone surprised?

What a society - where killing untold thousands of people in far off lands is fine, but showing pictures of the human body is taboo.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[kfg]

. . .showing pictures of the human body is taboo.

It wasn't even intended. It was just a GUI malfunction.

KFG

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Reminds me of the quote to the effect that the only way a breast will ever be shown on network television in the US is if it's severed.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"What a society - where killing untold thousands of people in far off lands is fine, but showing pictures of the human body is taboo."

It isn't taboo. It's just stupid. Nobody wants a picture of a bunch of nudists on their desktop. And in what society is killing people fine? That's a pretty ignorant statement...

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Planesdragon]

What a society - where [showing pictures of] killing untold thousands of people in far off lands is fine, but showing pictures of the human body is taboo.

Let's compare apples to apples, shall we? Because if you want to compare violence to sex, well, you can be an American pacifist, but not fucking your spouse is grounds for divorce.

The simple reason why violence is OK in media and sex is not is that all violence needs to be in the public eye. There's no reason that your neighbors or children need to know when or how often you fuck. But they DO need to know each and every time you kill someone, stab someone in the eye, or do any other act of violence.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"And in what society is killing people fine? That's a pretty ignorant statement..."

Perhaps my sarcasm detector is malfunctioning, but have you turned on a television or played a popular computer game in the last, oh 50 years?

As an example, today's FPSs look almost identical to some of the training simulators I used in my unit a few years ago minus any of the moral context and maturity of the personnel. Give Lt. Col. David Grossman's "On Killing" a read - it's quite an eye-opener if you haven't thought too deeply about how pervasive entertainment can easily desensitize and incrementally condition unwitting persons.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

So what does that have to do with sex versus violence on television? Why do we need so many shows built around rape, murder, kidnapping, child abuse, torture, etc? Plot does not require the graphic depictions we have.

Hell, it just makes Iraq another video game/reality show. It's hardly shocking anymore to read about the daily 30-80-150(today's count) kidnapped, murdered, etc. in Baghdad alone. We have watched monthly murder rates in Baghdad climb into the thousands (yes, thousands!) but...ho hum. I know I don't have the visceral reaction my mind tells me I should. Getting up towards a million killed that had NOTHING to do with 9/11, but where's the outrage over the loss of life, regardless of political leanings? Life is cheap. But try showing a breast on network TV. Unless it's on a corpse, you won't see it.

BTW, I think anybody who's taken psych 101 will tell you that there is an inexorable link between sex and violence. Some other AC mentioned Grossman's Killing book - he covers it pretty well.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Static11]

The simple reason why violence is OK in media and sex is not is that all violence needs to be in the public eye. There's no reason that your neighbors or children need to know when or how often you fuck. But they DO need to know each and every time you kill someone, stab someone in the eye, or do any other act of violence.

That's a bit of a logical fallacy there, don't you think? I agree entirely that we all need to know when an injustice has been committed. However, you state only that violence needs to be in the media, and haven't given any reason why that means nudity can't share the same space in the media.

No-one NEEDS to know the results of the Super Bowl, but it's in the media - so how does nudity somehow not get the same treatment?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[flight_master]

Erm... I have pictures of Women as the backgrounds on all my computers... well the ones used at home. And no, they aren't nude. The human body is art, quit thinking of it as a sex machine. Oh wait, you probably never thought of your body that way!

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Eideewt]

Why wouldn't someone want naked people on their desktop? When I consider all the stupid wallpapers I've seen (anime characters, eggs, tiny photos stretched out of proportion, and so on), naked people seems like a big step in the right direction.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[LordLucless]

Oooh, so you're not talking about actual sex or violence, you're talking about simulated sex and violence. Because it's bloody obvious that most societies disapprove ov violence more than sex - even in the US, I think you're birth rate is still higher than your murder-rate. I'd say the reason people are more okay with violence on the screen than sex is that they consider it unlikely that little Johnnie is going to go out and blow up a city block with a bazooka from a commandeered humvee no matter how many action flicks he sees. If he watches a lot of skin flicks though, it's probably going to give him ideas next time he's alone with little Sally.

Violence is obviously wrong, and you can usually rely on that as enough of a disincentive to discourage it. Even if you can't, the availability of bazookas also limits it. Sex, on the other hand isn't obviously wrong like violence, but it can lead to unwanted and unconsidered consequences - pregnancy, disease, etc, as well as increasing the complexity and intensity of a relationship. It has to be discouraged because it's so available - whereas violence of the action-movie sort remains remote; the viewer is rarely going to be in a situation where they could emulate it.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[slaida1]

Sex, on the other hand isn't obviously wrong like violence, but it can lead to unwanted and unconsidered consequences - pregnancy, disease, etc, as well as increasing the complexity and intensity of a relationship. It has to be discouraged because it's so available - whereas violence of the action-movie sort remains remote; the viewer is rarely going to be in a situation where they could emulate it.

How weak and clumsy mind it must be that produces reasons out of nothing to support insane visions from early centuries. While you still are discouraging sex, more agile and developed minds have got far past that point and consider sex same as eating lunch or taking a dump, nothing more, nothing less.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[LordLucless]

Let me know next time your sandwich knocks you up.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[c6gunner]

You know, Hannibal Lecter had a very "agile and developed" mind, and I'm pretty sure he defended his dietary habits in much the same fashion.

Those who differ from the norm always consider themselves superior rather than inferior.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[c6gunner]

Why do we need so many shows built around rape, murder, kidnapping, child abuse, torture, etc?

You seem to have internet access, yet are unaware that pornographic movies outnumber violent ones by a ratio of about 1,000,000 to 1. That's....strange.

Hell, it just makes Iraq another video game/reality show.

Is that how you see Iraq?

It's hardly shocking anymore to read about the daily 30-80-150(today's count) kidnapped, murdered, etc. in Baghdad alone.

It's also hardly shocking to read about the daily stoning-to-death of women in Iran for adultery. Or the execution of Christians over dumb political cartoons. Or a suicide bomber going off in an Israeli coffee shop. What's your point? The world's a fucked up place. You either get desensitized, or you go insane.

Getting up towards a million killed that had NOTHING to do with 9/11, but where's the outrage over the loss of life, regardless of political leanings?

Ah, I see, you're just playing partisan politics. Call me back when you're ready to express your outrage about the Rwanda massacre, the 2 million Vietnamese killed by Cambodia and the NVA, the daily killings in the Sudan, state-organized executions in North Korea, or the slavery business run by Muslims in Africa. As long as you're only trying to be outraged by US actions, you're just a bloody hypocrite.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[the_womble]

consider sex same as eating lunch or taking a dump

When did taking a dump last profoundly change a relationship?

How big is the market for pictures of people eating lunch?

Do you get spam offering mouth enlargements?

How often to people seek psychiatric help over luncheon problems?

Do you think "agile and developed" is a synonym for "adolescent"

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

You know very well he was only pointing out that it's a natural human function - a hell of a lot more natural than murder. You seem to be petrified of sex and to have never heard of the concept of birth control, which seems unnatural, but then again the Brits aren't exactly known for being particularly well adjusted sexually.

In case you hadn't noticed, population growth rates in developed countries are extremely low and many are negative. So, Sorry, try again.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

EXACTLY! If society tells you sex is dirty and wrong and should be hidden, is it really any surprise it becomes such? Thanks for providing a PERFECT argument against your own.

More talk of sex, I say! Fewer young people learning about it through rumor, innuendo, porno mags passed around, and spam email that lead them to believe every woman is a "slut in heat" and that "every man has a horse cock." Treat and address sex in a healthy manner, shown in a contextually appropriate setting where potential consequences are considered and you may not have children having babies because they are driven by their hormones with no information.

Put it this way, if the only people you ever see having sex are in a plastic, promiscuous, consequence free world with crappy disco music, what examples do you have of healthy sex life between monogamous, loving adults that RESPECT each other. If all our other behavior patterns are learned by observation and emulation of parents and other role-models, why is sex the single exception? People have no idea of what role sex should play in their lives in the real world and are left with only basic hormonal urges and porno movies for guidance. That makes no sense to me. I mean, that kind of plan worked so well with prohibition and all....

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with the issue of this subthread.

Why so petrified of healthy portrayals of sex, but no qualms about graphic depiction of murder and violence against other humans? One is perfectly natural, the other is so contrary to human behavior that it is the entire reason the concepts of armies and law enforcement came about? People do one, at worst they have an unplanned birth, they do the other and we seek to completely remove them from society. One is the act of creating a human life, the other ends it. And so on, and so forth.

Even if you do have a problem with violent entertainment, I find it interesting that "sex" was the issue you deemed important enough to address. (Yes, I realize I am singling you out.) Something for you to ask yourself anyway.

I see some really fucked up priorities and values in this thread.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[iamacat]

state-organized executions in North Korea

Not saying that's a wonderful place to live, but shouldn't we focus on state-organized executions in Texas first?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[iamacat]

Oh come on, factual violence needs to be in the public eye, but most TV shows are fiction. In fact, massacares in Iraq, Rwanda and etc are usually not shown on TV as they occur. And if I choose to videotape myself every time I fuck, that's my business. And so it is if I choose to videotape simulated violence and make the recordings available to other people. Freedom doesn't mean everything I do has to benefit the society, although I suspect depictions of healthy sex and an occasional action movies do. It just means I have a right to do anything which is not an actual violence against others.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[LordLucless]

Whose a Brit? I'm an Aussie.

Yeah, population growths in western countries are low, but I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about birth rate vs murder toll. In other words, the amount of screwing versus the amount of killing. In most countries, there's still more sex than murder, and murder carries a harsher penalty than having sex. The position of the original poster (that western countries hate sex more than they hate murder) is patently false when looking at the actual acts - it's only referring to the representation of violence and sex in our entertainment.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[ATMD]

Is this a bad time to point out how much better Linux is than everything else?
 
:D

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[psymastr]

You're an idiot.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[WilliamSChips]

For what? Understanding that he should try to change what he has a snowball's chance in hell of changing?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Carewolf]

Most people have never had sex profoundly change a relationship.
You know why?
Because they don't have relationships without sex!

Only scared teenagers do, and when the hormons gets the better of them, and they always do, they will have sex, wether their parents want it or not, and if they are not prepared for it they will not be prepared, and then it leads to undesired consequences (teen pregnancy).

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[slaida1]

Let me know when you know as much about why inserting a penis into vagina might get one knocked up as you do about why eating sandwich might might make one a fat person. Seriously: trans fats, cholesterol, calories, vitamins, sugar, etc., every single little detail that most of us know about why and where fat comes from. Do you know that much details about pregnancy?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[LordLucless]

Do you have a point, or are you just rambling?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Zonk (troll)]

Nobody wants a picture of a bunch of nudists on their desktop.

Hmm, I watch Naked News every afternoon. On my desktop I have a picture of Jessica Alba laying on a bed naked. My wallpaper usually alternates between a random naked girl and any good Jessica Alba wallpaper I can find.

And in what society is killing people fine?

Just about any if they're different from the mainstream. Ie, not white and "Christian"*.

* Read the link to see why I put Christian in quotes. Here's a quote:

How did the Amish react to this atrocity?

That evening they gathered together and organised a horse and buggy to visit the family of Charles Carl Roberts with food and sympathy. They invited the killer's widow to the family funerals. They bought a lock for their schoolroom door. Now they aim to establish two funds, one for the families of the dead girls, one to provide for the killers family.

Out of a horrific incident, the Amish showed what faith in God really was, turning even that horror into a demonstration of the highest principles of their faith.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Dragonslicer]

When did taking a dump last profoundly change a relationship?

There's a joke nearby... I can smell it...

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[slaida1]

I don't know. It was hard to find any points from the post I was replying to:

Let me know next time your sandwich knocks you up.

I guess my point was: That's BS, sandwiches can't make anyone pregnant. We all know what sandwiches can and can't do. But we know much less about what can or can't be done to get pregnant.

I see what you did there and it didn't amuse me. Much. I'm rambling, sorry.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[AntiDragon]

Hmm, I have to say that particular argument is a new one to me - Good point, well made!

However, I would still suggest that the froth-at-the-mouth-whore-of-Babylon scaremongering that tends to surround sexually explicit content (in all media) is perhaps a little disproportionate to that found around violent imagery.

I see your point and agree that the emulation of sex acts is more likely than those of violent acts but bare in mind that there is little substantial evidence that emulation is an issue anyway. If you're worried your child may be susceptible to the point of emulating such things, surely a responsible parent should take steps to both limit exposure *and* ensure the child learns about these things properly.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[LordLucless]

Exactly. You were saying that sex was no different from a sandwich or taking a dump. That's ridiculous; sex can have long-term consequences that eating a sandwich doesn't. And I don't know about you, but I've known since primary school school what "can or can't be done to get pregnant".

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Just Some Guy]

but showing pictures of the human body is taboo.

We're talking about Linux distributions and you're advocating nudity? Listen, I'm sure there are one or two cute Linux-using women who'd take one for the team, but do you really want J. Random Slashdotter on your desktop background?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Bloke down the pub]

consider sex same as eating lunch or taking a dump

I'm sure there are people who like to combine all three at the same time. There are websites about it. Er, so I'm told.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[RobotRunAmok]

You're on fire this morning, Bud.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Parc Edmond Klein]

Do you get spam offering mouth enlargements?

For giving better blow jobs?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[LordLucless]

However, I would still suggest that the froth-at-the-mouth-whore-of-Babylon scaremongering that tends to surround sexually explicit content (in all media) is perhaps a little disproportionate to that found around violent imagery.

I'd agree, but I'd also argue that that "froth-at-the-mouth-whore-of-Babylong scaremongering" isn't due to the motivations listed above - it's due to politicians trying to score points with the Mums and Dads whose motivation is what I talked about above.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Daengbo]

Read On Killing about eight or nine years ago and have been recommending it non-stop since then.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[CharlieG]

Because
1)The boss would fire you at work (hostile workplace laws)
2)Your wife would object
3)Having pre-teen children running around at home

Other than that?

I have a nice, non stretched photo of my cats on my desktop, and have for YEARS. My wife came to vist my office for the first time in years - and she said "Oh, I see you still have the same cat photo on the desktop" (yes - same one for about 14 years).

I believe that the desktop in ANY OS has 2 roles - when your new, to "suck you in", and then once you know what your doing, to be easy to get out of the way. I have my windows boxes all configured as close as possible to one another - same keyboards, same mice, same colors, same backgrounds, same icons in the same places, etc. My Linux boxes are setup in a similar way. I don't want to have to think about desktops, OSes, skins etc. They are "background noise" - the contents in the various windows are what counts, and frankly, for about 90% of what I do, that can be summed up as Internet, email and a text editor.

Speaking of text editors - I'm cursed - years ago, I got used to the Micorsoft keystrokes, and I always find Linux hard because of this. I use "Textpad" in windows, and it's "native" to me - I understand the why and power of VI/EMACS, but they require me to think - I guess sooner or later, I'll be biligual, but having to use the MS keystrokes at work prevents the changeover

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[nelsonal]

I think the difference in attitudes toward media portrayals arises from the likelihood of occurance. Most parents are pretty sure (correctly so) that if little Jonny or Janey see even 1,000 or more violent acts by the time they are 18 that they won't carry one out. But they fear that more information will lead to less than ideal decisions. In part because the parents face a portion of the costs but none of the pleasure of an early pregnancy while the child faces a portion of the cost and all of the pleasure. Also, adolecent minds generally have not developed the capacity to fully weigh consequences that do not occur on a short time horizon. Although I'll be the first to admitt that my idea does littel to explain the relative differences in media portrayals between the US and Europe.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[CapitalT]

"or the slavery business run by Muslims in Africa"

Googled around and found nothing, reference please?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[rbochan]

...they consider it unlikely that little Johnnie is going to go out and blow up a city block with a bazooka from a commandeered humvee no matter how many action flicks he sees...

Tell Jack Thompson that.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[flight_master]

Offtopic? Ugh... I give up. Geeks are hopeless.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[uwnav]

'Ie, not white and "Christian"*.' Did you just try to say that everyone feels killing is fine except white Christans?! oh lord.. reconsider what you're saying or I have some harsh... HARSH news for you

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[somersault]

I like how you miss the point, and then consider your mind more agile and developed.. must be easy to have a more agile viewpoint on life when in actual fact you don't notice what's going on. He's got a very good point as to why sex is more frowed upon than violence in entertainment, aside from the fact that some people, surprise surprise, don't need porn, as they have the real thing to keep them happy.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[c6gunner]

Your google-foo is weak, young grasshopper.

Try here for starters.

Granted it's not a topic which gets much attention....but that's rather the point. Tell your average liberal arts college student that there's still slavery going on today, and they'll probably think you're talking about Bush.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[c6gunner]

When Texas starts executing people for saying "Geroge Bush is a Poopie Head", then you'll have a case, until then you're not even comparing apples and oranges, more like apples and MRI machines.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[iamacat]

Well, if you say "Geroge Bush is a Poopie Head" in Texas, people will yawn and maybe some redneck will beat you up. When you say "Kim Jong II is a Poopie head" in North Korea, you might start a civil war that kills a million innocent, ordinary people and is not guaranteed to have a happy ending. See how great democracy is doing in Iraq?

Before we tell others to not to prosecute speech that has potentially disastrous results, perhaps we should stop executing people for a single murder or jailing them for matters that only directly related to their own bodies - such as drugs, abortion and assisted suicide.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[LordLucless]

I was speaking in general, rather than about the lunatic fringe.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Sandwiches and girls are both very good ways to catch diseases that may have extremely serious consequences, either can kill you indirectly. Fortunately most sandwich outlets have to display some kind of cleanliness rating, perhaps this is the reason sandwiches have become more trustworthy than girls.

In fact, I'm all for cleanliness ratings of girls. We could start by making all medical records relating to sexually transmitted diseases a matter of public record.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[LordLucless]

I generally make my own sandwiches. Trying the same with girls, however, is against all the laws of man and nature ;p

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Eideewt]

Off topic as text editors are, don't worry, you'll get the hang of it. I was used to Microsoft keystrokes at one time too, but now I keep hitting c-p in Firefox when I shouldn't.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[namekuseijin]

just out of curiosity, is your desktop wallpaper depicting Mr. Goatse?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[c6gunner]

Wow. That was the closest thing to free-association that I've seen on Slashdot so far.

FYI, Iraq and North Korea are two entirely different countries, and people don't get jailed for abortion, or committing suicide (hard to jail you when you're dead). About the only valid example you picked was drugs, but even that is an iffy example since it can be argued (successfully) that drugs are detrimental to human society. I've always maintained that legalizing them would be a better way to mitigate their negative social effects, however, I can certainly understand the other side of the argument and can even grant it some validity. Whereas imprisonment and execution for criticizing the government has absolutely no validity, and is the epitome of government oppression. So once again, stop comparing apples and oranges. You're basically saying that, because I jaywalked once, I have no right to condemn a guy who committed murder. After all, we're both criminals, right?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[Eideewt]

Why, no! Can you provide me with a link?

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[iamacat]

The point is that uprisings against existing government are potentially detremental to human society, as evidenced by Iraq and a handful of African countries. If you want to critisize said governments for supressing descent, you might first stop sponsoring state executions of helpless, imprisoned people who are in no position to do future harm.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[c6gunner]

"no position to do future harm"? Are you insane?

Let's see...there's:

1) Parole.
2) Escape.
3) Assault/murder/rape of other inmates.
4) Assault on guards.
5) Rioting (property damage and assault).

Nope, no future harm at all.

I'd like to suggest that once they're 6 feet under, their ability to "do future harm" is greatly decreased.

Re:Sex Bad Violence Good

[PastaLover]

I must have missed it or something, but nobody seemed to have point out that these people weren't actually naked.

ok, I'm pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

this really pisses me off. Would it be so fucking hard to just fucking link to an example of "edgy art" Jesus. They have links that go to text, and links on the text pages go to more text. Hello? Don't waste my time with this. Just show me the art which is the subject of the article.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Alkivar]

mod parent up... this is sooo true.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

truth, fucking idiots.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Profane MuthaFucka]

You've seen it before. That's right, it was goatse. I'm not going to link to it either.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[MustardMan]

Digging around the wiki, this is what I could come up with...

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkP lan/Polish/Incoming

Now, assuming this is the art in question, which I wouldn't know for sure, not only is this a completely shitty non-article, it's also a terrible headline. The whole 'edgy' pun attempts to make it sound like they had naked women or something, when in fact it's plain old boring splash screens with round letters and glossy effects. Snore. I guess they had to do SOMETHING to attempt to make this look like it might be newsworthy, so why not throw a potentially sensational headline out there.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Einstein_101]

Would it be so fucking hard to just fucking link to an example of "edgy art" Jesus

I haven't seen any nudes, but in the Nativity Scene it looks as if a nipple is almost about to pop out. That's pretty edgy in my opinion.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[alib001]

Is that it? What's 'edgy' about that?

If that is it, then this looks to be an earlier stage in development:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkP lan/Propose/Results

... which is mildly interesting but hardly worth the pun.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[xenocide2]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkP lan/Polish/Incoming

Thats one link found buried in the wiki. I never really noticed much difference. In fact, as an Edgy tester, a ton of the proposed artwork never hit the repo at all. This is partly because, as a glimpse at that single step in the process ("Polish") will show you, there's a ton of ideas floating around. However, much of the art concepts were incorporated. I vaguely also recall a page somewhere that pretty much had the boot splash concept as a login screen, but I can't find it currently. It may be that the bootsplash had some longstanding problems and the art team wasn't responsible for it as there is a portion of programming involved there.

Of course, if you don't like the theme as it stands, search your repos for things like "blubuntu" or "tropic". Maybe some day an ambitious junior college graphics design course will have "make a gdk theme" for a project instead of the silly fake things they do now (obviously this would be more online oriented than print oriented). Doesn't seem like we can do much worse, though there could problems regarding Adobe.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Mike89]

Edgy is the name of the distribution's version. The headline is a play on words.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Chris Pimlott]

Some other work-in-progress designs from an earlier stage:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/ Specs/ EdgyArtworkPlan/ Produce/ Incoming

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[alib001]

Oh, I see it's a nickname:

Ubuntu 6.10 (The Edgy Eft): October 2006
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/releases

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[c_forq]

Mod parent down please. Link NSFW. Link also very disturbing.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[GenKreton]

There's nothing edgy about it judging by all the links in the thread - everything is pretty well rounded off.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Wavicle]

How about this or this or maybe even this

I don't know that any of those were the artwork in question... but there you go. I know they're all from the same contributor, but art.ubuntu.com is really slow right now... for some reason... hmmmm...

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[bhaberman]

Of course, Ubuntu does have a history of naked women in its artwork . . .

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Spykk]

The word 'Edgy' in the headline is refering to the name of the release of ubuntu in question, not the artwork itself.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Caesar Tjalbo]

Those first screens, the black on whites in that loose style, they're awesome.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

It's got a link to it in TFA.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkP lan/Produce/Incoming/CurrentDefault
I quite like it.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Aqua OS X]

"Maybe some day an ambitious junior college graphics design course will have "make a gdk theme" for a project instead of the silly fake things they do now (obviously this would be more online oriented than print oriented)."

Aiming high huh? Let's get some Junior College kids to skin an OS in a semester.

IHMO this is one of the major hurdle's facing Linux adoption outside of the IT arena. Very few people in the software development industry fully understand visual communication, interactive design, and or the design process. Interactive design is viewed as some sort of BS skinning process that can be pumped out by some peons in a few months.

Interactive design for an OS should be conducted by a team of professional interactive designers. They should understand visual communication, cognitive psychology, quantitative / qualitative usability research, and at least a CS101 understanding of what a conditional statement, class, etc is. These people should be given 6 months to a year (if not longer) to do their work. They should be paid a salary which doesn't force them to live in their parent's basements. Furthermore, they should work with software engineering to build an interactive design specification that is adhered to religiously and implemented as closely as humanly possible.

Themes are retarded. They almost always result in something spec'd by software engineers and turd-polished by a lame underpaid or inexperienced graphic designer.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[bit01]

Of course, if you don't like the theme as it stands, search your repos for things like "blubuntu" or "tropic".

Yep, both blubuntu-look and tropic-look are there. However, there are multiple themes already installed; just select menu item System/Preferences/Theme. Easy. I prefer the default "Human" theme myself.

---

Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[jez9999]

The whole 'edgy' pun attempts to make it sound like they had naked women or something, when in fact it's plain old boring splash screens with round letters and glossy effects.

And yet it still looks nicer than the new Firefox 2 theme.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[minus_273]

hmm if you look at the URL you can see that is for the Polish version of Ubuntu.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[MustardMan]

uhh... no.

it's for the polish phase. As in, "we've created the images, now let's polish them up and really make them shine".

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[14CharUsername]

You can't just have some "professional interactive designers" calling all the shots. What the hell do you mean by "interactive designers" anyway? Are they graphic designers or UI designers. Sounds like a bullshit title to me. The UI people decide how people will interact with the computer and the graphic designers deciding how it looks. You need to have the UI to be consistent, but with the look of things you have a lot more flexibility. And different people have different aesthetics. What does this all add up to? Yup themes. If my favourite colour is blue and your favourite colour is green, we can both have what we want. But if I sit down and use your computer, I can still find my way around, because the buttons are all in the same places and the menus are all the same as my computer.

I think a UI designed by graphic artists will end up as bad as a UI designed by programmers. You need the UI desgin team to tell the programmers where to put the buttons and how to organise the windows and such. Then you get the design team to make it all look pretty. Now, you need all parties talking to each other. The UI team has to tell the graphic artists that the users attention needs to drawn towards certain elements. The programmers let the artists know that a certain effect just isn't possible on low end hardware. The artists tell the programmers that a translucent effect on a certain widget would make it look really cool.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

"IHMO this is one of the major hurdle's facing Linux adoption outside of the IT arena."

Actually, there was never a damn thing wrong with computers until you Information Architects showed up.

"Very few people in the software development industry fully understand visual communication, interactive design, and or the design process."

Just keep screaming that over and over, with nothing to back it up!

"Interactive design for an OS should be conducted by a team of professional interactive designers. "

Translation: "Oh, shit! People are figuring out that it's just butons and scrollbars, which any five-year-old could draw! We'd better jump all over this quick, or Desktop Feng Shui consultants like me could be out of a job!"

"They should be paid a salary which doesn't force them to live in their parent's basements. "

Funny, the TFA talks about an over-abundance of artists volunteering for the project, and their results blow away things like Vista themes. I'd look to expand your enterprise to some other form of bullshit peddling, such as astrology or scientology. You'll find plenty of rich clients to sell snake oil to. Freedom is what people want, and freedom is what they are taking for themselves.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[minus_273]

i know, its a joke, laugh. They misspelled polish and wrote Polish.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Aqua OS X]

"Sounds like a bullshit title to me. "

You're a moron. I should simply quote that whole post and write "see what I mean?" under it.

Interaction design:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design

Moreover:
--- interactive designer

Once again, interaction designers tend to be folks who have been schooled in combination of graphic design, cognitive psychology, design research, computer science, and potentially product design. The antiquated concept of "engineer, then skin" is going bye bye. Hell, even Microsoft has a development environment specifically for interactive design which works in tandem with visual studio (MS Interactive Designer).

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Aqua OS X]

"Just keep screaming that over and over, with nothing to back it up!"

Well, you could start subscribing to Communication Arts or start paying attention to people like Bill Buxton at Microsoft, then you could step back and look at the rest of the industry.

Or you could stare at MS Office XP or Office 03 and wonder how many monkeys with typewriters it look to craft that ridiculously retarded UI.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[14CharUsername]

You're right I'm such a moron. I wasn't able to think outside the box and shift my paradigms to leverage the synergy that interacive design can offer in the new digital age.

My bad.

Re:ok, I'm pissed

[Anonymous Coward]

to craft that ridiculously retarded UI.

I hope that's not sarcasm. Just because Microsoft has the majority of the office suite market doesn't make their disappearing UI "good". Always fun watching someone try to use some feature for the first time, opening up menu after menu trying to find where it's hidden. Assuming of course, they even realize that the feature is there, since it's not like you can see it's there until after you've used it once.

Screenshot?

[catbutt]

...or something? Call me shallow but I'd like to look at some pictures.

Re:Screenshot?

[sirnuke]

I believe this was the last Edgy artwork.

Re:Screenshot?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that was *supposed* to be the default. It was replaced to the one that's present now(in the default install).

I found some...

[FooAtWFU]

Found some... with some digging. Peace, Tropic and Blubuntu.

Re:I found some...

[kernelpanicked]

Of course Shuttleworth would hate the Blubuntu theme. My god, I mean, if that got out Ubuntu might actually look...good.

Re:I found some...

[vidalsasoon]

yo, where's the titties?

Re:I found some...

[nizo]

This is the first time I have put Ubuntu on a machine; I for one am going to un-install the OS as a protest until they release the OS with the new artwork. Yeah that will learn 'em.

Anyone else find it sad that a search for sarcasm on google returns the wikipedia link as the first result?

Re:I found some...

[Chris Pimlott]

Are you sure that's part of the Art Team effort? To me it looks like that's just 3 random user-created themes.

Re:I found some...

[FooAtWFU]

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkP lan/ThemeTeams seems to imply this, yes.

Starting with the Edgy Eft release the artwork team introduced the concepts of Theme Teams. Theme Teams are small, independently operating groups of artists working on creating a desktop theme. These teams are coordinated by the Artists in Chief (AiCs) and receive support and feedback from the AiCs as well.

I could be misinterpreting things, though.

Re:I found some...

[kernelpanicked]

Yes I'm breaking the rules to reply to my own comment. Why was I modded flamebait? I'm a friggin ubuntu user (Xubuntu actually). I think I would know as well as anyone that Ubuntu, by default, may work beautifully but it looks like absolute shit.

Re:I found some...

[Anonymous Coward]

Becuase you doesn't get to decide what is or isn't beutiful, especialy not after you have proven yourself of having no sense of style by announcing something to be beutiful based just on it's color.

Re:I found some...

[illegalcortex]

Anyone else find it sad that a search for sarcasm on google returns the wikipedia link as the first result?

No, it's just you.

Re:I found some...

[uvajed_ekil]

Found some... with some digging. Peace, Tropic and Blubuntu.

WTF? Thanks for the links. When I heard that Ubuntu was not going to include some of the contributions from the community, I began to wonder what Ubuntu was really all about then anyway....until I read on and saw what the material in question is. There's a big flap about THAT!?!? Jiminy Christmas, so what???? I'll still probably continue to try new Ubuntu distros (and promptly dump them because they don't seem to like my hardware, ever) since the lack of some boring, mediocre wallpaper and minor eye candy won't phase me a bit.

This may be news, I suppose, but it hardly matters.

Re:I found some...

[flyingsquid]

Yes I'm breaking the rules to reply to my own comment. Why was I modded flamebait? I'm a friggin ubuntu user (Xubuntu actually). I think I would know as well as anyone that Ubuntu, by default, may work beautifully but it looks like absolute shit.

Welcome to Slashdot. I've been a loyal Apple user since the days of the IIe, but if I say anything negative about Apple, odds are good I'll get modded into oblivion. Likewise, I despise Microsoft, but if I suggest that perhaps they are not always pure evil, I better watch my ass. Go against groupthink and fanboys at your peril.

Re:I found some...

[91degrees]

Because Slashdot moderators are morons, and this particular one disagreed with you.

Re:I found some...

[91degrees]

See how it works.

Re:I found some...

[zootm]

Because some people (I know many people who do, including myself) think that the theme looks good, and asserting your personal opinion that the theme looks "shit" as fact is pretty much the definition of flamebait...

Re:I found some...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, if you complain about the moderation system, instant +5 Insightful.

Re:I found some...

[DannyO152]

It's always tough to buck groupthink, anywhere. Welcome to the community - individual dichotomy.

Re:I found some...

[tedrlord]

Asserting one's personal opinion is pretty much the opposite of flamebait, even if people disagree.

From wikipedia:

Flamebait is a message posted to a public Internet discussion group, such as a forum, newsgroup or mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a "flame") or argument over a topic the troll often has no real interest in. (This is not to be confused with tweaking someone.)

He doesn't like the look of Ubuntu. That's a valid opinion to have. Just because it may not be the same opinion as a lot of other people doesn't mean he's flamebaiting.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the brown scheme either. It ignores most ease of use studies.

Re:I found some...

[zootm]

I suppose I was unclear there. It just seemed that his "the current look is shit" "whoa, they're afraid of it looking good!" responses were either poorly-judged or an intentional attempt at provoking the angry response mentioned in the article. I suppose it could just have been tactless, this is the internet after all.

Re:I found some...

[HTH NE1]

When I read "community-developed artwork" I thought, "Snakes on a PC".

These are quite nice.

Re:I found some...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, I bet you thought you'd get a +5 Insightful for that comment!

Re:I found some...

[angrykeyboarder]

Even better:

          $ sudo apt-get install blubuntu-look peace-look tropic-look

Screenshots

[adrenalinekick]

Here are some links to screenshots of the artwork in question:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkP lan/Polish/Incoming/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtworkP lan/Polish/Directions/

Re:Screenshots

[TheRaven64]

Looking at those, I'm glad the branding team killed it. They look like cheap OS X knock-offs (one wallpaper image looks like a default OS X one turned from blue to brown). If Ubuntu wants to succeed (and not be sued out of existence for trademark violation), it needs to establish its own brand image, not copy Apple's. I don't use Ubuntu, and so I don't know what the art it actually uses looks like, but I sincerely hope it's more original. By all means, keep themes that computer users will find familiar (e.g. a house for your home directory), but please realise that there's a difference between imitation and inspiration.

Re:Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

And... how do those deviate from ubuntu's overall look...

What did the head honchos at ubuntu really want for edgy?

Re:Screenshots

[kernelpanicked]

Have any of you even seen Edgy installed? The artwork you keep linking to isn't what was turned down, it's the artwork for the damn release.

Re:Screenshots

[Fnkmaster]

Furthermore, it looks extremely similar to the Dapper Drake artwork. I haven't seen Edgy Eft yet, but I immediately knew from looking at it that this must be the boring, incrementally modified theme since it looks incredibly similar to what was there before.

Re:Screenshots

[aricept]

While I will freely admit that I have NOT seen Edgy installed, the login splash seen on this page and labeled as the Dapper login splash (which, theoretically anyway, they rolled back to for Edgy), is clearly different from every login splash listed here, as the new artwork for the Edgy release.

And, doing a bit more searching, we can see that the Dapper artwork is very different from the Edgy artwork linked to. Again, this may not be what actually shipped with Edgy, but it's what we're told shipped with it. You seem to have firsthand experience with it; which set of artwork did ship with it?

Re:Screenshots

[drawfour]

Nice job reading the article! That's exactly what they did -- rolled back to Dapper Drake's artwork and polished it up a bit.

Re:Screenshots

[rozz]

this looks pretty good

Re:Screenshots

[Fnkmaster]

Nice job reading the post! What part of this sentence don't you understand: "I immediately knew from looking at it that this must be the boring, incrementally modified theme since it looks incredibly similar to what was there before.".

But thanks for reiterating my point, with a snide tone that just makes you look like a dimshit. Next time, you might not want to check your reading comprehension skills at the door if you're going to be a dick.

Re:Screenshots

[drawfour]

Yup, sure. The parent to your post stated:

Have any of you even seen Edgy installed? The artwork you keep linking to isn't what was turned down, it's the artwork for the damn release.

And then your response was:

Furthermore, it looks extremely similar to the Dapper Drake artwork. I haven't seen Edgy Eft yet, but I immediately knew from looking at it that this must be the boring, incrementally modified theme since it looks incredibly similar to what was there before.

So... let's recap. The article says that the submitted artwork for Edgy Eft was turned down, and they polished up the Dapper Drake artwork and released it. The GP stated that the artwork people are linking to as "rejected artwork" is actually the Edgy Eft released artwork. And since the article clearly stated that the Edgy Eft released artwork was just modified Dapper Drake, your statement of "Furthermore, it looks extremely similar to the Dapper Drake artwork" shows that you didn't read the article at all and were just trying to show that you know something.

Re:Screenshots

[Fnkmaster]

Umm... go back up a few levels, there were a bunch of posts from people who seemed to be confused about which artwork they were looking at.

I was *agreeing* with the parent poster when he said:
> The artwork you keep linking to isn't what was turned down, it's the artwork for the damn release.

And adding that if you look at those pics next to a Dapper Drake screenshot, they look extremely similar.

So let's recap. The article says that the submitted artwork for Edgy Eft was turned down, and they polished up the Dapper Drake artwork and released it. Several places in this story, people posted links to Eft artwork. Many people misinterpreted that as the *rejected* artwork. kernelpanicked's post pointed out that they were misunderstanding. I agreed with kernelpanick, and pointed out that if you looked at the *specific images* linked to by adrenalinekick and several other posters in this story, they looked almost exactly like Drake - thus it should be clear to any Ubuntu user that those were in fact not the images of the rejected artwork.

Everyone participating in this conversation, with the possible exception of yourself, fully understood that there was a set of artwork that was rejected and a replacement set made from incrementally modifying Drake's artwork. We were addressing the question of which images were being linked to. Other threads did actually link to the rejected artwork, so it was a relevant point to bring up.

Like I said, please brush up on your reading comprehension before you continue to harp on your own inability to follow a thread of conversation. It's frustrating in the extreme to have to explain in baby steps why your original comment demonstrated a misunderstanding on your part. You'd be best served at this point by just acknowledging that you didn't read the comment in context and that you were mistaken in your interpretation of it.

Re:My guess?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Their artist was fine. He just decided to work on different distro.

Re:porn?

[AltGrendel]

What on earth are you talking about?

I'm not surprised he turned it down

[Anonymous Coward]

That stuff looks really amatuerish

Re:I'm not surprised he turned it down

[jez9999]

I think you're overusing the word 'amateurish'. But whilst I don't think it's amateurish, it's certainly nothing special. That first one looks just like the artwork on a Suse install I saw some years ago, and I don't much like it.

Re:I'm not surprised he turned it down

[muellerr1]

Slightly offtopic, but I'm really starting to hate that damn glassy graphics look. I'm happy that interface designers finally discovered a light source, but for god's sake please quit trying to be Apple all the time.

Re:I'm not surprised he turned it down

[Bastian]

Amateurish might be a strong word, but it's certainly nothing exciting. It looks like somebody was just trying to incorporate various stylistic elements from OS X and Windows but not make it look *too* much like its competitors. Sort of like the Ford Focus and its oh-so-creative (Civic+Corolla)/2 styling.

That, and I saw at least one icon in there which might get them sued by Apple. The house is a particularly blatant rip-off.

Why not include them

[Billly Gates]

The best thing about Linux is choice. If Shuttleworth or whatever his name is doesn't like the default theme then the option to install it later should be there. I like the bluntu theme.

Re:Why not include them

[Grey Ninja]

How the hell did this crap get modded insightful?

1) Shuttleworth is the CREATOR of Ubuntu. Head honcho. What he did was to roll back the artwork to a Dapper variant, CHANGING the DEFAULT theme that was to be in Edgy.

2) Blubuntu is in the repositories. If you want to use it, then install it and use it. Like you said, Linux is about choice. But at least know what you are bitching about.

Re:Why not include them

[coaxial]

Bluntu? Really? I looked at it and said, "Jesus Christ. It's a fucking mac."

It's not that I have a problem with the images per se, or anything against macs. I'm own a mac, and I'm using it right now. I like my mac, but come on! EVERY DAMN RELEASE of an oss interface is a copy of something else. This isn't art. It's a damn ripoff. How come apple and even microsoft come up with original art, and it's impossible for the oss comunity to do so? Obviously there are talented artists, the images speak to that. Well, let me take that back. There's obviously technically talented artists. The lack of originality is damning indictment of their creativity. I mean what look at the "home" icon. It's identical to the mac home icon, except that the chimney is smoother and the door is tapered at the bottom. Anyone that seriously argues that they're different, probably also believes that the music to Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" is distinct from the Queen's "Under Pressure." (Damn you Robert Van Winkle. Damn you to hell.) Also don't give me that crap about how it's more user friendly. That's specious. That's an argument that hinges on the reasoning that by dressing something up to look like one thing, but actually behaves differently from it is "intuitive." No. That's counter productive. ("How come I can't do X? I can do it on a mac. What do you mean this isn't a mac? It must be. It looks just like a mac! This mac is just broken.")

Re:Why not include them

[trifish]

1) Shuttleworth is the CREATOR of Ubuntu.

So he created Debian, from which Ubuntu is derived? You know it's the definite article ("the" creator), which I have a problem with.

Re:Why not include them

[posttool]

This is absolutely true. The look of the OS establishes its identity. Ubuntu needs distinct identity- this could be why the artwork was not accepted.

Re:Why not include them

[Grey Ninja]

No, but I understand that he was a Debian developer long before he was an Ubuntu developer. Which makes him a creator of part of Debian. And he still contributes back to the Debian codebase with Ubuntu. Regardless, it was his vision, and his capital that founded Ubuntu as an entity. I am not a Debian user, I am an Ubuntu user. I would say the same thing if I was using an Ubuntu derivative.

It's not that I am disagreeing with you. I would take issue with someone who was saying that Shuttleworth was the origin of everything Ubuntu as well. But that wasn't what I was trying to say. I was trying to say that Shuttleworth is the leader of the Ubuntu project. The benevolent dictator.

Re:Why not include them

[trifish]

> I was trying to say that Shuttleworth is the leader of the Ubuntu project

No problem with that. He may be the leader, but not "the creator". There are many creators, including the main folks -- kernel developers and the GNU folks.

"Edgy" isn't modifying "artwork" as normal.

[Anonymous Coward]

The name of the release is "Edgy Eft." The artwork itself is not edgy qua "unusually unsettling, exciting, or dark."

That confusion, plus a total lack to link to the artwork, is another thread in the Slashdot editors' tapestry of failure.

"Edgy Eft"?

[meme_police]

"Feisty"? Political fallout over art work? My goodness I'm glad I left Linux behind for OpenBSD last millenium. Nothing sounds better to me than -current and -stable. And the art and tunes of OpenBSD consistently rock:

http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html

Re:"Edgy Eft"?

[cptgrudge]

Nothing sounds better to me than -current and -stable.

What about -useful? It boggles the mind that OpenBSD doesn't support IrDA or IPX!

How can you live with an OS that lacks these fundamental and necessary technologies in today's world? I mean, what about reading IR codes from VCR remotes? What if you want to play StarCraft with a person that is at an early patch level? These are important questions that need to be addressed!

Re:"Edgy Eft"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here, except I use NetBSD.

The BSDs have had their fair share of bickering over the years, and there has been fallout. But usually the fallout is a great benefit to the entire community. The disagreement between Theo and some of the other NetBSD members lead to the formation of OpenBSD. OpenBSD lead directly to the development of OpenSSH, which is used far beyond OpenBSD.

We witnessed the same thing with the disagreement between Matt Dillon and some of the other FreeBSD developers. The end result was the formation of the DragonFly BSD project, which I have great hopes for. Matt correctly saw the need for a highly-scalable BSD, which becomes very relevent with low-end PCs soon offering 8 or more cores. DragonFly BSD is already years ahead of the other BSDs when it comes to its multithreading.

Frankly, I think it's stupid that there's been such strife over some fucking art work. Whenever I have to use Ubuntu, I end up replacing the default theme with one that's far more usable. I often even get rid of GNOME, replacing it with a stock KDE installation. At least they manage to pick default icons, colours and themes that don't start a civil war within its user community.

Re:"Edgy Eft"?

[deek]

"Feisty"? Political fallout over art work? My goodness I'm glad I left Linux behind for OpenBSD last millenium.

  If quirky names and art issues make you feel vindicated in your choice of Operating Systems, you certainly are a picky one, my friend. Thankfully, I'm quite happy with my feisty Linux as it is.

  By the way, interesting link to the OpenBSD lyrics thing. I'm not big on the rap part, but I liked the electronica part of the first song. All the songs are very geeky. I like it.

Re:"Edgy Eft"?

[meme_police]

Damn, I forgot about the lack of a -useful branch. Although I don't know why IPX is marked as a big fat no: IPX on OpenBSD.

Edgy?

[Gothmolly]

Geez, I thought "edgy" would imply some pr0n ... this is just a brown ubuntu login screen. What's so fscking "edgy" about that?

Re:Edgy?

[alib001]

Maybe it's a dirty protest?

Re:Edgy?

[Anonymous Coward]

That brown sugah be the finest my niggah.

Re:Edgy?

[Kingrames]

the current release of Ubuntu is named "Edgy Eft."

The submitter was attempting to make a horrible pun.

Re:Edgy?

[SeaFox]

Geez, I thought "edgy" would imply some pr0n ... this is just a brown ubuntu login screen. What's so fscking "edgy" about that?

Don't you remember when Ubuntu hit the big times (I think it was version 4.10) and they put out that desktop wallpaper of the group of interacial people where they were all topless (even though the bottom edge of the screen covered everything up)? There was a bunch of controversy over that making the OS "family-unfriendly".

By "look...good"

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you mean, look...like Mac Excel.

Re:porn?

[zcat_NZ]

This artwork

Edgy is the name of the release!

[DragonHawk]

"Edgy Eft" is the "nick-name" of the release of Ubuntu. Like "Woody" was a Debian release and "Zod" was a Fedora release.

"Edgy art" does not refer to "provocative art", but "art for the 'Edge Eft' release".

All Ubuntu releases are named with an adjective and an animal, and they have to alliterate. I have no idea why.

Sheesh.

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[digitalderbs]

The next release will be the Fellatious Ferret.

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.

ok! dragonhawk@iname.com

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[realmolo]

Grossly gargantuan. Hauntingly hilarious. Incredibly interesting. Jarringly jolly. Keenly killer. Ludicrously lovely. Mostly malarkey. Nearly necessary. Obviously odorous. Positively pitiful. Queerly quick. Ridiculously rotten. Stupidly sexy. Totally tacky. Unbelievably ugly. Viciously viscous. Weirdly wooley. Xenophobically xeroxed. Yearningly yellow. Zoologically zippy.

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[modecx]

Holy moly, I wish someone writing the article could have explained that.

And here I was looking forward to seeing something that some overly-zealous conservative twit thought was immoral or something.

Curse you, write-up writer, curse cauliflower, and curse the Olson twins.

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[dcapel]

pun n. use of words, usually humorous, based on (a) the several meanings of one word, (b) a similarity of meaning between words that are pronounced the same, or (c) the difference in meanings between two words pronounced the same and spelled somewhat similarly.

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like loads of fun to me!

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[scribblej]

This got +5? There's not an animal in the list!

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[Anonymous Coward]

"stupidly sexy" don't know bout you but that's just how i like my bitches.

:D

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[Anonymous Coward]

the author is the animal :P

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[Anonymous Coward]

To be followed by Gigantic Gerbil and Hypothetical Heffalump.

Re:Edgy is the name of the release!

[Falladir]

The distro name 'edgy eft' does not contain alliteration, because both words start with vowells. It does have assonance. Actually, 'dapper drake' doesn't have alliteration either. 'Dapper donkey' would, but it's less appealing because of the imagery involved.

Re:porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.communitymx.com/content/source/C5776/tr ois.jpg

http://www.communitymx.com/content/source/C5776/nu de.jpg

is this irrelevant or what

[daniel23]

sorry, this is a part of OSS culture I entirely fail to understand. Like, when there is a new version of distro X and some OS News sites have nothing better to report than a 15 pages of hires screenshots of the default desktop etc.

You mean you install a new distro and then judge its worth by the look of the default theme? You don't change the theme first thing? You don't know how to install a custom theme if you don't like the preconfigured choices?

But then again, my boxen run headless 98% of the time, so why should I care...

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Doctor Crumb]

Ubuntu is billed as "linux for human beings". In practice, this means "usable and welcoming to non-geeks"; those same non-geeks who purchase a new windows OS because it has a new default desktop background and shinier buttons. So, while you may not judge a distro by its art, there are plenty of people who *do*, and those are the people ubuntu is trying to reach.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Shados]

When I have this monitor in front of my face as much as 80 hours a week, I really DO care what my desktop looks like. While I'll change stuff like themes, etc, fonts and icons tend to me part of the "I have better things to do with my time" department, so if it doesn't look nice out of the box, and its not packaged with my theme somehow, it has to look semi-decent.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[kfg]

. . .when there is a new version of distro X and some OS News sites have nothing better to report than a 15 pages of hires screenshots of the default desktop etc.

You got something against technology, you insensitive luddite?

KFG

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[alib001]

Yes... you're right there is a difference between running a headless server and a desktop!

No flies on you.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

sorry, this is a part of OSS culture I entirely fail to understand.

It's the AOL-ization of linux. Lots of people without much technical ability, but lots of time on their hands to talk about it. So you get a focus on the trivial because all they can understand.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[westlake]

You mean you install a new distro and then judge its worth by the look of the default theme? You don't change the theme first thing? You don't know how to install a custom theme if you don't like the preconfigured choices?

First impressions matter. It isn't fair, but it is true.

Custom themes are fine for personal and home use. Less so, perhaps, outside the cubicle, in the library or on the shop floor where dozens of machines may greet the visitor and systems must be shared.

But then again, my boxen run headless 98% of the time, so why should I care...

Words like "boxen" and "headless" automatically take you out of the world of 99.9% of users.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Anonymous Coward]

"Boxen" is not a word.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[daniel23]

I guess the lame-filter ate the sarcasm-tags

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[mollymoo]

When I have this monitor in front of my face as much as 80 hours a week, I really DO care what my desktop looks like.

I use my computer 80+ hours a week too. But mostly, I'm looking at what's in the windows, not what's around the edges of them.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Shados]

Makes sense. I personally like the entire thing to look at least semi-decent. I didn't use to. Over the years I changed my mind about it, because it was seriously getting boring and feel too much like "work" (to me, even work shouldn't feel like "work"). But hey, different people, different tastes.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[kfg]

"Snark" is in the dictionary.

KFG

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[daniel23]

> First impressions matter. It isn't fair, but it is true.

hm, with OSen first impressions have been long since forgotten when you really have reasons to to get angry. Like, trying to upgrade SuSE from 9.1 to 10.1 on a remote server. Or the versionitis (or lack of it!) after years of updates. How long will you have to wait for the most recent version of clamAV being available for your distro? How does this particular distro fare when it comes to strange keyboards and funny characters cause of exotic languages? An overwhelming majority of people on this planet use strange keyboards to write funny characters in exotic languages.

> Words like "boxen" and "headless" automatically take you out of the world of 99.9% of users.

99,9% is what dictators get as a vote, free people tend to diversify more. It's not an uncommon rheorical figure, but I always wonder what the 100% group of speakers using it might be: just themselves, the people the talk to every day, the peer group?

To be honest, you hit another thing here that I usually fail to understand: what is so great about being like 99,9% of the others?

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[MarcoAtWork]

amen! 99% of the time I have the following maximized on my two screens:

left (1280x1024) - firefox
right (1920x1200) - emacs/eclipse depending if I'm programming C, python or java at the time, + some random rxvts to alt-tab to

I don't think I have seen my desktop background in months: who cares about themes! As long as windows have some sort of a (small) title bar and (even smaller) borders that I can use to resize them I'm as happy as can be. All these screenshots of people with 4-5 windows taking up 1/4th of the screen max boggle me: why waste screen real estate? Heck, if I had of those 2500x1600 30" monitors I would *still* have most things maximized.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, the people _most_ likely to change the default theme, are the new users.
It's the one thing they can do that gives them some power over their environment - it stops becoming this faceless machine and becomes _theirs_

Looking round the office, most the IT staff have their Windows desktops on the default theme and default background (though some have reverted to Classic), a quick look around the sales people and customer service reps and there's not a single one with the default settings. Most have just changed the background, but a few have changed themes, and some have even figured out how to mess with the colours and fonts.

It's the same with my 8 year old daughter and her not so technically literate mother - both feel the need to customize their desktop.

The idea that customizing the desktop is something scary that new users would never do is just not something I have ever seen demonstrated in the real world.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess you don't care what your car looks like?

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[SyntheticTruth]

Good point, but...there is a flip-side to that as well. The color, the look and feel, etc, of your desktop can, and probably does, have a direct impact on your ability to do work. Personally, I prefer bright orange and warm colors on my desktop (regardless of OS) as I find it stimulates my mind. The oh-so-default blue desktops make me sleepy. So, sure, I am -working- in the windows, but the impact of what is around them can't be ruled out either.

And if you think your average user doesn't care, you should have heard the hooplah when our IT department changed the default corporate build of XP to a very drab, very boring green motif and not allowing the colors to be changed. Not surprisingly, that was reversed and although the new builds still use the ugly theme, users are now allowed to change them and almost everyone I've worked with has done so.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Anonymous Coward]

I look at my monitor 100 hours a week and I care about what is in them and that I'm not wasting processing power on useless crap.

Blackbox is my WM. No wasting cpu cycles on stupid crap like transparent, alpha, anti aliasing, and other useless crap that people think they need.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[mollymoo]

I think something distractingly ugly can have a negative impact, but there seems to be an awful lot of effort expended on going far beyond non-distracting and deep into making it 'pretty' (for the individual's definition of 'pretty'). I don't really get it, which I know puts me in a minority. I do mostly use a Mac though, which is unobtrusive enough for me and I suppose fairly pretty to look at anyway - annoyingly so in some respects. I'd prefer ugly square window gadgets to pretty round (and thus smaller, harder to hit) ones. Still, the chrome is generally pretty narrow and non-distracting in OS X, more so than in XP - the chrome in XP I find distracting at times, though perhaps that's because I so rarely use XP. If I ever get an XP box I might even consider desaturating that blue a little. Having the option is always good.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu is billed as "linux for human beings". In practice, this means "usable and welcoming to non-geeks"; those same non-geeks who purchase a new windows OS because it has a new default desktop background and shinier buttons.

So why is this on Slashdot? It's not news for nerds or stuff that matters.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Anonymous Coward]

I use my computer 80+ hours a week too. But mostly, I'm looking at what's in the windows, not what's around the edges of them.

Do you think you would mind using an all-black theme? Even if you don't care about aesthetics, there is a usability issue here. Some people really do spend their time on the computer switching between multiple applications, resizing windows to see multiple apps at once, and so on. They need a usable theme, one with an appropriate level of contrast in the title bars and scroll bars, clearly defined buttons and drag zones, and so on.

Re:is this irrelevant or what

[Anonymous Coward]

okay, fine, we fucking hear you, but do you fucking understand that other people *are* looking at the edges? holy shit it's like you think you're the only fucking computer user in the world, or that we are all like you. so you don't fucking care about the theme, fine, well it should be abundantly motherfucking obvious to you that a vast number of others find themes to be an interesting part of their computing environment.

take your smug superiority and shove it up your null pointer.

Ooohhh, Shiny...

[tymbow]

I don't know what direction was required for the art, but the samples have that "ooohhh shiny" web 2.0 feel to them so they just must be better :p

Meeehhh, it will all change again anyway when everyone jumps on the Web 3.0 graphic design bandwagon or whatever the next hot trend will be.

Re:My guess?

[HeroreV]

Wow, it's actually a real site.

What? I'm shocked too!

[bogaboga]

Some Ubuntu community members were downright shocked, and many were ultimately dissatisfied with the final product.

Why should this happen? Why should "some community members" be shocked if Ubuntu is being developed as "an Open Source OS?" And I guess they were following Ubuntu's development pretty closely.

I need this question answered: Is Mark Shuttleworth a benevolent dictator in Ubuntu's Development?

Re:What? I'm shocked too!

[kfg]

Open Source implies that the source is open; it does not imply that nobody is in charge of a project.

KFG

Re:What? I'm shocked too!

[eugene_roux]

I need this question answered: Is Mark Shuttleworth a benevolent dictator in Ubuntu's Development?

Not just a , the . For life. Just ask him...<evil grin/>

Re:What? I'm shocked too!

[rohan972]

I need this question answered: Is Mark Shuttleworth a benevolent dictator in Ubuntu's Development?

Yes. From the article:
"On the critical question of whether Shuttleworth's decision to reject the team's work violated the wishes of the community, Stroep insisted that the Art Team had always understood the Ubuntu sponsor's role as "client" to their "design firm" -- and in the professional design world, you work to the client's vision, not your own."

Re:Ending life good, creating life bad.

[arthurpaliden]

The reason is quite simple. It takes more money to raise a child than to bury a person.

!!!!GOATSE ALERT!!! N/T

[Anonymous Coward]

N/T

Warning!

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent's link is NSFW!

Reminds me of a certain CSS redesign contest...

[dantheman82]

Chief artist head honcho summed it up: "We set out to start from scratch and to top Dapper, while Dapper was arguably very close to what Mark had in mind."

Hmm...sort of reminds me of the Slashdot CSS Redesign Contest. Need the Slashdot "Shade of Green" and Coliseo font. Basically it has to be very similar to the old one, but better. Sometimes it fades into the background once the hubbub dies down...as people realize that visual continuity and product branding do count for something...

Re:Reminds me of a certain CSS redesign contest...

[evilviper]

Basically it has to be very similar to the old one, but better. Sometimes it fades into the background once the hubbub dies down...

Oh yeah, you hardly notice the new /. theme...

If you
don't
mind
reading
stories
two words
at a
time.

Center column squishing bug is alive and well after several months.

Re:Reminds me of a certain CSS redesign contest...

[jez9999]

Speaking of Slashdot redesign, perhaps they could remove the bizarre link-style 'hover-disappearing underline' they've implemented for all of the Linux section topic titles recently? It looks very amateurish, like a warez page or something.

Re:Stuff that matters?

[Anonymous Coward]

So does this mean that there are at least two people who thought this worthless fucking article was actually "stuff that matters"? Color me surprised.

Nope, it just means that at least two people thought your bitching about it was just as worthless.

Ever wonder why the icons look nice?

[Chief Typist]

The icons were professionally designed:

http://iconfactory.com/design/detail/ubuntu

By one guy. Working directly with Mark.

My suggestion for the art team would be to establish someone as an art director. Someone that Mark trusts to implement his vision. And then have that art director give specific tasks to the designers that report to him.

It sounds like they're heading in that direction by giving Frank Stroep the title of "Artist in Chief". His task now is to tell people what he wants. And if you think it's easy being a hard ass when it comes to design & the people who do it, let me assure you IT IS NOT.

If this doesn't happen, they'll end up taking the "design by committee" approach. The result of this kind of process is something that no one loves -- a lowest common denominator. Sort of like when software is designed by a committee :-)

For what it's worth, I'm a principal in the company that did the Ubuntu work -- so I speak from experience about this stuff :-)

-ch

Re:Ever wonder why the icons look nice?

[gdek]

+1.

Feels like a lot of the pain we went through to come up with the Fedora logo. The best you can hope to do is to encourage input, show your work, explain your rationale for your final choice, and get buy-in -- but ultimately, it's one of the things that you put in the hands of a professional to drive to completion

Re:Ever wonder why the icons look nice?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use VNC a lot so I was wondering if the icons come in a simplified version too? Transmitting a lot of color, 3D, and animation effects really slows things down. I like the way that when you connect to a Windows system, VNC can disable various screen effects during the session and restore them when you disconnect.

Re:Ever wonder why the icons look nice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling this a community project is ludicrous when the art "team" is expected to stick their tail between their legs and meander off just because Mark Shuttleworth is not happy with the work they're doing. Ubuntu isn't a team project; it's Mark Shuttleworth's project and everything is designed to be perfect according to Mark Shuttleworth's taste. I guess that's what you get when you're a millionaire; don't like the available distros? Why not just buy out a bunch of developers to make your own distro? The thing is that if Cononical were a true company then they'd be so pressed to meet their customers demands that the art would be judged on how well if met their client's taste, not their benevolent dictators. Cononical has so much capital that they don't have to worry about turning a profit or meeting their customers' demands. On the other hand, if Ubuntu were a true community project then the artwork would be judged based on how well it met the communities taste rather than the tastes of one man. But as things stand, Ubuntu is neither the work of a true, competitive company, nor the work of a community. It's the worst of both worlds.

Re:Ever wonder why the icons look nice?

[JPriest]

"It's Mark Shuttleworth's project and everything is designed to be perfect according to Mark Shuttleworth's taste"

This is pretty much how Firefox started too. There were hundreds of people on the Mozilla team only to have 2 people create their own vision instead of design by committee and their creation was so much more popular the moz-dev team had no choice but to merge it into the main line and focus on it.

Same with Linux distros, there are distros out there that are pretty much design by community, but Shuttleworth's vision has become the most popular.

Apple computers does not design by committee either, but they created OSX with a fraction of the number of devs that work on Linux and in only a couple years time.

The problem with giving everyone equal say in matters is that most of their ideas are wrong. You are a perfect example, you bash the one man show that is Shuttleworth but conveniently overlook the fact that that same one man show puts out one of the best desktop distros available.

You might know all kinds of stuff about Linux but it makes fuck all difference because you are incapable of understanding the simple point I just made. You would spend days arguing with me and getting you to agree with me would be impossible.

For people like you GNU/Linux is not a product, it is a religion and you just can't reason with that.

Incremental improvement, no revolution

[martijnd]

Having installed Edgy on a couple of computer these last few days, and upgraded a few Dapper machines, I find its artwork pretty relaxing. I didn't like the brown colors at first, but you get used to it very quickly.

Efty's new boot up logo looks much better than the old one, and I am happy that they got rid of all the boot up messages on start-up, which was just distracting crud.

Nice one -- on the computers I installed it on, it just worked and the upgrades went smootly. Your milage may vary of course.

Re:Incremental improvement, no revolution

[Ankur Dave]

I am happy that they got rid of all the boot up messages on start-up, which was just distracting crud.

I always found it annoying that Windows by default shows nothing but a little green/blue thingy scrolling around -- that doesn't even show boot progress.

Before Edgy, Ubuntu has always showed nonverbose messages about which services it's starting, etc. I couldn't understand these messages when I first started using Linux (I started with Ubuntu Breezy) but after 6 months they were informative and useful to me -- it's always nice to know what service is taking a long time and things like that.

That's why I was dismayed when Edgy replaced the old boot screen with one that mimics Windows's boot screen. It's only marginally more helpful by showing boot progress (not that that's very accurate).

Now I have to resort to remove the "quiet splash" option in the Grub menu. The disadvantage to this is it's too verbose -- it shows all sort of output, causing messages to scroll by faster than I can read them.

I never thought that it was overly confusing/distracting to have the messages...I wonder what percentage of Ubuntu users share your opinion.

Re:Incremental improvement, no revolution

[martijnd]

I have been watching Linux boot up screens for years -- and its never usefull for anything, except when you are having trouble setting up the machine. I have setup one Ubuntu machine on a 37" display, and a quiet "Ubuntu" while the machine loads so that we can start presentations is very nice. There is no need to scare anyone with complicated language ; these machines are run by non-tech staff who don't need to know whether the DHCP address was succesfully obtained, the RAID array mounted etc.

But for the sake of configurability, they should have 3 options ;-) (1) Full display (2) Some display (aka Dapper) (3) No display of messages (eg. like efty)

Ubuntu is going in the right way for me , eg. non-tech users feel comfortable with its easy interface and colours, and things that just work, and tech users (aka me) who can install & configure a new machine with minimal efford.

Re:Incremental improvement, no revolution

[Ankur Dave]

its never usefull for anything, except when you are having trouble setting up the machine

Good point -- I rarely reboot my machine, and when I do, it's because of a problem. So I would find that output useful, while Joe User who shuts down for the night might find it intimidating (although I don't really see why; in my experience users ignore error/info messages rather than being worried about some text).

Re:Incremental improvement, no revolution

[Reapman]

Eh.. instead of removing the quiet splash, you could just choose the second option..recovery i think (it's early and i'm not at my Ubuntu box) This way you see all the messages, and it automatically bumps you to a command line console. Very useful when for some reason lm-sensors was preventing X from loading.

Alternatively if it bothers you that much, just permanently remove the quiet splash option from grub (been tempted to do that myself). By default it looks as nice as possible, which I think is the goal they're looking for. If you need to do bootup diagnostics, it's easier to do then Windows I think, and anyone that those words displayed would mean anything to, they should be able to figure out how to remove the quiet splash option or choose recovery.

Now to get my caffine hit.

Re:Incremental improvement, no revolution

[Chipaca]

remove the splash but not the quiet, and you should get what you want (but in text mode).

Re:Incremental improvement, no revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove 'quiet' but leave 'splash', and you get the splash screen with status text. Plus, you have to have vga=792 or something like it to get the full-res splash.

Re:porn?

[enrevanche]

This is not porn. Every image of the nude human form is not porn.

Re:porn?

[zcat_NZ]

That depends who you ask....

Re:porn?

[Ignis Flatus]

well, speaking as a guy that really appreciates his porn, i'm finding this a little hard to masturbate to. a little "edgier", please.

You mean these?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they were referring to these edgy Ubuntu Logos??! (warning: naked humans)

Re:Linux for Humans *my ass*!

[martijnd]

>> Ubuntu doesn't work under any version of Virtual PC.

Neither did Windows run under DR-DOS, it gave same horrible made up error to stop you from using non-microsoft OS software.

Why should it be any different this time around?

On the bright side, Ubuntu runs fine under VMWare, and even Windows XP runs nicely under VMware under Ubuntu.

who flippin' cares - just install vista!

[uridotchi]

who flippin cares??!!! just install vista! :P

Still needs work.

[MaWeiTao]

While we're on the subject of how Ubuntu works, someone should come up with a new logo for the system. It probably means something to someone but I don't think it's being effectively conveyed. Furthermore, it doesn't translate well to small sizes which is a big problem considering that's how it's going to appear often in the OS. It looks like an indistinguishable ring of colors.

The Ubuntu name also fights with the graphic. It looks like each element was designed by two different people and forced together. In fact, the Ubuntu font face is unique enough on it's own that it doesn't even need the graphic. All it might need is a more compelling graphical treatment sort of like what Apple has done with the OS X mark; I'm not saying that the glass look should be copied, mind you.

Regarding this theme, I don't see what makes this newsworthy. The theme itself is bad, but it certainly isn't anything out of this world. In fact, in my opinion, it still lacks the polish of OS X , XP or Vista. It's got some interesting features but nothing compelling or particularly unique.

The problem with these systems is that they don't have a series of rules defining how look and feel. In the end it always comes down to some guy doing something because it looks pretty and not really considering the overall experience. It's kind of like contemporary Japanese cars where designers have gotten overly fixated on these elaborate tail light designs that don't quite fit the rest of the car.

I'm all for an innovative interface, but it should be functional. This Edgy theme to me looks like someone took Vista's graphical elements and applied them to a OS X type interface.

Re:Still needs work.

[Taagehornet]

...someone should come up with a new logo for the system. It probably means something to someone but I don't think it's being effectively conveyed.

I guess this is what it's all about. Once you know it, it seems obvious, but if you don't...

I'm assuming this is the artwork..

[msimm]

They are talking about. I'm not a big fan of brown or generally dark colors on my desktop.

As for the complaining, I'm a bit perplexed:

"A prominent factor in much of the submitted artwork -- which is still publicly available -- is the use of visual effects, yet even as the feature freeze approached, there were still unsolved technical problems, such as inconsistency between color palettes. After Shuttleworth announced the rollback, Stroep, Jonathan Austin, and Jozsef Mak reworked the Dapper art packages for consistency, and limited the effects enhancements to a gloss finish."

That sounds like a legitimate enough problem. Unfinished artwork and effects can make a distro look amateurish.

Besides, I thought the point of OSS is the flexibility that comes with it? Are these Ubuntu users going to be forced to use it.

Re:I'm assuming this is the artwork..

[TheCarlMau]

Uhh... that's the artwork that is actually in Edgy. I suggest that before you *assume*, you actually look at the artwork in Edgy and Dapper.

Re:I'm assuming this is the artwork..

[msimm]

You did read assuming right didn't you? Or is that a big word? Anyway, from the posts I'd read I've seen links to this that were claimed to be the new artwork rather then the work being metioned, so I thought I'd see what Edgy Eft actually looked like.

So if you've got something more useful and less trollish to say, please, spit it out.

It looks (looked) dirty

[joe_n_bloe]

Please, my computer desktop should take me to that fantasy land where everything is blue and green and aqua forever. It shouldn't make me think about global warming.

Also, there's the problem that orange, yellow, red, and brown are fast food colors. Don't we computer nerds eat enough already?

The edgy artwork went to Microsoft!

[StreetStealth]

I think you'd agree the art in the Zune installer is pretty edgy!

Re:The edgy artwork went to Microsoft!

[simonwalton]

You're being modded offtopic I see, but thanks for the link. Best laugh I've had all day. :)

Re:porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, unless you're Christian.

Re:Linux for Humans *my ass*!

[Nyvhek]

I can't speak for Edgy, but I ran Dapper just fine in Virtual PC.

I know what happened

[GDgonzo]

they couldn't install photoshop. 8^) on a more serious note, where is my photoshop for linux adobe, dammit get on the ball allready. Please no gimps stories. Not all gnus are good gnus.

Wrong

[Cafe Alpha]

Wrong, those are shots of what was released. I should know, I'm typing this on an Ubuntu Edgy installation right now.

Ok, here goes nothing

[Shadyman]

At the risk of starting a Gnome vs KDE war, For everyone complaining about how ugly the default Ubuntu theme is in Edgy, why not look at the Kubuntu eyecandy?

http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/sc reenshots/index.php?linux_distribution=Kubuntu%206 .10

Re:Ok, here goes nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it's not turd-brown. We all know that's the offical color of Africa blah blah blah. It's also the color for the UPS guy.

Why can't Ubuntu get the message??

Re:Ok, here goes nothing

[ben there...]

Personally I prefer the Edgy look. I never thought I'd say this, but Ubuntu has Gnome looking less drab than (Kubuntu's) KDE.

Re:Ok, here goes nothing

[BiggyP]

Eyecandy? it's some form of the plastic theme with nasty over the top shiny window decorations, the crystal icons are still as bad as they've always been, the wallpaper's inoffensive enough, i guess. That's not to say it's worse than the artwork in recent Ubuntu releases, indeed it's hard to imagine a distro like that.

Backgrounds and splash screens

[wysiwia]

What a achievement, new backgrounds and splash screens! I thought 'Edgy Eft' was meant to try out some new kinds of technology or some new kind of user interactions. I even hoped there might be some provocative design decisions which allows to bring the Linux desktop a footprint forward. Yet backgrounds and splash screens don't improve my working system by a single inch. So what's so edgy on 'Edgy Eft'?

O. Wyss

Re:Backgrounds and splash screens

[bazorg]

So what's so edgy on 'Edgy Eft'?

R: the Eft.

Re:Backgrounds and splash screens

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah because having a new splash screen precludes any other changes since dapper.

shut up, you stupid fucking cunt.

Re:Backgrounds and splash screens

[Lumpy]

Yet backgrounds and splash screens don't improve my working system by a single inch. So what's so edgy on 'Edgy Eft'?

yet it made most people ooh and ahh over XP. Xp is Windows 2000 with Service pack 6 installed, some items moved around, and a new "theme" nothing more.

In fact most people right away de-xpify it by setting the start menu to "classic", turning off personal menus, and setting the control panel to classic view.

Re:Backgrounds and splash screens

[wysiwia]

In fact most people right away de-xpify it by setting the start menu to "classic", turning off personal menus, and setting the control panel to classic view.

As I do as well. I also remove background images and switch to soft background colors (on Windows and Linux).

O. Wyss

No people here's the rejected artwork

[Cafe Alpha]

Start
I noticed that those textures on the front page are annoyingly vivid stuff that I would never want on a desktop.

But searching through the maze of submissions I found a few that I thought were cooler that what's was in there.

But really, there was a lot of annoying artwork, all better packaged as optional than as default.

As far as I can tell Ubuntu installation disks are currently limited to CD size, not DVD size, so there probably isn't a lot of extra space for alternate art. Given that fact, I think artwork really belongs in a separate package.

I'd rather see features than artwork given the choice. If it were up to me, it would come with a firewall control gui, Wine, Eclipse and Sun Java etc. Though it's not as bad as Linspire in requiring an internet connection to get any features.

I wonder why there isn't a DVD install version for people who won't have access to the internet after install. That would be awfully useful in packaging for countries where fast internet access isn't a given.

I suppose that the licensing is the reason there's no Sun Java, but since Java was just GPL released this week, I hope future versions will have it.

Re:No people here's the rejected artwork

[Cafe Alpha]

DOH!

PS
RE: Slow Down Cowboy!

Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

What idiot decided that no one would be allowed to post corrections!!!

Look, either allow people to edit their posts or allows correction posts!!!

Re:No people here's the rejected artwork

[eclectro]

What idiot decided that no one would be allowed to post corrections!!!....Look, either allow people to edit their posts or allows correction posts!!!

You're new here, aren't you??

LINUXXX

[mackyrae]

it was far from pr0n though...no more sexual than the Sistine Chapel ceiling

Won't somebody think of the homophobes?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, I love it when trolls don't even make sense. Males with sexual feelings towards females = "faggots"? Keep that up and you'll give homophobes a bad name!

Re:Linux for Humans *my ass*!

[dan828]

I think that the live cd install used in edgy has problems with VPC. In all likelyhood the text based alternate install CD would be fine.

Re:Linux for Humans *my ass*!

[Anonymous Coward]

Runs just fine for me under virtual machine, and vm ware too... maybe your doing something wrong.
I just can't figure out why mandriva 2007 won't run on my physical hardware... Congrats to mandriva, the first major distro in 4 years that can't boot a hp 4145

They are in the repositories!

[reidleake]

If you like the screenshots (links posted earlier) for Peace, Tropic, and Blubuntu, then install them through your favorite package manager - they are in the Ubuntu repos.

Reread, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe anyone was talking about violent emulations, thought that's happened more than enough to prove you wrong. The above specifically addresses desensitization and emotional conditioning. I find it quite disturbing that seeing someone brutally murdered has become so commonplace as to produce little to no emotional response, particularly among the young. Any number of studies back this up.

To extend your (flawed) scenario: Are you seriously suggesting that you have no problem with little Johnny being incrementally conditioned to view killing as less a horror and more of an entertaining thrill, simply because he lacks the immediate means to re-enact a particular act out of tens of thousands viewed in his short life? There is not (nor have any peer-reviewed studies suggested) a long-term one-to-one correspondence between specific imagery and perpetrated criminally violent activities with any regularity (though isolated copy-cats have certainly been documented.) It's a cumulative effect that leads a subject to an emotional state that can quite casually entertain the thought of violence.

What this gets at in lay terms is that after decades of exposure to realistic violent imagery, a person is orders of magnitude more likely to be psychologically capable of perpetrating a violent act on another human being. This is mainstream modern psychology, here, not my personal opinion. See Grossman, Davis, Rothesburg etc etc etc. (Or read up on the psychology of advertising, which uses similar techniques and they actually WANT you to emulate what they are showing (i.e. use of their product or service)! The proof is in the pudding. Beyond the psychology, why do ad firms make billions a year if they can't influence your behavior? Yet when was the last time you lapsed into a zombie state after seeing a single ad and did exactly what they told you? The effect is cumulative, and very very real.)

The best examples of this are the training methods and technologies employed by modern military forces (specifically during and subsequent to Viet-Nam.) Non-firing rates of soldiers (percentages of soldiers not aiming at or firing on a human enemy with intent to kill - i.e. not shooting or intentionally missing) during large scale military engagements around the world since the US's Revolutionary War historically were between 50-95%. Killing another human is simply contrary to most people's innate behavior patterns. Most people just can't do it naturally. Starting in the 1960s, training techniques began to include use of film to illustrate techniques used in actual combat footage, using human silhouettes as targets instead of bullseyes, snipers schools using mannequins filled with cabbage and ketchup so the student isn't shocked in the field after a shot (the most vulnerable time for a sniper), and on and on. Non-firing rates have dropped DRAMATICALLY - down to 5-10% in some studies. The last 15 years has seen much of the virtual reality and computer driven training technology used in "kill houses" and mock urban-warfare environments applied directly to video games and special effect technology in films.

I have personally been through the "House of Horrors" at Bragg (about 5 years ago) and can tell you that there are a number of FPSs that get eerily close to that experience. Scan, shoot, move, "pie" around the corner, watch out for "death funnels" - even a ten year old understand the basics of clearing a room and target discrimination - and has been told its just a game! No reason to feel bad! No, feeling bad comes later when you must deal with the emotional fallout of what you've done without conscious thought because of conditioning. To wit, the catastrophic rise in psychological problems among vets returning from Vietnam, Panama, Iraq 1, Iraq 2 when compared to WWII and Korea. Coincidence? Not a chance, according to the military's own psychologists and academicians who have studied this for decades.

Sorry to ambush you here and go off, but I am a combat vet with a bachelors in psycholo

Re:Reread, please.

[LordLucless]

The great-grandparent said: "In what country is killing fine?"
The grandparent said: "Turn on the TV/computer game, look at all the killing!"
I said: "That's not killing, that's simulated killing; murder is still illegal in the western world"

I appreciate that violence can lead to desensitisation, and that desensitisation makes a person more capable of performing the acts that they were desensitised to. All I was saying is that the reason people are more worried about sex than violence is that (in general, there are some notable exceptions) they don't believe that exposure to violence will make their kid more violent, but they do believe that exposing them to sex will lead them to explore sex without considering the consequences. That may or may not be correct, but that's the prevailing view.

Re:Reread, please.

[whoop]

Also, there is something do be said of the depictions of sex and violence. Movies and games have the target of violent acts screaming, bleeding, etc. Even young kids know what pain is and can relate that it's not pleasurable to be shot/stabbed/etc. Most humans also have the ability to sympathize, so they don't go around killing everyone.

On the other hand, sex is most always depicted as quite pleasurable. Everything needed to get in on them happy feelings is already available to Jonny/Jane Teenager. Getting condoms/pills/etc takes an extra step, which they won't do if they are horny in the moment.

Re:Reread, please.

[Anonymous Coward]

All I was saying is that the reason people are more worried about sex than violence is that (in general, there are some notable exceptions) they don't believe that exposure to violence will make their kid more violent, but they do believe that exposing them to sex will lead them to explore sex without considering the consequences.

Depictions of actual sex, are, of course, seen as negative to varying degrees by a large number of adults - regardless of if children see them. Despite the supposed sexual-revolution, the air of Western society and culture is still heavy with the prudish nude-body/sex is sinful views espoused by Christianity for the past however-many centuries. So I have some doubt that most adults main motivation in shielding their children from sexual depictions is because of the chance that the kid is likely to get pregnant. I'd say that for many the long standing associations with sin and loss of innocence play a very central role in their decisions.

It's gone, long gone.

[Fonce]

I'll tell you what happened; That damn duck ate it and pretty soon it'll be a smear on your windshield. Stupid drake, always having to steal the spotlight. He should be more careful around hunting season.

Can you say "biological imperitive"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiight, because man never got the idea to screw until porno films came along. We only POPULATED THE WHOLE FREAKIN' PLANET!!!

Further, you really think entertainment violence exists to serve as population planning and birth-control? WTF? That doesn't even make sense, especially given the west's conservative religious leadership that doesn't as a whole believe in family planning like, I don't know, THE CATHOLIC FREAKIN' CHURCH!!! Only a billion people so that couldn't be it, could it. Not to mention that protestant aren't too far off the mark, and that's only another 800 million.

Man up and face it, your idea makes no sense. Get on with your life.

Re:Ending life good, creating life bad.

[Macthorpe]

Wow, this is a level of cynicism that I can only aspire to.

I salute you, sir!

Re:Hannibal is fiction.

[slaida1]

Megalomania is not. However, it doesn't take either to flex your brain and cast a doubt that maybe we aren't living in a brilliant new modern world after all. Maybe we are still in dark middle ages, punishing "witches", freethinkers, oddballs. Believing in magic and bad karma, labeling hard-to-deal-with matters as taboos.

Those who differ from the norm always consider themselves superior rather than inferior.

Not always. But take a guess how many have been beaten or killed because their peers think it is so?

Fairly amateurish artwork

[GauteL]

.. and it should come as no surprise than anyone would turn it down.

What IS disappointing about Edgy Eft is that the release was at first intended to be edgy and risky, because they had the Long Term Support release, Dapper Drake, to suggest to anyone wanting something conservative and stable.

In the end the only thing edgy in the release was the new event based startup system which isn't yet that visible for the end-user. People can say what they want about 'Edgy Eft' just being a name, but it was fairly clear from Shuttleworth's early emails that the name wasn't just chosen at random.

Edgy is thus the most (and possibly the only) disappointing Ubuntu release so far. It is not bad, it is just nothing like what was intended.

Re:Fairly amateurish artwork

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Oh I dunno.....considering it was way easy to install some rather unstable apps like Jokosher and others, I am really happy with the release. Also, the GAIM that ships with it is also a beta. There's several apps that have finally been upgraded. I don't really have anything to be disappointed in with Edgy and I much prefer it to Dapper.

As for FC6....I had some issues with that release and I think the reason I did was that it shipped with 2.6.18 instead of 17. That happens to be the first release to have the real time stuff mainlined. I still think that the real time stuff is not ready for prime time, but I am glad it's in there. Oh my issue? The first time in a long time I have had Linux crash on me....hard. It was a complete lockup.

DVD version

[ben there...]

I wonder why there isn't a DVD install version for people who won't have access to the internet after install. That would be awfully useful in packaging for countries where fast internet access isn't a given.

Ubuntu DVD on Amazon.

About your second point, currently it is only available in the US though.

Re:DVD version

[Cafe Alpha]

Uh right, I forgot about that.

But afaik there is no DVD version available for download.

Re:My guess?

[Zonk (troll)]

Gaybuntu? Is that for Mac users?

From Ubuntu Art to Murder and Sex

[gramji]

How did this conversation go from Ubuntu art to murder and sex? Very interesting comments though.

does open art work ?

[cyanescent]

Here is some more links:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/EdgyPropo sals/Summary_18JULY2006
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/EdgyPropo sals/WallpaperProposal

plus everything under https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/EdgyPropo sals/

Before I go on this rant, there was a lot of talk on the mailing lists and the forums about what went wrong. This is just my subjective voice.

I've been following the mailing list since May, and saw as things started falling apart by mid-August. IMO there were many great contributions: niklas weidal did some absolutely gobstopping images. Who did some excellent GDM proposals, and many others contributed with original ideas later in August. However, the process was stifled somewhat to a rigid plan set out at the Paris Conference, and many contributors got very little further than submitting their first few efforts, before being rejected by "The Powers that Be".

There was a Proposal stage, with some great ideas thrown in (a summary of those ideas is in the link above). At the end of the Proposal stage Mark dropped into the mailing list to point at one picture as a basis for all of edgy artwork (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/EdgyProp osals/Summary_18JULY2006?action=AttachFile&do=get& target=lsplash.png). All further proposals were rejected by this point due to the Paris Plan, and the Council spent a great deal of time pondering on what to accept, and finally around mid-August decided to scrap all artwork unrelated to this image. Above all, it fell down to 3 member's contributions, which had encapsulated the "gloss" aspect that everyone was raving on about, but no one could figure out. Unfortunately, many users didn't like the selected outcome, as cogently put by one user on the mailing list: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/2006- September/003107.html (BTW this is not my opinion -- I thought the image question was very appetizing)

Not surprisingly, the existing contributors stopped helping out, presumably thinking their work was unappreciated rather than fixing the selected images, and when the final Polish stage arrived at the end of August, all the work was lumped onto 3 people. Around the same time there were a great deal of new contributors, yet they were all snubbed because they were not working on the existing artwork. Mark decided to revert to Dapper and try and brainstorm something with the 3 long-standing contributors. Whether that turned out well, I don't know, as I've long since stopped using Ubuntu as my distro de jour.

So, in the end the whole process became massively inflexible due to a one cycle pre-engineered artwork submission process, and a lack of direction from Mark when it mattered, because although plenty of people wanted to contribute, they couldn't. Yes, the story is much longer: there weren't the appropriate tools / the Wiki was a mess, but when I look at the Fedora Artwork process, they thrive on exactly the same toolset, so I don't think that can be used as an argument.

[/rant]

Re:My guess?

[Parc Edmond Klein]

Wow, it's actually a real site.

... and visited by real gay people, not some lame-ass parody.

Fair enough.

[jotaeleemeese]

But the drooling about screen dumps is a regular feature of sites allegedly geared towards technically savy people.

Community user summarizes all rants

[lems1]

This post really expresses what the community felt about this change:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/2006- October/003433.html

Hey all,

I'd just like to say (not that I have any sway in these matters) I
strongly disagree with the decision to revert to Dapper artwork for
Edgy. [If I have gotten the wrong impression about this please ignore
the silly rant below]

While I realise it might not meet the sabdfl's expectations or other
Canonical management folk, and ultimately it is his distribution, I
think that it is a bad idea to abandon the new, community driven, Edgy
artwork.

It's Edgy - that was meant to mean that dev's could put new,
disruptive ideas into the distribution without fear that they may be a
little rough around the edges. I think the same should apply to
artwork - it was meant to be an experiment in community created
artwork, and although it may be a little rough around the edges in
places, I think the beta art and the implementations on the wiki
*rock*

In fact the sabd himself said [on the artwork] "I'm sure there will be
rough edges in Edgy - that's the point " [1]

What's with the lame intro music?

[friar_athanasius]

The login music is disappointing too, sounds like something lifted from the Lion King soundtrack. At least we're not stuck with only Blue, Olive Green or Silver for theme choices.

Re:My guess?

[Zonk (troll)]

I wonder if that's the reason Ubuntu has such a brown look to it...

Be responsible when asking for volunteer labor

[ishmalius]

It is the responsible and moral thing to do to be careful when asking for people to donate their time and effort to a project. When the pool of contributors has likely invested thousands of hours of labor into a project, one must be ready to at least have a little bit of willingness to accept the products of their toils graciously.

This is similar to seti@home asking for millions of contributors to donate their resources, yet allow from them absolutely no input into the experiment itself. Quite a few people bailed on the project because of a perceived ivory tower attitude. Look, don't touch!

People asking for volunteers should heed Henry V: "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make"

I am a stupid puppet

[JPriest]

Thank you slashdot for an article summary that decided for me that Ubuntu was wrong not to accept the artwork. Nevermind that it was canned becasue they were not pleased with the look of the artwork.

The sad thing is that most people who read this will now side with the tone set in the summary (that Shuttlesworth is wrong and/or a bad person).

Sometimes I think the folks who edit slashdot get a story and roll the dice to see if they are going to give it a positive or negitave slant, and then monitor their success rate of getting the larger part of the community to agree with them.

I guess Ubuntu's success upset ./ so it is time we turn on them too in keeping with our underdog mentality, but last I checked OSTG no garage based effort either. Maybe it is time for ./ to turn on itself?

Blubuntu - like Mac but not as nice

[greyparrot]

I'm just as happy that the Edgy release came out as it did. It does boot faster -- and it looks OK. I took a good look at the three candidates and found the other two good enough, but Blubuntu is obnoxious! That horrible blob suggests something that spilled on the floor, and the blue is much too bright. (Blue is a good color for a background effect, but not that blue.) The Ubuntu warm colors, much darkened, are fine, and small changes in the Human colors are not a big deal.

Then I looked at the comments around these efforts, and apparently there is a big lobbying effort by the creators of Blubuntu. That really put me off!

It's true that very non-technical people are always making changes to their appearances, including (on Windows) themes with neon pink and chartreuse, pictures of their babies, slide shows, etc.; all of these drive me nuts when I have to fix something on their PCs (why is this thing so slow???). As they are not busy all the time, and the PC is just a glorified typewriter to them, the way it looks is very important to them. They are locked down, more or less, by central IT, so this is the only power they have.

What I really like about Edgy Eft is that all I had to do was change all the Synaptic Package Manager Repositories from Dapper to Edgy, then run sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, then keep an eye out for questions. I'm not an expert by any means, but I love the reasonable upgrade path.

Re:Blubuntu - like Mac but not as nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you install Blubuntu? The bright blue is only used as a bg and everything else uses a lighter shade. The blobs are much better than the ones on the Blubuntu front page and only appear on background elemets. On the shade of blue: text highlight is slightly too bright, true, but everyone that I got to test Blubuntu claimed to find the brightness fine. After using it on a few LCDS I think that the thing that's too bright is the background colour...

And as for the lobbying effort - how did it put you off? The aim was to get _ideas_ from people, not to get people to push it into the distro (and this didn't happen at all) - I headed the theme team and I wanted to get a wide range of ideas rather than just work out of my head. I wanted to try and work it openly - I think it worked, but it certainly wasn't intended to put people off

It has to be said...

[ubuwalker31]

I for one welcome our boring brown colored ubuntu distro overlords...again.

Re:Ending life good, creating life bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh surely I can top that. Why waste time raising the children? If they aren't valuable, just abort or euthanize them.

Re:Ending life good, creating life bad.

[gosand]

The reason is quite simple. It takes more money to raise a child than to bury a person.

And it is even cheaper to educate people about sex in the first place.

Re:Ending life good, creating life bad.

[gripped]

like this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6149464.stm

Re:Hannibal is fiction.

[c6gunner]

Yes, David Berkowitz was quite the freethinker, too bad we punished the poor guy.

Depending on how I look at your question, the answer is either "too many" or "not enough".

Christ

[Anonymous Coward]

"boxen" "headless"

You mean your boxes, or machines, or computers, run without a screen. It's not a "head" and "boxen" isn't funny. Go away before I infect you with "virii".

Billionaire screws with people - big deal

[NateTech]

This is news in Linux now? Good lord.

Who gives a shit about Ubuntu's artwork other than the people making it? The Bored Billionaire. That's who. What contrived bullshit.

If you're making it, your peers find it usable, and some billionaire overlord doesn't like it, you can simply stop working on things for this idiot and make them for any other distro out there -- they'll be glad to have you.

In Ubuntu, Mark's payin' the bills. What he says goes. Draw nice stuff for someone else, they'll probably appreciate it more. Let Mark go pay someone to make his artwork to his standards.

Re:Nyah nyah

[slaida1]

I like how you miss the point, and then consider your mind more agile and developed..

I managed to dodge that trap. You see, I didn't write that I consider _my_ mind to be more agile. Heh, missed by *that* much.
But let me have a minute and review his point once more...

Ok, time for a point-and-laugh, once more: Look, he's worried that sex "can lead to unwanted and unconsidered consequences", never mind violence but god help us if it's sex that does it!

And, what might those unwanted consequences of sex be that are even more horrible than violence? Look, he says "probably going to give him ideas next time he's alone with little Sally". Behold the unwanted and unconsidered consequences of sex! It's going to give him ideas! Hahaha!

Re:Nyah nyah

[somersault]

No, you didn't really dodge the trap, it was obvious that you consider your mind more agile since you hold that viewpoint. You didn't even give any reference to which minds, and their agility, you just gave your point of view and said that more agile minds are the ones that hold it.

He was pointing out that the vast majority of people meet the physical requirements for performing sexual acts (well it depends on what your requirements are, really), but not everyone has guns and bazookas (not metaphorical ones), though I guess in America a lot of people have guns.

Anyway, even though kids may not be capable of having kids themselves, they could still be messed up later in life once they realise what they've done. The same could be said for shooting each other, of course *shrug*

Mod me as flamebait, please

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so you're another government contractor. Billing 80 hours/week to mess about with desktop settings instead of getting real work done?

Next thing you'll tell me you work for EDS. :)