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Is Ubuntu a Serious Desktop Contender?
Exter-C asks: "2006 was the year that a large amount of people started to talk Ubuntu as a possible contender for the Enterprise Linux desktop. There are several key issues that have to be raised: Is Ubuntu/Canonical really capable of maintaining Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS) for 5 years? I know this is not a new question but the evidence after 6 months seems to be negative. A case in point is the 4-5+ day delay for critical updates to packages like Firefox. Given that such a large percentage of people use their desktop systems on the web critical, browser vulnerabilities seem to be one of the core pieces of a secure desktop environment (user stupidity excluded). Can Ubuntu/Canonical really compete with the likes of Red Hat, who had patches available (RHSA-2006:0758) the day that the updates came out?"
Competing against Windows? I'd say a better idea would be to compare cost / exploits / patches to Windows on the enterprise desktop rather than Red Hat Linux...
I gave Ubuntu 6 a shot as my exclusive desktop for about a month and a half, but switched back to Windows XP Home a day or two ago for a variety of reasons, all of them desktop related.
.NET hobbyist like is simply not there.
1) I got sick to death of having to run CD burning software with sudo.
2) A lot of software I as a
3) I hate to say it, but Windows XP actually runs consistently faster under load on my laptop than Ubuntu. The GUI in particular is more responsive under load than GNOME or KDE.
4) Things like easily configuring wireless connections really do work out of the box better on Windows XP than they do in Linux.
5) Windows has far more good software options.
For me the final straw was when I tried playing the high def trailer of Halo 3 in VLC on Linux, and it sucked. Choppy as hell. MPlayer handled it better, but then it was using a minimal GUI and actual Windows codecs. VLC on Windows can handle that stuff with no problem on the same machine.
It's a light weight contender at this point. I would recommend it to geek and nerd friends who will understand its limitations, but not a normal user who uses their machine for anything other than things like office functions and web browsing.
What competition?
To be trurly competitive Linux needs to change it's marketing image. Right now it's 'GEEKS for GEEKS'. That's the main reason why people stay away from it. I work with few people who used Linux during their studies. They were forced to use command line and stay away from X-Window. Now they hate it. Think what kind of message it passes downstream...
Plus Linux is terribly undocumented. For Average Joes of course. Books are GEEKY looking, and not really user friendly... Why not to release packages with GOOD book + CD(s) + (optional) + USB live distro + poster + stickers and so on? Do it once per year and people will get hooked. Especially with USB distors - that's true Plug and Play. That can also apply to OpenOffice and other FOSS.
Next? Why not to stick to 1 year realease cycle and do some proper relaease that will work with every kind of software? Why every distro is good for something particular but not everything?
Before FOSS comunity overcomes their fear of users, competition will be only another word. Wake up! Linux has a great possibilities, but we're wasting it.
I'm posting as AC, otherwise you would kill me for that post. Karma whoring it is...
While I am forced to use Windows in my work envirionment, while at home Ubuntu is my chosen desktop. I have never been one to insist on instant updates, so a few days delay in a patch does not concern me much.
Ubuntu (with some necessary updates and enhancements) is a perfectly capable operating system, and the Gnome2 desktop serves my needs just fine. I can do everything (and more) that my windows box can do, plus I get to use my choice of scripting languages to customize my experience.
Nothing is hidden away from me in cryptic registries, and I run only those things that make sense to me. On my Windows box, there are several programs that have installed themselves over the years, and seemingly cannot be uninstalled. I keep most of them disabled and beaten down, but can't seem to eradicate them entirely. Even tools from my huge international IT industry company don't seem to be able to keep the buggers off of my Windows machine. Number of virii or malware programs on my Ubuntu box? Zero.
So, yes, Ubuntu can be an effective and pleasing desktop.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
scenario.
i have one pc at home.
it's connected to a wifi network belonging to my landlord on a weak signal.
i have no control over the ap so i can't change any settings or its location
or improve the signal
or run a network cable to it.
so i look around to find a usb wifi adapter that will work with ubuntu. had tried a pci card but that will not get a good enough signal so it has to be a usb adapter which can be at the end of a 2 metre usb cable.
don't want to risk my windows partition so i buy a new disk.
then try ubuntu install only for a bunch of errors caused by the dvd rewriter
'hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected null handler on exit'
'buffer i/o error on device hdc, logical block'
curses. get my mitts on a dvd rom drive and over christmas i try that. it works! ubuntu installs! excellent! love the interface. boots much quicker than windows. try to access the wifi network and... no joy!
now i've gotten the following device onto the network
* nokia 770 internet tablet (signal so weak that it will only work when the metal sheath is off)
* nintendo ds web browser (the ap is considered unsupported and online gaming won't work but the browser can be coaxed into working with it)
* nokia e61 web browser (took the longest but now that it works i can access gmail and web pages anywhere, joy!)
* windows 2000 which the pc normally runs. about once a week the usb adapter has to be moved to pick up a better signal.
so i don't consider myself a wifi newbie. i tried everything i can think off. couldn't find any software builtin to ubuntu to search for wifi networks, using ubuntu 6.10. i eventually got the thing transmitting packets but not a one came back. then there are 2 adapters listed wlan0 and wmaster0. which to use? other people have reported this and gotten no answers.
i will keep trying as windows is getting more annoying with wga and assorted viruses and crap but until i can get it working i cannot recommend it to family which is really what i want to start doing. might pop out and buy a linux mag with a few distros on it and give them a shot instead.
sorry for the saga, just venting annoyance,
moylan
Looking at Ubuntu (and other distros I suppose), Windows, and OS X the match seems pretty even. All suck pretty hard in significant ways, but all have their strong points as well. Linux would be a great fit for the browse the web/write papers/listen to music crowd. Not so much for the gamers, due to the lack of commercial development, and not so much for the artists (due to the elitism), but it does what a lot of people need. The problem is, as always, getting to those people. Even if they have by some miracle heard of Linux, most will see the work required to switch as too scary or too much of a hassle for the benefits they would gain (a snappier system, better security, package managers that can pull down updates for the whole system, and so on). Oh well, maybe next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop.
I've realised after all these years linux on the desktop for the masses probably will happen last. While some people have seen this as a goal to de-throne microsoft's desktop, others have been sneaking linux into our daily lives. This is the important frontier for linux. Everything but the desktop. Servers, embedded devices, control systems, etc, etc. There are MUCH more of these sorts of devies than there are desktops. The desktop goal has been important to many people because it's what they see everyday, but these sneaky devices are a much more important.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
I have wondered this for a while and this article highlights it. With all the distributions out there, why so much hype this year for Ubuntu? I downloaded both the Drake and the current, and I have neither time been impressed with it. I don't understand what makes people think its better than Debian, which by the way always seems to work better and with more success. I'm sure there has to be a contender better, anyone would be better. The distributions that get the most exposure (preloads, etc) are not the ones that are getting recognition d(remember we are talking desktop usage). I used Caldera Linux (ack I know) all the way back in 1997 and it was better than the current flock of Desktop OS's. I wonder why someone couldn't bring it back, limit the crap in the install, but make it available (you dont need emacs or vi, you need Write or a notepad). Keep many common services that people may just want on their pc like httpd, ftp, ssh, but get rid of SQL servers and the like for advanced users. Give a good browser (firefox with alot of preinstalled extensions) with a good starting page. Links to office apps, browser, drives, on the desktop. DONT SLACK ON THE NETWORKING (more IM's, browsers, clients, etc). DONT GIVE ME 5 MEDIA PLAYERS, just one really well maintained one would be great (vlc if the comment above werent true). And for gods sake, drop all the extra games, apps, etc. If someone needs anything in particular for a desktop os, they WILL download it. I mean come on who of us uses linux for a desktop that doesnt have access to updates?
*rant mode off*
This reply should have been a ASK Slashdot, but we all know we miss actual articles. So I wont put us through it.
Ben
Keep in mind that Ubuntu is Free Software.
And Free Software is not always about being better, it's about being Free.
After a few years of using only Linux (various distros, Ubuntu for past year) I would never install a proprietary system on my computer.
Just look where proprietary software is leading - DRM, spyware, adware... It's much easier to hide these "features" in closed-source software.
Ok, Windows supports all the hardware, Linux does not - oh well, I just check hardware for Linux compatibility before I buy it.
I just believe that Free Software is the only way we should go. Things like DRM just hurt customers, they simply haven't realized that yet.
Exactly no much doubt about the average reply here on slashdot. Probably the same level of objectivity as asking the same question on MSDN.
Some other insightful questions for the next 'Ask Slashdot':
"Is Microsoft evil?"
"Is OSX beter than Vista?"
"IE7 or Firefox on Mom's PC?"
Well, it depends. A contender to who? Windows - no. Fedora, Gentoo - yes. Servers - maybe, but debian is still the leader there.
Ubuntu has a potential, but it's not some kind of magic distribution.
For fuck's sake, this is not a Windows/Linux article. Please at least read the first sentence of the posted article in future, before taking the opportunity to vent your Windows vs Linux obsession.
Now, does anyone have anything to say about the Enterprise Linux desktop?
Ubuntu is a fairly good Linux distribution, with a pretty good set up. The Firefox update issue is probably not a fair consideration, since it's not actually Canonical, it's a function of Debian's issues with Mozilla.
The problem I have with Ubuntu's push is that it isn't really being pushed as a desktop for business so much as it is a desktop for the average user, to replace Windows or Mac. Unfortunately, it isn't ready for that, and it may actually be hurting itself because of it. If you're saying to people "Just download the CD's, and install it, it'll work with no problems.", you're asking for trouble. The people that are willing to give it a try are not expecting a Windows/Mac clone, but they do have certain expectations! Principally, that they're not going to spend the next three months learning how to debug, compile, edit configurations, and spend hours searching through various wikis, FAQ's, and web sites to actually use their computer for something.
These are the "first adopters", and the more unpleasant their experience, the harder is to get Linux out of the server/geek realm and into the home. It's been my experience that server OS's tend to make mediocre desktop OS's. That's been true whether it's Linux or Windows or (fill in the blank). The things you need to do on a server are different from what you need on most desktops. There's also a difference in needs between a business desktop and a home desktop. I think Linux is (mostly) ready to be a serious contender on the business desktop. Unfortunately, it isn't ready to be one on the home desktop. I think it could be one, but the community needs to listen and to look at what the average user actually is running into.
Here's a quote I found about Linux on the desktop on one of the other boards I frequent, that really helps summarize what needs to happen: "Come on nerds, would it really be such a terrible thing to spend $180 for a Linux will full hardware drivers and software codecs plus telephone support or even to pay $50 for a CD that gives you everything in the way of proprietary drivers and codecs ready to go for all your hardware and multimedia as opposed to spending hours and hours and hours downloading just bits and pieces of the solutions from all over the place and fighting to get them working? It's not like people who really want to couldn't still do that, but a simple, truly easy, less expensive alternative to the $400 Vista for the average Joe is what it is going to take to get the average Joe to come over from the dark side--and no one is ever going to have a prayer of winning the fight for open standards as long as all those ordinary Joe's are still living on the dark side."
RH has a tiny market share. Even if Ubuntu replaced every single RH desktop, it still wouldn't even make a blip on the radar. The competition that (still) matters the most, is Windows. And a 4 day turn around on defects is a heck of a lot better than the once a month for Windows.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I used Caldera Linux (ack I know) all the way back in 1997 and it was better than the current flock of Desktop OS's.
I'll call that "selective memory".
I wonder why someone couldn't bring it back, limit the crap in the install, but make it available (you dont need emacs or vi, you need Write or a notepad).
Actually, no. I don't want any of those because for me there's really two types of text editors - plaintext (config files, code, small notes etc.) and formatted text (OpenOffice/KOffice style). I'd like just the one advanced text editor please.
Keep many common services that people may just want on their pc like httpd, ftp, ssh, but get rid of SQL servers and the like for advanced users.
Huh? People want to run a http deamon, but not any SQL database for a LAMP or similar setup?
Give a good browser (firefox with alot of preinstalled extensions) with a good starting page.
Let me guess - this customized Firefox should contain the extensions you like, right?
Links to office apps, browser, drives, on the desktop.
Again, your preferance. I prefer having commonly used apps in a toolbar.
DONT SLACK ON THE NETWORKING (more IM's, browsers, clients, etc).
More browsers? You just wanted one!
DONT GIVE ME 5 MEDIA PLAYERS, just one really well maintained one would be great (vlc if the comment above werent true).
Right.. so everyone will just agree that vlc is better than mplayer (with frontends) and xine.
And for gods sake, drop all the extra games, apps, etc. If someone needs anything in particular for a desktop os, they WILL download it.
Ten of the same I can understand. But if there's one app, what's wrong with it being installed? Is it the extra 5MB of HDD space killing you? The menu link? And it's always possible to not preselect any package. Been there, done that... install debian base and apt-get your way from there.
Basicly, I never understood this. If I got one or fice or ten applications which do the job, great. My problem is when the number is zero.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'm a Windows user. XP does everything I need it to and does it well. Occasionally, though, I test out Linux to see how things are going. Every time I try things are much better and much closer to awesomeness. But not yet. My last experience was Kubuntu. Auto-detected all my hardware, set up my Internet access for me all automatically. Amarok is incredible. But once something breaks you're back to cryptic /etc files and other obscure things. Given time to research I can handle this, but the average person cannot. Linux is still more complicated to maintain than Windows, and that is going to be deciding factor for your average schmo.
And hardware support is still not as good as Windows. There are still a lot of things with no drivers. That never will have drivers. Yes, hardware manufacturers are to blame for this, but that doesn't matter to my computing experiece. And software support is still lacking. Few games are getting ported and while Amarok is at least as good of a music player as WinAmp, there is still no Linux equivalent to the beauty of Media Player Classic.
So why should I switch? Why should anyone switch? So my answer to your question is still no. It's getting closer. Maybe in a few years. But not now.
#1. People who are already using Ubuntu (like me) as their desktop.
#2. People who are using some other Linux distribution as their desktop.
#3. People who are using a Mac or *BSD or whatever.
#4. People who are using Windows because of reasons A, B, C and/or D.
Whether X is a "serious desktop contender" really depends upon what YOU consider to be the requirements for a "serious desktop contender".
Do people ask the same question in other areas of their life? Do they go to a pizza place and question when pineapple and Canadian bacon pizza is "suitable" for dinner?
Do they go to a Ford dealership and ask whether a Ford is "suitable" for driving?
And so forth.
My first ever non-Windows system was Ubuntu, and I haven't looked back since. I'll admit that I was never an amateur in the computing world, but the system was clearly very easy to use, cleanly coded, fast and well designed. It's few drawbacks, such as the obvious "no Microsoft software" and such are outweighed by the immense support offered by the community and the huge number of powerful applications available for free and easily using the package manager.
If any Linux environment is going to gain serious market share away from the Windows-only non-experts of the world, it's going to be a free and easy-to-use system like Ubuntu.
Student Manager - Take control of your education!
(I'm not going to Format my C: drive straight away).
So have you tried to run off a live CD? Freespire comes with the codecs that are not included in most Linux distributions that can be installed later. The problem is they are not installed when you run most live CD's so much online content won't play such as flash, MP3's, PDF's, and many movie formats.
The truth shall set you free!
The registry is a piece of shit compared to plain text config files, there are several reasons for this, but two of the big ones are:
1) Comments, you can actually add comments to text config files.
2) You can use a normal text editor, normal version control (ever tried putting the registry in subversion?) and other well-honed text tools to work with text based config files.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
For the love of whatever you hold holy, just shut up already. Is there a webpage that has messages like yours on it so you can just copy and paste it to a slashdot thread about Linux????
There are just as many Slashdot users out there saying "Linux users need to realize that if they want their OS to survive blah blah blah" like you. Could you muster up an original thought? I've seen your post thousands of times on Slashdot. Funny that you are reading a LINUX thread and you are bitching about Slashdot's Linux users always talking about how amazing Linux is. Perhaps it's because you are READING A LINUX THREAD...
If you don't like Linux that's fine, but don't assume you know what Linux needs to survive. You're obviously retarded if you can't figure out how to click on "Applications" instead of a "Start" button, so why are you assuming you know what Linux needs to survive.
This article is stupid none-the-less because it's basically flamebait in itself. There are many people who have been using Ubuntu as their desktop OS for at least a year. It does everything I want it to do, so YES it's definitely ready for MY desktop. If it's not ready for yours, fine....don't use it. Stop pretending you know something that no one has thought of or said before though. Linux users don't need to realize anything. You need to realize something. We don't care if you use Linux or not. We aren't going to make a dime off it if you decide to use it. We like it. We've got the right to say we like it. You have the right to say you hate it, but realize that the things you may want from a desktop OS is not exactly what everyone else wants. For some people, Linux has been ready for the desktop for years. For some of us it's the perfect OS. Why would we want to change it so it's perfect for you. You already have your perfect OS that you love. Should we make Linux more like what you want? Blah this flamewar has been going back and forth for years. Just get over yourself and realize that You don't realize what Linux needs to survive. You know what your OS needs to survive. So just STFU, and read something other than a thread completely about Linux.
Beer! It's what's for breakfast!
There's that old saying "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar". When most people think of Linux...well...most people to be perfectly honest don't know what it is, and more importantly, they don't care. Most who have heard of Linux have the impression that it's kind of like a treefort for the geeks who still havn't outgrown their victim complexes. Now while I don't think this is true for the majority of Linux users (after I waded through and became more accustomed to the culture), it is simple to see how a vast majority of users would not want to be anywhere near a culture so hostile. Most people are accustomed to being able to call a number, wait on hold for an hour or so, and then slowly work through their problem with a technician, some of whom are more polite and or better at communicating than others. Getting help for their problem with a technology does not involve having to learn a new technology (IRC, Froums, etc. And yes forums can be new to people). It involves picking up a phone and dialing a number. For those who have read Neal Stephenson's "in the beginning there was the command line", you will recall the analogy of the vehicle dealerships. Remember how he described Linux as a tank with people who were building them for free and yelling "if it doesn't work we'll come fix it for free! while you sleep!" to which the response from the prospective buyer was "stay away from my house you freak!"?. That's not really the case anymore. The tanks are still free, but the "free support" if you will, lives in a system of caves and revile the surface dwellers; insulting them for asking questions unless they do the secret handshake first.
Now obviously not all, not even a majority of linux people are going to do that to new folks, but enough do that we have the unfortunate reputation to most folks of being the caricature of the jackass IT guy best described in the "Nick Burns, your company's Computer Guy" sketches on Saturday Night Live.
One of the responses to this is "well I learned this the hard way! I read all of these man pages and read all of these forums and spent a year learning to code!". Congratulations, that is a great accomplishment, and no one is trying to lessen it. Those methods might not work for everyone, or even most people who are trying to learn. I, for one, found the man pages to be horribly inaccessible. Most of them don't even have examples.
Time to open the treefort, people learn a lot better when you're nice to them.
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
Pay attention to that.
Most of the computer users are using Windows. Therefore, that caricature is about a Windows support person and Windows users.
And "most people" are not going to try Linux because "most people" use whatever OS was installed when they purchased the computer from Dell or HP or such.
Very few people will even try Linux. Those few are (aside from the trolls) the few who understand how the system works (hardware / OS / apps / etc).
The trolls simply want Microsoft Windows
Phone support for Linux is available to those who need it. Red Hat provides it. Canonical provides it. The reason you don't hear about it that much is because the people who use it are usually supporting corporate servers, not home desktops. The people who run Linux on their home desktop already know how to use the Internet to find the answers they need.
Phone support for home users of Linux will be necessary when Linux is pre-installed on machines sold to home users by Dell and HP and so forth. And when that happens, Dell and HP and the others will provide the phone support.
But that is a long ways away. Look for Linux to gain in the corporate/government desktop market first. And the phone support for those will be the same as it is today. They will have their own IT staff trained on Linux and the specific apps that they use.
Ubuntu on the desktop is ready, today, for those people who have requirements that are met by Ubuntu.
Other people have different requirements. It's as simple as that.
Well I haven't seen a Linux user forcing Linux down a Windows user's throat in a long time, but I see complaints of it daily. It's getting to the point that by just having a thread that's talking about Linux we are forcing it down people's throats.
It seems like every discussion I read....where Linux is the topic, there are at least 20 posts putting down Linux and Linux users. To make things worse, these comments are usually +5 insightful. Yet people still complain that Slashdot is full of Linux Zealots. Maybe it's because I don't read many Windows discussions. I follow my own advice and only read the discussions that pertain to me. Though I wouldn't be in the wrong if I did, because I use both. Maybe there should be a slashdot poll to find out just how the community is divided. If I had to guess, I would say that slashdot is 75% Windows lovers these days at least.
Beer! It's what's for breakfast!
I tend to hand out on the Ubuntu channel and I don't see that.
No. Linux is free (as in speech, as in beer).
Accomplishing a specific task in Linux takes effort, the same as it does in Windows or any other system.
But most people have already invested the time to learn how to accomplish that task in Windows and they no longer remember the effort it took.
I've taught people who have never used a computer before. I know the effort it takes for them to learn. My best example was a woman who could not double click with a mouse. She had to hold it still with one hand and click the buttons with her other hand.
A week of playing solitaire and she had mastered the double click and fine mouse control.
Compare apples to apples, okay?
Again, those are the ones who already know how their systems work and how to do research online. Those are the ones who switch to Linux and stay there.
Well, that's a pretty good example of what I was saying. Linux is a kernel. Even a whole distribution is just an OS.
Who would hype it (and who would believe that hype) to the same level as "the second coming of Christ"?
What is inaccurate?
That most people use Windows? Nope, the facts contradict you.
That most computer support people are Windows support people? Nope, the facts contradict you.
Therefore, the caricature is of a Windows support person. Whether you want to accept that fact or not.
Nick Burns isn't supporting their Linux boxes. He's supporting their Windows boxes.
No. If he was doing Linux support he would be a lot less amusing because far fewer people would have experienced that type of Linux support.
Which is the reason you don't see "Nick Burns, jet engine mechanic" as a comedy routine. It wouldn't be funny because very few people would have any experience with that situation.
Nick Burns is funny to so many people because so many people have had similar experiences with Windows support personel.
Not with Linux. With Windows.
Trolls complain about Linux simply because it is different from Windows and they don't want to re-learn their "computer skills". But the reality is that they don't have "computer skills". All they have is "Windows skills".
Ubuntu, if you ever cared to look it up, is a reference to the spirit of forgiveness and humanity that inspired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela to create the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to keep South Africa from spiraling downward into civil war and slaughter. It won them the Nobel Peace Prize.
The choice of name is deliberate. Mark Shuttleworth, the man whose millions have allowed this whole process to happen, is doing his tiny part to mend South African society by following the example of some of the greatest political thinkers in modern history. The philosophy behind Ubuntu Linux is: An educated society is an enlightened society. So Shuttleworth and his foundation are spending millions of dollars promoting this principle.
Ubuntu isn't branding; it's what this software is. Heck, they're even giving away CDs to anyone who asks.
So with all due respect, try to learn just a little about something before voicing an opinion on it. You would really benefit from a learning to practice Ubuntu from time to time.
HTH HAND
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.