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Ubuntu Feisty Fawn - Desktop Linux Matured
Provataki writes "It seems that Linux on the desktop is getting there, with Ubuntu. Eugenia of OSNews fame wrote a glorifying preview about Ubuntu's next version, dubbed Feisty Fawn. The review talks up the new features, like the restricted drivers/codecs management, easier package management, and good laptop support. The review also lists some of the distro's flaws in the current beta. A good read for those who are curious about what's next for Linux on the desktop. The piece concludes: ' Ubuntu is a distro that obviously has paid attention to detail ... and has found a good middle ground between hard core Linux users and new users from the Windows/OSX land.'"
I find it hard to believe I'm the only one who is going to find it hard to take an OS with the name Feisty Fawn seriously!
"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One stands for danger; the other for opportunity
> Nonsense. Users of the GPL have no authority to make such a restriction and there is none in the GPL. Remember, the GPL is a licence not a contract,
> so it can't restrict what people can do with other stuff, only what they can do with the stuff covered by the licence.
License doesn't take anything away from the users. Let's remember that without any license, the program is protected by the copyright law. So you have permission to distribute it at all. So even you are allowed to do what ever you want with the non-GPLed software, you might not be allowed to do the same with the GPLed software. So in practise this means that you are allowed to distribute "A" and "B", but if you are trying to distribute those together, you no longer have permission to distribute the "B".
Here's the interesting part from the license:
"If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License"
Source: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
The license mentions an example. A program "A" can be distributed under whatever license or without one, but if the "A" is distributed with GPLed software, the whole distribution must be on the terms of the GPL. If A can't be GPled, then it can't be distributed with the distribution.
Translation:
"Linux is only for l33t h4xx0rs, you lamer! It HAS to be needlessly complex and difficult to use, install, understand! Because we are "better", we are "l33t", and all those mundanes are not worthy of using it! Use this "Windows" if you are a mere mortal. Oh, and don't bother us with "user-friendliness" and "UI design", these things are l4m3."
Idiots like you are the main reason why the Open Source community is being perceived as a bunch of elitist asswipes.
But guess what: if Desktop Linux comes, backed by quite resourceful organizations, then you and your kind won't have anything to say about it.
Deal with it.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Since you know so much about it-- have you considered fixing it yourself and sharing a patch or getting someone you know to do it?
What's wrong with this picture?
"I needed to have more information for my laptop's LCD. By manually entering the vertical and horizontal sync in the xorg.conf file it fixed the problem for my 1440x900 screen and I was able to load the LiveCD and finally install Feisty on the hard drive."
"Compiz is now part of Ubuntu although turned off by default because it still has major problems."
"installing new apps is now a breeze. Although Ubuntu has 5 GUI applications that are package-related and that can create some confusion..."
"I manually installed libdvdcss because this is not included in the restricted list and Totem now refuses to playback any DVD if you try to load it via Totem's menu"
"Please note that Ubuntu mistakenly loads the BCM43xx driver for my Broadcomm/Dell 1390 WiFi card and that resulted in a lot of errors in the terminal by the system (missing firmware?). I had to blacklist the BCM43xx driver before I could successfully install ndiswrapper and finally get WiFi support. [Update: I installed the bcm43xx-cutter package and installed the required firmware and WiFi now works with the open source driver which unfortunately is not stable (I lose connection after a minute or so)"
"Another fine moment is that Ubuntu supports suspend-to-RAM (sleep) on my laptop out of the box, although I noticed that once every 5-6 wake ups some stuff can get screwy (e.g. X dying, network card not responding etc)"
"There were very few the times that I had to pop to the terminal to carry out an important action."
"Some of these problems include: the i810 driver would not playback HD video (Xv crashing) if I would not add the Cachelines option in the Xorg.conf, copy/paste from Firefox does not work if Firefox is then closed down (this was fixed last year for Gnome apps, time to fix Firefox too), Gossip does not connect to anything else but jabber.org (e.g. no gtalk), digicam's RAW files open by default with the wrong applications (only Cinepaint and UFRaw can handle these but they are not set as defaults for the RAW mime types), I have bad AC97 "scratchy" sound with most SDL games (e.g. Neverball, LTris etc), Bluetooth would not work at all here if you don't run "hcitool hci0 reset" before loading the service, there is no option in the gnome-mouse pref panel to disable tap-to-click on touchpads (gsynaptics is really buggy so I prefer to not mess with it), HAL is not built with libsmbios and so the new Gnome "brightness applet" does not support any DELL laptop, FFmpeg is built without AAC (so it's not possible to encode videos for my cellphone) etc. However, these are not problems that I can't live with or not find workarounds."
Excuse me, folks, but this is a litany of screwed up stuff nobody should have to tolerate on ANY OS - even Windows.
Why is it that the distros STILL do not have a database of every commonly used monitor with an effective method of detecting - or EVEN ASKING THE USER - to identify the monitor and installing the correct horizontal and vertical sync? I mean, I can understand it that my old ViewSonic 6 isn't detected properly in every distro, but the latest monitors? NOBODY can get the proper HV sync figures into the hardware database? C'mon!
Why does Ubuntu need FIVE package management programs? That is just ridiculous...I thought Fedora Core 5 was braindead for having TWO! What, we can't get ONE program to function properly, so we cover that up by installing FOUR MORE?
WHY is Totem, the least competent media player, the default? Why is Kaffeine demoted when it obviously can play encrypted DVDs without hosing itself just because libdvdcss is installed?
Why are so many obviously crippled and not ready for primetime packages being included in so many distros - like Compiz? Is it just because of "featuritis" inherited from Microsoft?
And we see that Wi-Fi and laptop hibernation STILL do not work properly? What is this, rocket science? Linux finally got the printer problem licked so that now you just select the printer and
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
BINGO!
Hit the nail on the head.
Just as I've been saying - NOT ENOUGH MANPOWER TO DO THE JOB! Stuff that should come out in testing falls through the cracks. Result - stuff that should work out of the box doesn't. Too much emphasis from the distro on eye candy and adding features while not spending the effort to nail down the basics.
I mean, the Kubuntu 6.06 CD installer would not let you exit the mount point change screen! OBVIOUSLY the install process was NEVER TESTED on that release! I mean, how the hell could it have been?
Ubuntu is TOO NEW a distro to be recommended to newbie first users of Linux. They need a MATURE distro like Mandriva. I wouldn't recommend Fedora, but even SUSE would be better than Ubuntu because it is more mature.
Ubuntu is supposed to be better for newbies because it's "dumbed down". Unfortunately, it's "dumbed down" in the design and testing departments, too.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!