Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
"A positive point about the new version is the booting speed: Feisty boots in 40 seconds on my laptop, while Vista needs about 50 (with McAfee turned off)." How does the current version of Ubuntu compare to this? I have a new laptop and it seems to take over two minutes (while plugged in) to boot up. Oddly, it takes ~1 minute to boot up when it isn't plugged in. I don't understand how that works, but alright. For comparision, Windows XP boots in about 45 seconds.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
Not yet, 2008 is the year of Linux.
I decided to try Ubuntu (my first unix experience) two days ago. I spent two days trying to get it to use a proper aspect ratio for my main monitor and to use my second monitor as anything but a clone of the first monitor. All I could do was the former. I may go back to it someday to play but I just spent the evening learning how to get grub to boot into windows automatically and to hide the grub menu. Granted there may be an easy solution to all unix problems but they are not intuitive. I love (and use) many open source programs but until I have 9-5 job, I don't have the time to learn even Ubuntu.
It's amazing how, since Ubuntu hit the scene, that the Linux Desktop has just dramatically improved. Before Ubuntu, things were meandering along without much focus it seems, with the best out of the box experience being Knoppix, which unfortunately was too complicated for the average user to install (being focused as it was as a Live CD).
It seems now that every six months brings as more improvements as Vista has to XP. And for most users, I would consider the Linux desktop as "here", if not for some applications which have little to do with the distro itself but have me asking - when are developers going to step in and provide ports or at least make sure they run fine in Wine without much modification? Do we Linux users have to signal to them that we are more than willing to pay for some things? Will Click-n-Run, when ported to Ubuntu later this year, spur this on? Will CnR maybe bring up a new crop of Linux developers servicing the Linux community with specific pay-for apps in the vacuum of development houses staying loyal to MS? Not every App lends itself to having the developer do support contracts afterall.
It's frustrating to be ignored, I already "converted" 3 people to Ubuntu this year - but these are types who simply want to browse the web and one had their MS OS trashed by malware and wanted something secure but convenient (FYI I don't delete Windows, just shrink the partition if they ever need it). But these are side converts, it really doesn't matter what OS they use - they won't ever go out and buy software - so for all intents and purposes the development houses can ignore them.
Ubuntu is still its own OS (as are the other distros): See Ian Murdoch essay.
As such, no platform exists for PC software vendors to target.
Case in point, the 3dfx xorg driver. Worked fine in Dapper. Broken in Edgy. A two line patch to add the proper prototype for a function fixes the problem in Edgy. Bug report is closed because it's been fixed in Feisty.
Or how about the USB hot plug stuff missing a bunch of digital camera IDs? Pretty well documented, but nope. Not fixed in Edgy. As a result, using a digital camera with Ubuntu requires lots of digging.
The revolution will be mocked
I got an IBM r52 recently; I tried installing XP on it - initially with the supposed foolproof system restore image, then from scratch, and three or four hours later, still had no usable system. The drivers just wouldn't install or download and I couldn't find a way to transport them from my other machine. Then I put an ubuntu 6.10 disc in, and bout half an hour later, without little to no interaction, had a perfectly working system. Even wifi worked out of the box. (WPA authentication took a little bit more digging, but was surprisingly easy once I found the package to use).
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
"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."
If Windows is too hard for people (and it is), what on Earth makes you think mortals will be able to do that? That's not a mature product designed for end users, despite how (otherwise) nice Ubuntu is.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I've been running the Herd releases for Feisty. And I just can't say enough good things about it.
Wireless just works. Automatically. No dicking around with swapping config files if I switch between an open AP and a WEP/WPA-locked AP.
Beryl. With the underlying AIGLX support, Beryl installed and just worked right out of the box on my laptop. SWEET!
Ubuntu has drastically reduced the hassle of just getting a Linux system into a usable, functional configuration. If they keep going, they're going to be a credible replacement for Windows, even for mega-luddites.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"Why is it that everyone is so focused on linux desktops, and not the core internals of the OS?"
Core internals? Hah, I know where you're from. So, a question for a question: where are all the Windows fanboys raving about the fantastic core internals of Vista? That is right.
"I hear many linux geeks whining about how bloated the windows vista system is"
You do? Well, it must be true than, eh? I remember geeks complaining about how bloated XP, 2000, ME, 98SE, 98 or KDE, Gnome, 2.6, 2.5, Red Hat, SuSE etc. etc. etc. is. So, when I hear someone complain about bloat, i don't take them serious, it really was the only thing they could think of. And it sounds really professional, like you actually only care about serious server-like stuff.
"Why do we then go and focus so much on the same aspects of linux?" Sorry, what's your beef??? I can't parse the logic of your comment. First you complain that linux geeks are preoccupied with Vista bloat, then you state we do the same with linux (or don't do the same)?
"I read the malloc man page, and the big memory mapping issue still remains, and as a result I still need to continually reboot to keep my ram defragmented....." Yeah, I read the same, you know how much work it is to keep that ram defragmented? I do it by hand(!!), can you believe how much work that is!
Eugenia's claim to fame is that she's been writing about Linux desktops and distros for a long time. Not that she's very balanced or objective. To me, her reviews are allways very opinionated without really being to the point.
A real woman in other words...
Ducks...
From the Ubuntu forums:
Ubuntu 7.04 Alpha 5 CD image testing started
** FEISTY IS NOT SUITABLE FOR EVERYDAY USE RIGHT NOW IT IS ONLY IN ALPHA. **
If you are interested in helping to test CD images for the upcoming Ubuntu release you can find more information here:
This is a very serious problem of Ubuntu that is overlooked by the developers. Problems with specific hardware like those in the TFA, can be common especially these days with so many different combinations of monitors and video cards. I'd like to see some sort of "safe mode" that kicks in when there are problems, and a GUI to allow proper reconfiguration. If you expect a windows user to manually edit Xorg.conf, you're wrong.
Ubuntu will not be ready for any decent work while it still has bugs like the infamous overheating bug. I mean, I love Kubuntu and I adopted it as my main OS but seriously, it still suffers from a showstopping overheating bug which is almost 2 years old. I mean, what good is an OS for if it simply can't cope with any mildly CPU-intensive application (i.e., compiling, encoding sound files, running any 3D application, etc...) before hanging, crashing and endangering the hardware itself?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
For people experiencing hardware problems preventing them from having the usual effortless Ubuntu experience, I offer the following advice. Linux still *does* have a few blind spots where hardware support is concerned, but if you can maneuver around these, you'll be fine.
1) If you can get non-USB replacements for your USB hardware, you might want to consider doing so. Obviously with things like cameras and memory cards, that's not an option...but for such devices as keyboards, it is. You might even have less problems under Windows if you do that as well.
2) Use non-wireless network hardware where possible. I myself have a RealTek Ethernet card, which has very solid support under both Linux and the BSDs...it is also one of the core hardware drivers included with the Menuet OS.
3) If you can avoid a need for printing entirely, you'll be a lot happier. I don't own a printer, and I am deeply gratified to be able to make that claim. I consider printers genuinely evil things. I've been using different types of computers on and off since the early 80s, and in all of that time, the one type of hardware that I've seen people having more consistent difficulty with is printers. That is still true under Linux.
Your comment about "Joe User" is accurate ... but premature.
The group that will initially drive Linux adoption (whether *buntu or other) will be governments and businesses.
The majority (99.9%+) of workers in those two categories will not be focused on the latest hardware and toys. They use wired connections, 2D graphics and save their data onto a central server. Their users do not maintain nor upgrade their boxes. They have experts who do that for them. And being Debian-based, *buntu is very easy to upgrade/maintain.
The only features missing for those categories are email / calendaring / scheduling (similar to Outlook/Exchange, GroupWise or Lotus Notes) and directory services (similar to Active Directory or eDirectory). The directory services may be here soon from Red Hat's Directory Server http://www.redhat.com/software/rha/directory. But the email segment is taking a bit longer. Eventually that will be here also.
At which point, non-US governments will be heavily pushing to get off the Microsoft upgrade treadmill. Particularly since they'll be able to invest in their LOCAL developers to polish Linux for their specific needs.
As the government / business workers gain familiarity with Linux at work, they'll be more comfortable using Linux at home. But the home market will be the LAST market that Linux will crack. And it will take YEARS (literally).
If you want to bring the home market around quicker, you need to focus on bringing WINE up to speed for their applications (and the home users have a LOT of different apps, each with slightly different requirements and almost NONE of them written in an easily portable fashion). Or you can work on near identical apps for them (which addresses your point about them "learning" by rote).
"mere aggregation".
Read the GPL. Things are not black and white as you are construing them to be.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
... the Average User ("AU") will start adopting it. This really should be the goal of Linux now that it is well into its teens. Time to stop being a geek-only, tinkerer OS and streamline the process. Now, admittedly, this is a beta... but I have dealt with these problems in all kinds of final Linux distros over the years. With that in mind, I am not so inspired by this review. Consider the following from the article:
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.Fortunately, I have not had to do this since about Slackware 8 or 9 (and that was on an old 486 Dell). Even then, it was NOT fun. You will not get a mom to edit xorg.conf. You will not get your typical manager/supervisor to edit xorg.conf. You will get them, however, to call the MCSE tech to fix a driver issue in Windows or a problem with Exchange.
...the bootloader should be installed it could use some friendlier "names" rather than just (hd0,0)...The AU doesn't know hd0,0 from eth1 from lpt. Why even have these as default names if you want the AU to know what it is? It is intimidating for an AU to decipher tech names for hardware. They just want to see "Wireless" and know that is what they configure to hook up at the local coffee shop.
I would personally go with AIXGL and Beryl instead of the slower-evolving Compiz (after re-writing Beryl's pref panels of course to be more humane/sane)What is a resistance to a consistent interface and making things look at least somewhat like Windows by default in the Linux community? It always seemed to me that consistency and a default Windows look and feel would encourage AU adoption. Looking at the desktop of a Linux distro for the first time is like getting into a car with the break/accelerator pedals reversed and the radio and other interior controls located on the door. Let's get some consistency and start it up looking like Windows so the AU can find everything. Then let them move everything around!
I manually installed libdvdcss Yeesh! Never happen with an AU... and an AU would never adopt an OS they couldn't just watch a DVD (or rip an MP3 or whatever) from first boot. I had to blacklist the BCM43xx driver before I could successfully install ndiswrapper and finally get WiFi support. Again, see "manual installation" issue above. There were very few the times that I had to pop to the terminal to carry out an important action.This should be a "never" for AU adoption. Geeks want to run everything from the terminal, moms, wives and bosses do not.
I am 33 years old and I just don't have the same energy as I used to to deal with stupid issues that they should not be there, or with removal or non-development of conveniences for no good reason.Isn't this what ALL computer users want!?!
I am 35 and I write this on a T23 with Ubuntu Edgy Eft installed. Five or six years ago I would have spent hours getting Linux installed on a machine b/c I liked the challenge. Now, I have enough to do without fighting over all the stuff mentioned in this article (and hey for Edgy Eft on the T23, wireless was the only real difficult thing)! AUs of all ages are the same way with maybe the younger ones have slightly more intestinal fortitude to configure Linux under the hood.
My hope is that they clean this up in beta and Feisty installs as (more or less) easily as Edgy did for me, but this is not an article that inspires me to believe the Feisty is a transformative release for purposes of Average User adoption.
Gem from a comments list attached to this article:
So, apparently, like man-caused-global-warming, the discussion about Linux is closed.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
And I run blackbox on my windows machine. Though, I can do have other options, too, such as Xoblite (a blackbox fork), LiteStep, or Aston, which I find consumes even less memory (abouy 3-4 mb worth), while giving me fancy plugins, transparency, and all that fun stuff. Hell, even GNUstep/Etoile does windows. And I'm pretty sure I've seen WindowMaker ports, as well.
Oh, yes, and you can also strip down windows by either hacking up the registry, or using fancy third-party Frontends. I recall sliming 9x to a 45mb install, and XP to about 1-200mb, by stripping out unecessary components and services (e.g. Outlook, Mediaplayer, explorer, etc). I haven't tried Vista as of yet, nor do I intend to in the near future, but I know that many of the alternate WMs havebeen ported.
Really, I'm trying hard, but I can't quite seem to get your point. Windows has had the option to swap outthe default explorer shell in favour of another, since NT4, and the process is painless. So, with that in mind, if your criticism is a fair one, would it not be just as fair to argue that Ubuntu is bloated because it installs Gnome by default?
Of course it isn't, you can't, however, have it both ways.
FWI: I'm not fanboying, but I do use a Windows desktop alongside my Unix boxen boxen, and I realise that each has their strengths and weaknesses, each their uses, and not one is unilaterally "better" than the other in all respects.
Matt Edd's issues are real. Windows is PRE-INSTALLED. That's why it doesn't have them. That's also why Microsoft fights like Godzilla to keep any other OS from being pre-installed. If people had to do their own installs of Windows (any version), the whole world would already be using Ubuntu, even with the well-documented problems for new users (manual edits of some config files and the like).
There's no point carping that such and such is "not a *nix problem" or "is a closed-source driver problem." Only we care. Lots of people out there want it to just work. Where we should be directing our energies is getting anti-monopoly laws applied to OEMs who won't provide specs so that drivers can be written, and to companies who kill people when they pre-install anyone else's OS.
I recently installed feisty fawn to take a look, what I found disturbed me greatly. From install to finish I never had to touch a terminal. I got my 3d drivers, aixgl and video codecs working all in the comfort of a gui. This is unacceptable to me! If i don't have to edit my fstab, apt, or xorg config files, how will i look super smart to someone sitting over my shoulder? I switched from windows so that I would look smart dammit!
Browse at -1 to keep an eye out for abuses.
The chunk which you're quoting you've taken out of context. It refers specifically to modified versions of the original work and describes the circumstances under which chunks of that modified version might be distributed under a different licence. It's thus not relevant to the issue under discussion.
HTH