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Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beta Released
vivaoporto writes "The Beta version of the popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu 7.04, was released today. Codenamed Feisty Fawn, the CD images can be downloaded from the Canonical Servers, and the final version is due to be released next month. Get it while it's hot! Read more about it on the official wiki."
Well, if you used bittorrent, it would go up =P (after enough ppl had parts downloaded.
That better not be true, because it's impossible. But we know that it it isn't true - Mac OS X and Windows Vista are far from flawless, and yet people still manage to muddle their way through using those systems. In fact, lots of people manage to use Ubuntu right now even with a couple of bugs.
The fact that it neither recovers in that situation nor gives the "correct" command to recover is legitimately a serious problem - I hope you filed a bug on it - but it shouldn't seriously prevent anyone from being able to use the system. Pasting any chunk of the error message into google gives the answer, as does asking anyone who knows anything about Ubuntu directly.
Switching to any different operating system will be non-trivial, unless someone else is administering it. There's no way around that, however much people trying to switch to various Linux distros demand that it not be so. Ubuntu is well beyond the point where anyone can easily use it if they are willing to slog through the difficulties of learning the basics of a new system - and no new system can ever be significantly better than that.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I've been running it for some time now as I've signed up as a tester some time back. I must say in the past I was a big Ubuntu hater as I am part of another Linux distro's admin staff. However, I gave it a spin and must admit, as far as polish, ease of use, stability and the latest software goes, Ubuntu is by far the ultimate "free as in beer" ditro in my book. My previous biased opinion was quickly shattered. In retrospect I wish I have tried Edgy.
You're both right. It needs to be better and it can't be perfect.
Here's my take on the particular situation the OP brought up.
1. telling the user about the problem
1A. it can detect the problem well enough to tell the user what needs to be done... so why doesn't it just ask if it is ok to do that and then do it itself so the user doesn't have to figure out how to type in a command.
1B. if 1A is too much work then at least tell the user "you will need to type this in a window; you get the window by...."
2. telling the user about privilege
2A. It should, tell the user his account doesn't have the privilege necessary...
2B. It should tell the user in words a newbie is most likely to understand, not "you need to be superuser" or something similar but "you will need administrator privileges to do this; here is how you can get them for the purpose of running this command". Administrator is a plain English word whose plain English meaning is exactly right for this context.
I know, it is a PITA to explain every last thing to newbies, but if you aren't willing to put the effort in to do that then you will never win over new users... they will hit something like this, throw their hands up in the air and go back to something more familiar - whatever that is. That's human nature, it isn't going to change, you have two choices: get used to it and work around it or give up. That's all there is to it.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Really? Cause 5 minutes on Google is what it took me to fix EVERY major issue with Ubuntu I've had thus far, and I have no Linux geek to turn to for help...
The problem is that he told the newbie to use Synaptic at all. Synaptic is not the right tool for newbies. This is the mistake experts make when trying to "help" their friends learn Linux: they tell their friends how to do things the complicated way, and then when their friends can't figure it out, they conclude that linux isn't ready for prime time.
The proper way for a newbie to install software is Add/Remove programs right off the ubuntu menu... just like in fracking Windows, for Pete's sake.