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New Failsafe Graphics Mode For Ubuntu
ianare sends us to Ars Technica for news of the Ubuntu Xorg BulletProof-X feature, coming soon to a 7.10 (Gutsy) build near you. "It provides a failsafe mode that will ensure that users never have to manually configure their graphics hardware settings from the command line. If Xorg fails to start,the failsafe mode will initiate with minimalistic settings, low resolution, and a limited number of colors. The failsafe mode also automatically runs Ubuntu's new GTK-based display configuration utility so that users can easily test various display settings and choose a configuration that will work properly with their hardware."
As silly as it sounds, I've come across so many new Linux users who have messed up their display settings in some way, been unable to use the command line to fix it and have just resorted to giving up or reinstalling, neither is really an ideal option.
Whilst to the average Slashdotter this may sound silly, I'd bet it's one of the biggest things that puts your average Joe off Linux through the years. Being able to easier recover from broken Linux installs will, imo go a long way to keeping people using Linux rather than the current situation where quite a few try, but many give up. Linux is generally nice and stable, but when it does go wrong, to most people it's just far, far too hard to recover your installation back into a working state - much more so than, dare I say it, Windows. This is however why I'd say Ubuntu has been making such headway in attracting new users to Linux because they do seem to understand what problems exactly that up until now have been putting many new users off Linux.
Heh, the flamebait that'd be modded Insightful solely depending on the OS. ;)
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This is very good, I'm sure a lot of users would like to have the choice of selecting these in a graphical mode, which with they may be more familiar. Many users familiar with Windows/OSX will automatically be more familiar with Ubuntu because of this feature. It's important to have as many options available on CLI and GUI at the same time.
I remember that back in the day YaST (SuSE's Yet Another Setup Tool) used to be incredibly handy because the CLI and GUI for the tool, which controlled almost all configurable options of the Linux distro, would behave almost exactly the same. The CLI used curses for display, and I believe the GUI was QT-based. They functioned pretty much identically. Personally, I have no problem just editing a text file. But, if you are a linux newbie and you poke around in the GUI and mess something up, then suddenly you can't start X, you feel a little bit safer knowing that there's a tool you can use to revert your settings that works exactly the same on the CLI as it does in the GUI, so you can access the program in almost any situation, even from a remote terminal.
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Linux has always had "safe mode". You boot single user from the command line.
..... I guess you could consider it "safe mode" for X.org. But not for "Linux".
This is more "easy GUI re-configuration of X.org when X.org blows up".
Well
It's news because Ubuntu is currently the flagship of the mainstream Linux distros - it's generally the first option for people wanting to try Linux out, so improvements like this are rather important to its success.
So if I don't do post-burn checks, then the disc will be a bad burn? How odd... No, if you don't do post-burn checks you don't know the burn is bad and won't burn a second disk. It's a difficult concept, I know. Think it over; you'll get it I'm sure.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I think that that is the case ONLY because those people are coming from a Windows background.
And the problem with your perception is that you think that the linux command line mentality is better for the average joe user. I don't disagree that if you know what you're doing, it is much easier to fix a broken Linux than it is to fix a broken Windows. But the key here is that most people don't know what they're doing. Parts of the design of Windows are aimed at users that don't know what they're doing so that their PC will at least be somewhat functional for them with all of the familiar interfaces even if something bad happens.
You see, the command line or text messages with a black background mean nothing to the user. For all purposes, if they don't see something that resembles their desktop, they think their computer is broken. They also don't care if they have to type in one command to fix it because to them, learning that the command line exists and that you can even enter text commands is too much to deal with. If you can't expect failure in your software and implement necessary messages and functionality to recover to a close but not quite mode expected by the user, it doesn't mean a damn thing because they will end up calling the nearest geek to fix it. And when they do that, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to fix or even if you can't fix it. They've already lost time waiting for your service and your service is only seen as a backup effort. If geeks were not available, they probably would have considered their computer broken and the only way to fix it would be to purchase a new one.
The people at Ubuntu are doing more for linux and open source software adoption than anyone else has. Take a hint and learn something about understanding other (non-techy) user's viewpoints. If all open source developers could actually understand those users, then linux might eventually be ready for the desktop.