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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."
Linux gets Safe Mode!
I guess that's an advance.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is great, but should have been done a long time ago! I have heard several people say they "tried ubuntu but it wouldn't work"... I determined the graphics failure to be an issue 100% of the time.
Get a web developer
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.
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.
Twinstiq, game news
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
Although I've haven't had *nix installed on any of my home computers yet, I'm very happy indeed that Windows XP looks to be the last MS OS I will ever use.
Changing to Linux is now something I'm thinking about on at least a weekly basis, and the upcoming version Ubuntu seems very likely to make me leave Windows. (Except for a small gaming partition).
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Xandros and other distros have had this for years.
I think that that is the case ONLY because those people are coming from a Windows background.
Personally, I find it far, Far, FAR, FAR easier to recover a damaged Linux box than a damaged Windows box. But that is primarily because the damaged Windows boxes that I get have major Registry issues.
As long as you can get an Ubuntu box to boot to the command line, it is "easy" to fix. "Easy" is in quotes because it takes a little bit of knowledge. But not much. I'm running Gutsy Gibbon at home and even with 2 problems (it is still alpha) I've been able to recover my system without rebooting in less than 5 minutes.
The magic is in APT and the repositories. As long as I can connect to the repositories and run APT, I can remove the problem or re-install over it.
As more people become familiar with Ubuntu (and Debian and Debian-based distributions) the "fear" of Linux will vanish. It's just so much EASIER than Windows. (unless your hardware isn't supported but that's a different issue)
I remember Jeff Waugh (Gnome guy, also worked at Canonical) had mentioned at last year's Ohio Linux Fest there had been talk about this for years but everyone was always busy working on other stuff. Glad to see they finally are getting it out.
This is clearly a great example of the agile developers of the OSS community. Only months after Microsoft announces similar features in the upcoming Windows version customized for the home user, the OSS movement has once again beat them to it, and implemented features only mentioned with vague release dates by the huge Seattle-based software company. Way to go, guys!
A Windows user boots Ubuntu on a new laptop, say, and gets a low-res 'safe mode' telling them that there's no specific support for their video hardware ("Ubuntu failed to start the windowing system because it was unable to properly configure your hardware").
Out of the box Xorg supports more video cards than Windows does. It also supports the use of generic drivers for standards compliant cards, such as VESA.
They can't download a driver package and update.
Of course they can. ATI and nVidia, the two biggest graphics card vendors provide Linux driver packages you can download. In fact, Ubuntu has a utility that will do this automatically for you.
They can't use a driver off a CD that came with the machine, because there aren't any.
Generally it's the same with Windows. My last computer, a Compaq, didn't come with any CD. The only option was to create a "restore" CD/DVD which amounted to little more than a disk image. Say I want to install a different version of Windows than what the machine was imaged with, where are the drivers?
None of your arguments against X hold water, and of course if you actually put some thought into it, you'd be able to come up with some simple reasons why failsafe mode is useful. What if your X has the right drivers, but the auto detect failed or something you did borked the configuration? With failsafe mode you can revert back to a correct driver setting and recover your desktop rather quickly and painlessly.
You cite Windows as "the superior way," but don't you even realize that Windows has a graphics safe mode for exactly the same reason as Ubuntu has now? If anything Ubuntu is mimicking something Windows has done for over a decade. If the feature were as useless as you claim, why hasn't Microsoft removed that feature by now, and why do I have so much first hand experience utilizing it at home and work?
Done already. In fact, Linux has many of them: apt-get, yum, emerge, and more! It's a veritable cornucopia of unified program installation methods.
Loose lips lose spit.
I still don't understand why you keep referring to changing the protocol in the first place.
Because the protocol version number is "11", and the name "X11" includes the protocol version number. The X Window System (or just "X" for short) has been stable on version 11 of the protocol for a long time now.
The name "X12" implies a change in the protocol that is so serious that no existing X software will know how to talk to it (because all existing X software is X11 software).
They keep on changing the release revision; we are up to 7.2 now, as in "X11R7.2".
So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
Take in computers that need repair, fix them using my bench and give the tower back to the customer knowing their system would automatically adjust itself to their display and input devices when they went home from win95b on. The fact that I STILL can't do that with Linux/X today is just pathetic.
The X.org guys are in fact working on that. The fact that we can't do it today is just legacy fallout from the poor way that the Xfree86 guys used to run things.
A short (and not polite) summary of the history of X:
-- X invented at a university. Runs quickly through version numbers but stabilises at 11.
-- X not generally available for free for years.
-- Some guys make a free version of X for the 386, and call it "Xfree86".
-- Xfree86 becomes the standard X for free OSes.
-- Xfree86 project management becomes an obvious problem.
-- Talented X developer Keith Packard starts talking to people about ways to improve Xfree86 project management.
-- Xfree86 lead developers accuse Keith Packard of trying to "subvert" Xfree86 management, and kick Keith Packard out of Xfree86. Keith Packard goes to X.org.
-- Xfree86 lead developers go completely insane, and change the licence for X to include onerous new "advertising" requirements.
-- The whole Free Software world, more or less simultaneously, abandons Xfree86, and X.org becomes the new standard X.
-- Xfree86 is now completely irrelevant.
-- X.org guys (including Keith Packard) revamp X to make it easier to work on, revamp dev protocols to make it easier to get things done, and start making cool stuff happen.
Feel free to look up X11, Xfree86, etc. on Wikipedia if you want to know more.
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.
If you hit Ctrl+Alt+F# (F1, F2, etc) you can get into a command line, then login and use sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf to edit your configuration file. Of course, users should never be expected to do such a thing, but it's at least nice to know that you can.
1) You're running an x86 PC with a VESA compliant graphics card, or any platform which has 'legacy VGA' registers mapped. What about PPC or something? It's frighteningly rare for the kernel framebuffer not to work on these platforms but there are some times where the X.org driver/autodetect or most commonly GDM doesn't quite configure your card correctly and hands you a garbage display. I never understood why X.org can't have a TRUE framebuffer console driver which simply inherits the mode the kernel gives it.
This isn't bulletproof it's just a band-aid.
2) Everyone loves GTK+ - well, I pretty much don't. Does this mean the Kubuntu guys have to install GTK now? Actually not, because there is a cute KDE app for it, but seriously.. why does everyone fawn over the GTK stuff and never show the Qt stuff?
In fact, it turns out this was a KDE app to start with. Quote;
Which just begs the question, why wasn't this news when the KDE app got written?
3) Everyone loves GDM, well, I don't. What's up with KDM these days? Does it handle it better? None of the developers are telling the success story on any project I'm watching right now, it's all "GDM breaks this" and "we have problems with that". So it worked on KDE before, but nobody thought to say "this is a great feature, now we port it to GTK"?
There are some very strange priorities in the software world these days.. bug reports flood the net and nobody talks about anything being finished..