Ubuntu Is Hyper-Active At OSCON

ruphus13 writes "Ubuntu and Canonical have been very active at OSCON this year. They showcased a new distro, announced improvements to their code-hosting platform, and made Mark Shuttleworth available for a couple of talks and panel sessions. Quoting: 'Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a complete distribution designed to run on Atom-based Netbook PCs. The main difference that sets it apart from its big brother Hardy Heron is the Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) Launcher, a user interface created specifically for use on the teensy screens and keyboards of today's popular ultra-portable computers.' Canonical also announced Version 2.0 of Launchpad, their code-hosting platform. Enhancements include 'a planned API that'll allow third-party applications to authenticate, query and modify data in the massive Launchpad database, without a user needing to manually access the system via a browser.' Mark Shuttleworth went on to state that Linux's market share will grow when it has better eye-candy than Apple's."

Comments

If its shiny

[Gat0r30y]

they will come...
I think Shuttleworth might be on to something there.

Re:If its shiny

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet I still haven't "upgraded" to Vista.

Funny how that works.

Re:If its shiny

[Stanistani]

Microsoft's response will be to add autoinjectors loaded with Ritalin to their base operating system installs.

Re:If its shiny

[E IS mC(Square)]

Shiny, and fast, and cheap, and useful.

Ubuntu (and many other popular distros) have been trying to get there. Last missing part was "Shiny" - Compiz and other similar eye-candies may get them there.

Re:If its shiny

[smussman]

I think it's because an OS should have the shiny UI, *and* reliability/good hardware support.

I think Vista is a pretty good reason why trying for just the one doesn't work.

Re:If its shiny

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Not only does the OS have to be prettier than osx ... but they've got to make some sort of electronic status symbol to rival apple's ipod / macbook.

I'd get one just to show that I WASN'T using apple (or m$)..

Re:If its shiny

[Anonymous Coward]

Compiz and KDE 4 (If they ever get KDE 4 to work right) will definitely start to draw people to Ubuntu. After all, we are watching something happen right now that is a major change - Windows is in a descending arc of popularity and people are willing to try something new. OSX is grabbing up most of that, but while OSX is very nice, I just don't like it as much as Ubuntu Linux/Gnome/KDE... We might be seeing the start of something big here.

Re:If its shiny

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

A Friend of mine recently tried Ubuntu Hardy. He wasn't too fond of Vista, and couldn't get his hands on a copy of XP. He's quite familiar with computers, but I would not describe him as technically minded. Expecting a short and brutal install process followed by a hasty retreat back to Windows, I was frankly blown away by what followed.

Firstly, he installed it, via the Windows installer, without undue hassle and was initially very impressed. He ended up having problems with wireless network card drivers, but before then he discovered the compiz window/eye-candy manager and the whole cube desktop thing, as well as dual monitor and window tiling features. He even ended up compiling an add on for compiz from source, and this someone who to my knowledge has never even written a Hello World program (though he has edited game ini files and the like).

He has seen Macs, and though he's impressed, the price is off putting. Anyway he is now using Vista, and has found its visual effects fairly pleasing. But, he still wants to go back to Ubuntu, due in no small part to the compiz cube, which he considers superior. In fact, even his girlfriend actually prefers Ubuntu. This last remark, while somewhat sexist, is in this particular case a justified testament to the wide appeal of Hardy.

In short, I remain shocked, bewildered and pleasantly bemused by this state of affairs. Desktop Linux is here right now. No actually, it's over here. It is not an exaggeration to state that Aunt Tillie can use and actually enjoy Ubuntu Hardy, as though as it might be for us to accept it.

I personally thought that with Microsoft's Vista difficulties, Apple and OSX would be in the ascendant. Right now however, I foresee the migration of a sizeable fraction of home desktop users to Ubuntu in the short term. You would be surprised just how fast Ubuntu can spread once people see those wobbling windows and desktop cubes.

Remember how you though that Bittorrent would be too complicated from the average desktop user? Yeah.

Re:If its shiny

[JohnBailey]

And yet I still haven't "upgraded" to Vista.

Funny how that works.

Shiny... not slimy..

Re:If its shiny

[Smauler]

As an alternative experience, I tried to install Ubuntu the other night and got as far as partitioning. Turns out it doesn't see "fakeraid" partitions. I was lucky I knew a little about my partitions etc or I might have tried to continue the install, which I'm sure would have completely wiped my Windows partition. Anyway, I did a little research, got a little drunk, got to this page and gave up. I'll give it another go when I've got a bit of time on my hands.

Desktop installation of operating systems is not properly ready for the masses. My Windows Vista 64 installation didn't go right either, for entirely different reasons.

Re:If its shiny

[Belial6]

I would have to completely disagree. Right after my son's 2nd birthday, I was in one of these kinds of discussions, and decided to do a little experiment. So, I formatted my son's hard drive, gave him an Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) disk, and told him to go install his computer. He did it with no problems. Now if a two year old who cannot read yet can install the OS, I think that it is unfair to say that it is not properly ready for the masses.

As an aside, I followed up with having him try to install WindowsXP. He was unsuccessful. I attribute this to the fact that WindowsXP required reading to get through the install.

Re:If its shiny

[Medievalist]

My 11-year-old son successfully installed Ubuntu & that silly compiz cube thing. He's now got WOW running under wine, too.

I had some trouble, though, because I have a large soft RAID rig that I didn't want to give up. It seems to me that if you are doing something well outside the desktop mainstream Ubuntu isn't any better than anything else.

YMMV.

Re:If its shiny

[Anonymous Coward]

Another Twitter sockpuppet? Where do you find the time?

Re:If its shiny

[Darkness404]

Compiz and KDE 4 (If they ever get KDE 4 to work right) will definitely start to draw people to Ubuntu.

Yes on Compiz, no on KDE 4. Even being used to KDE, GNOME and every other DE available for *Nix, KDE 4 just feels... Odd. Sure it may be better than KDE 3 or GNOME, but to a Windows user, KDE 4 along with looking like Vista (big mistake right there), doesn't have the same look and feel as Windows or GNOME. I think that GNOME with Compiz will attract people, but KDE 4 just won't work for Windows refugees. (And, no I don't mean this as a KDE flame, I like how KDE 4 is new and different, but, to attract people from Windows it needs to be at least somewhat familiar)

Re:If its shiny

[Anonymous Coward]

Desktop Linux is here "right now"?

I don't know about you, but today's Linux kernel update pretty much "bricked" my Ubuntu setup. To Linux's credit, I could switch back to the last kernel, but do you think Joe Average would know to do that (or that he would even know what a kernel is?)

And I also dislike the cube. I don't really get why people like it, along with the wobbly windows. Can anyone tell me one advantage of the cube over Apple's Spaces (or the Compiz Fusion "Expo" plugin), or simply hitting Ctrl+Alt+Right or Ctrl+Alt+Left?

Re:If its shiny

[pinkstuff]

I think it's because an OS should have the shiny UI, and a way to turn it all off to boost performance.

Re:If its shiny

[jedidiah]

Why did you bother?

I mean really?

The average joe shouldn't be upgrading his kernel really.

People need to get over the idea of screwing around with a system just
because there is something available that you can create a change delta
with. If Ubuntu is an enabler then it needs to get reigned in too.

Re:If its shiny

[Anonymous Coward]

huh? check the posting history :P

Re:If its shiny

[Penguin Follower]

The average joe shouldn't be upgrading his kernel really.

Joe Sixpack will be upgrading his kernel on Ubuntu, he just won't know it. The updater throws kernel updates in with everything else. Joe sixpack won't bother to look through the list, he will accept all updates, enter his password, and away it goes!

Re:If its shiny

[ScreamingCactus]

Its compatibility issues are one of the main reasons people are reluctant to adopt it. The sad part is, the main reason hardware manufacturers aren't rushing to provide Linux drivers is because people have been so slow to adopt it. I must also add that Linux needs a new advertising department. People are afraid of things they don't understand (penguins) and they think that free = crappy. They bitch about windows, but when you try to tell them about Linux they won't even listen. They either argue or just get this glazed-over look. It's like their heads are filled with some kind of evil propaganda that came from where? I actually had one person say "but isn't that what terrorists use?"
But let them walk by my computer and see XGL's rotating cube and funny rubbery windows, and suddenly they want it. *Sigh*

Re:If its shiny

[Anonymous Coward]

Shuttleworth demonstrates that he really doesn't understand why some of us think OS X is so great. (Granted it's not for everyone: as always use what suits you best.) Shuttleworth mistakes pretty and eye candy for good UI design combined teh pretty.

However, at least Shuttleworth is trying to latch onto that elusive clue. Hopefully there will be developers in full possession of that clue who will get on board and build The Great Linux UI.

Lastly, to give the guy credit, at least he understands enough to use Apple as the bar. A linux desktop that is trying to be "as good as windows" is not that compelling. Aim high!

Re:If its shiny

[Fri13]

OS should have just small memory usage, small CPU usage and powerfull support for different devices and applications. Just like Linux is.
Then we can choose what desktop we run top of OS so those who like to run OS so low HW usage as possible, can run it even with only a using CLI application. And those who like to have all bells and whisles ringing and shining, can install other applications like Gnome and KDE with Compiz fusion if their own window manager does not give them.

I like Linux because it is so powerfull OS, while I dont use Vista (Even I have two license, Business and Ultimate, what I have got from work and school) on my machines because they dont give me the power to customise the system how I like to have it. Linux does give me the power to build own system top of it.

Re:If its shiny

[Fri13]

Mark is already late with his "suggestions" (orders), we got eye-candy few years go when Novell released the XGL.

Now we have Compiz-fusion and Kwin (4.1) what just blows away Windows Vista and Mac OS X eye candy.

Many should learn that Mark is littlebit late with his "demandings" and "suggestions". He is trying to be a person who innovates or tells what community should do, always littlebit late when he sees where the community is already heading so he gets promotion from Ubuntu users, who can then say "Mark already told what we must do".

Mark is doing good job marketing Linux as alternative OS for Windows and Mac OS X, but those who listen and reads his opinions, should understand that he is talking about current situations and where the community is already gone, and not believing that Mark is leading the community. And of course Mark is promoting own Linux distribution, because he gets money selling supports for it. What is not wrong, but the results how Ubuntu affects the whole community, could be wrong in long run. And there is few better distributions for newbies or other situations, what should be remembered and not just always promote the Ubuntu as "easiest".

Re:If its shiny

[GauteL]

"Desktop installation of operating systems is not properly ready for the masses."

Now, once you mention "fakeraid" you are no longer part of "the masses"... but I still agree with you, no operating system installs are ready for "the masses". The only thing that works for people is preinstalled operating systems.

Re:If its shiny

[Laughing Pigeon]

Microsoft's response will be to add autoinjectors loaded with Ritalin to their base operating system installs.

Unfortunately the drivers for these injectors don't seem to work well with the new driver model.

Re:If its shiny

[gparent]

So I guess you're trying to say Vista doesn't have a shiny UI? Because it certainly has reliability and good hardware support for just about everybody I've talked to. This isn't the RTM, open your eyes a little.

Re:If its shiny

[entmike]

Sure, I Ubuntu can be configured to look pretty, whether you are a GNOME or KDE fan. Compiz can turn heads of lots of people, sure. BUT -- When I take my IT gloves off and put my teeny bopper gloves on, I can end up getting Ubuntu into an unusable or locked up state in no time. Since 1995 I've dabbled with various distros off and on, starting from Slackware, to SuSE, to now Ubuntu and while they are now eons from where they once were, they still do not have the rock solid feel of an OSX and (I'll go ahead and say it) Vista feel with the UI (I said UI, not stability, ok?). Ubuntu's nice UI is only skin deep and very brittle. I mean seriously, I f*cked up my KDE appearance in minutes on accident to where a average user would be screwed (maybe because I'm raised on GNOME).

And I'm sure this is not the first time or last it will be mentioned, but if Ubuntu wants to attract more people, they need to drop the brown/orange "Human" color scheme and window decoration they've been trying to push. Or at least localize initial themes to different target audiences.

Re:If its shiny

[drinkypoo]

You can make KDE4 look like anything you want. All of my Qt apps look like my GTK2 apps because I installed qgtkstyle (it's in my PPA, under "martin-espinoza"... built for hardy. also micropolis is there.) Anyway all you have to do to take people away from Windows is be prettier and more reliable. (Check!) The problem is that they must unlearn all the empty-headed windows cheerleading bullshit they've soaked up over the years.

Yawn

[MightyMartian]

Wake me up when I can actually install it on my HP laptop and have the drivers actually work. I'm pretty disillusioned with Hardy Heron on this one. Ubuntu's supporters have got as bad as Microsoft's "Just wait until the next version, then it'll work..."

Re:Yawn

[QuantumRiff]

As much as I love ubuntu, I have to agree with you. The 8.04 just wasn't "done" when it was released. Although I didn't have any driver problems, Pulseaudio has caused nothing but headaches for people, and their including a beta release of a browser (firefox 3) in a LTS OS is a strange thing. I've read the arguments for and against that one, but still, if they kept it in beta a few weeks till firefox 3 was released, they could have fixed lots of other issues as well. Its opensource, its not like there are huge marketing campains with millions spent on advertising that would be wasted by delaying the release..

Re:Yawn

[Gusfm]

I have a HP laptop, and everything is working just fine. I had some trouble to make wireless work since it was a broadcom, but with ndiswrapper it's working now. Actually I don't know what could not work. Did you tried the last version?

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that some things are flaky, but at least you only have to wait six months until the next release, instead of six years.

Re:Yawn

[kesuki]

you think linux not working on a laptop is bad! my 'dads' pc ran and loaded 7.10 fine, no issues. but 8.04 despite upgrading fine SIMPLY WON'T INSTALL.

this on a commodity desktop system with popular motherboard and part sets!

and on my system at home 8.04 ubuntu won't work at all, it hangs on trying to load gnome, i can get gnome to work in fail safe mode, but it wont' do that automatically! i switched to KDE via meta package and Kubuntu ran no issues.

I'm starting to worry about the future of ubuntu/kubuntu... did he hire the wrong kind of programmers? not enough men on the team to cope with the 'pace' of open source innovation?

or are buzzwords higher priority than basic functionality? I think the whole 'just use 1 CD' as the installer might be limiting them, i know knoppix has had to remove popular software before just to get it on 1 CD... is it time for linux to go DVD media images exclusively? last i checked a DVD burner cost $30 and a blank cost around $1 (for non garbage grade media) and it's not like you have to make the image 4.7 GB 1GB is plenty. for now.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, but only if I can give you a good, swift kick in the nuts to wake you up. Then, once you regain consciousness again, I'll help you install Ubuntu Hardy Heron on your HP laptop. It'll be fun.

Bet no Microsoft fanboy ever offered you this level of personal assistance in installing an OS.

Re:Yawn

[s.bots]

The inclusion of a beta in a LTS makes far more sense than including a browser that will soon be outdated and unsupported. Firefox 3 will exit beta long before Ubuntu releases another LTS. Definitely agree with the rest of the comment though, 8.04 could've used some more time.

Re:Yawn

[uglyduckling]

Same here. I've been using Linux (Debian then Mandrake then Ubuntu) as my main desktop for eight years. I installed 8.04 and *everything* broke. That was enough incentive to switch to OS X - I was struggling without Photoshop and Dreamweaver anyway and the task of getting Ubuntu working again compared to splashing out now I actually have a salary - it just wasn't worth it.

Re:Yawn

[Narpak]

Thankfully Ubuntu release a new version every 6 months; so the improvements come available often.

Re:Yawn

[FoolsGold]

It's probably useful to note that now, whenever you go to download Ubuntu 8.04 from the official site, you're actually downloading the refreshed ISO known as 8.04.1. This ISO has all the updates up to the beginning of July, which means it also has the final release of Firefox 3, a much better working PulseAudio and many other fixes out-of-the-box. From this point of view, the LTS is now much more polished if someone uses the refreshed ISO.

Re:Yawn

[billcopc]

including a horribly unstable browser (firefox 3) in a LTS OS is a strange thing

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Yawn

[billcopc]

I think the whole 'just use 1 CD' as the installer might be limiting them

I think you can fit a very feature-rich desktop in 700mb. It's not like Windows or Mac OS come with even a tenth of the functionality provided in a standard Ubuntu install. Most certainly, the media size is not the limiting factor in terms of hardware support.

The fact that your dad's PC can't install 8.04 either means it is marginally unstable, or perhaps Ubuntu 8.04 just plain sucks. I'm leaning towards the latter, in the last year or so, they seem to be obsessed with promotion and whiz-bang rather than quality.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should go to talk to HP about that? For some reason Ubuntu support isn't at all as high as Windows support on their priority list.

Re:Yawn

[glittalogik]

Already did, currently at version 3.0.1

Re:Yawn

[serviscope_minor]

Wake me up when I can actually install it on my HP laptop

Wake me up when you've stopped being dumb enough to by a laptop which isn't supported. Presumably you don't simply run to walmart and buy the cheapest POS laptop you can find? That means you do some research. Since Linux is KNOWN not to support all the latest hardware, especially in laptops, it was pretty dumb to buy a laptop which didn't work, if you intended to install linux.

Yeah, I'm probably going to get modded troll for this, but honestly this is a "news for nerds" website. If you an't figure out how to get a laptop which does rn Linux, then what on earth are you doing here?

Re:Yawn

[hotfireball]

It would be interesting if some company would start make a hardware and use Linux as OS. Just like Apple did to BSD. Yes, Dell tried that, but it was f*%#ed up... I mean, to make a decent Linux with decent drivers for particular hardware with decent software pack, decent integration, decent standards from decent vendor. I do not mind it will have some parts proprietary. Better to go proprietary and it works, rather then be happy that some source is available and you potentially can make it work. :-) Well, you know what I mean...

Re:Yawn

[DrgnDancer]

The point being that this whole conversation is supposed to revolve around "It just works". Personally, I got Hardy Heron working on my HP laptop. I had to do some serious internet searches and play fun games with NDISwrapper and some alpha quality sound system, but I got it working. I also install and configure Linux workstations for a living. If its possible to make something work in Linux, chances are I can make it work. If I handed that CD to my wife, and said, "hey babe, install this and make work." she'd never be able to do it.

That's the problem. Every time one of these "Linux For The Masses" articles comes out you get about 30% people who had no problem installing, 30% people with some vaguely non-standard or proprietary bit of their system that either prevented them from installing or kept the install only partially usable, and 20% people trying to explain to the second 30% that they should have read the HCL, checked the bug reports, searched the obscure forums, or generally done a bunch of stuff that the MASSES WON"T DO then it would have worked or they 'd have known it wouldn't work.

If this was an article about Linux on Dev workstations or server configuration your point would be valid. As it is you more or less admit that the system is not ready for the masses.

Re:Yawn

[Locutus]

but if you ordered a CD from them, what will you get? Is it the original or updated image?

Nice to know they are updating the images for the LTS products.

LoB

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me up when I can actually install it on my HP laptop and have the drivers actually work. I'm pretty disillusioned with Hardy Heron on this one. Ubuntu's supporters have got as bad as Microsoft's "Just wait until the next version, then it'll work..."

Presumably you bought your HP laptop with either Vista or XP pre-installed on it ... one can surmise that worked OK.

Buy a laptop with Linux pre-installed on it (say from Dell, System76 or ZaReason) ... that will work also ... and it will easily out-perform any Vista laptop of similar specifications.

Yawn ... wake me up when Windows fanbois can finally learn to compare apples with apples. Windows supporters are apparently still as blind as they have always been.

Re:Yawn

[MightyMartian]

I've been installing Linux since 1993 with the original Slackware release (downloaded the 1.2mb disk images from a local BBS using zmodem). I'm hardly a neophyte, and probably if I cared to spend three hours fucking around I could get it running, but I neither have the time or the initiative. I've probably been using *nix system since you were crapping in your diaper and picking your nose.

Re:Yawn

[jedidiah]

Yeah... and upgrade goes wrong so you decide to go out and buy a new box.

That's such a Lemming thing to do.

One of the nice things about Linux has always been that you could do
a clean wipe and reinstall of the entire system with minimal impact to
your own data. Even locally installed apps can survive the entire distro
being redone underneath it.

I have Macs just lying around and I wouldn't be inclined to do what you
did. Although restoring MacOS is a bloody pain that kind of knocks some
of the "admiration" out of you.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange... I just drag my apps & user folder to another drive and wipe & reload Mac OS. Then I drag everything back. With very few hiccups, I am back up and running in a few hours. (A different story on an old slow Mac, but my quad Mac Pro is not slow.)

Re:Yawn

[mr5oh]

I agree 100%, I've been using Ubuntu for the last 2 years on every PC in my house. 8.04 broke more things than it fixed on two of my laptops, both machines had hardware that worked fine in 7.10 and lower, but refuses to work in 8.04. Not to mention glitches with the graphics and OpenGL.

Glad to see they have their priorities straight, we have eye candy, but we've taken a step backwards in hardware support? How much sense does that make?

Sadly, one of my laptops has to work, so I temporarily installed Windows for the first time in 2 years, while I'm trying out some new distros.....

Re:Yawn

[serviscope_minor]

I've been installing Linux since 1993 with the original Slackware release (downloaded the 1.2mb disk images from a local BBS using zmodem). I'm hardly a neophyte, and probably if I cared to spend three hours fucking around I could get it running, but I neither have the time or the initiative. I've probably been using *nix system since you were crapping in your diaper and picking your nose.

And yet you're unable to purchase a laptop which will run linux? How long did you spend choosing that HP? 2 seconds? And how much time sis you spend setting up the laptop? You know, migrating settings, mail, installing programs, etc?

Re:Yawn

[serviscope_minor]

The point being that this whole conversation is supposed to revolve around "It just works". Personally, I got Hardy Heron working on my HP laptop. I had to do some serious internet searches and play fun games with NDISwrapper and some alpha quality sound system, but I got it working. I also install and configure Linux workstations for a living. If its possible to make something work in Linux, chances are I can make it work. If I handed that CD to my wife, and said, "hey babe, install this and make work." she'd never be able to do it.

Well, if you know all this stuff, then why in the name of all that is good and holy did you buy that HP laptop? You do it for a living!

Oh, and if you handed a Windows CD to your wife, would she be able to install it, and make it work?

And "just works" is very much in the eye of the beholder. I find Linux "Just Works". For me, Windows and OSX don't. They keep throwing up mindless obstacles, for instance.

Re:Yawn

[delire]

If you want a laptop that runs Ubuntu perfectly you have to either:

[1] Do your research as to which laptops are known to run Ubuntu perfectly

or:

[2] Buy the laptop new with Ubuntu already installed on it, with a guarantee that all hardware should function as specified.

Out of interest, where on earth did you read that Ubuntu will always install perfectly on every laptop? If you didn't in fact read this, how did you come to expect it?

Ubuntu has a fantastic track-record of installation on $RANDOM_LAPTOP but it seems that you've exaggerated this success into a fairly lofty expectation in your own mind, somewhere along the way..

Re:Yawn

[Ash-Fox]

or 3) Be me, just buy a random laptop and with my luck, Kubuntu "just works" out of the box with it (I bought a HP Pavillion DV6000 with no idea if it would work or not).

Re:Yawn

[AvitarX]

I think they made a mistake in 2 things.

their communication, and their rules.

They should have told people with LTS it is best to wait prior to using it. Your old LTS has years of support left, take a breather and wait 3 months.

They also should have allowed for major updates to the LTS with a procedure. That way Beta Firefox didn't need to be included, just to make sure Firefox 2 wasn't the browser 3 years out.

This strict no-upgrade policy made doing a stable LTS hard, because they wanted it to last (current bleeding edge), which was contrary to stability.

There was similar trouble with KDE3/KDE4, but that one makes sense not to upgrade mid-LTS.

What hopefully the take-away is (without too much damage to reputation):
LTS is going to have a lot of bleeding edge early on. If you picked LTS for stability previously, wait 3 months to upgrade.

It would have been nice to not have had to follow (use) the alpha, and beta to know this though.

Re:Yawn

[Bazer]

Funny you mention that. I've installed Hardy on my father's new HP laptop just a week ago. The installation was fast. The installer finished without a hitch and everything worked out of the box with shiny compiz effects on top. It took me 3 hours to install the OS, install three 3rd party apps (skype, codecs, flash) and do a backup.

Bringing the original Vista installation to a usable state took the rest of the day. That included:

• removing a f***-load of trial crapware
• hunting down 3rd party apps (firefox, AV, FoxIT, 7-zip, etc)
• updating the system
• disabling unnecessary services (indexing)
• fixing brain-dead default settings (UAC, user account, file extensions, file associations)
• hunting down HP updates because "HP Update" has been broken for months now
• defragment & backup

If I had not done all that my father would get lost in there in a second. Hopefully he'll need Vista only as a fall-back because he plans to use that laptop for docs, web, mail and an occasional chess game.

Re:Yawn

[DrgnDancer]

Well, if you know all this stuff, then why in the name of all that is good and holy did you buy that HP laptop? You do it for a living!

Because I didn't buy it to run Linux. I bought it before I went to Iraq for a year. It was on clearance and the most powerful machine that I could get at a price I was willing to pay for machine that likely wouldn't last a year. I wanted something to play games on when I wasn't on shift. Amazingly it survived and when I got back I repurposed it.

Oh, and if you handed a Windows CD to your wife, would she be able to install it, and make it work?

Quite probably. She's a smart woman and tech savvy enough to understand the concept of drivers. Since the older model Broadcom wireless card probably would have worked with XP by default, she probably could have installed everything else from HPs site if she had to. Of course, it's a moot point, because HP provided Windows on the Laptop, and they provided a "quick restore" CD that would put Windows back on the Laptop (with appropriate drivers) in the event that something went wrong. Now at this point, I've said something unfair. The reason Windows is easier in this case is because it's already there, and the company provided support. The reason Linux is particularly hard is because the hardware manufacturers are not providing documentation to the community. I get this, it's not Linux's fault, I understand.

The fact remains, when you talk about "Linux for the Masses", that people are going to HAVE to install Linux for themselves (except in very rare cases) and they are most likely to want to do so on whatever hardware they have lying around. This means that until Linux can reliably be installed on whatever hardware people people have lying around, easily and with a minimum of fuss, it's not going to achieve mass acceptance. This isn't a judgment call, I'm not saying that Linux is bad. I like Linux and use it regularly.

The thesis of the the original article is "Mark Shuttleworth says he can make a useful, pretty, and integrated Linux Desktop, and he can lure people away from Apple and Microsoft by doing so." My comment to this is that until people can buy Linux desktops and laptops easily, or install Linux trivially on whatever hardware they happen to have, Mark Shuttleworth is wrong. People (not you, or me, or Bob over there, people in general) are not going to download a CD, go through an install process, realize half their hardware doesn't work, surf around until they figure out why (assuming they can do so, because if they only have one computer, and lots of people do, they may not be able to get to the Internet at all), install strange tools with arcane text commands and finally bask in the glow of accomplishment (until they realize that they can't pay their electric bill now, because the site is IE only)

And "just works" is very much in the eye of the beholder. I find Linux "Just Works". For me, Windows and OSX don't. They keep throwing up mindless obstacles, for instance.

Again, I am not, in any way, disparaging your choice of operating systems. The article is not about you. It's about Mark Shuttleworth's dream of Linux on every (or at least "a lot of") desktops. Given that most people are NOT you, and many of them fear the machine in front of them to some degree or another, Mark is sadly smoking crack in the short term.

As a side note, how do you feel OS X "gets in your way"? Personally I find it to be the best of both worlds, with easy access to a Unix tool chest combined with a generally usable GUI and versions of several useful commercial products (Office and the CS suites specifically). Not to mention a pretty active dev community producing software for niches all over the place. The development model takes a few minutes to get used to, but even then you can use the underlying Unix and an X desktop to ignore all the fancy Apple APIs. It's not the be all-end all, but it's a pretty usable OS.

Re:Yawn

[cjwatson]

I'm reliably informed that we're exhausting existing stocks of original 8.04 CDs before switching over to the new ones (no, I don't know exact numbers, though I suspect it won't take too long), but after that any CDs we send out will be 8.04.1.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can dread the next release because it will break compatibility with your hardware. I had every last thing working perfectly on my laptop in Gutsy. After an upgrade to Hardy, OpenGL apps will flicker unless compiz is disabled. Full screen video plays with unwatchably bad performance whether or not compiz is enabled, and there seems to be nothing I can do to get flash to work at all.

All of this worked perfectly in Gutsy; it was broken on upgrading, and all these problems persist even after a reformat.

Re:Yawn

[uglyduckling]

Uh.... no.... I've been using Linux as my main desktop for eight years, I don't think you can describe it as 'lemming' when I've given it the best part of a decade as my main desktop OS. For three years before that I was dual-booting on my desktop machines and using it for various servers.

As a student I had time to mess around and make things work. I'm pretty busy now and can afford to buy so I have. Don't you think I've had plenty of upgrades go wrong in eight years? The point is, Ubuntu is meant to be 'Linux for Human Beings', the basic stuff is meant to 'just work' and the reality is that they made a big mess of 8.04. The last release broke two of my boxes that use ATI cards - not Ubuntu's fault, actually ATI's fault for deprecating support for older cards - but something Ubuntu should have made painstakingly obvious when upgrading. So this is the second release in a row to cause serious breakage for me on more than one box.

I love Linux, I still have it on various servers and have a nicely working 3 head MythTV setup in my house. On the desktop, though, the hassle to keep everything working and up-to-date has just worn thin. And, again, after a good decade of desktop Linux the commercial software that is really needed to do certain jobs (i.e. Adobe / former Macromedia) is not close to being available.

Re:Yawn

[drinkypoo]

I think they blew it pretty hard with Gutsy and Hardy both. WSOD in Xgl on Gutsy, couldn't even manage to follow the perfectsetup document from pulseaudio (I did this under Gutsy and had ZERO of the pulseaudio problems I had on Hardy before I did it here too) but then some other things got fixed (prism2...) I have no problem with FF3 coming in beta either, given how short the time to 8.04.1 with FF3 final was. FF3 is head and shoulders above FF2 and sticking with FF2 and its huge memory leaks would have served no one. And there are TONS of trivially-closed "please package this" bugs which are acknowledged as things to do. I made packages for both qgtkstyle and micropolis (satisfying two of them) in less than a day each... the micropolis bug report dates from like march. I understand a backlog but a lot of stuff (like package updates) would be pretty trivial.

Re:Yawn

[drinkypoo]

It took me six weeks to get my last batch of CDs, by the time they arrived they were already outdated. If things are true to form, people will be receiving those discs for months yet :P

Re:Yawn

[drinkypoo]

To be fair I'm starting to think that HP is in major fuckup mode in laptop land. I have a Compaq nw9440 EZ901AA#ABA, the very very first generation with Core Duo (not Core 2) and with 256MB Quadro FX1500M. Suspend/Resume is totally broken due to apparent problems with ACPI, the EDID is totally broken which apparently is NOT a problem on later models but they have not seen fit to publish a fix so I have resolution problems, the modem is a piece of shit (boycott Conexant if you can, even the Linuxant driver is dogshit and I paid $20 for it.) This machine wasn't purchased for Linux or I'd have got something else... but the point is, given the volume of complaints about HP laptops, I don't think it's Ubuntu's fault at all. I'm pretty damned sure it's HP's. Given HP's recent history, it's a reasonable assumption.

Re:Yawn

[hacker]

Wake me up when I can actually install it on my HP laptop and have the drivers actually work. I'm pretty disillusioned with Hardy Heron on this one.

What did HP Support say when you tried to use their Linux drivers?

Remember, failure of hardware to with with Linux is NEVER a Linux problem, it is a vendor problem. The Linux community (including the Linux kernel developers) have openly pledged to write and maintain the drivers for any piece of hardware for free, if the vendor would provide a suitable public API or some level of documentation.

There's more than enough spare time and exceptional development skill in the Linux and Open Source community to write every driver for every piece of hardware that Linux runs on.

When hardware fails to work with Linux, its because the vendor failed, not Linux. Talk to the vendor and stop blaming Linux.

Re:Yawn

[emj]

As much as I love ubuntu, I have to agree with you. The 8.04 just wasn't "done" when it was released.

Funny when I first saw this on Slashdot, back when Ubuntu 8.04 was released I was as outraged. But when I installed it I found none of these problems, so putting up theoretical problems isn't that smart and just wastes your brain cycles on something irrelevant... Some call it FUD...

Re:Yawn

[cascadefx]

And anyone who downloaded before and has been keeping their systems up-to-date has all those fixes as well.

I always wait a month after the release before upgrading anyway to make sure that last minute bugs found out in the wild are worked out.

So far, its been relatively painless.

I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[Tragek]

At least, not in the markets where linux is competing against it. It's ease of use, and the "it-just-works" factor.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[seanonymous]

Eye candy? Yeah, let me know when my mom can walk into the Ubuntu store and have someone walk her through sending photos.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[spazdor]

This thread is the correct one.

Apple has the die-hard users it does because it functions perfectly for their needs and doesn't make them do any work.

When you don't have to present too many diverse options and functions, it's pretty easy to make the results look sleek. If Apple even tried to provide as much at-a-glance information in their UI that Linux users have gotten used to, they'd have something as messy as the Vista dockwharfpier.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[Nightspirit]

I'm not a big Apple fan, but that is the one thing they definitely did right. Plus their Apple stores have 1-on-1 training for quite cheap.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[Gat0r30y]

There's just one caveat - "it-just-works" required the whole company to take on a single ideology of "there is no step two". Steve Jobs can pull that at his own company. Can Shuttleworth start a similar movement and implement it?

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[kesuki]

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/webforums http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/chatirc

for something like that they might actually reply, they(the community) never reply to MY problems with ubuntu.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[Kjella]

Plus their Apple stores have 1-on-1 training for quite cheap.

I figure it that way, the kind of customer that needs personal 1-on-1 training is once hooked probably an Apple customer for life. Plus it's a dead-on image builder "I never thought I could figure out a computer, but now I use a Mac and is very happy". Still a great idea, just saying that I don't think it's for charity...

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[jedidiah]

What? Dropping attachments of any arbitrary file format into a GUI email client is so hard?

Stop making simple shit out to be rocket science. You're only scaring the n00bs into thinking they can't fend for themselves.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yes, that and the kool aid.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[Dan Ost]

We bought an ibook for my wife 4 years ago and I don't know anything about it because she's never asked me for help. Seriously, these things just work.

Do I recommend macs? Absolutely.
Do I know anything about actually using a mac? Nope.

If I got a mac, the first thing I would do is throw Linux on it.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[jd]

Part of the problem is that UIs either assume a single, universal level of skill and aptitude, or on the very few occasions they allow you to enable/disable advanced features, it's so coarse-grain that you're expected to move from rank beginner to genius AND face a radically different set of menus where things are not at the same place as they were. What is needed is a way to allow fine-grained control over what options are seen and (now, the hard part) keep the UI reasonably uniform so that new options don't necessitate relearning a software component. What is also needed is for there to be a simple expert system shell that the user can enter, describe their strengths and weaknesses, and have the system auto-configure itself for that kind of user as well as auto-configuration can be expected to do. No two users are the same, everyone has their own needs, and setting a bunch of flags on/off based on the answers to maybe four or five questions is trivial to a computer program.

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[Anonymous Coward]

My sister just put on ubuntu and figured out how to get pictures off her camera and send them without any help at all.

Why does there have to be an ubuntu store?

Re:I don't think eye candy is apple's big draw

[cascadefx]

Apple has the die-hard users it does because it functions perfectly for their needs and doesn't make them do any work.

Not exactly true. The die-hard fans give Apple a pass any time there is a flaw, just as Linux fans often do with their own platform.

That's why they are the die-hard fans.

Do you ever listen to Mac Break Weekly? That's a set of die-hard fans. And even when they legitimately raise issues with some feature or process with regards to Apple at least one (and generally all) have all turned around and are singing Apple's praises by the end of the show.

There's some psychological phenomena at work there (and it applies to all die-hard fans of anything) that I can't recall at the moment.

The rest of the people that use Apple do so because they have been encouraged to do so by Marketing, friends and family who may be in the die-hard set, are influenced by celebrity users (who may or may not be die-hard fans) and/or have bought peripherals (iphone, iPod) that they have enjoyed and used those as jumping off points to put a toe in the water of Apple's computing products.

It does help that Apple maintains "high touch" stores, read the book High Tech, High Touch to understand why, but it isn't the main reason.

They make pills for that...

[GigaHurtsMyRobot]

Getting better eye-candy than Apple is no small feat. It is possible, though, but would require a huge shift of development resources and mindset. Everything would need to be re-thought, re-designed, animated, and smoothed... based on a looks-first, features-second methodology.

Think Different. ;)

Re:They make pills for that...

[clampolo]

I'm wondering what percentage of Linux users are developers vs people that know nothing about programming. As a programmer I have absolutely no need for any more eye-candy. At most I'll have firefox, an interpreter/compiler, a shell, and a couple editor windows up.

For all the talk about how cool OSX is, I have NEVER heard of a hardcore embedded guy ever using Apple.

Re:They make pills for that...

[Goaway]

I get paid to do embedded programming on stuff like atmega8 controllers. I use Linux at work, and a Mac at home, and I'd never even think of changing the home computer.

And I develop software for the Mac in my spare time. You know, the Mac has a pretty damn active third party developer community for an OS with that kind of market share.

So kindly take your "I'm a PROGRAMMER so I am BETTER than you because my OS is DIFFUCULT" attitude and shove it.

Re:They make pills for that...

[clampolo]

So kindly take your "I'm a PROGRAMMER so I am BETTER than you because my OS is DIFFUCULT" attitude and shove it.

Ok then kindly find me a copy of some FPGA place and route software, a copy of Synplicity, and Modelsim that work under OSX.

Re:They make pills for that...

[Goaway]

Oh, so software availability is now a measure of OS worth?

I guess Windows wins again!

Re:They make pills for that...

[slyborg]

OK, now you've heard of an embedded guy that uses Apple, so your original post was pwned. Coming back and then rattling off a list of hardware design tools doesn't help your argument.

I was an embedded guy from back before there *were* FPGAs, and in those hazy days of yore, I used a Mac to write code for HC11s. Therefore your broadside was incorrect even before you probably finished junior high.

So now you know TWO embedded guys who use Apple. And people say there isn't any learning that happens on Slashdot.....

Re:They make pills for that...

[clampolo]

I guess Windows wins again!

Not really. But only having enough software to play music, browse the web, and watch a DVD, like OSX does, relegates it to being a toy.

Re:They make pills for that...

[clampolo]

I was an embedded guy from back before there *were* FPGAs, and in those hazy days of yore, I used a Mac to write code for HC11s.

Congratulations on paying a good 25% premium on hardware to be able to program prehistoric devices.

Re:They make pills for that...

[Gentlewhisper]

www.vmware.com Next?

Re:They make pills for that...

[Goaway]

Oh, my mistake, I thought you were actually trying to have an honest conversation, not just spew garbage. Won't happen again.

Re:They make pills for that...

[BrunoUsesBBEdit]

I also develop for Atmel micros and prefer OSX as my workstation. (All though professionally, I refuse to use anything but Linux servers.)

A few months ago, I converted to OSX my carpool partner who develops Atmel and PIC processors.

So, now the tally is up to 4 embedded coders who use OSX and read /.

While I'm at it, we're both heterosexuals, so we're breaking all kinds on Apple stigmas here today!

"eye candy" is misleading

[commodoresloat]

Vista has better "eye candy" than XP, even arguably better than OSX, but many people aren't switching because it's not just about "candy." It's about user experience, in which animation and soothing visuals play only a part. Simplicity is more important than prettiness, and the ability of the user to know somewhat intuitively what a button will do goes a lot farther than 3D visual effects.

Re:"eye candy" is misleading

[Fri13]

But if 3D effect tells user what has happend, when user has done something, is as important as the simple UI.

Example, you move mouse over icon, it can change color, gamma etc to give informative. When user clicks mouse, the icon can give a respond that it has be clicked, the users command is processed.

When you move the mouse over icon, the mouse icon can change shape from arrow to hand to tell "hey, this is link". When user clicks the icon, the mouse icon change itself to time-glass or watch, and start doing somekind animation to give information to user that something is done currently.

Those small things are effects, and very informative ones and needed very much. Think about UI what is just simple but has no effect at all. You dont get any respond from computer what is happening, you cant be sure is the mouse click being processing, does application start take long or is isn't it even being started.

Those are simple 2D effects what are usually shown as 3D (shadows on buttons, shadow under menu etc) but true 3D effect can be more informative, if it is just correclty done.

Effects makes UI more intuitive, and 3D makes more intuitive, but if it is over-done, 3D effects starts just distract the user. They add noise to real information.

Wisely used, 3D effects makes UI more intuitive than UI without (3D) effects.

Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[plasmacutter]

I gave gutsy a try (this was before hardy was out), and was able to run compiz at full tilt on my gimpy macbook's gma gpu.

The problems I had with the system in comparison to mac were:

no graphical sudo out of the box

no incorporation of a global menubar in gnome, eating massive amounts of valuable vertical real estate and subjecting you to those annoying "palettes" many websites use to try to prevent you viewing source.

terrible opengl performance. I can run vlc and mplayer using opengl out on osx, try this on ubuntu and watch the 3 fps mess you get out : /

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[Anonymous Coward]

no graphical sudo out of the box

$ gksudo $COMMAND
Installed by default.

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[TeacherOfHeroes]

Actually, if you're looking for a global menubar for GNOME, there is one, it's just not an official part of GNOME.

http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/

Install some deb files, add the applet to a panel, and you're done. Menus will automatically reappear in their own windows if you remove it later.

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[mjwx]

I ran Ubuntu 7.10 on my old Benq A33 (Cel 1.6, 1 GB of RAM, Intel 915 GMA) and it could run Compiz at full fine (OK I concede that it would slowdown a little when I had Totem (video), Firefox and open office write open at the same time, but it would run any two of those apps without a problem). I don't see why you didn't get Sudo popups, I was asked to elevate privileges whenever it was needed (installing updates, changing network settings, etc...) but that may be an oddity with your Mac.

Whilst I know this isn't the fault of Linux or Ubuntu I wish I could get decent NVidia drivers for my Geforce 8800 on my desktop box, there is always one lib files that doesn't get unpacked by default and crashes X (I have a script to fix this quickly but still, NVidia fix your driver). Also the Ubuntu forums are good, the search engine could be a bit better but I am yet to fail to find a solution since I started using Ubuntu (6.06)

I personally hate the idea of global menu bars, I prefer to have the menu bar at the top of the application I'm working on as I often arrange multiple windows so that I more easily veiw the information from multiple apps easily, I don't like having to move my focus away from what I am doing just to access the file menu. Having to switch to another app or to the desktop to get access to the system/navigation menu's is one of my pet hates and biggest time wasters with Apple so I'm quite glad that it's not integrated into ubuntu.

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[meringuoid]

was able to run compiz at full tilt on my gimpy macbook's gma gpu. ... terrible opengl performance.

Could the two be connected? Since your GPU was devoting its full attention to running Compiz, other OpenGL apps suffered?

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[lostjimmy]

The issues may be related, but it's not a good excuse. As far as I know (I'm not a mac user), the OS X interface is always accelerated and plasmacutter has no problems running mplayer and vlc using opengl.

On the other hand, I've never had any issues running opengl apps on top of compiz.

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[lostjimmy]

How much of a difference does a global menu bar really make on vertical real estate? We're talking about 20 - 25 pixels. I happen to like having the menu bars in each app's window, otherwise I would feel like things were being hidden from me until the window is activated. This especially comes into play when I have a dual monitor setup. I would hate to have two Word documents open side-by-side, wanting to use the menu bar of one of the documents, only to find out that I actually had the other document as the 'active' window.

This is in no way a flame, but more out of curiosity. I've only used OS X a few times and never for very long, so I don't have a lot of experience with it.

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[hacker]

I don't understand and the project page for "Global GNOME Menu" doesn't make it any clearer. How is this any different from gnome-panel?

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[plasmacutter]

on a 13" imac, a huge difference.

Re:Sorry, its not the eye candy.

[TeacherOfHeroes]

It plucks the main menu (File, Edit, View, ...) out of application windows and displays in in the panel in an applet. The result is a menu bar in the same location as on os x.

Heres an example screenshot.
http://linuxdesktop.cn/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/globalmenusmallscreenshot.png

Not eye candy.

[heteromonomer]

I disagree with that last statement of the article. It's not the eye candy that's the clincher. It's the user-friendliness, tightness and seamlessness of integration, consistency across the interface and hardware compatibility.

Re:Not eye candy.

[friendofthenite]

That's probably be true for most Slashdot readers. But a lot of regular consumers are won over by slick visuals -- just look at the number of people willing to take a performance hit for the sake of displaying Aero Glass on Vista. Also, Apple's draw isn't only due to smart marketing and a good UI; people marvel at their products in the stores, and new Apple users are always proud to show off how impressive their new device looks (both the hardware and software.) Eye candy is important to a lot of people whether you like it or not.

Re:Not eye candy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the term "eye-candy" doesn't appear anywhere in TFA, just in TFS. Shuttleworth was praising Apple's attention to the melding of art design and ease of use interface in its software, epitomized in the iPhone as "a pure software experience". He wants Ubuntu to be like that, only built on a free software foundation.

Re:Not eye candy.

[hotfireball]

It's not the eye candy that's the clincher. It's the user-friendliness, tightness and seamlessness of integration, consistency across the interface and hardware compatibility.

Right! And also the article is clearly showing quite sad near future of what to expect from Linux desktop and a majority of community. In other words, developers still do not understands that Gnome/KDE war should be finished and integration with standards should be done instead to make totally useless BS and crap, like "burning desktop", "flying dock icons", "wobbling windows" (vomit bag is recommended for most people), "water drops" and other sort of things that makes absolutely no sense at work and productivity.

Re:Not eye candy.

[CryptoKiller]

Mod parent up! If these points were seriously addressed in Ubuntu, we'd be a long way towards world domination.

Re:Not eye candy.

[jvin248]

It's not about ease of use, alone.

It's about marketing and status.

Is a BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Cadillac, etc easier to use than a Toyota, Honda, GM, or Ford product?

Price is a discriminator of status. A lot of people like to awe their friends with the fact they plunked down $2,500 for a trendy item. Other people like to awe their friends in being frugal ("look at the deal I got for free!").

The two camps will never socialize.

Like automotive quality, ease of use is a given and you only lose customers if they find it is difficult, like Vista not working with a lot of hardware and having to manually track down drivers (if there are any) ... Except there are some hard-core Linux users who purposefully avoid Ubuntu because they like the exclusivity of "rolling their own" or using Slax, just like others like the elitism of high/low price, this group likes the exclusivity of hard effort like mountain climbing or extreme sports.

By the way, I've actually found the latest 8.04 HH install is the easiest and hassle free yet of the Ubuntu series (I'm using Xubuntu mostly). Continuous improvement every six months is great and needs to continue. I look forward to each new launch.

Marketing

[Enderandrew]

I have people telling me they want Apple computers, and they have never seen the UI of OS X.

They want Apple computers because of marketing and hype. They are becoming trendy status symbols. (Put the flame-throwers away, I'm not commenting on quality here). Linux doesn't have a marketing department. That is why Linux won't take a sizable chunk out of the desktop market.

People draw comparisons to Firefox and its adoption, but Firefox grew when it adopted a marketing campaign. People seem to forget that.

Re:Marketing

[Gat0r30y]

Dude, free shiny stuff markets itself to stoned teenagers - I think thats a market with explosive growth potential.

Re:Marketing

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Dude, free shiny stuff markets itself to stoned teenagers

... so, linux should adopt a 'first one's free' attitude?

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

They want Apple computers because of marketing and hype. They are becoming trendy status symbols. (Put the flame-throwers away, I'm not commenting on quality here). Linux doesn't have a marketing department.

[No flames from me.] They want Macs because of the marketing and hype combined with geeks like me who say "If you've got the money and you don't want any problems, you should get a Mac." That's quite the combination.

Ubuntu has a marketing department. Ubuntu is also very good. But you still cannot just toss the disk at anyone not willing to put up with a bit of adventure. You've got to do hand-holding through set-up. And the semi-annual system upgrades are not without pucker-factor yet. Apple isn't Nirvana but it's a much easier answer when people ask what they should get.

The only announcement I'd like to hear from Ubuntu right now is that they're taking on the challenge of matching what Madriva does well. You CAN just toss that disk in and spend no time with config, and it's got that great Mandriva Control Center. Hats off to Mandriva for proving what can be done right now today. Ubuntu really has to match that to live up to their own mandate. That done, I think U is the distro I'd put most people on. No more "get a Mac."

Re:Marketing

[rubycodez]

could turn around the way of looking at that, a person could have the "status" of being "expert" at something somewhat or very hard to learn. Or they could have an easy to use tool with much thought and polish given to the UI.

back in 70's and early 80's I had only worked on computers via text terminal. Somewhere around 1985 or 1986 I was able to walk up to some new Macs at the national lab where I worked, and never having touched a mouse or seen a GUI before was able to make the Mac do things, it was intuitively obvious for me. 23 years later my five and eight year old are able to do things on their iMac after the twenty minute initial training I gave them.

the major GNU/Linux distros (and BSD too) are getting there, but some parts still too esoteric for Aunt Minnie or Grandma.

Re:Marketing

[jps25]

While I agree with your general point of crappy Linux marketing, Linux also lacks a lot of useful, mature software, which is available for Apple or Windows.
For example, there's no software for Linux geared towards writers, while there are several for OS X (Avenir, Ulysses, Scrivener, CopyWrite, etc..).
It's also "more fun" to use an Apple. The (normal) user experience is just superior.
For a typical coder or general computer geek it might not be so and Linux might suit their needs, but quite frankly, while I use Linux almost exclusively, using my Macbook is a delight.

Re:Marketing

[Kjella]

People draw comparisons to Firefox and its adoption, but Firefox grew when it adopted a marketing campaign. People seem to forget that.

Linux doesn't, but Ubuntu does. But it's also important that Apple also delivers, even if you subtract some for obvious hype and willingness to overlook Apple tend to deliver products that work well. I've seen several that could give Apple a run for the money on style, but then they tend to fail on other points. And the far more useful, yet ugly products. Honestly, there's not that many running in the "fashionable yet usable" category.

Think for example of clothes - you can get very stylish clothes but they're often awkward to wear, horrible to wash and neither robust nor very practical. Or you can have clothes that are very practical, comfortable, durable, easy to wash and utterly unstylish. Want to look classy 365 days a year? There's not actually that many you'd want to wear. What I'm saying it that you better be good to be fashionable, for a durable product at least.

I don't think Linux is good enough to be fashionable just yet. Yes, it's a good workhorse but a workhorse is no show horse. The most important thing Linux could do right now is to let Macs have their day to break the MS dominance and get as many cross-platform (Win/Mac/Linux) standards in place as at all possible. Oh yeah and RMS/hippies moving to servers/techies aren't exactly a great start for a fashion statement.

If I wanted to try a fashion image, I'd try the "choice" image. Show different people, one working in a terminal, one working in KDE, one working in Gnome, working in different applications etc. which all say "I use Linux" and then go "What do you want Linux to be for you?". Would have an ounce of truth yet the implied lie that Linux can be everything you want it to be, sounds like a good commercial to me.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

I'd suggest that Linux has more software than Apple on the whole.

As far as writing tools I use:

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/scr2

and

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/writertools

I love both.

Re:Marketing

[Nate B.]

I think the "problem" is a bit deeper than most people will care to admit. Apple is a common word and the name of a computer company with 30+ years of history behind it. Mention ipod or iphone and even non-techies can identify the company behind it.

Ubuntu sounds multicultural and foreign. No offense, but most people will readily identify Apple and remain cautious about Ubuntu. That may not be what anyone here wants to read, but I don't think the Free Software desktop can go head-on with Apple with the Ubuntu name leading the way and expect the Free Software desktop to be anything but roadkill in Apple's wake, no matter how shiny it is.

The grandparent has swerved into the truth, Apple is an exclusive brand that is hot now and has been hot for several years. Likewise, Linux and F/OSS is its own exclusive brand that appeals to a different group of people. I don't fault Mr. Shuttleworth for trying to improve the Free Desktop as I think it's a worthy goal. I just think it's a fool's game to try to out-Apple Apple.

Re:Marketing

[Blimey85]

You're forgetting one key thing, Apple is Apple whereas there are lots of companies that are "Linux". When someone sees an ad for RedHat or Ubuntu, they are seeing an add for that particular company as well as an ad for "Linux". But then they see an ad for a diff company and the waters get muddied a little. When I turn on the tv and see the Mac and PC guys, I know who they are. I know there is one Mac and one PC (well, it's actually Windows and there is more than one... XP, Vista, etc., but you get my point).

Apple has to sell people on Mac. Microsoft sells people on Windows. Ubuntu not only has to sell people on Linux, but also that their way is better than RedHat or Gentoo or Debian or Harry's Basement Brand Linux 5.0 (Harry did a fine job on this new version... 4.8 has some pretty big bugs but 5.0 seems rock solid).

But wait, it gets worse. So now John Doe is sold on Linux and he's selected Ubuntu. He gets his box home from wherever he bought it and pops it in. He manages to get it installed without much effort. Then what? He's used to using a variety of apps like Office that are avail on both Mac's and PC's. Sure he has options. You and I know about these options. We know there are companies working on making stuff compatible through the use of Wine or whatever, but does John Doe know that?

You can buy computer stuff much cheaper online but every time I'm in a store that sells overpriced computers, I see someone buying one. I even bought my last desktop machine at CompUSA because it was convenient and I wanted one that day (my previous machine had failed the day before). Now I don't mind downloading software and it doesn't get much easier than "apt-get install" but then again, I'm only using Ubuntu on servers choosing instead to stick with Windows on my desktop (switching to Mac the next time I upgrade but this machine still has a lot of life left in it.

How many regular consumers want to be able to just walk into a store and buy software? How many want to bring home a copy of something from the office? I tend to think in terms of what I myself want. I'm a huge fan of Ubuntu and often get into heated arguments about why it's the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be. Even I don't run it on my desktop. It's just not useful enough for me in that situation. I think the same hold true for most people and until that changes, until you have the software choices, you aren't going to get widespread adoption.

Re:Marketing

[nko321]

You say Ubuntu would need to match Mandriva to get you to tell people to "get Ubuntu." I have two questions:

1) What specifically does Mandriva have that Ubuntu doesn't? (I haven't used Mandriva since Mandrake 7 and loved it back then)
2) What would Mandriva have to do to make you tell people to "get Mandriva."?

Re:Marketing

[Darkness404]

but Firefox grew when it adopted a marketing campaign. People seem to forget that.

Ummm... What marketing campaign? Most people either used Firefox because either A) It was preinstalled on the computer they have (by a geek, or by work, etc) B) They didn't want IE C) Some guy who they thought knew a lot about computers told them to D) A guy on some forum is always raving about how great Firefox is.

I don't know of a single person who has installed Firefox because of the marketing campaign it has. Sure, it is great and I wish that more OSS projects had it, but as for it really giving results to the general public other than the name "Firefox", it didn't do much.

Re:Marketing

[jo42]

...Apple...hype...trendy status symbols...

Just like stinkPods and Jesus Phones.

Re:Marketing

[Darkness404]

the major GNU/Linux distros (and BSD too) are getting there, but some parts still too esoteric for Aunt Minnie or Grandma.

Really, other than the install process (which, honestly the install for Windows is a lot more difficult, but it is usually pre-installed), Ubuntu is just about easy enough for anyone to use with little to no problems.

Half the "problem" is teaching people that Linux != Windows. And that is the major reason why OS X can get away with not being Windows. When you buy a Mac, you don't buy a computer, you buy a Mac. When you use Linux, you still have your hardware that ran Windows, it doesn't look any different, and so they think it should act the same. With a Mac it looks different so they expect it to act different.

If you take 2 people who have never used a computer and stick one in front of Ubuntu and the other in front of a Windows desktop, the one running Ubuntu is most likely to figure out things better than the Windows user.

Re:Marketing

[jmcnaught]

For software geared to writers, take a look at Celtx. I just found it the other day and it looks really interesting.

It looks like it's built using Mozilla's XUL. The license is Mozilla Public License with an attribution clause. I don't know how I feel about that, but the application itself looks very promising. It's available for Linux, Windows and Mac.

As far as Ubuntu adoption by the masses goes, I think marketing would definitely help. It seems as though Apple is currently reaping the benefits of Vista's failure and the ipod's success. Ipods have been hot and trendy for a bit longer than the current Mac fad, and there are probably a lot of ipod customers out there who appreciate its simplicity and looked to Apple to provide the same thing on the desktop.

People ask me all the time for advice about electronics and especially computers. I usually tell them that Mac OS X is a better option than Windows, but that Apple still isn't very good for reasons like DRM, not using ODF in iWorks and only having one mouse button.

Compiz is definitely a charmer though. I spent entirely too much time customizing it on my laptop, but the upshot is that when people watch me use my computer they start to get jealous and want some eye candy for themselves. So Shuttleworth is on to something... eye candy helps attract users who don't care about freedom and price. In a big way, the "marketing dept." for Free Software is nerds like me who raise awareness about GNU/Linux and apps. I probably spend more time encouraging people to use apps like Firefox and OpenOffice than I do trying to convince people to change their OS.

Something I'm really excited for is KDE 4 applications on Mac OS X and Windows. A huge body of free software is about to be made available to people using proprietary systems. While this obviously won't have a direct effect on GNU/Linux adoption, I hope it will raise awareness about free software in general.

Re:Marketing

[ChrisA90278]

Right now Apple is the only company that makes the "whole stack" the computer, the OS, the applications and now even the retail store.

This means Apple gets ALL the money. But also means that Apple can test everything and see that it works together and does not need to waste time and money supporting every possible combination of components.

It's more than just marking Apple has a unique product. No one else sell you a system that thy built top to bottom. Well OK Sun can but they don't go after home users.

OK markeing is a big factor with Apple but it would fail if they didn't have a product people want. It's the combination of products AND marketing.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

I could contend a number of distros hold advantages over Ubuntu, but I don't see the need to start a flame-war.

However, I saw a Google-trends breakdown recently (I think it was on planetsuse.org) that showed searches for Ubuntu constantly rise, where as searches for Linux are on the decline. Those two points almost meet in the middle.

Ubuntu is becoming ubiquitous for Linux. People have heard of Ubuntu, and word of mouth is extremely popular. Because it is the most popular distro, that continues to spread. People who don't know much about Linux are likely to immediately gravitate to the one distro they have heard of.

Ubuntu landed deals with companies like Dell, and Mark Shuttleworth has made a huge name for himself. I can't even tell you who is in charge of Mandriva.

For Mandriva to have the same sway, they'd have to sell commercial support (not sure if they do other than their club, which seems to be a turn-off to me), land major deals, and market themselves heavily the way Ubuntu does.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

I've been switching several people to Linux (KDE and openSUSE specifically) and even though they aren't computer savvy and they have reservations, not a single person has asked to go back to Windows. Many have told me they find KDE and Linux to be easier to navigate and operate than Windows.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

The average Windows PC and Mac PC may not come with Office bundled, but every major Linux distro bundles OpenOffice. In fact, you're more likely to find the software you need preinstalled on a Linux box more than Windows.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

Except Apple is growing big time in market share with first-time adopters right now that have no clue what Apple products are like. They just know they want one.

I'm not saying Apple products are necessarily bad or good. I'm saying they are selling regardless of quality because of good marketing.

My mother owns no music really to speak of and absolutely had to own an iPod. My CEO's kids know nothing about computers, but came in saying they absolutely need Apple computers.

Most people I talk to want an iPhone, but know nothing about them.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Honestly, there's not that many running in the "fashionable yet usable" category.

I call bullshit. Have you seen Apple's growth figures this year? It was something like 40%. That's huge. I really doubt that all those people that purchased the iPhones and Macs (Apple's best selling items this financial year) were previous Apple users.

The majority are sheep, who following marketing hype.

Re:Marketing

[Yfrwlf]

First I just have to say, awesome journal. Thank you so much for promoting cross-anything usability. In order for everyone to have access to all software, having that software use modular/extensible APIs/ABIs so that they can always function in the best way in any environment is very important. The Freedesktop project is very important in helping to bring more interoperability to the Linux system, so I wish them all luck in this struggle. It'll be amazing when a way can be found to make any program have the look and feel of the native desktop or whatever user-defined look that they want, and when configuration files and data can all be stored in similar locations, like just off the user's home directory, instead of being buried inside .kde or .gnome. Heck, I'll be happy when my KDE program menu icons start displaying correctly in Gnome.

While it's fine and great that Ubuntu has become a noticed distro, I'll be happier when "Linux" becomes more common. When you can download virtually any distro and it will simply be a specific selection of Linux software, but you can go out and easily download and install any Linux software or drivers you want. Then, it won't need to be "Ubuntu", it will just need to be "made for Linux". Some distros may not be concerned with cross-distro software portability because they have an interest in users coming to them for help, instead of to the actual upstream providers of the software, since some of these distros are based on wanting to create a need for support. However, just like not having desktop standards hurts everyone, not having easy cross-distro software installation does the same. Fortunately, there are projects like the Burgdorf Packaging API which are working on solving this issue, as well as more top-level solutions like Zero Install, and of course both of these projects could use more support from everyone. :)

Re:Marketing

[ElBeano]

"Ubuntu sounds multicultural and foreign..."

Maybe that's just all right. I realize many Linux geeks look down on Ubuntu because they secretely loathe its popularity and appeal to broader audiences. I like the fact that I have more freedom (and power) with the OS than with anything else going. Furthermore, I like to think of myself as a world citizen, not a mindless disciple of messiah Jobs.

Ubuntu is not Apple. Thankfully.

Re:Marketing

[jps25]

Thanks.
I did not know Celtx, but it does indeed look interesting.

Re:Marketing

[jedidiah]

That's funny because the first time I saw a GUI I didn't know what
the HELL to do with it. It took a little bit of adjustment at first. It
certainly wasn't the "instantaneous" or "intuitive" thing that many make
it out to be. I am by no means alone in this sort of initial reaction to
the GUI.

          What a Mac or any other GUI can do is capture your attention and keep it.

Re:Marketing

[jedidiah]

Yes, but the n00b surfers are still convinced somehow that they need msoffice for compatability. This even interferes with their potential defection to Macintosh. It's quite bizarre really...

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

I've long suggested that all major distros should consider working on one package manager and major repository system. The files can be .deb or .rpm or whatever. I don't care.

The openSUSE build service ( https://build.opensuse.org/ ) allows different distros to build packages in one place. It provides an easy search interface for users to get one-click installers for whatever package they want.

I'd really like to see more distros take advantage of it.

Re:Marketing

[Nate B.]

I have no issues with Ubuntu and as a Debian user I believe their work has largely benefited me as a Debian user. My point is that no matter how shiny, the person on the street will respond with, "U what?", at the mention of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is not Apple. Thankfully.

Agreed, and neither Ubuntu nor the larger F/OSS community should aspire to be Apple. We just need to focus on the areas where F/OSS is a natural fit and allow Apple to be the designer label of consumer tech. The success of F/OSS does not hinge on "taking" Apple's market share.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Could also be bad experiences with Linux put people off. "It just works," say the zealots. Then it doesn't...

I drank the Kool-Aid and tried using Linux for my small business. I lost a week to driver issues and software incompatibilities after an update. The amount of time I lost was worth more than a loaded iBook.

Sure, I could have stayed with Linux and learned to work around it's warts, spending more and more time to learn how to administer a system, just so I can do my work. Or I could, you know, actually do my work and get paid. I could have paid for support or, you know, just spent a little extra for a system that actually works.

I can see Linux working in offices with dedicated support staff. I can see it working for the enthusiast market. For everyone else, there is Windows and Mac.

Re:Marketing

[Almahtar]

the implied lie that Linux can be everything you want it to be

I don't know that it's such a lie.

I just bought a macbook pro and immediately dual booted it with Ubuntu because OSX can't do what I want it to do, but with a bit of configuration Ubuntu can look as flashy as OSX yet still give me what I want.

Spaces can do a lot, but it isn't as flexible as compiz-fusion. Finder just plain doesn't support sftp, and OSX apps don't either, not in the sense that gnome/kde apps do.

As is I get the usability of OSX with the technical advancement that only gnome and kde have. It's only available in Linux.

Re:Marketing

[Keen Anthony]

Speaking for the uninitiated, what is so special about Ubuntu that would make it any better a Linux than SuSe, Red Hat, or Slackware? Does Ubuntu contain exclusive software that makes Linux better?

Re:Marketing

[smilindog2000]

Ubuntu is not Apple. Thankfully.

Agreed. And, it never will be. Mark Shuttleworth is way off base this time. Apple specializes in what's possible when a single company controls every aspect of your computer, from hardware design to the GUI. Linux specializes in what's possible when hackers around the world make cool stuff. I'm waaaay in the Linux camp, but Ubuntu will never replace Apple.

All that really matters is that Linux is awesome and getting better every day. We, the few Linux hackers, have it really good. Why should we care that Joe Sixpack will continue to watch his porn and play his video games on Windows until the end of time?

Re:Marketing

[sir fer]

Maybe you're just not as competent as you think you are? And your rant doesn't explain how or why ubuntu works seamlessly for me, straight "out of the box" on a box I put together myself from swapped parts...it went like a dream - I could hardly believe my luck that it was free ;o) . I've even had some apple-fanboys/users drooling with jealousy over compiz-fusion and the desktop cube/sphere/cylinder

Re:Marketing

[smilindog2000]

"Ubuntu" is a very unfortunate name. It helps promote the distro with the hacker community (as did the soft-porn desktop art), but it's a disaster for business applications. I've promoted Ubuntu for business use over Red Hat now for years (I got really tired of Red Hat putting out unstable Fedora releases and charging for stable but backwards Enterprise crap). The #1 problem I always run into when I say "Try Ubuntu" is the natural question:

"Ubuntu? What does that mean?"

Imagine the look on a business guy's face when I explain the name means "'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'". I explain that I went to Berkeley, and then everything makes sense to the business guy.

Re:Marketing

[R_Dorothy]

In my experience it's people who aren't computer savvy that find switching easier, even preferable. Once people have started to equate 'knowing Windows' with 'knowing computers' then they tend to come to the conclusion that Linux is hard to use.

To a point, the more you know about a subject the harder it is to admit that you don't know something new about that subject. (The second of the three steps to enlightenment.)

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

...let Macs have their day to break the MS dominance and get as many cross-platform (Win/Mac/Linux) standards in place as at all possible...

That's already happening and is good but despite Apple's 'standards compliance' they still seem to be massive proponents of vendor lock-in. Just look at any of their products beginning with 'i'.

Even the iWork suite has its own proprietary document format; as if the world needs another one!

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Think for example of clothes - you can get very stylish clothes but they're often awkward to wear, horrible to wash and neither robust nor very practical. Or you can have clothes that are very practical, comfortable, durable, easy to wash and utterly unstylish. Want to look classy 365 days a year? There's not actually that many you'd want to wear. What I'm saying it that you better be good to be fashionable, for a durable product at least.

Whoah!! Hold on there just a minute, compadre. Are you implying that belted corduroy jumpsuits aren't fashionable and classy? But seriously, some of us geeks are so aesthetically deficient that we have no idea how to be both fashionable and comfortable. Therefore we dismiss fashion. It's not like you have to wear a tuxedo to be fashionable at all times.

I like your workhorse/show horse analogy. Best one I've seen. However, I'd argue that Linux developers/promoters shouldn't slow down in trying to take market share away from MS. Maybe Apple is cutting into MS the most, but we should all pile on. However, if you're referring to the FUD that has been emanating from the FSF and the Stalmanites (commonly referred to as Freetards), then I think you're right. What's up with that anyway? When did the FSF folks become such FUDmeisters? I knew they were blowhards, but when did they become such dicks?

Anyway, the MS Vista crisis is a huge opportunity for the OSS community to kick some ass. Emulating (or even improving on) Apple's and OS X's design excellence, rather than trying to be "as good as" Windows, should be the target. But fighting Apple with FUD because you want some of Apple's market share is misguided.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Not entierly true. Firefox has not been marketed much in Europe, and here is where Fireofx is most popular.

Re:Marketing

[grm_wnr]

How about something that can replace Photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut or Logic?

No, GIMP, Inkscape, Cinelerra/Blender or Audacity don't count. All of those are good enough to do the kind of media stuff programmers occasionally have to do, but totally incapable of replacing a full featured pro app.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Wine

Re:Marketing

[Ash-Fox]

I have seen Firefox posters in the UK and Poland.

Re:Marketing

[Ash-Fox]

I drank the Kool-Aid and tried using Linux for my small business. I lost a week to driver issues and software incompatibilities after an update. The amount of time I lost was worth more than a loaded iBook.

Sure, I could have stayed with Linux and learned to work around it's warts, spending more and more time to learn how to administer a system, just so I can do my work. Or I could, you know, actually do my work and get paid. I could have paid for support or, you know, just spent a little extra for a system that actually works.

I can see Linux working in offices with dedicated support staff. I can see it working for the enthusiast market. For everyone else, there is Windows and Mac.

Maybe you should of started off by buying hardware preloaded with a business Linux system. Such as one of IBM's or Dell's preloaded with SuSE Linux. Since, that is what you're doing with Windows and Mac to begin with.

Re:Marketing

[Ash-Fox]

Yes, but the n00b surfers are still convinced somehow that they need msoffice for compatability. This even interferes with their potential defection to Macintosh. It's quite bizarre really...

Okay? And the problem is?

Re:Marketing

[grm_wnr]

Please tell me one reason why I should run the pro apps that I use 90% of my workday in Wine. Money isn't one (I paid thousands of dollars for these apps, I can easily afford a Windows/Mac OS license) and the warm fuzzy feeling of free software isn't either (Adobe isn't much less evil than Microsoft/Apple). Not to mention Wine doesn't support everything or the newest versions. It's fine for the dude that absolutely needs Photoshop once in a while and mostly uses Emacs, but it makes absolutely zero sense in a pro media environment.

Re:Marketing

[Ash-Fox]

But it's also important that Apple also delivers, even if you subtract some for obvious hype and willingness to overlook Apple tend to deliver products that work well.

No not really... Generally the first few revisions of anything they do is terrible, eventually it works it way to being, acceptable by most people (still not acceptable for me).

I don't think Linux is good enough to be fashionable just yet. Yes, it's a good workhorse but a workhorse is no show horse.

Personally, I think it does better than OS X and Windows currently.

Re:Marketing

[Cro Magnon]

I once made the comment that Microsoft was Firefox's marketing arm. Most of the switchers I know switched after some IE security flaw hit the press.

Re:Marketing

[Asklepius M.D.]

I think you're close, but in my experience the single biggest factor preventing linux adoption in the non-business world is DRM. Non-technical users simply don't want to be told that they can't watch a movie, listen to some angst-ridden teenager whine into a microphone, etc without jumping through hoops. Unfortunately, to these users it's easier to "just install windows" than to pressure the market to change. In the business world it's similar - interoperability with what all your clients are using is key. File format conflicts are a huge holdup. Get rid of these hurdles and watch the penguin fly.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

Final Cut is the only one I really agree with. However, you have to realize that there isn't even a really good Windows replacement for Final Cut. Photoshop and Illustrator can be replaced quite well with GIMP, Krita and Inkscape. In some ways, the free software is in fact better.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

A few things like Wubi to allow you to install it in Windows, Jockey, bullet-proof X, but on the whole I'd say no. Every distro has a few advantages of its own.

I had more problems with Ubuntu than any other distro I've ever tried actually.

Re:Marketing

[boast]

yes, apt-get

Re:Marketing

[Blimey85]

Don't they need MS Office? I don't use it all that frequently but when I need an office app, it's the suite that I turn to. For me it's a case of if it's not broken, don't fix it. I don't need a free alternative because I already own MS Office and I'm quite happy with it. It works well on my Windows machine and in a year or two when this machine is outdated and I can justify getting a new one, I'll be switching to Mac where I know I can continue to use MS Office. I've been using it for years, I'm familiar with it, and I have no incentive to switch. Although I will admit that I still run MS Office 2003 because the newer version looked like crap and I had no incentive to upgrade. Ribbons?

The MS Office clones are exactly that. The big "feature" is compatibility because that's what everyone cares about. Will they be able to open the files they already have? The problem as I see it is a lack of innovation. What does Open Office or any other competing product have that MS Office doesn't have? Where is my incentive to switch?

I left IE for Firefox because there was a long list of features that interested me. When I tell someone about Firefox it's very easy to make the case for switching. With MS Office, it would be far easier to make a case not to switch unless the person doesn't already own a copy of it. Even then it's not very expensive. I have a legit license for the newest Office around here somewhere that I got from watching three videos during a promotion last year. I don't recall what they were about because I never watched them. I simply opened them on my computer and left them going in some little program I had to install. After all three the site said I had met my commitment and about six weeks later I received my copy of MS Office. It was a promo thing direct from MS. There was also an option to watch 3 other videos and get a copy of Vista but I was having connection issues with my cable modem at the time and they ran out of copies before I had a chance to do that one. Not that I would have used Vista even with it being free. I don't use the new Office. And what does that say about a product when you have a legit copy for free and you still won't use it? Unfortunately I paid retail for my copy of Office 2003.

Re:Marketing

[DannyO152]

I like form and function. Can I be in both camps, please?

I wonder if design is easily translated to an open source development model. Unlike application correctness, design ultimately is subjective. Also unlike application correctness, it is subject to culture and fashion (2 + 2 = 4, that's so Pythogoras). I guess by "wonder" I mean "not gonna happen." You see, somebody would have to publish a high quality interface guideline. Someone has to take the guidelines and produce and maintain a library of widgets (this being more functional in nature feels like it could be a community effort). Then the developers out there producing applications have to read and understand the guidelines and the libraries and implement them in their apps.

That last one is ringing the "Uh Oh" alarm, because it would require a lot of people revisiting finished elements of their apps because somebody said it doesn't look pretty enough.

Don't get me wrong, aesthetics are important, and Shuttleworth has a point that a better looking environment promotes its use, I think look and feel, though, is a more difficult kind of problem and not amenable to world-wide, loosely affiliated team structures.

Re:Marketing

[Kjella]

the implied lie that Linux can be everything you want it to be

I don't know that it's such a lie.

GIMP couldn't give me drawing skills worth shit, neither could Photoshop. I was thinking more like "use this and it'll make you brilliant/rich/famous/sexy and give free blowjobs" marketing, even though Linux is pretty flexible it's not like it's going to change your life around.

Re:Marketing

[rootooftheworld]

You Have Officialy Been Elected The New FOSS Marketing Expert. Congratulations!

Seriously, we needthat kind of thinking. BTW, can't somebody come up with a Mac OS X compat. layer already? WINE is awesome, and Win32 API isn't exactly best of breed. That along with portin the I/O Kit would turn linux a winner. Whatever H/S -ware Macs support, linux will immediatly.

Re:Marketing

[jedidiah]

> Where is my incentive to switch?

You have 2 choices really...

PAY to stay current or PIRATE.

It's not simply a matter of maintaining the status quo.

msoffice is not designed to allow you to create documents.
It's designed to EXTRACT YOUR MONEY in perpetuity.

msoffice for you probably reached it's zenith around the 4.2 version of office.

Re:Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha - I probably would have caught on, but beer had happened. It had happened a lot. My bad.

Re:Marketing

[Blimey85]

Most people I know upgrade Office because they think everyone else is going to and they want to make sure they can open any files they receive. But then most people I know did not upgrade beyond Office 2003 because they don't like the ribbon crap. They also haven't upgraded to Vista. The risk you run when your software reaches that "good enough" point is that you really have to give more to get customers to upgrade. Taking away the tried-and-true menus and replacing them with unfamiliar crap is not a good way to get people to upgrade.

But again, I have a FREE legal copy of the latest Office and I choose not to use it. That really says something about my opinion of the product. But even then, I choose to stay with what I already have because while Office is not progressing in my opinion, neither is any of its competitors. Open Office gives me nothing that I don't already have, as far as I know. And if it does, it needs to do a better job of marketing whatever it is that might convince me to switch. Simply relying on the fact that it's free isn't getting it done.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

Business users should be focusing on products like SLED, SLES, CentOS and such. Fedora is unstable because it is a testing community distro with bleeding edge stuff. You can't push people away from RedHat because Fedora is unstable. It is designed to be unstable.

Either way, there are far better enterprise-quality distros rather than Ubuntu. Ubuntu has its place, but I wouldn't replaced SLED with it.

Re:Marketing

[hacker]

They want Apple computers because of marketing and hype.

Apple doesn't sell computers or software, they sell "an experience". Why do you think people will pay MORE money for headphones that are worse in quality and sound reproduction than the competition? Because they are "white" and match the color scheme of their iPod.

What Apple excels at is marketing, nothing more.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

Some distros (like Sabayon and Mint) just preinstall codecs and such. Frankly, I don't understand why distros like openSUSE don't. They will include proprietary stuff like Flash, Acrobat, Sun's Java, RealPlayer, etc. but refuse to package in Nvidia's driver or media codecs.

There are a few people who suggest that including libdvdcss is illegal in the US, but that just isn't the case. The DCMA makes it illegal to circumvent copyright protection for the purpose of making pirate copies. The DCMA does not say it is illegal to enable a player to play media.

Reverse engineering isn't illegal.

If a distro wants to be as pure as possible and not include these things by being "free" (read, free meaning removing choice from users and forcing them into your philosophy of OSS or bust) then so be it. That is your choice as a distro.

Not including codecs when you include other proprietary elements is just poor customer service.

Oh, and you get props for quoting Emerson.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

Exactly my point.

Re:Marketing

[syousef]

Want to look classy 365 days a year?

Nope. I want something practical 360 days of the year. I'm in an office job, so that does mean a shirt, black shoes and black trousers. A tie? They look great but forget it - they're not mandatory where I am and they're a pain. If I were a trady it'd be different again. The closest I get is flying remote control aircraft, which can leave you covered in castor oil (which stains). If you want practical but unstylish come see me at the flying field with a fly net, baseball cap, old tshirt and old jeans with mud on the knees.

If I'm going to a job interview or a wedding or meeting someone new where an impression is important I'll try and look stylish. Otherwise what a waste of time, effort and money. Wanting to look "classy" 365 days a year is also referred to as "being a fashion victim".

Same goes for the computer. Fuck the Mac. First of all my style does not match Steve Job's or Apple's. Love science and computing. Hated the trend of see-through clear plastic cases, keyboards and mice. To me it looked cheap and untidy. Bottom line is I don't care much about style in a piece of equipment. It's a tool. I don't need a fancy case and glowing lights when I buy a machine. I want something that does the job - doesn't overheat, is easy to fix if it breaks, uses commonly available affordable standard parts. Mac hardware doesn't qualify.

Re:Marketing

[Yfrwlf]

Hmm, that's interesting and seems to be pretty good, but of course in a way I guess it's a little more "top level" sorta than the LSB Packaging solution. Or, well, maybe it would achieve the same thing but since the LSB is, well, the LSB, it will probably have good adoption and it seems that quite a few things may get addressed with it. The OpenSuse Build Service still needs to take specific distros into consideration, but after the LSB Packaging standard is finalized, it should level the playing field completely so that no annoying distro-specific crap has to be taken into account while packaging, since those things make packaging difficult. The LSB API should have enough information to easily allow any package manager to be able to deal with packages correctly on any system, provided that the solution is robust/extensible, etc, which is of course what everyone wants to make it be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for any and all solutions, but while not knowing too much in detail about what's out there, I would guess the LSB solution will probably be what will eventually be the solution, I just hope it won't take too long to do so. Until then, when and if that happens, these other projects can try to fill that spot but I just don't know if I'll be able to shake off the feeling that it's duct tape until the LSB solution arrives to wield it all together. ^^

Re:Marketing

[TuringTest]

Design is subjective, but user efficiency is measurable. If the application has well defined goals, there's a way to find whether the current implementation matches them.

It's just that more of those measures aren't technical - i.e. don't think maths, in How many clicks? - think in social sciences, field research, satisfaction surveys.

Damn, even *some* important measures are mathematical (how long does it take to buy the product, how many errors the user makes, how many users give up without completing), you just need a human expert to discover which measures are the good ones.

somebody would have to publish a high quality interface guideline

You're thinking in developer terms. But an interface MUST NOT be designed by the developer, even if he has good guidelines to follow - those are just for achieving consistency. They're just like coding standards, not requisites.

The overall process of each application function must be designed by someone who is watching the user following - it's exactly *debugging* the process, only with an expert in "human processors" doing the debugging. You wouldn't program a persistence layer without running the classes against a database engine. The "human2computer" "interface" layer is just the same - the design must be provided by an expert, and refined through real usage.

it would require a lot of people revisiting finished elements of their apps because somebody said it doesn't look pretty enough.

If you only revisit *finished* elements, you're doing it wrong. What about if the finished element shows the "input your credit card" form before showing the final price, but *real people* don't give their card numbers if they don't know how much will the shopping total cost? That requisite should be discovered in the early stages of development.

Finally, in the topic of aesthetics, beautiful works better. So it is one of the important requirements in the human API, just like batch throughput is important in the DDBB API.

Re:Marketing

[cascadefx]

It's funny. My wife happily accepts my geekiness and Linux use, but has never really been interested in using it for herself.

Over the past couple of years, I have had a laptop from work that dual boots Linux (it's primary OS) and Windows (so I can support our Windows clients). By just using Linux (Ubuntu) when she borrows my laptop every now and then, she has come to really like it.

Recently, she said that she'd probably like to have Linux dual boot on her newer laptop so she can get more experience with it.

In my circles, Firefox grew after I put in on their systems and encouraged them to use it and showed them some cool things that it could do. They in turn did the same from their friends. No marketing, other than the most powerful form called "word of mouth", was involved.

Installation over eye-candy

[evil_aar0n]

I love Expose' on the Mac, but that's not what keeps me from investing a lot of time in Linux, lately - and I go as far back as '94: it's ease of software installation.

When Linux, any distro, has a software installation mechanism that's as easy as the Mac's, I'll give it another try. Yes, apt-get is good, but it's not yet in the Mac's "drag-and-drop" league.

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[snoyberg]

I dunno, I always found installing programs with apt-get easier than on my wife's Mac. Why is it easier to find the program, drag it to applications, and then drag that link to the menu than just install it with synaptic?

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[McGiraf]

Yes, apt-get is good, but it's not yet in the Mac's "drag-and-drop" league.

not it's way better.

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[QuantumRiff]

Yes, from a technical standpoint it is better. But tell someone that isn't "technical" how to install an app they need. You either tell them to go to the command prompt, which scares the hell out of them, or you tell them to use a tool like synaptic, that has so many choices and things you can install that it is just plain overwhelming. They want to play movies, they don't want to decide if they want Totem, Gstreamer, VLC, etc...

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Chris Burkhardt]

> Yes, apt-get is good, but it's not yet in the Mac's "drag-and-drop" league.

Hehe. That's a joke.... right?

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu is definitely easier. Why should you have to figure out where to drag those dmg things to when you could just click a .deb and have it install in the right place?

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[McGiraf]

You make no sense. They would have to chose their player anyway. Synaptic is not harder than google to use just search for video player ans install any of them. How is this any harder than on a Mac? It even downloads it for you.

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[McGiraf]

And i forgot because i do not use it, but in Ubuntu there is an "Install applications" somewhere in the menu which is another front end for apt. Way more simpler than synaptic and way more simpler than anything else i saw on any OS for the non-technical people.

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Anonymous Coward]

The way it works in the latest releases of Ubuntu is really easy even for the least technically minded.
At the bottom of the applications menu you have an entry saying "add / remove" which brings you to Gnome-app-install, a simple front end to apt listing only GUI programs, without all the libraries and CLI apps that would only confuse a person who doesn't want to dig deeper into the system. The programs are divided into the same categories were you will find them in the applications menu once installed (internet, office etc.), there is a search box in the the top right corner were you would expect it to be, offering progressive search results as you type, each application is given a star rating showing its popularity and a short description is displayed for the selected application (I think the one provided by the package).
It has a very clean look, providing only the needed informations, in order not to be intimidating to new users.
I don't think I have ever used it for something else then showing people new to Ubuntu how to install new programs, I'm used to aptitude and synaptic, but I think this is a great way to bring the advantages of a great system like apt to mainstream users.

The just wanting to play movies or listening to music problem is solved quite nicely too: when you open a audio or video file that can't be played with the available codecs, you are presented with a dialog asking if you would like to install the codecs needed to play the file, responding yes will start the download and installation of the codecs, and then start the player.

No doubt there are still problems with inconsistencies in the user interface and hardware compatibility problems compared to Windows,being the platform targeted by vendors, or Apple, as they must support only the hardware they choose to put into the devices they sell and are targeted more broadly by peripheral makers, but the situation is always getting better.

As for the bling, one of the things holding back my urge to buy a mac, apart from the Palladium inspired closed attitude they are displaying with the Iphone, it has to be unlocked, jailbroken and sim unlocked before you can use it as you wish, even after having paid the full price, is my gorgeous rotating cube! It took me hours of work to figure out how to get it working on my old ATI card and is now doing its duty in providing me with one of the most relaxing toys I have ever had on a pc.
Plus it would trouble me seeing the windows stay stiff while I drag them around after having experienced the beauty of the wobbly windows :)

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Risen888]

2000 called, it wants its talking points back. Add/Remove has been part of Ubuntu since (I think) 5.04.

Oh, and they want to play movies do they? Surprise! There's already a program included in every single desktop Linux distro that I've ever seen!

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Eli Gottlieb]

You're *mostly* right. The one place Mac beats Ubuntu is in third-party, "un-managed" applications. I can download an ISV's OS X bundle onto my machine and have it work in a few clicks (including, usually, checks for updates), whereas doing the same thing for an Ubuntu .deb not included in the main repositories involves adding a new source to my apt configuration. And let's not even start about what happens if the application in question doesn't come packaged in a .deb file...

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok you ALL fail..
It is not easier than to go on the internet to look for an application, because to know what application you will install you ALREADY are on the internet....
Because you know, all your fancy apt get or synaptics or install application provide absolutely no useful information to actually chose what to install.
no screenshot, no real capabilities information, no comparaison with other similar programs...

Then ok you install the application, what happens:you don't even know if you will have an icon for it, and most likely don't even know where it will appear.
And don't give me the crap 'it should be logical'...
logic is windows xp style:put it a the end of the menu cause it is the last application installed, then just allow to fucking drag and drop wherever you want.
Ubuntu fails, install the kde desktop on top of it, and have your menus totally go berserk.
Ubuntu ready for the desktop ? Come on....Ubuntu is only good as a black blox you close down for your grandpa...Less work and cheaper than to actually secure a windows box. But that is all about it.
Linux as a desktop in a corporate environmenbt can work cause you have professional configuring it, For the home desktop....never, since no one pays for that. Especially not the home users...since GPL means it is free as in beer.

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Add/remove...", at the bottom of the Applications menu.

And, yes, it really does look pretty hand-holding and simple.

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Ash-Fox]

I dunno, I always found installing programs with apt-get easier than on my wife's Mac. Why is it easier to find the program, drag it to applications, and then drag that link to the menu than just install it with synaptic?

• I don't use Synaptic, I use Adept.
• Double clicking a .deb or .rpm file is hard?
• Typing the name of the application you want to install is harder than Googling the name, going through the sites, trying to find the correct version of the application that works with your specific version of OS X to download?
• Most of the useful applications I used on OS X used the installer.app to install, not click drag to the applications folder

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[Fri13]

That "Install Applications" is not Ubuntu oriented. It is on all usual desktop environments and windowmanagers menu.

Mandriva has same, it just opens rpmdrake as normally would get opened. And rpmdrake does not show any application without GUI by default, but you can change it to show different kind packages, and you can search them very easily or browse catalog.

The actuall problem still exist, what is on all package managers or even google. User does not know is the application 1 good for him or application 2.

To help novice user, we add simple applications for every purpose, already installed to system, so user can start using computer without learning first something. If first thing is that user needs to install something, even it would be X on the package list, it is too much.

Ubuntu was not even first one to offer this kind usability, simple menus and one application for one purpose. Only difference was Ubuntu's brown theme and good timing when Gnome and Linux fitted to normal usage and there were applications for basic stuff.

Now, Ubuntu has nothing more difference against other distributions than fame and community. These are two things, community is actually even worse than few others, but it is easy enough to use (forums), even that some other distributions makes the forums usage even easier (mandriva, you get your login name and password while installing it).
Now Ubuntu only rides with it's fame and marketing, what is the reason why it is so popular, what is reason why it gets so much packages to repositories and why there is so easy to install software on Ubuntu. Marketing makes Ubuntu as special and easy to install applications.

Re:Installation over eye-candy

[VanessaE]

So why can't programs like Synaptic (or Adept, my preference) have, instead of the main window, an add/remove wizard that pops up a single, friendly dialog box along these lines to get the user off to a good start:

------
Please enter your password and click one of the buttons
below to get started.

Password: ____________________

[ Add ] Install new programs onto your computer.
[ Remove ] Uninstall unwanted programs.
[ Expert ] Skip this wizard and go to Expert mode.
[ Cancel ] I changed my mind, get me out of here!
------

Where expert mode will take the user to the usual interface we're all familiar with.

Such a wizard should never, EVER present the user with lists of mundane libraries or other dependencies unless they explicitly ask for that information - the average user doesn't want to see that stuff. The user doesn't know what GTK does or why the program he or she wants needs Avahi, and they don't care if the system uses binutils 2.18.1.some-random-number. They can probably tell you what something like OpenOffice will do, and that's all they care about.

They don't need to know that their boot loader is GRUB rather than LILO, and they don't give a shit about what version of the kernel they're using.

If they want or need to know the gory details, the wizard should give them an option to see it, again presented in a clear and friendly manner. Otherwise, just tell the user how much stuff needs to be downloaded and maybe give them an estimate of how long it will take to finish the job. And FFS, clean up after yourself - don't leave 47 different libraries behind after the removal of a program if nothing needs them.

Yeah, I realize it's not that easy to design that type of interface, but it can't be all that hard, either. The user will feel a little better on seeing a silly "cancel" message like "get me out of here!", because stuff like that is mildly amusing to most people.

Fix the kernel source packages

[syousef]

10-12 years or so ago I was a Linux user. My first distro was Slackware, then I moved to Redhat because certain software I was using only ran on that distro. At the time compiling your own kernel was quite a normal thing to do. I've had a long long break since where I've touched on distros from time to time but not run anything seriously.

Well my work's meant I've been doing some heavier C coding of late, and in looking up something or other I came across the LinuxChix kernel hacking tutorial and realized how short a step it was from compiling a kernel to modifying some code (at least to add printk debug statements). Heck I'd installed many distros and compiled custom kernels many times in the past. How hard could it be? Right?

So I've been trying lots of distros on VMWare with an aim to compiling a kernel and adding some debugging. First of all what the fuck happened? The process use to be bog standard and simple. Now you don't even get the option to install the build tools when you install the system. You have to go and install a bunch of packages manually on all the distros.

Second of all, what's with Ubuntu not providing kernel sources, then doing so for a short while, then breaking them? Currently the correct way to install kernel source is to clone the whole Ubuntu git repository. We don't all have unlimited bandwidth.

See:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Kernel/Compile
"NOTE: This method has been broken since at least June 14th, 2007. Details are here. Use method #1 above ("git") instead."

I thought this was Linux for human beings. Apparently in catering for end users, they've decided to leave developers out in the cold. That's not smart! One extra step to download the source I could understand, but I didn't want to spend lots of time trawling through a tutorial working out which packages I need to apt-get. I wanted to spend that time looking at a kernel.

I finally did get a kernel compiling and building correctly, and put my couple of printk statements in - on Debian, not Ubuntu. Only took about 3 days to get my head around things. The distros are more diverse in their way of doing things than ever. (For example no link at /etc/grub.conf to /boot/grub/menu.lst on some). Sure, my lack of familiarity with 10 years or so of development didn't help but this is why I quit Linux in the first place - I don't have the time or inclination to deal with incomplete, out of date tutorials. (For example my kernel compiles weren't working without initrd. Had to find out that was my problem by trial and error, then had to work out the debian specific way of building initrd.)

So Linux for human beings and year of the Linux desktop my backside. It's nice that the software now installs less problematically on more hardware and that things aren't completely broken out of the box. However to me that seems like 2 steps forward, one step back.

Mod as you will.

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[Splab]

Human beings as a rule does not need to add debug statements to some kernel. Generally the Ubuntu works for the masses, sometimes some user comes along and needs more than the 99% others. Annoying as it might be, he - or she - is going to have to work a bit harder to get his exact wishes satisfied, that's how life is, if you aren't among the millions of drones, be prepared to work harder.

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[Tweenk]

I just used the linux-kernel-source package, which is probably a clone of the Debian kernel, and kernel-package to build it:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libncurses5 linux-kernel-source kernel-package fakeroot
fakeroot make-kpkg clean
fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-custom kernel_image kernel_headers

That's about all you need to know. I didn't get some of the restricted goodies, and had to link the firmware directory from the stock kernel to /lib/firmware/`uname -r`, but it works. That being said, adding debug statements to the kernel is not something human beings usually do.

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[nawcom]

As a developer myself for OS X and Linux, I still prefer Slackware over anything else distribution-wise. Give 12.1 a try; it's not anymore "behind" than any other distribution, it just doesn't depend on a memory hungry framework that some distributions install (package management, settings management(uggh think openSuse) and it comes with gcc by default. it doesn't depend on offline package management, for someone modified apt-get to work with tgzs (slapt-get and swaret). And yes, you can download the kernel source from the ftp, build it, and install it along with the compiled modules without any struggle over dependencies. It's still "Linux", at least the one you are in search of ;).

Also, I want to say that I think Ubuntu can be defined as an OS by itself (that uses the Linux kernel) is if they create a nice X11 interface that defines what Ubuntu is. The main issue between any 2 distributions is that other than the package management and any special apps they include, everything else is the same, and if not there, can be built and added. just for shits and giggles I compiled apt-get, and grabbed a few apps to test out. i also tested out the deb2tgz app that converts it to slackware packages, and I had the default gnome desktop that Ubuntu comes with on a Slackware machine. That's just the easibility of the friendly applications it comes with; if I only want it to look like the default DE that Ubuntu uses, I can put it on anything that runs an X11 server with a decent video card.

Oh well, the reason I am posting these opinions that I have is that I think Ubuntu can really become something other than "another user-friendly Linux distribution" if they design a special DE that truely integrates every piece of code that they run off the GNU based OS that runs off of the Linux kernel. Sort of the same way Apple has OS X running off of and is integrated with the Darwin OS, that runs off of xnu, the mach kernel.

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[T3Tech]

...I still prefer Slackware over anything else distribution-wise.

Me too.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to say something besides that.

With Slack one can still d/l and compile just a new kernel and IIRC with the installer you still get to choose whether or not to install the typical dev software all the way to picking and choosing every individual program, it hasn't changed much at all in these regards from 10+ years ago. I've done kernel updates only quite a few times on my laptop, but there's still an issue with kernel support for the buggy ACPI on it. On my primary machine I'm not so worried about keeping up with kernel upgrades as I am with it being stable and having only what is needed in the kernel. And I still install most of my software from source rather than using a package manager.

One thing that always bothered me about RedHat (along with some other distros) was how it obfuscated certain config files in attempts at making things more 'user-friendly' with their own interfaces, scripts and associated config files adding an unecessary, IMO, layer of abstraction to the standard config files. Modifying a standard file and then using the whatever-configurator utility to change some other setting often resulted in the direct change originally made being overwritten. I know this behavior can be found all over the place, not just in RedHat and not just WRT to Linux system related settings but in some cases it can be just unbelievably annoying.

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu is a desktop Linux distro.

If you want to develop for Ubuntu you need to get the tools.

If you want a developers distro there are many to choose from that probably require you install Xorg on your own (or maybe that's an exaggeration, but you get the point).

Slackware still has development tools right on disc though you can still choose not to install those.

Is this really a problem for you?

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[Anonymous Coward]

I often find that to be a problem.
You have the binary "For everyone" distros, where *most* things work out of the box, but if they don't, you're somewhat screwed.
Then you have the source distros, where getting things to work in the first place is a pain, but once the basics do, adding things is easy.

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[syousef]

What version of Ubuntu are you using?

I may need to re-check the name I was using to download the kernel source. I may have been trying from work, in which case download would have been an issue. In any case I knew nothing about fakeroot, nor the list of packages I needed. A pseudo-package called kernel-builder would have been nice instead of having to know exact dependencies.

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[syousef]

Hit reply too quickly.

That being said, adding debug statements to the kernel is not something human beings usually do.

Strongly disagree with that. Linux Hackers aren't gods, and they're not trolls. They're another kind of very human user. A very important kind, even if they're in the minority. Without them there would be no open source *nix clones. Putting people off learning about the kernel is not a good idea.

Re:Fix the kernel source packages

[syousef]

Thanks,

I really ought to do what you say and try out Slackware again. It was my first distro and I had a fondness for it. At one point it was well behind everything else though and I needed Redhat and RPM to get things done, so I switched. I'll have to look up my old friend again.

Just me, but, maybe, if I can get it all working

[smchris]

On a 64-bit Hardy boot at the moment that I installed at release. In love with the idea of 64-bit, like three years of support, but besides that, shininess does rank high in why I might switch from several years of Debian testing 32-bit boot even though the parent has its own good qualities.

Eye candy nonsense

[caywen]

At the tender age of 3, Shuttleworth was hooked to a machine, just to keep his mouth from spouting junk. At least, that's what Thomas Dolby told me. Anyways, stupid joke aside, this whole eye candy nonsense really has me peeved. What these devices need is *less* eye candy and more clarity. Sorry, but gradient fills all over the place doesn't make something useable or desirable. Have stuff animate all over the place does nothing to make these portable devices more responsive. Putting in realtime shadows/reflections on everything doesn't do anything to give you more battery life. Give me a lightweight OS with a *pleasant* UI that doesn't just focus on eye candy. Make that OS highly responsive and usable, and highly stable. And design it to maximize battery life, interoperability, and highly portable across many architectures.

Re:Eye candy nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Get off my lawn!  Durn kids and yer new fangled reflectsits and animatronic icons.  640K ought to have been enough for anybody. 

Re:Eye candy nonsense

[Stormwatch]

At the tender age of 3, Shuttleworth was hooked to a machine, just to keep his mouth from spouting junk. At least, that's what Thomas Dolby told me.

So he speaks in 5.1 stereo?

Re:Eye candy nonsense

[gujo-odori]

Exactly. I don't use a Mac at work because of eye candy (I use minimal effects and prefer just a tasteful UI), but because of its tremendous usability. KDE 4 has loads of eye candy, but on my Linux machines I'll be sticking with KDE 3.5.x for a long time to come. The problems with the eye candy in KDE 4 are that it doesn't have much else. They revolutionized the desktop in a way that I (nor, it seems, very many others) have much of a use for, wanted, or asked for.

As for other eye candy stuff, I don't really need a rotating cube, etc. I just want highly usable, consistent apps. Not that Linux doesn't have a lot of those, but there is much to be done before we meet or beat the standard set by Apple.

Re:Eye candy nonsense

[Risen888]

You've already got it. It is called KDE 3.5.x. Why can't other people have what they want too? Next caller, please.

Re:Eye candy nonsense

[Fri13]

You already have great OS, and it is called Linux (Yes, Linux is the OS!). You can run what ever kind desktop environment or windowmanager with it. Just choose your distribution to get system what you want and if there is such, then print LFS book and build up your own. You can just get your own system up with Linux (OS) + blackbox (GUI) bretty easily if you just have will.

(I believe you make that typical error, you mistake Operating System and System. Operating System is hart of complete software system ;)

Re:Eye candy nonsense

[caywen]

No, I get it - Linux is a fine OS. My point actually wasn't about the core OS, but more about what the user experience focus is. Focusing in on maximizing prettiness and animation is the wrong direction. Companies should never focus on that until they have responsiveness, usability, and battery life worked out. In other words, a minimally decent mobility experience. I don't need stuff to scroll smoothly more than I need to not recharge 2 times a day.

What I like about Ubuntu

[HalAtWork]

What I like about Ubuntu is that as a whole, the community takes the biggest problem with a given platform from an end user standpoint, and then provides an open solution that sticks to the common design rules of the software it compliments. The software doesn't stick out, is modular, sticks to standards (or provides a defacto method that tries to emulate already existing standards), and it seems like it could be drop-in software that would work in any distribution.

It's kind of the antithesis of YaST, for example, which seems like you couldn't separate one part from the other, and it also seems like if you use any other tool to mess with the files YaST has touched, then YaST will either have a problem or ignore it and pretend it never existed. (I'm not sure if this has changed, the last time I used SuSE was version 9)

As a user of Ubuntu, it gives me security by making me feel like if the distribution ever became anything users didn't want, they could easily take these parts and fork. Also as a user, it makes me feel like they are trying to develop software that works for the end user primarily and not as a advantage that only this distribution can have to attract users and keep them. One reason why I use OSS is because I don't feel like my data is tied to anything, and I can always use it. Ubuntu makes me feel that way about the software as well. It really is closely rooted to Debian in that way and really I feel it ties Debian together with some sealant in the cracks and some polish as well. Good job everyone and thanks!

Re:What I like about Ubuntu

[kwabbles]

really I feel it ties Debian together with some sealant in the cracks and some polish as well. Good job everyone and thanks!

Hehe... I used to think Ubuntu was like taking the engine out of a Mercedes (Debian) and installing it into a DeLorean.

Re:What I like about Ubuntu

[cascadefx]

I think Ubuntu's community is ultimately going to be the "feature" that puts it over the edge. I have seen, time and again, people say that the free support that they have received from the community in either the forums or Launchpad's community driven Answers platform has been some of the best technical support they have EVER received.

Now, that's not always the case and to be sure there are frustrated users out there, but I still think that as the community grows (as long as it can stick to its own codes of conduct) to be able to fill the needs of helping an ever-expanding community, it will be the "feature" that new users are drawn to.

Netbook Remix...

[CFBMoo1]

I really would love to try Netbook Remix on my EEE. That has me more interested then I ever was in an OS since the old DOS days.

Re:Netbook Remix...

[goodster]

It's your lucky day!

http://www.eeebuntu.org/

You can download v1.0 of the distro right there. There's a post-install script you have to run to get the sound drivers set up then you're off to the races.

sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Your trolling would be meaningful if only the user IDs and the age of those accounts matched your claims. As it is, it looks like you just created yet another account to crapflood Slashdot with. You must feel very proud of yourself, twitter.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, very good strategy, AC alias twitter. Now you want to convice the /. crowd that I am you. And of course I meant willyhill above. I'm eagerly waiting to be added to his list. That would be the ultimate proof that the good guy willyhill and his friend dedazo (I'm still in doubt about Macthorpe) are parts of twitter's game.

HP + ndiswrapper + broadcom...

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

yes, wifi almost works. but have you tried using it with wpa2?

Re:HP + ndiswrapper + broadcom...

[strabes]

Yeah, no problems with my intel card. Talk to broadcom if you're having problems; canonical can't do anything about it.

Eye Candy is a small part..

[tempest69]

ok, mac's eye candy is nice.. really nice. But they have bigger advantages...

The video and wireless work once the OS is installed..

You dont have to chase down weird libraries to make a peice of software work. sure APT and Yum are admirable but it isnt in the same league.

Does netcfg support multiple nics?

Will they ever settle for a propper name for commands like "pump" or rather dhcpcd, i mean dhcpclient.. but asking for "man pump" or "apropos dhcpd" act like your some sorta idiot from another dimension.. Yea, pulling that BS makes me pretty bitter about the process.

Really.. fix the dumb stuff.. it needs to be done otherwise users are just hobby linuxers are staying that way. Yea there are issues.. but come on.. man pump WHAT bloody retarded reason is there to leave no trace of it's succesor???

Storm

Eye Candy? How about getting audio to work?

[JeremyALogan]

My comment to Mark Shuttleworth would be that getting the basics tied down, like consistently functioning audio, are little more important than eye-candy.

Re:Eye Candy? How about getting audio to work?

[Tweenk]

Check out the bug comments for this issue in Launchpad. Complex problems can't be solved by flinging personal accusations, and it is a complex problem.

ume-launcher isn't bad

[jrothwell97]

I'm using ume-launcher (the Netbook Remix launcher) on my Eee PC 701 right now, and it really isn't bad at all. It's still quite buggy though:

• Clutter has a few problems, I think
• It's impossible to edit the menus (I think it reads off the Debian menus file)
• Sometimes it works after resuming from a suspend to RAM, sometimes it doesn't
• Sometimes it works after switching back to tty7 from a text terminal, sometimes it doesn't

Apart from that, it's very efficient, and either way it pwns Asus's default Eee launcher: it's prettier, less resource-intensive and more space-efficient.

Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[Futurepower(R)]

You have turned Mark Shuttleworth's sensible idea into an offensive idea.

He is merely saying that Linux needs more work on the user interfaces, so that it can compete with Apple's well-designed products.

Users are sensible to demand that software make things easy for them. Why should every user do more work because programmers wanted to same themselves some work?

Re:Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[jedidiah]

Mark's "sensible idea" is nothing of the sort.

Linux doesn't need prettier bells and whistles. Linux needs more and better features.
The areas that Linux needs to replicate from the Mac are APPLICATIONS. The core OS is
pretty much irrelevant. The key thing that Apple has now is (as other people have said)
a complete integrated stack.

Ubuntu needs to replicate the rest of the top of that stack rather than fixating on
the relative minutia.

Something to outdo (rather than merely clone) all the parts of iLive and iWork would
be much more useful. ...it's like those silly mock "i am a mac" ads with Linux represented in some fashion.

Re:Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[sir fer]

Yes I'm sure you know better than an experienced businessman like Mark Shuttleworth, in fact I think he should quit and make you CEO of Canonical.

Re:Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[Daengbo]

Ubuntu needs to work with Gnome to replicate the parts of OS X that make life easy for the developer:

• A language as simple as Cocoa/XCode to develop for (Gnome has some in the pipeline)
• A multimedia framework that compares to the Core stuff (GStreamer is close)
• This is the sticking point: Fewer choices for the end user. OS X limits what can be done. This flies in the face of the Linux tradition, but it is the only way to make everything seamless for the user.

I use neither Ubuntu nor OS X these days, but that's the way I see it. Ubuntu can't replicate the top of the stack without replicating the middle of the stack first, and that means making everything on the desktop use the same technology, which it doesn't now.

Me, I'm sticking with Debian.

Re:Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[jedidiah]

So Mark is the CEO of an organization he created?

Big fat hairy deal.

Ultimately he's a leech repackaging other peoples work.

Ubuntu is "great" primarily because a lot of people are working on a lot of things that make up Linux.

If you want to prostrate yourself in front of someone, try the guys that wrote K3B.

They are MUCH more relevant to this discussion.

Re:Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[jedidiah]

Since a lot of the necessary work is done already, this notion
that things need to be "made easier for the developer" is already
disproven. Expert interfaces are already in place. Making what's
already there more sophisticated isn't going to be helped so much
by reworking the development environment.

Re:Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[drinkypoo]

Linux doesn't need prettier bells and whistles. Linux needs more and better features.

Linux already has more and better features.

The areas that Linux needs to replicate from the Mac are APPLICATIONS. The core OS is pretty much irrelevant.

Well, uh, that has nothing to do with Linux.

The key thing that Apple has now is (as other people have said) a complete integrated stack.

Linux not only has a stack, it provides a way to view the stack pointer.

You mean Apple has a raft of Applications that treat you like an idiot? That's true. Lots of people like that, so it's been working pretty well for them.

Ubuntu needs to replicate the rest of the top of that stack rather than fixating on the relative minutia.

That's nonsense. Ubuntu needs to make Xgl and compiz work without blowing up every five minutes, so that I can have my fully accelerated desktop, which enhances productivity. Everyone else needs to worry about making those applications. Ubuntu is a distribution, they're not Microsoft. They do develop some software, but it's there to enable the distribution.

Something to outdo (rather than merely clone) all the parts of iLive and iWork would be much more useful. ...it's like those silly mock "i am a mac" ads with Linux represented in some fashion.

Those applications are being developed. It's not necessarily that easy, you know?

P.S. Slashdot will wrap text for you. HTH, HAND.

Re:Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[drinkypoo]

So Mark is the CEO of an organization he created? Big fat hairy deal.

Not that I think it makes you a better or worse person or anything, but what are you in charge of?

Ultimately he's a leech repackaging other peoples work.

Congratulations, you have just belittled the people who package every Linux distribution on the planet.

Ubuntu is "great" primarily because a lot of people are working on a lot of things that make up Linux.

All those things existed before Ubuntu (except the few they have actually developed.) Ubuntu is great for putting them together in a way more compelling than any other distribution (measurably, since it is now most popular) and for helping to drive those projects. Ubuntu has involved the community in the development of their distribution to a greater degree than any other distribution by making it easier for joe schmoe to contribute something (if only bug reports.)

If you want to prostrate yourself in front of someone, try the guys that wrote K3B. They are MUCH more relevant to this discussion.

We are all moving forward together. Except you, you're still living in the dark ages.

I'm not here to suck anyone's dick, but I'm grateful to Shuttleworth for what he has accomplished regardless of why. If I feel that I am being taken advantage of, I'll switch distributions just as I switched away from redhate when they moved to the "be our beta testing bitch" model.

Re:Linux needs more work on the user interfaces.

[Daengbo]

"Close" and "Done" are not the same thing.

Integrating Anjuta with Git and Glade is a good first step that's supposed to happen this cycle.
Enabling compositing in Metacity while moving everyone to GStreamer-GL will take time.
Telepathy needs to become the communication layer for Gnome, something that's been "happening" for a couple of years now.

You may not like my ideas, but it's pretty obvious that Gnome isn't quite there yet. I like it. I use it exclusively. It's just not where it needs to be.

OS X and Linux Side By Side

[Anonymous Coward]

If Shuttleworth wants anyone to take him seriously he needs to be able to:

* Demonstrate a Ubunut machine running side by side

* No idiotic package management

* Apps can be installed by simply dragging them anywhere in the file system

* Apps can be just dragged to the trash when no longer needed

* A bundle type system for application resources

* Perform the most common actions Apple's target demographic performs everyday: checking/writing Mail, webbrowsing with flash, etc., importing photos

* Same level of fonts and font selection

* Same level of UI widget layout spacing across every single item of every single application demoed

* Remove every single thing in Ubunut that has absolutely nothing to do with photos, mail, webbrowsing, movies

* Come up with an equally compelling and easy to say/remember/talk about names for a drop in replacement for iPhoto, iMovie etc

* One to one feature completeness with iPhoto,iMovie etc with every single operation taking as many or less steps to accomplish

* Not a single instance or case of having to edit X config or other types of files no matter what the hell goes wrong with the system

* No freezing or other UI glitches when apps are busy computing like Linux apps do now

* Progress bars, tray/dock type notifications

* X never ever crashes to a command line

* Cut, copy, past work for every single application. Support every single type of media that the apps support

* A feature complete and comparable version of OS X's font dialog

That's about five to ten years worth of work right there. Get busy Shuttleworth. It costs huge amounts of money to get people to put that effort into engineering, design, and quality control.

 

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[Anonymous Coward]

Ain't going to happen.

There are just too many bearded Star Trek uniform t-shirt wearing FSF/GNU nutcases out there holding back desktop Linux. Ubunutu would have to make a clean break from that crowd and effectively sever ties with those wackos.

And things like package management are Band Aids on top of much, much deeper and fundamental flaws and problems with Linux and open source software development.

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[clampolo]

I disagree with you about package management. When I was new to Linux it gave me major headaches, but I like the fact that the package manager makes installing, uninstalling, and updating things easier.

You are right about browsing with flash being hard for novices and I'll also add in that watching dvd's is a PITA for novices as well. Despite what zealots say about how easy it is, I could never picture my mom, dad, or sister figuring out how to get youtube working or figuring out how to watch a DVD. Maybe as more OEM's ship Linux, they will pony up the fees for licenses that will remove these burdens on new users.

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[Draek]

You don't want Linux to be better, you want Linux to be a cheap OSX clone. Go back to your Mac, little AC, and take your absurd package management and your "only works for web, movies, mail and photos" philosophy with you, thank you very much.

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[Anonymous Coward]

your "only works for web, movies, mail and photos" philosophy with you

What do you think 90% of the general population needs computers for?

Optimize for the common case (and install Xcode and gcc for everything else).

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[Anonymous Coward]

You go to a flash site, the system asks if you want the plugin. Acknowledge and it installs the plugin and the youtube video starts. Never again after that, security updates are automatic and integrated.

Insert the DVD, the sytem asks if you want the plugin. Acknowledge and it installs the plugin and the DVD starts. Never again after that, security updates are automaic and integrated.

Not so hard is it?

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[DrgnDancer]

Package managers are a mixed bag IMHO. On the one hand, if I want a specific Linux program 99% of the time I type "yum install $program" or "apt-get install $program" and whoo hoo! I have $program! The problem comes when I don't exactly what I want, or can't easily figure out which package contains the specific small thing I want (this can be especially tricky with libraries which are often packed into together with non-helpful package names). Then there are the things which have no packages at all, or only packages in whichever manager is inappropriate to your OS. I don't mind compiling from source, but it can be a PITA, and it tends to make the package manager unhappy.

Packages are slightly more difficult to install (though not much, you can pretty much put the apps anywhere) but I always find it easier to know exactly what I'm getting. Unless I'm using Fink, which is just a package manager anyway of course.

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[jedidiah]

I wish getting Vista to play all of my random media files was so easy.

Not all of it is "obscure Linux stuff either".

Simple stuff like DVD VOB files confuse it (Vista).

Ubuntu STOMPS all over Windows at this kind of stuff.

I should burn a disk and see what happens to the Macs at the apple store...

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[IBBoard]

I guess this is going no-where, since it's an AC comment, but:

* Demonstrate a Ubunut machine running side by side

Easy enough, although comparatively expensive to bring the Mac in.

* No idiotic package management

What's idiotic about installing an app and having it install everything you need for you?

* Apps can be installed by simply dragging them anywhere in the file system

Depending on how they're distributed, you can do that anyway (with one minor extra step of "extract from archive"). That's how I installed Firefox, Thunderbird and Eclipse (amongst others) on my machine. If someone really wanted to then they could potentially get around that and bundle it as a .bin file.

At the end of the day it seems like a bad idea, though, because a) it lets you install arbitrary junk that could be dangerous and b) you either have dependency issues that you have to resolve yourself or you end up bundling all of the dependencies in every individual package (which as well as making downloads much larger than necessary means potential licensing issues and potential out of date frameworks)

* Apps can be just dragged to the trash when no longer needed

See above.

* A bundle type system for application resources

Huh?

* Perform the most common actions Apple's target demographic performs everyday: checking/writing Mail, webbrowsing with flash, etc., importing photos

That'd be Thunderbird/KMail/Evolution, Firefox/Konqueror/Opera, F-Spot/DigiKam, amongst others then. Flash is a touch more awkward (unless your distro bundles SWF-dec), but then a Windows machine doesn't exactly have a smooth ride with it pre-installed either, and I don't think Mac does.

* Same level of fonts and font selection

Linux supports TTF, so as long as you pay the license then you're fine there.

* Same level of UI widget layout spacing across every single item of every single application demoed

If you're using the same toolkits, you should get that. Failing that it's the application developer's fault, just the same as it was Apple's fault for (at one time) having the possibility of about four different UI themes at once on different windows.

* Remove every single thing in Ubunut that has absolutely nothing to do with photos, mail, webbrowsing, movies

That'd be a re-spin. Perfectly possible, but no-one has yet bothered to do it. Try doing that, and making a media spin (like Studio 64) and a gaming spin and an educational spin and numerous religious spins and the rest with Mac.

* Come up with an equally compelling and easy to say/remember/talk about names for a drop in replacement for iPhoto, iMovie etc

That's just marketing. "F-Spot" for photo management isn't exactly hard, and neither is Totem for video or Exaile/Banshee for music. They're not the same "generic with a single character prefix", but that's because open source projects don't want to try to trademark a concept that covers all of the alternatives.

Besides, most Gnome distros now label your menu items by purpose (e.g. "Web Browser" or "Email Client" or "Messaging Client" instead).

* One to one feature completeness with iPhoto,iMovie etc with every single operation taking as many or less steps to accomplish

What about additional features that they don't have? The core functionality is probably already there (how many things can you do in a photo manager? F-Spot already manages, tags, shows a timeline, and does basic editing) and any extra ones probably don't have much demand. Software doesn't have to be feature-for-feature matching to compete.

* Not a single instance or case of having to edit X config or other types of files no matter what the hell goes wrong with the system

Bullet-proof X is designed to solve "X fails and shows command line" and "config doesn't work so X won't start" by auto-configuring and falling back to generic defaults.

* No freezing or other UI glitches when apps are busy computing like Linux apps do now

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[Ash-Fox]

Shuttleworth's Ubuntu comments about wanting to be like Apple's OS X in the coming years.

I can't even find those comments, I can just see some comments about adopting a few tiny ideas from OS X.

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[Ash-Fox]

* Apps can be installed by simply dragging them anywhere in the file system

* Apps can be just dragged to the trash when no longer needed

* A bundle type system for application resources

Not only am I against this for many technical and usability reasons.

I have seen what Mac users do with this package management. They go down to a Apple store, plug in their iPod, drag and drop the applications they want to steal on to the iPod and walk off with the iPod containing illegal copies of the software.

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[rootooftheworld]

I'd rather X11 crashes to CLI than the whole system like with OS X. "No matter what the hell goes wrong"? that just pure and simple ass-helmet trolling.

Re:OS X and Linux Side By Side

[Guy Harris]

Remove every single thing in Ubunut that has absolutely nothing to do with photos, mail, webbrowsing, movies

Yeah! And then Apple should do the same thing! What's this "TextEdit" thing doing on my disk, and what are those "Activity Monitor", "Disk Utility", "Directory Utility", "Console", "Network Utility", "Terminal", etc. things doing there?

If you mean that a default installation of Ubuntu could be smaller than than it is, perhaps. Pretending that OS X has had everything removed from it "that has absolutely nothing to do with photos, mail, webbrowsing, movies" is, however, nonsense. Yeah, some of it's hidden in /Applications/Utilities, but it's still there....

Progress bars, tray/dock type notifications

What about them? They exist in Ubuntu; presumably you think they should be better in some way.

What is this "Eye Candy"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a professional developer, but I hack in my spare time. I use Kubuntu Hardy, but I've never installed any of that Compiz stuff. I'm also completely ignorant of Mac OSX; never seen it.
I'm really curious. What does the eye candy they're talking about consist of? I read about Compiz to find out whether or not I wanted to install it, but it just sounded like it's some animated variations on regular GUI stuff, like weirder ways to maximize and minimize a window. Is that all we're talking about here? Is that really the kind of thing that's keeping people from migrating to Linux?

Re:What is this "Eye Candy"?

[clampolo]

Compiz has wobbly windows- i.e. they wiggle a bit when you move a window around. Windows zoom in and out when you open and close them. You can also bend and stretch windows a bit. It's ok, but it's definitely not an incredibly useful feature. It just looks sort of cool.

I played around with some Macs and it's also kind of silly. When you start up some new gadget/widget/(or whatever they call it) there is a ripple effect when the thing starts up. Windows and stuff also zoom in and out when you open and close them. Pretty useless stuff, but hey I guess someone thinks it is cool enough to pay an extra 25% for the hardware.

There is also a bar on the bottom for quickly launching an application. And when you hover your mouse over a pic it swooshes out at you. I could imagine it being cool at first.

As for what Shuttleworth is talking about..I have no idea. I can't tell from the article whether he has any ideas or he is just begging the Open Source community to think up some new eye-candy ideas.

Re:What is this "Eye Candy"?

[GigaHurtsMyRobot]

The problem with Compiz or the other stellar desktop environments for Linux is that they don't have the one advantage Apple holds on to: compatibility. Every machine they ship is capable of and pre-configured to look amazing.

When I first heard of Compiz, I freaked out and immediately installed a copy of Linux and configured it. It looks incredibly cool and ran great on my machine.. It makes the system a joy to navigate.

But... I can't survive on Linux, eye-candy or not. X has always seemed slow and clunky to me. I prefer it as a server environment (I have 2 co-located Linux boxes) with Windows as my desktop. It's the exclusive software for Windows that locks me in. Directory Opus and Newsleecher are the two best examples I can come up with.

Re:What is this "Eye Candy"?

[Fri13]

Actually, all those effects are very informative for user who does not have "first level" information like those who has worked long times with computers. Like the wobling effect, you can control how much you "feel" the mouse when you move the window, make the window very hoppy and you notice you use your mouse hand very different way than when you make window very "sloppy" so you need to use more "force" on your arm to move the window.

Animations are informative unless those are made just for eye candy, example, if you put effect "explode" when closing window (only) and then "fade" effect to menu and other closing, you notice the difference. Then if you change window opening to "dream" and menu and other opening effect to "fade" too, you notice right away the difference when window is opening and closing.

Then you can do it wrong, just place "explode" to everything (windows, menus others) so what ever happens (get opened/closed, moved, resized etc), same effect comes up. Now you are tottally saturated with eye-candy what does not tell you anything more than "something just happend" and most of time, it just distrubrs normal user.

With correctly used, all the effects what compiz-fusion and Kwin offers, are very powerfull and informative. But if the way how they are used is wrong, they make more harm than good.

There is no "non eye-candy" and "eye-candy", black'n'whiteness. It is always about situation, how the effects have done and how they are used.

Seems to be so that all the videos on youtube about compiz-fusion, is configures mostly and almost to be pure "eye candy". 15 years old kid who laughs how the window explose away when get closed.

3D effects can be think as sound effects. No sound effects, you need to see what is happening, with small/low sound voice when every different action is with different effect (closed, maximised, opened, crashed etc), you dont need to see anymore, you understand what has happend when you hear. But if you change that small/low sound effect to something different, example of 30s heavy metal when window gets opened and 5min Ave Maria when application crash, everyone gets grazy expect the deaf.

Smallest effects are that when you press button, it get pressed and it change littlebit look or gives somekind respond to you. Or when you move the window, it shows at least a retancle what size and where you are moving it, if not the window itself is moved. All those small things are effects what helps to interact with the computer.

No one is not forced to use just those, those can be expand for more informative versions, 3D effects, and they stay very informative until, they are done/used wrong way, then they start spreading noise among information and usage level drops to same level than there would be zero (0) effects at all.

it just needs the applications

[radarsat1]

Forget the UI, it's usable and that's what matters. What Ubuntu needs now is support from other players in the software market.

Honestly, I'm pretty well convinced at this point that Ubuntu is "ready". I know tons of people that would switch to it if they could. The crux of the problem is that the major applications these people depend on (or at least, are used to using) don't run on it. What Ubuntu needs more than anything is to make deals with the major players in various software markets (graphics, video, gaming, CAD, simulation, RAD languages, etc) to port their applications. I don't know how this could happen, but I'm pretty sure it's necessary for us to see major adoption.

While there obviously are some amazing and great tools that come with Ubuntu, it needs to be possible for someone to use those few applications they need. Companies need to start offering Ubuntu versions of their products. If that happens, it's game, set, match. And I actually think this would be possible: considering how disheartened many people feel about Vista, convincing them to port to another platform in order to reduce their dependency on MS might not be so difficult anymore. People seem to be finally seeing the pattern than dependence on a moving target like Windows can come back to bite them.

I think a few deals in this direction might actually have the potential to push Ubuntu into the mass market.

Re:it just needs the applications

[Fri13]

Ubuntu is not ready, Linux is ready and it has be ready for few years now. Only thing Linux needs is marketing. It does not need some people to promote one Linux distribution over others, like most Ubuntu users does, believing that Ubuntu is someway a "special OS". It is far away from "special" and it's lots more than "OS". (OS part is just the Linux there).

What we need, is HW vendors to provide specs or open drivers for Linux and all distributions gets everything working. What we dont need, is that we change Microsoft to Canonical, what happens when everyone demans everything specified build to Ubuntu, not by using standards and openess.

Re:it just needs the applications

[Fri13]

Ubuntu does not need those, Linux does!
There is difference, Linux is the OS, but Ubuntu is just one distribution among others. Dont be a fan of Ubuntu and promote it as the "special" "OS". We have LSB (Linux Standard Base) standard what makes it easy for closed source software makers to build a software what runs on all Linux distributions. If you promote only a Ubuntu, it is like wanting Canonical to replace Microsoft.

Re:it just needs the applications

[jvin248]

Software boxes showing "minimum requirements" for Windows, Mac, Linux would go a long way toward expanding this.

Open Office and Firefox/Thunderbird were the key bits of software to get real movement to Linux. The user community of Ubuntu is fantastic and really the key for Ubuntu to continue expanding.

The next wave of people are those with these types of specialized programs (CAD, graphics, etc). In the end, people just want the OS to be out of their way so they can use the programs they are familiar with.

A risk to the Linux OS community is the number of flavors of Linux (choice is good once you're "inside", but not to convince others to "enter").

So Ubuntu should really add in their name "Ubuntu Linux" so the brand consistency is maintained. Then when software product boxes state "minimum requirements" they can keep one or two major listings (maybe Red Hat, Debian (Ubuntu), etc).

It will be funny a few years from now... Product X has a handy chart of the minimum recommended hardware requirements: Pentium "10+" for Vista, Pentium "8+" for Mac, or a Pentium "3+" for Linux!!

Eye candy, wireless, audio, etc...It just worked

[mtjo]

At least, not in the markets where linux is competing against it. It's ease of use, and the "it-just-works" factor. This was my experience trying out the live cd of Kbuntu 8.04. Everything worked. Audio, wireless, etc. The KDE 4 UI definately has the wow factor going on, at least for me. I am not an everyday user of Linux, but one of my test boxes has PCLinuxOS installed. I chose it because it worked pretty much out of the box and had a nice UI. Kbuntu 8.04 blows it away. I don't go for the eye candy as I didn't upgrade to XP until I couldn't run IE7 and upgraded from 2000, but I am rather infatuated with the KDE 4 look.

The difference between Mac and Linux "eye-candy"

[harlows_monkeys]

When Apple introduces eye-candy, they use it sparingly themselves, and make a great API and developer tools so developers can also use it in their apps.

Linux eye-candy seems to hit a dead end, where all it gets used for is for the original project that developed it to see how many different flashy effects they can make.

The Linux projects need to realize that it is not about the flashy eye-candy itself--it's about providing more capabilities to application developers.

Design first is not about "prettiness"

[nostriluu]

The typical engineering geek response is that it's "shiny," "pretty," and just skin deep. But in reality what it is, is consistency, a carefully considered experience that starts with design first - not colours and gradiants, but design elements and human factors - and fit the features to that. Read some Raskin, for example, to understand.

Until the software developers starts respecting designers and stops being a bunch of alpha monkeys talking about what they decided to code up that day for themselves, Apple will continue to lead in this area. And I'm not even an Apple fanboy, but it is the truth.

Re:Design first is not about "prettiness"

[hotfireball]

Until the software developers starts respecting designers and stops being a bunch of alpha monkeys talking about what they decided to code up that day for themselves, Apple will continue to lead in this area. And I'm not even an Apple fanboy, but it is the truth.

I find that to call somebody "Apple fanboy" or "Linux zealot" or "red-eyed sysadmin" is lame and very stupid. Because every wise developer will listen to other and either record problems and solve them, or just ignore. Only a morons that actually can do nothing -- they curse others. E.g. I never use Windows already more than 10 years in a raw, but I still find some nice things that I would love to have it on the systems I use daily.

Critique is a Good Thing.

Re:Design first is not about "prettiness"

[nostriluu]

I agree, I was just using the vernacular.

Re:Design first is not about "prettiness"

[hacker]

Enforcing consistency removes choice, and the lack of choice is one major flaw in Apple's design.

Sure, Apple sells pretty hardware and a pretty OS that runs on it, but how much can you customize it? For example, I want that top menu bar GONE. I don't want it there, I don't need it there and it is a major productivity sinkhole (causing MUCH more mousing than is necessary).

How can I change the system fonts to 6pt anti-aliased versions to match what I use on Linux (and aa fonts on Linux look a LOT better than their OS X counterparts, which I can prove with plenty of comparison screenshots)?

How can I change the default system font face to one that is more to my liking? I'm talking about the basic fonts that appear on titlebars and menus, not within applications themselves. Sure, there are third-party "hacks" that can do that (APE and such), but something as basic as being able to change fonts in these areas should be part of the core OS itself. Heck, Microsoft Windows even allows this without resorting to unsupported third-party tools.

Until Apple allows me to configure my UI the way I want, they'll still be behind Linux (and Windows) in this regard. Removing choice is one of the major reasons I primarily use Linux. I can configure how my applications work, what they look like, how they inter-operate, what toolkits they use, and so on... and NONE of that involves opening up the hood and changing one single line of code.

• If you want to "be productive" with your computer; run Linux.
• If you want to "play" with your computer; run Microsoft Windows.
• If you want to "experience" your computer; run Apple OS X.

It really is that simple.

Re:Design first is not about "prettiness"

[nostriluu]

I agree with your points about flexibility, but the price of flexibility is eternal configuring. So I would not agree that Linux is the most productive, depending what you are doing. Distributions like Ubuntu could have the right idea, offer different themed and task oriented versions built on top of the flexible Linux (open source) base. But some form of consistency and good basic design still has to exist. When programming teams call technical designers "artists," and come to them at the last second to make what they did look good, it's just wrong.

Re:Design first is not about "prettiness"

[hotfireball]

...and I did not meant you either, but just added to what you did said, being previously agreed. :-) You just looks like to be afraid for someone can call you "apple fanboy" or so. But I do not care if someone calls me as they do want -- I say what I think is done wrong and trying to either give a solution or implement stuff myself.

You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[tepples]

Shiny, and fast, and cheap, and useful.

And compatible.

Ubuntu (and many other popular distros) have been trying to get there. Last missing part was "Shiny" - Compiz and other similar eye-candies may get them there.

Are you sure that was the last missing part? There's still a problem with getting manufacturers of PC components designed for home use to work wholeheartedly with the Ubuntu community. I don't see penguin logos on boxes, and not everybody has a working printer and enough paper to print out a distribution's hardware compatibility list and carry it into a local computer store.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[E IS mC(Square)]

Yes, I am sure that was the last part missing. But by that, I did not mean they have already achieved the others.

To repharse what I said earlier - They have found the last missing part - the bling. Now they have to work on all of them and get to a reasonably satisfactory level.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Darkness404]

Are you sure that was the last missing part? There's still a problem with getting manufacturers of PC components designed for home use to work wholeheartedly with the Ubuntu community.

Sure, but 98% of the things I plug into my Linux box work 100% fine and are up fast. The last time I plugged in a simple flash drive into a Vista box, it took at least a minute trying to find the driver and eventually worked. Then there are all kinds of other things that Vista needs a driver for but they work out-of-the-box for Linux. Just about anything except for ATI/nVidia cards with work 100% out-of-the-box.

I don't see penguin logos on boxes, and not everybody has a working printer and enough paper to print out a distribution's hardware compatibility list and carry it into a local computer store.

But with Ubuntu you don't need that just about everything will work without any configuration. And the things that don't either are A) specialty devices that most of the time the programs for using them are Windows-only or B) Major computer components that are mostly built-in when you buy a computer (Wi-Fi cards, Graphics cards, Sound cards, etc.). But as for buying just about anything you can be 99% sure it will work on the newest Ubuntu, and if not, than download the alpha/beta of the next one and most of the time it will work.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[KGIII]

just about everything will work without any configuration.

So, well, just about anything that isn't my laptop? I am not attempting to argue (you go on to say that these are the symptoms) but I would like to see someone smarter than I make fairly common hardware work easily with the various distros.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Yfrwlf]

But with Ubuntu you don't need that just about everything will work without any configuration.

You're right to some degree there, however the parent's point about penguins on the boxes is a huge problem. For Linux to be "easy", it has to have hardware which tells consumers that it's Linux-compatible. But the thing in the way of solving that is Tux's catch22: "Linux won't get support until it gets widely used, but it won't see wide use until it gets support." The problem is being solved, it's just slow. Even the supposed thing with ATI/AMD releasing their new graphics cards, the Radeon HD 48x0's, that would have Tux on the box never happened. Disappointing. However, since driver installation is still insane on Linux, it's not too surprising that manufacturers don't support it better. If they had a kernel module or API which OEMs could use for quick driver installation so you wouldn't have to compile or reinstall your driver for every kernel upgrade you went through, and could also provide an install package that could register itself with the most common package managers out there by using a universally accepted packaging API, then I think you'll start seeing that happening more. Examples of this effort include the Burgdorf Packaging API here. (Before someone says it, yeah I know giving it to the kernel devs to have them package it for you is another option, but Linux needs to be modular enough to allow either method to occur. Anything that helps adoption by helping easy installation is a good thing, and will increase Linux's adoption, and that's all I want to see happen. Users still will have the choice to use binary blobs or not, but they will have a lot more choices when Linux adoption becomes greater.)

I'm anxious to see progress with hardware support by having databases, or better yet more online stores selling Tux-compatible hardware so you never have to go to the store to begin with.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Darkness404]

So, well, just about anything that isn't my laptop? I am not attempting to argue (you go on to say that these are the symptoms) but I would like to see someone smarter than I make fairly common hardware work easily with the various distros.

On the about 7 laptops I have used Linux with in live mode, or installed, 2 the wireless cards wouldn't work with Ubuntu, but worked with Mepis flawlessly, and the other 5 worked 100%. And these were ranging from an Alienware laptop, to a recent low-end Toshiba, to an older mid-range HP.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[leenks]

I take my mobile phone and Google products in the store... What's your excuse ? :P

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Darkness404]

You're right to some degree there, however the parent's point about penguins on the boxes is a huge problem. For Linux to be "easy", it has to have hardware which tells consumers that it's Linux-compatible.

Because most of the people read the boxes for Windows support? Not anymore. It has been accepted that, whether there is a nice Windows logo on there or not, it will work with Windows unless it says "For Mac" or is made by Apple. Linux will be the same, no need for fancy logos, etc. Though I do try to buy things that have Linux on the system requirements (such as flash drives, all will work with Linux I know, but I would rather buy the one that specifically mentions it, vote with your wallet)

But the thing in the way of solving that is Tux's catch22: "Linux won't get support until it gets widely used, but it won't see wide use until it gets support." The problem is being solved, it's just slow. Even the supposed thing with ATI/AMD releasing their new graphics cards, the Radeon HD 48x0's, that would have Tux on the box never happened. Disappointing. However, since driver installation is still insane on Linux, it's not too surprising that manufacturers don't support it better. If they had a kernel module or API which OEMs could use for quick driver installation so you wouldn't have to compile or reinstall your driver for every kernel upgrade you went through, and could also provide an install package that could register itself with the most common package managers out there by using a universally accepted packaging API, then I think you'll start seeing that happening more.

But the thing is, if they would just release the specs for the hardware, even under a NDA, someone could write a kernel driver for it, include it with the main kernel and all would be good. And there are a lot of people that are willing to do it. And I honestly don't want to do what I have to do with Windows and that is install some driver, which installs some proprietary application to do something that should be done with a generic driver for things such as printers, USB drives, etc. And it is really bad if you lose the CD that comes with it and then have unusable hardware... So, in the way, free reversed engineered drivers are slow, but they are better than the super-proprietary, niche drivers that the manufacturers want to give us for No-Good-Reason (TM).

Anything that helps adoption by helping easy installation is a good thing, and will increase Linux's adoption, and that's all I want to see happen. Users still will have the choice to use binary blobs or not, but they will have a lot more choices when Linux adoption becomes greater.)

Linux does not need an easy install to be used. If you have *ever* had to reinstall XP, it is a headache, compare that to Ubuntu's install. Ubuntu generally gives you good defaults with few hard choices rather than Window's installer (like how is a novice user supposed to know which to format the disks as, FAT or NTFS?). DOS wasn't good. But it was pre-installed so that's what everyone used. Windows wasn't great either, but it was the only thing you could get for a long time. When/if Dell starts actually promoting the systems they have with Ubuntu on them, I expect the marketshare to rise. Seriously, Dell and the OSS community would have a lot to gain if Dell didn't hide the Ubuntu systems in a dark corner of their website.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[tepples]

And the things that don't either are A) specialty devices that most of the time the programs for using them are Windows-only

Including USB flatbed scanners for the home market? For years, SANE has listed my Microtek ScanMaker 4850, which I bought before I planned to switch to Ubuntu, as unsupported.

or B) Major computer components that are mostly built-in when you buy a computer (Wi-Fi cards, Graphics cards, Sound cards, etc.).

In which case I'd like to see a penguin on the PC's packaging. But all I see in Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, and even a couple local shops is that idiotic Windows flag.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[TheSeer2]

Doesn't Compiz make the distros just as resource hungry as Vista? Rendering a non-compiz comparison ... invalid?

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[jedidiah]

OTOH, I like the idea of the simplicity of Penguins on retail boxes.

OTOH, the last time I bought a bit of hardware that claimed Linux
compatability on the box it was a big fat goose egg. The alleged
support was for a binary driver for a particular kernel. Getting it
to work with Linux would have been more trouble than I wanted to
deal with (nevermind the average consumer).

Although this problem exists for Windows as well. Just because some
bit of hardware runs on Windows it doesn't mean you actually really
want to buy it.

Consumers in general have abdicated any responsibility in the buying
decisions. Notions like doing a smattering of research with CU is
totally passe.

ATI cards might end up with a penguin logo but I'm not sure I would
want one for any OS.

Mebbe Ubuntu should ressurrect the old Suse compatability database...

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[jedidiah]

>>And the things that don't either are A) specialty devices that most of the time the programs for using them are Windows-only
>>
>Including USB flatbed scanners for the home market? For years, SANE has listed my Microtek ScanMaker 4850, which I bought before I planned to switch to Ubuntu, as >unsupported.

Is Microtek even around anymore?

The "cheapest available option" at the local Target and Staples works quite well with Linux.

Although I generally recommend "second-cheapest" in just about anything.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[alex4u2nv]

Or even so, with various distros of Windows. But atleast you have a choice to choose. The difference that remains between the Microsoft Windows Family (distros) and Linux Distros is that, with Linux the support will be shared among distros. Windows It will not.

As for Apple/Macs, you don't have that freedom to choose your hardware, thats why people are mislead to think, "it works." Blue pill is comfortable.

The Red Pill is full of adventure, and risk.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Yfrwlf]

Because most of the people read the boxes for Windows support? Not anymore. It has been accepted that, whether there is a nice Windows logo on there or not, it will work with Windows unless it says "For Mac" or is made by Apple. Linux will be the same, no need for fancy logos, etc. Though I do try to buy things that have Linux on the system requirements (such as flash drives, all will work with Linux I know, but I would rather buy the one that specifically mentions it, vote with your wallet)

Yes, but in this case Linux doesn't always have out-of-the-box hardware support with some things especially if they are "extreme" peripherals, like, say, tablets, webcams, VFDs, and remotes. I think right now it would help Linux out to have Tux on the boxes not only to ensure compatibility, but to also advertise for Linux. Microsoft pushed very hard getting massive Vista logos on everything, so I hope it'll happen to Linux too eventually. :)

But the thing is, if they would just release the specs for the hardware, even under a NDA, someone could write a kernel driver for it, include it with the main kernel and all would be good. And there are a lot of people that are willing to do it. And I honestly don't want to do what I have to do with Windows and that is install some driver, which installs some proprietary application to do something that should be done with a generic driver for things such as printers, USB drives, etc. And it is really bad if you lose the CD that comes with it and then have unusable hardware... So, in the way, free reversed engineered drivers are slow, but they are better than the super-proprietary, niche drivers that the manufacturers want to give us for No-Good-Reason (TM).

But it doesn't always happen, companies aren't always willing to do this, so like I said, if a way is given to these companies to go either the open or closed source route for drivers, there will be more options, and thus there will be more Linux support. That will in no way prevent Linux users who want it to push for and use only those drivers that are open sourced, and it will help them get more attention because their platform will have more attention. In other words, any kind of support for Linux will help all Linux users in some way. If Linux had 90% of the market right now, there would be that many more developers out there with an interest in writing software for Linux, both closed and open source.

No one wants to install crapware on their system, but having the option of either installing crapware in order to use some piece of hardware, or not being able to use the hardware at all, there are many users out there who would choose to use the hardware any way. If you want to not use it because it's not open source, or because it installs crapware, that's great, that's fine, it's up to you, and I wouldn't like it either. The key is that you always have a choice, and my point is that the more choices we as Linux users have available to us, the better, period, as it increases adoption which increases development which increases our choices further. Don't get me wrong, I love installing Linux and having most everything just work out of the box, it's one of the great strengths of Linux, not that other OSes don't have a lot of included driver support as well, but having the choice between, say, a working Wacom tablet so that I can draw, and no working tablet at all, I'll choose the working one. The ideal choice for me and any user who cares about openness is an open source driver, but it's nice to have a proprietary driver rather than none at all when you're stuck without a perfect solution. The open source drivers already have the advantage of being plug'n'play since they're already included. Besides, the kernel developers should not have control over everyone downstream, you shouldn't have to kiss their toes in order to get your driver to be included, so having an API there in order for anyone to be able to add a driver to their system

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[tepples]

Is Microtek even around anymore?

Apparently. And they don't even have half-assed Linux support; they have zero-assed Linux support.

The "cheapest available option" at the local Target and Staples works quite well with Linux.

But does it have a penguin on the box, so that home users of Ubuntu OS will know to look for it as opposed to having to carry a laptop or smartphone to look up each make and model in SANE's database?

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Yfrwlf]

OTOH, the last time I bought a bit of hardware that claimed Linux compatability on the box it was a big fat goose egg. The alleged support was for a binary driver for a particular kernel. Getting it to work with Linux would have been more trouble than I wanted to deal with (nevermind the average consumer).

Right, so someone needs to develop a stable but extensible API for Linux kernel driver installation so that you don't have to recompile everything, or they have to open source their drivers, or create a mechanism to automatically compile a kernel module. The last solution is a pain in the butt, the middle solution is ideal for consumers, and the former would help having for the companies that want to play hard ball, so consumers have the option of using binaries instead of having to recompile, and so Linux can have true "third-party" driver support without these parties having to kiss the kernel dev's toes. :)

Any ways to increase Linux's modularity and capabilities while adding stability and improvements through extensibility are good, and will help with Linux's adoption rate. If that means closed-source companies can more easily target Linux, so be it, it won't stop me from wanting open source solutions and more both open and closed solutions will come with the increasing adoption. All users will win as Linux becomes more powerful, customizable, flexible, and modular.

ATI cards might end up with a penguin logo but I'm not sure I would want one for any OS.

Sure, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. You have the option to use nVidia's cards for 3D programs for instance because they provide a closed source driver. You have a choice. I myself will buy ATI if I start actually seeing all this promised open source support actually come about. It would make it easier for nVidia to have better Linux driver support if the Linux kernel supported APIs for binary drivers. They wouldn't then be forced to include stuff to build the kernel driver on the fly, and upgrading your kernel wouldn't hose your system if you manually installed their driver, causing you to have to reinstall it. If Linux gets some stable API for drivers, which is completely possible to do in a satisfactory, extensible way which will not hamper any kind of technological progress (on the contrary, will allow speeding it up by giving this modularity), it will really help to improve the driver installation world for anyone wanting to install drivers which are outside the kernel and repositories, and with the development of a good packaging API will also allow these OEMs to only have to create a single package to register itself with your package manager, removing the need for manual installation completely and allowing for easy system upgrades straight from the OEM.

Aah, Sourceforge being one big cross-distro Linux repository, I can't wait.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah, it's really too bad about Dell and other sites which bury their Linux computers. I think to date the most light of day Linux has seen is possibly the gPC when it was sold at Walmart, and the Asus EEE PC, even though sadly the EEE PC still has yet to show up in any of the major stores. I had Best Buy tell me I wouldn't see it because they were a Microsoft-only shop. :P

The eeePC is all over the place here in Australia. I made a point of buying mine from a place which would otherwise not have taken a punt on a linux system.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[KGIII]

I am a bit of a hardware addict, so to speak, and I honestly can't immediately think of any hardware that I have tried to use with a Windows based OS that hasn't actually worked so long as I compromised. Finding the driver might have been a bit of a problem but *most* of the time they're readily available. I do have, sitting here, an HP dv5000 with the AMD 64 and Windows XP 64 drivers aren't even available from HP so there are some exceptions. In that particular case I had to settle for XP Pro but none of the Linux distros I tried on it even came close to working. Mandrake came the closest but I had no sound and yes I tried the configuring it to the 16 bit Creative drivers manually. I was unhappy because I would have enjoyed a spare laptop with Linux on it. I was unhappier because I majored in drinking and minored in failing and can't actually code my own drivers.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Draek]

Then you should look harder, because my laser printer clearly advertised Linux support on the box, and the last Ethernet card I bought (about 3 or 4 years ago) *did* have a little penguin besides Mac's happy face and Windows' whatever-it-is. And for anything else, there's always good ol' "ask the vendor", which is how I got my cheap-n-nice WiFi card.

I often wonder how many people who make your same complain have ever tried to see whether a given piece of hardware works with Linux or not. Maybe in 2001 you had to check online HCLs and all that, but nowadays there's plenty of hardware advertising Linux support on their boxes, plenty of salesmen with a f'in clue, and plenty of pinguin-ready logos floating around, the only thing is that you can't be sure that those that don't advertise support won't work on it, but why buy something that "may" work when you can buy one that "will"?

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[KGIII]

I have tried a half dozen or so on an HP dv5000 which is my "spare" at the moment (I ugraded to a Mac that runs Windows XP 'cause it is sexy as all hell and for absolutely no good reason besides that) and the problems ranged from display, NIC, wi-fi, and/or sound. There's nothing too "unstock" about the hardware so if you had/have a similar then I'd be interested in knowing because I do enjoy Linux for various tasks.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Darkness404]

I had Best Buy tell me I wouldn't see it because they were a Microsoft-only shop. :P

That, I find odd after Best Buy is selling a boxed version of Ubuntu http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2222 http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/105142/index.html

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Darkness404]

Right, so someone needs to develop a stable but extensible API for Linux kernel driver installation so that you don't have to recompile everything, or they have to open source their drivers, or create a mechanism to automatically compile a kernel module. The last solution is a pain in the butt, the middle solution is ideal for consumers, and the former would help having for the companies that want to play hard ball, so consumers have the option of using binaries instead of having to recompile, and so Linux can have true "third-party" driver support without these parties having to kiss the kernel dev's toes. :)

But, there are many versions of the Linux kernel. There is of course, the vanilla kernel, but just about every major distro has a minor variation of the kernel. And that isn't even including all the versions of the kernel itself. That and along with the absolute pain drivers are to manage.

If the hardware manufacturers want Linux support, release the hardware specs under a NDA to a kernel developer, have them develop an open source driver for it. Because proprietary drivers will slow down Linux in more ways than one. For example, Adobe provides Flash for Linux. The problem is, it is absolutely crappy. More recent ones have had CPU leaks and manage to crash Firefox like crazy. The problem is, because Adobe had released at least some Linux Flash player, everyone except for the loyal followers of RMS, installed it and it was good. Now, the player is riddled with bugs, CPU leaks (no, it shouldn't need 80% of the CPU to display a banner ad), and the only major open source alternative, GNASH isn't really good. I can see the exact same thing happening with drivers.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[sir fer]

Have you tried Mandriva 2008.1 ? I have a Linux-resistant hp ze4315ap that didn't work well with any linux distro. It would work to a point but there would be a show-stopper with Debian3.1, openSUSE, Fedora and Mepis (usually the external wireless USB LAN connector) . Ubuntu would work but was a bit slow and cranky. I got Mandriva coz I don't like to give up ;o) and it fit like it was made for it. Even the basic compiz-fusion worked on the ATI 340M IGP that has been blacklisted in ubuntu heron. So, if you want Linux on your lappy, keep trying as I'm sure you'll be able to get one sooner or later as it took me about 3 years ;o)

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[KGIII]

Sorry about that, Mandrake is Mandriva to me still. (Old habbits.) And yeah, I tried the *current* build in early June or late May. That one was just sound as I recall but my memory is worn out.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[sir fer]

Doesn't Compiz make the distros just as resource hungry as Vista? Rendering a non-compiz comparison ... invalid?

No it doesn't. Also compiz works and looks a shitload better than Vista...

better looks for the same resource suckage? altho that is doubtful considering the machine i'm runnning it on now

looks like linux/compiz wins again...

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[dredwerker]

You buy things in a store ;)

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Laurence0]

My experience with my laptop, using battery life as a measure of resource hunger (I know, it's not entirely accurate, but it gives a rough idea!) is that Ubuntu without Compiz (metacity) lasts about 2 hours, Ubuntu with Compiz about an hour and a half. Windows XP lasts about an hour and a half too, and I haven't tried Vista or Ubuntu headless.

So, my experience, granted using a rather unscientific measure, is that Ubuntu with Compiz is comparable to Windows XP standard install.

In all cases, this is with relatively light use; reading webpages, file management etc. No gaming or video playback.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[antirelic]

Were you talking about Vista or Linux? Last I checked, Linux had the better compatibility of the two. Oops, enuf of my M$ fanboying....

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Fri13]

Thats why we have Linux, what is the OS for what you write those drivers, not by all different distributions. If your application needs more, then look a LSB (Linux Standard Base) standard what specifie main components of Linux system so all distritubtions remains in same standard line.

All what the hardware manufactories are needed to do, is do Open Source driver against Linux and it will work on all distributions.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[tepples]

All what the hardware manufactories are needed to do, is do Open Source driver against Linux and it will work on all distributions.

But that's exactly what some manufacturers of PC components for the home and home office market are not doing.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[mhall119]

I've actually been seeing Linux listed as a compatible operating system on more and more hardware lately.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Yfrwlf]

That's easy to solve. The whole point of an API is to allow a compatibility layer so that B can always communicate with A. If done right, this layer can be easily extensible to allow the adoption of new ideas and better ways of doing things. If there are certain things that the kernel absolutely must need to have in order for this compatibility layer to function, this minimal set of kernel requirements can be deemed LSB minimal. That way, driver developers can have a nice API to develop for and they don't have to worry about incompatibilities. It's the same way with anything else, like OpenGL for instance, or HTML, or any other standard. There's so many ways of helping to implement this, it's completely possible to do.

Yes, the NDA way is another solution as well, but the above API would allow an NDA to not be needed. These companies wouldn't have to trust any third-party developers with an NDA, it would allow them to do it themselves easily. Like I said, the more solutions that Linux can bring to the table, the better. The more it will help with Linux adoption. Anything that helps a small part of Linux will also help everyone else using and developing for Linux, that's the beautiful way Linux works. If you make it easier to install drivers or software or anything, it will help everyone, it's great. ^^ So, it's just a way in which Linux could improve itself, and that's good for all. I prefer open drivers just as much as anyone else as it helps with many things in many ways, but having a closed driver with in-house development is an option which some companies would choose, so it's an option that should exist for them in an easier way than it does now. Linux software development = hard = less Linux goodness. Linux development = easy = more Linux goodness, is all I'm saying.

Sure, open sourcing Flash would make Flash much easier to bug fix and you'd suddenly have all the improvements that open source has, I agree. I'm not arguing against open source, but I am arguing that allowing closed source on Linux or allowing users to even use open source drivers and to easily install those drivers without having to compile them first, will help both open and closed source projects and companies. There will still be demand for Adobe to open source Flash, that will never and has never gone away, hence Gnash and Swfdec and such. That will only continue, as open source software carries very visible advantages. Again, it's just that there are advantages, and it's good to have the option, for users and companies to install binaries easily. It will allow open source projects to function more easily with Linux, it will allow users to not have to be compilation geniuses, etc.

Any way, I still want open source software versions of everything to exist and I hope with those things, but I also want easy ways to install all software to come to Linux. It will help everyone to see that happen more.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

not everybody has a working printer and enough paper to print out a distribution's hardware compatibility list and carry it into a local computer store.

yup... that would be because any distribution's hardware compatibility list is getting pretty large nowadays...

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Abreu]

I don't see penguin logos on boxes, and not everybody has a working printer and enough paper to print out a distribution's hardware compatibility list and carry it into a local computer store.

Well, maybe you should do it the other way around.
For example, I recently decided I wanted to purchase a cheap laser printer, so I went to the store, saw one or two models I liked, and then went home and looked up which ones were compatible with Ubuntu.

...Ok, maybe it's not such a good example, since both models I was interested in were Ubuntu compatible (an HP and an Okidata)

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Yfrwlf]

Oops I meant I help with those things, with open source projects I mean. :)

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[drinkypoo]

You're right to some degree there, however the parent's point about penguins on the boxes is a huge problem.

For some things, it just doesn't matter. The user must simply be educated. They must know that Linux doesn't care what brand of memory, hard disk, or monitor you use. For other things, the user CAN look around until they find a penguin on the box if they go to a "big box" electronic store like Fry's or Micro Center. SCSI cards, network cards, graphics cards, printers, scanners... you can find all of them with Tux sitting there stuffed with herring on the back of the box.

People are buying less peripherals anyway, and there is less reason to buy them, so this is becoming less of an issue. The big missing piece really is the eye candy now. Only enthusiasts are typically being bitten by bad hardware support.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[LWATCDR]

Not much of an issue with a netbook.
Some printers now do say Linux compatible.

I think they are really missing the boat. What Ubuntu needs to do but I know this will tick of the FOSS zealots is offer an easy way to ... Sell applications.
Just like Apple is doing with the Itunes store with the IPhone.
Make it easy to buy music, video, and applications for your netbook.

Frankly I am still waiting for Apple to come out with a netbook that will do exactly that. I would do to the netbook what the iPod and iTunes did to music players.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Yfrwlf]

Even in their stores though? Best Buy of course sells it online, as well as the EEE PC, but that's what I was told when asking for the EEE in-store, and it was a manager even who said it. Not that managers are always right, and Best Buy *is* mostly a MS shop at least.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Yfrwlf]

Lucky, that's cool. I don't know which I'd blame more for it not being sold much here, a general fear of change and stupidity with electronics, or MS business strongholds.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[MrZaius]

This is hardly relevant when compared to Apple. Linux generally does have better driver support, due to a more active OS community than Darwin has. Apple doesn't support anywhere near the amount of hardware out of the box that Ubuntu or other modern Linux distributions do.

-Sean

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[emj]

Shiny, and fast, and cheap, and useful.

And compatible.

It's impossible to be compatible, and the netbook segment and Apple doesn't need that as much. You have a neat thingy that just works, that's what is cool about it.

You can shout compatibilty all you want, but as long as MS has 90% of the market you will never see that. Even if it was a split market between Linux, Apple and MS you would still have troubles with compatibility.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[cascadefx]

I don't see penguin logos on boxes, and not everybody has a working printer and enough paper to print out a distribution's hardware compatibility list and carry it into a local computer store.

1. I don't see how a penquin logo is any different from an apple logo or an intel logo or an AMD logo. That's not holding adoption back on the hardware front. Besides Linux Compatible logos do exist and I have seen them on a number of hardware boxes. Here's an example of one on a Brother printer box ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmalonzo/1154495353/ )

2. That's the beauty of Linux Live CD's. You don't have to print out the documentation of hardware compatibility. Just burn a CD and take it into your local big-box electronics store and see what works and what doesn't. Booting into a live Linux system from a CD goes a long way towards figuring out if the system is compatible or not. That's how I bought my last two computers.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Kadin2048]

Right, so someone needs to develop a stable but extensible API for Linux kernel driver installation so that you don't have to recompile everything, or they have to open source their drivers, or create a mechanism to automatically compile a kernel module.

This assumes that it's better to encourage Linux adoption, even with proprietary drivers or binary blobs, than it is to encourage and nurture an open hardware/software ecosystem.

That's a defensible position but it's not a universally accepted one.

Frankly I think Linux would be giving up a lot of what makes it superior to Windows if it provided a way for manufacturers of crummy hardware a way to load binary-blob kernel modules. One of the best things about running Linux is not (generally) having to worry about upgrading the system and suddenly not being able to use some piece of hardware. If it works with Linux today, chances are it'll work with Linux tomorrow, and five years from now, and probably as long as the hardware is still around. This is in sharp contrast to pieces of hardware that are intimately tied to manufacturer-supplied blobs, which grow stale and eventually stop being updated when the manufacturer decides you should buy the latest version.

I would rather see Linux continue to grow at its current slow-but-steady rate, and drag the hardware universe along with it, than sacrifice doing things the right way in order to win some users over from Windows.

Finding hardware that works with Linux is admittedly sometimes a pain. But when you do find hardware that's compatible and has an OSS driver, you can rest easy knowing that it's not going to get EoLed in order to force you to upgrade. (It also helps that the hardware that's compatible with Linux tends to not include the real bottom-of-the-barrel, Winmodem-esque crap.)

Converting the seething hordes of Windows users isn't worth it, if it means bringing some of the worst of the Windows world over to Linux with them.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[Yfrwlf]

This would be good for both open and closed software. Modular programming is intelligent and should be done where ever possible. Giving users more choice isn't a bad thing. The need for open source software will never go away. More freedom in every way for the Linux desktop will be good and will only spur adoption and growth, and that increase of both closed and open source software will help everyone, including users who only use open source software. Adoption helps everyone.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[tepples]

Just burn a CD and take it into your local big-box electronics store

And get escorted out the door if you try to boot the CD.

Re:You forgot #5: hardware compatibility

[cascadefx]

Actually, when you ask to boot the CD to check Linux hardware compatibility, they usually let you. I have done this at five different stores, from Best Buy to Fry's, when buying my last two computers and a couple of other stores when researching for a friend and I have never been turned down when I asked politely.

It may not be the most secure thing for those stores to allow as policy, but they don't seem to object in general.

If I would ever be turned down, I would thank the sales person and promptly leave as I won't give them a sale if I can't confirm that the hardware works. If they asked, I would explain (politely) the same.

So far, I haven't had to do that though.

YMMV

This is the world we live in...

[ZarathustraDK]

It's not eye-candy, it's not usability.

It's people thinking they get the best by picking the product that costs more money.

I've experienced a couple of linux-'converts' before, they all basically say the same thing when living with Ubuntu for a couple of days: "What?! You get all this?! For FREE?!?!"

There's just this popular misconception (well, it probably makes sense anywhere else than software) that you have to 'pay to play'. You want a Mac, you pay bigtime. You want Vista, you pay. You want a TV, you pay. You want a hotel-room, you pay. You want a gum-drop, you pay. YOU DON'T GET ANYTHING FOR FREE! And if you do, something MUST be fishy.

This was the worst release of Ubuntu yet...

[cuby]

I use ubuntu daily in at least 3 different computers since 6.10.
7.10 was very solid, this one... Is not.
Just look at this massive thread at ubuntuforuns:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=768200

I'll not list all the bugs that I've found because I'm tired of it... And yes, there are people that don't have or didn't notice them (yet).
I'm not abandoning this distro because I like its philosophy. I'm willing to continue my little contribution, but with releases like this, it seems more like a UbuVista or BugBuntu and no eye candy will hide it.

Re:This was the worst release of Ubuntu yet...

[spikeb]

bugbuntu indeed

Re:This was the worst release of Ubuntu yet...

[mjwx]

I disagree, 8.04 is usable, whilst not as rock solid as 7.10 it hasn't given me any serious issues. 6.10 was the worst release in recent memory, that wouldn't even run a GUI on my desktop machine (Geforce 6600GT at the time)

Re:This was the worst release of Ubuntu yet...

[cuby]

One thing is not to even run. That is a driver thing, kernel or binary.
The other, in this case, is to run badly. There can be driver issues, but the majority of problems aren't driver related.

Re:This was the worst release of Ubuntu yet...

[mjwx]

Linux always had trouble with that video card (heck even Windows had trouble with that card) so it may have been faulty hardware, the thing is once the drivers were installed the video card worked perfectly but 6.10 (6.11?) wouldn't even start X where 6.06 would (albeit poorly until the drivers were installed). I haven't tried it in another PC as I went back to 6.06 and by the time 7.04 came out I had a new video card.

Re:This was the worst release of Ubuntu yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that! Went back to 7.10 after 3 days of pain.

My theory: the .10 versions are always better than the .04 ones - don't ask why, but that has been my experience since 5.04

Re:This was the worst release of Ubuntu yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

8.04 is usable, whilst not as rock solid as 7.10

Pulseaudio put me off 8.04. I had problems with it glitching on Fedora 8 (which was one reason why I switched to Ubuntu 7.10 - no Pulseaudio) and I've read about a lot of problems which seem to amount to a number of apps just not being properly ready to work with it. If 8.04's also less stable than 7.10 as you imply, I'm glad I've stuck to 7.10.
I'm going to wait for Intrepid/8.10 before I try an upgrade - by then at least two of the main new features, Pulseaudio and Firefox 3 should be much more mature and stable.

Given the problems people are having, I can't see any good reason for most people to upgrade at this point unless they're desperate for some new 8.04 feature or hardware support. 7.10 is supported until next year.

Just give me my suspend/hibernate back!

[odiroot]

It worked on 7.04. It worked like a charm on Gentoo. I still have /etc/hibernate copied from Gentoo installation but, of course, you MUST do it other way so my beloved scripts are useless. For god's sake, I even got this working with restricted ATI/AMD drivers and now I'm limited to power on/power off functionality like TV or dishwasher.

Department of Redundancy Department

[Medievalist]

They want Apple computers because of marketing and hype. They are becoming trendy status symbols. (Put the flame-throwers away, I'm not commenting on quality here). Linux doesn't have a marketing department.

[No flames from me.] They want Macs because of the marketing and hype combined with geeks like me who say "If you've got the money and you don't want any problems, you should get a Mac."

Er, yes, exactly, that would be the "hype" previously referred to.

Re:Yawn or It used to work and then we fixed it

[vertical_98]

We run ltsp thin terminals at work. Started off with Debian and ltsp 4.2. When 6.06lts (dapper) we switched and enjoyed the ubuntu goodness. (Dual-heads from an agp and a pci video card, thin client attached printers, snazzy desktop, Jammin 125s for the sales floor). It had its flaws (zombie connections being a biggie) but running 10 clients off of a quad p3-700 was super sweet. We waited eagerly for the next LTS release and installed with utmost haste to a quad xeon 900. Slicker interface (check), zombie connections gone (check), Jammin 125s...white screen of death....thin client attached printers....um no, not any more....Dual head.....not anymore thanks to xrandr. Option to install xinerama instead of xrandr....Are you kidding me? I can kinda of understand Xrandr, but not replacing lpserver is damn near unforgivable.

If I sound bitter, its probably because I am.

Ubuntu != Linux Desktop

[krkhan]

When Shuttleworth is saying that Linux Desktop still needs eye-candy polish to compete with Apple, he's probably referring to Ubuntu per se. A properly configured Compiz Fusion and Emerald (with stuff like shadows and plugins like Group and Tab, Expo) coupled with Screenlets and Avant Window Navigator/Kiba-Dock and proper themes looks almost as good as a Mac if not better. Obviously though, all that stuff is not easy to configure for newcomers, so what *Ubuntu* needs to do in terms of eye-candy is to streamline the process of its configuration.

Linux Desktop in general is *not* trailing behind any other OS, and in fact, it may be leading in terms of special effects. Distributions such as Ubuntu just haven't made it accessible to general public yet.

Re:Ubuntu != Linux Desktop

[sir fer]

A properly configured Compiz Fusion and Emerald (with stuff like shadows and plugins like Group and Tab, Expo) coupled with Screenlets and Avant Window Navigator/Kiba-Dock and proper themes looks almost as good as a Mac if not better.

almost as good? Mac "eye candy" is shite compared to compiz-fusion, and windows is a macs dyslexic retarded cousin when it comes to desktop candy that is also useful. I run compiz 0.7.6 on hardy heron and everytime I go to use a windoze comp I get a nasty shock when I realise that it only has one desktop *shrieks* dude, seriously, compiz-fusion is light years ahead of any eye candy that the competition has to offer

Re:Ubuntu != Linux Desktop

[Eli Gottlieb]

"If not better"!? I'm running my Linux partition right now as opposed to my OS X partition to play Portal, and I have to tell you, once I've configured this thing for a more Mac-like UI (What!? I *like* Cairo-Dock!) it looks much better than the Mac and has better usability. I honestly just keep the OS X partition around for multimedia features (when you need to rip to an iPod, watch DVDs legally or play several bits of audio at once, OSX works best), and might quite gladly migrate to Gentoo Linux with a much larger HDD partition when KDE 4.1 comes out (if Portato updates by then).

Re:Ubuntu != Linux Desktop

[tcr]

Got to say I love the multiple desktops too...

Problem is when I switch to an XP machine I have to use, press Ctrl-Alt-Left or Right, and the desktop rotates.
 
It was a real WTF?! the first time...

Re:Ubuntu != Linux Desktop

[hacker]

Problem is when I switch to an XP machine I have to use, press Ctrl-Alt-Left or Right, and the desktop rotates.

XP doesn't do this by default, so you must have some third-party application installed on your XP machine that provides this function. Do you know what it might be? I'd love to have that on my XP machine at work so I can function with as much productivity as my Linux machines at home.

Re:Ubuntu != Linux Desktop

[tcr]

Sorry... bad choice of words!
 
I meant in XP if I press Ctrl Alt Down, the screen flips upside down, and Ctrl Alt Left makes it rotate 90 degrees left...

Re:Ubuntu != Linux Desktop

[hacker]

Ugh... the most annoying thing about OSX IS that top menubar. It dramatically decreases productivity and dramatically increases unnecessary mousing "mileage".

Personally, I still run sawfish and have for years, because its GUI is light-years ahead of what OSX and current GNOME/KDE provide in their own window managers. All menus are context-sensitive within the app, desktop or environment with a click, right-click, alt+right-click and so on. Works beautifully and I can get to any option from the window manager's own parameters to the application's modal menus without moving my mouse one single pixel anywhere to "click" on anything.

Re:Ubuntu != Linux Desktop

[cascadefx]

I think this is an important point. Mark and the Ubuntu team really look at trying to make reasonable defaults that are accessible out of the box.

You can see that in the evolution of desktop effects on the Ubuntu desktop.

Ubuntu seems to really be working as a focusing agent for the average user.

Hyper-Active Ubuntu?

[Trogre]

Well I guess that makes Fedora ritalin.

OT: why did Compiz take a step backward?

[KWTm]

Compiz and other similar eye-candies may get them there.

OT post here, but I was really disappointed at the quality of Compiz in Kubuntu 8.04. After having seen Beryl with 7.04, I had expected that merging Beryl back into Compiz would produce the best of both worlds. Instead, the result was a klunky effect that looked like someone's homework done only to meet minimum requirements.

For example, the desktop cube is still there with Compiz-fusion, but unlike Beryl, it doesn't have that "springy" feel when I rotate (no, I'm not talking about Wobbly Windows). Beryl used to smoothly shift from "normal desktop" mode into "ooh, look, the windows are now floating and mobile as I rotate the cube!" mode; for example, the top-most window would float upward toward the user. Compiz-fusion doesn't show any response to activation of the "rotate cube" mode, until you start rotating, and then you realize that the windows are floating above a cube the surfaces of which have receded away from the user, except for the topmost window which hasn't moved so you don't even know that it's floating.

Another example: with Beryl, you could use the keyboard to rotate the cube left/right, and also up/down, so that you were looking at the desktop from on top; it was a handy way for me to take a look at all 4 desktops (from the cube's "top view") and figure out where I had placed which windows. With the "new improved" Compiz Fusion, there is no place for me to set any key binding for that command. Besides, it doesn't seem possible to set transparent cube caps, so it's hard to look at Compiz's cube from on top and identify which desktop is which.

Yet another example: in Beryl, a key chord could activate the Expose-like "Scale" feature to let me see all the windows in shrunken mode, and pick one. While the same functionality is available in Compiz-fusion, I have to hold down the key-combo and make sure I don't let go, preventing any one-handed use of the Scale feature.

I could go on, but the point is: why the regression? I find myself wishing I could reinstall Beryl onto Ubuntu 8.04; Beryl was supposedly not as well-integrated with KDE back in 7.04, but the integration with KDE in Kubuntu 8.04 is even more atrocious. (KDE has always been given short shrift bu K/Ubuntu.) Guess I gotta wait for the next version and hope that someone feels up to restoring Beryl/Compiz to its former glory.

Re:OT: why did Compiz take a step backward?

[dmizer]

Compiz did not take a step backwards. Compiz settings manager is different than Beryl, but all the features you complain about being missing can be configured from the advanced settings in Compiz.

Re:OT: why did Compiz take a step backward?

[sir fer]

what verison of compiz are you using?

put deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/compiz/ubuntu hardy main and deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/compiz/ubuntu hardy main in your sources list (sudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list) and update...this will install compiz 0.7.6 (look at the cube deformation and reflection plugin ;o)- awesome!) and fix all the bugs that came with the default compiz in K/Ubuntu 8.04

eye candy is BETTER than Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I run a few differents distros on my laptop but whenever I want to convince my friends to give Linux a try, I take out the pimped out KDE with Compiz.
Never use the stuff myself but the reaction it gets is unbelievable.
I run Vista, OS X about 50% of the time at work, depending on the projects we are working on and nothing comes even close on those OS to what my pimped out laptop can do. Even our Mac guys drool over the mindless options that they can only dream of.

Aesthetics, style are different things than eye candy but my KDE can be anything I want it to be.

Better eyecandy?

[hotfireball]

Disclaimer: I risk to be called a fanboy and marked as a troll...

Mark Shuttleworth went on to state that Linux's market share will grow when it has better eye-candy than Apple's."

That's plain BS, because nobody really need any eye candy at the first place. Integration, unification and standards -- this is what Linux is absolutely missing on its desktop. Apple beats Linux at desktop because of excellent integration of all software, clean standard interface for every software (X11-based stuff are aliens though).

If Linux will continue KDE/Gnome war, they will stay as outsiders on desktop market forever, I think.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Wow, that anger must be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, are you that much of a retard in real life or is it the fact that you are here that makes it ok to be a total a-hole?

Let's hope you didnt get a chance to reproduce.

Re:The difference between Mac and Linux "eye-candy

[slimjim8094]

I'm pretty sure the Linux (you really mean Compiz) plugin architecture is a hella more flexible. It's basically, here's a texture and have fun morphing it, give it back when you're done.

So you could install a program to do, well, anything at all. If I understand it right.

The Year of the Linux Desktop

[mangu]

Ten years ago, if anyone mentioned "Linux Desktop", the unanimous answer would be "Bah!" Today, in this Slashdot article threads, people are discussing itty-bitty details like "they should improve this", "no, they should improve that before this", etc.

I still don't know when is the year of the Linux Desktop, but I bet that fifty years from now the consensus will be that it was sometime between 2001 and 2007.

Re:New twitter sockpuppets uncovered

[Anonymous Coward]

riiight...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

As a Linux Advocate

[FoxconnGuy]

And a regular user of Ubuntu daily.

The reason that Ubuntu can be popular is not about Ubuntu, it's about Vista.

Microsoft has a fundamental problem since Ballmer is on: Strategy is more important than technology.

Yes, strategy can be a great weapon. Just like medication can heal your disease. But it also can be poisonous if you overdose.

As I knew, the root of Linux is not about defeating other OS. It is about creating a better OS, thereafter, a better world. It is Microsoft's problem to create a better OS. If Microsoft does, Linux can also be improved since there are better designs.

Land line, you insensitive clod

[tepples]

I take my mobile phone and Google products in the store... What's your excuse ?

I'm cheap. I have an Audiovox 8610 phone on a $7/mo plan. It doesn't appear to have the web. I use the phone primarily to arrange rides and rely on the land line for most everything else.

Where do you see those advanced Compiz settings?

[KWTm]

Compiz did not take a step backwards. Compiz settings manager is different than Beryl, but all the features you complain about being missing can be configured from the advanced settings in Compiz.

Please tell me how. I have been looking for the settings under the Advanced Compiz Settings Manager.

In particular: how to get the cube caps transparent (setting opacity to zero under Utility > Cube Caps > Appearance > Cube Top Color does not work), how to get the key binding for rotating the cube so that the top faces the user (there is no such binding available under Desktop > Rotate Cube > Bindings, although there are bindings for Rotate Left and Rotate Right), and how to make it so that when I press the Initiate Window Picker key (under Window Management > Scale > Bindings > Initiate Window Picker), I can let go of the key without disengaging the Window Picker and reverting to the normal screen.

Any help would be much appreciated; otherwise, I haven't really received any significant information from you.

Utterly wrong.

[sidragon.net]

Eye-candy does not make Apple popular. Yes, their products are attractive, but form most often follows function. Some examples. Mac OS X window drop-shadows add subtle contrast the mostly monochromatic environment. Transparent terminals allow more efficient screen usage (stacking them over documentation for example). Compared to Vista, OS X is simplistic looking. Therefore, Vista must be wildly popular for all its visual appeal.

Re:The difference between Mac and Linux "eye-candy

[Eli Gottlieb]

Technically if a user has enabled the D-Bus Compiz plugin any application can connect to the D-Bus desktop-integration system and start telling the eye-candy what to do. Nobody really writes code for that mostly because it doesn't come standard and no fall-back exists when the user doesn't have Compiz installed.

OSCON keynote video

[LingNoi]

Here is the only video of OSCON 2008 I could find.

It's a shame really since I myself would never be able to go to the US to one so I wished they'd put more stuff up.

If anyone finds any more videos please reply.

Re:If its shiny, you must be a savage

[aqk]

without undue hassle and was initially very impressed. He ended up having problems with wireless network card drivers, but before then he discovered the compiz window/eye-candy manager and the whole cube desktop thing, as well as dual monitor and window tiling features. He......who to my knowledge has never even written a Hello World program (though he ha......seen Macs, and though he's impressed, the price is off putting. Anyway he is now using Vista, and has found its visual effects fairly pleasing. But, he still wants to go back to Ubuntu, due in no small part to the compiz cube, which he considers superior. In fact, even his girlfriend actually prefers Ubuntu. ...... wide appeal of Hardy.

In short, I remain shocked, bewildered and pleasantly bemused ..... It is not an exaggeration to state that Aunt Tillie can use and actually enjoy Ubuntu Hardy, as though as it might be for us to accept it.

================
Bullshit.
Tell Aunt Tillie THAT.
I have been running dual and TRIPLE screens on XP and Vista.
So far all I can get with Ubuntub 8.04 is a "cloned" screen on my Celeron Laptop.
I'm currently booted from Vista now, as it offers me an expanded desktop over two screens, which Ubuntu cannot seem to do.
And don't ask me (OR your revered Aunt Tillie) to do a "sudo apt gibberish -fyou" to possibly solve this problem.
Oh yeah- my Atheros wifi still doesn't work with Hardyharhar Heron, not to mention 7.10 Warty wotever...
Don't reply to me here. Take it up with your Aunt Tillie.
.

Re:Where do you see those advanced Compiz settings

[sir fer]

making cube caps transparent is under cube transparency in the Desktop Cube plugin. By setting the cube transparency during mouse rotation it deals with the cube caps transparency as well.

oh dear...

[Anonymous Coward]

they've gone plaid!

Installing UME Launcher

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a nice little guide, and some screenshots, showing how to install the Ubuntu Mobile Edition Launcher here.

Word of mouth

[Anonymous Coward]

Put the flame-throwers away, I'm not commenting on quality here

Why would you? When a friend recommends something to someone else because it makes their life easier, itÂs called "marketing" by those who think they know..

I would call it something else, but combined with excellent marketing, it can be very effective.

Re:New twitter sockpuppets uncovered

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah hello twitter.

The X in Linux stands for XTREEM!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux doesn't have a marketing department. That is why Linux won't take a sizable chunk out of the desktop market.

I thought the FSF was the Linux marketing department. I'm looking forward to TV commercials of Stallman in a bikini playing volleyball on the beach.

Re:The X in Linux stands for XTREEM!!

[lilomar]

Please help me! I've removed my eyeballs and scrubbed my sockets out with steel wool, but the images won't go away! They won't go away!!

*fetal position*
*sob*

Re:The difference between Mac and Linux "eye-candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple provides Applications that do one thing: the thing that Apple thinks is best.

Sure, there's a ton of fanboys here that love Apple because it's Unix and not Microsoft, but the vast majority of Mac users know didly-squat about computers. What they do know is Apple's way of doing things.

Linux has all the capabilities in the world, including compiling most everything yourself or only using completely free applications - but for the far majority of users, there's no need to do this.

They want something that's easy and intuitive to use, and something that doesn't require technical knowledge.

BTW, I'm writing this from a computer running Vista. Never had a problem....

Nay, Nay and thrice Nay !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

> when it has better eye-candy than Apple's

Eye candy doth not a good UI make ! People will come when Ubuntu has a better user interface than Apple's.

The main attraction of a MAC is not "the shiny" (which helps) it's the integrated, usability of it. The interfaces have been well thought out first and have then been beautified. Take off "the shiny" and you'd still have damned good UI design.

In contrast Ubuntu has things all over the place, the menus are frankly a random mess, are not simple for a user to change, and not all apps use the same widget sets.

Coupled with the fact that Gnome is so utterly dumbed down it's almost unusable for any serious work and all I can say is they've got their work cut out.

A MAC interface consists of the minimum number of widgets/dialogues required to get the job done. No more no less. These widgets are well placed and well labelled.

In contrast a Gnome interface seems to consist of the fewest widgets the developers can get away with on a single dialogue whether this significantly hinders use of the app or not. Any useful settings being buried in Gnomes sub standard Windows registry clone.

I hope they achieve their aims though as despite my criticism I actually like Ubuntu and only see MACs when I got into my mates recording studio (personally I think they're very, very overpriced and whilst good I wouldn't dream of buyiong one).

Re:If its shiny, you must be a savage

[meringuoid]

Bullshit. Tell Aunt Tillie THAT. I have been running dual and TRIPLE screens on XP and Vista.

Aunt Tillie has a three-screen setup?

Semi-OT rant; ignore at will

[danaris]

As with an earlier post, that's probably app-specific. I'm sure any developer could (if they wanted) write a new app for OS X and it wouldn't necessarily support copy and paste of everything.

Actually, that would be very difficult, unless you were writing it for X11 on OS X.

If you're using text fields from either of the 2 official OS X APIs (Carbon and Cocoa), you automatically get copy and paste support. You have to deliberately use something nonstandard and unsupported to break it.

On Linux, there are multiple different pasteboard implementations that aren't always cross-compatible. Sometimes I can copy from Application X and paste into Application Y, but not from Y to X. Other times they just won't talk to each other at all. This is, so far as I can tell, due to the highly modular nature of Linux and the often fragmented nature of OSS: there is no one pasteboard implementation, or even one pasteboard API that can be implemented by different libraries, that all apps can count on having available to them on all Linux systems.

And thus does the vast array of choices that Linux offers become a liability. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux—but I'm a programmer, and a sysadmin, and I'm fully capable of using it and dealing with its shortcomings in the user experience area. Many people aren't.

Dan Aris

Re:Semi-OT rant; ignore at will

[Guy Harris]

This is, so far as I can tell, due to the highly modular nature of Linux

Given that the same problems appear on *BSD, Solaris, etc., it's not due to the anything of Linux, unless it's "the X11-based window system of Linux".

there is no one pasteboard implementation, or even one pasteboard API that can be implemented by different libraries, that all apps can count on having available to them on all Linux systems.

Actually, there is a pasteboard/clipboard mechanism that all toolkits can count on and, if they all use it, apps can count on it as well. It's the X11 "selections" mechanism, combined with the PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD selections from the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual; see the X11 clipboard convention document.

Re:Semi-OT rant; ignore at will

[danaris]

Given that the same problems appear on *BSD, Solaris, etc., it's not due to the anything of Linux, unless it's "the X11-based window system of Linux".

Bah. Pedantry. You know what I meant. :-P

Actually, there is a pasteboard/clipboard mechanism that all toolkits can count on and, if they all use it, apps can count on it as well. It's the X11 "selections" mechanism, combined with the PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD selections from the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual; see the X11 clipboard convention document.

In that case, it's even more unforgivable that it's not universally followed.

Dan Aris

Re:Semi-OT rant; ignore at will

[Guy Harris]

In that case, it's even more unforgivable that it's not universally followed.

Yes, it is. What were some of the applications X and Y where you couldn't copy from X to Y? Do you happen to know what versions of what toolkits they were using?

Re:Semi-OT rant; ignore at will

[danaris]

What were some of the applications X and Y where you couldn't copy from X to Y? Do you happen to know what versions of what toolkits they were using?

Afraid I don't recall offhand right now. This was a while ago: fortunately, I don't often need the ability to copy text back and forth in Linux (largely because I don't use it an awful lot, beyond command-line stuff that I almost always do through SSH from my Mac).

Dan Aris

Hardware compatibility fixed if...

[nappingcracker]

...there was a useful way to list and search 100% working systems / components. More the former than the latter for laypeople.

The information is already out there, in forums or linux hardware databases, but it still takes hours to sort through. Most people do not have the patience for that. It needs to be as easy as entering "HP foo42bbq" model number and get a green, yellow, or red light. "Yes, totally works, buy it", "All but power management" (or ONE non working, non critical component, two is too many), or "NO - don't buy, not ready yet". Actually, maybe get rid of the yellow, no sense listing half assed systems, maybe require user registration to see partially working systems, so people can fix, tinker, whatever.

The format of any compatibility matrices I have seen suck. Not friendly at all. The public does not have patience for much more than entering one search term. Model number, sku, whatever. We could see a major boom just by making a 'yea' or 'nay' list based on the Sunday fliers for the popular brick and mortar electronic superstores.

So true, tepples, compatibility is the problem. Make it easy to find the models that vendors (knowingly or unknowingly) put together that are compatible.

Drivers too...

[rgviza]

> Mark Shuttleworth went on to state that Linux's market share will grow when it has better eye-candy than Apple's."

Sad but true...
Beyond that, we need more open source drivers, and if a distro bundled all of them so installation was painless, more users would glom on.

As it is life is challenging for regular people if they need to go find proprietary drivers, and it's challenging for distro maintainers since they don't want to taint their distro or violate distribution requirements.

Hardware manufacturers should either become OS neutral, or open the specs and leave drivers to other people. That would really level the playing field for users, who also happen to be keeping the hardware mfgrs in business.

-Viz

Re:Drivers too...

[Ash-Fox]

Sad but true...

Done.

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Remark is a load of shuttle

[LeotheQuick]

Eye candy is the least of my friend's problems, who, after having just purchased a new Dell Laptop with Ubuntu he updated to Ubuntu 8 his sound is broken, all the way from the kernel to gstreamer. It'd be nice if he had wobbly windows to console him now that he can't play music or videos, but unfortunately compiz is unsupported by his video driver. Ubuntu, I had such high hopes for you :( But in the end, all that money and publicity, you are *worse* than Debian.

Re:Remark is a load of shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

Eye candy is the least of my friend's problems, who, after having just purchased a new Dell Laptop with Ubuntu he updated to Ubuntu 8 his sound is broken, all the way from the kernel to gstreamer.
1/ He can just reinstall from his backup, can't he? He DID backup before upgrading didn't he?
2/ Or clean reinstall 7.10?
3/ Or uninstall pulseaudio (worth a try given that sound is broken anyhow - can't make it any worse).

No, it's not ideal; but any OS upgrade can fail and need to be reverted (i.e. people upgrading to Vista and going back to XP; I'm sure I've seen reports of OSX 10.5 having to be reverted to 10.4).

If your friend hasn't been completely put off, I should suggest the following:
a) Always have /home as a seperate partition if he hasn't already
b) Always install a new release in a new partition; then you can dual boot with the new version and give it a quick test (play one sound file and one video of each type you have; test browser including flash, email, wired and wireless network, suspend, resume, all peripherals etc. - about 15 mins)
c) If the new release isn't up to scratch, skip it and wait for the next one; or apply maintenance to the new release in the test partition until it works, if you're keen to upgrade.

Just upgrading over your current release for *any* OS is generally a bad idea.
It's significant to me that such things are not only 'not done' but essentially impossible in the IBM z/OS mainframe enviroment that I work in.

apt-get

[Enderandrew]

Having used openSUSE 11 for a while now, zypper is extremely faster than old versions. All .rpm packages use LZMA compression which is faster, dependency resolution is faster and better, etc.

zypper works just as well as apt-get as far as I can tell these days. I honestly wouldn't place one above the other.

Re:apt-get

[Keen Anthony]

apt-get? So I take it Ubuntu is based on Debian. In that case, it should be equal to any other Debian based distro. I would have thought there was much more. Looking at the Ubunto site though, it seems they made custom environments for various demographics (young children, etc.), so that's an innovation.

Re:apt-get

[Enderandrew]

There are a variety of forks and flavors, but they're not necessarily well maintained. Kubuntu is pretty much a stock KDE put on top of Ubuntu, but it is based on the last Ubuntu release. The Ubuntu devs don't really work with the other spins/flavors/forks to ensure development happens on all of them at the same time. So features of 8.04 make into Kubuntu when 8.10 comes out.

And calling Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu three different spins, when most distros would simply call it one is a bit misleading. With say openSUSE, all the features of 11.0 come out for everyone at the same time, regardless if you run Gnome, KDE 3, KDE 4, XFCE, etc.

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Re:The difference between Mac and Linux "eye-candy

[cascadefx]

Ubuntu's implementation of the eye-candy has been pretty reserved overall.

You can add configuration tools to take full advantage if you want, but the defaults work rather well and don't "hit you over the head" for the most part.