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Examining gOS With Its Ubuntu Origins In Mind
An anonymous reader writes "The history of computing is that of giants being toppled. Right now, Ubuntu is the giant of the Linux world but some have been suggesting that gOS' latest release — 3.0 "Gadgets" Beta — might be a serious challenger. Can this be true? The truth is a little more complicated, as the Ubuntu Kung Fu blog explains in its review of the new release."
Any other distro could be as long as the devs put enough work into it, listen to their user base and -- especially -- get a little marketing. The real question is, will they?
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Is this blogspam? Such a sensational summary for an article that basically says 'Meh, I guess it's kinda cool'
The main page for gOS nowhere mentions Ubuntu or even Debain, heck, Linux isn't even mentioned! The main page for Ubuntu clearly states that it is A) Linux and B) made from Debian, as of now it even has a banner celebrating Debian.
You mean like Apple's homepage talks about Darwin and BSD, or Microsoft's homepage talks about NTOSKRNL? Or Motorola sells its linux phones with strong LiMo branding? (game: count the number of times the work 'Microsoft' appears on that page)
Ubuntu may garner some geek cred there, but it's not going to be helpful with their marketing to the Windows user base. Linux has a bad reputation for ease of use. gOS users can find out they're using Linux after they've been happy with it for a while.
How gOS behaves towards the community is an entirely different matter, and I don't know anything about that.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
1 - Gnome only
2 - Fairly vanilla packages
3 - Really ugly themeing
4 - Basically zero options in the install process. I get the default packages, and that is it.
5 - I could never get the ATI drivers to work well with Ubuntu on my wife's laptop, but they worked great with Sabayon and openSUSE.
6 - I compiled a custom kernel by hand, but then I couldn't get the ATI driver to load at all, because Ubuntu demands that there be a restricted module package for the kernel, and I couldn't make one for a custom kernel.
7 - Never could get madwifi to work on Ubuntu well, when it worked out of the box with openSUSE and Sabayon.
8 - When I asked for support in the forums I was repeatedly flamed in PMs, and on the IRC support channel. I was told that I needed to install the 32-bit version, even when I asked for help the in the 64-bit forums. I was repeatedly told the 64-bit version is unsupported, even though Cannonical sells commercial support for it.
9 - Asking about restricted formats also provoked several flames, and Ubuntu fights methods that allow people to easily install them.
10 - I eventually tried out Kubuntu to find arguably the single worst KDE desktop I've seen in a distro.
11 - I was repeatedly instructed not to install a toolkit or attempt to compile anything manually. "I might screw something up, and frankly you shouldn't ever try to to do things on your own."
12 - At every turn Ubuntu removed choice. It was the most simplistic, straight-forward distro I've ever tried. There is a target audience for that, and it isn't me.
13 - Ubuntu supposedly "simply works" just like Apple. Fans would like you to believe neither Apple nor Ubuntu ever have problems, and yet Ubuntu has had some serious bugs with their last four releases I've witnessed.
14 - Kubuntu is a bastard child that not only receives little developer attention, but it is usually a release behind Ubuntu on *buntu features.
15 - A forum moderator actually told me I was an idiot for owning ATI hardware, to which I replied "it is the laptop my wife bought" to which he later replied "then you should divorce the bitch." I expect better from moderators. It is the single worst community I've ever dealt with. I really got spoiled on the Gentoo forums. I really love reading those.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
You know, Robert Kiyosake, who is 99% full of crap, had a gem of wisdom in one of his books.
He told the story about how he met with a reporter who wanted to become an author, and she asked him for advice, since he had been published numerable times. His advice to her was to learn marketing. "You'll notice", he said, "that the cover of the book says 'best selling author', it doesn't say 'best writing author'".
There's a lot of truth in that statement.
Best is such a subjective term, but Ubuntu is the most successful distro in recent memory, in terms of users, name recognition, and having a unified interface.
It's certainly not perfect, but for usability and bringing Linux to the masses, it's a damn bit better than everything else out there
Sorry to all the Mepis, RedHat, Mandrake, Gentoo, Slack, and other distro fans.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
The concept of ubuntu existed long before apartheid.
Alright, then fine. Rename it to Candy Linux. No wait, that's associated with weight problems and diabetes. How about Rose Linux? No, because roses have thorns. How about Sunshine Linux? No, that can be associated with skin cancer and global climate change. Maybe Rainbow Linux? No, that would scare off the homophobes. How about Happy Linux? Yeah, happy linux. Nothing wrong with happy! (as long as it's not associated with anti-depressant dependancy and bipolar-disorder, or a wide variety of psychological conditions, really).
gOS 3 Gadgets BETA is based on the solid Linux distribution base of Ubuntu 8.04.1.
and also
Designed for NetBooks & NetTops
The Long Now Foundation
1 - Gnome only
No, Kubuntu.
2 - Fairly vanilla packages
I have no idea what you're on about here.
3 - Really ugly themeing
It's a theme, you can change it.
4 - Basically zero options in the install process. I get the default packages, and that is it.
You get what is needed and you can do your customization after the install process. This is the best decision ever made by the Ubuntu community.
5 - I could never get the ATI drivers to work well with Ubuntu on my wife's laptop, but they worked great with Sabayon and openSUSE.
Thousands of others have no problem. Can you install these drivers by clicking "yes" to an option on these other distros?
6 - I compiled a custom kernel by hand, but then I couldn't get the ATI driver to load at all, because Ubuntu demands that there be a restricted module package for the kernel, and I couldn't make one for a custom kernel.
If you do advanced things you're expected to know what you are doing. This is the same for any linux distro.
7 - Never could get madwifi to work on Ubuntu well, when it worked out of the box with openSUSE and Sabayon.
When was this?
8 - When I asked for support in the forums I was repeatedly flamed in PMs, and on the IRC support channel. I was told that I needed to install the 32-bit version, even when I asked for help the in the 64-bit forums. I was repeatedly told the 64-bit version is unsupported, even though Cannonical sells commercial support for it.
Again, when was this? Ubuntu has one of the best communities of any distro.
9 - Asking about restricted formats also provoked several flames, and Ubuntu fights methods that allow people to easily install them.
When was this? It's actually one click to install them now.
10 - I eventually tried out Kubuntu to find arguably the single worst KDE desktop I've seen in a distro.
Oh, so you have tried Kubuntu. Makes your point 1 a straight up lie. Can you say *why* you thought it was so bad? And when was this?
11 - I was repeatedly instructed not to install a toolkit or attempt to compile anything manually. "I might screw something up, and frankly you shouldn't ever try to to do things on your own."
Well, it seems from 6 above that you have demonstrated that you don't know what you're doing so they've been giving you good newbie advice.
12 - At every turn Ubuntu removed choice. It was the most simplistic, straight-forward distro I've ever tried. There is a target audience for that, and it isn't me.
All the choice is there, you just have to know what you're doing. The universe repository has more packages than any other distro.
13 - Ubuntu supposedly "simply works" just like Apple. Fans would like you to believe neither Apple nor Ubuntu ever have problems, and yet Ubuntu has had some serious bugs with their last four releases I've witnessed.
Apple doesn't "just work" either. Computers don't "just work". If you want something that "just works", go buy a toaster or a microwave - if it breaks, take it back to the manufacturer for a full refund.
14 - Kubuntu is a bastard child that not only receives little developer attention, but it is usually a release behind Ubuntu on *buntu features.
You mentioned Kubuntu. Again I ask, when was the last time you looked at it?
15 - A forum moderator actually told me I was an idiot for owning ATI hardware, to which I replied "it is the laptop my wife bought" to which he later replied "then you should divorce the bitch." I expect better from moderators. It is the single worst community I've ever dealt with. I really got spoiled on the Gentoo forums. I really love reading those.
Report him. That shit is not tolerated in the Ubuntu community.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I've done this about five times on Slashdot. Someone asks me what I don't like about Ubuntu, I get modded down troll for answering a question, etc. I don't really feel like arguing, but if you really want to go point-by-point:
No, Kubuntu.
Kubuntu is a separate project worked on by seperate devs. It doesn't get the baseline Ubuntu features for precisely that reason.
I have no idea what you're on about here.
Fire up a Knoppix CD, or Kubuntu and you'll basically see a vanilla KDE desktop. They don't customize the packages, install addition patches, or do anything. Now fire up Mandriva, or openSUSE, or PCLinuxOS, or Arch's KDEMod, or Sabayon, etc. You'll see they've added other patches to expand functionality, fix bugs, backport features, etc. What is the point of 20 million distros if they all ship the same packages?
Many Ubuntu packages are largely the vanilla, upstream package with no changes. (Ubuntu has a decent number of kernel patches and toolchain patches, like many other distros, but they largely inherit these from Debian). openSUSE (my most common example recently, because it is my new favorite of all the major distros I've tried recently) hires devs to backport features, and make the best possible packages they can. Again, many Gnome users praise openSUSE for putting out a bettter Gnome desktop than Ubuntu, because they don't ship vanilla packages.
You get what is needed and you can do your customization after the install process. This is the best decision ever made by the Ubuntu community.
I'm not saying Ubuntu is wrong. I'm saying I don't like it. I want options in my install process to customize it. Ubuntu is targeted at a certain audience. I'm not a member of it. I used to recommend Kubuntu to people who weren't computer savvy and wanted something very simple, and yet I discovered that other distros were just as simple to use, while providing better packages to boot.
It's a theme, you can change it.
I always change the theme on any desktop, but you asked what I don't like. I really don't like Ubuntu brown and orange. A recent poll on the openSUSE forums showed most responders saying they never bother changing the default theme. I don't understand that. Why wouldn't you customize your desktop?
Thousands of others have no problem. Can you install these drivers by clicking "yes" to an option on these other distros?
openSUSE offers a 1-click installer. Sabayon includes them by default. Heck, Mint (a nicer fork of Ubuntu) includes them by default. I followed the instructions on Ubuntu's wiki, yet they never worked. I asked for help and was repeatedly attacked for attempting to use ATI. Mind you, on the exact same laptop (my wife's old laptop) I ran Gentoo with the ATI drivers (custom kernel, -viper release), Sabayon with the ATI drivers, and openSUSE 10.1 with the ATI drivers. The only distro I had problems with was Ubuntu.
If you do advanced things you're expected to know what you are doing. This is the same for any linux distro.
You're not seeing what I'm getting at. I know how to compile my own kernel. I've been doing it for years. Since I'm impatient, even on binary distros I compile my own kernel and manually patch in drivers rather than wait for distros to releasing updated packages. On Ubuntu and Kubuntu, after I made my own kernel, it would not load the ATI module at all. It gave me an error about how it could not load the module because it was missing a restricted modules .deb package. They've gone out of their way to patch into their kernel sources a measure to stop you from using proprietary modules. I've never seen another distro do this. For the stock Ubuntu kernels, this package exists. For custom kernels (I downloaded a -mm kernel and then patched in the Ubuntu diff. I normally always patch in that distro's patches to the kernel in case they are important). If I never patched in the Ubuntu patches, the ATI driver would
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I've done this about five times on Slashdot. Someone asks me what I don't like about Ubuntu, I get modded down troll for answering a question, etc.
I can see why. You're wrong and you seem to be uninterested in learning this.
Kubuntu is a separate project worked on by seperate devs. It doesn't get the baseline Ubuntu features for precisely that reason.
No it isn't. What gave you that idea?
Fire up a Knoppix CD, or Kubuntu and you'll basically see a vanilla KDE desktop. They don't customize the packages, install addition patches, or do anything. Now fire up Mandriva, or openSUSE, or PCLinuxOS, or Arch's KDEMod, or Sabayon, etc. You'll see they've added other patches to expand functionality, fix bugs, backport features, etc. What is the point of 20 million distros if they all ship the same packages?
Many Ubuntu packages are largely the vanilla, upstream package with no changes. (Ubuntu has a decent number of kernel patches and toolchain patches, like many other distros, but they largely inherit these from Debian). openSUSE (my most common example recently, because it is my new favorite of all the major distros I've tried recently) hires devs to backport features, and make the best possible packages they can. Again, many Gnome users praise openSUSE for putting out a bettter Gnome desktop than Ubuntu, because they don't ship vanilla packages.
Oh, so "vanilla" means "like debian".. that's ok, I like debian. Sounds like you have a different personal preference. This is probably the most legitimate thing you have said in this thread.
I'm not saying Ubuntu is wrong. I'm saying I don't like it. I want options in my install process to customize it. Ubuntu is targeted at a certain audience. I'm not a member of it. I used to recommend Kubuntu to people who weren't computer savvy and wanted something very simple, and yet I discovered that other distros were just as simple to use, while providing better packages to boot.
Again, personal preference, good for you.
I always change the theme on any desktop, but you asked what I don't like. I really don't like Ubuntu brown and orange. A recent poll on the openSUSE forums showed most responders saying they never bother changing the default theme. I don't understand that. Why wouldn't you customize your desktop?
I like the default theme, personally. I also don't really care too much about it. You obviously do and that's your preference.
openSUSE offers a 1-click installer. Sabayon includes them by default. Heck, Mint (a nicer fork of Ubuntu) includes them by default. I followed the instructions on Ubuntu's wiki, yet they never worked. I asked for help and was repeatedly attacked for attempting to use ATI. Mind you, on the exact same laptop (my wife's old laptop) I ran Gentoo with the ATI drivers (custom kernel, -viper release), Sabayon with the ATI drivers, and openSUSE 10.1 with the ATI drivers. The only distro I had problems with was Ubuntu.
When was this? I have a machine with ATI drivers, Ubuntu installed them by default and alerted me that it had done it.
You're not seeing what I'm getting at. I know how to compile my own kernel. I've been doing it for years. Since I'm impatient, even on binary distros I compile my own kernel and manually patch in drivers rather than wait for distros to releasing updated packages. On Ubuntu and Kubuntu, after I made my own kernel, it would not load the ATI module at all. It gave me an error about how it could not load the module because it was missing a restricted modules .deb package. They've gone out of their way to patch into their kernel sources a measure to stop you from using proprietary modules. I've never seen another distro do this. For the stock Ubuntu kernels, this package exists. For custom kernels (I downloaded a -mm kernel and then patched in the Ub
How we know is more important than what we know.
ATI hasn't released code for those drivers actually. They've released specs and technical documents on newer, high-end Radeon cards.
When you attack someone and say that they're wrong, next time try to have facts on your side.
That doesn't change the fact that when I tried the distro, they were the only ones that had issues with those drivers.
And despite your claims that Ubuntu is the best community (seriously, check out a real helpful, knowledgable community like Gentoo) that doesn't change the fact that people attacked me for asking for help.
The facts are the facts. Your comments don't change them.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Without thinking any less of Zenwalk, I would say that the reason I chose Ubuntu, and the reason I hope most people choose Ubuntu, is for the critical mass effect. Although it's perfectly alright for there to be an unlimited number of Linux distributions, I hope that one can emerge to be the flagship distribution, the de facto standard, so that the non-Linux world --vendors of Other Operating Systems, hardware manufacturers, and the lay public-- can have a standard distribution to see, experience and understand. If a hardware manufacturer decides that it can't possibly support all Linux distributions, at least it can say "we support Ubuntu Linux" and the other distro's can take it from there. If some noob-to-Linux goes crying for help, at least s/he there's a chance that some not-quite-geek has heard of the distro and can offer some help and support --including emotional support, where appropriate.
Red Hat had the chance to be that one flagship distro. They decided to cut it loose and focus just on big companies. Debian never really focused on the end-user experience. Mandrake (now Mandriva) came the closest to Ubuntu, in my opinion, but I guess they were missing a millionaire benefactor.
So, I hear you, and I don't think Zenwalk is any less because everyone's talking about Ubuntu. But I think Ubuntu has its place, and I think all the Linux distros benefit from Ubuntu's standing.
Having said that, can you tell me a bit more about Zenwalk and how easy it is to maintain? I briefly checked out the web page and couldn't tell if it was based on the Debian system, like Ubuntu. If it's not too far off from Ubuntu and it's able to benefit from ports to Ubuntu, then I might check it out. Because I find that one necessity in a Linux distro is the existence of a strong package maintenance institution, so that I can be confident that new software will be packaged and made available for (and compatible with) my distro.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
You'll notice he's modded up to +5 too. Slashdot "moderators" don't read the entire thread, and these posts are too big for them to read past the first paragraph. He's openly admitted that he's talking about Ubuntu fron two years ago and yet he insists that he knows what he's talking about.
What a dick.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Why can't you use <quote>? When you did your Google search for Shuttleworth comments did you happen to get the date of the comment? People change their opinions over time you know.. Actually install a the latest version of Ubuntu on a machine with a 3d graphics card.. watch as it automatically installs the restricted drivers.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Unfortunately that won't work with envy:
https://answers.launchpad.net/envy/+question/23594
The only way to get a working binary for the older cards is to install an ATI blob from version 8.28.8 http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linux/radeonprevious-linux.html or before. A lot of laptops use 9100s, they were dropped along with a heap of other models after this release.
You just have to give up in the end and lose most of your acceleration, or install a old distro from cd and not update it.
Since I'm impatient, even on binary distros I compile my own kernel and manually patch in drivers rather than wait for distros to releasing updated packages.
You are not the target market for Ubuntu, why would you expect it to conform to your expectations (which frankly are pretty extreme)? Most of the things which you quote as disadvantages for you, are advantages for someone who just comes fresh to Linux, and has no idea what a kernel is, and doesn't want to read distro forums and linuxtoday every day, they just want things to work with no tinkering.
I hope Ubuntu doesn't turn people off though.
I seriously doubt it will turn people new to Linux off in any way. The only people it will turn off are those like yourself who like to tinker and customise, which is fine because there are many other specialised distros for you.