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Ubuntu 9.04 Is As Slick As Win7, Mac OS X
An anonymous reader writes in with an opinion piece from ZDNet Australia. "Here's what the official press release won't tell you about Ubuntu 9.04, which formally hit the streets yesterday: its designers have polished the hell out of its user interface since the last release in October. Just like Microsoft has taken the blowtorch to Vista to produce the lightning-quick Windows 7, which so far runs well even on older hardware, Ubuntu has picked up its own game."
its designers have polished the hell out of its user interface
and the link is to an article without a single screenshot....
i read about it in a blog once
Installed Ubuntu 9.04 over my 9.04RC and all i can say that its a lot faster than 8.10 (RC was faster too). And i mean it cause i have a quite old config.
What one person perceives as "slick" or "polished" another user will describe as unnecessary or cluttered. Comparisons of relative slickness are therefor meaningless, especially if you don't provide any SCREENSHOTS, or you know...proof.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
From the article: I particularly noticed the Ubuntu difference when I put the operating system to the test by simultaneously launching and using multiple applications, listening to music and more while using my spare CPU cycles in the background to encode high-definition video with Mencoder. Ubuntu still felt very fast--even with traditionally sluggy pieces of software like OpenOffice.org.
Isn't it strange that people are still surprised that their computers are fast? Computers have gotten ridiculously fast compared during the last 20 years, and still they seem slow to many of us. Is that just the result of crappy programming, or is there more to it?
-- Cheers!
Okay... so I gave up and RTFA. There's a lot of "it's pretty, it's pretty, it's quick, it's pretty"... but no details and no screenshots. What gives?
....making me suffer through reading so many words and not giving me pretty pictures...
I just upgraded from Lenny to Squeeze and it's in decent shape already.
At the moment there are no show-stopper bugs for your plain-vanilla desktop use. You can pull kde4.2 from sid too.
I'm having no performance issues with KDE4.2 eye candy on a Thinkpad T42. Way to go!!
Note, last week's build of the Squeeze net installer didn't work. Do a basic Lenny install then upgrade into Squeeze.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea for Ubuntu to switch to AWN or similar as a default program management interface? Especially since Win7 is going to have a mac-esque dock.
Shuttleworth has already announced that the color scheme will be changed for 9.10, Karmic Koala. I havn't seen what color it actually is gonna be, but its not brown.
I just installed 9.04 on my work machine. The upgrade had one minor hiccup, which was quickly fixed(the PCM setting in the volume control was muted). Compared to the 8.10 upgrade, which was an unmitigated disaster, this was refreshing.
I haven't really seen a noticeable improvement like the article's author has yet; maybe that will change. I can say that this is the first upgrade yet that hasn't required fiddling with Envy or the Restricted Drivers Manager to get my Nvidia card humming nicely.
I have to admit this is the first smooth Ubuntu install I've ever had. It actually detected my wireless adapter right out of the box. No fiddling, no CLI hackery, no sacrifices to the pagan gods of open source (which is good because my lease forbids livestock and the downstairs neighbors frown upon blood dripping through the ceiling.)
Not bad, not bad at all.
Let me know when it is as usable as Debian+e17.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I am, however, still at odds with a few of KDE 4.2.2's features (namely KPackageKit, Amarok, and the way removable media is handled), but I think I can at last live with it. If you've been pondering whether to upgrade from Hardy (which I know some people have been), I'm sure you'll find 9.04 acceptable.
(in future though, I must remember not to upgrade on the day of the release. A presumed 45 minute upgrade turned into a 3.5 hour slog)
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
These comparisons don't help Linux.
The phenomena of giving someone a third choice often drives them to choose from the first two is well known.
They should have used a summary with the new features in this version instead of more comparisons that don't matter.
I'll take the kernel with *no* Digital Restrictions Management.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I have it on both my laptops, and even installed it on a virtual machine on my work Mac.
BUT... I won't be recommending it to friends and family until they get the damn sound working immediately upon installation. If people can't use Flash and watch Youtube on it, it might as well be green letters on a black background.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Not with the 4850X2 or 4870X2 (like me).
The X Server segfaults on startup: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/364180/
It's not nearly as nice looking when using VESA or RadeonHD.
from Lifehacker
As for being as slick as OS X, well, spoken like somebody who obviously doesn't own a Mac. It's nice, but there's no way it's even in the same neighborhood that the ballpark for OS X is in. I'm gonna light a small fire here, but I wish a super talented artist would redesign the widget set for Gnome, it's very very dated as it stands now. KDE is far better looking but even it is getting long in the tooth.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
And the effects are mostly great (on their own), but it still lacks coherency in its design. The UI elements still look ratty, old-fashioned, and ugly, and the visual effects (while fluid) are all over the place. Don't hate me for this, but at least Windows 7's design is much more coherent, from the UI controls to the visual effects - they look like they work together. What I've seen of 9.04 is quite the opposite - it looks like everything is engaged in a mortal struggle against everything else. A fluid, nifty effect generates a window that's full of 90s-esque design elements. It's rather jarring. Like taking a swanky elevator to a penthouse, and the doors open to reveal a highly-functional chicken coop.
Just like Microsoft has taken the blowtorch to Vista to produce the lightning-quick Windows 7, which so far runs well even on older hardware,
Whoa there, pardner. Are you stumpin' for microsoft? I'm glad you like Vista 2.0 so much, but so what?
Because Microsoft had been woken up with Windows 7. For a long time, Windows had a huge loophole that allowed competition - rampant security and stability holes while it's huge benefit was that most software ran on it. Exploiting this weekness allowed Apple to get back into the game.
We all joke about the BSOD, but tability, except for the odd driver, has been mostly a non-issue to the vast majority of users since XP. Security, otoh, seems to have been mostly fixed to the point of being good enough (hardly perfect) in Vista, especially if you don't run as admin all the time. In the days of XP, I had to reinstall my OS once a year just to keep it running at a tolerable rate, 2 years of Vista and the computer is still running fine without running antivirus or antispyware.
Still, this is behind a firewall and I'm not sure I would trust it out in the wireless world or on the road.
I'm glad Ubuntu is upping it's game. Coming out as it did in 2004 probably was probably close to the last point in time that a new linux distro could have been launched, aimed at joe user, that would have gained a significant following. Perhaps if came out in 1998, we'd be seeing Quickbooks for Linux on Walmart shelves by now. But that's making a lot of assumptions about the underlying packages at the time that no single distro could do anything about.
A fresh install detected my NIC, and works on the automatic settings. But my network is setup for Static IP. When I go into the system settings to change the settings for eth0, it says noting is there!! It just shows an empty list of NICs.
This is pretty basic so I may switch over to Ubuntu to get things working properly.
"And the effects are mostly great (on their own), but it still lacks coherency in its design. The UI elements still look ratty, old-fashioned, and ugly .. highly-functional chicken coop"
Your experience is so totally different than the reviewer it's almost as you you were occupying a parallel Bizarro kind of universe.
'You won't be able to notice the vast improvement in Ubuntu's desktop experience over the past six months by browsing screenshot galleries of 9.04 or looking at new feature lists. What I'm talking about is that elusive slick-and-speedy feel you get from applications launching fast, windows moving around without jerkiness, and everything simply being where it should be in the user interface'
An upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04 hosed my polished UI yesterday because there were no nvidia glx drivers available for download. That was a bit of a shock and annoyance, but it's my own fault for not checking its availability before hitting upgrade.
Seems like there is one now in the repos but I think there's a lot of traffic because I can't seem to update.
Patiently waiting... still love Ubuntu.
At work, the boss gave the developers extra monitors and a video card with dual DVI output. One guy got it working under Ubuntu 8.04 after some hackery. Another guy's Windows XP picked it up without much trouble. My Ubuntu 8.04 workstation wasn't so cooperative, even with the other guy's config options.
Last week, I installed 9.04 beta and it picked up the dual monitors without breaking a sweat. It even put the size/manufacturer in the upper-left corner of each monitor as the display options were being adjusted.
All it needs now is a "Launch World of Warcraft from my Windows partition" menu entry, and it'll take the world by storm.
"As for being as slick as OS X, well, spoken like somebody who obviously doesn't own a Mac"
"I am starting to prefer using my Ubuntu "Jaunty Jackalope" desktop over the similarly slick Windows 7 beta (which I am currently running full-time on one desktop) and Mac OS X Leopard operating systems, which I also use regularly"
by Ronald McCarty
Linux Magazine
Monday, April 13th, 2009
Ubuntu Server has one of the cleanest and easiest Linux distribution installers. However, in many cases, its designers choose to ignore security in favor of ease-of-use. The result? An install that is not secure by default.
During the last couple of years, Linux distributions have focused on improving the installation process of Linux in order to make the freely available operating system available to more people. It is a noble goal, however, when making anything in computing easier, a common approach is to make a number of decisions for the user; decisions that can put an inexperienced (and possibly an experienced) Linux installer at risk.
more at the link
I like the speed and the new interface. Both are very nice. I was really excited when I read there were improvements to handling multiple monitors and the evolution-mapi plugin that would finally let me use the office's exchange server. Sadly both have missed the mark.
I use the Nvidia driver which means the fancy new monitor settings are not available to me (it pops an alert that tells me I have to open the Nvidia utility). The good thing is I don't have to hunt for the utility, it opens it for me, the bad is the utility is mostly useless. X sees my two screens as one huge screen, which is fine when I have two screens but sucks when I undock the laptop. No way to switch to one screen without hand-editing xorg.conf
I've always had high-hopes for evolution and I don't know why because its always been buggy and slow. This time is no different: "We have REAL exchange support this time! I promise". Sadly while I was able to install the mapi plugin and it shows in my settings, evolution helpfully crashes when I try to login. There are bugs filed against it ...maybe it will get fixed ... someday
And no, I have no love for exchange but I'm forced to use it. I have used the evolution-exchange package that connects through OWA ... its slow and buggy. Often refusing to download my mail, losing the connection to "the backend process" requiring me to delete a certain file. All in all, not worth the hassle.
For now I'm stuck using Outlook in an XP virtual
The Anti-Blog
I am grateful that Ubuntu and Fedora have world class support, improvements, and update frequently. Ditto for OOO, and many other open source projects (cluster ssh, firefox, openssh, apache, etc...) As long as the support for exchange mail is an OWA connector, I can't leave windows behind. OWA sucks, OWA sucks from IE on Windows, it double sucks with evolution-exchange.
No, I won't virtualize WIN/Outlook. No, I won't run 2 desktops. No, the Exchange server is not going to be replaced with insight or kroupware or any other open source replacement.
While I am happy for the 9.04 release, I can't help but not being too excited because in spite of all the goodness that Linux is, if it can't meet my needs, it's simply not a viable option.
If I can't run it, how the hell am I supposed to get my wife, kids, or parents on it? Yeah, thats a loaded question, and in actuality my kids PC is Fedora 10. I still have to continually answer the "why do you use Windows" style questions from them.
"Unix had that part covered 10 years ago."
More like 30, VMS too. And mainframes before that.
Ok, but you'll need to post some information so we can notify you. Your mailing address, phone number, something. I mean, come on, how do you expect us to add you to the "notify when usability is better than Debian+e17" list if you don't give us something to add?
Never mind aqua, brushed metal, grey slates and black HUDs don't look the same either ...
I have Kubuntu 8.10 on my home 'mainframe' and I'm waiting a few days before jumping into the 9.04 fray just to be sure there aren't upgrade horror stories surfacing...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
From the summary I expected at least a snapshot gallery, maybe even video and benchmarks since it was a CNET address, of this latest release.
But this article is complete shit. It's a crappy fanboy blog post with no numbers, no pictures, and just breathless "it works for me, and I'm emotionally committed to this platform, so it's the best thing ever" anecdotes.
Here's a counter-anecdote to the OS X Leopard (10.5) bashing: I'm running 10.5.6 on my 12" PowerBook G4 and it is great. The machine only runs at 1.33GHz with 768MB RAM. The only time it feels slow is when more than one Flash animation tries to run at once (Fuck you, Adobe). Otherwise I can have more than a dozen apps open, a video podcast playing in iTunes in the corner, promiscuous network monitors saturating the resources, and the only time I wish I had a newer machine is when I'm stuck with audio-only chats with my wife while on the road because this box doesn't have the built-in iSight and I don't want to pack an external one.
Stacks have been great since the 10.5.2 update (which came out in Feb 2008, BTW) added several options to how they work. I use them all the time. Folders that have lots of files and subfolders are set to display as a menu very similar to Windows's classic Start Menu. Folders that have few items, like certain subfolders that hold a category of applications or my Downloads folder, display in a grid for quick access. Stacks are awesome, and they are the reason I have stopped hating the Dock and wishing I could turn it off.
Spaces was updated in 10.5.3 (which came out in May 2008) and addressed many of the criticisms the initial feature faced when 10.5 launched several months earlier. I admit it isn't as good as some virtual desktops in Nixland. But it is very, very solid and waaay better than anything available for Windows.
To avoid "your just an OS X fanboy! Nyaah!" flames, let me say that I do love OS X. But I am also running the last LTS of Ubuntu at home and find it a very nice environment. At work I actually prefer OpenBSD, but Windows is currently on my main workstation at the office following some pointy-haired unpleasantness (OpenBSD is still usually the active window, running in a VM; Its main mailing list is also a source of entertainment all day long). I admin several servers running CentOS. I also have to touch Windows Server frequently, which is more often than not a pleasant experience.
Slavish OS fanboyism and an inability to admit to the faults as well as the strengths of an OS is a symptom of a weak mind.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I don't know what it was due to, but for some reason, when I was running the previous version (Ibex?), various bits of text wouldn't render properly. They looked "fuzzy". Actually, Facebook (of all sites) had it the worst. Capital Rs were indistinguishable from capital Ps, for example.
Not so now. Cleaner and crisper text across the board. I was delighted to see that the upgrade cleared that particular issue up. So 9.04 is starting off on a good foot!
(One continuing gripe, though: the Mahjongg tiles still look like they're straight outta 1990.)
i do agree that Ubuntu 9.04 looks slick. i installed a few of my favorite fonts (Futura, Droid) and adjusted the theme. (it's really simple... anybody who complains about the default really needs to learn how to click System -> Preferences -> Appearance and choose one of the alternatives, including *gasp* blue/gray themes! That's right, THEY'RE INCLUDED! YOUR MAIN GRIPE AGAINST UBUNTU IS SOLVED! :-P ) I must say though, those Gnome folks have really improved the font situation in Linux over the years, to the point where fonts look just as nice in Linux as they do on a Mac, IMHO.
but what isn't slick is support for some webcams (mine "works" but in an unusable state), media codecs that must be installed separately and then don't always work (in my personal experience, even VLC has run poorly)... which may be caused by still inferior (to Windows') video card drivers (even when using 1st party drivers from ATI/nVidia). The sad truth is that a hacked together osx86 install gives better media performance and capabilities than a legit Ubuntu install.
I would love for a release of Ubuntu to focus primarily on multimedia and drivers. this is where Ubuntu must concentrate in order to convince users to switch from Windows (if that is in fact a goal). i understand the licensing issues that prevent some codecs from being included. but is there really a need for my Dell's onboard sound card to be listed as a Pulseaudio device AND an ALSA device AND an OSS device? Why not unify this? I plugged in a webcam which had it's own mic, and suddenly i have a dozen possible devices to choose from as an input device in every application that can use a mic. how about just two?
medibuntu repositories should be available by default. people DO want codecs and 3rd party software like Skype, despite what people like RMS might think. they don't need to be installed by default, but at least have the capability there by default. (Totem does go out and search for codecs now at least, which is a good thing.)
in my experience, it's still not there as a desktop OS yet, but Ubuntu is progressing. with each release, we get closer.
frog blast the vent core
To most people the GUI is synonymous with the OS, but they're two separate things. By far the bulk of the review seems to be talking about how he likes this version of Gnome better. Well, that's fine, but Ubuntu isn't the same thing as Gnome. I run Ubuntu, but I don't use Gnome.
He also seems favorably impressed with the performance of the GUI, but again this mixes together a lot of stuff in a pretty uninformative way. He's got a particular nvidia card. I don't have that card, so his perception of "windows moving around without jerkiness" probably means nothing to me, even if I were to use Gnome.
This part baffles me. "No package management or dependencies." Since when have you ever had to worry about package management or dependencies on an ubuntu machine? Dependencies are taken care of automatically by apt. "No apt-get. Point and click." Huh? For years and years now, you've been able to install packages on a debian/ubuntu box by clicking around on a gui, if that's what floats your boat. (Personally I prefer to use apt from the console, since, e.g., it lets me install fifty apps at once just by cutting and pasting a string of package names.) Why is he using apt-get in contradistinction to point and click, as if it was a new thing to be able to access apt via a gui?
Find free books.
Hi, can you tell me if you're having any luck running a composite manager with ubuntu 9.04? I'm at the point where I'm considering moving to something like Ubuntu that handles integration with the proprietary drivers automatically because the recent nvidia drivers are driving me crazy.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
All this talk, and I've yet to see anyone use the phrase "Year of the Linux Desktop". Did everyone give up on this Second (first?) Coming, or did everyone decide it already happened and I didn't get the memo?
PRoducing a highly polished UI, with consistent colors, shading and graphics is hard and takse time and talent. Most of the people with these skill don't want to work for free (as in free software) and would rather earn a living for their talent (or time).
It also requires a degree of central coordination and control--most lacking in free software. Even MS Windows (where some may consider the interface not as polished as the Mac) sweats a lot of the details--does it work in 8 bit color mode? does it scale to low res screens? black & white? is there a high contrast version for visually impaired? And then there are all the internationalization issues...
Writing polished software, with a highly integrated interface has never been free software's strength. Too many programmers who aren't designers, too many "but I really like orange and green and pink" windows.
Firefox probably comes closest (or meets) the requirements for "Joe or Jane User". But most of the stuff just doesn't have the polish of really high quality commercial software. (Compare, Gimp with Photoshop, OO with MS Office).
FOSS is great for infrastructure stuff--apache, MySQL, etc., but it's been 5 years away from the desktop for the last 20 years...
"lightning-quick Windows 7" my ass!!
Would you care to explain what you consider to be wrong with Windows 7 rather than just implying that it isn't very good?
I found it to be a great improvement over previous iterations of the windows desktop (still no virtual desktops though).
I wish to remain anomalous
Dammit!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Now I can serve my TRON fanzines with some pizazz !!111!!1!!
I'll check it out - as soon as my local mirror lets me actually grab an ISO - but it appears from the screenshots to be the same uninspired and unfriendly GNOME interface. Is this actually changed? Do they have a usable file open/save dialog box now that can preview icons?
I've been using openSUSE (with KDE 3.x) for five years now as my primary OS. I recently switched to Vista as I was frustrated with some things in openSUSE/KDE. Maybe I'll try this and also the KUbuntu.
Did that change also? The only mention in the article about KUbuntu is the forthcoming KDE 4.3 release in October with 9.10.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
2009 will be the year of Desktop Linux.
There is stuff though in Ubuntu, and other Linux distros though that is simply inexcusable.
Like positioning text inside a text field.
For who knows what reason something as trivial as that Linux still can't get right. The text is too big, the font is a manifestly retarded choice, the text is not centered and aligned to the box properly.
Just a few seconds of looking at the OS X desktop and Ubuntu side by side makes this glaringly obvious.
Ubuntu has the money to do so, has the complete source code, and even has a perfect example of how to do it right. And yet version after version is riddled with the same stupid UI problems that could be fixed today.
As we've noted in earlier articles, Microsoft has also brought its best to the table with Windows 7. However, it's a pity that Apple didn't seem to do so with Leopard.
Ubuntu comments aside (I use and enjoy it myself), this hardly seems like a well written piece. The author talks up Windows 7 and complains about the current version of Mac OS X. It seems a bit biased to ignore the Vista debacle, talk up Windows 7 before its release, then complain about Leopard without doing more than mentioning Snow Leopard. It's not like Apple is being secretive about what they have in store for Snow Leopard. Apple seems to be addressing just about every complaint the author made about the current version of Mac OS X. Both Windows 7 and Mac OS X v10.6 are most likely due out sometime this year, so comparing them would be much fairer than comparing a future version of Windows to the current version of Mac OS X.
Agreed.. the Ubuntu interface and speed are great, even running off a live CD. But if you plan to install to a flash drive, do not trust it to leave your hard drive alone. When it gets to the GRUB installation, it reverts back to a hard drive install and messes with your MBR. I tried it on a Windows XP machine, and it made both XP and the flash drive unbootable.. should have yanked the hard drive first.
I wish people would stop redesigning widget sets once and for all. Let's face it, icons aren't put there for your visual enjoyment, they are there for a purpose. Symbols should be easy to read at a glance.
I use Kubuntu in all my machines, work and home, except for an eeePC where I keep the Xnadros that came in it. In each of those computers I have installed and use the kdeclassic icon theme. This is important to me because I click so many times in different icons when I use a computer that lost fractions of a second add up in the end. I don't want "pretty" icons, I want familiar and easily distinguished icons.
With the drastic increase in processor power has brought with it the increasing usefulness of powerful, higher level languages which are more expressive and require less time for development.
The kicker is that it isn't just the one program that is doing this: the whole software system seems to be headed in that direction. The net result is that everything, from the users standpoint, are either staying the same or performance appears to even be decreasing.
Of course, I'm just talking out of my ass.
How old? 8.10 jetisoned support for older Nvidia cards:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/810#nVidia%20%22legacy%22%20video%20support
No such mention in the 9.04 notes, but that seems addressed to people who could go to 8.10.
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904
Anyone already in-the-know on this? There's a lot of otherwise fine machines running 8.04LTS as their 'last Ubuntu' because of this, which was a PITA frankly. If you didn't dig out and understand the release notes, there was no warning. The 8.10 LiveCD worked fine, then you got a new install that failed to install. Much tearing of hair and unanswered forum posts from people before that one was sorted.
Sorry I'm a non-expert, but that's why I went with Ubuntu. Does the X.Org of 9.04 work with GeForce4? How do we find out? The card works great with 8.04 and of course Windows.
If it can't meet my needs, it's simply not a viable option for you.
(Others must be using it and finding it viable enough to pay for support.)
I had an awesome site that I used for 8.10.. it had the repos to use.. the software to add for full features, the settings to tweak.. I forgot to bookmark it, and can't find it in google for the life of me. No I do not want that Ubuntu Tweaker program. Thanks DeVoh
I'll give Ubuntu another try. I've fired it up with the livecd on three different distros, then immediately ditched it because it didn't detect my wifi card.
Life needs more saving throws.
Give the nerds that and many more would try it, especially if you promised more fps during raids.
Yes, I am being serious.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
What about these ones? They work fine for me.
I'll probably be modded down for this for not thinking with the hive, but here goes...
I find it hilarious that everybody is making such a big deal about Ubuntu finally not being laggy and clumsy and calling it "as slick as Windows". I haven't seen any screenshots or videos of 9.04, but a few minor menu improvements, and a much-needed fixing of its lagginess isn't something that should be regarded as "as slick as Windows and Mac", because the interface is still butt ugly.
I used Ubuntu for about a week and I just couldn't stand how laggy and ugly the interface was... and I honestly don't know why people use it, other than because it's trying to be Windows (easy and not like Linux at all). And before you mod me troll for speaking against Linux, please recognize that I dual-boot Windows 7 and Gentoo w/ Xfce, and I use them both on a regular basis for various purposes. Installing Gentoo wasn't as daunting as people told me constantly, and it's the only distro I've really ever used... It took me about an hour to get it installed, and another hour to emerge and configure X/Xfce, and I honestly don't understand why people choose the not-at-all-Linuxy-except-for-its-nearly-complete-terminal Ubuntu over the almost-as-easy-to-use-as-Ubuntu-except-without-the-painful-maclike-simplicity-that-surrounds-it Gentoo.
I remember being a windows user applying all sorts of Aqua themes and running all kinds of menu bar emulators and docks but at some point I realized that none of that stuff changed the inherent lack of usability of windows. The drag and drop still sucked, the window management still sucked and the performance sucked even worse with all of those hacks running in the background.
The linux community needs to create a standard set of controls and application frameworks. This has to be in place before they can attract serious commercial software developers like Adobe to linux and before linux will be taken seriously as a desktop OS.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
obvious troll is obvious.
I've now done the upgrade from Intrepid on three machines and here are the results:
.deb from somewhere else. Annoyingly, the madwifi drivers seem to kill whatever ubuntu do to NetworkManager so I'm stuck using the propietary, even though they've been in the kernel since 2.6.25.
1. Work Machine - Uses an Intel 965 Graphics cards, support of which is broken until kernel 2.6.29 / 30 according to the forums, and won't be properly supported until karmic. Fucking annoying, since by 'broken' I mean "utterly non performant".
2. Home Laptop. Ran just fine, but apt decided that I didn't want the restricted packages installing on the upgrade, so my atheros wifi card was out of action until I could get the
3. Home Desktop. This has killed X. Killed it good. At the moment I've no idea how it was managed, but it was...
I love ubuntu, but this upgrade has gone horribly wrong for me on two out of three installs, and 'smoothly' on none of them.
In terms of UI, also a big leap over 8.10, as well as better Bluetooth support.
The Netbook remix still runs slower than XP and thats the truth.
I booted it on my iMac (Tiger) just to compare apples to apples. (punny?) It didn't immediately recognize the Aircard, but it did get the resolution and screen aspect right. It also supported the volume and eject buttons. But Mac OS is still prettier.
It seems to be missing a few things. Like for example, it doesn't include Perl. Also, I tried to compile a program from the command line, and it didn't have make. Not that it would have done me any good, but it looks like they also left out a C compiler too.
Ok, maybe this was a cheap shot. But I wanted to see a list of what additional software packages were available to be installed. I couldn't find anything similar to Apt or Yum. Does anyone know what the name of the Windows equivalent is? I hate to have to chase over a whole bunch of web sites to get software, especially since the last time I did that with Windows my machine got really slow, and Comcast cut off my internet access -- something about a bunch of spam coming from my machine.
Brushed metal doesn't exist anymore. When it did, it was for applications containing a source list or emulating some real world device, so there was an intended consistency. Around the time brushed metal disappeared, black HUDs showed up in Apple's media applications, allowing you to make edits without obscuring too much of what you're working on. The deviations in OS X have a purpose.
The inconsistencies the person you're responding to is talking about is stupid crap like the way fonts are rendered. There is still uneven kerning and bad font choices after all these years. Applications don't follow a standard interface paradigm. You know how a Mac app is going to look and feel, even when it deviates from the norm, such as Delicious Library.
Ubuntu is odd because it's a project trying to take all this third-party work and make it feel like it's cohesive and meant to go together. I'd rather use the stuff in "vanilla" form and not make-believe that it was all created by the same team.
And still my tablet pc works as a standart laptop. I wonder when (or if) will they fix the wacom drivers.
Isn't it strange, that an article that only talks about the looks of an OS, does not contain a single image or video?
Sorry, but this makes the whole article pointless.
Let's dance about architecture!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Installed the 64 bit version on a new Toshiba L305D with an AMD Turion X2 processor, ATI Radeon graphics and 3GB ram. Though partitioning was a minor pain in the ass (fat32, swap, logical), all went well and the entire install took about 20 minutes.
I was concerned the Atheros wifi was going to cause me problems but all it required was the ssid and passkey. Having problems talking to the Samba share on my Debian box though. Ext4 has had no hiccups, so far.
Dual booted in case I ran into more problems than I have time to fix right now but I feel comfortable scraping Vista off the HDD now.
Hey, RTFA: It's *slick*, not *pretty*.
You use Linux because you prefer choice over integration. Many of the things that make apps not all look the same are the things that allow us to make our computers not all look the same, for instance, the separation of X.org, desktop environments, window managers, and graphics toolkits.
KDE 4 is much more slick-looking than anything else I've seen on Linux, but it's still a work in progress (whether they admit it or not). It's what all the eyecandy folks *should* be using, instead of gnome.
have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
From http://www.ubuntugeek.com/intel-graphics-performance-guide-for-ubuntu-904-jaunty-users.html
Some users are experiencing performance issues with Intel integrated graphics chips in Jaunty, for several reasons:
* The current driver in our repository has some performance issues with the EXA acceleration method. Users will notice 2D performance is poor due to the default âoemigration heuristicâ employed by EXA (to âoealwaysâ migrate pixmaps), but this causes performance issues for many users. Setting the heuristic to âoegreedyâ alleviates this problem somewhat. See âoeman exaâ.
* The new and faster acceleration method (UXA) is not enabled by default, due to issues reported by many users. This code is being actively developed, and many stability and performance issues have been resolved in the latest drivers (specifically within the intel driver, libdrm and the latest kernel 2.6.30-rc2). Unfortunately, Jaunty will not include the latest versions necessary to improve performance.
* 3D performance has regressed compared to the Intrepid release, possibly due to major code changes that have resulted from the introduction to the new acceleration and memory management code (UXA, GEM, DRI2). Due to these changes, there seems to be some regressions in the âoelegacyâ DRI acceleration.
* Either Xorg or the âoeintelâ driver seems to be suffering from a bug, in which the memory region allocated for the graphics card is not set up with the proper type of caching. This results in jerky video playback of almost any content (from 720p media, all the way down to simple 320Ã--240 mpeg content), and a potential loss of performance for other 2D and 3D operations.
I see you don't know the meaning of the word "troll", and while I probably shouldn't feed you, Mr. Troll, I am going to do so and you are not going to like it.
I haven't had a single issue with my Vista laptop, my XP media PC, or my Linux server. The fact one can not run a decent personal finance application, games, etc is a valid complaint, as is the complaints about MS Office and Photoshop.
There may be malware for Windows, but at no point does one have to go into a CLI to install or run an application.
Until the community address Linux's deficiencies, you are just another fanboy troll.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
How is that slick? It still has the same blocky crude Gnome look.
Living in Chile
Jesus Christ - calm the fuck down, OK? You're not really helping the cause by rabidly blathering this shite where it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Yes, I am being serious.
Me too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am glad to hear that it is faster - hell! I am glad it works and even more - on an old config, because I have a 3yr old asus A6M. I am always quite suspicious about Ubuntu. My first experience was OK, but it was the 6.x and set up by an uebergeek friend of mine. Then a 7.10 64bit did not even get to install (serious graphic issue - just stripes on the screen), the 7.10 i386 was OK (after solving the issue with nVidia Go and yes, it was not that difficult to do some editing after 15s of googlin' ;) Then the 8.04 64bit was beautiful and fast with one tiny little problem with the network - and we know that Only a network is a computer. This time I couldn't solve that so it just sits there and takes 20GB of my disk space. I should wait until 8.04.1 was out... So when I yesterday finally started the 8.04.1 64bit I realized that it is more convenient to go with the 32bit edition. But for now I think I will just wait and continue with XP. btw - the only time I saw a BSOD on my winXP on the said notebook was after I have installed Firefox3 when it was released and updated winamp at the same time. So much for a fresh version. :(
Leopard is less "slick" in many ways than Tiger or Panther, which were less lubricious than Jaguar and Puma.
Where does this notion that whatever became the design trend yesterday is always the best come from? Being cool means you don't spend hours each day in front of the mirror trying to dress and posture like the supposed "cool kids." That approach is exactly why pop music sucks worse than ever, on the whole, while nearly everything else (say, architecture) is also largely in decline. It's why Wall Street went head-over-heals for "financial products" invented yesterday, instead of staying focused on the very-profitable products that were invented centuries ago.
The new that's truly new - there's a place for that. Pop music, for instance, once had a lot more truly new stuff in the mix. But the "new" that's merely imitating someone else's trendy details - totally bogus. Good UI's persist, they aren't disposable trash. Trends have little to do with that.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
SAY IT. Say it, you annoying nerds. "UBUNTU JAUNTY JACKALOPE". Try selling that on the street.
"I use Windows Vista."
"I use a Mac with Leopard."
"I use Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope."
Can't you thick shits get it into your retarded heads that nothing is even remotely "slick" when it has such an annoying, quirky, long name that the average Joe would be embarrassed to even ask for it?
Give up. This is not the decade of Linux on the desktop, because you cunts haven't even begun to understand how to reach the consumer.
Disclaimer: I am in marketing. I have done work for Apple. I believe we are, as it were, winning.
May be we need: "Designers! Designers! Designers!"
Well, the amazing thing about open source software is...you can change it all to suit your needs. Compiz does a pretty nice job of lighting and shadow, and you can always download new GTK themes if you aren't happy with the color choices. So, yeah, compared to the standard windows XP look, where you can only change between 3 different themes and the classic windows look, Gnome does a pretty nice job ^^
That's why Linux will always by a system "by programmers, for programmers."
Uh... from the grandparent post:
you mean like how Windows XP and Vista has almost no support for touchscreens as well?
Reading is fundamental, yo.
This might be a little off-topic, since this isn't a 9.04 support forum, but since we're mentioning 9.04 upgrade hicups...
When I upgraded from 8.10 to 9.04, or soon after, I discovered that the user I had the installer create was not a member of the "admin" group. Therefore I couldn't run "sudo". Which is a bit of a problem.
Anywho, I still have the 9.04 live CD around, so it wasn't too hard to boot from the live CD, modify /etc/group so that my username was a member of the "admin" group, and reboot. But still, if the Ubuntu installer was responsible for that happening (and I'm not sure it was), that's kind of uncool.
I'd rather use the stuff in "vanilla" form and not make-believe that it was all created by the same team.
Your bias is showing. How can you praise apple for doing precisely what you slam ubuntu for? Gui Guidelines are for a similar look and feel, to, i don't know, possibly give the illusion that all of the gui designers were cohesive, or at the very least, playing for the same team?
We're talking about the same Windows 7 I'm using right? About the only thing "lightning quick" about Windows 7 is the favourable marketing press Microsoft has bought for it.
Oh, Quantum Link. I think I was using GEOS or something.
Hey. It's Free! Mac & Win aren't.
And it's the only Desktop I care to use and works great for me!
My hat's off to all the Developers who made this possible. Excellent work! ;)
Having just wiped my drive and installed Jaunty 64-bit, I have to say this release feels to me anything but slick. My alarm clock software (alarm-clock) freezes the GUI (except for the mouse cursor). Remote Desktop (vino) won't send screen updates if you're using closed source nvidia drivers + compiz. Maybe if I reinstall and go 32-bit instead of 64 some of my issues my go away. However, Ubuntu recommends you install the 64-bit version unless you have a good reason not to.
Looks like I might have "good reasons".
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Ubuntu. However, as someone that uses and supports Mac OS X and XP as well as Ubuntu on a daily basis, I can tell you that "slick" is not the word to describe this release. Come on, guys! Some of these bugs have been open for months!
Oh well, I guess I'll never be able to get rid of my XP partition anyways. At least, not until Propellerheads, Ableton, and Native Instruments port their respective audio software packages to linux, which should happen sometime between now and when the private key for signing Xbox 360 games is publicly factored out. :)
There may be malware for Windows, but at no point does one have to go into a CLI to install or run an application. Until the community address Linux's deficiencies, you are just another fanboy troll.
I forgot Slashdot was founded in 1997. Was your comment posted with the initial launch? Because that's closer to the last time I remember having to use a CLI in Linux to perform any basic tasks than 2009 is. It's really only the advanced stuff that requires text editing, but to be fair that's not much different than is the case with Windows. I could make similar comments about Registry edits of application settings under HKLM, and they're similarly outside the average user's experience.
I think the perceived CLI-ness of Linux has a lot more to do with who uses it and what kinds of things they do with it than it does with real-world comparisons. For example, in a comparison of tasks like "Install this OS on an OS-less computer" and "Surf the web" and "Edit this document" the two OSes are more or less the same. Prior to Vista, an installation task (which admittedly most people rarely have to do) would have been harder with Windows than with Linux, but MS has caught up with their image-based installation. Linux has similarly caught up on the desktop arrangement and available software.
If what you say is true, why is it I often see the following in advice given to new Linux users"
You can go back to articles and comments posted on slashdot and see repeated references to using the command line to install software, update drivers, etc. And, I don't mean two years ago, I mean this year, 2009.
I rarely see anyone suggesting editing Windows registry settings by hand. But, in most Linux advice one sees "Open a terminal and type...".
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You don't need all of your controls, windows, etc. to look the same, you need the differences in appearance and functionality to actually mean something. OS X has very well-defined user interface guidelines, and they define the times when you use regular windows, black HUDs, etc. Furthermore, the "brushed metal" look is gone in 10.5.
GNOME has interface guidelines, Ubuntu doesn't. Furthermore, GNOME's guidelines appear to be built around cargo-culting existing (read: bad) UIs rather than designing something that works well from the ground up.
Also, FOSS projects are great, but they tend to attract few competent graphic designers. Hence the slick, polished look of OS X - Apple hires very good artists.
With more users, and more software available (both free and commercial) comes more people interested in investing time and money to make the OS run great and become more usable. Right now, from a mainstream (Joe user) point of view, Linux is on the edge of viability. One really bad release from Ubuntu and one blockbuster OS or app release from Microsoft could set Linux on the desktop back years. I'd like Linux's future to be more secure.
Who says Linux should achieve Microsoft's market share? I'd like Linux to go from the perhaps 1% desktop market share to 10-15%. But Microsoft's 85% market share hasn't been healthy for them as an organization, or for society.
From a January 19 post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1094419&cid=26483331
I installed Ubuntu a month ago. When it installed the nVidia driver (at my request), it gave me a status bar that never updated, and then the bar just vanished. It gave no indication anything at all had happened, and no message to restart my X session. Of course it was done - it just never told me.
Then I used the control panel to adjust my settings. Next time I logged in, it was back to defaults. Found out I had to execute the control panel with sudo in order for the change to be permanent, rather than from the menu.
Has this been improved?
Its only as slick as windows 7? wow it must suck then.
About GUI's in general: I really don't give a crap if the window frame can be translucent or not.
Seriously, I'm still on Ubuntu 8.10 and I think Ubuntu's GUI is already WAY better than any Windows OS (especially Vista) in terms of layout and usability, which is what matters.
I've got an old GF2MX400 card in my Ubuntu box. Unfortunately, Ubuntu dropped support for older releases of X11 which also means dropping support for older video cards. The newer releases of X don't add any features that I need or want, but 3D support for my hardware is no more.
Once upon a time Linux was famous for running on old hardware, but Ubuntu has changed that (or rather, the support from the X team has.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
...without the $6,000,000,000.00 that Microsoft spends on R&D annually.
The new atheros driver worked on live-cd too! My next test is to try the ext video port.
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
I'm guessing this cut & paste comment was taken directly from the talking points memo because clearly you are not being paid to write original content. I'm sure the PR guys wouldn't trust a lowly troll with such a task.
I'm thinking that the term "Freetard" might have come from the same PR division which brought us other social-engineering words designed to heckle people out of doing sensible things by invoking the old, "You're not wearing cool shoes" programming acquired by everybody during high school. Anybody who falls for that is spineless. Wear your tinfoil with a little bit of pride, damn it. God, I hate spineless sheep who live their lives according to which direction the cattle-prods poke them. --They make life hell for anybody trying to live according to what makes sense rather than what will get them laughed at the least by the dangerously ignorant.
Anyway, if the responses you received to your last iteration/s are any indicator, some humble pie might make a nice chaser for the current meal you've got in front of you.
Aw, why do I bother. --I'm arguing with a broken Turing machine.
-FL
"Freetard" seems to have been invented by Dan Lyons of Forbes in his Fake Steve Jobs blog.
(Similarly, "Mactard" was invented by Jack Schofield of the Guardian in his slurping-heartily-at-MS-anus "Ask Jack" column.)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my secondary PC yesterday. They weren't kidding when they said it boots faster. This thing is like 6 years old and it is still quite snappy... perfectly usable as an every-day desktop (with the exception of running new games).
I hope I can finally burn CDs/DVDs now though. It seems as though the last few versions of Ubuntu have had trouble burning and verifying disks. I've had this problem on three entirely different machines with both Brasero and K3B. This is one of those show-stopper bugs that really must be fixed before I can wipe the Windows install off the machine.
I agree with the articles comments on MAC OSX Leopard. it has really been disappointing. I find it less stable than Tiger and would stick with Tiger if I had a choice.
I hate the way finder just crashes and dies, especially with USB mounted media.
The author of TFA said he used all three OSes and preferred this Ubuntu by far. You say you prefer another to the author.
Other posters in this thread point out Gnome and KDE deficiencies, while remaining fans of the two - and were modded up. You only said what others have said about Gnome and KDE weaknesses.
And, yes, you waxed ecstatic about OS X.
How the hell is that modded flamebait is beyond me. I applaud all sigs that remind: -1, Flamebait is not a substitute for -1, Disagree.
Javacowboy's language was muted and his points are well-considered and expressed, using such phrasing as, "until Ubuntu" and "I know I'm a little biased."
PS - Apple screwed pointer/click focus in Leopard. Now if you click on a non-active window's potentially active widget, it brings up the window and clicks thru the widget - not OK, not the way it used to be. And for my money, Spotlight using a Finder window for Show All in Leopard is also not ok. And FWIW, I think that the last UI built from the ground up w.r.t. anything was done at Xerox PARC, but that's just me. There. I've responded to something marked Flamebait. Bye, bye, karma!
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Apple's designers pored over every icon on the iPhone with a loupe to make sure every pixel displayed correctly.
That kind of dedication and attention to detail produces great UIs.
Does it surprise you that opening the CLI is the first instinct of many people on this site? Conider the source of the advice. I use the CLI regularly on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. It's my gut reaction, too. But I'm not a reasonable representative of Aunt Tilly.
I have no doubt that you can find numerous examples of Slashdotters recommending the terminal window, however I don't think you're comparing the OSes fairly. People rarely do. Most of the critiques of Linux seem to echo from 1997 and are almost as dated as MC Hammer. (The same, I should add in fairness, goes for most of the BSOD jokes criticizing Windows, which are more apt for the NT/9x days.) I wish these discussions could take place in 2009 more often.
maybe it will finish by Christmas so I can shop online.
3. Home Desktop. This has killed X. Killed it good. At the moment I've no idea how it was managed, but it was...
Ubuntu has the worst X-failure mode I've ever seen. X never dies permanently, and I have to use a VT to init1 ; init 3 just to test out conf settings. At least RH/Fedora opens up system-config-display-settings after three consecutive fails.
.. the real world that is chained to XP / MS.
I run Ubuntu - I am a geek. Some close friends of ours let their PC with XP get totally infested - they are average users email - browsing - MS Office - a bit of music - some photos. Thats it. Not wanting to spend hours on a XP rebuild - I slapped a 20GB Hd in their box loaded Ubu 8.10 - set up thunderbird email and dragged a copy of their windows MyDoc folder to the Ubu desktop. Showed them how things work - Open Office etc. Extolled the security virtues etc. Yea !
I then said, lets get together in a couple of weeks - do a pot-luck and watch a movie and then visit --- and I can babysit the XP install as needed. Its been four days and they now insist we come over so they can do the whole BBQ thing for us - they'll rent a movie etc. And I can do the XP thing. Four days was all it took and they are jonesing for XP viruses be damned.
I am a geek - I use Ubuntu ...
Its not the years, its the mileage
Back in like 1998 or so when mp3's were just arriving on the scene, Winamp would peg the CPU at just about 25% -> 35% to play a 128kbps stream.
This took forever. Something like 5 minutes a song--at 128kbps.
No, actually that is false. See above. I could list more, but I wont bother as for some reason people like you seem to think green-screen consoles are all that we need. Everything else, after all, is "appearance".
Your use of scare quotes seem to imply that this is not important. You are wrong. The end-user experience is the most important part. What actually happens under the hood, nobody but nerds like us care about. Forget this rule, and find yourself unmarketable and unemployable.
$title =~ s/slick/snappy/
That would have been much more precise in conveying what was meant.
Calm the fuck down? You calm the fuck down!
Hypothetical:
You're a MS flack.
You need to boost Windows 7.
You need to do it while reminding people of the Vista debacle as little as possible.
You need to convince people that Linux distros are still only for those who dwell in the basements of their parent's houses.
You need to do it in a way which minimises devastating return volleys from Linux lusers.
Oh and you need to badmouth Apple OS X.
How to accomplish such a mission?
Write an article which lavishes praise on Windows 7, and bashes OS X, while congratulating a popular Linux distro for nearly reaching a point where it almost has the consistency of a real OS such as Windows 7.
Get the inevitable Vista bit out of the way quick, mention OS X's "many failings" often, lavish praise on Windows 7, and pour condescension on Ubuntu while patronising its userbase and potential users.
Make anything but Windows 7 appear to be an "also-ran" without drawing the ire of too many intelligent people.
Submit to Slashdot.
Watch easily manipulated Slashbots fail to realise they've been manipulated. Again.
Mission Accomplished.
There may be malware for Windows, but at no point does one have to go into a CLI to install or run an application.
Try playing original Master of Orion on Windows XP without a CLI (DOSbox).
And in case you think I'm all play and no work: Try running psexec.exe without the CLI.
Oh, I know I'll get flamed for this but: slick as OSX or even, gasp, Windows, I think not.
I haven't run Linux on a desktop (use it religiously on the server) in years so I downloaded an ISO to see what all of the fuss is about. Install it, it boots. So far so good. Log in, see the desktop and am immediately kicked out to the black loading screen, and back into the login prompt.
Now, I have the skills to fix something like that. A crashing X server or whatever ails it. Does Joe Sixpack? No. From a release engineering standpoint it is pretty pitiful that the desktop is not even usable as I cannot get to it. I've used Macs for years and NEVER had anything like that happen to me. Even the same for windows. After it installs it will at least let you log in and use it. Overstatement of the year. Maybe they should spend less time on making it shiny and concentrate on making it work. That'd be a good enough start.
And look, I get it. It's hard to develop an OS that works on so many different platforms with all kinds of crazy hardware. I get it. Just maybe it shouldn't be billed as "so easy to use." In reality, a problem like this is FAR beyond the skills of average users.
.
a. Install == faster +2
b. Bootup with autologin (about the same, Ubuntu's a bit faster) +1
c. Desktop LnF: OpenSuse hands down. Gnome is slicker on SuSE, KDE 4.x+Suse Additions is closer to an OSX level of polish. -2
d. "Slick"-ness (in Slashdot context). Same as OpenSuse 11.1 in gnome mode. It's just as fast. KDE has a bit more flash so it's a bit slower on my 2Ghz/Nvidia box. Videos play the same on both. Didn't try audio.. +0
e. g++ or CC availability out of the box? No... still. OpenSuse has it. -1
f. H/W compatibility. The same, OpenSuse 11.x really fixed those h/w detection issues and faster yast2 tools. +0, a wash
g. Desktop. Brown? Still!. OpenSuse green is for me. -1
Looks like a narrow OpenSuSE (+1) win. 9.04 is a big win compared to older Ubuntu versions, but it has nothing over other distros, and more like it has caught up. The article is fine, the title is over-hyped.
...to win back all the people who "switched" to Apple.
It's not even getting as far as gdm. just outputs garbage to the screen...
Perhaps they are not as good, but if you read the Microsoft materials they also send a huge amount of time sweating the details on the UI. Each icon comes in about 8 versions (high density, low density, large, small + all the selected and unselected states). -- And in some ways have a more difficult task in that they don't control the hardware and display. The MS needs to work over a large range of resolutions and bit-depth. ADA and other requirements also require high contrast options. Apple, MS and others need to deal with internationalization of their icons -- again frequently a time (and costly) task.
Good UI designers don't want to to the grunt work for free. And they are probably are not as well respected in the FOSS community as star programmers.
Yes, play a DOS game on Windows and you will have to use the DOSbox. How disingenuous of you to suggest that.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Apple has always done fairly well with the 'designer' aspect of the OS and fit and finish, as they took this serious with the first Mac System UI from 1984
Though it has varied in years, and there are times when the designers vs the programmers worked against Apple, it is the same UI struggle that other OSes face. (One example where designers won is things like Time Machine where a basic finder integrated UI would have been better than an 'pretty' application that can't run on older Mac hardware. Or even things like the One Button Mouse that was held on to for so long, or the Delete button inconsistencies.
In OSS there is a SERIOUS lack of designers. And Ubuntu being 'pollished' is like the nerd at the prom, having the smallest pocket protector.
The deisgner vs programmer debate has something Microsoft has fought on and off for years and years, sometimes pulling off good things in both aspects, and sometimes being pretty but suck or be awesome and suck because its UI is not pretty or fails to meet what the users needs.
One model the OSS community needs to at least pay attention to is the separation of UI, Design, and code. That way the geeks can be as geeky as they want, and someone that couldn't program a lick of code can make it pretty or work withing expected UI guidelines.
Microsoft seems to be pioneering this balance and programming, and it is still new even at Microsoft. The goal of the Vista API and the whole XAML and WPF API sets are that the UI and 'design' of the application is abstrated from the geeks.
A 'designer' constructed UI, can meet UI constraints and also be 'pretty' without taking up precious uber programmer time, and also prevents a application from looking like the biggest geek in the world created it.
Windows7 still hasn't evolved to where all the UI or applications use this model, but if you are involved in the beta, the teams seems to be good at handing off UI and design where they normally would not have, even in the Vista development.
Vista is ok for fit and finish, with some rough edges, Windows 7 goes a long long way to extend consistency and fit and finish to areas most people don't notice.
As for Ubuntu, don't forget it has a couple of handicaps, as it has to deal with Window Managers and XWindows, where you don't always find consistency or fit and finish in the basic operations of the protocol or the Window manager consistency that was original built by the 'geek' crowds instead of the 'designer' crowds.
(With the ones that mimic OS X or Windows doing the best, as they at least had something to work off of.)
So no matter how much Ubunut works on consistency, you will see have dialog redraws to fit text that shouldn't do an initial paint before resizing and 'repainting' to fit the text.
There is also the massive amount of color depths, languages and other issues that causes a lot of work to pull off any consistency.
This is one area MS has done better than anyone with multi-language and multiple interface adapting since the XP days at the very least.
Multi-language fit and finish is something they take serious, and adapting the interface via 'themes' or 'classic modes' or even DWM/Aero modes to adapt to various color depths, (or no screen at all), and all the spacing and languages that it has to stretch and expand to fit and work.
So kudos to Ubunut, and for the love of God, other OSS geeks, give your cool application to a designer for a day, even if it is a friend, we are really sick of stuff looking like a bad Windows or OS X rip off or bright primary colors being 'geeky' cool.
The crap that looks like Windows from when the geek stopped using Windows is the worest, with Win95 interfaces. It is almost like a sick shrine to Microsoft that haunts everyone.
I don't need QuickBook
I don't need TurboTax
I don't need iTunes
I have 18 Linux games (paid for, e.g. Quake 4 Doom 3, Unreal, etc).
So it's already well on the desktop.
...you are not going to like it.
You way overestimate the value of yourself and your opinion to me! There's nothing in your post important, informative, or insightful enough for me to like or dislike.
Get over yourself.
...but at no point does one have to go into a CLI to install or run an application.
Yes, Linux has been like that for some years now. So what's your point?
Until the community address Linux's deficiencies, you are just another fanboy troll.
What Linux deficiencies?
I, and many others are happy with Linux, and some see Windows as deficient.
So by your formula, that makes you the fanboy troll?!? That makes no sense. It made no sense when you tried that against me.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Until Ubuntu and other Unix variants come up with better (or at least substantially different) UI design paradigms than past versions of Windows, it will be limited in how well they can compete with OS X in terms of usability.
Isn't OS X itself a Unix variant? Hell, Leopard is Single Unix Specification.
With more users, and more software available (both free and commercial) comes more people interested in investing time and money to make the OS run great and become more usable.
If usability is all that is important for you, then Mac OS X is probably a good choice. Windows is actually not horrible anymore these days. People still talk of BSOD's as if everyone still ran Windows Me, but Windows XP is a good OS, Vista improved on the usability for non-admin users, and Windows 7 looks like it fixed the major problems with Vista.
What I want for Linux is for it to be a usable, but open, OS. The open part is important to me. I think we're making strides, and I think ubuntu is fantastic and only getting better. However, I really don't want a world where even Linux users are sending me Word files instead of OpenOffice. I'd like for there to be no need for proprietary software.
Don't interpret from my previous post that I don't want more users in the Linux world. I just don't want them if the price is to remove options (consolidating on a single windows manager for example: some people like gnome, others like kde, and others go with fluxbox...and everyone should be able to use what they like best). I also don't want them if the cost is less openness, due to high popularity of proprietary software. The benefits are just not worth the price, and again, if you don't care about openness, there are options in other operating systems. There's nothing wrong with that.
Criticize all you want, but all of these usability features are just to compete with Windows (i dont use the M or the A words).
Bottom line is: Linux is still a high performance scientific/developer working environment. They are taking that away from it, by making it into some super complex yet plug-n-play/user friendly OS.
I am waiting... Don't forget, you get what you pay for.
Microsoft creates jobs, open source takes them away.
I'm upgrading now, online. I have nothing of value to add, but generally doesn't stop ^them^ so, you know what they say.
It took a while for the on-line upgrade process to do something. I killed it twice after being impatient. Once it told me it timed out waiting for the release notes. I tried again evoking it from bash as found from the process table, /usr/bin/python2.5 /usr/bin/update-manager, hoping to see some terminal output, but I didn't see much.
I guess that's okay because it showed me the release notes, let me click, and I have a nice little "distribution upgrade" box that gives me a status. It's cute.
I did the same from 8.04lts to 8.10, and it was smooth sailing. I think todays difficulties are obvious. I'd be interested to see their download status.
From someone who has used every Windows version except 7, and Ubuntu for the past 2 years, personally I think Vista is a steaming pile of poo on usability.
But I think you have set yourself up in a false dichotomy with the Linux open/commercial/choices issues. For Linux users to be sending proprietary file formats like Word files, that most acquaintances would be likely to have, would mean Linux was immensely popular. Linux will never be even moderately popular, and by moderately I mean greater than 5% market share, without more quality commercial titles. This is especially true of edge uses / business uses, where there aren't enough interested open source developers but the software can be very profitable.
People send Word files because it is ubiquitous, they don't know of other file options even in Word, or they are too lazy to change the default which works for most recipients. The education part of using open source alternatives is already licked if the person is using Linux. I think Linux users will already lean toward open source titles if available and quality on Linux. Having more commerical software available also won't steer them to the dark side.
But just because you have commercial software available on your OS, doesn't necessarily mean software options or source code availability has been taken away from you. If a software is interesting or popular or expensive, some open source developer will probably try to make something with similar functionality. But a company won't say hey, commercial software isn't really welcome on Linux so let's open source it. Instead they'll say, lets develop on Microsoft or Apple.
I ran SuSE 6.3 through openSUSE 10.3. I recently tried to upgrade to openSUSE 11.1, what a mess. STILL no 1920x1200 from the boot menu and after the upgrade, knetwork manager was broken. I couldn't connect and fix anything! So I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my Thinkpad T61p, everything worked, after applying the latest updates and installing the nvidia driver, everything just worked. Almost everything, I don't seem to be able to set up the 56k modem for dialup if I need it, oh well.... Now that I have been running it for a while I like it. There are a few cool tools I miss from KDE, but I can always install them later. Ubuntu is the Linux distro I would recommend to a Windows user who wants to try something different.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
while it added lots of "cool features" over Tiger, the usablility slipped in a few areas
Like stability. The only problem I had running Tiger was once in a while Firefox would freeze. But now with Leopard Finder freezes too often. Not as much as Windows did on me but too much still.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I know many artists who do most of their work in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet.
I'd like to get a Cintiq but the only thing in my price range right now is a Bamboo. Otherwise I use a trackball instead of a mouse.
I can only direct you to the frequent conversation about 'I need apps that don't work in Linux! You can't use GIMP as a replacement for Photoshop!'.
This is oh so true. However while it may not be a drop-in replacement for Photoshop CinePaint is better than GIMP. One of the problems with it is that many graphic artists and photographers use Macs but there isn't a native Mac port of CinePaint. Instead it requires X11, and even though I have it installed I wasn't able to get CinePaint to work. Also people have gotten CS3 to work on Linux with WINE and CrossOver.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
They didn't mean "slick" as in shiny and pretty and cool effects ... They meant "slick" as in responsive, windows pop up quickly, feels quick instead of sluggish.
If that's what they meant, then why didn't they just say so, rather than misapply a term commonly understood to mean something completely different?
You can just download and install it.
It's not that simple, unless you don't care if you fail. Most people should lay out a plan before installing any OS. Is the hardware compatible? What drivers may be needed? How big should partitions be? What will be done if there's a disaster? After that all of the data should be backed up.
I went through this a few months ago when I wanted to install 8.10 on my MacBook Pro. After spending several weeks planning just how I was going to install it, I decided to wait until 9.4 came out. When I read it was out yesterday I spent a couple of hours on Google looking for how to install it on my MBP, then spent another hour today. The closest I've come so far is to install 8.10 then upgrade it. I'll give a few more weeks maybe, I'm in no rush right now.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Random blinking garbage? I've got an Nvidia card that does that on the second video output if the OSS driver is used. The nvidia binary blob works fine though.
Would you care to explain what you consider to be wrong with Windows 7 rather than just implying that it isn't very good?
The fact that it's beta like the GP highlighted?
Comparing Ubuntu with beta software is like saying it's not good enough to compare with release-quality software. I'm surprised the moderators missed that one.
I upgraded to 9.04 last night, and so far it seems that things have improved a bit for me. It looks like when PulseAudio crashes applications that are using it do not. Also my fiasco with bluetooth headsets seems to have improved (when PulseAudio crashed I didn't need to restart bluetoothd or reboot the machine to get audio back.
My laptop seems a bit faster in coming back from hibernation, nothing insanely noticeable though.
And I too seem to hate the Pidgin/Notification integration that someone else was talking about yesterday.
If you can't mod them join them.
Who cares about his opinion? Get out of this corporate mindset where some Steve Jobs or some Microsoft committee decides what features go into the product.
With Linux, all that matters is that some developer finds a feature useful and works on it. When it comes to touch screens, Linux has supported them for longer than OS X has even existed. Linux runs on touch screen PDAs, touch screen embedded systems, and desktops with touch screens attached. There are general purpose drivers for the Wacom devices, which also work with tablets, and there are special purpose drivers for specific devices. There are touch-friendly applications and toolkits, and pen-based text input.
Honestly, I'm getting sick of this stupidity from Windows and Macintosh fanboys where you draw incorrect inferences about how features end up in Linux based on the corporate straight jacket that your pet OS is being developed under, and when you criticize Linux and don't even know what's out there.
Compare, Gimp with Photoshop
You should compare CinePaint to Photoshop not GIMP.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Alright. Now that we're done playing catchup, can we get back to putting the work the place where it needs to go -- being the forerunners of innovation as opposed to shadowing Mr. Popularity?
6. Multi-tasking. Windows 95 just barely had working multi-tasking. Burning a CD back then was a crap shoot. because chances are your computer would freeze up and mess up your PC.
While I've had problems with Win95 burning CDs wasn't one of them. I had no problem burning disks, and that was my backups.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
chrome starts pretty instantly with multiple tabs while firefox starts like it is on life support.
Were you using Firefox 3? I'm still using Firefox 2 and have launched it with a bunch of tabs open. The only issue I ever had, as far as having a bunch of tabs open when launching, was a warning that there were too many tabs and it might run out of memory. On the other hand I've had Firefox crash with just a couple of tabs open.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
there is absolutely no sane reason to use a system like Java with the overhead of a VM when you already know what architecture the binaries will be running on when you build them.
Java let's you run anywhere, you don't need to port software for every platform.
Falcon
Natalie Portman is a killer in "Leon, The Professional".
Should there be a Law?
I'm typing this on a 20 month old MacBook Pro and I'm thinking about installing Ubuntu on it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Registry cleaners or defragmentation tools, while seemingly useful, do not have any measurable effect on system speed. It's a great marketing pitch though.
It depends on how much docs are modified and much the hard drive holds. I had one disk about 90% full and it was a bit slow but after I defragged it it ran noticeably faster.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Ubuntu 9.04 is not out-of-the-box prettier than previous versions, the author even says not to bother with looking at screenshots, they won't tell you anything useful.
The video on YouTube of 9.04 looks pretty slick.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There's a lot of "it's pretty, it's pretty, it's quick, it's pretty"... but no details and no screenshots.
Did you miss the part where TFA says "You won't be able to notice the vast improvement in Ubuntu's desktop experience over the past six months by browsing screenshot galleries of 9.04"? While those screen shots may not have helped a video could, and there's one on YouTube.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Shuttleworth has already announced that the color scheme will be changed for 9.10, Karmic Koala. I havn't seen what color it actually is gonna be, but its not brown.
Actually there is brown in Karmic Koala.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Except for 8.10, which was enough of a disaster that I had to re-install from scratch.
Was 8.10 really a disaster for you? I was thinking of installing 9.04 on my MacBook Pro but after a few hours googling the closest I could find to installing it on MBPs was to install 8.10 then upgrade it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You misunderstood me. I was saying I'd rather use all the third-party Linux stuff in its vanilla form (Slackware, Arch Linux, and a few other distros tend to ship packages this way) rather than in a heavily preconfigured form like Ubuntu or Mint. I always end up inadvertently breaking the illusion of cohesion by poking around too much.
One of the reasons I prefer BSD is that they develop and ship many of the core tools as part of the OS.
Of course launching is slow, if the first thing you do after installing Vista is turning off all the features, including SuperFetch.
I only remember a few occasions of Firefox starting up or loading pages slowly (though, the latter is not a benefit of SuperFetch).
wmii and vim look exactly the same as they did in 8.10.
That's because most people giving Linux advice are doing so for free. Now even when I know the graphical method of doing a task I will often give the command based solution...
Why? Because describing a graphical process using text is both time consuming and error prone. To really make sure that what that my instructions are accurate i would post screen captures and draw arrows on them. I have and can do this but it consumes a lot of my time.
There is also the matter that the user might be using a different desktop to me (I use Kubuntu) or a different version of the same program in which case things may be in different places. I am much more likely to share the graphical method if I have some sort of realtime communication going on and I can ask you the questions I need to and get immediate answers.
Most of the time to save my time and sanity I start my advice with go to a terminal at type...
I can't wait to try it out...all I need is an FGLRX that works on my old laptop hardware and I'm set. I figure a couple of weeks, tops. ATI? Get on it!!
I think the "8 versions" you mentioned are actually a shortcoming of Windows icons. Many icons for Linux are in vector formats - so long as the icons are rendered correctly they will work for any size. I have not looked into selected/unselected variants of icons, but changes other than highlighting the icon seem gimmicky.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Ubuntu is so all a complete replacement for Windows and OSX that Ubuntu's designs are all so made on OSX with Photoshop.
See below:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-wallpapers/+bug/357218
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Jaunty/Colors%20of%20Ubuntu%20-%20wallpaper
{{.sig}}
I just installed Ubuntu 9.04 tonight and was highly disappointed. As far as I knew I downloaded the client which usually comes packed full of goodies. Installed it away from home which I thought would have given me plenty time to tinker until I could do more later with internet connection.
So without internet connection to it at this time I figured I would just pop in a DVD ( Ironman) and see what it looks like... to my dismay no codecs were included, I got a error message saying I needed to install some components that I would need to download. I mean seriously, some things should just work right off the bat. I read into it later and found out that it's due to legal issues which is sad, small things like this are enough to make people take their PC's back if they get them loaded with Linux.
And no that was not flamebait, I wish Linux was on the desktop as much as the next guy. Fell in love with it back in the Mandrake years.
Ubuntu 9.04 automatically installed two finger scrolling on my HP dv6000 series. How sweet isn't that?
Just because you, or the people that you engage frequently with, do not have a need for a touchscreen interface, means exactly nothing.
or to get a secondary X
Swap between tty7 and 9.
Cheers
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Ubuntu 9.04: Works great on my old Dell laptop D600 latitude, it automatically found the drivers for the broadcom wireless card, installed them, perfect connectivity and all the hardware interfaces (audio, video output to external monitors, etc) work well. I think M$ better start to worry, this is a fine OS. Anyone can install it and have a working laptop in about 20 minutes. ;-) Bobby B
Come on... what more could you want? This is the best looking and performing iteration yet! Open source productivity software, torrent, the list will never end! My eyes swell with tears when I am forced to look any anything inferior (Vista anyone...?)
The only bump I hit installing 9.04 on my Acer Extensa 5620Z is that the SSID was being broadcast to my LAN but the installer did not prompt me for a PSK or other connection installation. It should have. That would be cool. ;)