Ubuntu "Karmic Koala" RC Hits the Streets With Windows 7

oranghutan writes "Computerworld is reporting Canonical has made available the Release Candidate of its latest Linux-based operating system, Ubuntu 9.10, on the same day Microsoft launched the long-awaited Windows 7. 'The upcoming Canonical release, which is code-named Karmic Koala, is the latest version of the popular flavor of the Linux OS. The development release on Thursday pushed the OS one step closer to final release, which is due on Oct. 29, according to the company's release schedule Web page. An image of the OS is available for download on Ubuntu's Web site. Test versions of Karmic Koala RC available for download include the server, desktop and netbook versions.'"

Comments

Rock on

[Anonymous Coward]

Rock on Ubuntu.. I hope 9.10 fixes a lot of the nagging usability issues and bugs of 9.04 and yonder. I love Linux but am frustrated at the slow evolutionary , ugly looking UI, nagging bugs, compatibility issues and lack of enough bundled Open source utils.. I would HATE to switch back to Windows , hope it never happens

Re:Rock on

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Linux does not have a UI, the distribution chooses a desktop environment and window manager, etc to their specifications. Look at KDE 4.2 and later and not a Gnome based distribution if you want to see a nice UI.

Re:Rock on

[Totenglocke]

You're right about the looks - but usability wise, I find gnome to be superior. I ran KDE for about 15 minutes before being so annoyed with not being able to do things I was used to in gnome that I switched back to gnome.

Re:Rock on

[Narishma]

I ran KDE for about 15 minutes before being so annoyed with not being able to do things the way I was used to in gnome that I switched back to gnome.

There. Fixed it for you.

Re:Rock on

[Totenglocke]

No, one thing that I love is the auto-network discovery when using Nautilus (not sure what the KDE version was called). I found no such thing in KDE and since I transfer stuff between my systems quite often, I'm not going to use something that makes that task difficult.

OS X, Windows, and every gnome, xfce, fluxbox, etc version of Linux I've used allows this feature. KDE was the only one that didn't allow it (or if it did, had it so well hidden that I didn't find it).

Re:Rock on

[Neil Hodges]

Try NFS or CIFS, or even SFTP. KIO supports FISH, too.

Re:Rock on

[JackieBrown]

You're right about the looks - but usability wise, I find gnome to be superior. I ran KDE for about 15 minutes before being so annoyed with not being able to do things I was used to in gnome that I switched back to gnome.

So you are saying you gave it a chance, huh?

Re:Rock on

[outZider]

A different UI, yes. A nice UI? Not so much.

Re:Rock on

[Gadget_Guy]

I must be getting old. The parent has been modded as informative, but to me it just looks like the poster had a stroke as they were typing in the message.

I hope the recovery goes well, either way!

Re:Rock on

[V!NCENT]

Have you been trying the 4.x series? In the early releases 4.0-4.2.x a lot of KDE 3 series functionality was missing because they just rushed it out of the door. Starting with KDE 4.3.x and beyond things are starting to get back on track. Maybe you need to give KDE 4.4 a try when it comes out...

Gnome ehm... is just for the majority of users I guess. I personally stepped off the cool and sexy bandwagon and started using E16 because the only thing I really want to do with my OS anyway is connecting to the internet, adjust the volume, look at the time and date and run applications and that at the speed you'd expect computers to have in this day and age...

This is ofcourse just personal because I don't think that there are a lot of Enlightenment users out there, let alone version 16 users :P

Re:Rock on

[The Archon V2.0]

You're right about the looks - but usability wise, I find gnome to be superior. I ran KDE for about 15 minutes before being so annoyed with not being able to do things I was used to in gnome that I switched back to gnome.

Yeah, I used a Mac for about 15 minutes and was annoyed with not being able to do things I was used to in Windows. That's why I find Windows is superior.

And I used Linux for about 15 minutes and was annoyed with not being able to do things I was used to in Windows. That's why I find Windows is superior.

And I used Windows 95 for about 15 minutes and was annoyed with not being able to do things I was used to in Windows 3.1. That's why Windows 3.1 is still the bestest OS ever!

Please use the torrents

[Daffy Duck]

I live for high upload:download ratios

Re:Please use the torrents

[sakdoctor]

Good for you, but I have to use up as much of virginmedia.com bandwidth as possible, since they turned evil whilst I was an ADSL customer.

Oh look, netbook remix. I haven't tried that one yet.

Re:Please use the torrents

[icannotthinkofaname]

Man, you should have been there yesterday, when the torrent was actually released.

I got my overall ratio up to 10.00 in no time, sharing both the Ubuntu and Kubuntu RCs. A fast connection helps with that, but still, it's really easy, and I wholly intend to repeat this in a week, when U-9.10 comes out.

Re:Please use the torrents

[ottothecow]

The Ubuntu One service looks useful although Dropbox is free for the same amount and cross platform...(but lacks features like synced tomboy notes)

I wonder if I can point my dropbox folder at my ubuntu one folder and have redundant web based syncing

CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[HouseOfMisterE]

http://www.centos.org/

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

no one cares

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[geckipede]

It's so very tempting to mod this Informative...

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[LWATCDR]

Yes anybody that is smart enough to use CentOS keeps track of it's releases.
That should be part of the Linux IQ test.
If you use Fedora to run a prodcution server you fail.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[h4rr4r]

I would imagine lots of folks with jobs do. I get it, Centos is not big with the unemployed living in Mom's basement demographic, but trust me outside that locked door there is a whole world with many people that do care about it.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Icegryphon]

WHOORAY!! I am raging hard right now, nothing like repackaged RHEL!
No, I not joking, I seriously use it.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Tarlus]

Nooo! We're talking about repackaged Debian. Stay on topic!

* Braces self for negative modpoints *

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[palegray.net]

No, I not joking, I seriously use it.

I know a lot of folks who use it, too :). CentOS is great for organizations that use RHEL but don't need paid support on every server instance. I'm a Debian/Ubuntu guy myself, but to each their own.

/me goes back to testing the Ubuntu 9.10 RC now...

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[node 3]

I would imagine lots of folks with jobs do. I get it, Centos is not big with the unemployed living in Mom's basement demographic, but trust me outside that locked door there is a whole world with many people that do care about it.

Still, I'll bet it's *far* fewer than care about a new Ubuntu release, even if you limit Ubuntu to just the "unemployed living in Mom's basement demographic".

Also, I wouldn't be so quick to play the "in the real world, people with jobs..." card, because in the corporate world, IE6 still dominates.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[tnk1]

I know one place that operates about 30,000 servers on CentOS. I imagine they care a lot more about it than Ubuntu's latest release.

Of course, since I have to use Vista at home, I care much, much more about Windows 7 than either of the other two. Which is to say that now the timer has started for the SP1 release when I can finally consider it stable enough to put on m home computer. Just a few more months until Windows 7 is released for real and I can switch to using it.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[h4rr4r]

No on server gear. Heck even the chair thrower put linux share of the server market at 60%.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[MBGMorden]

As someone with a real job who uses Linux there (not as much as we used to unfortunately), I switched most of my servers to Ubuntu from CentOS a while back.

I'll admit that lots of people are still using CentOS (and I'll never mock a distro's users - though I'm on Linux Mint now, I used to use Gentoo at home, and before that I was on Slackware - 'nuff said), but even in the corporate world it seems like the push is towards Ubuntu.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Grishnakh]

I recently got stuck with helping set up a CentOS server for develepment use, because some vendor we buy stuff from uses it and somehow that means we must use it too, instead of a distro with better software support like Ubuntu. To get some tools I needed, I needed to use GIT to download them. Guess what? CentOS seems to have no support for GIT at all in its official repository! WTF?

That's a massive "fail" in my book.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[RiotingPacifist]

I get the advantages of ubuntu on the desktop but on there server why would you want to switch from CentOS to Ubuntu?

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[LWATCDR]

Just what tool do you need that isn't available as an RPM for RHEL?
I have not used Ubuntu Server in a while and I am sure that it is very good but really CentOS is a very good server OS

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[h4rr4r]

What prompted the switch?
I have heard nothing but bad about ubuntu on the server front(I use it on my laptop), and 9.10 seems to add insult to injury with grub2.0 not even supporting Xen.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[jfp51]

I guess you think Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x fails as well don't you? Maybe it is better that you don't use CentOS, don't worry its OK... Guess you never heard of EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) run by the good folks at Fedora, sure seems GIT is in there (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL). I know, not an official repo, but then the concept of binary compatibility would probably fly right over your head as well.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[h4rr4r]

That is why RPMFORGE exists.
Centos only ships what redhat ships, and they limit applications to reduce exposure to bugs and to limit what they have to support. RHEL/Centos is about stability not bleeding edge and tons of apps.

What were you expecting from folks where the latest and greatest kernel is 2.6.18.XXX?

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[MBGMorden]

Why not? The community support is better, there's a server version with the GUI stripped out that works well, and for what we're using it for (one MySQL database server, a webserver, a Zabbix performance monitoring server for other systems, and an email gateway) Ubuntu works just as well. Our desktops and most of our servers are Windows (not by my choice, but I have to live with that) so about all we're using Linux for is a few disjointed systems.

At the time I was migrating all my systems to virtual machines anyways to make management easier (and I've always had hiccups with live-migrating machines - regardless of os - from physical to virtual), so I decided when I rebuilt them to go with Ubuntu instead.

We are running OpenBSD on some of the other systems (DNS and a lot of our routers) but the main network admin handles those systems (I've used FreeBSD some but have never even tried OpenBSD).

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[MBGMorden]

Basically just a perception that the community is moving more towards Ubuntu (and to some degree, just because from my completely non-scientific tests I just like apt more than yum). The powers that be here aren't going to buy commercial support for the OS, and the community support of Ubuntu seems better overall.

I was migrating all of my servers to virtual machines (though on VMWare ESXi rather than Xen) and since I've had problems migrating machines from live on hardware to a VM before, I just took the opportunity to rebuild the systems on Ubuntu instead.

So far for what I've used it for it's worked fine.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[interval1066]

Yep, what he said; Ubuntu has a server version. As a long time user of OpenBSD for server duty however, I think you could do worse, unless you absolutely have no time or patience for using shells and cmd line utils. In which case you probably shouldn't be an IT professional (or a windows schlub).

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[xSauronx]

fwiw, ive used linux on the desktop for about 3 years but have used windows 7 regularly since the RC build was released to the public several months agoo (because i built a new rig, wanted to game...but not pay for the OS)

its actually quite stable, being basically a big upgrade on vista. in the RC the sleep settings didnt work very well, but that has been resolved in the Pro release. i was surprised to wake my computer up one morning, find that it had downloaded updates in the middle of the night and put itself back to sleep while saving the wordpad doc i had left open with some notes in it.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[arkane1234]

You lost us at the wording "Why not?"

No professional ever changes for the sake of changing.
The community support is far from better, it's UBUNTU. Redhat/CentOS has a world of following. Besides, how many Oracle or install on Ubuntu by support-release?

Ubuntu hasn't proven itself as anything better than another way to do what Red Hat/CentOS has done in the server world.
Our entire data center is Red Hat/CentOS, with XEN virtualization and clustering. While I'm a Debian/Gentoo person, I've noticed the merits of using something industry-accepted when in a publically traded company.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is out. To bad nobody bothered to actually try the net-install even once. Then they would have known there is a version mismatch between it and the repository it is supposed to use, causing installation to fail completely. Looks like the quality testing lacks some quality.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[MBGMorden]

I work in government rather than a publicly traded company, but as I said I was redoing the installs anyways as a result of moving to a virtual environment, so it's not like I was changing for the sake of changing.

Also, if you'll notice in my post, I never mention Oracle or any other application that doesn't work well on Ubuntu. The simple fact of the matter is that for what I'm using it for, Ubuntu works fine. Bandying about doom and gloom predictions isn't hampering my little Ubuntu VM's which have been humming along without a hiccup for the better part of a year now.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[aztektum]

Stop living vicariously through other modders.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[jedidiah]

Oracle is "not supported" on Ubuntu.

Whether or not it "works well" is entirely immaterial.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

The snark sensors have been knocked offline, Captain!

Too...much...snark...

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[PRMan]

Windows 7 is stable now. Much more stable than Vista SP2.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[B1oodAnge1]

i was surprised to wake my computer up one morning, find that it had downloaded updates in the middle of the night and put itself back to sleep while saving the wordpad doc i had left open with some notes in it.

See... that's just creepy to me.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[JackieBrown]

You know this saying is so out there, I am waiting for Windows just to ship a bullshit sp1 to try to grab more market for 7 quicker.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[EyelessFade]

You can run deb :) They have one big feature over Cent; its not a problem to upgrade over major releases. Though I use Cent on most my servers as well.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[turing_m]

I get the advantages of ubuntu on the desktop but on there server why would you want to switch from CentOS to Ubuntu?

I've used both Centos and Ubuntu desktop. I wouldn't see much point in moving from Centos to Ubuntu unless you were starting a new project. I'm considering using Ubuntu server for a project because I have a lot of experience with Ubuntu now, having used the desktop for over 2 years now. I figure it will be easier if I'm not having to mentally adjust from Ubuntu to RH ways of doing things all the time. This should cut down on the mistakes I might otherwise make. I've never found a problem with anything CLI based in Ubuntu, i've only ever had audio and GUI issues. I figure it will be similar on the server. Of course, I'll read a lot of reviews prior to embarking down that path.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[PenisLands]

Can I also be informative?

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[jonadab]

> I get the advantages of ubuntu on the desktop but on there
> server why would you want to switch from CentOS to Ubuntu?

You wouldn't. On a server you'd use Debian.

HTH.HAND.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[jonadab]

> CentOS is great for organizations that use RHEL
> but don't need paid support on every server instance.

Okay, yeah, I can see that. If you use RHEL, your people are all going to be familiar with it, so CentOS would be the "stick with what we already know" choice. There's a lot to be said for that.

I'm not in that situation though. The OS we have paid support for does not use an open-source kernel, if you know what I'm saying. So for the servers we don't need paid support for (i.e., most of them) we use Debian. This is not an ideological choice; it's just what we find easiest to manage. And the community support for Debian is as good as for any OS or distribution I've ever had dealings with, and a good deal better than some.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

* Braces self for negative modpoints *

Oh what a martyr.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[palegray.net]

I wholeheartedly agree with you on Debian's utility and ease of use. I've been running it on nearly all my production servers for a decade, and I couldn't be happier. Of course, now there's a few Ubuntu servers in the mix, too... but they're really just tweaked Debian installs ;).

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

No modpoints, so i'll just call you a homo.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[TheLink]

> while saving the wordpad doc i had left open with some notes in it.

Are you sure that happened? And it's not you who did it and forgot?

Did it really save the wordpad doc to a file? If it did, I consider it a bug. Whereas if it just suspended or saved the memory state ("hibernate") then that's fine.

Why? Because the first way creates opportunities for so many more side effects.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[kriston]

It's the first post-major-centos-guy-went-awol-for-nine-months release of CentOS.
Get it now!

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[lsatenstein]

I am not questioning your decision, but why did you switch from CentOS to Ubuntu? Could you tell me what were your justifications? CentOS is STABLE, is it not, and performs well. (or is UBUNTU server even better?) leslies at itbms dot biz

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Deb is good but I find the software selection is better for Cent if you want to stick with packages and not source.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes, RHEL just doesn't cut it where Ubuntu does. Or, maybe, just maybe, some find it easier to accomplish things while retaining the same performance.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[hot soldering iron]

I'm the only admin in our small shop, and when we needed an Oracle DB set up on an *old* machine for the devs, we tried to set up CentOS first, but the min hardware requirements for running both were too much for the box. Did I mention it was *old*? Ubuntu server slid right on there, and I found a walkthrough to make it look enough like Redhad for Oracle to run.

Please note: I don't have real admin training, I'm just the closest our shop has, and yes, the cheap SOB I work for should have sprung for something built in this millenia, at least.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[lems1]

Just wanted to say that we have 3 CentOS servers left and it's because of Fedora DS (now 389).

The minute we move the LDAP systems from that to any Ubuntu version, we will drop the 3 CentOS crap from the network.

The advantage is having cfengine rules that works for all desktops and servers in the environment (since they are all the same operating system flavor, though they can be at different revisions).

Testing stuff from one OS to the next, with different permutations of architectures and other hardware stuff, is something that belongs in our past history. We are too tired for that now.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Urkki]

I work in a very well-known Fortune 500 company, and it's all RHEL here, with a few people running Fedora on the desktop. You see, in the REAL real world, it's still almost all Red Hat and Novell Suse (and some CentOS).

What does a Fortune 500 company have to do with the real world?

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[stbill79]

I thought exactly the same as did you... until I got a new job where software like RedHat, Oracle, and VMware are used extensively, along with an IT department that is awful about keeping the test machines running and providing developers with their own 'valid' licenses of said software in order to do testing and dev work.

At first, I did what any geek would do: tried to 'mimic' the production environment with my favorites, including my distro-of-the-month (currently Arch Linux). After spending way too much time realizing that things like VMware tools, Oracle, and our own software (designed for RedHat) needed a lot of tweaking to get working, I decided to try CentOS. Let's just say things have been much more smooth with CentOs.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[DaVince21]

People only care about the major distro's, as you can see.

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[Macka]

Examples please, or are you just spreading FUD?

Re:CentOS 5.4 is out, too.

[lennier]

"See... that's just creepy to me."

Wait until you come home to find your computer has neatly ironed and folded your linen, vacuumed the floor, fed the dog, bathed the cat, baked lasagna, set the table, poured champagne, and has slipped into some sexy lingerie.

Sometimes an interface can be TOO user-friendly.

Need hardware!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm looking forward to the official 9.10 release, but I really want some new hardware to run it on! Almost all the netbook offerings are going the XP/W7 route. Providers like system76 have some OK offerings, but they are on the pricey side. I wish I had a wide selection of hardware without having to pay the Microsoft tax!

Re:Need hardware!

[jtownatpunk.net]

So pay the tax then file for a refund. There's a bajillion articles on the entartubes that describe the process of getting a refund for the bundled 'doze license. (No, I'm not going to search for you.)

Re:Need hardware!

[Brian Feldman]

Buy one and sell the Windows 7 license to me. I wouldn't mind saving some cash.

Re:Need hardware!

[palegray.net]

You can always take it for a spin in a VM before getting your hardware ;).

Re:Need hardware!

[node 3]

So pay the tax then file for a refund. There's a bajillion articles on the entartubes that describe the process of getting a refund for the bundled 'doze license. (No, I'm not going to search for you.)

Good thing you're not going to search for them, because if you did you might learn that you almost certainly *won't* get a refund, even after having spent inordinate amount of time and effort trying.

Re:Need hardware!

[node 3]

Almost all the netbook offerings are going the XP/W7 route.

Really? Have you checked the online stores of the manufacturers? Although I've not done any sort of extensive research, both Dell and HP offer Ubuntu as an option for their netbooks.

Re:Need hardware!

[butalearner]

I thought the general consensus about this is that it's bad because Microsoft still gets your money. Too few people actually do it, so HP, Dell, and others just eat the loss and call it a day. I'm not going to search either but you might have a harder time getting the refund from Sony or Lenovo, or if you go to Best Buy or something.

Re:Need hardware!

[StayFrosty]

Really? I bought an Acer netbook with Vista on it. A simple phone call was all it took to get the process rolling. It was annoying that I had to send the laptop back to them to have Windows removed, but I did get my $58 or whatever it was.

The Dell Mini 10's are available with Ubuntu preloaded if you would rather go that route. I believe they start at $299 so they aren't unreasonably priced either.

Re:Need hardware!

[ThePhilips]

Does Ubuntu already properly recognizes VMware/VirtualBox and installs all required packages for them?

Because in past, 8.x/earlier, it was always a PITA to setup Ubuntu (install manually extra modules/daemons) for it to run smoothly under VMware/VirtalBox.

Re:Need hardware!

[palegray.net]

Ubuntu 9.04 runs flawlessly under VirtualBox; I can't speak for VMware as I haven't used it for desktop virtualization recently. Installed the guest additions is as easy as running the proper binary from /media/cdrom once the virtual ISO is mounted inside the running system.

Re:Need hardware!

[roguetrick]

Shameless plug, I'm writing this on a system76 notebook and couldn't be happier with it.

Re:Need hardware!

[ryanov]

No, it's been easy for a long time. Not sure what you're talking about. Even if you run the non-free version from VirtualBox, it's stupid easy. You just have to re-rerun the modules compile script if you get a new kernel (and if will tell you what to do... something like /etc/init.d/vboxdrv modules or similar).

Re:Need hardware!

[ThePhilips]

On Ubuntu 8.04, VirtualBox scripts screwed up X completely. I have tried twice and twice was left with defunct X (and no, I had enough of xorg.conf editing in this life).

What I have actually meant that Ubuntu should recognize VirtualBox as a H/W system and configure itself accordingly. After all they already dynamically install drivers and programs for the hardware you have.

Re:Need hardware!

[mikechant]

OEM License. BIOS locked, not transferable.

Re:Need hardware!

[Anonymous Coward]

HP dropped Linux as an option on all their notebooks on the day Windows 7 came out.

Re:Need hardware!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoops! That should have read:

HP dropped Linux as an option on all their netbooks (not notebooks) on the day Windows 7 came out.

(I don't know what they had or have on their notebooks.)

Re:Need hardware!

[socceroos]

HP have cancelled their offering of Ubuntu. Not coincidently, it coincided with the release of Windows 7.

Shitty Summary and Article

[sexconker]

News would entail what's new in this version.

Non news is a "hey guys Ubuntu has something new too" cry for attention amidst the Win 7 release.

Ubuntu is great and all, but this article is crap.

It barely gets around to mentioning:
"Built on the latest Linux 2.6.31.1 kernel, Ubuntu 9.10 offers faster boot times, an improved user interface and programming tools for easier software development, according to Canonical."

Re:Shitty Summary and Article

[MrFlannel]

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910overview

Re:Shitty Summary and Article

[fredjh]

I don't know... it's an interesting reminder. I'll peruse the release notes that the other poster gave a link to, but really... the only reason I'm not excited about a new release is because everything in 9.04 is working right for me.

Re:Shitty Summary and Article

[tuppe666]

I guess Ubuntu will have to cope with the other 6 releases before Windows Vista III the terminal. Ubuntu unashamedly release is timed to contain the latest Gnome, http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.28/ of course it includes its own release notes as well http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910. I'm sure your probably aware of good stuff in EXT4; GRUB2; Empathy; Software Centre that have been heavily documented everywhere including serious numbers of Application Improvements in Firefox and OpenOffice. Linux itself continues on spewing greater and improved hardware support which include the usual greatness http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux26Changes Check out 2.26.28 - 2.26.31 oh and X and Mesa and... Oh is that a Win 7 cry for attention I know whats new and Better Vista don't cut it!

Re:Shitty Summary and Article

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree the article doesn't mention much.

The new Ubuntu is actually very fast at booting. 4 seconds and its at the login screen for me :)

Re:Shitty Summary and Article

[DaVince21]

Agreed, the final release would have been much more of an article, not the release candidate. I guess it's just "smart advertising" from Slashdot or something.

Re:Shitty Summary and Article

[ThatsNotPudding]

Sadly, an ever-more accurate blurb for Ubuntu is: "Now with even more Mono!"

gggreat!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This should please all three linux desktop users.

Re:gggreat!!!

[Vovk]

This should please all three Windows Vista desktop users.

FTFY

Win7 wtf?!

[da_matta]

Why, oh why is this annexed with Windows 7. The release of either affects the other in no way what-so-ever. If Ubuntu beta/rc is not news worthy by itself, releasing on the same day with Win7 doesn't change that in any way. And yes, even one sentence about what's new in this would not hurt...

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Hadlock]

Well I was going to buy Windows 7, but since it looks like 9.10 LTS is coming out on the 29th, I'll save $125 and get my OS for free! Thanks Slashdot!

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

You may have noticed that every item this week is about Windows 7, which according to some people doesn't nearly suck as much as Vista, or ME, or 3.0, or 98 and only nearly as much as XP or 2000.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I was going to buy Windows 7, but since it looks like 9.10 LTS is coming out on the 29th, I'll save $125 and get my OS for free! Thanks Slashdot!

Is 9.10 LTS? I thought that the next LTS was 10.04?

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[commodore64_love]

I am confused about Ubuntu's naming scheme.
- Windows is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 (actually 6.1).
- Mac OS is 10.1, 10.2, ..., 10.5, 10.6.
- Ubuntu is Year.month so it goes 2004.xx, 2005.xx, ..., 2009.xx. Right? What's the "Karmic Koala" part mean?

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Truth is life]

"Karmic Koala" is just the code/theme name for the release. Like how Mac OS releases are called things like "Panther" or "Snow Leopard".

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[quadrox]

Uh yeah, I clearly remember my Windows 4 and my Windows 5 boxes...

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Hadlock]

You are correct, good sir! Maybe I'll buy Windows 7 instead! I guess you could say Vista was not an LTS release! ha HA!

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

9.10 is not the new LTS, it is a regular cycle upgrade. The new LTS will be either the 10.04 release, or 10.10. That will only be decided in November at the next Ubuntu summit.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[commodore64_love]

Actually I think most of Linux is confusing. Looking at the wikipedia entry for Ubuntu, I see a whole bunch of variants:

- Xfce
- Xbuntu
- Gnome
- Kubuntu

Huh? What? Huh? I see Xfce described as being "lightweight for older computers" but no system requirements. Is a 386 too slow? 1 meg of RAM too small? It is unclear. (Your typical Joe or Jane Q. Public will give-up at this point, and buy a Windoze PC-compatible or Apple Mac instead.)

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[immortalpob]

windows is more like: 1,2,3,3.1,3.11,95,98,2000,ME,XP,Vista,7... I have yet to figure out the scheme.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Minwee]

Right click on "My Computer" and select "Properties". You will see the Windows version number there. That option is available on such operating systems as Windows 95 (4.00.95), Windows 98 (4.10.1998), Windows EffingSucks (4.90.3000), Windows 2000 (5.0), Windows XP (5.1), Windows 2003 (5.2), Windows Fistsya (6.0) and the curiously named Windows Seven (6.1).

So, unless you are a die-hard Applista or just started using computers this year, you probably do remember your Windows 4 and 5 boxes very well.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[zippthorne]

It's a cutesy internal name for the developers to avoid having to spend all day spouting numbers when talking about stuff, or for "people in the know" to sound smarter.

Current version is Jaunty Jackolope, and they all try to be clever by using {adjective} {noun} alliterative scheme where {noun} is an animal that inhabits the isle of man.

Like "Snow Leopard" or "Longhorn"*

*What kind of jackass names an operating system after a cow??

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[jipn4]

(Your typical Joe or Jane Q. Public will give-up at this point, and buy a Windoze PC-compatible or Apple Mac instead.)

You're comparing apples and oranges. Your typical Joe and Jane Q Public couldn't figure out which version of Windows or OS X to install on their machines either, nor will they know whether to install Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate. The problem is the "having to install part", not the names.

Buy Linux preinstalled and it won't overtax your brain. People will have made reasonable choices for you.

Besides, none of those installations lock you in; it's one command to upgrade to any other one.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Hadlock]

longhorn

It's a Texas cow. Everything's bigger in Texas. Including our codebase, minimum requirements, load times, release cycles and bug lists(!)

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[peachboy]

If I remember correctly, Windows NT 4 (maybe Windows 95/98 too) was version 4 and Windows XP was version 5. More versioning info is here on Wikipedia.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Xfce has nothing to do with Ubuntu, per se. It is a lightweight Gnome-based desktop environment

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're mentioning are desktop environments. Gnome is the default desktop environment (the one you see in screen shots on the Ubuntu page). Ubuntu with the KDE desktop environment installed is called Kubuntu. Ubuntu that's directed at more educational uses is called Edubuntu, and so on. They're not different OSes, they're all Ubuntu just with a different desktop interface.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Isle of Man?

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

and Windows 7 has many different variants as well, Professional, Home, Starter, etc. Its just as confusing.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[commodore64_love]

>>>Uh yeah, I clearly remember my Windows 4 and my Windows 5 boxes

You should. Windows 4 == NT 4. Windows 5 == XP. Windows 6 == Vista

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[commodore64_love]

+1 insightful. And informative. Thanks.

Kubuntu says it requires 256 megabytes of RAM, which is kinda surprising. My Win98 laptop only uses 96 megabytes, and I thought Kubuntu would have similar specs since it's supposed to "particularly focus on low memory footprint." I guess Kubuntu is more akin to XP in memory size.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, oh why is this annexed with Windows 7

Maybe the new Windows 7 pitchman might have something to do with it.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[MBGMorden]

Except that there weren't called that in any manner except for vague version numbers you have to dig for. Even if you can dig up some reference somewhere to Windows 5.0, Microsoft certainly never publicly marketed it as such.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[commodore64_love]

No actually it's more like this (two forks):

MS-DOS + Windows desktop: 1, 2, 3.x, 4.x (95/98/Me) - terminated

NT line: 3.1, 4.x, 5.x (2000/XP), 6.x (Vista), Windows 7

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[node 3]

If Ubuntu beta/rc is not news worthy by itself, releasing on the same day with Win7 doesn't change that in any way.

The Ubuntu release dates and development cycle were put in place *long* before Windows 7 got an official release date.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[StayFrosty]

I think you would be looking for Xubuntu (XFCE) if you are looking for something with a low memory footprint. KDE (the default desktop environment in Kubuntu) has roughly the same memory footprint as normal Ubuntu (which uses Gnome by default.)

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[sherl0k]

Use Lubuntu, it's way more lightweight than KDE or Xubuntu. LXDE is definitely great on low-powering systems.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[sherl0k]

Xunbutu is an official distro for them, so in a sense it does. But it's still not very lightweight with all the stuff they add into the system. It's hardly better than GNOME, I remember seeing some benchmarks online.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[mister_playboy]

Xubuntu is the lightweight one, not Kubuntu. Why are you mentioning Win98? Hardly comparable in capability or stability.

Maybe you're trolling.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[mister_playboy]

This chart makes it more clear:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windows_Family_Tree.svg

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Dynedain]

You know, if Apple released an OSX update the same day as Win7, I'm sure Win7 would have been mentioned an article about it...

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Sark666]

I'm a big fan of ubuntu, but neither kde or gnome run comfortably with 256 megs of ram. Whereas xp is usually with that amnount of ram.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Tubal-Cain]

Odd name, isn't it?

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[arielCo]

Just a code name, for fun. They follow a fanciful "Adjective Animal" scheme, and are frequently shortened to the adjective (e.g. "gedit crashes when opening more than 32767 files on Karmic").

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[jedidiah]

The code name for the release is simply alphabetical.

The last release was J. The current release is K. The next one will be L.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Stormwatch]

Xfce ... is a lightweight Gnome-based desktop environment

Wouldn't it be more correct to say both Gnome and Xfce are GTK+ based?

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[h4rr4r]

Try it with XP SP3 and you will see that no it does not run fine with that amount of ram.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[commodore64_love]

>>>Maybe you're trolling.

Ooops. It looks like I loaded the wrong GPP (Genuine People Personality) into my android. This one's too rude for my taste. (Hmmm... where'd I lay that sexbot GPP?)
.

>>>Why are you mentioning Win98? Hardly comparable in capability or stability

No but it fits inside my 96 megabyte laptop, which is what I was hoping I could upgrade to a Linux install like Xubuntu.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[commodore64_love]

I prefer lightweight wherever possible, which is why I dumped Azureus for Utorrent (200 downto 15 megabytes). My Word 97 install fits into just 7 megabytes.

Now I'm experimenting with K-Meleon as a possible replacement for Firefox/Opera. So far KM doesn't impress me much... still hogs a lot of RAM and CPU.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I can't wait for Lusty Lamprey!
or was it Lascivious Lemur, Lazy Llama, Lethargic Lark, or Lucky Lobster?
whatever! I want it.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[commodore64_love]

Leaping Lizards!

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Kubuntu is a full, modern desktop, just like Gnome. Xubuntu is more lightweight.

If you have a really constrained system, there are numerous choices. Icewm is pretty nice, but there are even more lightweight choices.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[maxume]

Don't forget assholes.

Zing!

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[jonadab]

> The code name for the release is simply alphabetical.

Is that why it went from W to H to D?

My personal favorite development codename scheme is Gnus.

(ding) Gnus, September Gnus, Red Gnus, Quassia Gnus, Pterodactyl Gnus, Oort Gnus, No Gnus, My Gnus, ...

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[agnosticnixie]

Windows 95 was 4.5 ish with an absurdly long build alphanumeric id and Win 98 was 4.9 with all that.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[agnosticnixie]

I think the question is more - "Koalas on Man? Were the devs drunk?"

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[oddfox]

I don't know if you realize this or not but Vista was released over a year before Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and will be supported on the desktop for a year longer than 8.04 LTS (On the server they say support extends to April 2013). Here is how it breaks down:

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, released April 24 2008, supported until April 2011 (Desktop) and April 2013 (Server)

Windows Vista, released January 30, 2007, supported until April 10, 2012.

And keep in mind that date for Vista is Mainstream Support Retired. They've gone out of their way to keep products afloat as evidenced by keeping XP alive as long as they have. These numbers pretty much show that Vista is more of an LTS release than Ubuntu 8.04, if you're going by raw amount of time where the system will be supported. I like Ubuntu myself and recommend it to people looking into Linux, but come on now, Microsoft isn't allowed to release a new Windows until their previous one has been completely EOL'd?. It's not like Ubuntu isn't releasing non-LTS versions while still supporting 8.04.

And if you were just fooling around with your posts, well... well played, sir.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[BitZtream]

Besides, none of those installations lock you in; it's one command to upgrade to any other one.

Technically its not one click.

Windows 7 has the same ability, not one click here either.

In my experience however, you're better off starting from scratch than migrating from one type to another.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[marsu_k]

I don't know about the 4.x series, but I have an ancient laptop (PIII @ 700MHz, 256MB RAM) that runs KDE 3.5.10 just fine. Mind you, it's running Arch so while it does take more work to get up and running, once setup it's certainly faster than *buntu.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Warty Warthog was apparently an in-joke amongst Shuttleworth + friends. "Hoary Hedgehog" was a continuation of that same joke. Then they decided to start at B, and for some reason, skipped C. However, now it's fixed (it's a good metaphor for most F/OSS projects - bumpy beginnings before smooth sailing ;)). Read more at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Teun]

Why, oh why is this annexed with Windows 7. The release of either affects the other in no way what-so-ever. If Ubuntu beta/rc is not news worthy by itself, releasing on the same day with Win7 doesn't change that in any way. And yes, even one sentence about what's new in this would not hurt...

This is why:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cschlaeger/JapanLinuxSymposium#5395400000458161906

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[ais523]

Not just for fun. They deliberately choose rather unusual names so they can be used as search terms in search engines; searching for "8.10" is rather difficult due to the numerical nature of the version number, and clashes with lots of other programs; searching for "Karmic" works a lot better (especially if the other search terms limit the results to be Ubuntu-related).

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Krneki]

And how windows 2000 fits into this?

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[The Archon V2.0]

What's the "Karmic Koala" part mean?

It means the next one's bound to be called "Ninja Turtle".

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[julesh]

"Longhorn"*

*What kind of jackass names an operating system after a cow??

Actually, I believe it was named after a restaurant. Now, naming a restaurant after a cow, that sounds much more sensible...

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[arielCo]

Makes a lot of sense (where are my mod points when I need them?).

You only have to be aware of Google stemming, or at least include the animal in your query: "Karmic" tends to be equated with "karma", so I often have to put a + sign in front of it.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Jon_S]

Windows 2000 was actually 5.0

XP was 5.1

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[oscartheduck]

Sensible questions, reasonable responses. Pleasure to see.

Firefox is the preeminent open source browser; k-meleon, konqueror, all those are much less feature rich. I would have thought opera would be your best choice.

If your primary goal is lightweight browsing, though, nothing beats links. It's a text mode only browser, launchable from the command line. links2 has a graphical mode, too, which might meet your goal. If you're using one of the ubuntu based linuxes, you're looking at aptitude install links2 to install it and then links2 -g google.com to launch in graphical mode.

Good luck! As far as lightweight OSes go, thinking about it, OpenBSD is very, very lightweight. FreeBSD is, too. According to the handbook, FreeBSD requires a minimum of 24 megs of RAM and 150 megs of hard drive space. Might be worth investigating, though it's worth bearing in mind that that's probably a non-X11 installation of FreeBSD.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Krneki]

Read the post I replied to.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[JAlexoi]

Windows 95 (4.00.95), Windows 98 (4.10.1998), Windows EffingSucks (4.90.3000)

Don't you get it? Windows EffingSucks was just too early! Loo at the dating pattern - 95 -> 1998 -> 3000. That means they released Windows EffingSucks 1000 years too early!

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[DaVince21]

Karmic Koala is just a name to identify the release (kind of like "Vista", or "Snow Leopard"). The letters go up there too; from H to K it's been Hardy Heron, Intrepid Ibis, Jaunty Jackalope, Karmic Koala.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[badkarmadayaccount]

Mod parent up.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Minwee]

Don't you get it? Windows EffingSucks was just too early! Loo at the dating pattern - 95 -> 1998 -> 3000. That means they released Windows EffingSucks 1000 years too early!

If the pattern holds true they also released Windows 95 1900 years late.

Re:Win7 wtf?!

[Anonymous Coward]

NT line: 3.1, 4.x, 5.x (2000/XP), 6.x (Vista), Windows 7

You're a bit off:

NT: 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 5.x (2000/XP/2003/2003R2), 6.x (Vista/2008/Seven/2008R2)

- T

Still some very important stuff to fix

[rumith]

Such as bug 452518 (saving MS Word format documents using Open Office KDE shipped with Kubuntu 9.10 can result in corrupted files).
However, the list of great features planned for this release is amazing! Ubuntu is no longer "Debian with a graphical installer and brown theme", it has become a pretty interesting distro on its own merit.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Dunbal]

This bug was reported on Oct 15th, and fixed on Oct 22nd. What more do you want?

Of course if you're a Microsoft slave, you can wait for a bug to be fixed "when we get around to it", which will probably be in SP1 in 4-6 months or so - depending on how buggy THIS Windows version is... (sometimes they have to release the SP faster, like with Vista).

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Dr. Manhattan]

However, the list of great features planned for this release is amazing!

I'm looking forward to officially-supported VDPAU. Even with a moderately beefy Athlon X2, playback's a little jerky for 720p AVCHD movies from my camcorder. With some hacking and PPAs, I can get VDPAU working with 9.04, and it's much better - CPU usage massively reduced, yet smooth playback.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[tjwhaynes]

That bug 452518 is already committed for the actual release.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[yuhong]

Or if you need a fix now, you could try searching the MS Knowledge Base for a KB article describing the problem, and see if a hotfix is available. If it is available, thanks to the introduction of online hotfix request, you could request the hotfix for free right there. If not, you could try to contact MS support and talk about the problem, whether that is free or not depends.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[the_crowbar]

You could also try using the packages from www.avenard.org Jean-Yves is very active in the MythTV realm and has been packaging up mplayer with vdpau support for quite some time.

Cheers,
the_crowbar

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[g1zmo]

Or if you need a fix now, you could try searching the MS Knowledge Base for a KB article describing the problem, and see if a hotfix is available. If it is available, thanks to the introduction of online hotfix request, you could request the hotfix for free right there. If not, you could try to contact MS support and talk about the problem, whether that is free or not depends.

No thank you.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[h4rr4r]

Except for the fact that no bug is getting fixed in 7 weeks much less 7 days in the MS world.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Dr. Manhattan]

You mean his PPA? :->

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Again]

[...] If not, you could try to contact MS support and talk about the problem, whether that is free or not depends.

I'm guessing that you've never tried to navigate their spaghetti-like phone-tree with its loops, spirals, double-backs and yes dead ends where they will hang up on you for following the wrong rabbit trail with no way to go back. That is the most frustrating, useless, upsetting, making me feel like hurting somebody a lot, afternoon that I ever spent. Oh, and the pound key that all phone systems use to go back one level? That works under some menus.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Pssh on your Athlon X2, with VDPAU an Atom 330 can play 720p.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked at Microsquat I could go back to the days of Windows 2000 and say, "they had a major service pack planned the day before the builds were sent to the CD manufacturer...", but there is a problem with this statement... It doesn't take into account that the bugs SHOULD have been fixed BEFORE they shipped, because they were known and were serious enough to cause problems for the users. Or I could say that Microsoft is always thinking about their customers and doing service packs, etc... But there again, the TIME TO FIX is not "responsive" enough... Linux takes a different stand... Fix them and fix them fast. Start development, have builds available to "the general public" for user feedback, fix bugs ASAP, create the BETA, get more people using it, Fix those issues, then DEPLOY... Yes, we still get weekly (or so) updates out of the Linux hall of shame, but they don't last long... Look over a secunia (www.secunia.com) and compare Ubuntu Linux with Microsoft Windows and see for yourself how the different philosophies affect you...

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[yuhong]

I never did unfortunately, I must admit. But now you don't necessarily have to. In case you didn't notice, links to request hotfix online are now at top of many KB articles having a hotfix, making requesting hotfix much easier than before. I use that a lot nowadays.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[westlake]

Of course if you're a Microsoft slave, you can wait for a bug to be fixed "when we get around to it"

You see that a lot in FOSS as well.

What you don't see so much in the Windows world is a natural-born instinct for insults guaranteed to piss off any potential convert.

depending on how buggy THIS Windows version is...

In nine months the public beta/RC of Win 7 took a 1.5% share of the desktop. 50% higher than Linux, all flavors. Top Operating System Share Trend

If there were any show-stoppers they should have been exposed by now.

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Windows 7

There are no unpatched Secunia advisories affecting this product, when all vendor patches are applied.

Vulnerability Report: Microsoft Windows Vista

The most severe unpatched Secunia advisory affecting Microsoft Windows Vista, with all vendor patches applied, is rated Less critical

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[jedidiah]

Yup... and it's only an "apt-get" away too.

Stop your whinin' and update your repositories already. There's even a shiny happy GUI for it.

Look in the "System" menu.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to install a LAMP stack and I had never heard of apt-get it's not documented very well and the application apt-get is not exactly named "install-missing-software" is it. I went with windows XP and the wampserver installation. Works like a charm it installs itself and was trouble free.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Laurence0]

I had similar problems with playing 720p mkv videos on my media server (2GHz P4) and I think the graphics card's too old for VDPAU (it's a Quadro FX 540), however a reasonable work around was to reencode all the videos I had to xvid with mencoder. The files grew very slightly, and I suspect I might have lost a little quality, but I honestly can't see any difference. I knocked up a script to hunt through my entire library for mkv files, and just left it running over night. And then for another day or two. Now I feed any new HD videos I grab through it as well, and I can happily play them.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Penguinshit]

I remember the good old days of Wordperfect 5.x where the tree was navigable, the techs friendly and thorough, and the hold-music was periodically interrupted by live "traffic reports" of hold times for the various departments (I shit you not).

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Again]

Except in my case I was in the middle of a Windoze install and I only have one computer. I would like to see a hotfix for that.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[tabrnaker]

You might want to check out CoreAVC, seems to work pretty well and not very expensive and there are some pretty simple tutorials for getting it to work under Ubuntu, i.e., cut and paste.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[BitZtream]

You realize that a SP for Windows is just a collection of hot fixes that are already available right? Its a roll up package of everything previous after it has been well tested. 9 times out of 10 installing a service pack on a fully patched Windows machine does very little other than say you've installed the service pack and fix some existing hotfixes.

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[gbjbaanb]

Its Microsoft's homage to Hunt the Wumpus.

you are in a large entrance hall, corridors sneak off on all directions. Are you feeling brave adventurer?
> say "sales and support please"

you are in a marbed atrium, high-vaulted ceilings cross above you. You can see a passage way leading downwards into the dark, and a staircase leading upwards.
> say "software support please"

you go down into the darkness, and come out in a labyrinth of passages.
> say "server support please"

you are in a cave with a monstrous tentacled serpent, its tentacles reach out towards you.
> say "operating system bugs please"

the tentacles grab you and start to tear you apart. With your last breath you hear it murmur "this is sql server support, I can transfer you back to our general support department sir"

you are in a large entrance hall, corridors sneak off on all directions. Are you feeling brave adventurer?
>

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu is no longer "Debian with a graphical installer and brown theme", it has become a pretty interesting distro on its own merit.

Yeah, the improved the brown :-P

Re:Still some very important stuff to fix

[the_crowbar]

No. He maintains a repository at avenard.org with Ubuntu packages. Just visit his site and follow the instructions. He may also have a PPA, but I do not know.

Cheers,
the_crowbar

Re:6 days?

[tjwhaynes]

No - the RC is usually nearly identical to the actual release. Only if there is something totally disastrous (eats your data, leaves dirty socks in the hall, sleeps with your girlfriend/boyfriend/cat/dog) would the final release be delayed.

Would have been better

[WindBourne]

had they released it several days ahead of 7.

Re:Would have been better

[Anonymous Coward]

The 2009-10-29 release date was chosen over 8 months ago, several months before Microsoft announced their release date for Windows 7.

Re:Would have been better

[Tarlus]

No, I don't think it would have made a difference when they released it. Canonical sticks to a strict release cycle every April and October and they won't alter their release date just to try and compete with other operating systems. They're appealing to a fairly different user base, anyway.

People who are weighing the option of Windows 7 vs Ubuntu 9.10 as their primary OS are going to make their choice regardless of which one came out a week earlier.

Re:Would have been better

[WindBourne]

But the problem is that all sorts of ppl are out working diligently to get 7 installed on systems, fighting configuration, checking how much is exposed to the net, finding out what apps are broken, etc. Basically, it will be a year before these ppl pull their head out of their system and are actually able to play with another OS.

Re:Would have been better

[Anonymous Coward]

No, actually, it's better to release it a few days after, right around the time everyone realises Windows 7 is just the same old shit, and starts looking for an alternative.

Re:Would have been better

[zippthorne]

Lynx doesn't come out until April, though. That's half a year for the next LTS release, which people who struggle with an operating system for a year will prefer over the bi-yearly schedule...

Re:Would have been better

[H3g3m0n]

If it takes you a year to tweak an OS, your doing it wrong.

Took me a few hours to get it up to what I was used to, and for the record I completely replace the Windows UI with bblean (A Fluxbox like shell for Windows). Install cygwin and setup scripts so I can do things like fire up rxvt and ssh into my server. Install things like Office 2007, gedit (for windows now :)), Development tools (geany, vim) and so on. I also went from a 32bit install to a 64bit one. Install iTunes (Since my music is on a DAAP server)

Basically I spent a few hours making it usable (more like Linux).

Granted there will be the occasional thing I forgot to install, or a tweak I missed but they get done as I need them.

Besides Windows7 is almost exactly the same as Vista, just without being so horrible. Your not going to run into any major differences with it. The final release of Ubuntu is in a few days from now, that should be enough time for people to have gotten comfortable.

Re:Would have been better

[palegray.net]

People who are weighing the option of Windows 7 vs Ubuntu 9.10 as their primary OS are going to make their choice regardless of which one came out a week earlier.

To add to that, a lot of people weighing these two options also happen to be employed in positions where they make recommendations for what offices use on various systems.

Re:Would have been better

[h4rr4r]

If your going to do that why not just run a real OS?

Re:Would have been better

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, since you are using windows, a cracker comes along and then replaces what you have.

Re:Would have been better

[DaVince21]

Perhaps MS catered their release date to be a week before Ubuntu's...

If you're going to mention windows 7...

[Anonymous Coward]

...then I'd at least like to remind everyone that Arch is always up to date.

Seems solid so far

[Max Romantschuk]

I upgraded a week or so back, seems solid so far. PulseAudio seems to be properly configured now, haven't had weird audio routing issues yet at least...

Boot is supposed to be faster, haven't clocked it so I'm not sure it actually is. But then again my desktop has been through several dist upgrades already.

But if you have an ICE1712 / Envy24 (M-Audio Delta) based pro sound card stay away, it's currently broken. Fortunately I boot to windows for my music making needs... ;)

Re:Seems solid so far

[thectrain]

I second that sound does not work with the Delta cards. Very annoying bug considering it worked fine in 9.04.

Re:Seems solid so far

[Anonymous Coward]

The M-Audio Audiophile 2496 -- another envy24 card -- is still broken with [that piece of shit] PulseAudio.

Re:Seems solid so far

[FrankieBaby1986]

Curious... Did u do a reformat and install upgrade or use the upgrade functionality? Because to truly gain the faster filesystem performance and boot times, a full conversion to ext4 is needed (as I understand it). The easiest way to do this is a full reformat or the OS partition.

Re:Seems solid so far

[blind biker]

But if you have an ICE1712 / Envy24 (M-Audio Delta) based pro sound card stay away, it's currently broken

Maybe that's the reason you haven't had weird audio routing issues yet - you have no sound!

It all makes sense, now.

Re:Seems solid so far

[Max Romantschuk]

I have more than one sound card... It's overkill to route youtube videos though my whole home studio setup. Integrated sound + headphones suffice for that.

Re:Seems solid so far

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding ext4 on the RC.
I would encourage people to manually configure their partitions to keep ext3 on the /boot partition. I tried to do a clean auto-install next to windows and had grub problems even after updating it and quite a bit of Googling. I tried a number of things to fix and update grub and then just set the /boot to ext3 and / and /home to ext4. My disk configuration may be a bit weird (I'm currently booting from a IDE disk, with a secondary SATA mass storage disk) but if you are having problems this seems to work.

Re:Seems solid so far

[Anonymous Coward]

So many people in this thread arguing about windows instead of discussing the release as above...turds

Anyway, I upgraded 2 boxes yesterday. The pulse audio stuff is much more intuitively done and the Sound Properties menu has been completely redone. I was aghast at how confusing and user unfriendly (old school linux, like 1998 linux, "edit in your screen resolutions with vi" type linux) the Sound Preferences menu was in Jaunty, with all the different types of audio drivers to choose from, none of them working actually right.

Firefox also appears to have some sort of flash compatibility plugin installed.

Flash audio in firefox worked IMMEDIATELY for me after months of dicking around with it on and off, and never being able to hear sound on youtube, etc. when I had Jaunty.

Only problem I am now having is that for some reason the Flash audio in FF sometimes crashes and takes OTHER apps like OpenOffice Calc with it. Very weird. Probably a reported bug but I have not looked. The machine in question has had Feisty, Gutsy, Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty, and Karmic all on the same install though so who knows what junk is left over on there.

I love the fact that client based Linux has finally come around to useability. Stuff should just WORK. I've been using linux for like 13 years, have done the slackware via FTP, but I'm now old and I take my time seriously, there is no badge of courage to be had from tinkering with something that should just work.

With that said, there are so few "mandatory tinkering" with the latest versions of Ubuntu that I can see why this OS is a serious threat to Microsoft.

Re:Seems solid so far

[Anonymous Coward]

On my old laptop (Athlon 2400+ XP-M with 1GB RAM) Ubuntu 9.10 takes overs a minute to boot (to desktop), XP SP3 (clean install because I don't have much use for it) takes 35 seconds (again to fully loaded desktop), so I don't think the boot is any faster (I'm not sure the older releases booted much slower), it certainly has room for improvement. If they can get the boot time down to 20 (considering they're aiming for 10 for the next release) I'll be very impressed.

There is only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Karmic Koala, is the latest version of the popular flavor of the Linux OS

Seems that there is only one popular flavor.

Re:There is only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, never mind that Fedora actually has more users than Ubuntu. They're just quieter. :)

Re:There is only one

[h4rr4r]

Do you still have to bother with getting the mp3 and such stuff elsewhere?

Are the default rpm repositories still nearly useless?

I use RHEL and Centos at work and used to use fedora years ago. In all cases the repos are about pointless. You have to go to Dag for anything really.

Re:There is only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, sounds like you haven't used Fedora in about 5 years. It's much better now.

Re:There is only one

[daveime]

Funnily enough, the Linux world is like Baskin Robbins ... more than 1000 flavours, and they all leave a nasty taste in your mouth.

Re:There is only one

[h4rr4r]

Actually that is about right, I think it was about 4 years ago though. At about the same time SUSE required you to enable the euro repos to get mp3s working.

Re:There is only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Ubuntu also require you to enable some extra repo to get mp3s working? Otherwise I think they'd be violating US patent laws if they put that stuff on the install CD. Fedora gives you the option of enabling additional repos (like RPM Fusion, for mp3) at install time, so you don't have to worry about how to add those repos later.

OpenBSD, Mac OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

Since there's an apparent competition going:

OpenBSD 18th oct, 14 days ahead of schedule. Mac OS X 10.6 28th aug, 1 month ahead of schedule.

What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[Doc Ruby]

The KarmicReleaseSchedule shows that 10/22/2009 was the scheduled date for releasing a Release Candidate, so the project is on schedule. But what do the colors in the Status column mean? Just escalating "hotness" (excitement) as the final release date approaches?

Re:What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[jeffmeden]

What I want to know is, what the heck does a RC build mean to these guys? The (only) RC is dropped one week ahead of the final release? That's not really enough time to even get feedback from the test userbase, much less actually do anything about the bugs that might show up. So, are we to assume that the RC is basically just a marketing stunt?

Re:What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[Doc Ruby]

AFAICT, Canonical has always released on time (perhaps one exception, late by only a week or two out of 6 months). The RC gives them a chance to delay without being a total surprise, though the don't (hardly) ever exercise the option. And their actual releases don't seem any buggier than any other distro's, in fact a lot less buggy, and never a showstopper, and quickly (and regularly) followed by automated bugfix updates.

So what that says to me is their release process is very rigorous. And that they use the RC protocol anyway. All of which sounds good to me.

Re:What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's exactly what its supposed to mean: A candidate for the final release. There should be almost no fixing between the release candidate and the final release. And since they have 8 "unstable" releases (6 alphas, a beta, and an RC) between each 6-month "stable" release, they get plenty of feedback. When you can just go download a nightly build any time you want, and recompile specific components any time you want to test them, there's no reason to have a large RC testing period.

Re:What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[dissy]

The (only) RC is dropped one week ahead of the final release? That's not really enough time to even get feedback from the test userbase, much less actually do anything about the bugs that might show up. So, are we to assume that the RC is basically just a marketing stunt?

Considering that is not the purpose of a release candidate, of course not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle

The term release candidate (RC) refers to a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge. In this stage of product stabilization (read QA cycle), all product features have been designed, coded and tested through one or more Beta cycles with no known showstopper-class bug.

RC just means no new code will be added at that point, so no new testing is needed, as all the code/features in it by that point were tested in development/alpha/beta stages.
There of course could be bugs in the RC, but that is true of the final release just the same.

These days an RC is used more to get users outside of your normal beta testers to use it, and make sure it works with the basics and didn't majorly break anything else that used to work in previous versions.

Assuming that happens, the RC is basically renamed to release.
Commercial software calls it RTM (release to manufacturer) which burns and presses the final CD/DVDs, and for open source that is the day the ISO is copied to the main download mirrors.

Re:What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[Dr_Barnowl]

I think the point is that they've had a large number of alphas and a beta already, which is what they've used for getting testing feedback... and that RC is the image they intend to release. Which means they've made all the code changes they've scheduled for release, and they'll only change it if something disastrous becomes apparent, and anything disastrous is pretty much going to be immensely obvious to someone within a few days.

Whereas the Windows 7 RC was available for no charge (not the normal state of affairs) has been going since May and has received patches on a regular basis. So clearly not what they intended to release.

So which one is the publicity stunt (and an extended beta test), and which one is the Release Candidate (ie - a build that's intended to be released)?

Re:What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[DragonWriter]

What I want to know is, what the heck does a RC build mean to these guys? The (only) RC is dropped one week ahead of the final release? That's not really enough time to even get feedback from the test userbase, much less actually do anything about the bugs that might show up. So, are we to assume that the RC is basically just a marketing stunt?

No, it means that it is an actual RC ("release candidate"). Now, true, some notable large software companies use "release candidate" as just a later beta, but that's not what it should mean.

Re:What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

The (only) RC is dropped one week ahead of the final release? That's not really enough time to even get feedback from the test userbase, much less actually do anything about the bugs that might show up. So, are we to assume that the RC is basically just a marketing stunt?

There of course could be bugs in the RC, but that is true of the final release just the same.

These days an RC is used more to get users outside of your normal beta testers to use it, and make sure it works with the basics and didn't majorly break anything else that used to work in previous versions.

Assuming that happens, the RC is basically renamed to release.

The (only) RC is dropped one week ahead of the final release? That's not really enough time to even get feedback from the test userbase, much less actually do anything about the bugs that might show up. ...

So, are we to assume that the RC is basically just a marketing stunt?

Re:What Do the Status Colors Mean?

[BitZtream]

RC just means no new code will be added at that point, so no new testing is needed, as

Yes, but new code WAS added BEFORE the RC was cut, which means you DO need more testing, and in fact MAY need to add more code to it. Thats kind of why you cut an RC, to say 'okay, we think we're done, lets give it a whirl and see what happens'

RTM IS NOT AN RC. RTM IS the final product. It is the exact same thing you buy on the shelves. It just goes to the manufactures and distributors so everyone can be ready, together, on the official release day.

Dear god please tell me you didn't learn how to develop from Wikipedia or consider yourself a professional developer. If you work on any public projects or for a company that sells software please tell me who/what it is so I can avoid it like the plague.

Code Name Runner-up

[allknowingfrog]

"Karmic Koala" is great, but I would like to believe that "All-knowing Frog" was a close second.

Re:Code Name Runner-up

[mujadaddy]

Actually, it was "Colonic Kookaburra"

Re:Code Name Runner-up

[allknowingfrog]

That does have a certain ring to it. Maybe next time.

Re:Code Name Runner-up

[snl2587]

No, no.

Kolonic Kookaburra

FTFY

Re:Code Name Runner-up

[Again]

"Karmic Koala" is great, but I would like to believe that "All-knowing Frog" was a close second.

*sigh* Again, stop with the self-reference!

Re:Code Name Runner-up

[mister_playboy]

You're doing it wrong.

Re:Code Name Runner-up

[arielCo]

Lucid Lynx is the next, in case you're wondering. Announced in September.

Re:Code Name Runner-up

[The Archon V2.0]

Lucid Lynx is the next, in case you're wondering. Announced in September.

Personally, I'm waiting for Solid Snake.

Re:Code Name Runner-up

[arielCo]

Personally, I'm waiting for Solid Snake.

Sept 2013? Let's hope you haven't given up and gone Mac by then ;)

Karmic Koala

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm running Xubuntu 9.10 on my laptop and it works great!

Seamless upgrade from 9.04 over breakfast this morning, even with full disk LUKS crypto. Works like a charm.

RE: Karmic Koala

[s2theg]

MMMMM Karmic Kola, *drools*.

Re: Karmic Koala

[Zantetsuken]

Koala Kola? "Mommy, why's the zookeeper going into the koala cage with a blender and Sprite?"

Re: Karmic Koala

[s2theg]

lol :D

Re:6 days?

[rumith]

- Help! Call the police! A huge Koala has trashed my hall with a load of dirty socks, and is now fucking my girlfriend!

Re:Windows 7 fails before the race

[SilverEyes]

Pills... find your pills...

Oh heck

[WindBourne]

it worked for God. Miracles CAN happen, when you apply yourself.

Re:Oh heck

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, God probably employed Agile methodologies.

I'm still waiting for

[wiredog]

Zoonotic Zebra

Re:I'm still waiting for

[Anonymous Coward]

Lonely Loser will be the next release name.

Re:I'm still waiting for

[Shikaku]

Zomg Zonies!

Re:I'm still waiting for

[Anonymous Coward]

Phalloid Penguin.

Captcha "censored". Go figure. :p

Re:I'm still waiting for

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when they get there? Will Ubuntu cease to exist, or will they move on to something even more exotic like the Greek alphabet? This is a serious question.

Re:I'm still waiting for

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll move onto numbers. The first new one will be 1111!!11one!11eleven!!

Re:I'm still waiting for

[Anonymous Coward]

To be followed by Masturbating Moron.

Re:I'm still waiting for

[agnosticnixie]

Then we see the nonstandard characters like germanic eth, or weird diacritics.

Re:I'm still waiting for

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Lucid Lynx.

Causality is wrong

[FlyingBishop]

Ubuntu's fall release date has been set in stone for years, the RC release date has been up since before Windows 7's release date was announced.

Microsoft is the company that chose to release Windows 7 on the same day as Ubuntu's release candidate, not the other way around. Seems like Microsoft wanted to overshadow and minimize the latest release of Ubuntu, and do so without actually permitting Ubuntu to compete.

Re:Causality is wrong

[caladine]

Or, just maybe, the fall is a great time to release a new OS to cash in on all the holiday period new PC sales?
Do you seriously think that Microsoft even considers Ubuntu a competitor for the desktop at this point?
To act like there actually is something to minimize at this point in time is facetious.

I dearly wish there was something to minimize, but let's not kid ourselves.

Re:Causality is wrong

[FlyingBishop]

I agree in general that there isn't a serious competition. But I can't believe that Microsoft chose the Ubuntu fall RC date by accident, given that it was on the Ubuntu calendar back in June when MS announced the Windows 7 release. They want the buzz as people begin using Windows 7 in the next couple weeks to totally eclipse the usual buzz that comes with a new Ubuntu release (Anemic as it may be, you still get gushing Slashdot posts and the like.) MS wants all eyes on Windows.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ubuntu release made news on /. the DAY AFTER it happened. If that doesn't speak volumes as to the relative importance of the two events, nothing does.

Re:Causality is wrong

[petrus4]

Microsoft is the company that chose to release Windows 7 on the same day as Ubuntu's release candidate, not the other way around. Seems like Microsoft wanted to overshadow and minimize the latest release of Ubuntu, and do so without actually permitting Ubuntu to compete.

LOL. This literally could potentially cause derisive laughter to the point of choking.

Microsoft would have to be certifiably insane to consider Ubuntu even a marginal form of competition.

Even if they weren't light years ahead in other areas of usability, Microsoft *are* ahead of Ubuntu in at least one, basic, critical area. Stable hardware support that actually works. You know, as in sound support that doesn't die every few hours, or graphics drivers that don't intermittently cause kernel panics.

Seriously, Linux users who try and claim that any Linux distribution has any remotely conceivable chance of legitimately competing with either Microsoft or Apple at this point, literally leave me gasping. The amount denial and delusion engaged in is mind boggling.

Ubuntu reached a point, once, where I thought that could eventually become true; but since Hardy, Canonical have blown it completely.

Here's a thought; try going into your local computer place, where they have a Mac displayed for people to play with, and try using it yourself. You will probably only need to for a few minutes, in order for the point to be made.

I predict four different possible responses to this post, as well.

a) I will be accused of being a corporate shill. (Believe me, I wish that were true; I could use the money. ;))

b) I will be accused of being, "disingenuous," which is apparently a favourite word of GNU/drones and other members of the "community." Either that, or various other forms of subjective ad hominem will be used, without any attempt made to back them up whatsoever.

c) I will be given the, "it doesn't matter how far behind it might be in technical terms, it's FREE!!!1!1!1eleven," argument; which presupposes that anyone who is either a) sane or b) hasn't been subjected to FSF mind control, actually cares about that. Hint: They don't.

d) This post will be down-modded to -1, Flamebait, Troll, or Overrated, because I'm making statements which cause cognitive dissonance in Linux Youth.

Prove me wrong, Linux users.

Re:Causality is wrong

[jipn4]

Even if they weren't light years ahead in other areas of usability, Microsoft *are* ahead of Ubuntu in at least one, basic, critical area. Stable hardware support that actually works.

Now that really causes "derisive laughter to the point of choking".

Prove me wrong, Linux users.

Why don't you prove your statements on usability and compatibility? Oh, that's right, you just repeat Microsoft marketing claims.

Re:Causality is wrong

[lattyware]

They'd be certifiably insane not to. In business, you look at any possible threats. Be it near or far. Like it or not, Linux is a viable threat to Microsoft, one of these distros could some day start to drag users away, and Microsoft would be fools not to keep any eye on them. Also, I don't know what experience you had with Linux, but it's very different to mine. I have less trouble setting up and running Linux distros than I do with Windows.

Re:Causality is wrong

[jdgeorge]

With a modest amount of money, you can put together a new system that provides a slick, fully-supported experience using Ubuntu Linux as the OS.

The problem is that, like Windows, Linux distros that try to serve the mass market have the almost impossible task of supporting everything. It simply doesn't work in all cases.

Apple solved this problem by packaging a very limited, controlled set of hardware with their OS. If a computer vendor does that with a Linux distro, they can provide a similar "it just works" kind of experience.

For example, if you buy a Dell system with Ubuntu preinstalled, I think you will find it will "just work".

On the other hand, if you install Ubuntu on your system made from parts that you might think "ought to just work", you're gambling.

Re:Causality is wrong

[dangitman]

d) This post will be down-modded to -1, Flamebait, Troll, or Overrated, because I'm making statements which cause cognitive dissonance in Linux Youth.

Prove me wrong, Linux users.

Wow, that was a really convoluted way to get your post modded up. It was an OK post (that I don't wholly agree with) until you pulled out this old chestnut.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Shikaku]

Even if they weren't light years ahead in other areas of usability, Microsoft *are* ahead of Ubuntu in at least one, basic, critical area. Stable hardware support that actually works.

I can bring two points to prove you wrong, in the past AND the present:

How was the Vista launch driver support?

What version of Windows offers to install the latest graphics card drivers off the internet for you, if it already doesn't work out of the box?

Not only that, the same sound and graphics issues exist in Windows. Faulty hardware is still faulty hardware on Windows or Linux, and the difference between a blue screen and a kernel panic is nil in this case. The examples you brought up are continually being fixed, whereas Windows sound drivers are lucky to get an update if at all.

Re:Causality is wrong

[drizek]

the October 22nd releasedate was most likely to d owith Windows 95 being released on October 25th. that would have been a sunday, so they did it on the last real weekday for maximum buzz.

Re:Causality is wrong

[tuppe666]

Or, just maybe, the fall is a great time to release a new OS to cash in on all the holiday period new PC sales? Do you seriously think that Microsoft even considers Ubuntu a competitor for the desktop at this point? To act like there actually is something to minimize at this point in time is facetious.

I dearly wish there was something to minimize, but let's not kid ourselves.

It did seem to extend XP licences and make them awful cheap on netbooks, it continually losing market share. I suspect as a business it want to make money.

Re:Causality is wrong

[orzetto]

Even if they weren't light years ahead in other areas of usability, Microsoft *are* ahead of Ubuntu in at least one, basic, critical area. Stable hardware support that actually works. You know, as in sound support that doesn't die every few hours, or graphics drivers that don't intermittently cause kernel panics.

Prove me wrong, Linux users.

Running on Kubuntu now. I have been using Kubuntu at work, home and on my netbook for the last three years, and I changed jobs in the meantime. My list of issues:

• In 2007 (I think it was Feisty) the NVidia driver did not support Xinerama, so no rotating cube on my two monitors at work. Fixed in Gutsy.
• Running on Karmic beta, cryptsetup would not halt the accelerated bootup process, giving me no time to type the passphrase to my encrypted volume. Had to do it after bootup. Fixed with RC.
• Running on Karmic beta, PulseAudio died on me when I logged in for the second time. Fixed with RC.
• Running on Karmic beta, text consoles (not emulators, the Ctrl-Alt-Fn ones) did not work due to kernel framebuffer issues. Fixed with RC.

So really: only one cosmetic issue ages ago, and three minor issues that could be expected in a beta.

At my previous job, the Ubuntu server we used for SVN repository, internal wiki, and a bunch of other services lasted more than a year, and by this time more time than I ever was on that job, without a single reboot.

This post will be down-modded to -1, Flamebait, Troll, or Overrated, [...]

Would fit you well: you stated blatant falsehoods, talking about your personal feelings toward Linux (about which no one here nor elsewhere cares) with no argumentation nor facts whatsoever.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Ubuntu for some very simple reasons:
1: Microsoft's DRM angers me greatly.
2: Malware doesn't target me nearly as much as it does Windows users.
3: The GUI is good enough for me. If Windows is better, I wouldn't notice.
4: I'm a command-line guy, and Linux distros are so much better than Windows for that.

So, yeah, you can choke all you want on your derisive laughter, but I honestly do perceive Ubuntu as being as good as Windows overall, given the set of things I'm concerned about.

I think a lot of OSes have reached a point where they're good enough for people with simple needs (web, e-mail, simple docs, audio/video play). Having reached that point, why shouldn't they choose the one that's free and DRMless?

Re:Causality is wrong

[livingboy]

Seriously, Linux users who try and claim that any Linux distribution has any remotely conceivable chance of legitimately competing with either Microsoft or Apple at this point, literally leave me gasping. The amount denial and delusion engaged in is mind boggling.

Hilarious, ROFL.

For the last eight years Linux has been my main desktop OS, because it has given me the performance I have needed.

Of course there has been occasional problems, but usually RTMF and UTFG have been adequate means to get the problem fixed.

I use Linux to do my work, thanks for the multiple workspaces, true multitasking and great stability on suitable cheap iron, I have managed to get them done.

As I am nearing my 50's, I hope that I have left most of my denials and delusions behind :-))

Re:Causality is wrong

[sarhjinian]

Ubuntu reached a point, once, where I thought that could eventually become true; but since Hardy, Canonical have blown it completely.

To their credit, I think they recognized they blew it when they started the 100 Paper Cuts project. It was a good way of showing, to the those who had become recalcitrant about fixing problems that mattered to actual users and were focused on latest-and-greatest instead. Even then, there's some LaunchPad comments that could lead you to suspect that some people are a little too settled in their ways.

Actually, I think they realized they were in trouble with the whole badly-broken-Intel-graphics in 9.04. I don't know how they let that slip through: badly breaking graphics performance for most laptops and many desktops seems like the kind of thing that would have shown up in QA reports and the beta period, no?

Re:Causality is wrong

[Kjella]

Here's my take on Linux support: Not that long ago, I'd have to chase high and low to find any Linux compatible hardware and certain things like wireless cards was near impossible. These days I have no problems finding Linux-compatible hardware, even though not all or even most hardware is compatible with Linux. There's usually some well-supported official drivers in most categories instead of the "best of the reverse engneered" there used to be. I don't remember this machine having a kernel panic ever, though X did have an oops a month ago because I've upgraded to a beta KDE/X release.

If I was to say my biggest greatest annoyance with Linux, it's media plugins and flash in particular. If only Firefox would stop being so patent-freaky and decode H.264 when it is available then we could kill flash and live happily ever after. *buntu seem perfectly capable of shipping a video player that'll use the x264 codec if installed, so should Firefox.

Re:Causality is wrong

[g8oz]

I accuse you of none of those things. Instead I accuse you of trying to pass off cynicism as insight.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Draek]

Microsoft would have to be certifiably insane to consider Ubuntu even a marginal form of competition.

Prove it.

Even if they weren't light years ahead in other areas of usability,

Prove it.

Microsoft *are* ahead of Ubuntu in at least one, basic, critical area. Stable hardware support that actually works.

Prove it.

You know, as in sound support that doesn't die every few hours, or graphics drivers that don't intermittently cause kernel panics.

Prove it.

Seriously, Linux users who try and claim that any Linux distribution has any remotely conceivable chance of legitimately competing with either Microsoft or Apple at this point, literally leave me gasping. The amount denial and delusion engaged in is mind boggling.

Prove there's any "delusion" or "denial" involved. Also, if I were you I'd go see a doctor for that gasping.

Ubuntu reached a point, once, where I thought that could eventually become true; but since Hardy, Canonical have blown it completely.

Prove it.

Prove me wrong, Linux users.

Prove yourself right first.

Re:Causality is wrong

[downhole]

I do have mod points, but I'd rather ask to your (virtual) face: WTF are you talking about? On exactly what hardware did you see these issues? I use Ubuntu on my main computer and have tried it on several others for a few days. I've never seen the sound support dying every few hours or the graphics drivers causing kernel panics or anything catastrophic like that. I'll grant that graphics support on Linux does need some work still, especially in the areas of using 2D/3D acceleration properly, but every system that I've used it on so far has been worked fine for applications other than hardcore gaming.

I've used Macs, Windows, and Linux plenty. In my experience, they all have their annoying issues - Windows isn't exactly free of hardware issues either (get ready to hunt down all the drivers you need if you aren't using a factory config), and MacOS is only available on limited hardware with nothing available in the range I'm looking for. Ubuntu did a pretty impressive job of loading good drivers for all of my hardware out of the box. And I like that I can grab a free app to do almost anything common off of the repositories, have it installed automatically, and never worry about viruses, spyware, etc. And there are pretty good free apps to do almost everything I need right out of the box.

Re:Causality is wrong

[1s44c]

So you are saying a OS that's so badly designed it needs virus scanner add-ons just to stop rogue files trashing it is better than one that just works?

Windows isn't ready for mass deployment and never has been. Ubuntu isn't perfect but it is better than windows in most of the ways that count.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, if you buy a Dell system with Ubuntu preinstalled, I think you will find it will "just work".

Exactly.. if you buy hardware from a vendor that has official Linux support, you'd get a system that "just works"

Whereas, when you buy hardware from Sun, Apple, or IBM, you get a system that "works really damn well".

Seriously, Dell is not going to go out of their way to improve the SAN management experience in Linux, even though they sell servers, storage, AND Linux... They will make it work though. If you buy a server and storage from Sun, Apple, or IBM, you'll get a fairly pleasant experience, and storage mgmt is just ONE area I'm going to pick on. Even Microsoft does SAN management better than Linux, and they don't have strong ties to any particular storage vendor..

Re:Causality is wrong

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

For example, if you buy a Dell system with Ubuntu preinstalled, I think you will find it will "just work".

Exactly.. if you buy hardware from a vendor that has official Linux support, you'd get a system that "just works" Whereas, when you buy hardware from Sun, Apple, or IBM, you get a system that "works really damn well".

I think you're missing the point. For a fair comparison, you need to buy a computer that comes with Ubuntu pre-installed as the only OS and the OS the computer was designed and tested to work with. It can have Windows as an optional install after the fact or something, but buying a machine where Dell has done a little bit of testing to try to expand it into the Linux using market, but are still primarily selling that hardware as a Windows box does not cut it.

Even Microsoft does SAN management better than Linux, and they don't have strong ties to any particular storage vendor.

Here's where you're wrong. Microsoft doesn't do SAN management better than Canonical. SAN makers may make their SAN offerings work better with Windows because that is their primary market. The main problem Linux developers face is the ecosystem in which they are trying to compete. This is important to recognize because it strongly influences how Linux needs to be developer differently from Windows and what else needs to happen other than just the OS component.

Apple succeeds because they target the entire user experience and don't pass the buck when there is a failing by blaming it on people who make the hardware or who make applications or who provide services. If no one else will do it acceptably, Apple will do it themselves. With Linux, it is even more important to make sure there is a complete vertical stack for end users. I think Canonical gets this to some extent and are trying, as they are providing in the cloud services and starting to develop an app store model for commercial offerings on Ubuntu. They still need to get those things working, woo application developers, and find strong hardware partners.

Re:Causality is wrong

[hcmtnbiker]

Microsoft would have to be certifiably insane to consider Ubuntu even a marginal form of competition.

Prove it.

Linux in total represents less then .93% of the Desktop market. Ubuntu a fraction of that.

Microsoft *are* ahead of Ubuntu in at least one, basic, critical area. Stable hardware support that actually works.

Prove it.

Broadcom(or most other) wireless chipsets, nVidia video drivers. The end.


Ubuntu is filled with wonderful software, but honestly it's not ready for wide adoption. Now maybe you can try to pin that on the hardware companies that don't support it, or the users who want to just use what they know, but it doesn't change the fact it's not ready.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

A modest amount of money...and an exhorbitant amount of time.

Also all the petty prove it first whiners aren't going to do anything but tell us that Linux users are still petty, much like Mac ads.

Re:Causality is wrong

[ignavus]

Ubuntu's fall release date ...

Ubuntu comes from South Africa. That's, like, in the Southern Hemisphere.

October is Spring here in this half of the world.

Re:Causality is wrong

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Having spent the majority of the evening trying to get sound on and intel hda board to work properly in Ubuntu 9.04, I will say that the burden of proof is no entirely on the GP troll.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Yfrwlf]

I know that there is hardware out there that doesn't work, and that quickly increases when you get into certain types of peripherals, but so far my "gambling" has yielded 100% success. I go out, buy whatever hardware I want, and it just works every time, as for my base computer that is. Like I said, for things like, say, webcams, I've had to be more careful and make sure that the cam is UVC-compliant for instance, or uses firewire. You know, actual standards. Then Linux support is cake.

Re:Causality is wrong

[jeffstar]

good thing i stuck with the LTS version. I thought about upgrading to intrepid but read about the intel graphics problems and didn't.

new and shiny isn't always better!

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

d) This post will be down-modded to -1, Flamebait, Troll, or Overrated, because I'm making statements which cause cognitive dissonance in Linux Youth.

Prove me wrong, Linux users.

I tried to prove you wrong. But modding you Flamebait again left the number -1 Flamebait.
If you knew what 'cognitive dissonance' meant, you'd also realize that the statement you made, makes no sense.
So it has nothing to do with you creating cognitive dissonance and much more to do with you being a stupid dick.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Yfrwlf]

Each OS has its share of problems, but claiming that one vastly overshadows the other as a whole is silly.

IMO, Windows has mainly two things going for it over Linux, games and GUI tools. Since Windows has always been GUI-focused, Microsoft has created ways of doing most anything you'd need to have done in a GUI. Of course, this means that automation and the command line tools have been sorely lacking, though this is changing with Microsoft's importation/duplication/copying of various Linux/Unix tools in their newer versions, probably mostly the result of their "Linux Lab" work. Because if the power of automation on Linux, it has been a very strong server market contender, but needs to be careful since "lazy" server administrators are liking GUIs and the overhead of GUIs is less important now days I think. So, after disabling all the visual effects of Vista 7 and basically making the desktop be Windows 2000 again, there is an appeal of the Windows *desktop* over the Linux *desktop* for server administrators in some ways. Linux server administration tools are definitely out there and becoming more common, but I think this is an area Linux needs to step up its game still.

In the games realm, from what I've seen it seems there has been more of an effort in making games cross-platform thanks to competition from Linux and Mac. Linux continues to spread virally and along with desktop improvements are making cross-platform OpenGL games more appealing to developers. With the push to the browser as a platform, this really helps Linux as well, and is also good for combating the above-mentioned competition in the server area, too.

All in all, Linux has a very bright future, but should never give up on pushing against Windows in the ways where it still holds advantages, and it won't give up.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and no.

My experience has been that no matter what distro I try, something always doesn't work.

Sound. Power Management. Configuring the trackpad behavior. PCMCIA after suspend. Something. On the same hardware, one distro will support sound and another everything but accelerated video.

Centos is great, but if you don't have enough RAM to do the graphical install, the text install seems to be broken. (And their documentation says as much - they recommend the graphical install...)

Linux is great, but the lack of attention to detail or accumulating best practices is a major annoyance.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought an Ubuntu Dell, Inspiron 1420N.

Testing isn't something they actually DO, it's an excuse they use to not offer the machine you want with Ubuntu preinstalled. Don't let them fool you for a second.

If I would have known then what I know now, I probably would have just bought a Mac.

Re:Causality is wrong

[BitZtream]

Really? Show me the hardware that you can buy and get the Mac like experience with Linux.

Where I just turn it on, finish the initial setup, start playing dvds, making movies and burning them to DVDs, checking my mail on Google, Yahoo, my own imap servers, auto connecting to wifi as I roam around with my laptop, synchronizing my settings with my offsite backup (mobileme), playing The Sims 3, Civ4, and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, sync my iPhone, ect ect ect.

You may be able to show me some hardware that is stable with some generic software, but it won't do what the Mac can do.

Linux needs to stop trying to copy everyone else and be itself. There are plenty of good reasons to run Linux. Trying to sell it as a Windows or OS X replacement is going to result in a failure.

Stop trying to compete on someone elses turf, do it on your own, where you actually ARE better.

Re:Causality is wrong

[mldi]

The problem is that, like Windows, Linux distros that try to serve the mass market have the almost impossible task of supporting everything. It simply doesn't work in all cases.

I would agree it doesn't work for all cases, but Linux hardware support is based on the kernel, not necessarily the distro. Yes, distros often times have their own sets of patches to the kernel to increase SOME hardware support, but it really has nothing to do with specific distros that try to serve the mass market, and often times those patches will make it into a kernel release soon after.

Re:Causality is wrong

[julesh]

Linux in total represents less then .93% of the Desktop market. Ubuntu a fraction of that.

Source? Error bars? ".93%" sounds way too precise for the likely accuracy of any such figures, which are usually incredibly biased in one direction or the other.

Besides, of course it's a fraction of the Linux total, but I'd be willing to wager it's quite a _big_ fraction. Every system I've ever seen in a high-street shop with Linux preinstalled comes with Ubuntu. The PC I'm running on at the moment came with Ubuntu (Dapper Drake) preinstalled (although I wiped it and installed XP...). Ubuntu is the distribution used by most netbook vendors. Almost all of my Linux-using friends are on Ubuntu, especially the less technical ones. My guess is Ubuntu has something like 95+% of the desktop Linux market by now.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox should have it as a third party plugin that they didn't have anything to do with. Nod nod ;) ;)

Re:Causality is wrong

[True Grit]

I would agree it doesn't work for all cases, but Linux hardware support is based on the kernel, not necessarily the distro.

Umm, not at all.

For example, graphics issues, other than modesetting, are on Xorg's shoulders, not the kernel.

And the recent flameage about PulseAudio was, of course, about a user-space daemon, not the kernel.

Then there's always the fun for distros to make sure, once they know the kernel is doing its job, that their primary Desktop Environment is itself properly recognizing existing hardware and supporting it within the user's GUI (auto-detecting presence of DVDs or Zip drives just plugged in, for example).

Keeping Kernel/UDEV/HAL/Xorg/DE all in sync with new hardware coming out all the time isn't easy, for any distro.

Re:Causality is wrong

[True Grit]

If only Firefox would stop being so patent-freaky and decode H.264

There is a reason they, and lots of others, in the IT industry are 'so patent-freaky'. Might have something to do with all the patent litigation thats continuously going on...

If they distributed FF with H264 playback, they'd be violating the law, because they haven't paid MPEGLA their blood money. This isn't being 'freaky', its merely behaving sanely in an insane world.

when it is available

Apple has no problem using H264, since they've got the money to pay the royalties, and they don't need to worry about violating the GPL (since they don't use it)... never mind that some of those H264 patents are their *own* anyway. Did you know that Apple gets part of the H264 royalties thats collected by MPEGLA?

No, its pretty darn clear why Apple would love for H264 to win and any open alternatives, that they won't either be able to control nor make money on, fail...

*buntu seem perfectly capable of shipping a video player that'll use the x264 codec if installed

Which is not the same thing as shipping a video player with H264 builtin and active, which not even Canonical can do.

Secondly, making FF work with existing codecs on a user's system... kinda requires intimate knowledge of that user's system. Now the FF package distributed by Canonical obviously has that info for their own distro, but Mozilla, after all, isn't a distro maker, so as long the MPEGLA stranglehold continues, it'll be up to the distros and the users themselves to 'solve' the problem.

Re:Causality is wrong

[True Grit]

Really? Show me the hardware that you can buy and get the Mac like experience with Linux.

???

I could dig out my old digital camera from wherever it is and send you a pic of my PC, would that help?

What I really don't get is that what the GP said about Apple was a *compliment*, why did you feel the need to go into rant-mode?

Re:Causality is wrong

[Fruit]

If I was to say my biggest greatest annoyance with Linux, it's media plugins and flash in particular. If only Firefox would stop being so patent-freaky and decode H.264 when it is available then we could kill flash and live happily ever after. *buntu seem perfectly capable of shipping a video player that'll use the x264 codec if installed, so should Firefox.

Can they send the bill to you when the lawsuit hits?

Re:Causality is wrong

[yuhong]

On the other hand, the decision to go Ogg-only for Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia, has been painful for years, but nowadays finally web browsers are supporting it natively.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Fork it? As for me, the only web browser that renders flash correctly on my old laptop in Linux is Opera.

Re:Causality is wrong

[mldi]

I would agree it doesn't work for all cases, but Linux hardware support is based on the kernel, not necessarily the distro.

Umm, not at all.

For example, graphics issues, other than modesetting, are on Xorg's shoulders, not the kernel.

And the recent flameage about PulseAudio was, of course, about a user-space daemon, not the kernel.

Then there's always the fun for distros to make sure, once they know the kernel is doing its job, that their primary Desktop Environment is itself properly recognizing existing hardware and supporting it within the user's GUI (auto-detecting presence of DVDs or Zip drives just plugged in, for example).

Keeping Kernel/UDEV/HAL/Xorg/DE all in sync with new hardware coming out all the time isn't easy, for any distro.

Uh, I believe you're mixing "hardware support" with implemented software. For example, Xorg is worthless without the kernel supporting your video card, whether it's compiled in or modular. Anything GUI-related has NOTHING to do with hardware support. That's just merely software features.

Re:Causality is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu will never succeed for two reasons 1) A stupid name 2) a stupid colour scheme.

The ubuntu crowd places idealism above pragmatism and for this reason they will fail.

The fact that I hate Ubuntu for trying to dictate upstream to the Debian developers has nothing to do with it.

Re:Causality is wrong

[True Grit]

Anything GUI-related has NOTHING to do with hardware support.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

What's driving my monitor right now is a video card, e.g. hardware, and whats driving it is Xorg, not the kernel.

Wait, are you thinking of the proprietary kernel modules from ATI/NV? They are only part of the process, but in any event, I use the open ATI driver currently in development: the only thing happening in the kernel is the initial graphics-mode setting, once the resolution is set and I/O buffers to the card are initialized, Xorg does *everything* else.

Hardware support is not all in the kernel.

Re:Causality is wrong

[mldi]

Anything GUI-related has NOTHING to do with hardware support.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

What's driving my monitor right now is a video card, e.g. hardware, and whats driving it is Xorg, not the kernel.

Wait, are you thinking of the proprietary kernel modules from ATI/NV? They are only part of the process, but in any event, I use the open ATI driver currently in development: the only thing happening in the kernel is the initial graphics-mode setting, once the resolution is set and I/O buffers to the card are initialized, Xorg does *everything* else.

Hardware support is not all in the kernel.

GUI = graphical user interface. How in the hell is that related to hardware support?

Xorg only USES the hardware support offered by the underlying OS. Xorg is only one windowing system that uses your ATI drivers. The ATI drivers do NOT depend on Xorg. Xorg does not support your video card at the hardware level.

You are not separating hardware drivers from software implementation.

Re:Causality is wrong

[True Grit]

Anything GUI-related has NOTHING to do with hardware support.

True. Neither I nor anyone before me in this subthread (including you) mentioned 'GUI'. Thats *why* I said your last post didn't make any sense.

Xorg only USES the hardware support offered by the underlying OS.

The underlying OS doesn't go far enough in the case of video cards for that to be true though. Effectively, all the Xorg drivers get from the kernel is read/write access to the hardware's IO registers and memory (framebuffer), but the kernel itself doesn't provide all of the 'support' needed to actually drive the specific device. Thats why Xorg has *hardware-specific* drivers of its own.

You are not separating hardware drivers from software implementation.

What do you mean by 'software implementation' here? Implementation of *what*?

You aren't realizing that for graphics, at least, the 'hardware driver' is split between the kernel and Xorg. Seriously, just look at some of the Xorg driver code. There is a lot of hardware register accessing being done there: those Xorg drivers are *talking* directly to the *hardware*, thus, they *are* hardware drivers.

See the past debates with Linus about implementing graphics drivers entirely within the kernel. This has never been allowed, which is why it is *not* all in the kernel.

Netbook version

[2names]

Anyone know if the netbook version will allow my HP Mini 5101 to use the on-board mobile broadband feature (qualcomm u2400 I think)?

Re:Netbook version

[Anonymous Coward]

http://tinyurl.com/yl7klxz

Re:Netbook version

[Minwee]

The U2400 is either a low power Core 2 Duo CPU from Intel or a Nano CPU from VIA. The Mini 5100 uses an Atom N280, which is a different processor entirely. While all three are supported quite well by Linux, none of them do much for wireless networking.

What you probably have is an HP un2400 (USB ID 03f0:201d), which uses the Qualcomm GOBI chipset. You'll need the qcserial module to run it, and that is included in the 2.6.31 kernel which ships with Ubuntu 9.10. I can't speak for how easy it will be to use, but support is in the kernel and will be installed by default if you upgrade to The Koala.

Re:6 days?

[Dunbal]

A huge Koala has trashed my hall with a load of dirty socks, and is now fucking my girlfriend!

      Well the Koala is getting sloppy seconds, but I think your girlfriend was starting to enjoy the Jackalope.

      Oh wait, what are we talking about? This is slashdot. You don't HAVE a girlfriend...

Don't worry

[WindBourne]

Window's 8 will fix all those issues, once Mac and Linux develop the solutions.

Re:Don't worry

[Murdoch5]

lmfao, of course. They do the development, Microsoft does the stealing!

Re:Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

You left out the step where Microsoft then goes on to patent all the stuff they copied from FOSS and then claim that Linux infringes their patents.

(I'm just joking; most of the time, Microsoft's inventors are probably simply ignorant of the fact that what they're patenting has already been in use in the UNIX world for years before.)

Re:Don't worry

[$criptah]

Post like yours make me question why I spend time on Slashdot to begin with. I am sorry, but your post is nothing but a rant and I do not understand how somebody could possible mod it up to "Informative."

Have you ran Windows 7? As somebody who has been running Mac OS X and Linux I was a bit skeptical about the latest release of Windows OS. Then I installed it last year and it has been pretty stable since day one. In fact it crashed fewer times than my Mac OS X (0 vs. 2).

You know, credit should be given where credit is due and all I can say to MSFT folks is "Bravo!" and "Well done!" I do not know what they did to make Windows 7 to be what it is but it is a darn good operating system and for the love of sweet breakfast please stop spitting out one-liners and rally the Linux base.

And for the record, can you tell us what Windows 7 bugs are really bothering you? Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Re:Don't worry

[h4rr4r]

How can one set modelines when faced with a vga cable that does not support ddc, ie that pin is broken?

That is just the start of the "Computer knows better than the user" Syndrome windows suffers from in general.

Re:Don't worry

[Murdoch5]

I speak from 100% experience as both a developer and an OS developer. I have actually build a Unix clone OS that is I grant you very simple but works, so I know of what I talk about. I'm also a Linux Distro maintainer for my own distro that runs everything special programed from the ground up. So I do actually know what I'm talking about.

Re:Don't worry

[agnosticnixie]

And in some cases recycling their exact name in the unix world, like this coincidentally named protocol called SMB.

transparent system tray in awn

[jeffstar]

I've got hardy on my thinkpad at the moment. I'm considering upgrading just because the new gtk in karmic enables a transparent system tray so AWN will finally look right.

I never liked having two horizontal bars or panels on my screen, especially on a 14" widescreen. too much wasted real estate. especially when applications have a title bar. then add fire fox book mark bar, menus and address bar and that doesn't leave a lot of real estate!

AWN with google chrome makes the most of it.

Re:transparent system tray in awn

[Requiem18th]

There is a panel applet that fuses the title bar with the task bar and another applet (at least I think it is an applet) that moves the menubar into the panel (which technically doesn't buy you much space but you could combine these two applets to effectively free two whole rows in your interfase.

Re:transparent system tray in awn

[Zantetsuken]

for Firefox I have the bookmarks moved onto the menu bar, and then navigation buttons, url and search bars on the 2nd line at one point I think I had it down to one bar with the compact-menu extension, where you can put all of the menus into a single menu button or icon, and had less bookmarks in in my "bookmark toolbar" - it made the url and search bars a bit short sometimes, but on my 12" Gateway laptop (before even the first netbook was out) a lot better in another case, with the 22" monitor on my desktop, it goes from having a ridiculous amount of screen real estate to an insane amount

Re:transparent system tray in awn

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could click that little help icon and learn how to remove one of the horizontal bars... or just right click it and play around for a few minutes...

Re:transparent system tray in awn

[ZerdZerd]

I got more vertical space in firefox with Hide menubar, Hide caption (makes firefox chromeless) and tree-style tabs.

how long until

[WormholeFiend]

the next Crunchbang release, then?

Win 7 vs Linux

[leathered]

Linus gives his verdict

Re:Win 7 vs Linux

[leathered]

My deepest apologies, should have tagged that NSFW, depending on who you work for of course.

Re:Win 7 vs Linux

[h4rr4r]

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/10/23/linux-creator-linus-torvalds-gives-windows-7-a-thumbs-up

For people who don't read backwards R and backwards N containing languages..

Re:Win 7 vs Linux

[dangitman]

For people who don't read backwards R and backwards N containing languages..

Such as Lemonade-Standian?

Re:Win 7 vs Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a u with a long right hook, not a backwards n
And /ya/ is not a backwards R
R = convex right descender to the vertical
  = concave right descender to the vertical

better yet, get a font where latin != cyrillic

RC for only a week?

[gravis777]

Isn't the point of a release candidate to give people enough time time to make sure a product is stable and ready for prime time release, and to fix issues should they arise? Wouldn't an OS, with a whole slew of apps, require a bit mroe than a week for this? I mean, a release of Firefox is usually in RC for several weeks, if not months, before it goes from RC to official release.

Re:RC for only a week?

[h4rr4r]

They have had Alphas since May, I figure 5-6 months is plenty of time to iron out the bugs.

Re:RC for only a week?

[Korin43]

No that's the point of all of all of the alphas and betas. The release candidate is supposed to be "This is done, we just want people to test the final version before we release it".

Re:RC for only a week?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, in the Ubuntu world we ship out any old bug-ridden crap and count on our fanboys to drown out news of problems with endless "OMG LOOK AT THE AWESOME NEW THEME!" and "SHIT-BROWN IS MY FAVOURITE COLOUR!" comments.

Re:RC for only a week?

[tuppe666]

Evolution not Revolution, and its a Distribution, and one of the things Ubuntu tries to do is have as many features as possible while retaining stability. They produce almost nothing themselves!. The release often approach works very well, and seems less prone to error/regressions. Thats not to say they don't creep in but look at how poorly Vista was reserved, by making large changes over years, and then releasing to a few select partners. to Windows7 which is very similar to Vista in every way after a shorter time frame on keeping so much the same, and allowing a large number of testers early on. It hasn't hurt the propaganda machine neither.

Re:RC for only a week?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the point of a Release Candidate is to make sure that the system integration is tight, nothing got left
out by accident, that stuff's spelled correctly. The OS, with a whole slew of apps, should have been stabilized
during the Beta test period. This includes making sure that the boot-path stuff works correctly, etc. and that the
bugs fixed during Beta were indeed fixed as anticipated and that there are no unanticipated corner-of-the-envelope
interaction problems arising from simultaneous last-minute bug fixes.

Just because Firefox, which is an application that doesn't have to worry about hardware drivers or network stacks
per se, does it one way that an operating system should do so also. I did a lot of operating system QC for a living,
and there's a lot to system integration that doesn't meet the eye necessarily...

Re:RC for only a week?

[gravis777]

Key word is "supposed to be". No I agree, you are supposed to get most of the bugs released in the alpha and beta stages. However, there are times that bugs are found in the RC stage. Well, truthfully, bugs are found after an actual release as well, but I think my point is, a week is a little short to see if bugs are in there. I mean, in a week, you wouldn't really have time to fix anything, should it arise, in the final release, so at taht point, it kind of negates the whole purpose of having an RC. Granted, I don't think they need to go on for months like Microsoft, but you should give yourself at least a few weeks to fix any issue should it arise.

Re:RC for only a week?

[Korin43]

Yeah but you're thinking like a normal person. Remember, in the Ubuntu world, nothing is more important than a deadline, so even if the RC didn't boot, they'd still release on time (and leave the broken CD until the next major release). And by definition, that CD would be more stable than the next CD anyway (since it's older).

Seems faster on my eee PC

[thue]

The interface on my eee pc using ubuntu 9.04 was very slow, probably some issue with the graphic card driver. 9.10 works much better for me.

Silly Microsoft!

[93 Escort Wagon]

Thinking they could steal Ubuntu's thunder! And Steve Ballmer, when asked about this, pretended not to know what Ubuntu was! As if Ubuntu isn't as well known around the world as Microsoft Windows!

Silly Steve!

Oh and silly Slashdot, the only place anyone would even consider tying these two release stories together!

Re:6 days?

[lwsimon]

I call bs. If you'd said he'd shot up the place and fled, I'd have believed you.

Koala: noun. A large bear, found in China. Eats, shoots, and leaves.

SeaLab 2021

[Archfeld]

"It's like a koala crapped a rainbow in my brain"
I'm all for Linux but who comes up with these names ??

Re:SeaLab 2021

[AioKits]

Nomenclature Ned, of course.

Re:SeaLab 2021

[Kjella]

Koala was to put focus on an endangered species. Karmic is your fairly uncommon adjective that Ubuntu can "coup" so you can google for "karmic *whatever your problem is*" and get relevant results that don't belong to a version from two years ago or every other page that happened to use the numbers 09.10. It works much, much better than Debian that I came from where they typically used stable, testing and unstable which left a ton of junk that doesn't apply to my stable all over the net. Yeah it's corny but it works extremely well.

Re:SeaLab 2021

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't considered that angle.

What's the point? And, look who's coming to dinner

[SuperBanana]

No - the RC is usually nearly identical to the actual release. Only if there is something totally disastrous (eats your data, leaves dirty socks in the hall, sleeps with your girlfriend/boyfriend/cat/dog) would the final release be delayed.

You joke, but almost every Ubuntu release I can think of has shipped with major problems that never get fixed. Once it "shipped", despite few reasons to do so (this isn't a commercial software release), major bugs sit ignored. For example, one release had numerous bugs like dimming the screen due to inactivity, and never un-dimming it. It was never fixed. In general, the Ubuntu release model is astoundingly ignorant, assuming that because they release every 6 months, there's no need to fix functionality problems in releases. This is especially problematic given the lack of QA and focus on Shiny(TM). The latest release is all focused on "Cloud Computing" buzzword compliance, not stability or reliability.

Don't get me started about the issues with the Intel GMA drivers. "8.04LTS" worked fine on a number of systems, and 9.x caused never-ending forum postings from users wondering why the hell they couldn't get X going. The KVM stuff has also been incredibly half-baked. I'm pretty sure there's still no way to use virtual-builder to deploy a VM on an logical volume. It'll build the machine, but fuck up the kernel/bootloader install, and the end result is a machine that won't boot. I've got a machine sitting here that crashes Xorg after a few minutes; the mouse goes dead, and we've tried 6 different mice.

Lastly, Canonical has been getting uncomfortably cozy with tying in pay-for services into the OS, either theirs or 3rd parties. I was shocked when I logged into a 9.x machine and got a welcome message that pushed their statistical monitoring "service". Now I see all sorts of Cloud Computing crap. It's becoming increasingly clear that Canonical isn't in this for the good of the world, but lining their pockets via what is essentially bundling agreements. You know how we need wipe Dell and HP systems of all the shit they "bundle"? Well, look who's coming to dinner: third-rate "partners"...

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[yuhong]

Don't get me started about the issues with the Intel GMA drivers. "8.04LTS" worked fine on a number of systems, and 9.x caused never-ending forum postings from users wondering why the hell they couldn't get X going.

Yep, that is well known, and yes it is mostly fixed in 9.10.

Need screen space? Move stuff to the bottom panel.

[tepples]

I never liked having two horizontal bars or panels on my screen, especially on a 14" widescreen.

Here's how I solved that in Ubuntu Jaunty on my 9" laptop:

1. Turn down system font size
2. Remove trash and e-mail icons
3. Remove date from clock
4. Collapse user switching widget to an icon
5. Unlock the panel widgets and drag all widgets from the top panel to the bottom panel (yes, it's more cramped than Windows because there are three start menus in GNOME)
6. Remove top panel
7. Lock the panel widgets

Windows 4 existed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows NT 4, to be exact, which was released in conjunction with Windows 95/98/Me

Re:6 days?

[jimicus]

I call bs. If you'd said he'd shot up the place and fled, I'd have believed you.

Koala: noun. A large bear, found in China. Eats, shoots, and leaves.

What the Hell is a Koala doing in China?

from the free-software-as-a-lecture dept

[Eil]

The upcoming Canonical release, which is code-named Karmic Koala, is the latest version of the popular flavor of the Linux OS.

That's GNU/Linux, you insensitive freeloading RMS-hating clods!

Re:6 days?

[lwsimon]

Hangin' with Pandas.

RC is not for that

[Anonymous Coward]

RC is for companies who wish to begin using the new system as soon as possible. They get pretty much the finished product to test with their systems a while before the official release date. At that point it should be pretty bug free already.

But for a system like Ubuntu, there is just no point in long RCs.

Nothings perfect

[bmullan]

I've been using the Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala beta for some time and its pretty solid. I upgraded my Windows Vista Ultimate with Windows 7 Ultimate. Windows told me of about a dozen programs that would no longer work. iTunes would have to be reinstalled/upgraded, etc. And I've yet to get Bluetooth Advanced Audio working ... which seems to be broken for quite a few folks. Win 7 doesn't appear to give any greater performance than Vista did (my observations only).
Ubuntu v9.10 Karmic costs me $0
Windows 7 cost me $219.
I've now using Ubuntu as the Host OS and I'm running Windows 7 as a Guest OS virtualized in KVM... works great and no dual boot any more. If Windows crashes and burns I can just start a new VM.

Re:Nothings perfect

[crunch_ca]

My experience with 32-bit Karmic (running in a VM) wasn't that great.

The changes to xorg weren't picked up in my VM properly and so I ended up with a small monitor resolution which I couldn't change. There was also a lot of instability with X (I think). After copying an xorg.conf file from Jaunty, the VM wouldn't start X properly and I had to toss the VM. I probably could have fixed it, but there was nothing special on the VM so it was easier to restart.

This is running the VMs under a 64 bit version of Jaunty - with multiple procs assigned to the VM.

Windows? I've had better results running it in a VM. But, I only run Windows a couple of times a year.

Re:Nothings perfect

[jeffstar]

sounds like your problems are mostly related to VM?

Re:Nothings perfect

[crunch_ca]

Yes, I've only seen the problems under the VM (I haven't had the opportunity to install on real hardware yet). It could be that the VM graphics drivers aren't playing nice with KK (or vice versa).

I have run Jaunty, Hardy, Dapper, FC, and other distributions without any issues on the same VM, so my suspicions are that it might be something with KK. But I don't know for certain.

I have faith that the final release of KK will work swimmingly and I look forward to it.

Re:Nothings perfect

[bmullan]

for Karmic...make sure you "update" as the Release Candidate (RC) was just put up in the last day or so.
Initially with Windows I had only a "generic display" listed and 800x600 display modes.
I am able to get full graphics display modes now after reading
Using High Resolution Graphics

Re:Nothings perfect

[bmullan]

I should have mentioned the secret sauce is the cmd option: –std-vga

Good and Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if this is a PulseAudio update, but the sound from my laptop speaker is a lot louder now. I used to set the volume bar at full blast, now I only have to set it to the middle. My wireless can also pick up a stronger signal than before.

However, they changed from hal to DeviceKit and now my suspend is broken.

Re:6 days?

[gujo-odori]

Uh, koalas aren't really terribly large, and I'm fairly sure the only place in China you might find one is a zoo. Or maybe a butcher shop or pharmacist shop, if they are thought to have any eating or medicinal value :p

Re:6 days?

[Volante3192]

You don't HAVE a girlfriend...

Yes I do, and she runs Linux as well!

Re: Improved performance in Atom Netbooks

[Abreu]

Thats because of the new Intel UXA driver... It also improved performance in my Acer Aspire One

Kinky Kitty

[Anonymous Coward]

Darn it I wanted the Kinky Kitty edition :(

-Jessica-

It's ok

[Locke2005]

Karmic Koala is fine, but I just can't wait for Masterbating Monkey to be released!

Re:It's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

Karmic Koala is fine, but I just can't wait for Masterbating Monkey to be released!

Lesbian Lamprey comes first.

Re:It's ok

[Locke2005]

As bad as that name sounds, it's still better than what they are actually using: "Lucid Lynx".

Re:It's ok

[bigredradio]

I think that is the next release of OpenBSD.

Re:It's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to Lactating Lemur?

Re:It's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

s/e/u

Re:It's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for the final release of Kubuntu Karmic Koala!

Anonymous for obvious reasons.

Re:It's ok

[ignavus]

Karmic Koala is fine, but I just can't wait for Masterbating Monkey to be released!

Hopefully to be followed a year later by Orthographic Orang-utan.

Re:It's ok

[petrus4]

I'm looking forward to the Lecherous Lemming release, myself.

Too bad I already missed Copulating Camel.

Re:It's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

Lustful Leprechaun is the next one!

Re:It's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, wait a minute... Ubuntu releases aren't supposed to be named after the Community Manager!

Re:It's ok

[pbhj]

Don't forget Lactating Lycanthrope !

Re:It's ok

[julesh]

Karmic Koala is fine, but I just can't wait for Masterbating Monkey to be released!

Ah, it seems that like me, you are planning on skipping Leprous Lemur.

Re:It's ok

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called MastUrbating. I long wondered if it was an American thing to misspell this intentionally. But it's just the good ol' fat-headedness.

Re:It's ok

[mikechant]

It's pretty damn sad for a /.er not to be able to spell "masturbating" correctly...

Re:It's ok

[Locke2005]

In all honesty, how often do you really need to spell the word? It's not like I use it every week in my weekly status reports... maybe I should.

The 'Streets'?

[Itninja]

Well then....I will just trot on down to my local Staples and pick up a copy of the new version of Ubuntu. Or do they mean the 'ether' when they say the 'streets'?

Re:The 'Streets'?

[Anonymous Coward]

How big of a fucking newbie are you?

No one with brains buys software at store anymore...

Release dates

[DragonWriter]

[Would have been better] had they released it several days ahead of 7.

Which is why they released Jaunty 6 months ahead of Windows 7, when people were less likely to be focussed on Windows upgrades.

(Well, no, its not really why; Ubuntu releases are every six months and have been for quite some time. But, still, if you are worried that 9.10 is going to get lost because it was too close to the Win7 release date, 9.04 was released fairly recently but before Win7, and 10.04 will be released in not too long, but after the immediate Win7 release attention is gone.)

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[daveime]

Ah, the OSS Mantra ... "it is mostly fixed".

Imitating the master imitator.

[Hurricane78]

After imitating nearly every software feature, we now bring you our new $LINUX_DESKTOP_DISTRIBUTION. Now even with adapted release dates! It's the same. But it's only partially implemented! Get it now!!

"Because through running behind others, you reach excellence in leadership!"

Man, I love Linux. But that disease of total global imitation must stop right now!

Re:Imitating the master imitator.

[pmontra]

Ubuntu always releases it's x.10 version on October. They're on an April/October release schedule since 2004, with the only exception of version 6.06 on June 2006.

I don't think they were foreseeing the Win7 release date back in 2004, neither I think that Microsoft is releasing on October because of Karmic Koala. It just happened.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[QuantumRiff]

"8.04LTS" worked fine on a number of systems, and 9.x caused never-ending forum postings from users wondering why the hell they couldn't get X going.

You know what LTS means, right? Long Term Support. As in, if it doesn't work in the newest version, but does in the older you're fine. Cause the older version is good for another couple of years of updates. the Ubuntu team has been very upfront about LTS releases being for "stability" and other releases being for new features. So yeah, if there is a "feature" that does not work right, and prevents you from upgrading, wait for the next LTS release, which will be very much inside the support window.

The MS mentality of everyone must always run the newest version of everything or else you won't be protected or get new features is pure crap. That doesn't have to happen in open source, when they aren't trying to force you to constantly upgrade to help their revenue cycle.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[PitaBred]

Isn't their statistical monitoring service just for Canonical's use, so they know what programs people use most and should therefore concentrate their efforts on? Or are you talking about a different service?

Perfect.

[dangitman]

User 1: "You got Ubuntu in my Windows 7!"
User 2: "No, you got Windows 7 in my Ubuntu!"
User 1: "Hey, this actually isn't too bad."
User 2: "Yeah, the rash clears up pretty quickly, then you're good to go."

Re:6 days?

[rumith]

Or, if a new release candidate turns out to be a disaster, Linux runs her, so to say ;-) [no offense meant]

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[Anonymous Coward]

"The MS mentality of everyone must always run the newest version of everything or else you won't be protected or get new features is pure crap."

No kidding! I mean, once Vista came out, they kicked everyone off Windows XP, and stopped doing any patches for it.

Re:6 days?

[Yvan256]

I asked him but he was too lazy to give me an answer.

It was yesterday

[Tubal-Cain]

Computerworld is reporting Canonical has made available the Release Candidate of its latest Linux-based operating system, Ubuntu 9.10, on the same day Microsoft launched the long-awaited Windows 7.

Computerworld is wrong. The RC was released yesterday.

Re:6 days?

[node 3]

You don't HAVE a girlfriend...

Yes I do, and she runs Linux as well!

Surely you mean she uses Linux, right?

9.10 has been GREAT!

[gbutler69]

I've been using on my production/work laptop (64-bit) that I do EVERYTHING on since Alpha 5 (Late August/Early September). It has been absolutely wonderful! Everything is snappier, cleaner, better. HOME RUN HOME RUN HOME RUN!

Ubuntu? Windows? What's the difference?

[BlindSpot]

Okay I've been wanting to vent about this for a few weeks now and this seems to be as good a topic to write this in as any.

My first encounter with Ubuntu came when I recently installed Ubuntu Jaunty on a laptop for a club I belong to. The laptop's got an XP licence but we couldn't find a CD and the programs we need are available for Linux, so Ubuntu seemed like a good choice to get us up quickly. And it worked out fine: Install was simple and quick and the system looked good. The only tricky bit was figuring out the wireless setup but it wasn't too hard.

However I was utterly horrified to see that Ubuntu has also faithfully and I must say blindly replicated the most hideous features of Windows! The despicable "My Documents" folder structure was the first and most obvious. Say what you well about Vista, at least it fixed this into something less cumbersome and more sensible. Next was the constant prompting I got after doing almost every little thing. If I wanted that I'd have left UAC enabled on my Vista desktop. Then I find out Firefox was happily setup to save everything to the desktop by default. FOLDERS EXIST FOR A REASON!!!

Why why WHY are so many Linux folks trying to clone Windows when they dislike it so? It may be Linux and it may be free, but if it looks and acts like Windows then it's still an ugly mess. Here I thought Ubuntu would take the best features of Window and combine them with Linux, but instead all they did was turn Linux into a horrible disgusting Windows clone.

If a company knocks off another company's product we accuse them of stealing ideas. If someone releases some new program (open source or not) that replicates existing functionality we say "well why use yours when I can just use the original?" So why should we get all happy excited about Ubuntu when all it does is rip off Windows? To me that'd be the height of hypocrisy.

Mod me down, I don't care. I had to get this off my chest...

Re:6 days?

[Anonymous Coward]

His girlfriend *is* his dirty sock.

Re:Windows 7 fails before the race

[CannonballHead]

people are going to come on and call me a troll or flamebot of what ever else but who cares.

You're right. That's because you are trolling/flaming. It's pretty simple.

You're main point could have been boiled down to: "I hate windows."

Re:6 days?

[Red Flayer]

Yes I do, and she runs Linux as well!

Wait, *runs linux* or *runs on linux*?

If your girlfriend *runs on linux*, have you considered distributing the code and schematics under an open license? It would really be a boon to the rest of the slashdot community.

*By the way -- don't try to release your flesh-and-blood girlfriend under an open license without getting her permission first. Sometimes the downstream modifications are nice, but most of the time they just result in either new dependencies or a borked kernel.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[tuppe666]

Ah, the OSS Mantra ... "it is mostly fixed".

I get tired of this pointless wasteful bashing, Three years people have suffered Vista with that little cry on every forum "I'm using Vista 64-bit Ultimate and Never had any problems". I would call it an outrageous lie, but back again with smoke and Mirrors and the Zealots are proclaiming Vista daring anyone to attack Microsoft. Washing away the sins of Corruption; Anti-Capitalism; Anti-Americanism.

The short answer is Intel Drivers Have been abysmal for...forever. Nvidia Binary Blobs in their Unsecure; Distro Reputation damaging form have been the favourite of anti-pragmatists everywhere as they heavily defend Nvidia's IP.

Intel chipsets with barely a supported GL extension and utilities to correct bugs in the Drivers, and a myrid of possible xorg configurations that needed to be supported.

The trouble is Intel Got rid of all that Garbage...now has good 3D for an integrated chipset support...and things like my Scart on my ADD2 card work.

The trouble is while doing this, they broke a lot of working Linux Systems, KMS and GMA500 still have problems that are being looked into, but intel have been movers and shakers in the Linux kernel supporting hardware before its even been released :)

The state of the intel drivers in looking fantastic in Karmic. Its certainly not on the scale of OpenGL performace losses going from XP to Vista or the Myrid of hardware that doesn't work and still doesn't work under Vista/Win7. I have 5 machines in my house and Karmic will work on all of them, but Windows7 will only work on one!

Re:6 days?

[dhalgren]

Complaining to Kai-lan about something, presumably. And wearing panda slippers.

*sigh* Yes, my 2-year-old kid watches entirely too much TV.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[emandres]

For the apparently shoddy and buggy product that you describe as Ubuntu, it sure has done well. It has done what no other distro has done, which is to make Linux accessible to the non-hardcore user. I can't remember the last time I had to do a ./configure, make all, make install to install a program. Much like a mac, it just works. Now, I agree that it's far from the "install this on your grandma's computer" status, but it's a far cry from the first Linux I ever used (I want to say it was Mandrake 5 or 6 - helium was the code name). And even though I've gone through the wondrous joy of manually compiling a program, I still prefer a simple `sudo apt-get install foo`.

As for Canonical being an evil money-hungry corporation, honestly what do think they are in it for? Just because they happen to make a dime along the way doesn't instantly make it an inferior product. Take away the profit aspect, and you get a product with an unbearably long life-cycle run by volunteers (*cough* debian *cough cough*). Just be thankful that it hasn't devolved into the state that Red Hat did where you had to buy "support" just to get updates.

Nothing like ./ tards

[fluidbyte]

How come 90% of the comments are bitching and bickering when it comes to things like this. Everyone tries to find the "best" OS - not gonna happen. I use Ubuntu, I'm a web developer, it's very stable, easy to maintain, and supports all the software I need. My design counterparts use Macs (go figure). Our IT guy uses Gentoo because he has all the tools he needs, and the know-how to run the fucker. The office administrative staff uses Windows XP because it's stable and supports what they do. And my boss uses Windows 98 because he's stubborn and old. You know what? They all suck in some manner - I can't run my apps on the designer's systems, and visa versa, the admin staff would have an anurism trying to use *nix, and the IT guy wouldn't be nearly as productive on Windows. That being said they're also very useful in their respective places. Stop bitching, use whatever you like and helps you in your work (if you have a job and don't live in your mom's basement), and maybe try to find the positive in something? Like diversity, competition? Maybe? Yeah?

Re:Nothing like ./ tards

[tuppe666]

I think the problem is using the word tard! I mean that quite literally. So I will tell you as the only person here who has been marked troll why. Its not nice to call someone a freetard; zealot; gpl freak etc. The defence of Windows 7 even in this topic verges on foaming at the mouth along the lines of Windows 7 is great and if you disagree you are a...

Thats ignoring the lies. I'm sick of seeing myths about Linux articles http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10014283o-2000498448b,00.htm from yesterday. I'm sick that nobody is ALLOWED to tell the truth 60% of Microsoft machines are infected with malware and growing http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10363373-83.html secure. Its the drivers; its the 3rd party application. Please its the damn OS.

Windows 7 launched to the starved of an upgrade...Does it include IE*/WMP/Filemanager and an AD supported word/office crapware, with a restore partition instead of a disc. Then I wont be buying it. Will it work on the machines in my house! No! Does it still require Activation; Contain DRM(See BBC announcments); Overreaching EULA thats anti consumer as opposed to GPL; Activation; WGA/OGA; Lock me out of sharing with other OS's that I use and getting worse. Do I have to take a morning out of my life every 6 months to update; remove crap, and fine tune to keep it working. If the answer is yes then I'm not buying it.

I chose a Linux OS to install a hard 160GB hard drive that Windows98 could not handle, and as a computer professional I didn't care which. I just used copy of Linux from a magazine and I see Lies; propaganda; ignorance; insults in return for Liking the Killer feature...and that is the this article; the UPGRADE BUTTON. I don't wait 3-7 years for an upgrade to OS+DESKTOP+APPS its every day with a large update every 6 months that genuinely brings features+stability+improvement+wow for NIL cost not updates to Applications I wouldn't dream of using on any platform+company pushing its own agenda+or increased restrictions.

How about you stick to talking about technology instead of spouting false love and unity!

Another Note

[gbutler69]

Make sure to install "Epiphany Web-Kit" Web-browser from Synaptic. IT ROCKS!

Also, you'll want to enable the 64-bit version of Adobe Flash Player 10 (if you have 64-bit) via Synaptic as well!

Have Fun!

Notebook without Windows

[nostriluu]

There's a way to get a Thinkpad without Vista on it from the Lenovo site, haven't tried it recently but it worked a month ago. Change the CPU in any system to a Celeron, then select the enabled Vista Starter option (you know, for developing countries that would be confused by having a first world operating system). Then change the CPU to something real, and the OS changes to no charge DOS. You can then place the order. I ordered a T400S using this technique. Good luck!

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[mister_playboy]

Statistical monitoring "service"... what are you talking about? You are asked whether or not you want to participate in Popularity Contest, which is just data collection about what apps you use the most.

The "one release" with the screen dimming bug was 8.10... short memory?

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about the RC?

People who install from CDs are going to wait until final release, anyway (and you can get a free one shipped). And everyone else just does `apt-get dist-upgrade`, or whatever is the corresponding button in Synaptic UI for that, whenever they feel like it.

Re:6 days?

[TuaAmin13]

Does it matter?

Google Translation

[imtheguru]

Google Translation
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://itc.ua/node/41680

Linus Torvalds decided to support Windows 7

October 23 Linux Foundation Microsoft Operating systems Soft
Yesterday, 22 October, around the world started selling the new operating system Windows 7. Also on this day in Japan, held an event called Japan Linux Symposium. Whether by coincidence, or because of someone's clever idea, but just in front of the building, which brought together developers Linux, Microsoft has established a great promotional booth with Windows 7. It is clear that gathered at the Japan Linux Symposium guys could not get over it, so during the break they took Linus Torvalds (Linus Torvalds) and went to a promotional booth to learn a new operating system, Microsoft.

(Photo)

Photo made on that day will surely go down in history, and more than once will be used to illustrate the various events related to Windows and Linux. The photo shows Linus thumb up Windows 7, which is a characteristic gesture of approval and support. This subtle humor, all participants appreciated the Japan Linux Symposium, the only one who did so and did not understand, it sells at the stand. According to the eyewitnesses, he actively participated in the photoshoot with Linus, but very much surprised when he went and not buying a box of Windows 7.

I suspect Ubuntu would be more popular ...

[xerxesnine]

... without the goddamn fucking stupid idiot names. The name Karmic Koala suggests a toy OS, a hobby OS, or an OS developed by people no motherfucking common sense.

Re:I suspect Ubuntu would be more popular ...

[thetoadwarrior]

Yeah because Windows or Snow Leopard are so much better. I suspect if they were advertising in TV and print it would be known only as Ubuntu 9.10.

Re:I suspect Ubuntu would be more popular ...

[jeffstar]

then call it Ubuntu 9.10.

The idiot names are great keywords for google when searching for an issue for a particular version. Makes sure you don't end up with issues from 10 year old releases in your search results.

re: MS and Linux

[King_TJ]

Well, sure ... MS keeps an eye on Linux to see how far popular distros have come. In fact, they *even* have some developers working for them who like and use Linux.

But we've heard for well over a decade now that "any time now", Linux is going to have its day and "threaten Windows for dominance" .... and it never really happens.

I think it's rather idealistic to believe Linux can somehow overtake a gigantic commercial endeavor to make and market an operating system, when in reality, a BIG part of such a battle would involve convincing a massive number of existing Windows users to abandon the platform they're already used to using. Considering the advertising and P.R. budgets for a Linux distro vs. somebody like Apple or Microsoft? You can see a little problem there.

If Linux was just as ready and user-friendly for the desktop PC as what Apple or Microsoft had to offer, about 18 years ago, THEN we'd have more of a "fair fight". But in reality, Linux is a "Johnny come lately" to the game, having spent much of its existence concentrating on being true to its Unix roots with shell scripts, a command line, and catering more to server administration and educational/research/mathematical apps than to entertainment, "home productivity apps" and the like.

Re:Need screen space? Move stuff to the bottom pan

[Anonymous Coward]

I consolidate them into one panel, also.

The thing that helps me the most with clutter is getting rid of the task buttons ("Window List") and replace them with the Window Selector.

Brain Teaser

[mwolfe38]

Haven't you heard, Xenic Xenophobe is the year of the linux desktop.

Re:6 days?

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bs.

Didn't anyone tell you? That meme is so out of fashion.

Stupid yank.

Re: MS and Linux

[lattyware]

It could still happen. I'm not saying it definitely will, I'm not saying it'll happen soon if it does, but the fact is that it is a capable OS, that is progressing with good speed, and does seem to be gaining more support over time. All it takes is the right backers to think that Linux is a worthwile endeavour and a lot could change. It may be wishful thinking in part, that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Re:Ubuntu? Windows? What's the difference?

[nostriluu]

I think you're totally wrong. The basics of the WIMP - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing) - experience date way before Windows, and Microsoft only got file structure sensible - not storing data with programs - post Windows 95. Firefox across all operating systems can be configured to ask where to save documents so it's not an Ubuntu thing. And what's especially wrong with My Documents? The main thing Ubuntu tries to do is make it easy for people to understand how to use the OS. On that level, they succeed admirably. The same strategy is used for OpenOffice - make it like Office so people can adjust to it easily. That's the main goal - make it functional and easy to use, free and easy to install for as many people as possible. Those who need to can "escape" to the more advanced options. Being different for the sake of being different would be a terrible mistake.

Re:ubuntu is for niggas

[Anonymous Coward]

Who modded parent flamebait? I LOLed IRL.

Re:6 days?

[JohnBailey]

What the Hell is a Koala doing in China?

Goth Koalas are indistinguishable from Pandas.

Re: MS and Linux

[1s44c]

But we've heard for well over a decade now that "any time now", Linux is going to have its day and "threaten Windows for dominance" .... and it never really happens.

It has happened on servers. People replace windows servers with linux servers all the time and find they are faster, more stable, and easier to manage. A lot of places will blindly stick to windows because that's what they know but that has always happened. A lot of old companies blindly stick to os/390, VMS, and other legacy stuff too.

Looks just like 9.04/8.10/8.04/7.10/7.04/6.10/6.06

[Anonymous Coward]

Same old, same old.

And What Features . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

And what features of the kernel, X, and GNOME will those reviewing Ubuntu portray as "Ubuntu features"?

why everyone has to hop on the win7 train

[Anonymous Coward]

even linux?

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[jedidiah]

It's pretty simple. Ubuntu is based on Debian and Debian has the best package manager around.
Not only does Debian have the best package manager around but they also strive to have very
comprehensive binary package repositories. So even someone with obscure interests may find
that what they want is "already there".

Take the "bleeding edge" quality off of Ubuntu and you've basically got Debian.

Call it "the turtle's son"...

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[Kjella]

Yes well, some of the problem is that the open source community doesn't work on one calendar. At any given time, some groups have decided to bork something with an architectural overhaul. There are distros that have tried to wait for the stars to align, but each time one issue is resolved three new appears. Rolling distros were even worse because they just randomly broke some day when you were patching up. Despite all the problems of releasing on the dot like *buntu does, I've found it the lesser of the evils. Test, does it work? If so keep else revert. If you don't want to play that game stay with the LTS, like you said the last LTS was quite good and the next LTS (in six months) will probably be too. They know that people that complain about the 6 months releases don't seem to be hurting enough to use the LTS, so it can't be that bad. Personally I skipped the 8.10 release but 9.04 was quite ok. If 9.10 is a flop I'll just wait for 10.04, that's the way you have to work with them, not all of them will work with you.

KKK

[Lawand]

I guess I'll get shot for using the latest version of Kubuntu, Code-named Karmic Koala!

Ubuntu Software Center

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Not many people are talking about the features. Number one on my list is the "Ubuntu Software Center" which is the initial version of what they plan to use as a centralized package manager and application store. The intention is for it to be the one and only location for software install, uninstall, and update. I've always felt package management was one area where Linux could really kick everyone else's butt if they could just polish it up, unify package types, and extend it to work with all software including commercial offerings. Maybe this will eventually morph into that.

I think it started as an attempt to merge the different package managers in use (currently spread across Add/Remove Applications, Synaptic Package Manager, Update Manager, Computer Janitor, and Software Sources applications). Then someone got the idea of copying the iPhone store, which fills a huge hole in Linux usability if they do it right. The only real question is how well they do it and how forward looking they are. The docs mention the potential of installing Windows apps into WINE using a later version of this manager, so maybe they're serious.

The other features that seem important here are the usability testing fixes from the extensive audit ongoing, the online services integration, the new default IM client, and the fixes for the audio system. It looks like they're really making some progress at least. Now if only they could get a few, small hardware vendors interested in selling cheap Linux boxes with it pre-installed and nicely tweaked for their hardware.

Re:Ubuntu Software Center

[Temposs]

http://system76.com/
http://www.zareason.com/shop/home.php
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

There are a few :-)

Re:Ubuntu Software Center

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

True, but none big enough to have any significant marketing or even to get a deal to sell in normal retail stores. Dell, of course offers Ubuntu as an option on some machines, but those machines are designed primarily for Windows and it shows in the driver problems many users still report, problems Dell would not tolerate when building a Windows version of the same system.

Re:Ubuntu Software Center

[Temposs]

That's true. It's just that you said "a few, small hardware vendors". I guess what you really want is "a few, big hardware vendors".

Re:Ubuntu Software Center

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

That's true. It's just that you said "a few, small hardware vendors". I guess what you really want is "a few, big hardware vendors".

We're just using relative terms in different contexts. When I said small, I was thinking in terms of market share, like Samsung with a few percent of the laptop market, or Toshiba with 4%. Not "System 76" with market share so small it can't really be measured and has no noticeable effect upon the overall market.

But in terms of how you're viewing hardware vendors, maybe they'd be termed "medium".

Nicer version

[symbolset]

Let Me Google That for you: Karmic Koala Mobile Broadband 5101

Can someone answer this? re: ubuntu & laptops

[thetoadwarrior]

I love Ubuntu and have it on my desktop and netbook. I don't put it on my main laptop because, as I understand, it's had issues with killing the hard drive in laptops. I know they've implemented fixes and what not but I've yet to get a solid answer on whether this is definitely fixed. I just can not risk losing my hard drive when I may be away from home and unable to dump my work onto rsync.net or my home server.

Can anyone find me some solid proof that this has been sorted? I'm still having odd issues with Ubuntu and WEP. It may be fine to say you should use WPA but I can't force everyone I interact with to use it and quite frankly it shouldn't be having issues when it's like the biggest distro around.

I also have to ask

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's what you're going to do to Windows, why waste your time with it in the first place? By the looks of it, Linux or *BSD would suit you rather better. And if the only reason is iTunes then surely one of the OS alternatives still do the job? If it's Office 2007 you need then can it not just run in a VM? (Assuming that OpenOffice or KOffice or one of those wouldn't turn the trick?) Or do you just enjoy forcing Windows to be as Unix-like as possible? (Nothing wrong with that, but this does seem like an odd thing to do -- get one OS and force it to act like another... which would also run on your hardware just as happily.)

I do, but, my "Hat's off" to MS on Windows 7: apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I am here to say 1 thing: It's GOOD that there's "genetic diversity" out here in this art & science/field, in that we have MacOS X, Linux, & yes, Microsoft Windows NT-based/derived OS.

I say that, because it is VERY much like "genetic diversity", because let's say some "plague/virus" were to hit us as human beings, & took out EVERY "white person", but did not 'take out/take down' others such as orientals & blacks etc. et al - there would STILL BE PEOPLE, even if 1 branch of humanity were to fall victim to such a thing.

The same idea extends itself here, to computing, imo really (for what it's worth).

I am also here to say another thing, about Windows 7:

PEOPLE: IT ROCKS!

I've been using it here now for 2-3 days in 64-bit form, & it absolutely IS what Windows should always have been: Microsoft's got a REAL "HIT" on their hands this round, & they've done the job, right... really right.

(And, sure: I "yelled @ them" on their forums, & repeatedly around here, about HOSTS files not being able to use 0 as a blocking IP address in VISTA onwards (since the 12/09/2008 security patch that disabled that & made it less efficient), but know what else?

So, far?? It appears MICROSOFT DID LISTEN to my 'bitching about it' to they @ their "Engineering Windows" blog:

-----

Engineering Windows 7 blog @ MS, & my points on HOSTS files + what rootkit.com said about the new single part/single layer defense system in VISTA onwards (vs the 3 part one in Server 2003 & below):

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx

-----

(Steven Sinofsky of MS runs or reads it afaik, & he is the head of that project iirc).

Well, like usual online?

A lot of people gave me shit about it there, & HERE TOO... but guess what??

Microsoft DID fix that also!

I say this because after 2-3 days time testing it now, I am using a "0" based faster & MORE EFFICIENT, successfully!

(AND, anyone can test in a listbox load of it even, that it is faster the smaller a file is, when line for line read until cr+lf or null terminated strings from a file trailer record hits etc.).

Mine's a HOSTS file with over 660,000 known bogus sites &/or adbanners servers + malware servers or botnet control servers addresses in it (for BOTH added speed, AND security), & on Windows 7, it's WORKING AGAIN (was a BIG "sticking point" for me & I was not going to buy in to Win7 because of it, in part) successfully!

I.E.-> A 0 based HOSTS is working now, where it did NOT on VISTA, & it's blocking adbanners (which have been known to host malware for years now too mind you) & known bad sites, perfectly, & using the line-by-line faster 0 blocking smaller/faster "IP Address" (resolves back to 0.0.0.0 though out of local DNS cache) & technically can even avoid the hex-to-decimal conversion that the larger & slower 0.0.0.0 + even worse 127.0.0.1 "loopback adapter" use (slower line by line read up from HOSTS on disk into memory).

My point in noting this? SIMPLE:

Microsoft, despite ALL the "Anti-MS" & "Anti-Windows" sentiments around here (especially around here @ /., moreso than anywhere else online that I have seen @ least), & in my own points mentioned to they here, @ their MS websites/blogs, & the Register -> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/04/windows_launch_parties/comments/

etc. et al?

Well - MS has proven to us all, that on the security front @ least (which they do take seriously & should, heck Windows Defender & MS Security Essentials being FREE too are evidences further thereof & they are pretty good too) that they ARE & DO LISTEN to us "geek freaks"... which is great - & it's making for a BETTER PRODUCT, period.

I'd like to leave here with one sentiment, & that's to do what I did: Try Windows 7, & especiall

Hats off to MS on Win7 + good to see new *NIX too

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft is the company that chose to release Windows 7 on the same day as Ubuntu's release candidate, not the other way around. Seems like Microsoft wanted to overshadow and minimize the latest release of Ubuntu, and do so without actually permitting Ubuntu to compete." - by FlyingBishop (1293238) on Friday October 23, @03:34PM (#29850217)

Guys: Who CARES really (not coming down on you either FlyingB, & here is why)? It's great to see them ALL releasing BETTER & MORE IMPROVED + MORE SOLID OS PRODUCTS, period... why?

Well, I am here to say 1 thing, in that regards/on that note is why:

E.G./I.E.-> It's GOOD that there's "genetic diversity" out here in this art & science/field, in that we have MacOS X, Linux, & yes, Microsoft Windows NT-based/derived OS.

I say that, because it is VERY much like "genetic diversity", because let's say some "plague/virus" were to hit us as human beings, & took out EVERY "white person", but did not 'take out/take down' others such as orientals & blacks etc. et al - there would STILL BE PEOPLE, even if 1 branch of humanity were to fall victim to such a thing.

The same idea extends itself here, to computing, imo really (for what it's worth).

I am also here to say another thing, about Windows 7:

PEOPLE: IT ROCKS!

I've been using it here now for 2-3 days in 64-bit form, & it absolutely IS what Windows should always have been: Microsoft's got a REAL "HIT" on their hands this round, & they've done the job, right... really right.

(And, sure: I "yelled @ them" on their forums, & repeatedly around here, about HOSTS files not being able to use 0 as a blocking IP address in VISTA onwards (since the 12/09/2008 security patch that disabled that & made it less efficient), but know what else?

So, far?? It appears MICROSOFT DID LISTEN to my 'bitching about it' to they @ their "Engineering Windows" blog:

-----

Engineering Windows 7 blog @ MS, & my points on HOSTS files + what rootkit.com said about the new single part/single layer defense system in VISTA onwards (vs the 3 part one in Server 2003 & below):

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx

-----

(Steven Sinofsky of MS runs or reads it afaik, & he is the head of that project iirc).

Well, like usual online?

A lot of people gave me shit about it there, & HERE TOO... but guess what??

Microsoft DID fix that also!

I say this because after 2-3 days time testing it now, I am using a "0" based faster & MORE EFFICIENT, successfully!

(AND, anyone can test in a listbox load of it even, that it is faster the smaller a file is, when line for line read until cr+lf or null terminated strings from a file trailer record hits etc.).

Mine's a HOSTS file with over 660,000 known bogus sites &/or adbanners servers + malware servers or botnet control servers addresses in it (for BOTH added speed, AND security), & on Windows 7, it's WORKING AGAIN (was a BIG "sticking point" for me & I was not going to buy in to Win7 because of it, in part) successfully!

I.E.-> A 0 based HOSTS is working now, where it did NOT on VISTA, & it's blocking adbanners (which have been known to host malware for years now too mind you) & known bad sites, perfectly, & using the line-by-line faster 0 blocking smaller/faster "IP Address" (resolves back to 0.0.0.0 though out of local DNS cache) & technically can even avoid the hex-to-decimal conversion that the larger & slower 0.0.0.0 + even worse 127.0.0.1 "loopback adapter" use (slower line by line read up from HOSTS on disk into memory).

My point in noting this? SIMPLE:

Microsoft, despite ALL the "Anti-MS" & "Anti-Windows" sentiments around here (especially around here @ /., moreso than anywhere else online that I have seen @ least), & in my own points mentioned to they here, @ their MS

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[theskipper]

And it's defaulted to off. And it's used to show popularity in the add/remove so it's designed to help the user.

I've been on 8.04 since it came out and all that time I can't think of anything resembling a commercial pitch. Except for buying a DVD or t-shirt on the website.

Hell, I enjoy being Windows-free so much that I'd be willing to help them out financially. Maybe by watching a couple ads or something. No joke.

Re:Windows 7 fails before the race

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, be honest, you don't have a girlfriend.

What a joke

[poptones]

So you buy a new computer, get it home, unpack it, call Acer, REPACK it, send your BRAND NEW laptop off to never-never land to be "repaired," then wait while it comes back to you... all for 58 bucks? And how much did you spend on shipping?

You truly must be one of those folks living in mom's basement with nothing else to do - cuz I marginally have anything to do (besides try to pay for this house) and there's just no way I would consider that much work worth 58 stinking dollars. And that's why it's rigged this way - you can "opt out" but it's so much effort as to be not worth it. And while it's essentially chump change to most folks, 58 bucks times a 100,000 machines adds up to... well, almost enough to pay Ballboy's salary.

Re:What a joke

[StayFrosty]

So you buy a new computer, get it home, unpack it, call Acer, REPACK it, send your BRAND NEW laptop off to never-never land to be "repaired," then wait while it comes back to you... all for 58 bucks? And how much did you spend on shipping?

Yeah, it was annoying...but I didn't need the laptop right away. Shipping was something like $8 and I had the laptop back in a little over a week.

You truly must be one of those folks living in mom's basement with nothing else to do - cuz I marginally have anything to do (besides try to pay for this house) and there's just no way I would consider that much work worth 58 stinking dollars. And that's why it's rigged this way - you can "opt out" but it's so much effort as to be not worth it. And while it's essentially chump change to most folks, 58 bucks times a 100,000 machines adds up to... well, almost enough to pay Ballboy's salary.

Heh, I wish I was still living in Mom's basement...everything was cheaper there. To be honest, I spent about an hour working on getting the refund. I wish I made $50 an hour at my day job. You hit the nail on the head though, if enough people call in and ask for refunds eventually more companies may start to offer a non-Windows option. I consider it a moral victory rather than a monetary victory. It's also worth noting that I was returning Vista Home Basic so the refund probably would have been bigger if it hadn't been the most worthless version of Windows.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[isorox]

Lastly, Canonical has been getting uncomfortably cozy with tying in pay-for services into the OS, either theirs or 3rd parties. I was shocked when I logged into a 9.x machine and got a welcome message that pushed their statistical monitoring "service".

I was similarly shocked when I logged onto a sun box, which had cost over $30k, and found it dribbling

Our ubuntu netboot config file installs the basic server. This doesn't even come with ssh-server! We had a few indispensable utilities by default (like sshd) and we're good to go in 20 minutes.

Re:Ubuntu? Windows? What's the difference?

[tuppe666]

I unashamedly as an organiser hate find. I love file management...I love the desktop analogy. but more than that I love the humanity icon set that shows a musical note on the folder for music; Polaroid for Pictures etc in silhouette. Karmic in many places has updated the icons representing devices to something more appropriate ie a usb drive shows a usb stick(sidenote win7 shows the a picture of the camera you attached when you attach one which is funky).

File management is very hard to teach and reinforcing good habits helps, trust me, that and I had a lovely time introducing a young lady to the joy of xsane/gimp and scanning her family album.

Re:Ubuntu? Windows? What's the difference?

[Nyeerrmm]

I mean, not to say you don't have a right to be annoyed with some features, but your complaints strike me as odd.

- What's wrong with having a documents folder? It seems to me to be the best way to do things (having all your work in one easy to back up folder), and as far as I can tell the only difference between XP and Vista is that they took out the 'My'. Also OS/X and presumably other linux distros do the same thing -- what OS has a better model?

- Requiring root priveleges to perform administrative tasks was a primary feature of UNIX system from the beginning, long before the abbreviation UAC was ever uttered. It also proves to be good security, since it prevents code that can alter the core system from being run without user intervention (preventing many viruses and trojans).

- Defaulting to the desktop is a reasonable default. Its easy to find and use. If you want something different you can change it yourself. I also don't see how its copying Windows, as far as I know Firefox was the first place I saw that particular behavior.

I guess what I feel is that while some of the defaults may be designed to make it easier for Windows users to switch, the real power comes from the fact that you have a lot more range to try new things with Linux.

Kinda meh for me...

[Abcd1234]

I threw the release onto my T61 recently, and compared to Jaunty, it's certainly an evolutionary release. I'm sure Upstart is very cool, but I haven't seen any improvements in boot time. Nor are the HAL changes that impressive. And on my laptop, power consumption is worse by at least a few watts for reasons I have yet to fully explain (this is with all unnecessary modules disabled, wireless turned off, and X configured exactly the same as Jaunty, AFAICT). Meanwhile, NetworkManager seems to randomly forget my preferred AP and chooses to connect to a local, unlocked WAP... *really* annoying.

And they seem to have made some weird choices, too. The version of the iwlagn wifi driver (a driver for a number of very common Intel wifi chipsets on various laptops) included in Karmic doesn't include support for power management. And, oddly, they've included MythTV 0.22, which hasn't gone gold yet, without any official method for moving back to 0.21 (you can use the Mythbuntu repositories, but who knows how well that will work with upgrades, etc).

On the flipside, there are some nice fixes and feature additions (bluetooth support looks *much* better, the power manager properly supports multiple batteries, etc), but I'm just not sure it's worth the update.

Re:Can someone answer this? re: ubuntu & lapto

[Abcd1234]

I love Ubuntu and have it on my desktop and netbook. I don't put it on my main laptop because, as I understand, it's had issues with killing the hard drive in laptops.

Say what? I've never heard of this. I've been running Ubuntu on my laptop (a T61) since Feisty, and I've never had my harddrive "[killed]". Do you have any citation for this claim?

Re:K . . . L . . .M . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smooth-eyed_Bush-brown

Yep, it's an animal.

But does the Karmic Koala drink Karmic Kola?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Good work, guys.

Downloading....

(long string of dots aborted due to lameness filter...)

Other than easy setup, any advantage over Debian?

[walterbyrd]

I've been using Debian for years. I'm thinking about buying a new PC, if there any BFDs this black friday.

I suppose Ubuntu gives me an easier setup, although I have no problem setting up debian. I suppose Unbuntu also gives me a live cd. Anything else?

Re:Can someone answer this? re: ubuntu & lapto

[jawtheshark]

I remember that it was reported on slashdot ages ago. As far as I know the cause was identified (something to do with parking the heads too often or so) and fixed quickly. I ran Ubuntu for ages on my personal laptop. ("ran" because I borrowed it to a friend in need of a laptop and I reinstalled Win32 for him) I'm still running it on my work laptop. Never had any issues.

Besides, if the GP is so scared he should learn about one word: "Backup".

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[tabrnaker]

I remember when even ./configure was a godsend!!

Whoops: "SMALL CORRECTION" (not really, lol)...

[Anonymous Coward]

Per my subject-line above:

Guys - my apologies & correcting myself now:

It appears I was 'wrong/off', on HOSTS being able to use the smaller/faster/more efficient 0 blocking IP address in HOSTS files guys in Windows 7!

So sorry folks - "My bad"...

I didn't realize I had loaded my 0.0.0.0 model today (did a RESTORE POINT & didn't realize I made it @ the time I put in my 0 based HOSTS vs. the 0.0.0.0 one I have also for VISTA/Server 2008/Windows7 is all).

I had to use a restore point, & yes, already... why?

Well - I had to get back to it, because I am changing things & redoing it until I "get it right" as a solid foundation to build off of, & putting in my boards/addon cards too, seeing if they work (all did, except a modem for faxing & also a CENATEK RocketDrive SSD (no biggie, those go into my other rig is all which will run Windows Server 2003 which works fine with those pieces of equipment).

Now, since I now, FINALLY, have SOME 'free time' ( Heck, I can't say it enough - the MORE I USE IT? The better I like it, & the interface change, once you use it more & more?? You actually see WHY it is better in that regards also...

In fact - MS' built in Media Player, IE8's improvements on InPrivate & more on 64-bit, + the speed boosts I saw in WinRar 3.90 64-bit vs. 32-bit versions are making me ALSO move towards the "64-bit world" too... again - Ms has a real "hit" on their hands this round (past VISTA "prototype" & into the improved model basically)... apk

WHOOPS: "Small Correction" (not really!)...

[Anonymous Coward]

Per my subject-line above:

Guys - my apologies & correcting myself now:

It appears I was 'wrong/off', on HOSTS being able to use the smaller/faster/more efficient 0 blocking IP address in HOSTS files guys in Windows 7!

So sorry folks - "My bad"...

I didn't realize I had loaded my 0.0.0.0 model today (did a RESTORE POINT & didn't realize I made it @ the time I put in my 0 based HOSTS vs. the 0.0.0.0 one I have also for VISTA/Server 2008/Windows7 is all).

I had to use a restore point, & yes, already... why?

Well - I had to get back to it, because I am changing things & redoing it until I "get it right" as a solid foundation to build off of, & putting in my boards/addon cards too, seeing if they work (all did, except a modem for faxing & also a CENATEK RocketDrive SSD (no biggie, those go into my other rig is all which will run Windows Server 2003 which works fine with those pieces of equipment).

Now, since I now, FINALLY, have SOME 'free time' ( Heck, I can't say it enough - the MORE I USE IT? The better I like it, & the interface change, once you use it more & more?? You actually see WHY it is better in that regards also... no joke.

In fact - MS' built in Media Player, IE8's improvements on InPrivate & more on 64-bit, + the speed boosts I saw in WinRar 3.90 64-bit vs. 32-bit versions are making me ALSO move towards the "64-bit world" too... again - Ms has a real "hit" on their hands this round (past VISTA "prototype" & into the improved model basically)... apk

Re:6 days?

[hairyfeet]

So you are this guy? If so, how much you want for an Alyson Hannigan model? I'll pay extra if you put her in the Buffy "Vamp Willow" leather outfit before shipping!

Moving from Beta to RC killed my PC

[Anonymous Coward]

I upgraded from the Beta to the RC today and it made my computer unbootable. Im getting error 17 messages in Grub and I never meant for it to upgrade from Grub to Grub2 as apt-get was looking to update Grub about whatever the latest kernel improvement was installed the system crashed and the damn Grub system now cant initialize properly so Im thoroughly boned on this one.

Compiz still wont work right with my Radeon HD 3600 so to hell with Linux. Honestly, its a never ending headache. Watching Hulu vids in fullscreen mode was also crashing my system. These things dont happen with Windows.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you still want quality and 6-month release cycles, there's always OpenBSD. Just don't expect to find a lot of "shiny", since the default "desktop environment" is plain old fvwm2. Of course, you you can install and configure the happy-fun shiny bits yourself if it's that important (for me shiny = ratpoison, hehehe).

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[hairyfeet]

Uuuhhhhh...You Do know that Windows XP SP3 is actually supported until 2014 right? You can say a lot of nasty things about MSFT but I don't see any Linux distros supporting an OS for 13 years. Hell if you wanted you could probably just stay on WinXP and wait for Windows 8 if that's what you wanted, but from what I've heard and will know for sure when my Win7 HP discs arrive Win7 is actually a pretty good OS.

So say what you want about MSFT but supporting XP for 13 years....I don't see how you can ask for more LTS than that. I mean hell, they kept giving old Win98 updates until...what 2006? Most XP boxes will have died or been replaced before XP reaches EOL. And considering that Canonical cranks out Ubuntu releases every six months (which is just crazy IMHO) I don't see how you can say "MS mentality of everyone must always run the newest version of everything or else you won't be protected " with a straight face. How long does Canonical support the NON LTS versions for again?

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[BitZtream]

Right, because 8.04LTS has been out as long as XP, and it also will be supported as long as XP ...

wait ...
wait ...

No, XP was out first and XP will be supported for longer than Ubuntu 8.04LTS ... 8.04 was released 5 years later and support ends nearly 3 years earlier for the desktop version and at least 6 months earlier than XP.

If you want to install 10.x LTS, which isn't anywhere release, and isn't planned to be for at least another 6 months, then you can get support for the server version for about a year and a half after XP support ends. Desktop support STILL ends at least 6 months before XP does.

The 'long term' part of LTS is a freaking joke.

Source:
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition/benefits/lifecycle

The MS mentality of everyone must always run the newest version of everything or else you won't be protected or get new features is pure crap. That doesn't have to happen in open source, when they aren't trying to force you to constantly upgrade to help their revenue cycle.

Really, 8.04 supports the newest features? So what does 9.x have that 8.x doesn't? Let me give you a dose of reality, Ubuntu may support some things for a little while, but nothing in Linux has long term support, it is a CONSTANT upgrade cycle. Just because you don't 'pay for upgraded software' doesn't mean there is no cost. When will you people get that?

I'm sorry, what was your point again, I was so blown away by how disconnected from reality you are that I forgot.

Re:Other than easy setup, any advantage over Debia

[a09bdb811a]

I switched from Debian to Ubuntu because:

1. I was sick of the rolling upgrade of running testing/sid, and Debian's stable releases were too far apart.

2. I got a new PC which needed the latest kernel for support. The Debian kernel packages in experimental were a version behind, but Ubuntu's were up to date. Also, there's always fresh kernels at http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/.

Basically Ubuntu is Debian stable with more frequent releases. If you don't need that, nope, there's no reason to switch.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, those 10 years of security updates Microsoft provides are really poor. It would be much better if they could do it for five years like Ubuntu.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't XP microsofts version of LTS? It seems have been stable for YEARS!

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[marsu_k]

The best package manager? That's a highly subjective assertion. I run Arch on my desktops and laptops, but decided to give Eeebuntu a try when I bought this netbook. Granted, it does have some benefits - suspend/wakeup works flawlessly out of the box, as does turning features on/off and adjusting cpu frequency via a GUI. But pacman, how I miss thee. Apt is just painfully slow. When I want to install a package, I expect the package manager to do just that, not try to calculate the answer to life, the universe and everything in the process. And abs/makepkg combo is much more convenient method for building custom packages; and creating PKGBUILDs for your own packages is trivial. There are certainly benefits for desktop usage in *buntus, but apt is IMHO not one of them.

Re:Ubuntu? Windows? What's the difference?

[dbcad7]

Actually nothing wrong with the new folders that I can see. The alternative is the old way which is to just dump everything into home. If you want to see what it's like just to dump everything in one directory, just go to usr/bin .. sure you don't have to figure which folder it's in..

Re:Can someone answer this? re: ubuntu & lapto

[thetoadwarrior]

Clearly you have issues with reading as I pointed out I do backup to two places.

I'm sure it's not the biggest worry in the world but it's still potentially a risk and one I'd rather do without since I can't always access rsync.net or my own machine 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

How much proprietary software works in Debian?

[jnelson4765]

I'm working on a project that uses LabView and Matlab. Although they will work on Ubuntu, the fact that we need support for all the software (per the final customer) means that the production systems will be running RHEL. CentOS is a great choice for dev systems - I've used it for servers for years, and it's my primary workstation OS. The netbook, though, definitely runs Ubuntu.

I will agree that the LTS versions of Ubuntu aren't bad, and playing catchup with PHP versions can be annoying with CentOS if you're trying to keep up with the latest version of a lot of open source web apps, but the simple truth is that most of your proprietary software vendors support RHEL and SuSE. If you're lucky, FreeBSD and OSX. A lot of that proprietary software will also work on CentOS. I know, I know, using proprietary software brands me as a heretic, but find me a open source tool that duplicates what LabView does, including the hardware sensor integration.

Re:Can someone answer this? re: ubuntu & lapto

[jawtheshark]

No, I read that... but if you have problems losing 24 hours of your work, you should be continually backing up. Like having a USB drive on which you backup additionally when on the road. If you fear losing your data while on the road: find a solution. The solution is backup on USB disk. (Since as I could understand why would have no net access to use rsync)

Re:6 days?

[The Archon V2.0]

Surely you mean she uses Linux, right?

Sadly, he probably doesn't.

Re:6 days?

[The Archon V2.0]

If so, how much you want for an Alyson Hannigan model? I'll pay extra if you put her in the Buffy "Vamp Willow" leather outfit before shipping!

I'll pay extra if you don't.

Re:6 days?

[The Archon V2.0]

Subbing for the pandas after they all moved to the far north.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[westyvw]

If I only had mod points.... You are absolutly correct, each release impresses....then breaks. There is always something going on with ubuntu that isnt quite right, or breaks later on. But more importantly, I too am getting concerned with the direction it is taking.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[vipw]

With Ubuntu's popularity, I've seen projects set their release schedule to fit Ubuntu's.

Re:Need screen space? Move stuff to the bottom pan

[Abcd1234]

Unlock the panel widgets and drag all widgets from the top panel to the bottom panel (yes, it's more cramped than Windows because there are three start menus in GNOME)

There's only three if you use the "Menu Bar" widget. If you use the "Main Menu" applet, it's just a single icon, which opens out to provide the applications, as well as the places and system menus.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[jedidiah]

There's nothing subjective about it.

Want an obscure package? Yes or no?

Want it to sort out all of the details? Yes or no?

Slow? Who cares? The point is comprehensiveness and
ease of use. The idea is to be able type or use the
GUI equivalent of "apt-get mythbuntu" or "apt-get
moviegate" and have all of the details seamlessly
sorted out.

It's the ease of use that Windows Lemmings always
whine that Linux doesn't have (when it really does).

Most people don't want Gentoo or Gentoo-lite.

Perhaps I should have been more clear the first time:

          apt makes Debian a superior choice. Not just Ubuntu.

Re:Ubuntu? Windows? What's the difference?

[BlindSpot]

Having a Documents folder is fine but the way XP did it was terrible. Part of learning to use a computer is to learn to manage files and folders. The "My xxx" structure makes it hard to do this... it's hard to type into anything, and the way it's implemented even kinda hides the fact they're folders. The average user does understand files and folders but they don't necessarily immediately understand that their pictures in My Pictures are still just files in a folder and can be treated the same way. Also, XP treats My Documents as the user's home folder, even though it's not really so... the home folder is above it. Vista's structure didn't just remove "My", it fixed the structure to include a visible home folder...specifically it's C:\Users\username\{Documents,Pictures,Downloads,...}, which is also good for us techies as it's not buried deep in a long-named folder somewhere... it's very Unixy actually. I admittedly didn't look to see how Ubuntu does its My Documents behind the scenes but it turned me off instantly so I didn't particularly want to know.

For the root access thing, it isn't requiring root access that's my problem with UAC (and to a lesser extent with Ubuntu), it's the constant nagging and switching in and out of admin mode. The way it usually works is either you're admin and you can do whatever, or you're not and you can do nothing. Okay so for Linux we have sudo for a temporary admin, but that's intended to be consciously done up front. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to translate too well graphically. But UAC doesn't even try to teach the user that one thing should be done as admin and another not, it just nags the user about doing everything the least bit dangerous, then lets them do it if they say yes enough times. So for the average user I think it is better to enforce the old-fashioned "superuser" concept rather than allow slipping in and out.

I think IE started saving to desktop, and Firefox copied it. It is easy to turn off but most people don't. I've seen so many people whose desktops are full of a bunch of old junk files they never use anymore, and the worst part is that then they complain their computer is hard to use. In my book, any feature that encourages that kind of a mess shouldn't be emulated.

Re:Ubuntu? Windows? What's the difference?

[BlindSpot]

That's the main goal - make it functional and easy to use, free and easy to install for as many people as possible. Those who need to can "escape" to the more advanced options. Being different for the sake of being different would be a terrible mistake.

I replied elsewhere on the specifics about My Documents, but this bit caught my I because I actually totally agree with it. Indeed, I wasn't advocating being different for the heck of it, but rather not being the same for the sake of being the same. In other words, don't blindly copy the more questionable features of Windows along with the good ones just to keep a familiar user experience. Instead, take the good stuff from Windows and the good stuff from Linux and integrate them, and where they don't mesh very well then find new approaches. The problem -- and I say this generally and not as an accusation pointed at Ubuntu or anyone else -- is that it's much easier and quicker to copy rather than innovate.

Re:Ubuntu? Windows? What's the difference?

[nostriluu]

So.... what's better than My Documents (or some other similarly named directory)? I'm glad Gnome backed away from the conceptual spatial version of directories. Traditional folders are easy enough to understand, complemented with cross system search. Unfortunately the open source world is not very good at front end innovation, but with the quality of the underpinnings (any OS is doomed to reinvent) is very good at understanding and accommodating approaches of the day. I'd like to see the free software world charge ahead with an amazing resolution free and shared timeline branching desktop.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[JAlexoi]

You do know that upgrades are free? Right? And if you are a person that needs support and pays for it(otherwise you'll just upgrade), you will just hire one of the Linux hackers for support.
If MS gave me free upgrade to Win7 from WinXP, I would definitely upgrade and they would not need to support WinXP till 2014.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[True Grit]

Lastly, Canonical has been getting uncomfortably cozy with tying in pay-for services into the OS, either theirs or 3rd parties. I was shocked ...

Wow, a commercial company that has the audacity to try to make some money, I'm shocked too...

Re: MS and Linux

[True Grit]

But we've heard for well over a decade now that "any time now", Linux is going to have its day and "threaten Windows for dominance"

Every OS has its fanboys. I've been listening for over a decade to Win/Mac fanboys talk about 'crap Linux'. I just chuckle, and go on running Linux on my Windowless desktop...

I think it's rather idealistic to believe Linux can somehow overtake a gigantic commercial endeavor to make and market an operating system

'overtaking' MS is a stretch, sure. But the reason Ballmer includes Linux with Apple as MS's main concerns is that unlike a commercial endeavor, he knows they can't buy or kill Linux off. Whole different kind of ballgame for MS now...

convincing a massive number of existing Windows users

Aside from the fanboys, what many of the rest of us are hoping for is simply enough of an impact on the market to break MS's monopoly power/influence over it, and 'we' (Linux/*BSDs/Apple) together don't need a lot of the market share to accomplish that. It especially doesn't depend on *current* home Windows users. The real battle is for future mindshare within the business sector and among younger new users. *That* is what has got Ballmer throwing furniture...

about 18 years ago, THEN we'd have more of a "fair fight".

We're dealing with a monopoly, so by definition, it is not a fair fight. If victory happens at all, it'll take awhile.

having spent much of its existence concentrating on being true to its Unix roots with shell scripts, a command line, and catering more to server administration

That by itself, the prospect of Linux getting established within the business sector for server use, has got Ballmer scared to death. He can't buy Linux, he can't kill Linux, and he can't beat Linux's price. Any sector Linux gets established in, is one MS will have a very hard if not impossible time trying to take back.

I don't foresee some dominating victory that you're describing here, but thats ok since we don't really need one. My crystal ball does tell me that there will be more damaged furniture and broken glass in Redmond's future though...

Re:ubuntu is for niggas

[Anonymous Coward]

And anyone else on the world with a computer, too!

Re:6 days?

[DaVince21]

You mean YOU will be delayed.

Ximian....?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you doing in there?

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[hairyfeet]

Does that mean someone from Canonical is gonna come out and fix it when the new "free" update totally borks my sound and hoses my wireless? Didn't think so. Just because it is free, don't mean it is good.

I have been trying Ubuntu since the 6.xx and it always seemed to me they just whip out new versions with new bugs, rather than actually taking the time to fix the distro and make it stable. Which I can completely understand, as it is easier to get guys to work on new hotness for free than the boring job of fixing bugs in some piece of code they didn't even write in the first place. But that is why I have been saying for quite awhile that Linux is NOT like Windows, but should be compared to OSX instead. Like OSX if you have the "right" hardware you got nothing but smooth sailing ahead, but unlike OSX where you don't get a choice on the hardware the big IF is the whole "right" hardware bit.

Which is why I finally had to give up on Linux, because my experience was every time I updated I got to spend 3-5 days dealing with some royal PITA broken hardware. Compare to my Windows box where I just ran the Win7 upgrade Adviser and the ONLY problem it found was a $15 capture card that the company went out of business before even Vista was released. So say what you want about Windows, but I spend too much time fixing other folk's computers, I just don't want to spend my free time trawling forums and staring at a CLI trying to get my wireless, or my sound, or my graphics, etc to working. It just ain't worth the trouble to me when I got Windows 7 for a whole $50, and picked up XP x64 (which I'm running now) for $89 when everyone still thought Vista was good.

My time is $50 an hour minimum, so it don't take long for the Windows "tax" to be well worth the cash.

Re:

[Severity1]

I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 on my asus 1000hg. It worked perfectly! Pretty UI, Hardware supported, I didn't have to get the arrays.org kernels for eeepc support. Inserted a simcard unto my built-in huawei module, configured it via network manager and voila! mobile internet! I was riding the bus this morning and everyone is looking at me! :) Obviously I had to brag and turn on Compiz and everyone was like wow! Downside was battery life, roughly 4 to 4.8 hours but configuring laptop-mode-tools and powertop gave me 4.9 to 5.7 battery life.

Re:What's the point? And, look who's coming to din

[socceroos]

Kind of how 7 is really just "mostly fixed" Vista. Incremental improvements.