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Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released
palegray.net writes "The latest version of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) has been released. Offering numerous enhancements for both desktop and server environments, this release includes notable features like Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud images, the Ubuntu One 'personal cloud,' and Linux kernel version 2.6.31. Please be sure to use a release mirror close to your geographic location to help reduce the stress on Ubuntu's primary servers; using BitTorrent for downloads can help alleviate the load even more. If your organization has adequate network and server resources, please consider hosting a mirror as well."
A lesson for Windows Engineers. Aim for 256MB, not 2GB. The era of Netbooks is upon us, and it looks like Microsoft will miss the bus.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
no it wasnt..
You have to incrementally update through each version. If you have 8.04, you have to go to 8.10, then 9.04, then finally 9.10.
The incremental updates can be done through the install updates on your desktop. If you wait too long, you'll have to change your apt sources, so I'd upgrade sooner rather than later.
-=Lothsahn=-
I think you'll be better off with a complete reinstall. Especially if you have /home on a separate partition.
I mean seriously, how hard is it to go look at http://www.ubuntu.com/ to check?
Check out the mirrors http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors#dvd. Most of them have it up. I'm torrenting it now.
http://www.funnyordie.co.uk/videos/ef83afc272/hosting-your-windows-7-torrenting-party
Don't worry, this one isn't cringe-worthy like the original.
All of the reviews of Windows 7 on NetBooks that I have seen so far have been positive about how well it performs on them. Microsoft actually targeted them because it knows it can't afford to make an OS which runs poorly on them or not at all.
The new Ubuntu seems to have a lot of new stuff that I feel slightly uneasy about. I'm not sure if Ext4 has proven itself yet (then again, I haven't been paying attention), and grub2 isn't even available on Gentoo yet (my somewhat crude stick of measuring when things are considered "new" or not). I like the progress, I'm just interesting in hearing some discussion about it (hal deprecation, new input system, NX, AppArmor, etc).
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
Yes, but I believe the proper word is 'tubes'. Please remember that it is a series of said tubes, and not a dump truck. Treating your personal series of tubes as if it were a dump truck will definitely crash your Internets and give your CPU a virus.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
You can skip from one LTS release to another. eg: 8.04 to 10.04
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes
Karmic Karmic Karmic Karmic Karmic Koala
Download and install
Download and innnnnstaaaalllllll....
Summation 2
And Windows costs no matter if you value your time or not. Even nicer!
I know I shouldn't feed a troll, but I just can't resist.....
Outside of downloading, I upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10 (RC1) in about an hour - mostly unattended (while I was doing other stuff as well).
A friend of mine who is a complete MS fanboy is currently at 4 days and counting for a Windows 7 upgrade.
I think I value my time too much.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Ext4 in Ubuntu 9.10 is specially problematic, as there are reports of corruption when writing large files:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910#Switching%20to%20ext4%20requires%20manually%20updating%20grub
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/453579
Use the mirrors :). I've been running the alphas and the RC in VirtualBox for weeks now, and everything seems to work perfectly.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Nah. People with those challenges tend to actually be far nicer than Microsoft!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
There's a known bug in the 8.10 to 9.04 upgrade process. Ya gotta run another kernel to keep the install from freezing.
Flash has been available for many versions already...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
$ sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
Thanks, Ubuntu!
From the Release Notes.
Possible corruption of large files with ext4 filesystem
There have been some reports of data corruption with fresh (not upgraded) ext4 file systems using the Ubuntu 9.10 kernel when writing to large files (over 512MB). The issue is under investigation, and if confirmed will be resolved in a post-release update. Users who routinely manipulate large files may want to consider using ext3 file systems until this issue is resolved. (453579)
Ubuntu One client requires post-install upgrade
A serious bug in the Ubuntu One client software included in Ubuntu 9.10 that could potentially result in loss of data has led to disabling file syncing access for this client version on the Ubuntu One servers as a precaution. Users who see a "Capabilities Mismatch" error when trying to use Ubuntu One should install the post-release upgrade of the client that will be made available immediately after release, fixing the original bug and restoring file syncing access to the Ubuntu One servers. Files are still available via the web interface at http://one.ubuntu.com./
Contact syncing and tomboy syncing services are not affected by this issue.
Package list must be manually refreshed before installing drivers
The "Hardware Drivers" tool (Jockey) requires up to date package lists before it detects and advertises necessary driver packages. Immediately after a new installation, these package lists will not be present. Before running Jockey for the first time, update the package lists using System->Administration->Software->Update Manager (on Ubuntu) or "KPackageKit" (on Kubuntu). (462704)
A 4x HD Rick Roll?
Ubuntu users have been watching flash content in their browsers for a long time. If you're referring to out-of-the-box support, no (which Windows doesn't have either).
Just visit a webpage containing Flash content and you'll be guided to install the plugin.
Depends on your definition of noob.
He's been installing and administrating Windows systems for 15 years - so by the general definition, he is no noob.
He's using Windows - so by my definition, he is a noob.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Can you install the desktop version (not the netbook edition) using a USB stick? They only provide ISOs on the official website, not IMGs.
Mada mada dane.
I've been testing out the beta and I've been finding that things are generally better than in 9.04. Hopefully this release should be more stable for Intel graphics card users too (the major work Intel was doing reworking their stuff is calming down). However be warned if you use multiple monitors and compiz - xorg lockups will lie in store. Boot speed is improved too. The Moblin version of Ubuntu felt unfinished though and had lots of lockups for me (plus it is absolutely not geared for enterprise style networks - I couldn't get on my Uni's wifi because with Moblin because there's nowhere to enter a wifi username. Regular Ubuntu was no issue though). Obviously some people are going to be upset about Pulseaudio being there but you can see improvements there that the Linux desktop has been needing for some time (even though it's not there yet).
There are areas that don't seem quite polished enough and people will moan about the Linux apps look terrible and how open source people keep doing this on purpose. If I hadn't seen multimon stability issues I would have already have switched from my 8.04 install.
I don't understand why the Ubuntu team has never simplified the setup process for Samba. It is simple enough to share a folder with unlimited access, but as soon as you want to create users and passwords, it becomes rather complex. I've had to set it up a couple of times, and I never seem to get it to work quite right.
Many Ubuntu users are also going to be running a Windows machine on their local network. If the goal is to give them a positive experience with Linux, then setting up the connections on the local network should be brain-dead easy. Imagine sending a novice user to this page! They would soon be throwing away their Ubuntu disk and installing Windows.
Making an easy GUI for this configuration process shouldn't be that difficult. I hope that it will be addressed sometime soon.
I have had issues with Ubuntu upgrades before breaking stuff.
That's funny, I often break stuff after installing Windows.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
(after downloading the .flv file I could always view them with totem etc full screen no problem, so it was a flash-related problem)
I have to assume that there are some "secret" plans involving Ubuntu One that make a lot of sense (if you know them) and can actually explain why Ubuntu One exists in the first place. I've read through all the public documentation and, for the life of me, I can't figure out what is even remotely unique or noteworthy about the service.
Right now, it's attempting to be a Dropbox clone. However, it's not yet there and is clearly still in beta -- even though they have the same pricing structure as the (very mature) Dropbox. Their goal for the file synchronization service is to be as full-featured as Dropbox? But not more? Seriously, if your goal is to be as good as Dropbox, then why not just use Dropbox?
It's not even that "Ubuntu One is OSS and Dropbox is proprietary". Both services have OSS parts and proprietary parts.
Maybe, then, they are trying to be more of an online backup service, ala Mozy? Well... no. I can't find any evidence that they encrypt your data so it would be a bust as online backup.
So I don't get it. Why would anybody use (much less pay for) it when there are much more robust services already out there AND there's no indication that it'll actually be better than those services in any way. There must be some secret plans that I just don't know about.
Anybody feel like letting me know what I missed?
apt-get install aria2c and you can download from multiple mirrors + BitTorrent in parallel to both divide the load while downloading and help start seeding sooner.
Try pressing Alt-F2 to bring up a "run" dialog, and typing
update-manager -d
I can't remember if it needs a sudo in front of it, but it uses the GUI update manager to do the equivalent of a
"sudo apt-get --dist-upgrade" from the command line. On the LTS versions, it does not announce new versions being available.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I can't seem to find torrents for the either 32 or 64 bit versions on the download page. Why hide the torrents, especially when traffic is so heavy right after release?
Kubuntu fans can check the release notes here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicKoala/RC/Kubuntu
Browsing through them, I got the feeling of tired, haggard Kubuntu maintainers congratulating themselves for surviving, but not excelling in, the production of this version which still has many issues. If you read between the lines, you see that there are still quite a number of issues. "The NetworkManager applet has received some loving from its creators, and offers a more robust networking experience than it did in Kubuntu 9.04."
I went to the Feedback page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicKoala/RC/Kubuntu/Feedback to see how KDE would do in this version. This is where you get the honest criticism that tells you what problems you might encounter. Generally people are offering encouragement but the fact is that this version of Kubuntu is still not cutting it. Comments usually start with "Great release! However ... " and then a list of bugs. These are bugs from before. One person says: "all bugs I noticed are still there: broken knetworkmanager, no sending via bluetooth, preview file in dolphin's context menu not working. I tried 9.10 in hope they were corrected, but they weren't."
I myself have been staying with 8.04 since that is the last version that officially supported KDE 3. (I hear that you can now get KDE 3 versions of 8.10 or 9.04, but I don't think those are official.) If I'm going to retrain myself on KDE 4, I might as well wait an extra half year and get the 10.04 Long-Term Support edition --if ever Kubuntu gets around to doing one. (8.04 was LTS for GNOME Ubuntu only, not for Kubuntu.)
I think the Kubuntu developers need to be strongly encouraged to fix existing bugs instead of putting in new features.
As an aside, regarding the "Known Issues" list for standard GNOME Ubuntu:
Release notes http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910
Does anyone else think that there are more and more bugs now, and that Ubuntu simply is not the "install and use defaults" user-friendly distro that it used to be?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Since the Ubuntu BitTorrent-page is not yet updated, here are the links to the official torrents:
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-netbook-remix-i386.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-server-i386.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-server-amd64.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-alternate-i386.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-alternate-amd64.iso.torrent
killall npviewer.bin
That's the best part about running 32-bit flash: it runs in a separate process, so you can kill it when it goes wonky without restarting the browser. Just refresh the page with the plugin and it will be restarted.
I think it would be more apporpriate to say the problem is that the MS bus is actually a stretch hummer.
For those looking to get Ubuntu 9.10 on a ATI grfx card with a R600/700 chipset, you may want to take a look at the latest drivers from AMD. As opposed to the usual Envyng or Ubuntu provided drivers. There are a few people who are having a bit of weirdness with the ones shipped there (nothing big just a bit of oddities).
I'm still looking forward to the advancement of the experimental support that X.org has added to the new Xserver (1.7 me thinks) for R600/700 chipsets, go open source drivers FTW!
On a side note. It would be nice if the Ubuntu installer by default created a seperate /home partition. (or maybe they have in the last version or so, I haven't installed from scratch).
Uh, why? For most people, that's just a pain in the ass... suddenly you have to guess how much space you'll want in / and /home, and if you underestimate, you find yourself having to resize filesystems. And for those who care (such as yourself), you can easily set things up that way during the initial install.
Currently it doesn't matter too much because the main power consumption is in the display. But new display technology will change this.
Canonical's big opportunity is in mobile devices and in the Third World where power is expensive. Xubuntu is already a much nicer system than earlier versions of Windows.
Slightly OT, but the car industry has already bought into the logic. The new VW engine that replaces the 3 litre V6 is a 2-litre inline 4 that generates more power, is lighter and has 20% better fuel consumption. Nobody is saying "but my last Golf had a 3-litre V6, this is crap". Companies that focus on doing more with less are future proofing themselves.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud images, the Ubuntu One "personal cloud"
Oh-oh, we're getting dangerously close to a full set of buzzwords...
What did they smoke to make those cloudy names? Did the descision taking meeting look like the car full of smoke in that old Luniz video? ^^
This is unacceptable! I will fork this, and call it "Ubuntu Social iEnterprise Vertical e-Cloud Framework", Codename: "Twitching Twitter".
'Cause I got a fever. And the only prescription is "MOAR CLOUDBUZZ"!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Hey, McCloud... get off'a meh ewe.
My experience with 9.10 so far has been extremely positive.
I did an upgrade at first, and then a complete reinstall. The upgrade process went very quickly, and I only had one problem - that my network card became "unmanaged" again. This is some remnant from my 8.10 install back in the day. Besides that, there were no problems and my desktop was exactly as I left it.
The install process from scratch also went well. The partition manager is pretty friendly, and the (I think) new time zone selector is actually easy to use. I also don't need to do a whole bunch of stuff to determine my keyboard layout -- it defaulted to US english and that was that.
The desktop system itself is much improved. The changes to Nautilus are welcome. The side bar is more user friendly, and the folders and such look a lot better.
The notification system has some improvements so it's not quite as useless -- multiple consecutive notifications from the same application drop into the same notification window, and there's a sort of glass effect when you "mouse under" the window, making that absurd behavior a bit more palatable.
My graphics card (GTX 280) was supported after downloading some binary drivers (although I had to restart to enable full desktop effects).
My sound card (X-Fi Fatality edition) is finally supported in kernel, although I had to use amixer in order to get my mic working. The new sound mixer, though, is FAR more user friendly.
I've had no problems so far with EXT4, and my load times in Heroes of Newerth have decreased since the upgrade.
The font rendering. It's much better across the board. Firefox sees the biggest improvement, likely due to the upgrade to 3.5. Font rendering used to be far worse than Windows and is now on par with Mac (I prefer the bolder, smoother look of Mac fonts, personally).
The HDD diagnosis tool is also handy. As soon as the upgrade completed and the tool ran, it warned me of some SMART errors on one of my drives. It's pretty easy to dig into the drives and run diagnostics and such.
Empathy is still bad, and I switched back to pidgin after a few minutes of use. For example, I had to find an hidden check box just to "enable" the account and get it to connect. The UI is also not so hot.
Overall I haven't regretted the upgrade at all, which is more than I can say to 9.04.
Why a separate /home? So that you can easily do a clean install of the next version from CD without blowing away all your data.
I learned that lesson several releases ago. I have 10GB / for the OS, and the rest in /home.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You know that Slashdot is going down hill when a perfectly reasonable comment asking for more information is replied to by three sarcastic comments about tubes, trucks, and pipes.
Ubuntu One looks like it uses other Ubuntu One users to store up to 2GB of data (hopefully securely) in a cloud-like state, e.g. with redundancy so that one failure doesn't cause you to lose those backups. I got that from a brief look at https://one.ubuntu.com/
Why? With disks sufficiently large these day, just allocate 10GB for Ubuntu and take the rest for /home.
And then you run out of that 10GB because you're working with large video files, or decide to rip your audio collection to disk. Hell, my /home was over 20GB before I cleared out some old cruft I no longer needed (just one directory, the result of a large .torrent, was over 5GB).
Meanwhile, you still haven't explained the advantages of putting /home on a separate partition.
If you don't trust that, simply use LVM. Really, this is childsplay.
What part of "average user" don't you understand? If you understand enough to use LVM, you understand enough to set up the partition table the way you see fit. Again, we're talking about Ubuntu's *default* configuration. And I've yet to see an argument for why the default installation should have /home on a separate partition.
Why a separate /home? So that you can easily do a clean install of the next version from CD without blowing away all your data.
Except that your average Ubuntu user does an upgrade, not a re-install.
And if you're paranoid (like, apparently, you and I) and re-install rather than upgrade, you never want to install a new OS and then trust it with your old /home in the first place. It's much safer to create an entirely new installation, then copy things over as you need them. Otherwise, you may fall victim to old config files that no longer work with the new applications, etc (I've had that happen with Gnome on more than one occasion).
That would mean you're saying Windows Runs. It doesn't.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Run MSO, PlanetSide, WoW, Crysis, GTA X, Global Agenda, Steam and the games i download for it?
Nope! No crappy, overpriced games for you to whine about whenever you get your troll a$$ pwn3d! Isn't it great? AND it'll help encourage you to get out of your parents' basement and get an actual life! This one benefits all of us!
Will it use the peripherals available at Best Buy, or that the people around me have?
Oh, hell no! Thankfully, with Linux, you can learn to avoid the borderline-fraudulent practices of Best Buy and use superior sales outlets, like just about anywhere on this wild new invention called the "Internet", where they actually sell you decent hardware, and you'll most likely save hundreds in the process over Best Buy's "premium" name brand nonsense!
Will it work with contemporary video and sound cards?
Certainly! It won't work on flipping exotic just-released-five-days-into-the-future cards that the whiny framerate-scrapers use, leaving you open to actually do useful work, as opposed to sitting around and wanking off to your "l33t" 594.2 frames per second and eighty-bajillion-speaker sound!
Will i be able to share files/programs with more people or fewer people?
That's the best part! Since all those viruses you love to share don't work on Linux, not to mention the existence of an actual security-first design policy that prevents trivial exploits from popping up on a regular and all-too-frequent basis, you won't be able to share them, thus allowing you to actually get some work done once in a while, rather than spend all day updating sleazy, questionably-operated anti-virus programs whose functionality amounts to little more than voodoo dances to ward off a constantly-mutating enemy!
Glad I could clear things up! Enjoy your more convenient life trolling for less!
I think you'll be better off with a complete reinstall. Especially if you have /home on a separate partition.
Nice opinion. Got any reasoning to back it up?
My home file server was originally installed in 1998. For 11 years I've been upgrading it, never a problem. At this point there's nothing left of the original hardware or the original software, but it's the same installation. My laptop was installed in 2001. That was three machines ago, but I just copy the disk image from one to the next, and keep on apt-get upgrading. Those are both Debian systems, of course, Ubuntu doesn't go back that far. My desktop machine was originally installed with Ubuntu 7.04. It's now on 9.04 and will be upgraded to 9.10 soon.
There's no reason whatsoever to reinstall.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Funny, because I thought the premise was bottom-of-the-barrel computer users. Those don't have backups. Just saying...
Your solution is just as bad as mine for the computers users who are targeted by Ubuntu.
Funny, because I thought the premise was bottom-of-the-barrel computer users. Those don't have backups. Just saying...
And they also don't understand how to re-install Ubuntu and have it use their old /home partition (to do that, you have to use the advanced partitioning mode). Average users will just upgrade. And if they do that, then having /home on a separate partition presents absolutely zero advantages, while creating the pain of a more inflexible storage arrangement.
Ubuntu One looks like it uses other Ubuntu One users to store up to 2GB of data (hopefully securely) in a cloud-like state, e.g. with redundancy so that one failure doesn't cause you to lose those backups.
Nope. Apparently the data is stored on Amazon's S3 servers, according to the wiki here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne#"Storage"
Ubuntu still needs to change a lot (scrap Upstart/clone FreeBSD init, get rid of DKMS, ideally get rid of crapt-get and clone ports, revert to OSS for sound, get rid of the insane scenario where GNOME is irremovably fused with virtually the entire rest of the system)
Or you could just run FreeBSD, rather than trying to turn Ubuntu into it...
They might get to understand how to re-install Ubuntu. They manage it with Windows, and tech support hand-holding them, or just slapping in the DVD and clicking next a lot.
The only good reason for a separate /home is to partition your data from everything else. I don't care if my OS dies, I can re-install it without having to worry (or copy) masses of data to a backup partition, and possibly (probably in my case) forget something. Its not something you'd do very often, but when you do come to do it you realise why you did it. If you have Windows on, you'll realise exactly why you did it when Windows 7 practically won't let you do an upgrade anyway.
In these days of super-large disks, there's no reason to give / a mere 10Gb. Give it 25Gb (which is what I gave Vista, and is nearly full now :( ) and you'll never fill that, not with Linux software.
I tend to do 3 partitions anyway - one for the OS and stuff; one for my data; one for temp files, downloads, backups etc. It works well for me. I think it'd work well for the common user too, the days of one big "C:" partition should be over.
Ubuntu still needs to change a lot (scrap Upstart/clone FreeBSD init, get rid of DKMS, ideally get rid of crapt-get and clone ports, revert to OSS for sound, get rid of the insane scenario where GNOME is irremovably fused with virtually the entire rest of the system) in order to become a system I'd consider installing,
...or you could install another distro which satisfies your needs, instead of asking to completely change the aim and view of ubuntu. Let diversity reign in FOSS
The only good reason for a separate /home is to partition your data from everything else.
Right. And the only advantage that provides is if you decide to upgrade and reuse the same /home. I've already pointed out how that's a bad idea, in general. And that use case requires more advanced knowledge of Ubuntu, Unix, and partitioning than your average user possesses. So it's only really useful for advanced users, who are already capable of splitting out home into a separate partition.
Its not something you'd do very often, but when you do come to do it you realise why you did it.
No, you might. I haven't. I've upgraded from 7.04 -> 7.10 -> 8.04 -> 8.10 -> 9.04, and soon 9.10, and never once have I regretted not splitting out /home. In fact, given the incompatibilities I've experienced due to config file changes and so forth, I've been extremely *glad* I chose to create a whole new /home, followed by copying over the things I want, as that ensures I start with a clean slate as far as the desktop environment goes.
I think it'd work well for the common user too, the days of one big "C:" partition should be over.
Again, you say 'should', as if it's just a foregone conclusion that your way is better and that everyone else is too dumb to realize it. But that's not at all true. A split partition scheme brings certain advantages. A unified scheme brings others. Hell, this whole discussion is about that very topic. To pretend that your approach is the end-all and the be-all is absurd.
Source link.
The upgrade will freeze on the locales package if you are using the (current) Gutsy kernel, 2.6.22-15. Reboot into 2.6.22-14 before upgrading. See the bug report on Launchpad for full details.
But it does dump.
I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
I've done installs of Ubuntu on a virtual machines a couple of times but my initial experiences led me to stay away because I really like the development tools in Ubuntu and development really isn't Ubuntu's core strength - the end user desktop is or was. Installing dev tools felt like a right pain the behind and the fact that they didn't seem to allow let alone encourage custom kernel compilation put me right off. Fair enough I thought. I'm a geek I can stick with something else.
However pushing a release of an end user system like this that corrupts large files is just fucking moronic. I'm dumbfounded. Add allegations of pushing cloud computing shite to the mix and I'm giving Ubuntu a wide berth for now. This only confirms that i want to find another distro. Centos and Debian are looking to me like the leading distros for a geek to use, though I haven't checked out some of the others for a while. I don't hear as much about Mandrivel and SUSE these days.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Linux was originally a UNIX clone, before Mark Shuttleworth got hold of it.
No it wasn't. Linux was a Minix clone which was a clone of Unix.
So to me it makes more sense for Linux to resemble BSD than Windows.
How did anything you critique about Ubuntu have any resemblance to anything in Windows? Other than purely superficial cosmetics, there is nothing about the internals of Ubuntu that match anything in Windows.
I'm just unsure why trying (and failing, for the most part) to be a half-assed Windows clone is such a great thing for Linux to do.
And I'm not sure why trying to emulate FreeBSD is "such a great thing for Linux to do". I like apt and it's killer dependency handling and associated, vast software repository. I like kernel modules and the fact that I don't have to build custom kernels anymore (I've done that, I've moved on). And PulseAudio. And faster boot times.
In short: I like the fact that Linux is growing past it's Unix roots and embracing good ideas from *everywhere*, as I realize that an operating system frozen in the 1980's isn't necessarily a good thing.
Linux was originally a UNIX clone, before Mark Shuttleworth got hold of it.
Holy shit, I can't even describe how much bullshit that is. Package managers? Kernel modules? Sound daemons? What, you think Shuttleworth invented those ideas? Good god, have you paid *any* attention to the last 15 years of development in the Linux world?
Ubuntu is the natural consequence of years of development as Linux has matured into an OS that consumers can actually use. If you don't like that, please, just go away and enjoy FreeBSD. It exists to do what you want. Leave Ubuntu, and Linux, the hell alone.
Canonical have had to do some fairly unnatural things to force Linux to resemble Windows to the degree that they have.
Total, utter bullshit. Canonical has done *nothing* that hadn't been pioneered by others. They just did a better job of refining it than anyone else.
What I want to know is why you're even participating in a discussion about Ubuntu, or Linux in general. Clearly you're a BSD fanboi... or perhaps I just fell for a troll?
UbuntuOne, to strip away all the fancy words, is a 2gb (free version, $10/month for 50gb) of online storage linked to your Launchpad account (used for Ubuntu Forums, bug reports, and other community activities). Similar to ftp, but is secure and allows you to have a friends list such that files and folders can be marked for sharing to specific individuals for either read only, or read/write. In addition to that, any computer with Ubuntu (Jaunty or Karmic+) can have ubuntuone-client installed which will add a directory in your home folder called "UbuntuOne" that will automatically stay synchronised with the files online. You can connect as many computers as you like to that online account. Only one UbuntuOne account can be linked per user.
I for example, have a computer at home, and a computer at work. My current projects are stored in my UbuntuOne directory so at work or home I have access to the same files locally and backed up in three locations automatically in addition to being able to use a web browser to get the files wherever I go. I had used Google Docs, which still works great, but it requires constant Internet access. With UbuntuOne I need only enough Internet access to sync my files when I am done.
As a teacher, in my classroom I have 4 computers with Ubuntu (2 dual boot windows, and 1 dual boots MaxOSX). On the Ubuntu side have a classroom UbuntuOne account all the computers connect to. If a student saves their files on one machine it is automatically backed up online and then to every other computer "in the cloud" Then any computer a student chooses to use will have all their files on it. If a computer is off or not running ubuntu there will be a delay in the sync, but as soon as it is switched back, the files get sync'd and they are good to go. Before I used sshfs and a central machine. It only worked when the computer was on, and though never had any problems, there was no redundant storage. It worked "ok", but UbuntuOne is really the "right" way to be doing it. While it is not necessary, each student could have their own accounts and share files with each other as desired; that is just more than is needed.
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