Ubuntu: Where Did the Love Go?

inkscapee writes "Used to be Ubuntu was the big Linux hero, the shining knight that would drive Linux onto every desktop and kick bad old Windows to the curb. But now Ubuntu is the Bad Linux. What's going on, is it typical fanboy fickleness, or is Canonical more into serving their own interests than creating a great Linux distro?"

Comments

What's going on?

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's going on, is it typical fanboy fickleness, or is Canonical more into serving their own interests than creating a great Linux distro?"

Yes

Re:What's going on?

[vlm]

So... we're all going to use Windows now?

Actually use iPads while endlessly promoting Android ipad-killer tablets.

Re:What's going on?

[amicusNYCL]

I'm thinking that this is a loaded question, due to the fact that the only link in the "summary" is on the text "Canonical more into serving their own interests".

Slashdot summaries are frequently a bunch of opinions stated as if true, followed by pointless questions, submitted by people with a vested interest in the topic. Is this actual journalism, an opening for debate, or does this suggest another purpose?

Re:What's going on?

[h4rm0ny]

Actually, have we established that something actually is going on? Maybe I've been too busy to notice the tides of distro-politics, but asking why people are turning on Ubuntu is the first I've heard of people turning on Ubuntu. So is there somewhere else that would back this up and show it's not just someone muck-raking?

Re:What's going on?

[martin-boundary]

"What's going on, is it typical fanboy fickleness, or is Canonical more into serving their own interests than creating a great Linux distro?"

Yes

Kosh, is that you? Fancy meeting you here! Last I heard you'd left the galaxy!

Re:What's going on?

[HermMunster]

For the longest time I would not consider another distro. Each distro has their own agenda. Each one is self centered. Few if any really understand the goal of bringing this powerful easy to use operating system to the masses. Canonical has that goal still, even if they have become more financially centered--less altruistic.

Some of Canonical's choices of recent are not synergistic to my goals. I am not interested in Unity (total piece of shit software--pardon my bluntness). It shouldn't have been proposed and absolutely it's seems a violation to consider it.

Right now the problem with desktop Linux centers on the desktop managers. KDE 4.6 has become better, but every single release of that product has them screwing something up on the desktop (i.e., if you have double click selected (for launching files and opening folders), you can't move icons around on the desktop--if single click is selected it works fine.) Some of these changes are extremely annoying. Anything having to do with icons on the desktop needs to work perfectly, but no, KDE just can't get it right. Gnome has it's share of usability problems. Overall though, the products work, if not for the bugginess of them.

Canonical seems to want to drop those desktop managers supplying their own. I can understand their promotion of competition on the desktop, but this Unity product doesn't cut it. Attempts by the community to get Canonical to listen are ignored. Several other changes are also happening in a heavy handed way.

Even so, these are little stumbles. With enough stumbles people will consider other options. That will take some time. Just keep in mind, Canonical is forging forward in a way that moves us along. Every journey begins with that first small step.

Re:What's going on?

[roc97007]

Try to use, and be constantly frustrated by ipads, wait in vain for an affordable and usable Android tablet, eventually go back to Windows on laptops.

Re:What's going on?

[fredjh]

First I've heard of any problems, and I've been using Ubuntu since 7.x... so... sounds like someone's muck raking to me, probably a small group of "disenfranchised" users.

Re:What's going on?

[semi-extrinsic]

Some of Canonical's choices of recent are not synergistic to my goals.

I regret to inform you that the remainder of your statement was rendered void by your use of the (non-)word "synergistic".

Re:What's going on?

[PopeRatzo]

Slashdot summaries are frequently a bunch of opinions stated as if true, followed by pointless questions, submitted by people with a vested interest in the topic.

Exactly so. It's funny that within a few hours we had a story with a single link in a summary that posited an inexorable decline for Google because of a "slew" of "negative stories" and then another summary, with a single link, that describes Ubuntu's decline. Somebody took the time to post these stories, to post those single links and to wrap them in a summary with an air of inevitability. Google's run is "finished". Ubuntu is "done" These links were not posted with summaries saying "This is what so-and-so said" but rather "This is the truth". Faits accomplis.

A rapidly increasing amount of our "news" is driven by press releases put out by astroturf specialists which get polished by lazy journalists into stories that serve the interests of their bosses. In the last few days, I've read at least a half-dozen news stories about the "over-privileged" schoolteachers of Wisconsin, whose average "gold-plated" pensions of $20k/year makes them "bottom-feeders", "pigs" and "fat cats". The peaceful protests are characterized as "riots". Who stands to benefit from these mis-characterizations?

When such a large portion of the information that people consume is agenda-driven, and barely concealed agit-prop in support of groups with the resources to saturate the media, what chance do we have to make decisions, to act based on reliable data? But I guess that's the whole point.

Re:What's going on?

[AngryNick]

I am not interested in Unity (total piece of shit software--pardon my bluntness). It shouldn't have been proposed and absolutely it's seems a violation to consider it.

Even my 9 and 12 year-old Ubunutu fangirl daughters hate Unity! If little girls with puppy and monkey desktops don't like Unity, then who does?

Re:What's going on?

[trollertron3000]

*Troll mode off *

In fairness to them it's really just a commentary and discussion site. Yes they're biased. But aren't we all? They post that way because It sparks conversation, which is the draw here. I like the threaded format and you can really find some "gold nuggets" of knowledge here. There are some very sharp guys that linger and post. Not as many as there used to be AFAIK but you still see a great rotation of good commentary.

Re:What's going on?

[BitZtream]

Summaries are assumed to be true, not opinion. Comments are assumed to be personal opinion, though they may state facts.

We assume the summaries are true because we want to use slashdot to save ourselves the time of tracking down and debunking every story on the Internet. We get annoyed when topics like this happen where its clear that its a opinionated TROLL.

We get even more pissed off when its done by someone like Taco, who through the years most of us have come to expect will have done a basic sanity check on the summary/story. We expect stupidity from kdawson and timothy, hence why half of slashdot has their stories not listed on the front page.

What has happened however is that it appears that slashdot has become completely unconcerned with presenting facts and truth and more concerned with not 'censoring' any submission and just letting the shit flow in.

I have uncensored Internet, I really don't want it, I have things to do, I use sites like slashdot to avoid having to do basically what it seems you have to now do for every slashdot story regardless of which person posted it to the front page.

Re:What's going on?

[Creepy]

Well IMO the problem isn't really with Unity, which is meant to draw a younger audience, not codgers like me, it is the fact that Unity still doesn't make Linux play Windows games, so their attempt to draw in teens will probably backfire (and WINE is still far too difficult to use in many cases, even if it works).

I've been helping a Linux noob, and several suggestions:
1) avoid acronyms and abbreviations. Everyone is guilty of this, but Linux is worst - do you think /dev/sda means ANYTHING to a Linux noob? Well I can tell you for a fact that it doesn't, because I've been helping one. She didn't even know that was referring to her primary disk drive until I told her (and she's a tech geek in every way except Linux - and yes married [to my best friend, but he's less of a geek than she is]).
2) Program names need to tell the user what they do. Do you know what "Ruby" is? I'd guess a color or a gem, not a scripting language. Windows isn't very good at that, either (Microsoft Silverlight? wtf is that?!)- Apple is much better (for instance, iTunes makes a pretty nice mnemonic for what it does, but they've had their failures too - QuickTime?! The only time I want time to go quick is when I'm working and not under a tight deadline).
3) Shortcuts for multiple package select that can be dropped in. Why? Because installing them from package manager is too tedious, so people knowing how always go to terminal and do an apt-get. I want to copy the names of the packages I need from a URL and drop them on an installer and have them magically appear.
4) Icons should at least nearly always appear for new software, and if you need command line arguments there should be a way to add them and convenient help. I know that is a lot to ask, but for ease-of-use it is essential.

In many distributions there is also a program with an odd name that manages packages like Package Manager, and to a noob that means fedex packages, not software.

Re:What's going on?

[GameboyRMH]

Ubuntu's made some dumb choices recently in GUI layout and package selection. Not huge issues, but they are PITA issues and that's what's caused a lot of Ubuntu hate. Also over the years people have been getting increasingly pissed off at the fact that Ubuntu is a bleeding-edge distro and updates tend to break stuff. Because of these issues a lot of people have been switching to Debian.

Re:What's going on?

[vadim_t]

1) avoid acronyms and abbreviations. Everyone is guilty of this, but Linux is worst - do you think /dev/sda means ANYTHING to a Linux noob? Well I can tell you for a fact that it doesn't, because I've been helping one. She didn't even know that was referring to her primary disk drive until I told her (and she's a tech geek in every way except Linux - and yes married [to my best friend, but he's less of a geek than she is]).

There are several things here:

1. It's a device file. Changing names for those can lead to problems with little benefit
2. It is hard to give them intuitive names. You'd prefer /dev/scsi/hard-disk/primary/master perhaps? But now it's long and still confusing. What's a primary master? Or maybe /dev/scsi/INTEL_SSDSA2M080G2GC would be better? (that's what my disk calls itself). This stuff isn't for end users, and tends to come out ugly any way you slice it. Something of this sort was tried before with devfs a few years back. It was a huge pain to switch over to, had little benefit, and didn't stick.
3. As an end user, you're not supposed to mess with this stuff in /dev anyway. The GUI is supposed to make it accessible easily.

2) Program names need to tell the user what they do. Do you know what "Ruby" is? I'd guess a color or a gem, not a scripting language. Windows isn't very good at that, either (Microsoft Silverlight? wtf is that?!)- Apple is much better (for instance, iTunes makes a pretty nice mnemonic for what it does, but they've had their failures too - QuickTime?! The only time I want time to go quick is when I'm working and not under a tight deadline).

This is already mostly solved. In my Ubuntu install stuff appears as:

in the "Internet" section:

BitTorrent Client
KTorrent

Seems pretty clear.

Ruby is something you shouldn't even see really, it might be needed for some program to work, but those are implementation details.

Re:What's going on?

[zill]

Summaries are assumed to be true, not opinion.

Don't assume. It makes an ass out of you and me.

Re:What's going on?

[mug funky]

the only answer is censorship on slashdot...

the whole double-edged sword thing.

the only acceptible solution is that people develop better bullshit detectors and participate more in the pruning of submissions.

but me? i like to watch the shitstorm. it's good entertainment and small things amuse small minds.

Re:What's going on?

[pixelpusher220]

Obama has the high distinction of carrying on many of the policies GWB implemented. He should get plenty of criticism for that. And does.
But starting A WAR under false pretenses stands out pretty damned far ahead of *anything* Obama has or has not done.

Re:What's going on?

[Scott Lockwood]

I'm guessing you've never read http://funroll-loops.info/, an excellent collection of quotes from actual Gentards.

Re:What's going on?

[Nick Ives]

The Windows counterpart to /dev/sda is \\.\PhysicalDisc0, is that more or less intuitive? Windows hides all that stuff from users, which is what all the issues you list boil down to: Windows has something approaching a clear and consistent UI, something Linux still lacks.

Getting a clear basic interface on Linux wouldn't be that big a challenge these days I don't think. I use Windows 7 on my desktop simply for DirectX 11 support, but aside from games the only apps I use are Chrome and a media player. I also use Office but would quite happily use an alternative on my home desktop.

So basically, to make "The Year of the Linux Desktop" actually happen all that's needed is a clean, minimal interface and support for games. That's not going to happen though.

Re:What's going on?

[Chris Mattern]

Yes, I miss the days of journalists, like William Randolph Hearst, who didn't have any agenda.

Re:What's going on?

[shellbeach]

Ubuntu's made some dumb choices recently in GUI layout and package selection. Not huge issues, but they are PITA issues and that's what's caused a lot of Ubuntu hate.

Well, the great thing about linux is that you can change stuff as much as you like. I've never liked any distro's default choices ... but I'm prepared to take the time to tweak things to my own liking, safe in the knowledge that I can.

Also over the years people have been getting increasingly pissed off at the fact that Ubuntu is a bleeding-edge distro and updates tend to break stuff. Because of these issues a lot of people have been switching to Debian.

The funny thing is that when I started using linux back in 1999, the big criticism of Debian was that it wasn't bleeding edge enough! I guess you can't win in the linux world ...

Personally, I've been using Ubuntu for the last few years. I used to use a really minimalist distro and compile everything myself, but I don't have the time or inclination to do that any more ... and for that purpose, for me, Ubuntu works great. It's the first distro I've been confident enough to present to my parents as an alternative to windows, and one which they actually liked and preferred to windows.

But, you know, if people don't like Ubuntu they don't have to use it. There's a billion and one distros out there, catering for any whim or fancy in the world ... and if not, you can always roll your own. If Ubuntu changes enough to be unpopular with end users, then some other distro will catch on and we'll all be praising that one. Plus ça change ...

Re:What's going on?

[Darkness404]

If you use GNOME and use only GNOME programs (or, to a lesser extent, KDE and only KDE programs) you get a clean minimal interface (yes, Linux still sucks on the games department), but really, Windows isn't much better. (see http://origin.arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.media/vista-small.png ). The problems with graphical inconstancy comes when people choose programs for their features rather than their UI and different people have different preferences.

There are two barriers to widespread Linux adoption the first is niche software support. Things like professional audio and photography programs and games. And the second is that people expect it to work just like Windows. OS X avoids this because people are getting a brand new computer when they get OS X and they expect it to be different. People don't know what an operating system is and assume that if its running on the same box it should be the same if its running Linux or Windows.

Re:What's going on?

[mjwx]

Kosh, is that you? Fancy meeting you here! Last I heard you'd left the galaxy!

yes

Re:What's going on?

[Belial6]

Sure you can win in the linux world. You use Debian until you decide you would rather have a bleeding edge distro. Then you switch to Ubuntu. When you get tired of the issues of having a bleeding edge distro, you switch back to Debian until you start wanting bleeding edge again. Maybe you use one of the in between distros for a while when you feel like it. Sounds like a win to me. There are time and uses that I want bleeding edge. There are times and uses that I want stability. The fact that I get to choose means that I win.

Re:What's going on?

[Grapes4Buddha]

You've been reading Slashdot with IE for over a decade? You should be ashamed of yourself. Use Firefox or Chrome like all the other cool kids.

Re:What's going on?

[shutdown -p now]

I've rediscovered the World as Gentoo Linux.

Mine's still emerging.

Re:What's going on?

[PopeRatzo]

the only acceptible solution is that people develop better bullshit detectors and participate more in the pruning of submissions.

I've met some very powerful minds in my life, but none of them, not one, was capable of completely making themselves immune to the science of well-funded marketing or public relations. Even though we all laughed at those poor losers who majored in "Communications", it seems that they are having the last laugh. Using the extremely potent psy ops weapons at their disposal, they can convince you of nearly everything, sell you almost anything, and make you doubt your most strongly-held beliefs. They can't do it perfectly, but they can do it well enough to turn our world to shit.

Honestly, I'm starting to believe that we need serious regulations on advertising, public relations and commercial media. Even though that goes against everything I believe (back to those "most strongly-held beliefs") I'm watching the society in which I live turned against itself to satisfy the urges of a very few powerful folks. Net Neutrality would be a step, but you've got those poor simpletons driving around in their cars listening to the radio and buying into the most shameful propaganda since The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Every day. And they come home and pop on Fox News and that stuff beams straight into their heads, into their reptile brains, bypassing judgment, bypassing morals, even bypassing the survival instinct.

I don't mean to sound so pessimistic. I'm not really so. But I think we're at a point where we're going to have to write off huge sections of our society and prepare for some very very bad times ahead.

And that's just my reaction to about an hour of channel surfing. If I had to watch an entire evening of reality shows or Fox News I'd probably be driven to do a great deal of damage, probably to myself.

Re:What's going on?

[PopeRatzo]

A $20k/year pension with $0 contribution over your lifetime isn't just gold-plated it's adamantium-plated. It is EXTREMELY over the top, as excessive as a king's ransom

You bonehead, three decades ago, a whole lot of private sector workers got pensions just like that.

Then Ronald Reagan happened and now you see a $20k/yr pension after a lifetime of hard work as excessive.

You poor, dumb bastard. You can't even see the number that's been done on your head.

Re:What's going on?

[PopeRatzo]

I guess you know how the "tea baggers" feel now, eh?

It's not hard to figure out. I mean, they write it all right on their signs. If you can make out the spelling, you can make some pretty good guesses about how they feel. And why. And who benefits most from them feeling that way.

Re:What's going on?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Yeah, it's not like there was a story on Slashdot today about how the German government got fed up and went back to Windows after a decade long experiment, citing among other reasons Ubuntu switching around the UI constantly.

Re:What's going on?

[Knuckles]

Not in Europe, where such pensions are still pretty much standard for the middle class. Ask Ron Reagan how he did it.

Re:What's going on?

[Culture20]

You have to assume things. I assume there is solid ground under my desk chair. I don't stare at the ground nonstop for confirmation.

It's good that you don't. There's no reason to believe that photons hitting your eyes in certain patterns have anything to do with whether the floor is really there. For that matter, electrochemical stimulus from your optic nerves might have nothing to do with photons.

Re:What's going on?

[gpuk]

You have to be joking. We have massive unfunded pension problems across the board.

Re:What's going on?

[jschottm]

Linux is worst

No, it's just that almost everyone has been exposed to Windows and have been desensitized to its quirks. Ever try to explain the lettered drive system to someone who's 50+ and hasn't used computers before? It's just (if not more) bizarre - skipping A and B (except for computers that still have floppy drives and unless a USB drive pretends to be a floppy drive), the difference in drive naming on systems that ship with recovery partitions, the semi-random drive letter assignment to different flash drives (or even the same one mounted at a different time)...

Or try explaining the registry to a newbie.

Re:What's going on?

[cayenne8]

I've been running gentoo on all my home boxes for years.

Really..with a modern computer, compiling really takes very little time, and it isn't like the box locks up while compiling.

Where you DO get the biggest bang for the buck with Gentoo, is on older hardware. Custom compiling flags and all do help for giving new life to old hardware.

On these..sure it take forever to compile some things...but it will get a benefit from this, and it isn't like the old stuff *IS* my primary computer(s) in the house..so, I'm not missing out on anything letting it chug along.

Right now..I'm putting gentoo on an old iBook G3. I can't get any new versions of OSX for it, newer apps like firefox's latest versions won't run on older OSX, so, with linux on it...it will be responsive and useful again, maybe as my kitchen computer.

Sure, it took 4x days for KDE to download and compile on it, but who cares? I just have it in the corner, fired off the job, and let it roll. I'll finish setting it up at my leisure. But when done, it will be useful again.

Also, I don't think a lot of current linux distros out there are supported older PPC architecture...gentoo is still a good one for that.

Re:What's going on?

[jbolden]

You target niches and go after those. And that includes creating apps for the those niches which are stronger than the commercial applications or where the price differences are substantial enough to make a difference. A good example where FOSS has done that is the programmer niche. In 1995 the vast majority of programmers used proprietary, platform specific languages and paid for development tools. FOSS has changed that.

High end hardware manufacturers (server) have Linux drivers because Linux has real market share on the high end server market. They don't have share in the Music market. To get share they would need FOSS apps that steal market share from commercial apps.

Free software

[devxo]

Freedom means you should also be able to make money and act selfishly with your distro or open source project. I really don't get why it's always such a problem for open source advocates. If you want truly free software you let everyone do whatever they want with it.

Re:Free software

[jedidiah]

Being free to do what you want never means being free from community criticism.

If you treat 3rd parties like they work for you personally, or do various stupid things then you are likely to inspire some enmity.

It is far less likely that everyone will follow you off the cliff in the Unix community.

Re:Free software

[trollertron3000]

And as long as the source code is provided how can people really object to their focus on things that make a profit? They need to survive and that means making money.

Re:Free software

[Duradin]

"You can ignore the Linux world and move on."

The real world: ok.

Re:Free software

[Nick Ives]

As pointed out below, that ZDNet link highlights server sales; it's worth pointing out that will be largely driven by enterprise sales and not web servers. The virtualised Linux server is pretty much the de facto choice for web development.

Re:Free software

[bit01]

See? Others can use that tactic too. Your low UID doesn't make you less of a troll. It just makes you someone who should have known better by now.

Hairyfeet is engaging is extremely biased commercial propaganda by quoting sales rather than numbers. He is deliberately trying to deceive the reader. Just because he is using "polite" words doesn't mean he is not being extremely rude. He is also probably engaging in fraud for commercial gain ie. astroturf.

As such he is a first class arsehole and you are an arsehole by by attempting to support such mendacity with misdirection. You both deserve all the flack you get.

---

There are many corporate shills on social media sites like slashdot fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion. Make these scums' life hell.

what?

[Tumbleweed]

Since when is Ubuntu the 'bad linux'?

Re:what?

[Anthony Mouse]

Since when is Ubuntu the 'bad linux'?

Since they put the window buttons on the left hand side, if I remember correctly.

Re:what?

[SpeedStreet]

Since when is Ubuntu the 'bad linux'?

Since a blogger blogging for a blogging website blogged about it. Also, blog.

Re:what?

[Lord Ender]

Since when is Ubuntu the 'bad linux'?

... since some blogger realized he gets more attention by writing inflammatory nonsense than by being honest.

Re:what?

[Ironchew]

"It's popular, so it sucks" is the mantra here.
Some fanboys just want to make their e-penis bigger by saying they use obscure, obfuscated distro X all the time. Nothing new here.

Re:what?

[jedidiah]

I dunno.

There's nothing more obscure sounding than dumping the standard GNOME desktop and X along with it.

It doesn't get much more set apart from Linux and Unix in general than that.

Re:what?

[h4rr4r]

Yeah, a real tragedy that you have to go switch the side the buttons are in the settings.

Re:what?

[mlts]

I must not be up to current events, but from what I see, Ubuntu is still a very strong distribution being arguably the front-runner when it comes to the desktop Linux offerings.

Every distro has their growing pains. RedHat went through theirs, Slackware had its trials, and so on.

Regardless of the drama that might surround Ubuntu, it still will be one of the top distributions out there. Of course, there may be forks, but Ubuntu has a solid development effort behind it and is standing up to the test of time.

I don't see any "bad linux" distros in the mainstream. In my book, only way a distro can be "bad" is if they stomp on GPL requirements and refuse to have source code available as per the license. Or if they are outrageously sloppy in how they build binaries, so the executables might not be what the source code compiles to.

Re:what?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." Yogi Berra

Re:what?

[Chris Mattern]

"Ubuntu used to be cool, but then it went all mainstream."

Re:what?

[causality]

I've used UNIX for ~20 years and have NEVER used a GNOME desktop.

Linux != UNIX

What do those two sentences have to do with each other?

GNOME is available for many Unix and Unix-like systems. It is not exclusive to Linux. You may have never used or even seen a Linux PC but could still have used GNOME.

Re:what?

[ArcherB]

Is this a setting, now? Because when I tried it, you had to hack up a bunch of images as well as change some files somewhere. Wasn't really fun.

No you don't. Click here for instructions with pretty pictures.

Or, just followed the instructions I so thoughtfully copied and pasted

Press Alt+F2 to bring up the Run Application dialog box, enter “gconf-editor” in the text field, and click on Run.

The Configuration Editor should pop up.

The key that we want to edit is in apps/metacity/general.

Click on the + button next to the “apps” folder, then beside “metacity” in the list of folders expanded for apps, and then click on the “general” folder.

The button layout can be changed by changing the “button_layout” key. Double-click button_layout to edit it.

Change the text in the Value text field to:

        menu:maximize,minimize,close

Click OK and the change will occur immediately, changing the location of the window buttons in the Configuration Editor.

Note that this ordering of the window buttons is slightly different than the typical order; in previous versions of Ubuntu and in Windows, the minimize button is to the left of the maximize button.

You can change the button_layout string to reflect that ordering, but using the default Ubuntu 10.04 theme, it looks a bit strange.

If you plan to change the theme, or even just the graphics used for the window buttons, then this ordering may be more natural to you.

Re:what?

[Computershack]

That was definitely the case in our house. Long story short Ubuntu went from being used on our communal home built desktop to being replaced by a new Windows 7 PC within two weeks of the installation of a version with the buttons on the other side,

Say what? Why didn't you just simply either change the theme or go into the gnome desktop manager and switch them back? Its hardly like being able to switch them back to the right hand side is some trade secret - shit, people knew how to do that in the BETAs.

Re:what?

[Attila Dimedici]

I believe that this blog was written and posted on slashdot in an attempt to make it true. If they can get people thinking that enough others think Ubuntu is "Bad Linux", they think they can get people to think that Ubuntu is "Bad Linux". Unfortunately for them, many of the first slashdotters to see the post went, "What are you talking about? I think Ubuntu is great/nice/pretty good, even though I use a different distro."

Re:what?

[Cthefuture]

I hated it too at first but now I like the buttons on the other side. People are just hard-headed and resistant to change, even if it's better.

Also, as Ubuntu gets popular the "geeks" won't feel special/superior any more and have to go somewhere else to boost their ego.

I think I'm a pretty hard core Linux person. I have been using it for something like 17 or 18 years now. I used to like hacking the system but once I got a handle on that what I want to do now is get work done. I'm happy Ubuntu is popular, that's what I want. I want stuff to "just work" and all my hardware to be supported so I can get real honest work done on a system that is fast, stable, and secure. Screwing around with the OS is the last thing I want to do.

Re:what?

[jedidiah]

>> There's nothing more obscure sounding than dumping the standard
>> GNOME desktop and X along with it. It doesn't get much more set
>> apart from Linux and Unix in general than that.
>
> That doesn't mean it's the wrong decision.

In the absence of something really compelling to the contrary, yes it does actually.

Being unecessarily obscure doesn't serve anyone's interests. I'm not even sure if it benefits Canoncial.

Re:what?

[Vaphell]

no, gconf-editor is as standard as it gets in gnome

Re:what?

[HermMunster]

He's not talking about the buttons being switched to the left side of the window title. He's talking about the heavy handedness of their actions.

Re:what?

[ebuck]

Yeah, a real tragedy that you have to go switch the side the buttons are in the settings.

They changed it without writing the simplest of gui configurable dialog to set it (or set it back). Instead you had to work around the default configuration with gnome's own command line configuration hacking. Then in the same breath you mention that Ubuntu is a "desktop" distro, meant for the masses while your CEO then takes the time to lambast the complaining user base that "free doesn't mean you get what you want, you get what we want".

Technically, Ubuntu didn't do a thing wrong; however, people go out of their way to avoid such behavior in friends, associates, or even strangers.

Re:what?

[gad_zuki!]

>You can change the button_layout string to reflect that ordering

"Grandma, quit calling me, just change the button_layout string with vi. Sheez. No lets do it the easy way, type menu:maximize,minimize,close in the earlier box."

Yeah, I wonder why Ubuntu isn't at 99% marketshre.

Re:what?

[ob0101011101]

It wasn't just the moving of the buttons. It was the moving of the buttons (after 20 years of collectively keeping them right), without asking, and without a simple way of moving them back. And then it was the inclusion of Pulseaudio, which for quite a number of people was a complete PITA. The next bad thing will be the (Dis) "Unity" non-desktop with it's ridiculous side-panel, yet constant menus.

Re:what?

[gearloos]

That is a bold (couple of) statement(s). I'm so impressed. Next time try saying "I taught 20 people how to actually use UNIX and never used a GNOME desktop" and you might actually be a contribution to our society. It's this kind of "I'm a god because I know *NIX" mentality that keeps it from being adopted. The more people that understand and can use it = the more user base = the more developers willing to put time into it = the more software available = more people actually willing to learn to use it= Keep your egotistical comments to yourself. They make you look the fool. -oh and FYI: your 20 years only puts you to 1991 anyway.. nothing to see here, move along...

Re:what?

[Xyrus]

They refuse to open their eggs from the little end!

flamebait

[bsDaemon]

I don't even particularly care for Ubuntu (as if my nick name wouldn't be a tip off), but even I think this is probably the most flamebait summary I've seen on Slashdot in a while... wtf?

Re:flamebait

[druke]

Agreed, what the hell is this?

Here's my try:

Slashdot: where did the quality go? Used to be, slashdot was the was the big geek hero, theshining knight that would drive geekry onto every desktop and kick bad old productivity to the curb. But now slashdot sucks. What's going on, are the typical trolls all that's left, or is the joke that is the random mod system is finally being shown for what it is.

my take:

Ubuntu has always been a gateway niche, and canonical has always used Ubuntu as a vehicle to make 'linux for human beings'. That is a nicer way of saying dumbed down linux.

Simultaneously:

slashdot has always sucked. It's not anything new.

Huh

[Anrego]

I admit I’m not a ubuntu fan, but I don’t take the fact that the entire FOSS community hasn’t immediately dropped everything to fall in line with Ununtu as a sign of hate.

Ubuntu seems to be as popular as ever. In fact a lot of my fellow die hard “ew, ubuntu” friends are now using it (not me though.. never.. NEVVERRRR!!!).

I think much like the google article earlier, ubuntu has gone from young upstart to just “there”. Still strong and doing it’s thing.. but everything they do is no longer news worthy, and they have attracted the usual amount of criticism and people who just plain don’t like them. This is normal.

Who's this guy ?

[burdicda]

Every single word is negative
Just like he's being paid
A Microsoft Ad to begin the article
All other articles at bottom of page also negative towards Linux

I say this guy's a troll in the first degree

ciao

burdicda

Re:Who's this guy ?

[numbski]

Burma Shave

Re:Who's this guy ?

[ebuck]

Your Linux is just rotten
The command line's long forgotten
Be quirky if you're brave
Burma Shave!

Amongst the Linux veterans at least ...

[SpooForBrains]

Ubuntu has always been the villain. Or, you know, the thing that you watch other people use in bemusement and begrudging appreciation that your goals at least are getting served even if it's not by methods of which you approve.

The old joke was that Ubuntu is Swahili for "can't install Debian". I may even have heard it here.

Re:Amongst the Linux veterans at least ...

[Dutchmaan]

Ubuntu has always been the villain. Or, you know, the thing that you watch other people use in bemusement and begrudging appreciation that your goals at least are getting served even if it's not by methods of which you approve. The old joke was that Ubuntu is Swahili for "can't install Debian". I may even have heard it here.

I have the distinct feeling that because Ubuntu is viewed as a distro 'for the masses', and die hard Linux users tend to view themselves as 'above the masses', it makes perfect sense that Ubuntu was/is seen as the 'villain' distro. After all, if the masses started using Linux then all the die hards would have to go somewhere else to feel superior.

Re:Amongst the Linux veterans at least ...

[kwark]

>The old joke was that Ubuntu is Swahili for "can't install Debian". I may even have heard it here.

I've been running Debian for years (slink). From stable on servers, testing on the development machines and unstable on my personal (desk|lap)tops. But I finally caved for Ubuntu for my personal desktop after I found that a Ubuntu live CD managed to work out of the box on my HP TX1100, the usual exceptions off course the fingerprint reader and ndiswrapper for wlan (thank you Broadcom for crappy drivers and HP for breaking the mini pciexpress slot so other cards wouldn't work in this machine).

For the first time I could use the touchscreen like intended, something I couldn't get to work with Debian/unstable (and when I finally figured how to get it to work the crappy machine died (and judging from the number of owners reporting the exact same breakdown symptoms HP managed to deliver a fine piece of crap)). So when a new laptop arrived (Thinkpad) I popped in a kubuntu dvd, wiped the Debian install and have been happily running a functional machine since, except for yet again the fingerprint reader everything just works. Ubuntu may be evil by someone his standards, I'm becoming to lazy to keep up to date with Debian/unstable.

Wow, terrible article

[raddan]

The author seems to intentionally conflate normal differences of opinion as "controversial", and he clearly sees forking as a bad thing. Anybody who's spent time on github knows that forks are a sign that a project is interesting enough to attract eyeballs... Anyway, as a regular (and satisfied) Ubuntu user, this is the first I've heard that I'm not happy...

Re:Did I miss something?

[jedidiah]

Deciding to make a mobile interface the default desktop for 28" monitors was probably somewhere close to the turning point.

Re:Ubuntu got popular.

[hoggoth]

The unwashed masses run Windows.
The elite run OSX.
The elite of the elite run Ubuntu.
The elite of the elite of the elite run Debian. ... ... ...
I run AmigaOS. Yeah, you feel my cool don't you?

The love went

[Hatta]

To Arch. A bare bones distro with excellent documentation turns out to be a much better experience than layers and layers of GUI junk that never works right anyway.

It's unprofitable?

[trollertron3000]

The article claims the company is unprofitable but how would anyone outside know if Canonical is profitable? Isn't it privately held? I've never heard of a private company publishing their numbers. I couldn't find any data to back up either side outside of rumor or hearsay. Does anyone have any info regarding this?

Re:It's unprofitable?

[l-ascorbic]

Last I checked, they're an Isle of Man company. Big difference.

TFA is BS; Ubuntu is pushing Linux forward nicely

[dkegel]

Really? Bruce Byfield is upset that Ubuntu switched its /etc/init.d handler to upstart? That's an awfully picky thing to complain about, especially since other distros did, too. Switching to the Unity shell is a bit edgy, but hey, it's been a while since there's actually been competition in desktops, we could use some. Most people long ago picked Gnome or KDE, and those projects have to some extent been coasting. Perhaps Unity will light a fire under Gnome like Chrome did for Firefox...

BLOGMYGOD

[SpeedStreet]

Yet another incendiary post on a site that generates revenue by number of browser clicks. I'll skip TFA, thanks. Ubuntu seems to be doing just fine. They are generating attention with their new UI, the Ubuntu Server release is one of the best out there, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of reasons for people to 'hate' on it since it benefits upstream as well as down. Who's letting this trash get to the default RSS?

Re:Did I miss something?

[rubycodez]

that's just silly, Ubuntu has more desktops to choose from than the furniture section of the Office Depot near my house. I can think of ten other desktops just an apt-get or software center click away if you don't like the default and there are more.

Easy Linux != Linux for Linux Lovers

[natehoy]

If you want to make an easy-to-use, accessible Linux that your average user can use out of the box, you have to make a series of compromises. If you want to do so for profit, you have to make even more compromises.

First thing to go is the notion of a completely "libre" copy of Linux. Your average computer user expects to be able to listen to MP3s. They expect to be able to watch DVDs. They want full support for as much of the hardware as they can, including the full capability of their video card and wireless network card. If you block binary drivers and license-encumbered codecs, you'll alienate vast thundering herds of the very same users you really want to attract.

Second thing to go is a complex security model. A desktop user wants (at most) one set of credentials. They don't want a userland profile and a root profile and to have to remember to "go root" every few days to check for updates. You can make them comfortable (mostly) offering up their user credentials for updates and software installs, but you aren't going to get them to drop to a command line and su or sudo for simple tasks.

Third thing to go is an expectation that the user wants to make zillions of choices at install time, or desire the infinite configuration flexibility that is Linux. Average user does not want to hand-craft a kernel to the exact specifications of their chipset, because they haven't the faintest clue what a "chipset" means or what instruction set works for them. They don't want to choose between 5 desktop managers. They don't want to optimize the crap out of every possible aspect of the user experience by modifying xorg.conf. They don't want a 45-slider volume control. They want to be able to install it and choose between a few themes, shuffle a few fonts, set a background image of their grandkids, and adjust the speaker volume.

That's the funny thing. The people I give Ubuntu, Mint, Peppermint, etc to are the people it's designed for. If someone comes up to me and starts nattering on about worrying about having the latest version of Samba and how they are agonizing over whether KDE or Gnome is God's Gift to Window Management, or showing off a perfect chi in the form of an xorg.conf file, I'm not about to open a can of Ubuntu on them.

But the people I give Ubuntu and its variants to are still running it and enjoy it.

Distrohoppers (like me) have our loves come and go. I run a new distro in a VM about once a month, and distrohop like I'm a Jack Russell Terrier hyped up on crystal meth. I've got a couple of old machines that probably have spent as much time in various Linux distro installers as they have running Firefox.

But my desktop machine (which I share with my wife) runs the latest Mint. So does my wife's netbook. Because I want them to work, and I want them to be easy to use, and I want to be able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it.

Ubuntu is really good at that.

The Linux "Community" (gack!) can be embarrassing

[sgage]

Perhaps this trolling story has accomplished its goal: I'm about to abandon all Linux Distros forever just to avoid being considered a part of such an assholish "community" (gag). Seriously, people were down on Ubuntu the minute it became popular. If Ubuntu was successful, obviously it must be evil. And if their distro is coherent, easy to install, use and update, well then it's for the newbie masses, and must be ungood.

Or they set up defaults in a way that didn't please you, though you can easily configure it any way you wanted. No, they were "ramming their dictatorial decisions down my throat". Godz, how many times have I heard that! Oh, but asking someone to configure something is too hard for the newbies. But wait a minute, I thought Ubuntu was bad because it was too newbie-friendly.

A bunch of confused, hypocritical, self-contradictory, whining assholes. If you don't like a distro, FFS don't use it - it's really quite that simple. There's a distro out there for everyone.

Just Works - no longer

[Eric Wayte]

I quit using Ubuntu with 9.10 after it would lock up my eee PC 1005HA during the install. It even locked up running off the USB!
I filed a bug, which promptly went to /dev/null. Now I run Fedora and it Just Works.

The summary sucks...

[bmo]

And the article itself is a bunch of hooey.

It's almost like I'm on 4chan/g/

Personally, I like Ubuntu even while I find fault with it. While nothing is perfect, out of all the distributions, it has the least amount of BS.

That is until you try to add the kubuntu meta-package. Friends don't let friends add the kubuntu meta-package - they do kde-full instead.

Speaking of which, the Pardus team could certainly teach the kubuntu idiots how to configure KDE. Pardus is god-tier KDE.

Particular note to any Kubuntu devs here: You have done more harm to the adoption of KDE than anyone else on the planet. You're incompetent.
--
BMO

Vista SP1 and Window 7 came out?

[jgtg32a]

Vista SP1 and Window 7 came out it which dealt with a great deal of the "complaints" that the target audience of Ubuntu had (more or less beginners and XP converts). Couple that with them not really being in the news (free advertisement) and that'll do quite a bit to your reputation.

...same old story

[YankDownUnder]

Ubuntu's "general" evolution is the same as every other distribution - they all follow the same pattern. "Community Support" follows the same pattern - I've seen it with RH and Fedora and Mandrake/Mandriva and SuSE and PCLOS and everything else under the sun. Always the same. On that token, IRC support always follows the same patterns. That part, I find quite sad - especially in that after all these years, sometimes the "Community Support" frightens away more "wanna-be converts" due to paramilitary attitudes, snobbishness and elitism. At least, in this decade, Ubuntu has truly forged some new ground in being publicly "known" - and created a mass following. Kudos to them - and kudos to those that would otherwise not have tried linux in the first place if it wasn't for Ubuntu. And thanks, Ubuntu, for making it more than easy to convert MS Windows users to linux, and for making server installations so bloody simple. (Saves me heaps of time and effort - more bang for the buck).

Where did the love go?

[rivaldufus]

www.apple.com

The remaining fanbois went on to post on phoronix.

Re:Where did the love go?

[Chuck Chunder]

There is some truth in that I suspect.

I got the shits with Ubuntu when they went from FSpot to Shotwell with no migration path. I have a large amount of data that means a lot to me personally and all of a sudden it's simply deprecated. (FSpot is still installable but bugs that render it useless simply don't get fixed).

Changing window managers, colour schemes etc is one thing but abandoning software that looks after things that people have significant personal investment in is a recipe for justified discontent.

Seeing as I would have to re-import all my photos into Shotwell anyway I decided to buy an iMac and have them all tucked safely away in iPhoto instead.

I still have my Ubuntu box and will continue to follow future releases but I'm not sure I will trust it with anything important until it demonstrates that transitioning user data to new releases is looked after well. I like the sometimes experimental nature of Ubuntu but it needs to temper that with supporting users through any change.

Re:The Linux "Community" (gack!) can be embarrassi

[leetleguy]

I totally agree, the community is full of I-write-Kernel-modules-for-breakfast-Your-distro-sucks types.

And boy, do they hate Ubuntu. Some weeks ago, I made the (unforgiveable) mistake of not being very precise in a comment I made in a bug tracker - I actually had something to add, that was not contained in the original bug description, but I may have complained a little, too...

Anyway, the reply was "This is not Ubuntu, this is not the place to talk about your feelings."

I think that sentence has it all, in 14 words.

I never had Ubuntu installed, I've been using debian ever from the beginning, but I still think Canonical are the only ones who do it right for beginners. Convincing a normal user to switch over from Win7 to debian (or any other "cool" Linux distro) is simply impossible. They just suck when you're new to the whole thing. I know it, I was new to it 10 years ago and not so much has changed in that respect.

Totally! Journalists should...

[Isaac Remuant]

So journalists should find information they do not care about and heartlessly report about it?

That whole "They have an agenda" talk is starting to get old. We should stop looking at ulterior motives ans start checking if reports are facts or not.

Re:Totally! Journalists should...

[SomeJoel]

So journalists should find information they do not care about and heartlessly report about it?

Yes, they should. It's called "being objective", and is one of the tenets of good journalism. It's odd that you think otherwise; perhaps you are hiding some sort of agenda?

Re:Totally! Journalists should...

[RockoTDF]

"Ulterior motives" really don't matter if you have presented a good argument, and have addressed opposing arguments and points of view. Unfortunately, people generally suck at the latter.

Re:Totally! Journalists should...

[Isaac Remuant]

If a media outlet reports a fact. It's still a fact. It doesn't matter if they want world peace, war, high taxes or anything else. The BAD thing happens when they omit/hide portions of the truth because they're contrary to that "agenda" you talk about.

We can try to be as objective as we can but we will always favor one policy over another, one path, one faction, etc.

Arguably, you won't find an objective news source. They ALL have agendas. What you have to be wary of is if they are willing to resort to lying, hiding or distorting instead of just reporting facts.

Us versus them

[gd2shoe]

People seem programmed to seek an us-versus-them mentality. You see it everywhere: High school cross town rivalry, political partisanship, nationality (vital, but frequently overdone), preferred sports team, even the sport itself!

It is only natural for racial stereotypes to persist for this reason alone. Ugly, evil, pernicious, worth fighting against at every turn, but natural.

Ubuntu is UI, should consider Meego over Unity

[Khopesh]

Many of the links in that article are actually quite useful, especially if you skip the internal references. One of them, from the 2008 Linux Plumbers Conference, which is dedicated to the lower-level aspects of the operating system (mostly the kernel, GNU, and X), was of particular interest as it talks about how Canonical isn't carrying its own weight, falling well below any other backer of a commercial distribution (or other Linux-depending company) on pretty much any metric and even well behind community-driven distros like Debian and Gentoo as well.

However, Canonical doesn't care about that layer of the OS; they want to improve the user experience, and have therefore focused almost all of their attention on the user interface. (It is interesting to note that the init subsystem rewrite is a salient counter-example, though its speed improvement still correlates to user experience.) From day one, Ubuntu and GNOME have been bedmates. Shuttleworth and therefore Canonical have therefore focused their efforts on GTK and GNOME while relying upon Debian and friends to care for the rest.

This arrangement seemed to work well for everything but the company's bottom line, which is where the value of this article really comes into play. They are in trouble as an unprofitable company built upon a for-profit model. (Easy solution: file for nonprofit status...)

Getting back to UI, Canonical is now getting bold and stirring the pot. They are pushing Wayland as an X11 replacement, which I think is a really good move (though forecasting when it might supplant X11 in Ubuntu seems extremely unwise). However, the friction they are creating with Unity as a replacement for GNOME Shell could be too much of a step, especially in a few iterations when the demands placed by Unity and GNOME Shell begin to differ. It is clear that Canonical wants (and due to its business state, perhaps needs) to have more control and be seen as a mover and shaker, but I question the wisdom of what might fracture the GNOME development community, especially given a target market of netbooks and smaller (given GNOME's bloat).

Were I in control, I'd steer Canonical to MeeGo.

With Nokia now fully removed from the picture, AMD added, and primary driver Intel redoubled in its investment, MeeGo is ripe for the shaping. From all appearances, MeeGo's design as something end-users might ever see has completely vanished. Intel's main intent for MeeGo may have been for demos, with widespread adoption merely being one possible future (remember, they're a hardware company). MeeGo products that have hit the market so far have all had fully customized user interfaces.

Canonical's designs for Ubuntu are to focus on the netbook and play a pivotal role in its user interface while improving overall speed and efficiency (key elements to the user experience). MeeGo, with its roots in the embedded space (including tablets and netbooks), fits here perfectly. Intel, who ranks near the top of all of those plumbing contribution lists in the LPC keynote I began this post with, would then become an ally.

(Yes, I know MeeGo itself has more in common with its Intel-backed Fedora-based predecessor Moblin than it does with its other predecessor, Nokia-backed Debian-based Maemo, and the main reason I'm a fan of Ubuntu is its compatibility with Debian, but those are minor hurd

Re:The Linux "Community" (gack!) can be embarrassi

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Huh, funny, I've never noticed to Linux community to be any more assholish than any other community out there. There are elitist dicks in every crowd (Apple, MS, hell, even Google/Android is starting to get a following) but that doesn't speak for the community as a whole. In my experience, folks in the Linux community tend to be pretty friendly, and the ones who are piss-ranters that rip on newbies etc. etc. tend to get shunned to their mother's basements pretty quickly.

The only real difference I've noticed between Linux assholes and other assholes is the Linux assholes are at least honest about being assholes, rather than playing it off as if their condescension is somehow better for you. I appreciate the honesty.

Just another successful OSS (not FOSS) company

[recharged95]

How is this different from Redhat/Fedora and Novell/OpenSuSE?

The author has a point: Canonical has finally reached the same levels of RedHat and Novell--that's the conclusion I got from his article, everything else is opinion.

FYI, all 3 make great products and work with the FOSS, they don't manage the FOSS community...

Re:How the worm (PopeRatzo) turns...

[PopeRatzo]

Government, Teachers, Psychological Wards, Conservators, Judges, Administrative Trustees, Community Associations, Tax Collectors, USDA, SWAT, BATFE(ces), DMV, Social Services, Social Security Administration, Civil Engineers: you all are going to Hell, and anyone that sends you there quicker will get more bonus points by Almighty God because the lives that you wreck along the way to your jog to Hell are worth more that it is acceptable for a few volunteers to sacrifice their immortality and good nature to send you all quicker to Hell by ourselves going there with you to make sure you all get fucking plunged down faster.,

I want you guys to think about something. The above person is among us. He's probably one of your co-workers. He lives his life believing that civil engineers are deserving...uh, whatever being "sent to Hell" means (and I don't think it's good). And there's a good chance that he either already owns a powerful firearm or is trying to get one. He votes.

This sad sonofabitch is the product of exactly what I was talking about in the comment that induced him to say these things. This is why that as much as I love the country I grew up in, the city in which I live, the culture, the institutions, the people, I have to get out while the getting's good. Because what he's got? It's spreading and some very powerful people are doing their best to make sure it spreads fast and wide.