Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu 11.04, Slackware 13.37
Approximately one billion Slashdot readers wrote in to tell us today that one of two distributions had releases:
the new Ubuntu sports the Unity interface, marking a 'radical departure' from its UI of old. Now the more ancient and bearded amongst you might be interested in Patrick announcing the latest Slackware release which clearly has the most 1337 version number to date.
Doesn't both news deserve a separate note?
La culpa no es del chancho...
Most of what it does is Compiz, it has a menu bar and a dock. You still log in through gdm and it still pops up on the wrong monitor when I have 'em both active.
On the other hand, it is awfully more mac-like, what with Unity stealing menu bars left and right, but not always.
Still the same theme from Maverick with the gadgets on the wrong side but now it makes sense because it makes sense for the gadgets to be on that side when they get snarfed into the top bar.
I'm just glad that they managed to get the dock pop-up/click behavior ironed out before the release, I noticed they finally fixed this in the last day or two. And the Applications place seems to actually have stuff in it every time I click it now. For a few days there I had to type to see anything the first time I used it.
All in all if you're not married to a particular interface it's not an unpleasant change, and it does look nice. Amusingly, to me it is reminiscent of the Zune Desktop Theme for Windows XP. That's nice for me because I'm a dual-boot user again, and that's my XP theme of choice :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I find Kubuntu Lucid LTS stable enough for me these days and cannot really see any reason to upgrade to Natty. I think I'm going to stick to the LTS releases from now on since the new features just aren't compelling enough. Anyone else feel the same?
Summation 2
Do either of these support installing to a GPT partition? I've been looking around for a Linux distro that actually allows me to install to a GPT disk without much fuss and haven't had any luck so far. It would be nice since my main reason for wanting GPT is Linux obsession with using up all my primary partitions.
Now if only Win XP could be made to boot from a GPT partition without sacrificing all the extra partitions I could have with GPT.
No one cares
Geeks do, Linux is awesome source.
Ubuntu should be on top. Twice to be sure.
I'm sure all the bottoms who use Slackware will disagree.
I'm waiting for the overly keen to discover the pain for me and report it faithfully to /.
Just getting to old to beat my head into the keyboard any more. Well in this case touch screen.
I really don't care for either Gnome Shell or Unity, so I'm going to give xfce a whirl for the next 6 months.
oh haaaaa you interpreted hyperbole literally ohaaaaaa i just died laughing oh man thats the funniest thing i will ever read in a million years
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
I tried using Unity while Natty was in beta and it caused me to jump to Fedora 15. Unity has always struck me as a train wreck of usability. Global menus that are always present... unless they're not, because it depends on the application. A dock that is always there on the left, unless it isn't in order to get out of the way. It's a little too busy, a little to buggy, and a little too inconsistent with itself. I know I'm in a minority right now but I think Gnome-Shell is a better approach. I'm not starting a flame war here, I know GS isn't readily configurable, has issues with network manager, and has countless other things that need to mature. I can't help but think Canonicals reach has exceeded their grasp.
load "$",8,1
I do have a beard, dammit. Stop stereotyping me!
Just switched to Slack last week. First time I've used it since slackware 3.0
I'm happy. It's got a nice clean feel without all the layers and obfuscation - it just stays out of the way and lets me do whatever I'm doing. Nice and simple. And that's the way I like it.
C|N>K
For the bearded folk:
Slackware Torrents
and for the rest of you:
Ubuntu Torrents
While you're at it, ask the guy what is he doing on a linux powered website, inside a linux story thread, if nobody cares.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
The release looks very much like the desktop on the Ubuntu Netbook Remix distribution.
The truth shall set you free!
Well, it definitely smells like one.
... I hope 13.37 is better than 13.1. I upgraded to the latter from 13.0 on my laptop and stuff just stopped working properly so I had to revert back to 13.0.
Fingers crossed for 13.37 and kudos to Pat and the guys for still doing Slackware in the face of all the corporate competition (no I don't mean MS or Apple, I mean Novell, RedHat AND Canonical).
Step 1: Change default background picture from ugly orange/brown to even uglier pinky purple.
Step 2: Move window controls to the left.
Step 3: Design a new interface that steals window menu bars and moves them to the top of the screen, only for the active window.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Change their name to FreeMac
Seriously, though... Are they trying to copy OSX?
I used Unity for about 15 minutes before I decided I'm never going to like it. Returning to Gnome 2.x was pretty easy though, but for some reason Emerald is totally broken. I also gave Gnome 3 a spin and while it has some nice features, I prefer the classic "Applications | Places | System" menu that has become so familiar. If this mess keeps up, I'll have to give KDE another spin.
Despite not being ancient or bearded, I'll take Slackware any day, thankyouverymuch.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
Only if you suck at arithmetic.
Almost makes me want to give Slackware a go.
Just as a heads up, if you are running an NVidia card that is not handled by either Nouveau or the nvidia-current, do not upgrade. There is a major bug where the wrong dependancies are called. I imagine now that Natty is out it will get fixed fairly quickly but just an FYI.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
"This is the only way for Slackware to remain relevant in 2011 onwards"
Slackware is still relevant. Plenty of people still use it. If you don't like the way its done then pick a different distro. I use it precisely because it doesn't use rpms or yum with all the attendent dependency hell. I can use slackpkg if I want but I'm perfectly happy with tar and administering my system manually thanks.
"I am sorry but the fact of the matter is user(non geek) don't want to run make clean install in 2011"
A non geek user would choose slackware in the first place. Slackware is FOR geeks and thats the way it should stay.
And yet Slackware is still relevant regardless of what you just declared. The fact of the matter is that Slackware isn't for you non-geek users, so just be happy with Ubuntu.
Um, Unity is just another move toward cloning the Mac interface:
1. Global menu? Mac has had that forever
2. Monochrome notifications on the top right? Check
3. Dock? Check (except its on the *side*!)
The only differences I see so far are annoying ones:
1. The global menu is not always active, so it is non obvious how to access it ... not sure I want to attempt it on my main system
2. On mouseover the global menu obscures the window title
3. The maximize behavior with the close/minimize/restore buttons in the panel is just ugly and unweidly
4. The dock hides and appears in a nonsensical, semi-random fashion. It should be always on or auto-hide -- "dodge windows" is just weird
5. It has the dash, which is completely useless once you get the apps you use pinned to the dock
6. It crashed like crazy when testing in VirtualBox
I got an upgrade notice this morning and for the first time in 3 years I declined.
Silly.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
" thats the funniest thing i will ever read in a million years"
Well, yeah. You certainly won't live to be a million.
i've been saying the same thing since forever but no one seems to notice! unity is just a step further in ubuntu's attempt to clone osx. from the abrupt change of the titlebar buttons to the new and shiny dock, everything is just parodying osx.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Does Ubuntu 11.04 now use Wayland instead of X?
> Approximately one billion Slashdot readers wrote in to tell us today that one of two distributions had releases:
You have a million million or 10^12 readers ?
I care, but mostly because the new unity interface is goddamn retarded. I installed the beta a couple weeks back. Gave it a couple hours to try and get used to it, and just couldn't. I could see it working well for a tablet, but for my laptop it's completely useless.
The only good thing is that they give you the option to switch back to gnome, but metacity seems to be completely broken for me, and hardware acceleration no longer works. As far as I'm concerned, Ubuntu 11.04 is a step backwards. Now I'm looking at either switching to XFCE for the interface, or maybe ditching Ubuntu entirely and going with a different flavor.
I don't mind running make clean install, even though it's 2011. But, isn't it a pain to keep track of bug fixes and security updates?
I told you a million times Vivyan, do not exaggerate!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The dock was originally on the side, back when OS X was called NeXTSTEP
a little bit like. . . OpenStep? eh?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Why go to Fedora when you go to Debian?
I've gotten rather used to the Debian way of doing things, not to mention the repositories are much better.
The latest Debian has the same easy installer as Ubuntu.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
unity is the worst ui ever. i played it way back in alpha and even the beta and relly nothing has changed from the crashy alpha.its also a usablty nightmare. if you dont take my word for it go give it a try yourself. your better off useing kde its gotten good or xfce or lxde.
Unity is DEFAULT, not ONLY. You can turn unity off and on just by changing a couple settings and logging in again.
The global menu isn't going to work with everything right off because this ISN'T OSX we're dealing with - it's open source software written from a variety of apis and toolkits. The most important ones seem to work well, and firefox is being integrated which will solve the most glaring and annoying niggle.
Unity is intended to save screen real estate - which it does quite well. I use my pc in the living room, from the couch across the room. So my 1920x1080 resolution screen gets filled with larger than usualy icons and fonts because I'm an old fart and my eyes don't work so good anymore. And while I'm NOT using unity iteslf I do use some components of it - maximus, global menu, and a dockbar - and it works great.
I really dislike the displacement of nautilus in the new desktop. That's my one real problem with unity as it is. The preview icons don't work properly and I find it confusing because the settings do not migrate so the experience is VERY inconsistent. It will definitely need some work, but it's not all bad.
Yeah, I had wondered why they moved from the nice colored network icons to a monochrome set in 10.04.
Reason: their designers all use Macs. No kidding.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
The best way to install Ubuntu for advanced users: mini.iso. A 22 MB netinstall CD image that installs nothing but the bare minimum. After install, just run "apt-get install ubuntu-desktop" if you want the standard desktop, "apt-get install xubuntu-desktop" if you want xubuntu, etc. If you don't want a desktop that's fine too.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
external monitor support is completely broken in gnome (gnome-settings-daemon).
Connect a monitor to your laptop. Disable the laptop monitor from preferences monitor. What happens ?
I recommend waiting another month.
This is the most unstable Ubuntu release yet.
I actually kind of appreciate having a not-too-hackish OS-X like interface, mostly because I use OSX as well as Ubuntu -- and first thing I do is move the dock to the side in OSX.
Unfortunately, this has one glaring problem for me. I expect applications to behave in a 'application-centric' way like OSX does now, rather than the 'window-centric' way. I keep closing my browser and having to restart it because I keep thinking it should keep running after I close the window. Since the beta was slow for me and my desktop is getting long in the tooth this got really annoying.
No because slackpkg takes care of it.
slackpkg update - refreshes your mirror
slackpkg install-new - installs any packages officially added to the core
slackpkg upgrade-all - updates packages with updates (bug fixes and security updates)
I'll wait a little and see if there are some major bugs then update. I'll also apt-get install xubuntu-desktop and get a GUI that works the way I want and not the other way around.
Roger that.
For me GNOME jumped the shark with this new "feature" intended to help newbies who don't know about alt-dragging windows.
If you alt-drag a window's title bar off the top of the screen (I guess they must anticipate this can happen WITHOUT alt-dragging in some other scenario, otherwise it's clear the user knows how to do it) then attempt to resize the window using one of the edges or the bottom left corner, you instead get the window's menu.
And of course, the arrogant GNOME devs knew that this improvement was beyond reproach, they elected not to add a preference for it such that the original behavior could be restored.
And now with Unity's wackiness... I just want a predictable GUI that does the normal things a GUI should, I don't want innovation. (Just like Microsoft removing the "Up" button in Windows Explorer... and no, breadcrumbs aren't the same, because the up button was always in the same place, but you have to aim for a breadcrumb each time...)
Thankfully there is no shortage of choices for window managers in Linux, though I will miss the GNOME menus, as they provided the most sane way I've seen of discovering what software is installed.
Slackware 313.37 How's the ETA on that ^_^
I realize there is a classic mode, but that's being jettisoned in 11.10. I've tried classic mode, and all it does is add an extra click to get to everything.
And when I said "the global menu is not always active" I should have said "not always visible". Most apps I played with use the global menu, but unless you spasmodically throw your cursor around the screen and accidentally hover over the panel you would never know there is a global menu in the first place.
For the record, I like the global menu on the Mac. The active window title and menu are always visible. The window title is bold and the text is never cut off or obscured by the menu. The apple menu is always in the top-left and has all the system-related commands I need. The window title itself is always a menu that has the preferences for that app and any commands related to app window management. Intuitive and, most importantly, *consistent*.
If you want to save real estate and truly target mobile devices, you need to be revolutionary, not evolutionary. Consider:
1. Why do apps even need menus? Can we achieve the same level of functionality without cascading drop down menus? The mobile industry has shown that this is possible. We just need to re-think the application interfaces.
2. What good is that silly ubuntu icon in the top left? This seems to be a non-functional throwback to the concept of a "Start" menu. It's like the apple menu, but it doesn't actually do anything useful. I can get to the dash by clicking on the icons in the launcher, pushing the super key, or going to the top-left corner. It's a waste of space that could be used for displaying the active window title so it doesn't have to be cut off by the menu.
3. Why can't the launcher be some kind of overlay so it doesn't have to fight with the other windows for real estate, sliding in and out depending on state of the active windows? For that matter, does the panel need to always be visible? Can't that be part of the overlay?
Gnome 3 did a better job with these issues, I think. I'm hoping Unity will end up being a New Coke / Coke Classic kind of thing to make people ecstatic to switch to Gnome 3 in 11.10.
Sounds like Slackware wins by 2.33.
I see what you did there...
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The last few Ubuntu upgrades have had stability issues. I would love to see a chart comparing the most popular linux distros, with metrics looking at the stability of the platform and benchmarks for common tasks.
I was a Slackware user from the very low single digit versions until I decided I really wanted 64bit then never got back.
The 1337 version number is a clear sign. I am tempted to give it a go.
I started using Slackware with the 13.1 release last year, and I've been hooked ever since. I love the amount of control I'm given as well as the simplicity of the design. Plus it's fast, stable, and secure. The releases tend to be pretty up to date, and the packages that use an older version I really don't mind all that much. Granted the initial setup takes a bit of work, but once that's done, I never really have to touch anything else. The package system is actually pretty flexible and reliable. The official packages are guaranteed to work, and using the Slackbuilds website, third party packages are relatively easy to acquire. If worst comes to worst, it's easy to wipe everything back to the default package setup, as well as the default configurations.
I've installed it on my home desktop, my ancient laptop (for testing stuff out), and my netbook, and they all run quite well. I definitely recommend Slackware for anyone who wants more control and a better understanding of their system, without sacrificing speed and stability.
That's easy. Arch is better.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
150 comments so far and only 4 about Slackware, all others talking about Ubuntu.
Well, when something is perfect, what's left to say or discuss about it? I mean, other than the one or two missing libs?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
If they seriously wanted Ubuntu One Music to be relevant, it was already a bad idea to require linux/Rhythmbox, but now the default player wont even support One Music without installing a plugin.
There were _some_ improvements. In general, Unity is stable, fast and adjustable, but it lacks polish. Its size, inability to provide decent management for absolute paths (I have more favored applications than allowed by Unity default space, and I like them in groups, just fine) make for quite bad user experience, even with improved System Settings menu.
I wish I could access my little app park the same way I can do that with System Settings...
Anyway, there are fallback options, without Unity. They work fine and provide missing functionality.
In general, system feels a little faster than 10.10.
Regards,
Ruemere
There are not enough "My distro can beat up your distro" comments here. I am disappoint.
A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding...
i didn't see anything you just said mentioned in the article.
while i'm hear though, i might as well add that the reason i finally switched away from slackware after 15 years of use was that I just didn't have the time any more for the package management on it. Slackware really needs to introduce some sort of dependency setup for the packages along with repositories.
The slackers are just reading all the comments about how difficult it is to configure the new desktops then shaking their heads and smiling to themselves before they continue configuring xfce.
- "If one man can create that much hate, you can only imagine how much love we as a togetherness can create."
This is the only way for Slackware to remain relevant in 2011 onwards.
Slackware is completely relevant. Even disregarding Slack's own userbase, its design philosophy is a major influence on similarly power-user oriented distros, such as Gentoo and Arch.
rpms and debian(YUM/APT) packages
Yep, I remember the days of running sudo apt-get install gimp and finding 200 packages and a kitchen sink in the dependency list. I miss that not at all.
I am sorry but the fact of the matter is user(non geek) don't want to run make clean install in 2011
Non geeks should not use Slackware. Use Debian if you want. But don't come bitching about your 20GB /usr partition.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Wrong-o! Gotta say, Unity/GnomeShell is a train wreck! Please, someone tell me how I can keep my beloved Spatial Nautilus/Compiz Fusion desktop I know and love!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
I've been using 11.04 beta on my netbook for a couple of weeks. I have experienced a couple of lock ups. But again I was using the "beta".
I find the interface alright looking and fairly easy to understand after a couple hours of playing and a day of usage. But sometimes the overlay menu wont appear when I move the mouse to request it. And sometimes the overlay gets stuck on the page even when I am not wanting it and click on the application.
Now these issues may actual be some "feature" that I dont understand and cant control yet. However, I find the old Ubuntu interface was more intuitive. But then again... it was pretty much like windows.
Now, instead of using columns and words for the menus, all menu options appear as icons. In this way, I found the interface to appear more touch-screen compatible then Gnome. I suspect that these visual changes could make the Ubuntu interface more compatible with smart phones and pad touch controls. So in this way... I think it is a good move.
I have no first hand experience with Gnome Shell, so I am only comparing against 10.04/10 Gnome window manager with or without Compiz.
Get Entrance via XDMCP and be enlightened17 .02
For a setop or tablet try illume for realestate management.
my
resist propaganda
Crap. Ok - played with the beta versions of 11.04 in virtualization. I really don't like the interface. I have been using 10.1 and I *like* the Gnome 2.x interface. It's simple, I can add useful things to the bottom app bar, and I like the simple menu structure. Alternatively Gnome 3 is just...just...ick. Really not designed for the PC or for me and the way that I work, so no option there. I also like having current versions of apps installed and their updates automagically done as part of the daily update cycle. No getting rid of Open Office and replacing it with Libre Office unless I do a bunch of things - free time is not something that I have a lot of. Setting up Libre Office in 10.1 is a manual thing initially, but that also goes for many other apps too, unless I bump up to the 11 series. As always with Ubuntu, the first ".01" release breaks a bunch of things - video is usually the big bug for me. So what to do? After trying a few (11 or so) distros in virtualization - Linux, BSD, open Solaris derivatives, I've settles on OpenSuse 11.4 with the KDE interface. I decided to give the "K" another try, and I find that I like it. I can customize it to my tastes, and that suits me just fine. This is the beauty of the Linux ecosystem: diversity = a healthy gene pool, and you can get the system that you want, not the system that's imposed from a centralized corporate self-interested behemoth. Sorry to part company with Ubuntu for now, but looking forward to a new thing. I'll be keeping an eye on what Canonical does and I'll be rooting for them. It's just that at the moment, what they're doing doesn't suit me.
The global menu is one of the worst aspects of the OSX user interface, I have no idea why Ubuntu would copy that.
I started my Linux career with Slackware, back then I used to convert all servers to Slackware ;) these days I am using Fedora on my work laptop but still follow Slackware version and when get time play with Slackware under virtualization. Right now I am downloading 64bit off torrent of latest version and will give it a try under KVM and Virtualbox.
Another reason of downloading is to share my bandwidth with all the Slackware users I'll try to keep seeding for one month with no limit on upload on my Internet facing server with fat ass pipe to the Internet ;)
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
One thing that's particularly funny about this relocation of apps' menu bars to the "unified" bar in Unity. Mac introduced it waaay back, presumably for the same reasons as Unity are using: To release more vertical pixel space for actual app content.
These days, on Macs, we have humongous screens, up to 2560*1600 on the iMacs, and never less than 1280x800 on the 11" Air. I.e., there's plenty of vertical pixels now.
Unity was with early netbooks in mind, i.e. vertical resolutions as low as 640 pixels. Made sense. Truth is, even netbooks these days match regular notebooks' resolution. Basically, the point for moving the menu bar to a global bar is already moot. All we get is buggy behavior, because it's not yet properly implemented.
Give it a couple of years, and when netbooks have full HD resolution, they'll probably have ironed out the quirks ;)
I know a fresh install has unity by default, but if you upgrade an existing installation, does it leave your desktop as regular gnome?
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
No, after you reboot it defaults to unity. But it leaves gnome installed so it's an easy switch - you just select gnome on your login screen.
Must remember to click preview before submitting.
- "If one man can create that much hate, you can only imagine how much love we as a togetherness can create."
If you can't be bothered to see what updates you're getting, just stick with Ubuntu.
So, I am partial to Slack, as it taught me linux by fire... I am disappointed everyone here is talking about Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is great in it's own ways, but this is fucking SLASHdot!!! Let's get some slack talk going here. I'll start by thanking Patrick V. He's the man and I strongly urge you to buy a DVD or CD set from the site to support this amazing distro.
Maybe others may benefit from my reflection of learning linux on Slack:
First, Penguins are pretty cool. So is the pipe smoking Bob Dobbs guy from the Church of Subgenius. Second, holy shit is this distro trial by fire, but I learned so, so much from the experience: installing linux by menu or command line, recompiling kernel to only include the libraries I need or that work, configuring XWindows and learning how it interacts with the linux subsystems, command line tools: grep, ps, fsck, top, etc., true networking tools, installing programs from scratch, hacking config files, etc.
So my advice if you haven't used Linux and want to give it a try: Nerds and geeks with time on your hands, go slack, otherwise go Ubuntu.
As well, if you want to resurrect an old box, go slack. It's old and supports lots of old hardware, like laptops and 486s with 8 megs of RAM and such.
YMMV a lot,
M
I fucked up my computer so many times learning partition tables, boot-loaders, kernel recompiles
Browse at 1. You'll thank me later.