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Ubuntu Aims For 200 Million Users In Four Years
dkd903 writes "Delivering the keynote at the Ubuntu Developer Summit at Budapest, Hungary, Canonical Founder Mark Shuttleworth has announced that Canonical's goal is to have 200 million Ubuntu users in four years. Canonical has not officially provided any data on how many Ubuntu users there currently are — in fact, the number is quite difficult to track. However, according to Prakash Advani, a partner manager for Central Asia at Canonical, there are an estimated 12 million Ubuntu users."
Well, you can count me in!
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Well, with Ubuntu becoming more and more mainstream, I wonder how this will affect other Linux distributions.
Considering PSN is apparently 75 million users, if the numbers for Ubuntu keep growing then we will hopefully see more developers who consider it worthwhile to port their games over. The first to get there stands to do well out of a niche market like us. I've bought Linux games that I still haven't even played, just to encourage the developers. The reason I've not played them is that my only PC right now is a netbook. I'd build a gaming PC again if there was a vibrant Linux gaming scene. As it is, I do all my gaming on consoles just now.
which is totally what she said
aint gonna be drinking that koolaid.
gonna look for an alternative.
Deleted
If Canonical wants Ubuntu's user base to grow substantially, they need to integrate usability testing into its design cycle. That's not the only thing that matters, but there's just no way to beat Microsoft or Apple's software without improving the user experience.
Replace Ubuntu front end with an Android VM?
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Omen? or Thadastu as they say in India.. meaning may it happen!
The last person to mod me down is a rotten egg..... there.. that should do it..
It seems as though more and more people are trying other distros, and with plenty of good reasons. When I began using Linux, Ubuntu was where I started. I ran it for many years. When they decided to integrate PulseAudio by default, I started considering other options. I now use Debian Squeeze and am happy with it, but for example:
The other day I built a USB stick with Ubuntu for troubleshooting purposes. While I was in the live system, I tried to listen to some music on my local hard drive. I was then subjected to occasional skipping/stuttering in the sound... in 2011... on a six-core machine... with EIGHT gigabytes of memory. There is no excuse for this. It never happens on my native Debian system, so don't blame the drivers. I then had to rip PulseAudio out of the live-USB that I had made and re-route everything to use ALSA just to get stable sound that would play continuously without issue.
Now they're completely changing the desktop environment too, with Unity and all. We just want a stable operating system where the devs concentrate on fixing *problems* and not changing a bunch of things just for the sake of change. I can only imagine how many games will stop working/have problems when they switch to Wayland.
In short, if your goals are to have 2 million users, you should probably try and keep existing users first.
The problem for me though is what to tell other newbies to Linux. My cousin just asked what flavor of Linux I recommend. Do I tell him to use Ubuntu and give him the impression that Linux can't play a music file without occasional stutters? Do I tell him to use Debian and have a slightly more difficult time setting things up, but a better system in the end?
I've downloaded two different versions, wrestled with them for a while (first on dual-monitor support, later on sound card issues), and ultimately went back to Windows. I'm a geek, but even I'm not THAT much of a geek to stick with Linux apparently (though Ubuntu definitely was the most user-friendly Linux distro I've seen to date).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That's a realistic goal for kubuntu or xubuntu, but not with Unity ubuntu.
...if they keep breaking stuff / replacing working software with experimental crap.
THAWTELESS, West London, Monday (NNGadget) — Canonical, Inc. has announced the release later this month of Ubuntu Linux to men.
Project founder Mark Shuttleworth explained that "this stuff is difficult to explain to girls" and thought they'd have gotten the hint when he called 8.04 "Hairy Hardon." "Worrying about sexism in open source just detracts from the battle for Linux. So we've put the tits back into the default desktop. And arses."
Crime-fighting geek Shuttleworth, who dresses as a billiionaire playboy by night, swore that plenty of women liked him lots and that he obviously wasn't unable to get laid or anything, having gotten seriously rich in the dot-com era, not to mention having gone into space. "Chicks dig that stuff. Trust me, I've met lots of girls. More than five!"
Canonical Community Manager Jono Bacon echoed this sentiment on his blog. "We just don't understand how come women are 15% of all computer programmers but only 1% of open source programmers. It must be a bit complicated for them. That's why I've written this spontaneous blog post, completely unrelated to anything my boss may or may not have said, on all the fantastically talented women in free software, even if none of them seem to work much on Ubuntu any more. Also, I'm absolutely confident that saying I'm in a computer geek heavy metal band will get me lots of chicks too, even if their pretty little heads can't understand Linux."
A special women's edition of Ubuntu 9.10 will be released on a bright pink CD. "It doubles as a makeup mirror!" said Shuttleworth.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Get rid of Unity. Nuff said ...
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
I put Ubuntu on a machine about 4 years ago. But it was too toyish, and I haven't done it since. But are they counting me? I wouldn't mind.
Not here, I'm sticking with OpenSUSE for the foreseeable future.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Well, I'm running an Ubuntu server. I absolutely love it. Much easier to manage than a Windows server (which I have to deal with at work). But, it won't work for me for a Desktop OS due to lack of MS Office, iTunes, Photoshop, and games.
"I liked Ubuntu better before it was soooo mainstream."
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I learned Linux on Slackware, then migrated to Mandrake and Red Hat. After a while, I got tired of having to deal with gruesome package management issues every time I wanted to set up a new installation or upgrade. I slowly stopped using Linux out of frustration because I just wanted a good platform to code on, not one that would become a hindrance.
An IT buddy turned me on to Ubuntu years back and it's been my home networking platform of choice (save the OpenBSD firewall). I even got my boss to install it here in the office for intranetworking. Hey, Ubuntu maybe didn't develop their tools, but as an out-of-the-box experience for a programmer who isn't looking to become a network admin, it's all I've ever wanted!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Not with Unity they wont - I changed to Mint - Seems much like the "old" Ubuntu - I think they seriously misjudged opinion with Unity
I never could find a definitive answer, so my comments are conjecture backed by reading the whitespace between the forum post lines. It appears Natty uses a new release of xorg's X server, and Nvidia hasn't released drivers compatible with it. I wouldn't mind so much if that fact had been stated up front, thereby saving me two days of misery trying to make it, nay anything do xinerama across two monitors. But alas, I wasted an entire weekend and wound up back on 10.04 anyway. I even tried the Nouveau driver, and I suppose it has potential, but it ain't ready for use yet. People who take single desktop/dual monitor capability for granted won't give (K)(X)Ubuntu a second chance.
They shouldn't have waited until Ubuntu was beyond the point of no return on the shark-jumping ramp to make this announcement.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
+1
Ubuntu could have become the de-facto linux system for phones and tablets, but Android was faster.
I have an equally unrealistic goal of getting laid and having a larger cock .
Go to prison and you'll get both.
See, these things are possible if you just change the way you look at things. Unfortunately, like the example I gave, that's not what I had in mind when I asked for change.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Tried CentOS, installer quits hard if you select at the end the wrong packages together, no warning or anything.
Fedora? Can't accept a HD formatted without partitions. Ubuntu can and under Linux it is perfectly valid. Why use MS-DOS partitions on a modern system?
Like it or hate it, Ubuntu is the mover and Shaker. Red Hat has gone corporate. Mandrake (or whatever its name is) has tried going commercial and is limping.
Countless others are gone or near gone.
Is Ubuntu next now it has gone for Unity? Maybe. As said, others have fallen from the leader of the pack before. Ubuntu for now remains the easiests to install for, the onewith the most active user base. Don't like Unity? 11.04 ain't a LTS so you don't have to switch yet. And KUbunutu is an easy switch as well as a switch to Gnome3 or any of the other options.
But Unity I think shows a worrying sign. What does it solve? One of the powers of linux is the ton of "add-ons" that are available for free and all of a sudden you have a desktop that can do nothing. Gnome3 ain't a solution, that piece of software seems determined to remove all options until nothing is left. Here is a hint Gnome team, when Unity is the more capable and customizable compared to Gnome3, YOU SCREWED UP!
KDE4? Don't even get me started.
Yes, there is room for improvement but you make it a LOT easier if you give us at least the basics. Alt-tab, was it such a horrific solution? Task bar? Why do you hate it such? App panel, what did it ever do to you?
200 million users? sure, if there are 200 million people for who a iPhone is just to complex and they want an interface with ZERO buttons, no touch screen, no interaction.
Don't get me wrong, I like Ubuntu Server edition but their desktop took a massive nosedive. aptitude is the best package management but what is the point if the package is unity or gnome3?
Stop fucking around with the desktop. Realize that a LOT of users switch of Aero on windows and have the same desktop they had 10 or more years ago. It works. Some improvements are possible but for god sakes, make sure the old proven and working elements still work.
Really, we went from a time applet that no longer can display the weather, no any weather option (both unity and gnome3) and needing to hold a key to turn off the computer. (Alt turns suspend into power off).
STOP REDUCING THE USABILITY!
But at its core, Ubuntu still is the most capable, see the earlier HD install option.
Just the desktop is pants but that is pants on Fedora 15 as well (Gnome3).
The real secret to developing a popular system is to remember that newbies are a very transient audience. A newbie won't be a newbie for long. It would be like marketing a condom for virgins. There are a lot of virgins in the world, especially here on slashdot, and they are bound to have sex sooner or later, except here on slashdot, but once they had sex they will need far more condoms then that one time "virgin" branded one.
Your OS user won't remain a newbie for long. You don't see many motor cycle companies aiming high at the learner market do you? Despite that a learner bike can be far more fun, the money is in the "experienced rider" market (the succors who think bigger is better)
Damn, guess motor cycle analogies aren't as good as car analogies.
Anyway, once the newbie linux user has started using it and figured out how to setup a dual monitor, he is going to be disappointed he can't set to different ones. That the login screen can no longer be themed.
It would be like Fisher Price deciding that their "My first XXX" line sells so well it will be easy to sell to adults and partner with Sony for a range of electronic devices. Nope.
Newbies becomes experienced users and then don't want anything to do anymore with a newbie only product.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
GNOME shell is still a bit shaky. for now the best thing is to just select "ubuntu classic" on the login screen. THEN plan the move to something else (Mint is staying with old school GNOME for now, Arch is nice, FreeBSD is nice, etc., maybe xubuntu?) at a leisurely pace over the next six months. That's what I'll be doing unless Ubuntu changes heart.
This sort of thing is common in Linux communities. One slight change to a program (even a new dependency or something moves in a menu) and it's OMG OUTRAGE!
I've actually read more than one forum post where someone dismissed an entire application because a change to one keyboard shortcut made a program "completely unusable."
It's okay to be a little pedantic, but there's a point where it crosses the line to ridiculousness.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
So is it all a numbers game? Oh boy we got lots of users now maybe we can sell advertising. Is this why 11 has so much suckage?
The counting issue is sticky. I for example don't consider myself an ubuntu user, but my work desktop, and 4 or so servers at work run ubuntu. My home machines are all gentoo. I think that most long time linux users are multi-distro in this sense. Of course there are always the stats from as a base to work from. With some stats you could possibly extrapolate.
Well, I've done ubuntu, I have it inflicted on me at work, so next will be slack.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I know I most likely won't get an answer...
But if apple was able to make their OS X over unix awesome, why can't the Linux "flavours" ever get close? You'd imagine that anyone with such a big community full of ideals and talent would be enough.
And that's the problem. Everyone has an opinion on how Ubuntu (or any linux distro) should look and feel, and any departure from the "core" is seen as treason. Say what you will about open source, but your biggest strength seems to be your major limitation - you can't please everyone.
I, for one, would love for Ubuntu and Unity to get to, at least, the place OS X got a few years ago. If people just let them be and support them as they try to move forward, I think they can. Right now I feel that those who could make Ubuntu great are the ones holding it back.
I've been a long time Ubuntu user, but as of 11.04, I am seriously considering falling back to pure Debian. Since they can't actually see the number of Ubuntu users out there, be prepared for the next release ot include an "ET Phone Home" package on it...
Does the Unity "taskbar" show more than a single open window yet? So the other day I was wondering whatever happened to the enlightenment desktop, check out bodhilinux, it is pretty smooth. Seems like it may lend its self to tablets touch interface better than others, which may be the best bet for large numbers of adopters. Or lots of advertising...
I don't really get all the Unity-sucks-thus-Ubuntu-sucks whining going around on Slashdot. It's still one pretty damn good distro, feature rich and all, just change the default f*ckin session to Ubuntu classic and you're back as you were, only better. And it sure beats the hell out of switching to a different distro alltogether. More even, if you consider the ~1 minute it takes to accomplish the former (taking into account the blasting boot/shutdown times of Natty).
Considering PSN is apparently 75 million users, if the numbers for Ubuntu keep growing then we will hopefully see more developers who consider it worthwhile to port their games over. The first to get there stands to do well out of a niche market like us.
Unfortunately, no. Tens of millions of Linux users does not necessarily justify porting games to Linux. Unlike the tens of millions of PSN users, the Linux users are not necessarily gamers. Also nearly all the Linux gamers have dual boot configurations or use wine. Basically most Linux gamers are already buying the Windows version. The "market" that justifies whether or not to do a port is only those Linux gamers who refuse to buy Windows games. To a developer switching a Linux gamer from a Windows version to a Linux version is a loss, same revenue, more expenses (the Linux port and its support).
They can guarantee this number with modern game support OTB. Not gonna happen, though.
There's nothing I could say about unity that hasn't already been said by the haters on /. - in summation: It has some potential, some nice ideas, but it's mostly ghastly.
Unless of course I misread TFA and they intend to lose 200 million users in four years. Then they are off to a great start but are somewhat overstating their userbase.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
2015 will be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Goal nice, but Ricky should write articles NOT! He not either proof read nor not read article before hitting button submit! Harticle s crap! Crap, crap crap!
The above is a sample of Rickys' prose. He manages to break tense, many times, within a single sentence. He has at least one double-negative sentence near the beginning of the article. He manages to create run-on sentences. His article is trying to inform about Ubuntu and it prospective growth, but it looks like the article was written by a 5 year old kid. My eyes started to bleed after attempting to read the first paragraph. I stopped, unable to carry on. Somehow I managed to glean a bit of information from his site, but really, someone should send Ricky a copy of Strunk and White, and send him on a remedial letters-words-sentences-paragraphs course. I will bandage my eyes, and hope to return to reading within the next few weeks.
I set up an Ubuntu box a couple weeks ago because I wanted to try Linux on the desktop. Most of my prior Linux/BSD experience has been with headless servers running either FreeBSD or CentOS. I haven't tried Linux on the desktop since the late 1990s. Ubuntu in many ways is quite alien to me because it has taken some weird tangents. I downloaded, compiled, and installed PHP from www.php.net and even though there were no errors in the logs Apache would choke on PHP scripts and would often timeout or produce weird results. I ended up removing every trace of PHP from the system and installed various php packages via apt-get and it now works like a champ, even though this route sticks me with an older version of PHP (5.3.5 instead of 5.3.6). I have never have difficulties compiling from source before, but Ubuntu must do things so oddly that it requires patches to PHP that are included in the Ubuntu php packages. I am still wrestling with how to get "hostname --fqdn" to actually display the full "host.hostname.tld" instead of just "host". It is a bunch of little things like those issues that is already turning me off to Ubuntu.
I click on an icon on the side panel to start an application. Before I clicked on an icon in Docky or on a panel. Wow... big change with Unity. Sometimes I have to type a name to search/start an app, but generally only the first time as I have it stay in the launcher if I need it frequently.
The only "difference" I've found is that I have to use File -> Open Terminal to get a second Terminal window open instead of right clicking in the launcher to open a new Terminal. You can do that with Firefox (right click in launcher -> New Window), though.
Disclaimer: I'm not exactly a techie or a geek, I'm not particularly good with computers. The people who know me know this and often wonder why I use Linux. I tell them straight-up, "I'm a masochist".
There is no way this is going to happen, and here's why:
HARDWARE SUPPORT
How Microsoft deals with it: Shady business model (intimidation/threats). Truly massive install base.
Vendors of commodity hardware must support it unless they want to cut their possible install base to a tiny fraction.
How Apple deals with it: "We sell pre-configured systems. We sell many of our own peripherals. If you need to use something outside of that, dual-boot or run a Windows VM."
How Linux deals with it: "Write the code yourself." or "Compile the code yourself." or "Implement workaround" and/or "If things break on upgrade, it's your problem"
"If you don't like it, buy/use Windows or Mac".
You can see why Linux would be the last choice of most people. I guess most people just aren't technophiles and/or masochists.
I can't stand unity either, but some of the tools make using a GP computer mo better. My PC uses a 42" monitor attached to my living room wall and my eyesight and great, and tools like global menu both save screen real estate and make things ultimately simpler.
But yeah, I hate unity. But you really NEED things like mini/max/close buttons next to the global menu - so I made my own, very simply, using xsendkeys and three panel launchers. A vertical panel running dockbarx gives me a great launcher/task selector, and maximus makes it easy to keep track of one thing at a time when I want that without being intrusive.
Basically, the only thing that sucks about unity is the unity desktop itself. The only thing from there I miss is the text search/launcher. If that didn't take up the whole desktop it would be much better.
http://mypicturepalace.com/albums/userpics/10001/Screenshot~4.png
To be serious, my work required a Windows for the last 5-6 years. I just installed Ubuntu about a month ago and the progress done during those years has been amazing, everything worked out of the box, and worked better than on Windows.
Unity is pretty bad and Gnome3 wasn't working for me, but I just came back to Gnome2 and it's been working really nice. I have everything I need on my tiny desktop and no stupid bugs. Only problem was with my second monitor that I couldn't get working in other than mirror mode. I had Xinerama a bazillion years ago and could make it work with every setup, but now that I didn't have to touch the config files to make everything work, I didn't want to.
But 200M users? Not very likely
Unbuntu will never hit that target if they continue to push that Unity stuff down the throat of their user base. I'm a Unbuntu user and would like it if they gave a choice at upgrade time. Unity could be a choice (even the default choice) but they make it hard to install a different desktop. You have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get other than Unity.
Ubuntu is/is becoming fairly popular. I have been using it since 6.06 and I love it. I am starting to wonder if Slashdot isn't just about bashing whoever is the big kid on the block at the moment. As essentially a Linux fan-boy forum, shouldn't we be happy when a Linux distro is doing well?
A few post mentioned that it is hard to get 11.04 to run Gnome instead of Unity. Up to not that long ago EVERYTHING you did in Linux was difficult, requiring fairly extensive knowledge of the command line. And you want to complain because it takes about 1 minute, once, to change the default gui?
Sorry, I don't get it.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Considering PSN is apparently 75 million users, if the numbers for Ubuntu keep growing then we will hopefully see more developers who consider it worthwhile to port their games over.
PSN serves 75 million console gamers.
Who also have a taste for HD media play and online subscription services like Hulu Plus and Netflix.
Batman: Arkham Asylum becomes the perfect companion piece to the The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray.
You won't see that kind of pay-off in a port to Ubuntu.
In nearly EVERY metric I can use, end users prefer Linux Mint. It's easier to use, cleaner, faster, has better default apps, a better default layout, and a better color scheme.
This is a completely realistic goal for Linux Mint.
Not for Ubuntu.*
*That is, unless they completely replace all of their leadership and clone the Mint philosophy, which doesn't seem likely.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I haven't tried Linux Mint, but I heard if you like Ubuntu that you'll love Mint. If I can't manage to get an alternative desktop environment up and running when Ubuntu 11.10 comes out I may switch to Mint since they say that have no intentions of using Unity. Linux Mint sounds like it is a more stable, less experimental variation of Ubuntu.
Your reasoning about newbies is flawed. Some newbies will remain newbies. I know, one is a friend is One. I convinced her to try Unbuntu when her computer became so trashed with viruses (It was hopeless!). I almost regretted helping her switch. For two months she was calling me for help with little stuff. I now got her computer to the point where she is satisfied and no longer calling for help. I just dread the day when an update switches her desktop to Unity. I have warned her not to have anything to do with Unity because the trouble will start again! Some newbies just want to remain newbies.
Unity is terrible! what's this crap where I can only open one terminal window? sheesh.
sound doesn't work, video driver issues, slow as molasses in general. power management issues cut battery life & make extra heat.
I went back to Windows 7 and I like it a lot better. NONE of those issues there.
It's more stable, that's true. But it's also better in a lot of other ways. Give it a shot. I've converted plenty of Mac/Windows users over to Mint, and 90% of them were overjoyed. The other 10% missed a game, generally, so I had to go back and install Wine or Urban Terror for them.
Mint is the second most popular distro in the world according to distrowatch. I don't know why there are still some people who haven't tried it out.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Currently trying out Gnome 3 on Ubuntu (replaced unity with gnome-shell).
Dislikes:
* Dual head support is bad. Workspaces only cover one screen
* No minimise. Sorry, sometimes I quickly want to forget about a window
* Can't find a way to disable the top left 'hot corner'. 90% of the activations are accidental.
* I find gnome-do a much more sophisticated launcher than gnome-shell's thing. The way it interprets your meaning from typing, and allows stringing together of arbitrarily complex actions is very very sweet. The disadvantage being gnome shell gobbles up the super key meaning I've had to remap gnome-do.
* No intuitive way to add custom launchers. This seems like a pretty fundamental task, the fact that I had to look up how to do it is a bit worrying.
* There is so much whitespace in window titles. It's a waste of valuable screen real estate.
It's not all bad though, I dig the 'workspaces are cheap' philosophy, and could certainly learn to like it if they get something working properly with dual head screens.
It's crashed a couple of times, but that is par for thr course with early versions so can't really complain.
I guess my real complaint is that after using gnome-do with docky for a while, I was all but ready to delete all my gnome panels in gnome 2. Gnome 3 just forces me to have a different type of panel and re-learn a bunch of stuff.
If I wanted a Linux desktop with a bunch of big, square application launchers on one side of the screen, I'd install- wait, a minute, I've already got this with Window Maker.
Nice headline, but an install goal is little more than an off-the-cuff, baseless fantasy.
If they want 200 million users, they'd better stop making that Microsoft Bob clone as the default WM. Yes I mean Unity.
The idea of a user-friendly desktop Linux distro is a bit zany to me, unless someone puts out a comprehensive set of libraries that ensure a consistent UI experience. None of this bleeding-edge broken KDE crap, nor Gnome 3 acid-tripping. Desktop Linux needs its Cocoa equivalent, something really easy to implement so software developers will WANT to use it, and it needs to be applied EVERYWHERE. None of this QT vs wxWidgets vs Gnome-whatever... One rock-solid set of skinnable widgets so users can feel at home in any application.
Until we see that sort of cooperation, people (who are not sysadmins) will continue to find easy reasons to avoid Linux. Why do you think so many FOSS and web developers have switched to Macs ? It's a Unix with a decent GUI. I'm certainly not fond of OSX, but those turtleneck-wearing cultists have succeeded where thousands of volunteer developers continue to fail. If anyone over at Canonical believes Unity is any different, they need to step out of their little bubble and take a look at their true competitors: Windows and Mac.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
> He doesnt want to be associated with Gnome any more, and wants his own distinctive
> look and feel, no matter whether he alienates a number of existing Gnome users.
GNOME disbanded and isn't an option anymore. The desktop formerly known as GNOME is unmaintained abandonware. The former devels from GNOME have a new ground up rewrite that is being sold under the old brand name as GNOME3 but bears no real connection to it.
Ubuntu and anyone else paying attention saw this coming and made plans. Too bad Ubuntu's plan is almost as lame as GNOME3. This sort of lemming like behaviour happens from time to time. Too much suppressed envy for iOS and now Android is leading to a charge to build a perfect environment for a smartphone or tablet but a really lousy one for a desktop. Only hope it passes before we run out of viable desktops, for now XFCE seems OK for me.
Democrat delenda est
Sometimes I have to type a name to search/start an app
This is a problem for new users. What happens when they don't know to type "banshee" to find the media player? The hierarchical menu is much more logical if you aren't sure of the name of the application you are looking for.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
I jumped ship when Gnome3 was a pain in the ass to get work on Ubuntu 11.10 (without it crashing constantly).
Went to Arch and haven't been happier. Gnome2 is being phased out in favor of Gnome3 in Arch.
Viva la Gnome Shell!
"You can count me out, with Unity/Gnome3."
Agreed, about Unity in particular. If they'd stuck to providing a BETTER debian, they'd have easily been able to accomplish this. But instead, they've chosen to differentiate themselves unnecessarily and impractically, segmenting their development / support base in the process. I've already been shopping around for alternative distros since. Unless I really like Mint (which I doubt), Debian's upcoming "Rolling" release will suit me fine. That'll essentially beat Ubuntu at it's own game (a more up to date Debian, a more stable sid).
I'd be far more impressed with 4 users in 200 million years.
For gaining tons of users the software itself is not what will make the difference. The software needs to be good enough, and delectably it is (with gnome, kde, unity, xfce I actually have tried them all).
What *will* make the difference is getting the word out. Microsoft did this by forcing it down peoples throats and locking OEMs into using their product. If Ubuntu could ship on 10% of HP and Dell PCs then the 200 million goal seems reasonable. Other advertising methods could work too, free CDs AOL style, getting Linux/Ubuntu exclusive games and other software to advertise for Ubuntu, displays in popular retail stores, making headlines somehow.
None of those directly relate to the software... quality and popularity are not as correlated as they should be.
At the login screen, select your username, then change "Ubuntu" to "Ubuntu Classic" in the menu at the bottom-center-right and login. You'll get the usual program menu that time and afterwards, until you set it back.
(Apparently Unity is more than a clumsy launcher. You might want some parts to use or program for.) http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/shuttleworth-on-ubuntu-1104-linux-unity/8780
I don't get what's so bad about Ubuntu. It's basically a bridge between those who know how to use linux and those who don't (or can't comprehend it). If linux wants to get their foot in the door then they will need to convince hardward manufacturers to fully support their system because as it stands, you can't do very much with a linux box other than programming, email, and hacking. Sure, you can run games but the good AAA+ games require some know-how to "emulate" windows just to play it. Another downer about linux is that it doesn't render the screen as crispy as windows or mac does. Until linux has proper hardware support, can do more than windows can on a standard install, and has better performance than any other OS, then I'll consider using it outside of networking. But until then, I'll keep CentOS for my network, and Windows for my computers.
Ubuntu uses kde plama-netcrap and incoherency interface, or gnome 3??? Eitherway they are not helping themselves.
Kubuntu 11.04 once you get past figuring out how to bypass plasma-netbook is quite excelent. Of they just removed that crap it installs codecs with just a few clicks... mint may not have a sufficient legal department... if they include stuff they are not supposed to.
Mint is good, being legal can help you win.
ubuntu 11.04 sucks
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back to the drawing board, billionaire-boy
b I use Linix Minte, it is beter than widnoes cause it aint have no viruses and it is free to use an ony compter and no WAG atcivason I can wach all the vidos on youtoob and see pdq documants like window can but it is for free and i dont haveto use epxensive anntiviruss like windows duz.
of my friends who use ubuntu, all of them(including me) are currently looking for another distro after this release! what a pain. Unity might be great for some, but none of us like it, if we wanted a windows or a mac experience we would have installed either of them....Make linux usable but unique not like the others.
The ghost of Douglas Adams wailed: "Unity is sucky. You just won't believe how vastly,
hugely, mind-bogglingly sucky it is. I mean, you may think a vacuum truck
with a 6 inch suction line draining a septic tank full of diarrhea is sucky, but that's peanuts
to Unity"
In that case, I imagine they'd be typing "media" and then Banshee pops up.
You can also click the Applications icon in the launcher and expand Installed to see everything installed. Its not sorted by category, though, so that little bit is lost.
There are also Shortcuts on the search interface to Media Apps, Internet Apps, Browse Pictures, etc., that can guide a new user.
I don't have Chrome installed, but say I heard people talking about it and searched, its shown as an App available for download. Similar available Apps are shown in other categories or they can use the launcher icon to the Software Center.
I missed the hierarchical menu for a couple hours until I realized its all still there, just in a little different format. I think a true search interface that works on keywords for Apps, instead of just the name, would be more intuitive to a new user (always with the option to list all Apps, though).
OK, you got me. I never knew that the popularity of a distribution on a web site was more important than just going on my merry way using [SOMETHING OTHER THAN MINT] day after day.
They chased me off with KK. From 8.04 to 9.10 dist-upgrade always broke something crucial, and fresh installs would always break either sound/wifi/video/the desktop. And after that, they kept changing the UI for no reason. No thanks.
I'm not the typical user, I guess, but I went back to Slackware and have been much happier, overall.
Aim high shooting low.
It is difficult to track users, but one indicator would be to look at the web logs of one of the most popular websites, Wikipedia. In March of 2011, 0.72% of web traffic to Wikipedia came from machines running Ubuntu. Wikipedia received roughly 30 million hits from machines running Ubuntu in March. In contrast, Wikipedia received about 3.4 billion hits from Windows machines in March, 325 million from Macs, 42 million from Androids and so on. Alexa says Wikipedia is the 8th most trafficked site in the world, and other Alexa-like sites put Wikipedia as a top site. It's one of the few (the only?) top sites to open its log analysis statistics like this.
Ha.. by that metric.
Windows sucks - 29,500,000 results (0.12 seconds)
Mac sucks - 22,600,000 results (0.12 seconds)
Ruby codez sucks - 2,740,000 results (0.24 seconds)
Back to the troll machine, boy..
Just sayin'
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
It seems people have forgotten the little box where you can pick [INSERT DRUM ROLL] Ubuntu Classic. Unity is aimed at netbooks which -surprise- has a screen the size of an iPad and a touchpad to boot. Ubuntu is free, and netbooks are popular in economically challenged parts of the world. Ubuntu isn't built for you anymore, it's for the poor ethiopian kid who can barely afford a pair of shoes let alone a 200$ aneurysm that breaks everytime it tries to install SP1. Making something work well on netbooks, available in virtually every language, easy enough to use for people new to computers period let alone linux and free to boot is a wise business strategy. These people can't afford an OS nor can they afford all sorts of software licenses, so it's either pirate the fuck out of everything or have the free alternative to everything available at the click of a button.
I'm positive there are more computers than people in the US, the market is saturated with windows and mac. Their aim is new markets, yknow, the other 95% of the world. You people are just too busy dropping your monicles in your caviar in disgust over Unity to pay attention to all the other stuff going on.
Windows Vista Sucks 72,000 results (so Ubuntu 11.04 sucks 173 times as much as Windows Vista) Windows XP Sucks 5,060,00 results (so Ubuntu 11.04 sucks almost 700 as hard as Windows XP)
Linux is pretty much "meh" for me these days due to the lack of any sort of comparable technology in common use to the ObjC runtime.
If etoile` takes off, i'll be back. If GNUStep takes off, I'll be back. However both KDE and Gnome seem to be simply attempting to replicate the Windows way of doing things, maybe with some superficial UI elements from the Mac.
Yes, OS X has UI fauls. I agree, its not perfect. But it gives me a unix box with actual commercial software support that i don't have to think about whenever i want to get something to work.
I've spent years doing that for work, when i come home after work I don't want to be needlessly rooting around - but I do want the power of the command line. The hardware is nice too. Compared to my PC, the mac is silent.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
What I would love is a media player that remembers
1. The last 100 things that you were playing (make it 10000, that's what computers are for).
2. Where I was in a given media file before I was interrupted/had to close it out/whatever. Like the way that evince brings you to the point that you were reading a PDF. vim's been bringing you to the last edit point forever, how come no one's thought of that for media players?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I am a recovering Jew and currently an atheist minister. So let me jut say, that while the signature was cute and provocative, it's sad and pathetic as well.
... of course assuming that you trust the credibility of the candidate to follow through with their proposed plans. Of course, you should also vote for a candidate when you feel that candidate is the better choice of the two. In the three right wing party system the U.S. has become leaving voters with the choice between right wing, far right wing and tea bagging nut cases, the "atheist voter" you propose doesn't have an option either way. They are generally left with a choice of voting for the candidate they feel will do the least damage.
As an atheist minister, I like to think that an individual who isn't burdened with the nonsense of listening to a preacher all the time has time to think more deeply about issues based on full information when possible.
An atheist voting for a party is pathetic. An atheist should vote for the individual and what they're claiming they hope to accomplish
As a great example, Obama who was certainly the best candidate in the previous election was a terrible candidate. He lied just as much as the other two right wing parties to get into the office and oddly enough, while you may believe that the other candidates were evil, they were all very much convinced they were the better option "for the people". They all believe they're doing the right thing to some degree. And they also believe the other candidate is doing the wrong thing.
I am 100% sure there are cases where the republican candidate... while possibly a religious nut job is the better of the two candidates we're given to choose from. There are plenty of self serving uneducated morons in the Democrats as well. There are times where it is simply more appropriate to choose a religious wind bag who genuinely wants to help change things for the better than to choose a self serving, pocket stuffing democrat.
So, to correct your statement, "An atheist who votes for a candidate based on their party...." needs a snappy ending, but at least it's a good start.
---
Getting tired of "Jesus! How can a billion people be wrong?" bumper stickers. Gonna print up a pile of "Buddha! How can 2 billion people be wrong?" stickers and start tagging all the cars in mall parking lots.
With their current website, Mint will never succeed. The OS is just one part of the game. Marketing the other.
Uh, and what if you want to use more applications than that fit on the sidebar? This happens on netbook and even on regular desktop, if one uses more apps than just the Firefox. Things get even worse, when the damned buttonbar's "more applications" -button only hides the whole widget, if there are maximized windows on screen. Thankfully the Ubuntu Classic and LXDE are available for normal desktop usage.
They have reached a level where they should start experimenting. The 9.10 does work just fine for me on the desktop since its release. If I am honest to myself - it has everything I need for now. Just out of enthusiasm upgrading would be a natural thing to do. But because I have once compiled the Amarok 1.x for 9.10 I am too lazy to upgrade and recompile.
My wife uses 10.10 on her laptop and when she at the desktop she does not notice the difference with 9.10. Not to say that there is no difference, but 9.10 was already good enough.
So if Ubuntu does not get noticeably (like "Wow!") better incrementally, they should start experimenting.
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.
...to Windows 7. No troll.
I've been using Linux desktop for years now, and when I discovered Ubuntu I was immediately sold. Started using Ubuntu itself and manually setup KDE because I figured it would be better to use the original product. As soon as I learned about the LTS version I immediately started using that one.
I'm the kind of guy who used to tinker a lot with his system but now my main concern is stability and continuity. I don't want to be confronted with having to upgrade or re-configure stuff within very short periods, also because I don't always care about the "latest and greatest" any longer; my main concern is getting my work done and considering that I'm self-employed means I need to have a system which continues doing what I want.
SO the latest LTS came out and as can be expected I took my time to perform the upgrade. Even "took a day off" so to speak so that I had all the time required to upgrade.
That was sheer hell. First from LTS 8.04 to 10; I ended up with many inconsistencies. From accidently installed 64bit libraries thus chocking my 32bit system after a reboot right to the upgrade procedure hanging itself along the way. I wasn't going to give up that easy; no way. I then decided to simply go between versions; I edited /etc/sources.list to reflect the changes, and dist upgraded. No go; while I did manage to upgrade one version I then ended up with hardware issues.
One of my Samsung printers couldn't be properly addressed anymore (even though it supports LPR besides your regular protocols), my screen resolution was a mess again (I knew this up front; I had to hack X.conf manually last time as well) and it only got worse.
SO eventually restored a backup and started to look for other people's experiences. The outcome? "You're probably better of re-installing from scratch".
Well, that is not why I started to use Linux, especially a Debian (-based) distro in the first place! I know my hardware is dated, but surely it can't be that hard to keep stuff somewhat backwards compatible ?
Alas; I had been using Vista for some time by then (but disliked it) and came into contact with Windows 7. The eventual outcome was that I removed Linux entirely and replaced it with Windows 7. It was even a breeze to move my GPG keys over (which kinda worried me at first) thanks to stuff like GPG4Win and Enigmail which works on both Linux and Windows.
No offense here but now I can finally get some work done again while still keeping a relative modern (patched) system around. And the best part here for me is that I will have at least 9 years of support without the need or urgent requirement to upgrade.
When looking at the latest Firefox and Thunderbird as well as Ubuntu I think more programmers should realize that not everyone wants to change the way they work every product cycle. At the very least give people some option to continue working as they were used to.
Microsoft isn't a saint on this subject either (just look at the difference between XP and Vista/Win7) but in the overall the changes usually aren't that drastic (not to mention that you can easily change the way Windows looks; right down to a 98 look and feel).
So.... Millions of people using Ubuntu? On a server, absolutely. But on the desktop; I don't see this happening. Not after the first upgrade requirement.
Since I have 12 Ubuntu virtual machines running on my network?
Next year will probably be that of the Mint desktop. Still should check for Mono infections post-install, though.
Most of those 200 million will be africans, so the number will be closer to 80 million
I'm aiming to have 200 million customers in four years too. And I'm about a likely to get them as Ubuntu is to meet their goal.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
The U.S. has two parties that are so full of shit (with a third on coming which makes the othe two seem like paradise) that Americans don't have that option. I live in Norway now where there are votes don't actually count because the parties who lose can pool their vote to win a shared post.
In a two party system in America is the countries greater weakness and makes it so when it comes to choosing leadership, the only options you have are people who bought their candidacies in exchange for favors by special interest groups.
Rejoice in the hell which exists in the UK, it only took the collapse of the empire and 100 years to make it that good. The U.S. Empire is still young and we're only first now making the mistakes the U.K. made 300 years ago. But like all things American, we're going to do it bigger. So if you thought pre-Churchill England was corrupt, you ain't seen nothing yet!
As a note, the thing we're repeating now is to exploit our position as an empire to force our beliefs on everyone else, even when we know that they're wrong.
The only thing Distrowatch measures is what distros people look at ON DISTROWATCH, it does NOT measure actual usage. It is not even a useful proxy for measuring what distro people use, for example; someone has heard of Ubuntu what do you think they do: Do they A) Google Ubuntu then go straight to Ubuntu's website from there, or B) Go to distrowatch to find a download link for Ubuntu. If you think the answer to that question is "B" then you need a serious reality check.
....aims .are good....
Seriously... Ubuntu still around? I have been using fedora for almost 9 years now. It does not give me crap just works. I had issues with Sound a while ago as did the ubuntu users. But I still do not see the hype abount Ubuntu. Very little corporates use Ubuntu cause Redhat is the standard in corporate. With 20 minutes of mods my fedora looks just like Ubuntu.