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Canonical To Remove Sun Java From Repositories, Users' Machines
New submitter an_orphan writes "Apparently, Oracle's 'Operating System Distributor License for Java' is expired, causing Ubuntu to not only remove sun-java from the partner repository, but from user's machines."
Canonical is the new Apple.
To shoot oneself in the foot?! I just don't get it. Wouldn't Oracle want to have their platform deployed as widely as possible? Someone's asleep at the helm. Just like at the media companies. Seems some big corporations these days are like chicken running around headless...
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
From the article: "Oracle, in retiring the ‘Operating System Distributor License for Java’, means Canonical no longer have permission to distribute the package." So it's not that Oracle has lost their right to distribute Java (JDK) or something, but they are retiring the license Canonical is using that granted them the right to distribute it with Ubuntu. The summary also states (correctly) that Ubuntu will remove the sun-java package from the repository and user's machines, but does not state why: “Due to the severity of the security risk, Canonical is immediately releasing a security update for the Sun JDK browser plugin which will disable the plugin on all machines.” Ubuntu’s Marc Deslauriers wrote in a mail to the Ubuntu Security Mailing list. “This will mitigate users’ risk from malicious websites exploiting the vulnerable version of the Sun JDK.” Summarizing: there are two things going on here, one is that Oracle has revoked the license Canonical is using to distribute Java (JDK) freely so it will not come with Ubuntu anymore. Java must now be downloaded from Oracle's site. Second: The java jdk package will be removed from user's computers because of severe security holes. Java must now be downloaded from Oracle's site. So, two things, one article and one terrible summary.
Sensationalist headline is sensationalist.
Ubuntu will still have the OpenJDK, which is maintained in part by Oracle. "Sun Java" refers to a specific JVM installation.
All it takes is someone to pick apart the update, someone else to mirror it a few times and then all the people googleing for "java is broken in Ubuntu" find a modified update that fixes it. anyway, why does a distribution license expiry mean that people who already have copies may no longer use it?
All the while OpenJDK still doesn't work with half of the stuff out there, for example Juniper's SSL VPN.
Great! Java: Compile once, works nowhere.
Let's hope they handle this well (aka a de updater that lets people know what and why it happens).
I am critical about ubuntu usually, and I can almost hear some bearded guy saying: "Told you so, next time learn to build upon Free Software instead". But I think this time they would have rather avoided this and they couldn't.
I dunno, the industry seems to be killing java and flash ahead of time.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Ubuntu uses OpenJDK Java by default. Users have for years had the option to switch out the default OpenJDK Java for an alternative package in the 3rd party repository which is Sun Java. That alternative is being removed. In fact, it has never been available in the latest Oneiric 11.10 release of ubuntu. In the latest release OpenJDK is the default & the only java available from the package repos.
Most people use OpenJDK on Ubuntu and for them this news means nothing.
If you're using an older release (11.04 or earlier) and you have sun-java installed, simply remove the package & install default-jdk. problem solved.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
The impact will be about zero, replace sun-java with openjdk if you need java.
In what way?
It being a challenge for the linux dextop?
or java being so slow that it's standard practice to build in a progress bar so people don't think the program is hanging?
Why does Canonical even need a "Operating System Distributor License" for Java? Wasn't Java re-licensed as GPL v2 back in the Sun days? How can they stop anyone from distributing something under the GPL?
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
I know people use Ubuntu on server systems as well. I can just imagine production systems falling over because, suddenly, there's no JRE/JDK installed anymore after routine maintenance security upgrades. Sounds like fun.
Gentoo saw the license expiring, and did a proactive thing: flipped the "fetch restriction" flag back on, forcing users to pull it manually and slap it into the right place to install/upgrade.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
On Linux, most java developers consider that OpenJDK is the default implementation and that Sun JDK is more or less discontinued.
OpenJDK is a GPL release of Sun's code. It is the official Java (SE) implementation :
http://blogs.oracle.com/henrik/entry/moving_to_openjdk_as_the
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
This is what you get when you have infrastructure that is build around one centrally maintained dependency tree, you are slave to whatever decisions they make. It's not even a new problem, similar software removals against the users will have happened with Gnome2 vs Gnome3 and even back with Gnome1 vs Gnome2 and counterless times when a working version of Gimp was replaced with a broken one and only fixed month later. This one seems a bit more sinister as from the looks of it it seems they remove it in a regular software update, not a dist-upgrade, but it's essentially the same issue. And to all those "This isn't a problem"-sayers, the existence of complicated time consuming workarounds by manual compilation/installation, thus by-passing the binary package distribution, is part of the problem, not the solution.
It should really be time for Debian to move to a more flexible, more free form of package distribution that doesn't depend on a single dependency tree and fixed locations in the file system.
First - I want to see in the license where it requires them to pull it off systems.
Second - What the hell are they going to replace it with? Are they saying you have to download and install Java manually? OpenJDK supposedly doesn't work with all things.
Third - What does this mean for Ubuntu derivatives like Mint? Are they going to have to pull the jdk as well?
Forth - Can we _please_ take up a collection to have the Oracle execs framed for terrorism and shipped off to Gitmo?
Honestly this is just stupid.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
I just checked and i'm showing OpenJDK
I know six months ago openjdk did not work with crashplan and I had to set the jdk to sun.
On Linux, most java developers consider that OpenJDK is the default implementation and that Sun JDK is more or less discontinued.
And yet, a customer that I used to support has an app that will not run on OpenJDK, only on Sun Java. I do not know if it is sniffing the JVM or if it makes use of an undocumented feature AKA bug but it won't even load with OpenJDK. No, I don't have the source.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Maybe for you, but the applets I run do require sun/oracle java and fails with the alternatives.
with a different water pump. problem solved!!!
other than your car being out of commission for several days, and untold problems being encountered due to the incompatabilities between the old water pump and the new water pump. but whatever.
in the fantasy land of free software, you can replace word with openoffice, exchange with ????, and it wont cost anyone anything!
First, it doesn't but it prevents the distribution of security fixes, leaving systems where it is still installed vulnerable to publicly available exploits. Second nothing, you'll have to manage updates by yourself if you want the Sun JVK. Third, not certain, but likely. Fourth, no.
Right, because nothing breaks if you do that.
The only reason I have Sun's JRE on my system is that I have software that won't run on OpenJDK because of improper dependency on com.sun.* packages. Is Canonical going to distribute a com.sun jar for use with OpenJDK?
Whoah. Tone down on the bitterness man. I wish I had some of your insight into the world - on second thoughts I'm glad I don't.
They've targeted customers who are either spending somebody else's money (mainly the children of the wealthy living off of "daddy's money" or trust funds), those who are financially foolish (people who buy useless gadgets on credit), and those seeking a modern religion (the so-called Apple fanatics)
Yeah - those are the *only* people who buy Apple gadgets. Those millions and millions of foolish people living off daddy's money. Damn them! Damn them to Hell!
This has let them put out sub-par products with pretty horrible limitations,
Yeah, those MacBook Airs are just *rubbish* man. I *totally* can't see why Intel is giving other notebook vendors $100m just to try and come up with a reasonable competitor
but they can still sell them outrageous prices, and coupled with third-world manufacturing it allows them to make a very sizable profit.
obviously Samsung (and by extension Google), Amazon, Motorola, HTC and the rest are *good* companies because the fact that they have to sell their stuff at half the price just to try and get people to buy one and therefore don't make a profit at all means that *their* exploration of third world labour is somehow alright?
TL;DR version: OMFG get off your high horse mr AC anti-apple troll.
Red5 hangs more often on openjdk ;)
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
I have encountered numerous problems in recent years with Java code that simply doesn't work on IcedTea. It's not doing anything clever or undocumented. It runs fine on Windows, on MacOS, and on the same Linux boxes but with a different Java run-time. On some of these projects, we had so many problems that we explicitly no longer support IcedTea and won't even consider support requests from customers who insist on using it.
I don't know about any other JREs based on OpenJDK, but IcedTea is so bug-ridden as to be unusable, and has been for a long time.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
No, Sun JDK is not being removed from users' computers, only the browser plugin is disabled, which is riddled with security flaws that are only corrected in newer versions that cannot be distributed by Canonical.
And no, removing the package from the repositories does not remove it from the system when already installed.
I work in a Java shop. We run Sun Java 6 on a mix of Solaris and Ubuntu. I'll be handrolling a deb from the Sun Java tarball precisely because not everything can be trusted to work identically between Sun Java 6 and OpenJDK 6.
We just recently hit a weird bug which turned out to be a "how did that ever work?" moment - revolving around different implementation-specific behaviours in Sun Java 6u24 for Solaris SPARC and Sun Java 6u26 for Linux.
We'll be moving to OpenJDK, but only after thorough testing. OpenJDK 6 is a proper Java, but we've discovered the hard way not to make any such move without thorough testing. Because programmers are human and bugs happen. Never trust, always verify.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Same experience for me; OpenJDK just doesn't work.
Uh, OpenJDK is now the official Java release from Oracle, the closed source JDK is basically obsolete. You shouldn't use it unless you really need to.
Dilbert RSS feed
Bet it's a subtle bug that only works because of implementation-specific behaviour. We just got bitten by one of those, relating to different behaviour between Sun Java 6 on Solaris SPARC and Sun Java 6 on Linux. Never trust, always verify!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
He was talking about Ubuntu - the main offering. As a smart operation, of course Canonical has alternative offerings. Their main distro came with Gnome,
Whether that was good or bad, is a matter of opinion. Personally, I preferred KDE but chopped and changed between the two.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Well there is always Linux from Scratch.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
Have fun!
If they're really out to get you it's not paranoia.
Yuh. The problem is existing code by mediocre programmers.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Really? I've had no trouble running it on OpenJDK, despite what the download pages claim.
Java did run kinda slow on my old Win95 box but my current Unix and Win7 systems don't display this behavior. Sounds to me like you're living in the past or need a hardware upgrade.
Just like unpopular products are good? The Air is an excellent machine with no comparable competitor.
The single, centrally-managed, integration-tested and conflict-resolved tree is sort of the main advantage of Debian, though. I can see alternate possibilities, but they would be quite different models for distribution management.
Compared to the situation on, say, OSX (which I use more often these days), what I like about Debian's one tree is that there's less buck-passing. If it's in Debian, it's a bug somewhere in Debian. I might've reported it to the wrong package, but then the maintainer will usually reassign it to the right one, not just throw up their hands and say, "sorry, not our bug" like you get with reporting bugs to Apple. Sometimes they'll forward the bugs upstream and wait for a resolution, but they'll also try to figure out how to mitigate impact or incompatibilities locally, if possible. I'm not sure how you could maintain that working structure without the single tree.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
That's a question reasonably asked for products that are popular by fiat, or by default.
When one has to spend more money, thereby implicitly rejecting cheaper competitors; when suppliers to said competitors attempt to push them in the same direction; when the market-share owned by these products is almost unbelievably high percentage (Apple owns ~90% of the $1k portable market, IIRC), it would not seem such a reasonable question...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
It should really be time for Debian to move to a more flexible, more free form of package distribution that doesn't depend on a single dependency tree and fixed locations in the file system.
You're absolutely right! We should have packages which install their libraries wherever they feel like, leading to 20 different versions of the same library on the computer in different places, with no clear way of knowing which one is going to get loaded when you run your program.
We could call it
Samsung Series 9. Asus Zenbook. If you want to get extreme, Sony VAIO Z.
Unless obviously you meant it in the way that it runs OSX, in which case I'll just shrug.
and this is why as a business user, I wont use Ubunta/Debian/Name your distro. If I am going to run Linux on my network, it will be based on LFS and PXE booting with smart terminals (what's a smart terminal?).
A Smart terminal is not a thin client. It includes all of the basic hardware that a normal desktop has except for drives. All storage is on the server, thus a system that dies is simply replaced with a working unit, the person logs back on and they're back to work in minutes. Another advantage is that this allows the complete control of the users desktop, meaning my users don't have the ability to install any software that's not authorized/needed/licensed and all of their work is backed up properly.
The only caveat/issue we encountered during the roll out was localized network overloading. To solve it, we increased all terminals to 8GB from 2GB, thus reducing the level of network traffic (prohibitive cost to upgrade that infrastructre). Our network utilization is now lower then XP was using and we've eliminated many of the problems we had with Windows. Keep in mind that we've been able to do nothing about stupidity, so don't think Linux will cure/fix that issue for you.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Linux JAVA from oracle site: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk-7u2-download-1377129.html
OpenJDK didn't implement the full java spec when it was released. There were proprietary bits that couldn't be opensourced. I can't find a reference, but I know that 2d graphics was an issue. It also looks like that maybe as of openJDK 7, these issues are resolved? I don't know, again, I couldn't find a good reference to link to.
I can understand pulling it from the repositories for future installs, but from a user that installed it while the license was still in effect? Really uncool.
Aside from pissing people off in general, just think of all the production servers they may kill by doing this. And the lost customers, time, money..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's optional and I don't think it's enabled by default. It's not enabled on my workstation and I don't ever remember disabling it but I know I set it to "critical security updates" on my servers.
dunno about this. .....gawd...loathe to say it..."Oracle" Java and by removing OpenJDK.
I ran into an issue lately that only happens with OpenJDK (specifically OpenJDK's implementation of Java Webstart) which was only remedied by installing
You've completely misunderstood. Sun Java will no longer be available in the main repository, instead the alternative OpenJDK will be available in the main repositories. If you want Sun Java you can still get it, it's just not in the main repository. By the way, OpenJDK by the way is actually free as in freedom - distributing OpenJDK is holding up the principles of free software significantly more than the license encumbered Sun Java. And it's not just Ubuntu that did it, I recall Sun Java being taken out of Debian at some point years ago over licensing issues.
Then install it manually or search for a PPA. Or better yet if you don't find a PPA make one. They just took it out of the main repo, they didn't ban you from installing it.
It seems like the flashplugin-installer Ubuntu package doesn't include the actual flash bits themselves, but rather contains a script named flashplugin-installer which goes and download the flash bits directly off Adobe's website, and installs the .so in the correct place, sets up symlinks, etc.
Now the question is: Can the new Java license permit this kind of mechanism? If so, that could be a workaround.
There's plenty of shitty open sores code out there too. ActiveMQ is one particular example we've been hitting our foreheads against - little weirdnesses with OpenJDK that disappear with Sun Java. Even with Sun Java, we were running a tweaked internal version for a while, something that's on the big list of "NEVER DO THIS unless you actually have to THEN YOU'RE FUCKED ANYWAY."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Yeah, those MacBook Airs are just rubbish man.
Glad you can at least admit to that... but in Apple's defense the hardware isn't rubbish, just that piece of shit OS they have on it is.
AccountKiller
The spittle's really flying.
Some of us might like and use *nix in various flavours, including Solaris, Linux and OS X, without subscribing to whatever cult you're projecting your hatred onto today.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
First - I want to see in the license where it requires them to pull it
off systems.
This was followable via the links in the original article.
Oracle has ended the DLJ, the "Distributor License for Java".
http://jdk-distros.java.net/
http://robilad.livejournal.com/90792.html
Second - What the hell are they going to replace it with? Are they saying
you have to download and install Java manually? OpenJDK
supposedly doesn't work with all things.
That's true; there are certain known issues with OpenJDK and basically Oracle is saying "it'll just have to do".
Third - What does this mean for Ubuntu derivatives like Mint? Are they
going to have to pull the jdk as well?
Yes, and that's exactly what's been happening, because there's no other choice.
No, not all popular products are good, but it's pretty easy to determine the relative quality of a MacBook Air - it's a physical product that many, many people have reviewed and used across the whole gamut of computer users and it gets consistently high marks.
You can try and handwave away that positive experience of many, many people by claiming it's all down to popularity, but it's somewhat wide of the mark.
Personally, I do not care for them, but I can appreciate that it is a very good compact laptop/subnotebook.
/etc/apt/sources.list has supported multiple repositories forever. Commonly used alternative external repositories include medibuntu (codecs etc.) and skype. If you really want to set up an external repository for the Sun JDK, nobody is stopping you (apart from Oracle). The only viable alternative to the repository system is to either 1) package all the dependencies with each app, or 2) pull source code from external sites and resolve dependencies at compile time. Solution 1) has obvious problems of duplicating resources. Solution 2) is the Gentoo way, which is fine for some, but it inevitably leads to multiple systems with different dependencies, and different compile time options, which can make some bugs difficult to reproduce.
What I don't understand is why Canonical doesn't do for Java what SuSE did for the NVidia drivers (I don't know if Ubuntu does or did the same; I've never used Ubuntu on an NVidia system): Make a package which does not contain the actual code, but an installer which downloads it from the official web site and installs it. That way you both obey the license (download to install only from original source web page) and give the benefits of package management.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Odd, I always thought the syntax was snordoblulous and the memory management flubriglated.
I'm neither of those 3. I paid my own cash for my iMac because it was the best machine for the money I was willing to spend and I have no interest whatsoever in fanboyism. I like my Mac but I've got no interest in criticising other people's choice of hardware.
Why is it shit?
I wonder just what Java "killer apps" for the desktop you think will be impacted by this.
It's just like .Net and Adobe Air.
Why should I care. Mindless hysterics just aren't that compelling.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Packages shouldn't be installing anything except in their own personal space, much like a Mac.
So does MacOS have "DLL Hell" now?
If you need a particular library and you are willing to put it where you are allowed to installed (shouldn't be in of the usual places, bad security) then it shouldn't impact anyone else.
Packages "installing their own libraries" into the root-owned part of the system is the Windows way.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
They have to because the current package is vulnerable to remote code execution and they aren't allowed to distribute the fix.
If OpenJDK is becoming the official Oracle-blessed distribution, then why not put out a final release of empty sun-java6-* that depends on OpenJDK, so that the package is transitioned over on next restart (or sooner)?
Zenbook, yes - on specs and price. Series 9 not even close, even though it lists for more. The Sony is a good match performance-wise that would have been great with the addition of a decent graphics processor, which it should have included given its premium price - it isn't that extreme except in price. Apple has a distinct edge because it is setting the price points and the competition is in the unenviable position of matching specs or bettering them - at this point only one competitor is seriously challenging Apple.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
C is the most portable language.
This may be true, but just because a language is portable doesn't mean that the facilities provided by the language alone meet one's needs. The input and output facilities specified in the C99 standard consist solely of stdin, stdout, stderr, and a file system without directories and without a way to enumerate files. Because this is not sufficient for mobile, workstation, or server tasks, C runtime environments extend this with POSIX+X11 or nonstandard extensions or both. Microsoft refuses to implement POSIX+X11 as a standard feature in its operating systems, having left SUA to rot.
Maybe because you can block it with a single liner?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I'll get hate for wading in with such obvious fanbois but WTF, truth is truth> You wanna know why Linux is dead last and going exactly nowhere? Its because you people really really REALLY suck at GUIs, you really do. While you may think some damned 70s terminal is the essence of nirvana the rest of the world has moved on dude, and nobody wants to play with your damned blinking cursor crap.
I mean holy fuck you are missing features that Windows had a fricking decade ago and while I don't have an OSX machine to confirm I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had them even longer. Where the fuck is the roll back drivers button? How about the find drivers button? You expect the user to magically know the make/model/rev of any and all pieces of hardware and go do the "find a fix" forum dance which ALWAYS ends with "open up bash and type" aka "We suck balls at GUIs so please take our shitty terminal again" with NO thought of ease of use or intuitiveness.
So you can make your little comments about how Windows and OSX is for "noobs" or how they "suck" but you know what? Apple and MSFT could raise their prices 300% and YOU WOULD NOT GAIN A SINGLE POINT because your designs are backwards, they are NOT intuitive, they are as unfriendly as can possibly be, and the GUIs frankly are extremely basic and often barely functional as I found out when network manager wouldn't take changes in the GUI, tossing them on each reboot. Guess what the solution was? We suck balls at GUIs so please take our terminal. Every. single. time you see "Open up bash and type" you have just written "We suck and are full of fail" because nobody else wants that lame shit but you.
The sad part is you have most of the pieces, a kernel that does everything a modern kernel should, several (partially) functional DEs that with some polish could be damned nice, and drivers for most hardware, but frankly you couldn't put all these pieces together into a solid intuitive OS if someone put a gun to the head of RMS and told you "do it or the hippie gets it". You know what Linux at this stage reminds me of? Windows 98. What was Win98? It was a CLI OS with a GUI shell bolted on top that kinda sorta worked but for anything more than basic tasks failed, was buggy as fuck, and to get anything complicated done you had to go CLI which you could even bypass the GUI shell completely and just go CLI. What is Linux now? It is a CLI OS with a GUI shell bolted on top that kinda sorta works but for anything more than basic tasks fails, is buggy as fuck, and to get anything complicated done you need to go CLI which you can even bypass the GUI shell completely and just go CLI.
Apple and MSFT are bringing their A games, which is why MSFT had one of its biggest quarters EVAR just recently and Apple is now one of the biggest corps ON THE PLANET and what do you bring? DE wars and CLI and Mickey Mouse amateur hour bugs. Sorry but there is a reason why you can't give your OS away, and it ain't no conspiracy, its the same reason every OEM from Asus who started Linux on netbooks to retailers like Walmart run away from your OS. Its not stable, its buggy, its too damned fiddly, it lacks polish, its too dependent on 70s terminals. In other words you are bringing your D game and everyone knows it. Now stick THAT in your terminal and compile it!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It's not included with the live disc.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
No one sold a comparable machine 10 years ago, not at any price. It wasn't possible to make a comparable machine 10 years ago.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
The vital point you have missed is that Oracle is "the OpenJDK guys". Yes, once again Oracle screws its customers. Thats what Oracle does.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Java apps tend to be slow because a lot of 'standard practices' (which could be more accurately called 'n00b practices') encourage inefficient constructs.
If you know what the heck you're doing, you can write very snappy programs in Java. Otherwise your apps are going to suck regardless.
Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
Before I start, let me clarify that I am not a *fanboi* but the primary maintainer of a least a dozen production machines each of Windows 7, OS X, and Ubuntu linux. Therefore I feel I'm qualified to shed some light on your misconceptions. Take this response not as *hate* but as an assumption that you are not willfully ignorant about what you're talking about, and you just need someone knowledgeable to clear up your obvious confusion. That said...
truth is truth
conceded
You wanna know why Linux is dead last and going exactly nowhere?
Dead last on desktops. Number one in the server space. Number one in handhelds. PC ownership has stagnated. The mobile space is where all the growth is happening, and linux-based OS's are eating everyone but Apple's lunch in this field. Even Apple is still relegated to playing a strong second fiddle.
There are no anti-competitve bundling deals with PC distributors in the linux world. There's also little in the way of manufacturer and application support. Those are the real reasons. Less technical and more political than you seem to think.
you people really really REALLY suck at GUIs
This is a gross generalization. Gnome is really no more or less user friendly than any of the commercial alternatives. All of the several different viable options for linux destkop environments have their strengths and faults. It's not any different for Windows or OS X.
While you may think some damned 70s terminal is the essence of nirvana
For at least the last 5 years, use of the terminal on an Ubuntu desktop system is about as central as it is on Windows or OS X. Pros do it for convenience, but it isn't necessary unless you're trying to do something unorthodox. This is an old, dead, troll of an argument against Linux. Try a modern Linux desktop, it's really not as bad as you seem to think it is.
you are missing features that Windows had a fricking decade ago
By the same token, windows is still missing many features Linux had 20 years ago.
Where the fuck is the roll back drivers button? How about the find drivers button? You expect the user to magically know the make/model/rev of any and all pieces of hardware
Driver management in Linux is handled through the package manager, because drivers are software. I haven't needed to roll back a driver, ever. I did so exactly once to enable visual effects and it was complete cake. No CLIs were employed. The last time I needed to use lspci to determine the model of a piece of hardware because it wasn't autodetected was 2006. The last few releases of Ubuntu even notify me when there's a better proprietary (manufacturer) driver than the bundled open one, and automatically install THAT.
you couldn't put all these pieces together into a solid intuitive OS if someone put a gun to the head of RMS
so wait, *you're* the one worried about getting "hate" from "fanbois"? Ummm...
What is Linux now? It is a CLI OS with a GUI shell bolted on top
An OS is not "CLI or GUI". OS's work to abstract hardware from software. That is their purpose. OSX is a mach microkernel OS with a GUI on top. Windows 7 is a NT-family kernel with a GUI on top.
You're obviously really upset about linux. I don't really understand why, it sounds like you're really happy with Win7 and that's fine. You can rage about terminals and drivers, and it's not going to change any Linux users' minds about their choice in OS. And since win7 can't run ZFS and won't take the GUI code out of protected kernel space, your angry rant isn't going to change my mind either.
Point being that choice is good, each OS has its strengths and weaknesses. I salute your right to choose and even though windows is far and away the hardest of the three to administer, and you clearly have no need of the superior features Linux does offer, I'm glad you're happy with it.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Come back to this thread when you need to use a computer for something other than watching Justin Bieber videos and poking at Flash games on Facebook. Linux is not a "GUI shell bolted on top of a CLI OS", it's a kernel. You probably think you know what the difference is, but your foaming rant makes it strikingly clear you don't.
There are plenty of dumb appliances out there already that will hide the scary complexities of a computer from you.
DLL HELL
Yeah, that's bad and Linux has it's analog "dependency hell", which is just as much of a problem.
A package manager that is more flexible then what we have right now could fix that and no, that doesn't mean libraries would fly everywhere, it simply would mean that it would have more advanced mechanisms to resolve naming conflicts then forcing you to always use the newest package from the repository and nothing else, which is what current package managers do.
There are two ways around this in Ubuntu 11.10 (and, I'm assuming, derivative distributions). One way is to install from a PPA (that's the most likely answer you'll get if you search for a remedy online). I don't really like that idea, so I sat down today, did some research, and figured out how to install the latest version (1.6.0-30) directly from the Oracle website. It is not a trivial process, if you are a relative amateur like I am. Why does an amateur like me care? Because a very common mathematics learning software (ALEKS) requires Sun Java to run. I teach using this software, and although I could run a VM to access their system, I'd rather not. If anyone cares, here's what to do, after you download the appropriate .bin file from Oracle:
./jre-6u30-linux-x64.bin /opt/java /opt/java/64 /opt/java/64/jre1.6.0_30 /opt/java/64/jre1.6.0_30/bin/java /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins /opt/java/64/jre1.6.0_30/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so
chmod +x jre-6u30-linux-x64.bin
sudo mkdir
sudo mkdir
sudo mv jre1.6.0_30/
sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/java" "java" "/opt/java/64/jre1.6.0_30/bin/java" 1
sudo update-alternatives --set java
cd
sudo ln -s
PS I'm sure there's a better way to do this, but it worked. I pieced this together off of the web - none of it is original.
/etc/apt/sources.list has supported multiple repositories forever.
Multiple repositories don't address the underlying problem, as you are still installing everything in a single dependency and filesystem tree. If you have two repository with packages of the same name, you have a conflict that current package managers have no proper way of dealing with, aside from forcing you to use whatever has the highest version number (i.e. the Gnome2 vs Gnome3 problem).
The only viable alternative to the repository system is to either
There are far more ways to solve the issue. You could for example start by separating software installation from software availability, i.e. copy files to /packages/foobar-2.0/bin/foobar instead of right into /usr/bin/foobar. And then just place a symlink/start-script in /usr/bin/ to make the software available. This allows users to have different versions of the same software. Libraries can be dealt with by adjusting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH on a per program level.
I'll get hate for wading in with such obvious fanbois but WTF, truth is truth> You wanna know why Linux is dead last and going exactly nowhere? Its because you people really really REALLY suck at GUIs, you really do. While you may think some damned 70s terminal is the essence of nirvana the rest of the world has moved on dude, and nobody wants to play with your damned blinking cursor crap.
Bullshit. Only time I even touch the CLI is when I find it more efficient. NVidia drivers? One-click install. Restricted codecs? Same.
I mean holy fuck you are missing features that Windows had a fricking decade ago and while I don't have an OSX machine to confirm I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had them even longer. Where the fuck is the roll back drivers button?
Never had to rollback drivers (or anything for that matter 'cept Opera), but I'd assume that Snapper on my OpenSuSE box provides for rollbacks of any other update drivers included. I wouldn't be surprised if other distros had similar functionality.
You expect the user to magically know the make/model/rev of any and all pieces of hardware and go do the "find a fix" forum dance which ALWAYS ends with "open up bash and type"
Mostly bullshit. Okay, my distro doesn't have a magic drivers button like *buntu, but I just hit Google and about 15 seconds later, drivers are installing after one click and a confirm prompt. No CLI needed.
What is Linux now? It is a CLI OS with a GUI shell bolted on top that kinda sorta works but for anything more than basic tasks fails, is buggy as fuck, and to get anything complicated done you need to go CLI which you can even bypass the GUI shell completely and just go CLI.
Any modern distro has a well-integrated GUI that is just as stable as Windows or OS X. Hell, due to Apple wanting to make the OS idiot-proof, doing anything complicated in OS X requires knowledge of Bash. Want Time Machine to only make backups once or twice a day so it's not chewing up your HDD? Welcome to bash and adding a cronjob. Want ipfw to actually have a default deny cleanup rule instead of allow? Bash again, or a third-party utility.
Apple and MSFT are bringing their A games,
That they are. This is a good thing. It means that users have choices, and good choices at that.
I received a message a few months ago from Gentoo that Oracle had changed their licensing back to a distribution unfriendly version. Gentoo turned on the fetch restriction switch and gave me a link to download the needed files. I followed the link and read their new license only to discover that it forbade installing Java on Netbooks and cell phones. Three of the computers I maintain are Netbooks. I opted to skip updating Java until I learned more. Then life happened and I stopped paying attention to Java.
Today, I see this headline and I follow it to see what is going on. The comments seem to fall into two groups, Windows fan boys and OpenJDK discussion. OpenJDK is new to me and useful information. I've never heard of it before. Unfortunately, "emerge -s jdk" doesn't show an OpenJDK. I'll have to research it more. Perhaps it has a different name in Portage?
I originally installed Sun's JDK because my bank said I needed Sun's specific implementation to access my account on-line. I also worked for a company at the time that insisted that any data you wanted to capture needed to have an application coded in Java. I had played around with the idea of learning the language for work. That was given up when I figured out that any application I wrote wouldn't be approved for work use. I just did what most people did there, keep the data in Excel and away from the databases. It was that, or wait for the Dev team's multi-year backlog to clear.
I'll have to see what I can learn about OpenJDK and see if it covers my banking needs...
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
Linux isn't dead. Pretty much every TV I see for sale except for the very basic ones runs linux. Digital video recorders - most of them run linux. Wifi routers, again, pretty much every one except the Airport runs linux. Telephones - The Blackberry and iPhone don't run linux, nor do the few remaining dumb-phones, but a fairly significant number of them do.
Linux is also alive and well in the server space. I administer both linux and windows servers. When I want to do something on the linux boxes, a single command line entry over ssh will generally do the trick. On windows, I have to log in using RPD and click around a load of places to do the same thing. Obviously the average Joe User isn't going to be comfortable with ssh, but the average Joe User doesn't administer servers.
Linux isn't very popular on the desktop, I see it in a few corporate locations where it is set up as a single purpose device, and it works as well as windows would doing the same thing, except that linux allows them to use much cheaper hardware, but linux is no more dead because it isn't that popular on the desktop than windows is dead because it isn't very popular in the mobile space.
I like to see the fire and the energy swirling around Linux and Java in this discussion. My brother uses Mac's exclusively, because he works in the movies using Pro Tools -- and even if Pro Tools worked on Linux, he is committed and says "Apple operates by capitalizing on a lifestyle... How could the open source community match Apple, who has untold engineers, paid, working to make Mac's easy to use, and powerful?" Mac's seem a bit pricey to me. I've heard the OS is based on a *nix (FreeBSD). Also, their hardware supposedly works well because being the proprietary corporation for the hardware and software, Apple can dominate its suppliers and configurations, and say, "We want a battery that will last seven hours" or whatnot. All praise to Apple for making a good product that is derived from *nix..! However, their anti-competitive legal behavior with regard to Android disturbs me... Don't be evil..! A tablet is a generic category of nature..! You think _YOU_ invented a flat computer, or that only you have the right to make them?? Insane..! Linux, however, is the wave of the Future Earth... Google runs on it, as do the FBI and the National Security Agency (Security Enhanced Linux).. This guy Salus wrote a history of open source -- http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051013231901859 I think it is fascinating. My parents bought a Win7 laptop, which got fried by a virus within weeks of powering up. I convinced them to let me install Ubuntu. My Dad liked it fairly well, but he's a big iTunes user, so eventually my brother was convinced to give them one of his old Mac laptops. Now Dad can run iTunes, look at the super-slick Mac interface, and be reasonably certain that he might not get killed by another virus. Any suggestions on what I should do with the extra Linux box? Maybe bring it to my apartment, and experiment with using it as a firewall...(Oh, doesn't a firewall require two network interfaces? I don't think the little Toshiba lappy thought of that yet..) IPTables, packet mangling, Network Address Translation anyone? My XP box (Windows XP Media Center Edition) has an odd habit of complaining loudly that no firewall is turned on, but ironically it doesn't let me turn it on for long. I live in fear that my big box will get fried. I run Avast AV and do boot-time scans kind of frequently, and I am really reluctant to visit URL's I don't know. My Ubuntu lappy is my pride and joy. I always install all the updates as soon as possible. How could _I_ second-guess Canonical? This is what they do for a living, this is their profession. I am simply a user. Although I know how to program, and Java is my favorite language. I figure Oracle or whoever will work out a way to make Java work cross platform. That was Java's promise, wasn't it? A Virtual Machine running on a bunch of different OS's -- which your Java code would ride barebacked on and always work..! It disturbs me to hear shit talked on Java. I have a lot of study invested in it. What is the alternative? Well, Linux for instance is written in C.. Maybe if I ever decide to develop software, I could bite the bullet and do the menial labor of compiling it differently for each OS.. Or -- I don't give a shit about Windows or Mac OS -- why not simply go full force, full Linux -- and stop developing anything for any other OS?
David C. Baird theunspokenyes.com
OpenJDKs are garbage pure snd simple. (Maybe not harmony) OpenJDK doesn't have anyhot spot nor can it handle Opengl. So useless for enterprise useless for games.
You are crazy. I'm a Java developer, who uses Linux, and I'd neer consider OpenJDK as any sort of alternative to SunJDK. Its pretty much the first thing I install on my Linux boxes. The Oracle/Sun supplied JRE is a lot more stable, and I'd assume is better performant as well.
Bye!
This is the most f*in insightful comment I have seen on slashdot. +10
Thank you, but I'm just a humble retailer that got tired of being lied to. I mean if their OS was actually good then why has ASUS has given up on Linux? If it is so stable then why does Dell have to run their own repos even though we are talking a teeny tiny subset of hardware? If it is so secure then
how, do you explain these?
So you see somewhere on the way to be a good OS Linux quit being an OS and became a religion. Admittance of the myriad of problems is NOT allowed, anymore that you could question the Koran or Bible in the home of a fundie. Frankly Canonical could change the default picture to Goatse and we'd see apologists come out of the woodwork to explain that is actually a biting social commentary on our times.
Here are some facts: Fact 1- All the major OEMs frankly ignore Linux not because of some secret M$ Ninja conspiracy, but because its so damned unstable thanks to Torvalds treating the kernel as his own playground. this attitude which is expressed by the man himself right here mean a company either has to do like dell and pay a team to basically run their OWN distro, no small task, or deal with a broken mess when Torvalds goes 'Lol Goatse!" and breaks shit. this is why even Canonical admitted there is a FOUR TIMES higher return rate for Ubuntu netbooks which makes linux a money LOSER for any company foolish enough to try. Walmart, Asus, these companies don't just abandon a product willy nilly you know, they did it because of the reasons i listed.
The sad part? All the basic parts are there, a modern kernel, DEs that with some serious polish could be great, plenty of drivers, but the zealots and itch scratching devs make sure Linux goes exactly nowhere. the ONLY reason it has gotten anywhere on servers is MSFT's frankly ass raping prices on CALs. If MSFT dropped the price of WinServer to $100 and the price of CALs to a buck a pop Linux would dry up and blow away, anybody that was honest would admit this. As a Linux admin i know put it "if you give a Windows and Linux admin the same job that the Linux guy has done repeatedly then the Linux admin WILL win, but if its a completely new task? the windows admin will be home making a sandwich before the Linux admin is done Googling".
But instead of admitting that CLIs are for servers and GUIs for desktops you'll get 300 page treaties on how "CLI is leet!" and how much better the world would be if "They would only embrace the POWER of CLI" like its the god damned force. So instead all you get is flag waving and fangirls. notice how many above me rushed to say "And I'm not a fanboi"? Every time you read that the translation should be "I'm such a fangirl I squee like a tweener at a Beiber concert when i see a Bash prompt!"
Ultimately though their denial can't change reality and the simple fact is their precious awesome OS lower than JavaME , a shitty third rate cellphone OS. Why? If it is sooo good why is it so low? Because it ISN'T good, its a buggy, fiddly, unfriendly, unintuitive, CLI heavy fiddly bitch that is about as far from the level of polish from OSX and Win 7 as it is from here to Europa. If they weren't so busy drooling over bash prompts maybe they'd ask the most important question, which is "What are our competitors doing right that we are doing wrong?' but that would mean admitting 70s terminals are as out as Disco, and they'd rather choke on RMS's sandals that admit that little truth.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Whoa. Hold on a minute there, King of the Trolls, don't you think you are comparing apples with oranges?
And do you seriously believe that ditching Linux from Asus was not a result of lobbying? How about loading them with resource-hogging Windows 7? On a friggin' 1 Gb RAM NETBOOK?
Or did you miss the part where not everybody has moneygrants from their daddy to buy all these shiny gadgets?
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
You could for example start by separating software installation from software availability, i.e. copy files to /packages/foobar-2.0/bin/foobar instead of right into /usr/bin/foobar. And then just place a symlink/start-script in /usr/bin/ to make the software available.
Yes, the Stow package manager works a bit like this. There are downsides to the approach though, which is presumably why no one has released a full distribution based on this concept. As the number of library versions shared between applications decreases, the memory cost approaches that of static linking. You also have the problem of version management and complex relationships (e.g. multiple applications embed Python, but depend on different versioned libraries).
Notice how the ONLY answer you can come up with is "nigger faggot cocksucker" aka "troll shill astroturfer"? that is what happens when an OS becomes a religion. Nowadays the ONLY correct thing you can say to appease the FOSSies is "Gee isn't Linux doubleplusgood? Why it sure is biff, and RMS' farts cure cancer!"
And I personally have a Win 7 netbook, the EEE E-350 and frankly its as snappy as can be. It runs so good i use it as a portable music creation studio with Audacity, Acid, and Hydrogen, and that is with the full win 7 HP. for Atom netbooks Win 7 Starter is quite snappy as well although frankly there is only so much you can do when you are talking about a chip as weak as Atom. unless of course all you want is a bash prompt in which case here is a beagleboard, knock yourself out. Personally for Atom based i simply copy the tricks employed by the "Tiny 7" guy who frankly needs to be hired STAT by MSFT as he has Win 7 running damned nice on a 1GHz with less than 512Mb of RAM, faster than WinXP on the same hardware in fact due to Win 7 having better memory management.
But in the end numbers don't lie and when BOTH the OEMS AND the retailers, from little shops like mine to the megacorps like walmart STILL won't take your shit even when its free? its time to take a good long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself the most important question, which is "What are my competitors doing right that I'm doing wrong?" but then you'd have to admit your precious bash is a throwback to the age of disco that nobody but you gives a shit about and the community would rather lick RMS' underwear than admit the truth.
BTW did you know that Win 7 doesn't even have start>run or CMD anymore? Its now buried waaaaay in the back of accessories as a depreciated tech, it simply isn't needed anymore. While I don't have an OSX machine to check I wouldn't doubt if the same is true for the latest version of Apple's OS as well. Doesn't that give you a clue? doesn't that ring ANY bells? Nope you'll just say "CLI is leet!" and promptly sit down in the middle of the racetrack to write a bash script while Windows and OSX stroll across the finish line. I mean when an OS that has a $1000 barrier to entry gains share during the Vista debacle and you don't gain jack shit, doesn't that FINALLY light that little bulb over your head? or do you think its a vast conspiracy by Gates and the Illuminati to bury your precious GNU?
I used to laugh at crazy old RMS, now I think he's just a sad reflection of the community as a whole. Did you know he STILL addresses audiences as "hackers" like its 1978 and he is at a homebrew club? Sadly that is linux in a nutshell, a bunch of sad little programmers that long for the days when computers were special and they in turn were special for being able to use them, while the rest of the world has moved on decades ago. Its not 1978 anymore, just FYI.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Ah, one size fits nobody. What an annoying model.
In my experience, the fully locked down desktop which nobody has any ability to install applications they use/need makes for a desktop that makes IT happy ... but is generally useless for the rest of the company unless your industry is predicated on a large number of people effectively doing clerical work.
I'm glad that at my current employer IT understand that they're there to serve the actual business users. Everyone gets a dual monitor machine by default, users are local admins on their machine ... they've mostly done away with the mindset of Mordac the Preventer in IT. IT is there to help you get your job done, not to tell you what you're allowed to do.
The department I'm in is the Information Services for the rest of the company (we're the DBAs, web team, storage, backup and all of the enterprise software ... a few step up from the desktop), and most of our clients are in charge of things worth tens or hundreds millions of dollars in revenue. The culture is much more about ensuring the business users have what they need ... we're there to keep everything going so the people who generate the actual revenue don't have any unnecessary hurdles. The last thing I need is for the guys that provision desktops to tell me that I can't install a tool that I need to meet a client obligation.
At the desktop level, that's just the most basic plumbing that connects you to everything else. That doesn't dictate to business what they "need" or are "allowed" to do ... It's just the starting point to connect to the mission critical stuff.
Companies that allow the guys who roll out desktops to dictate policy to people who generate millions in revenue suffer in the end. IT departments who treat the actual business users as secondary to their wishes ... well, they need a shorter leash in many cases.
Now, there may be some industries where the standardized, locked down desktop makes sense. But, in many, it's a model which just simply doesn't work -- you just end up with self important people in IT who think that they're in charge and seem to take some pleasure in telling you that you're not 'allowed' to do something.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I agreed to the deployment of timely security and software updates, not to the arbitrary removal and resulting breakage of my systems. If Canonical proceeds with removing the sun-java packages from my machine instead of merely removing them from their distribution repositories, I'll be removing Canonical and going with a distro that understands the importance of not breaking user's machines.
However, I seriously doubt either Oracle or Ubuntu would be so stupid as to break production systems around the world in such a fashion.
I don't blame Oracle for dropping Canonical's distribution. Historically they've always provided their own installers. But they really need to start providing .deb installers as well as .rpm. Using "alien" may work, but it's rather distasteful for production systems to do so. Application and server producers don't want to be in the business of packaging software for installation. And Oracle should really reconsider the benefits of having an automatic distribution engine like Ubuntu's repositories, or start up their own repository server that can be trivially added to the set that Ubuntu queries every time it runs, the same way you can add repositories to Eclipse.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I read your comment earlier and decided to see if I could get the same spec machine for less from Dell as an example. I managed it. It was about 5 GBP cheaper for a similar spec machine with a 27in 2560x1440 screen like the iMac has. I'm quite happy to have paid 5 quid more for a higher quality device.
Notice how the ONLY answer you can come up with is "nigger faggot cocksucker"
No, and you carefully omitted my points which, seen from some of your previous posts, is something you keep indulging in. You keep on rambling and rambling, believing that you have understood what the comment is, where in fact -brace yourself- you haven't. You also call it 'answer' where in actuality I asked you questions, but you are apparently too busy smelling your own farts to notice and in your defensive little self you think everybody is out to get you, so you show your teeth from line one.
A friendly advice: let go a bit, and start trusting people, while you still have time.
Another one: you may be a smart guy, maybe more than average where you live in, but that doesn't mean there are no others smarter than you, and
Last one: splash some water to your face, go read my post again but this time without allowing the little sinister voices in your head to translate it for you. Try to see what it is that I am trying to say, not what you think I am saying because -and that might come as a surprise to you- you may be wrong.
That said, you are (and without the tiniest amount of discretion) omitting that
a) Linux is free,
b) One can hire someone to maintain it, have courses, or become self-taught by both experience and example,
c) "Mr Tiny 7" or whatever gets you back to square one, since you would have to hack your own machine (alas, especially for windows users) so your point on "optimizing/tweaking" W7 to get them to "run" in small resources is moot by your own argumentation,
d) Linux rules the server world, and
e) there are several ways to make your point into a slashdot post without acting like a dick which you, as I see from some of your previous posts, is something you are inclined to.
So feel free to ramble on after this post, I am only going to answer if you post something worthy of answering.
FYI I use a Mac, so I guess you FAILed this one.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Where the fuck is the roll back drivers button? How about the find drivers button? You expect the user to magically know the make/model/rev of any and all pieces of hardware
Driver management in Linux is handled through the package manager, because drivers are software. I haven't needed to roll back a driver, ever. I did so exactly once to enable visual effects and it was complete cake. No CLIs were employed. The last time I needed to use lspci to determine the model of a piece of hardware because it wasn't autodetected was 2006. The last few releases of Ubuntu even notify me when there's a better proprietary (manufacturer) driver than the bundled open one, and automatically install THAT.
Actually, no. I once had my RH Linux crash, and it needed a new install. So I took this opportunity to use a different distro, which was still RH based, but used a more recent kernel version. Which was fine, until it came to the sound drivers. The ALSA version I used w/ RH did not work w/ this one, and so I had to go back to the ALSA website, download a few of their recent drivers, and by trial & error, see which one worked. It turned out that I had to use an older version of ALSA if I wanted it to work w/ this newer kernel. And it was not something I could do w/ rpm or even yumm - I had to do a .configure and make install to get it to work, which it finally did.
.configure && make install.
should be possible to configure everything via GUI which is still not a case for too many situations and operations.
Your package manager only works w/ software that rides over your OS, but is not applicable when you have to install things in the kernel, such as device drivers. In other words, it's fine if you're trying to install packages like Avidemux, Cinerella or Opera (although Opera really puked on my while updating versions, and ended up as unworkable). But if you are trying to install device drivers, you'd be lucky if something like rpm works, and you have to really know which version of a kernel will work w/ which version of a driver, or try various combinations while doing a
What is Linux now? It is a CLI OS with a GUI shell bolted on top
An OS is not "CLI or GUI". OS's work to abstract hardware from software. That is their purpose. OSX is a mach microkernel OS with a GUI on top. Windows 7 is a NT-family kernel with a GUI on top.
You're obviously really upset about linux. I don't really understand why, it sounds like you're really happy with Win7 and that's fine. You can rage about terminals and drivers, and it's not going to change any Linux users' minds about their choice in OS. And since win7 can't run ZFS and won't take the GUI code out of protected kernel space, your angry rant isn't going to change my mind either.
Point being that choice is good, each OS has its strengths and weaknesses. I salute your right to choose and even though windows is far and away the hardest of the three to administer, and you clearly have no need of the superior features Linux does offer, I'm glad you're happy with it.
An OS itself is not a CLI or GUI, but its interface w/ the user is important. Editing files in /etc is one way of doing it. Being able to go into an utility such as a Control Panel, and go into System and Devices and manage things there is another way of doing it. If an user has to edit files in /etc, then the OS is fine for geeks who know that stuff, but not for the average user. Yeah, everybody needs to know what they are doing and how, but in Windows, it's not difficult to figure out that one has to go the the Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager, and select the item needed and update the driver from wherever the source file may be. But that's not something that someone in an unixesque environment can be reasonably expected to figure
Moves like continuing to use GNOME when KDE was clearly the better desktop environment
Um, Kubuntu.
A pioneer among distros, who decided to make Rekonq, which is not even version 1.x as their default browser, replacing Konqueror. I know that KDE has decided to embrace Webkit over KHTML, just like XML has been globally preferred to SGML, and that's fine. But why make a browser that's clearly not ready for prime time your default - particularly given all the complaints about KDE 4.0-4.5?