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Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed
An anonymous reader writes "Scheduled to be released next month, Ubuntu 12.10 now includes both Amazon ads in the user's dash and by default an Amazon store in the user's launcher. The reason for these 'features'? Affiliate revenue. Despite previous controversies with Banshee and Yahoo, Canonical is 'confident it will be an interesting and useful feature for our 12.10 users.' But are the 'users' becoming products?"
Update: 09/22 19:35 GMT by T : Reader bkerensa scoffs, calling the Amazon integration unobtrusive, and says objections to its inclusion in the OS should be ignored, "because in reality ads will not be found in 12.10 unless you are seeing them on a third party website you go to in a web browser." He's got screenshots.
Mass migration in 3...2...1...
I'm sure they'll be uninstalled shortly.
and shameful.
It really isn't. I mean come on, a distro as large as Ubuntu is gonna need revenue from places other than donations. And, as long as it isn't too obtrusive in the UI, I won't really complain about it. Besides, there's always other flavors of Ubuntu which may have the ad feature removed.
Fuck you, Ubuntu.
I'm switching to Linux... oh wait
If it's only in Unity and not KDE, then I'm a bit disappointed in Canonical, but not especially upset.
If it is in KDE too, that might just be what makes me abandon ship.
and thanks for all the fish.
Embedded ads? No thanks...that just doesn't fill any need I have for an OS.
It's been a pleasure, but the ride is over. Hello Gentoo, and Fedora. I'm starting to see why people pay for Windows and OSX now. Might get myself a copy of Windows 7.
1. Build a free operating system. ... have Amazon "affiliate" ads ...
2. Support it for years.
3.
4. Profit!
We've finally found out what the '...' stood for. Look for a fork of Ubuntu in 5 ... 4... 3...
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
I too am offended to be getting advertisements by default. But thankfully, they are trivial to remove. FTFA,
Removing Shopping Results from Unity
Much like the Amazon and Ubuntu One Music web-apps you can disable the âShoppingâ(TM) feature easily.
Just open up a terminal and run:
sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
HA HA!
I've enjoyed using Ubuntu. It was the first Linux distro that "just worked" for me (by which I mean, wifi/video/audio worked out of the box). And it's free!
I don't know what kind of ARPU they expect from this, but as an Ubuntu user I'd prefer to just pay. A freemium model would do, maybe something like "get the previous LTS version for free, get the current one for $X". Or "donate to enable advanced features" or something. But peppering my work/leisure environment with third-party advertisements (i.e. spyware and probably malware at some point)? No thanks.
It's a small price to pay for such a well polished distro ...
AccountKiller
So, is this why they insisted so much on Unity? Fuck that.
I will never use the dash to search things on Amazon. What is the advantage instead of using directly the browser?
The fact is that a company like Canonical should sign real deals and not do things that are closer to a student trying to make some bucks with his blog. All these attempts show they've no business strategy.
Ubuntu: Humanizing Linux by bringing crapware. Users will feel right at home with the same kind of preinstalled junk as they'd get with Windows, but be happier knowing they were the ones who chose to put it there!
welcome our new Unity overlords
Over the inflexible desktop user interface. Now it's official.
I go out of my way to complicate the simple things, so that I can simplify the complicated things.
No longer using Ubuntu.
I groaned when I read the headline, picturing permanent banner ads on the desktop. When I TFA, I saw they did a goof job of it. An unobtrusive maybe even useful, way for non-coders to contribute a just a little bit to Ubuntu development. I do continue code, weekly, but still I wouldn't mind those types of carefully integrated search results too much.
Ubuntu 12.10 now includes both Amazon ads in the user's dash
I hope I'm not the only one that got visions of a /etc/profile spewing out Amazon commercials when reading the above.
Donate free food here
Here's a hint: if you're not paying for it, you are the product.
This has very obviously been Microsoft's business model for operating systems from the very beginning: they don't sell the OS to you, they sell you to the OEMs.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Wow, glad I just finished setting up Debian testing on my new x230 and migrated to Debian stable on a personal server I while back after the uefi bit. Ubuntu got me into Debian and away from slack and gen too from way back. Been good Ubuntu, bye.
Mandriva tried that, and it didn't really work out for them. Really, software is best monetized with subscriptions (e.g. RHEL), but I do not think Ubuntu's users will be willing to pay for subscriptions.
Palm trees and 8
When a distro does something stupid, people can vote with their feet and quickly destroy the distro that isn't serving their needs, all without doing a lot of re-learning things or spending a dime.
My machine is not for your commercials. I don't care if I have to patch out these kinds of "features" and compile everything myself, it's my hardware and I will do as I please on it.
I am officially gone from
Microsoft does not preinstall ads on their operating systems.
You got the touch!
"Apple does this. At least they did from my brief exposure to them. Built right into the main file menu."
Anybody know what this anonymous coward is on about? I've used Macs since 1989, and I have no idea what he's referring to.
I wonder how long until someone releases a tool to disable the ads.
Big deal. sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping. Or for the GUI, open Ubuntu Software Center, search for, e.g., "shop". Click "Show technical items" and uninstall the lens. That could be made a bit more obvious, but it's not like what you are implying.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
But are the 'users' becoming products?
More specifically, the attention of the users has become the product being sold. Similar to magazine subscriptions, the object is to profit off the attention of the user (reader).
Even more users to Mint Linux: http://linuxmint.com/ Om om om...
I mean, if this pays for the OS and I get it for fre... heyyy WAIT A MINUTE!
If people want Linux for the Desktop, having it re-installed is the only way. PC sellers are willing to sell their PCs with any OS on it, as long as they make money.
The margins on hardware are minimal, so they look at extra income. Anti-virus programs are a nice source of income. So if they can generate extra income from Linux, they will be interested in doing that.
This is not about you and me who install are sorts of add blockers and on our Windows machines, run our free Anti virus programs.
This is about your parents PCs who will run things as they come.
Extra income will make the Linux Desktop possible. Pity that it is Ubuntu. Well, it IS the Windows distribution from Linux.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
FUCKYOU. First, they annoy us with "reversed" Window decorations ("We don't vote on design stuff"), then they try to stuff unity down our throats, and now this? By, 'buntu, please let the door hit you on your way out...
No, they don't. Obviously you have no fucking clue about Apple and probably can't afford their products anyways. Keep your opinions to the bargain basement PCs you use.
1) Remember, while most geeks will either be annoyed or even outright disgusted of this move, this is exactly the kind of thing that gets an operating system rolling for the wider audiences (IMO) and adds economical grounds for further expansion. Could this also be Amazon testing the potential of making Ubuntu a partner OS, since they currently lack a desktop operating system integrated with their online shopping "experience"? Maybe.
2) However what I know for sure is that this feature is likely to be US-only (unfortunately for those international Ubuntu users who prefer buying their music instead of pirating them), as is much of Amazon's stock. I mean, come on. I know that overseas shipping of physical items is hard, but working out the paperwork with the studios for selling a damn file? How hard can that be?
This is not just annoying, it's the beginning of the end of Ubuntu as free software. No matter how unobtrusive the ads are, if Amazon is paying Ubuntu, Ubuntu is bound to become dependent on that cash stream, which means Amazon controls what happens to Ubuntu. And Amazon has shown little interest in the future of free software.
Now, this isn't entirely a new thing: companies like IBM and Google have been paying for Linux development (in the form of hiring Linux developers) for years. But when an entire distro is financially captured by the biggest online retailer on the planet... that's something new.
I was already tired of the desktop segmentation and now this .... I can't decide if I will go openSUSE or Fedora.
What I am certain of is I will end my relationship with Ubuntu. I never cared for UbuntuOne. Hate Unity. And now ads.... I'm out.
And for those of you thinking they will uninstall/use another desktop/use Mint ... don't be so sure. At this point you will be of no use to Canonical and in their eyes you will be leaching if you don't view their ads. How long do you think that lasts?
When Ubuntu finally does make it to a tablet ... should we consider it a true Linux tablet? This is certainly not the spirit of Linux. I can't wait to see what RMS has to say.
Wish it were a sign of impending success of the linux desktop, but it looks more like an act of financial desperation on the part of Canonical. They should throw in an old copy of AOL just for the lulz.
I don't know which tone to take, we (linux supporters) all want to have linux adopted by the masses, and yet any organization that tries to do it and at the same time try to continue existing as a business, we all start to become idealistic. I think it's survival out there, all the place is taken but the apples and ms's, if canonical is teaming up with amazon or other's to get some revenue to continue and still promote ubuntu so be it.
We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.
Once again the animals were conscious of a vague uneasiness. Never to have any dealings with human beings, never to engage in trade, never to make use of money— had not these been among the earliest resolutions passed at the first triumphant Meeting when Jones was expelled? All the animals remembered passing such resolutions: or at least they thought that they remembered it.
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Unless you have thousands of dollars to buy such apps, it doesn't matter that much really.
In the meantime, I can have a much faster machine that's also more maintainable. I can upgrade my storage and video card with ease rather than contributing to the local land fill.
Apple brand doorstops are like bitch slapping your mother.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
There's LinuxMint. Not precisely a fork because it's based on Debian itself, but there's the fairly recent SolusOS which is a real beauty. It actually has up-to-date versions of the kernel and major software. (I know. Whoever heard of such a thing, right?)
So the countdown went through 0 and has been in positive numbers for years already.
all the people who run it, but never paid, are not "freeloaders", they are the massive user base that gave the Ubuntu distro momentum and pushed it to the top of linux distros. they got it into the corporate workplace (my employer uses Ubuntu), they make the helpful forum posts, etc.
your monetizing needs to be done outside of those people, it's done with services, support, add-ons for the corporate environment, etc.
If I want to buy stuff from Amazon (and I do, quite a bit) why should I have to bother opening up a web browser and navigating their website? Hit the search key, type in what I want and go - nice and simple.
Now that Unity has gained Ubuntu such a great usage/market share and cemented user loyalty, Canonical can bring home the moolah by integrating Amazon ads with Unity.
(This pas was written in an alternative universe where the above makes sense)
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Can I not go anywhere without being harassed? Now my own desktop is unsafe. If it is easy to disable or uninstall them then I will not scream about it, but if they are obnoxious then I'll just pick a different flavor linux for use. It's not like there are not other options.
to hell with them all
If you don't like the direction Ubuntu is taking, stop and think about the costs of developing. The costs of maintaining package servers. The cost of bandwidth. All while giving away a product that you MUST give away. How can anyone afford or stand to be so benevolent for very long? Especially when they're forced to deal with cheap, sanctimonious, immature, "freetards" for their customers?
Dudes like PV keep it real for decades but look at the crap he gets for not making Slack all pretty for you whackjobs. Unfortunately, Ubuntu tickled your asses more than any distro I've watched in a very long time, so Shuttleworth might just be reaping what he has sown. Maybe next time he'll buy better seed than is the GPL.
As for you knuckleheads, it's time to grow up and put away the tie-dyes. If you still think Linux is the real deal then pick a distro, stay with it and send it some money. If you won't then stay on Windows and shut the hell up. Your day has just passed and your joke has stopped being funny.
So the while time you've been using Linux you've been paying, donating to your favorite projects, right? You've always had the opportunity to pay. If someone hasn't donated even $10 ever, I'd say that means they'd rather let it come to this. Users have always had the choice. If you'd rather pay, apt-remove and donate to an ad-free project. I'm about to eat breakfast. I'm a Linux developer. Breakfast costs money. If you'd rather pay, then do so. Lunch is coming up in a few hours and it has to be paid for somehow.
Since Kubuntu is now a "community project", it shouldn't be beholden to the mercenary caprice of Canonical. One real draw to Ubuntu is the repositories and PPAs. Hopefully, Kubuntu can provide that without the marketing troll.
That would be, "firmware sets" or "firmware packages." Like "software" or "clothing," "firmware" is already a collective plural -- you do not have "two softwares" or "two clothings" but rather "two pieces of software, two pieces of clothing, and two pieces of firmware."
The "above" makes PERFECT sense, since it's easy to defeat!
I'm all for online ads. I block them so I don't give a fuck about what I do not see.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
while posting on ad-supported Slashdot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblockplus
Palm trees and 8
That trick might work on Windows users, who don't know much about their computers.... but I think 99% of Ubuntu users will just right click "unlock from launcher" as one of the first things they do. Most of those who'll do that, will probably also purge the system of these Amazon invaders. I know I will. Linux Mint doesn't sound so bad now. In fact, this might be a good time for me to try FreeBSD 9....
Its not a big deal, but it makes my 12 month long oddessy with Mint a much more comfortable descision. After 5 good years with Ubuntu I ran for the hills after the gnome 3/unity fiasco, I think this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back for others.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
How can I block and take out of my system those Ads?
One important reason for using FOSS is trust. When a project is noncommercial, copylefted, and freely available to the community, you can be reasonably confident that the developers do not serve any other masters. With community FOSS, I don't find myself spending hours firewalling apps off or scrutinizing them for data leaks. I don't worry that my machine might be serving someone other than myself.
This move makes them guilty of dual agency. They no longer have the user's best interests in mind 100% of the time. Now, our interests are subject to a "balancing act."
Anybody who promotes advertising on any model other than opt-in with true informed consent cannot be trusted. This goes double for those who install adware on the client side.
I will not be upgrading and will begin discontinuing my use of Ubuntu on desktops and servers. The project has now become commercialized, just like those "free" adware apps which infest app stores.
Adbuntu, the consumer friendly distribution.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I wonder does Ubuntu get a cut on all purchases ever made by user through the Amazon thingy?
Searching for items will show related searches from Amazon, separated from local results. How is this a bad thing? Most of us have a default search engine in our web browsers that generates revenue for either the browser or the distribution. Linux distros have been using this for years to make a little cash. How is linking search results to Amazon any different? For that matter, it is trivia to remove the shopping lens, so anyone with the skill required to install Ubuntu can easily remove the ads. This strikes me as a giant non-issue.
And here I thought my switch to Debian might have been premature.
And moved to Linux Mint a long time ago. I really do see it as the better debian-based distro.
In other news Firefox had a great idea using affiliate monies. Google affiliate good, Amazon affiliate bad?
A loyal subject will shop to their fullest ability. After all, you don't want the terrorists to win, do you.
Remember, the US is at war with the enemies of al Qaeda. We have always been at war with the enemies of al Qaeda.
It all comes clear now.
If one can only single-task, then any adware shown cannot be ignored. It might be dismissed, but not hidden. In a multi-windowed world with minimization, shading (rollups) these ads might be skipped easily.
Canonical is learning.
The wrong thing.
Disclosure: I have never installed any flavor of Ubuntu, but I have used Mepis, Mint, Ultimate and Bodhi, all based on Ubuntu.
Recall the fact hat Ubuntu had already modded some software to use Canonical's affiliate id for MP3 store purchase?
Of course, canonical is not alone, Google does this pretty much with Android, an open licensed platform designed to entice an ecosystem that has users almost always use Google services.
The short of it, if you are getting something for free from a for-profit organization, there will be eventually a strategy to monetize on it. If you don't like it, your best bet is Debian or a non-commerical repackaging of a commercial distro (like CentOS, Mint, etc). Fedora also seems innocuous currently, with the understanding that you are essentially a beta tester for Red Hat's enterprise offerings.
I guess their "we really want to be like Apple" goal is moving forward. First they ruin their interface to be like an even more terrible version of OSX, and now they're chasing money at the user's expense. What next, they start releasing only slightly better versions but promote them as being the best thing on the market? Oh, wait...
What ads? I don't see any ads. ;)
I was a bit dismayed when I first read about this Amazon bundling. I have been considering switching to some flavor of Linux for awhile so I could have an OS that is mine...and not someone elses profit center.
The biggest issue I see with my switching (and many others) is I grew up in the DOS/Win pipeline. Love it or hate it...I understand it and can use it effectively. The couple distros I tried were not a pleasant experience.
The first headache was just figuring out which distro to try. To many and many are just minor variations of the same thing. for someone who doesn't understand Linux it's confusing and all the reviews speak in that quirky language of 'nix experts which doesn't help the non-geek at all.
Second headache was installing a distro and finding out it didn't work as expected (My case, dual monitor setup didn't work). Ultimately I had to use a Win box to surf the net to see if I could find a fix for the issue. Not knowing the commands (this is learning a new language) and reading hundreds of conflicting ways of how the problems was being solved I ended up going back to XP.
The last hurdle is the divide between user friendly and a geek tool. It reminds me of a guy I knew a looooong time ago (MS-DOS days) that formatted his floppies by typing in all the parameter switches (/sectors /tracks /system /size /sides etc) and refused to acknowledge that it could be done with a single parameter.
I know I can figure how to remove the offending ad serving, but the idea of having to 'modify' the OS kinda pisses me off. The average user wanting to get away from the corporate heel on their software may just pass this distro by.
As a side note...If I ask in here what flavor of Linux I should try I bet I would get 12 different (but good) answers on why I should use ___________.
Possibly. Though I recently installed Mint 13 w/ Mate for a friend who hated Unity and wanted Gnome 2 back, and personally I missed Ubuntu's polish when playing with that install. YMMV
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
No. No. No. First the disaster known as Unity, and now this? Is Canonical trying to drive it's users away?
Indeed. I generally find that my 2.7Ghz quad core i7 Macbook Pro with 16Gb of RAM and a 768Gb SSD and Retina display isn't used for much other than to hold doors open.
And it's so skinny that it really does a pretty poor job of even that.
Or you could just install gnome-panel and choose GNOME Classic from the login screen. It's more similar to GNOME 2 since it's pretty much the same thing just with more bugfixes and a slightly tweaked UI to resemble GNOME Shell a little more. Oh, and you'll need to hold down the Alt key to modify the panels.
Upgrade your storage? Ever heard of an external thunderbolt SSD bro?
Oh, and what do you do with all the spare video cards you upgraded? Use them as cup holders? Nope, they go to the landfill along with the big giant cardboard box and puffy plastic wafers they came in! Besides Macs are for professionals, we don't need to upgrade our video card every six months to play the latest version of Butt Commander.
I switch to Arch Linux a long time ago. I don't like Ads in my browser why would I ever want them in my OS!
Mandriva ! I have never had any issuse with this great distro! Did you ?
People do not migrate to linux for the Big fat Fscking Buy it now button.
For someone who grew up in the Windows environment and considers himself a wannabe geek I'm totally lost on which distro to use. From a "User" point of view all reviews of which flavor is best is just geek speak. Two distros I tried in the past didn't work "out of the box" and reading forums on how to fix the issue just leaves you confused. Remember that 'nix is a foreign language to many of us and just saying type sudo somethingorother will fix it means absolutely nothing to us. I don't want to be a geek...I don't have time to learn. My day is busy enough and I'm an old dawg.
Where to pay to make it all go away. Maybe donations are the way to go? Or just sudo apt-get uninstall amazon?
www.itjerk.com
When I want something, yes, i go to Amazon to and search for things -- and in that case, their advertising actually benefits me, and there is no issue with it. The problem is that Ubuntu will also include unsolicited advertising e.g. when you try to run Empathy you'll see advertisements that Amazon thinks are related to empathy. That is an annoyance, a waste of bandwidth, a waste of screenspace, and a waste of CPU cycles, and I would remove it right away.
The difference is between advertisements you ask for, and advertisements you do not ask for.
Palm trees and 8
I worked with hundreds of developers who are about to upgrade to ubuntu 12.
during the course of their development, they search for all kinds of corporate secrets on their machines.
if these searches are creeping out of their machines and into our competitors, how are we supposed to keep our secrets?
we are smart enough to disable this but we can't make sure every last developer has done it properly...
this is spyware.
So Ubuntu/Canonical is now moving to make the PC a glorifying shopping mall? They are in good company, Google (Chrome OS), Mozilla (Firefox OS), Microsoft (Windows 8) and Apple are all moving in the same direction.
Now this Unity and Gnome 3 makes for me sense, because to present stuff like a products shelf in a super market the Unity and Gnome 3 desktops are very good, but not so good for getting stuff done (you know, like open multiple windows, and get out of my way while I work).
So I guess Linux with KDE4, Xfce or the other light weight desktops are the last bastion of General Purpose Personal Computers (aka PCs and Laptops). Who knows, in 10 years I have to install a server oriented Linux distribution like Redhat or CentOS to have my work done without the commercialization and the social stuff.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
I personally moved to Mint because of Unity, but now have an added reason to stick with my delicious and refreshing flavor of Linux. Plus green is my favorite color!
there are 10 types of people in this world, those who read binary and those who don't. which are you!
Assuming that the ads are as open source as the rest of the installation then there's a better idea - I suspect Amazon are suddenly going to find a lot of two-year-old Hungarian speaking Inuit who are interested in crochet masters from C17th Solomon Islands in their user base.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
If Canonical really wanted to press the issue, they could easily make unity-lens-shopping a dependency of unity. sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping package would create a dependency problem that the package manager would resolve by either keeping it installed or removing all of unity. Many non technical users wouldn't even know how to get rid of the ads, thus they will stick around by default. An ethical approach to this would have been prompting during the upgrade or the install whether or not to enable them. Even some windows programs bundled with crapware at least give you the clear option to opt out before the installation. If I didn't read this thread on slashdot, I would have no idea what the offending package name would have been. I would search first for the terms "amazon", "ads", "banner", "adware", "sponsor", the word "shopping" would have been quite a bit farther down on my list. If this is the future of the linux desktop, I don't want it.
Imagine the backlash when Moms and Dads everywhere 'lose' all of their documents and data that's stashed in traditional silly places that Ubuntu won't look by default, like the Windows install's desktop and (god help us all) the recycling bin.
Personally, I haven't upgraded yet so I haven't seen this. I wouldn't mind myself as long as:
A) doesn't do any "pre-caching" or use any bandwidth unless feature is opened.
B) easy to uninstall
C) doesn't come with the server version when you do have a GUI.
If Ubuntu violates any of the above I'll be using other distros from now on.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Big deal? You'd be shitting up a hate storm if this were a discussion about ads on Kindles. Fucking fanbois. Amazing.
2 self-inflicted wounds for Ubuntu; Unity and now a fatal crass commercial affiliation that just won't appeal to Linux desktop users who have other choices. Ubuntu's suicide leaves room for a new top dog among easy to use Linux distributions. Linux Mint, perhaps? Xubuntu?
The one thing Ubuntu had over Mint was that it didn't opt you in for ads by default.
No longer. Once again it's Ubuntu making it easier to leave than to stay.
Seriousely what the hell? Is Canonical that desperate for money they have to force ads on us in the operating system itself? I've been using Ubuntu (and windows only to play World of Warcraft) pretty much since it first came out both on my desktop and Kubuntu on my girlfriends laptop. If both of us had to put up with ads you can guarantee i'd be finding out pretty damn quick how to either block the ads via opendns and or a hack of some sort to disable this garbage or stop using it altogether.
I've been blocking all ads and popups while browsing as well over the years (Proxomitron and later Adblock plus with various filter lists in firefox) and i'll be damned to see annoying, obnoxious, and data mined ads forced down my throat on the desktop.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
OMG, Ubuntu is going ad supported???
WE ARE THE PRODUCT!!!
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Big deal? You'd be shitting up a hate storm if this were a discussion about ads on Kindles. Fucking fanbois. Amazing.
I can assure you that ads on Kindle leave me entirely cold. As for the size of the deal, what I said what that the OP (you?) wrote as if Canonical had gone to any lengths to prevent removal, when OP wrote that someone would have to develop a tool for that. Which is plainly wrong and possibly flamebait.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
No secondary storage HD for your torrents / games? Not a real geek!
I am John Hurt.
Non-exclusive partnerships and similar affiliations aren't a bad thing for free software. The problem comes in when privacy invasive features such as Ubuntu One are implemented and non-privacy invasive actions such as clicking on the dash automatically send your search results to ANYBODY!
I like what Linux Mint does with its partnerships and affiliations on its web site. Canonical though really pisses me off as of late. Trisquel's also done some neat things with partnering with commercial companies. The distribution works with ThinkPenguin. This is helpful to users AND non-invasive. They and just about every other free software project have a shop where you can buy merchandise that is branded with the distribution or project. These shops are run by third party companies.
I don't believe the music feature is an issue so much provided that you have to click on the feature first (it's basically a link to the music store run by Amazon) from my understanding.
This however does concern me.
But you see. Ubuntu != Linux. What bodes well for Ubuntu doesn't necessarily mean Linux will benefit. I'll bring up that argument about canonical not giving back to the gnu and linux communities.
canonical doesn't promote FOSS. Canonical promotes Ubuntuâ
Mint? Which rapes Googles search on all browsers so they can get money from it?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If ads start popping all over the desktop including inside the unity dash, than it's over. Mark shuttleworth is worth more than $500million, canonical has a large multiple cash streams coming in already which pays the employees and still money left over. I wouldn't be surprised if canonical went public. The sad thing is canonical is making money off of programmers who contribute freely, and these developers won't see shit. It's a fucking insult of canonical doing something stupid as this ad shit especially when they are making tons of money already. Look it up.
Going to switch to Linux Mint 13 Kde. I installed linux mint 13 xfce on a netbook and it runs fine. If all linux distros take this direction than it's hello bsd or the old windows 7.
they are really trying hard to make people want to use another desktop.
Big deal. sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping. Or for the GUI, open Ubuntu Software Center, search for, e.g., "shop". Click "Show technical items" and uninstall the lens.
This is like those registry "answers" you get for Windows problems. Its easy! Just go start > run > cmd.exe and then run regedit and then goto HKLM Software Current ...
I thought that all features (which use compositing) weren't enabled when you used a VM. Maybe it would have been different if you tried it on a separate partition on the bare metal.
Anyway, as a non-noob user (developer) I'm here to say that Unity as of 12.04 is pretty good for power users and developers.
From my perspective, Unity is pretty good for multitasking workflows. In the earlier versions, Unity was useless for multiple workspaces because you could basically only have one copy of a program usefully running.
In the current version, there are indicators that tell you if one copy of a program is running, or two, or more. And if it's on the current workspace or not.
Although I had thought that I would hate it, it's actually pretty good, because 95% of the time you want to work with the apps, files, and programs you were most recently working with. Also, the Alt+Tab and Alt+` works well. They're basically integrated together so you can move out of one mode to the other (once you're in Alt+Tab or Alt+` mode, try using the arrow keys).
Also, one misapprehension I had about Unity was that youd have a huge number of icons down the left side. But since you only have one icon per program (instead of per window), it's not bad.
Finally, you should install Cardapio. It gives you a hierarchical (organized by category) menu of applications so you don't have to know the name of app before you search for it (a major complaint about Unity).
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
As a Fedorian I welcome everybody from Ubuntu who seek an alternative. Fedora is a free cutting edge distro. The good side: no ads and other commercial ties making *you* the product or that unity abomination. The downside: Fedora is void of any (potentially) patent encumbered or non-free software so you will need to make a bit of an effort to get all those codecs, flash and non-free apps etc installed on your shiny new Fedora powered box. It's worth it though. Even GNOME3 grows on you once you have slapped some sanity into it by installing a bunch of extensions. If you are not interested in Fedora, there are a ton of different distributions to choose from. Head over to distrowatch.com to get an idea how many there are.
next stop, location sensing popup ads in your googles glasses. Imagine driving past a store and then in your augmented reality glasses an ad pops up dead center while your trying to make a turn or change lanes...
Developing software costs time and money. I work for a living as a software development. Writing good software that does not crash all the time and takes into account multiple possibilities and user actions is hard.
Perhaps they should offer an ad free version or an unlock code to remove the ads for a flat fee. The GPL, much like Communism does not on a large scale. Once a project becomes large enough, it can no longer survive as a volunteer only endeavour.
The reality is that if you find something valuable then you should be willing to pay for it either through ads or a flat fee otherwise you are a freeloader/leach/lamer.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
If you contribute here, you can block the ads.
If you contribute to Ubuntu, it makes no difference.
No duh. I also block ads when they are annoying enough. The equivalent under the new Ubuntu will be to uninstall the offending packages, which is probably less of a hassle than using ABP.
captcha: deterred
I tried installing Ubuntu on my Sister's netbook yesterday. Ubuntu actually ran slower than Windows 7 did on it. Crunchbang was much snappier.
From the actual link:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/online-shopping-features-...
>For example, when you want to search for “dishwashers” on Amazon you can just enter “Dishwashers” in the Dash and a small line of “suggested items” from Amazon will appear.
>The same happens when you search for a local file or app from the Home Lens.
>So yes, you can expect to see self-help guides on compassion when trying to launch Empathy.
>‘More Suggestions’ is a strange turn of phrase; most people don’t tend to expect product suggestions when looking for their e-mail app. But I can cede that it’s a far better name than that used in development: ‘treat yourself’
Showing ads when you search locally seems a tad much and a waste of system resources. Isn't this equivalent to showing shopping ads based on keyword searches in Spotlight and the Windows Start menu?
Just realized that I sometimes type keywords to find local files matching filenames and content that's personal in nature. Does this mean all those keywords are sent to Amazon and perhaps data mined to show personalized results?
posting on ad-supported Slashdot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblockplus
sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping
Wahhh! (That was onomatopoeia for baby's cry for the uninformed)
You have an interesting, but completely pointless rant. Linux (desktop, server, phone, or otherwise) does not guarantee profits. The GPL does not prevent you from charging, but it also does not guarantee profits. It is widely known that the best way to become a millionaire selling Linux is to start out as a billionaire. Keeping a Linux community together is like herding cats, so buyer beware.
The problem with your rant is a paradigm issue. You don't really understand why we use Linux in the first place. The small community that exists around Linux chooses not to have companies and governments dictate terms and usage to us. In that light:
When Ubuntu moved the close button, I moved it back.
When Ubuntu installed Mono, I uninstalled it and blocked it from being reinstalled.
When Ubuntu switched to Unity, I switched to Gnome Classic.
When Ubuntu installed Zeitgeist, I uninstalled it too.
When Ubuntu removed Gnome Classic, I switched to LXDE.
Now I use Mint because it satisfies my need for stability, security, privacy, and performance. That is the point of Linux. You can make it anything that you want. It survives the whims of any company and it really does not matter if Canonical survives. Can you say the same for Solaris, C64, OS2, Cobalt, SCO, Next, System 7, Windows CE, or the hardware that they run on?
Thank you, Cannonical, for your contributions to the desktop. Before you tweaked the desktop it was a pain to use USB flash drives and I had to write a script. Before you set up PPAs, I had to hunt around repos for drivers, (livna, PLF, easyurpmi, etc) codecs, and proprietary blurbs to make my system work. Before you worked on wireless, I had to set up a script in /etc/init.d to activate my wireless card at bootup. My desktop experience has become significantly better on all distributions because of your work. Sorry about your bottom line, but it was never about money in the first place.
I've enjoyed using Ubuntu. It was the first Linux distro that "just worked" for me (by which I mean, wifi/video/audio worked out of the box). And it's free!
I don't know what kind of ARPU they expect from this, but as an Ubuntu user I'd prefer to just pay. A freemium model would do, maybe something like "get the previous LTS version for free, get the current one for $X". Or "donate to enable advanced features" or something. But peppering my work/leisure environment with third-party advertisements (i.e. spyware and probably malware at some point)? No thanks.
That was the reason why people liked ubuntu to begin with, myself included: linux was a PITA to install for desktop use. Ubuntu solved most of the problems with installation (video drivers, etc); however, today regular Debian has caught up to the same ease of Ubuntu. Hell, Fedora is just as easy as are most distros now. Why continue using derivatives that are only concerned with form (Unity, ads, etc) when you can use the base that cares only about function?
Why do they need more revenue, isn't Mark Shuttleworth a multimillionaire still? I thought he was about philanthropy not profits. Why couldn't they just generate ad revenue from their web page or their built in Ubuntu One music store or something? This just seems wrong.
This is Linux...not Windows. We can just remove all references to Amazon and their Ads. Problem solved.
"Developing software costs time and money" agreed on this point, but 80+% of the software used by Ubuntu was not developed by Canonical. So you really are paying Canonical to use software that someone else developed and is not getting a cent.
"The reality is that if you find something valuable then you should be willing to pay for it either through ads or a flat fee otherwise you are a freeloader/leach/lamer." So you are saying that any derivative distribution is a leach...and since Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, Ubuntu is a leach.
There is a difference between being a software developer and being a distribution maintainer. One writes and maintains software and the other collects software written by others and packages for a particular OS/distribution.
I think, if the ad revenue that Ubuntu will/plans on getting was distributed to every software package used by Ubuntu, there would be less issues.
I'll be back to Gentoo or off to Fedora unless the ad nonsense is easily disabled.
Windows has been sold with literal pounds of adware installed by OEMs, but at least the OS itself has always been clean. This story honestly stuns me. I've never heard of an operating system advertizing to the user directly. That's like my car reading me an ad every time I pull into my driveway.
I left Microsoft because of it, I didn't like Unity because of it, I've left Ubuntu because of it.
Canonical have provided the community with a polished and free OS, and they've just made a small change to include search results from Amazon when you search for things that are available from Amazon. It sounds extremely unobtrusive and might even be useful sometimes. And you can disable it easily.
It takes a lot of work to build something as polished as Ubuntu, and Canonical are the only ones who have ever achieved this. If this doesn't work and they can't find enough money to be self sustaining, it'd be a huge loss for everyone. Canonical really pushed desktop Linux forward, but it's too bad that the community is holding it back.
Never thought I'd need to remove pre-installed crapware from a Linux system (needing to remove early versions of Network Manager a few years back doesn't count).
My original plan was to switch to Kubuntu when I finally ditch Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. But given the direction they seem to be heading in, I may reconsider and go with a straight Debian system instead.
Not that I liked it in the first place but recent events have forced me to reconsider their motives. I usually install Ubuntu for family members but now I will migrate them to a less unscrupulous distro.
And it it responds "Sorry, Dave, I can't do that", then I'm formatting the drive...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Its easier than that! Make an account. Click to disable ads. Thanks slashdot!
I'm not sure how you can do that with GPL.
Here is my response to this article: http://benjaminkerensa.com/2012/09/22/lots-of-hype-over-shopping-lens-in-ubuntu-12-10
The ad routines will be added to the kernel. If you remove them it won't boot anymore because it is not signed anymore.
Funny, but your sig is really appropriate for this situation. Let's tweak it a bit :-
"Distros are like babies' diapers; they should be changed often, and for the same reason."
I changed from Ubuntu to Mepis four weeks ago.
The thing I find disgusting with this move is not that I see ads, it's that I'll see ads when I'm not 'using the web'. If I open a text editor (to edit some source code or whatever) and I start seeing crap associated with Amazon....it's a distraction I don't need. I tolerate ads on webpages because of a few things:
1) I don't own the website - it's their space.
2) I agree that they're allowed to "farm revenue" however they wish and splash all sorts of sweet-goodness or foul ads as long as I'm on their site.
However, you wouldn't let Sears, Wal-mart or any other company looking to generate revenue by installing an apparatus in your home to simply serve ads, would you? And don't get snippy and mention the TV - that's a different beast.
I purchased my PC/LT to do work for me - not some ad agency.
That being said, yes, there are similarities between TV ads and Ubuntu with ads. But, your TV doesn't show ads in the middle of your DVD/BD which interrupt the story-line, does it? Didn't think so.
So, no. Canonical and Amazon are stepping over the line on this one.
just my 2 cents.
Someone listened to the folk that wrote letters about their cloud player blocking you from downloading more than one track at a time from what it sounds like. I wrote them a respectful letter about how it's persecutory for them to do so when you have a good number of people running older hardware made from spare parts they found or got sent to them in areas where they are oppressed and can't afford to upgrade to Windows 7, nor would anyone hear them if they asked. There's people like that, even in the United States.Not really a fan of keeping up with the Hendersons or whatever, but there's some people who think they are primates trying to keep up with my family right now as weird as that sounds, especially coming from me. And that's why, I stood up for people, even when I wasn't in the right and didn't exactly see eye to eye with them or even go about it the right way. My grandfather worked all of his life to provide for my family, and even though I don't always see eye to eye with her I embarked on a little project to make her life easier because after I die or move off to another state, another country, or Jesus returns, if she outlives me and she may, she will have a more energy efficient house. Why? Because I did her wrong in my early adulthood, and I believe in paying people back. I've got a few others on my list, but I did her the most wrong trying to get back at her that she probably didn't completely understand.
Switch to Linux Mint.
Google is now heavily laced with Ads, now Canonical. I think Canonical is selling out, and I think the whole web is getting too damn commercial. Everyone has been trained by TV I guess.
Long touted as "the" Linux distribution for the desktop, but I just don't see it.
Just like any new distribution, when Ubuntu hit the streets I checked it out. Just the "mood" of the developers turned me off.
Let me clarify - I'm all for making things more user-friendly, and maybe I'm too old-school UNIX, but there's a difference between making something easier to use, and making it retard-proof.
When their forums became crowded with a hundred posts for the exact. Same. Problem. I warned my friends and family.
When the slew of Ubuntu-specific tools, GUIs, and How-Tos washed over the documentation. I distanced myself.
Now, with their community of perpetual noobs, their isolated walled-garden of features/docs/development, they finally think they've "locked-in" enough users to start this kind of nonesense.
Ad-Supported is just a spin-doctor's way of saying "Fuck You, GNU".
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
Last time I installed Mint, it had modified Firefox so that built in Google search would kick back some money to the Mint team with referrals. This is a pretty similar situation - easy to remove, and IMHO a reasonable method to support a free distro (I doubt many people donate).
The big issue here is that AdBlockPlus works for Slashdot, not so much for these intrusive operating system ads. As a whole, Unity is garbage, and Canonical is a greedy monster of corruption evolved from a nice, community supporting company who took a trip to the loony bin sometime in 2010 and hasn't come back.
The unmitigated hatred against Canonical for trying to find a way to generate income so that they can stay in business and continue developing Ubuntu is amazing. What the hell else do you expect them to do? If they offered a way to buy a copy I'm sure we'd have an equally trollish, hate filled thread here on Slashdot.
"The biggest deal for me is that ads are quite a large exploit vector. I block ads in my browser because I consider them to be from an untrusted source. If these are simply text and PNG, then perhaps it's not so bad."
Good, after scanning most of the thread, you're one of the few looking at the security side. I'll presume that Canonical won't allow a full fledged virus attack, but if ads are in fact integrated into the OS and not just "a web store" or whatever, I think that creates data leak risks that could have really nasty implications.
Since everyone is playing with tablet-phone ideas for OSes, I'll say that some of the ads on some of the free versions of my iPhone apps ARE intrusive. They're sandwiched between parts of the app, so when you reach for a settings or menu button, your finger hits the ad instead, and "poof" - you're ripped away from your app and then get to burn 15 seconds while the App store triggered by the ad loads up. It gets VERY intrusive, VERY fast.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I actually like Unity. It makes Ubuntu's desktop consistent with those of the two other major desktop OSes, instead of looking like the same fundamental Win95 people have put up with since 1997. And it basically has a built-in command line.
While I personally don't see why I would ever want to buy something from a *Unity Lens* (as opposed to, you know, comparison shopping), I don't really see how having a lens is really a problem. They've had lenses for selling you music for a while. It hasn't really bothered me.
I'm a bit concerned by the inclusion of another store on the default dock. The dock isn't that big, and I don't really want to deal with obtrusive bloatware on my Ubuntu. That being said, I more or less trust Canonical not to run a good thing into the ground.
I'm going to give you some advice. This is based on history.
If you do NOT complain about the ads in Ubuntu now it's going to get worse. Way worse. This is a toe testing the water. Make the water way the fuck too cold now. If not, you will find, in probably a year, the every linux distro will have ads, and not only in small places. It will ruin linux.
You think I'm wrong? oh no, the greed of the people say this will not stop and only get worse.
This will ruin linux for ever. People will associate linux with ads. MS will say, by a Ad Free OS, not Ad Infested Linux. And worse, Linux distros will start selling Ad Free versions.
Be seeing you...
I'm pretty sure slashdot isn't sending me adverts to my mail based on what I write on my posts, but that might be because I got the wrong email address set.
hot babes tight asses goth babes (gotta try!)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Ad-supported Slashdot does not send every single one of your local, personal computer dashboard usages to Amazon.
People understand that when they're on the ad-supported web, generally only that particular web activity is (optionally) allowed to get sent back to the advertiser.
Sure. The Amazon search results can easily be removed for a flat fee of $0.
Adbuntu, the consumer friendly distribution.
Bless you! Here's a tissue.
But seriously, I like sex too much to give it up.
congratulations slashdot on spreading FUD.
I read that it's part of the Unity desktop that ships standard with Ubuntu. Ok, thanks for telling me. I will have to see about this thing when I upgrade Ubuntu and use my Unity desktop. My Unity desktop, yes, that's what I use.
Only on the internet do people become indignant at the idea of people making money when they do work.
Of course, the next joke will be in a few years, when Ubuntu is dead and gone because it didn't make enough money to pay the developers, and all the "free software" folk will be decrying its demise and wondering how it could have died when it was "so much better than XYZ" (where XYZ is a product that actually made money).
If you like Ubuntu, you should pay for it. If you are not willing to pay for it, then you cannot expect it to continue.
There are plenty of great non-U distros, both user- & expert-friendly. I migrated when a 10.04 upgrade made my system unbootable, as I was already frustrated with the direction Canonical was going (this was during "we don't care what you want" window-button fiasco). I had been afraid to try any non-Ubuntu-based distros because of the myth that it's the only user-friendly option, but had nothing to lose -- and I soon discovered that I really liked many of the other well-known & not so well-known ones.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
I was in the same position 2.5 years ago -- I don't know which distros you tried, but the one that has turned out to be the most user-friendly (and have the nicest community) is SimplyMepis. It's Debian-based, so it uses the easiest package manager I've found (Synaptic/.deb), and they set up the desktop environment (KDE4) to be easy enough for total newbies to use.
For what it's worth, I usually describe myself as a half-geek... I find technology fascinating & enjoy learning Linux -- but my brain doesn't work in the way needed to even combine terminal commands, as it's more geared for the humanities (writing fiction, sociology, psychology, etc.).
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
+ ghostery
Is this an Onion story or dey just be stupid? These morons are one google search (Better than Ubuntu) away from losing every technowiz in the business. If you read my posts you will see that I really don't like MBAs. But this has to be a case study in letting an MBA loose in your company with a spreadsheet program (Probably Excel).
Ubuntu, you can save yourself. Step one: Find this super bright MBA and send it packing. Step two: undo anything this MBA did.
I wanted to note that I updated my blog and linked to a screenshot of one user who searched for "Amazon Kindle Fire" the suggestions/ads whatever you would like to call them have only been showing up for some even if you have the latest unity-lens-shopping package.
Just somebody will release a "hack" for disable those ads. I would be worried if the ads start to show in all apps. If linux become an ad-ware OS like Android with toy apps that need to show ads all time, then I would be really worried.
Anyway I use the best of both worlds: Windows OS and open source tools. ;)
Is it like what happened to Sun Micro.'s products when Oracle took over? Profit $, Profit $$, and more profit$$$
Strike 1: no out of box support for my ATI Riva TNT 2 GPU (64MB dedicated memory) for my Intel Pentium4 Desktop (when Ubuntu 7.x series was released).
:x
:O
:|
Strike 2: byebye default Gnome desktop..hello Unity..? blarrghh
*Strike 3*: Amazon ads integrated into unity?
That's strike 3 Canonical!
Reading through your nerd rage, I thought "how insightful" (i.e. exactly what I think) but then I imagined you addressing Shuttleworth -
represented by an empty chair.
>ghostery
"I'm afraid of teh spyware botnets, so i'm going to add a spyware botnet to tell me about spyware botnets"
Really, that's what ghostery is. It's an ad company.
--
BMO
Why don't you guys just go to Debian? It's the same thing with the retard protections taken off.
while posting on ad-supported Slashdot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblockplus
Adblockplus, like NoScript and other plugins which block ads, etc. is itself supported by advertising.
But it was a nice try.
Only true when you are talking about distros within the same 'family'. Such as Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Zorin/Trisquel, or Fedora/Mageia/PCLinuxOS/Scientific Linux/Blag/Rosa, or Slackware/Vector Linux/Slackel/Salix, or Arch/Chakra/Frugalware/Manjaro. If you are switching within these sets, it's probably not a big deal. But if you are going from, say Mageia to Trisquel, or Chakra to Vector Linux or something like that, then it is. B'cos different base distros change things in very basic places, such as in the /etc. For instance, in RHEL, I can do system-config-network to configure a network, and service network restart to restart it. What do I do under Debian? Or Arch? Or Ubuntu? Or Gentoo?
Putting them anywhere else is inviting people to use another distribution.
Wait, I don't know why the guy you responded to said you can only have one window visible at a time in Unity. Who claims that?
That's what I've been hearing about Gnome3, but certainly not Unity (if you've used it).
Unity does not force you to have only one window open in any way whatsoever. Window management is basically just like Ubuntu 10.04, except that when you minimize, it goes to the left bar instead of the bottom bar.
You can have whatever number of windows you want on the screen in whatever configuration: maximized, unmaximized, etc. Only one monitor or multiple. Monitors cloned or one big workspace. And multiple virtual desktops.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
It seems to me that Canonical have chosen this path as a desperate last resort. No-one involved in the open-source world would, in their right mind, attempt to show advertising within their software unless all other sources of revenue had failed. I know Canonical have tried to get OEMs on board, tried their Ubuntu TV approach (of which, apart from its initial announcement, we've seen nothing), have tried to target the enterprise (of which Red Hat has the Linux side of things securely locked up for now), and have even tried a cloud storage solution with Ubuntu One (of which even that failed considering the widespread mindshare of Dropbox, iCloud and even SkyDrive).
So it's come to this. One could argue that Canonical has to do this since Ubuntu is free, and if they tried charging for it, people would move onto something else. This would definitely happen, so what do they do to get a steady stream of revenue before the whole company collapses? I honestly don't know, but Red Hat abandoned the desktop market and surely the corpses of previous attempts at a mainstream Linux desktop distro have shown that it's not financially sustainable and it's a wasted endeavor to try to run a company primarily based off developing a free operating system... UNLESS you have secured a niche somewhere which people are ready to pay decent money for. Red Hat has; Canonical hasn't.
BTW - I'm not saying Canonical are trying to get rich off of Ubuntu (although as a business it would be nice). The problem is that developing a mainstream desktop is fucking hard work, what with all the potential configurations and hardware out there. Even with community help it's a herculean effort that only megacorps like Microsoft and Apple could really tackle. Canonical simply doesn't have the resources... but they try. But it still needs SOME sort of revenue to keep people employed to work on things, and obviously what they're getting right now is not enough, if they've had to resort to affiliates in this way. This is going to be the final straw though.
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
On Slashdot, all I have to do is check the box "Disable Ads". But I don't because I want to support Slashdot. I use it, and I know all to well that it costs money to provide the service.
Place nail here >+
Yeah, I was one of those people. If you take away an existing workflow without allowing people to recreate it in the new system, people are going to be upset.
The initial versions of Unity were horrible, and seemingly confused as to who they were trying to target.
As for ditching Gnome, it's the Gnome "team" that's responsible for that, dropping what wasn't broken. Anyway, since Gnome was moving to Gnome3 Ubuntu came out with Unity.
The reason I'm using Ubuntu is because I (and most startups) believe it to be a better server than RHell. RHell usually has really old versions, and very little packages compared to Ubuntu. And if you're using it on the server, it's easier to use it on the desktop as well. That, too, in stock form when it's not just yourself in the office.
As for why you might want to try Unity: Better workflow (but you won't know unless you've tried it). As a developer I'm juggling all sorts of windows, often tens of browser windows depending on what I'm researching. Anyway, a common scenario is switching between a Chrome window and a text editor/vim/whatever. OK, now I want to switch back to that Chrome window. Good luck finding it in the grouped task list in the Gnome2 bottom panel. It sorts them alphabetically, which means you're guessing where your MRU (most recently used) item is on the sort. It's not easy and fast. It's click on the list and start reading to find your window.
And the Alt+Tab is not inflexible like Gnome3 seemed to be. You can walk the applications list, and then change modes to walk the windows list of a given application, and change back. It also changes modes automatically if you stay on a given app with multiple windows. Definitely try it, I think you'll like it. And it doesn't baby you like Gnome3 (with no minimize, only one app at a time).
Finally, there's a myth (probably encouraged by Ubuntu) that Unity is great for noobs. I disagree. Noobs might actually find some parts good, some hard. It's a great desktop for power users and developers, though. You just have to learn it.
For example, there was a time when it was thought you could only have one window of a program open at a time. However, in the latest version, you just middle-click (a la Firefox) to open a new window of, say, the file manager. Nice, cool, and not something you could do with the bottom panel in Gnome2. Again, you can have multiple windows of an app open, unlike early impressions of what Unity was going to be like.
That's not to say everything's great. I think the skinny scrollbars may be hard for noobs to figure out, though you can turn those off if you want.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Yeah, I thought about that. An installer that made a backup of user data would help. But I've run across a lot of users who tell me they got a new computer and can't find their files. When I tell them the files would still be on the old PC, they often say "but I've already thrown it away!"
But yeah - Amazon might take some heat if the installer didn't warn them (and perhaps check for/backup data).
Place nail here >+
A FOSS Operating System such as ubuntu needs $$ to maintain its quality, like it or not. You can download it for free, and you can even play around with the source code. You get what you pay for. Plus, if enough revenue comes in through ubuntu, Amazon will take note and if future commercial relations happen between them, that could only mean a rise in ubuntu's (and by extension linux/gnu/FOSS) popularity. Ubuntu-powered ebook readers anyone?
I'm not sure this is a good analogy. I think we can agree that things we pay for should not have ads. Ads might be acceptable for things that are free or highly subsidized (to the point of being nearly free).
I pay for cable TV, yet I still get the damn ads. Unlike Ubuntu, I can't turn those off. That's annoying and they are about to lose me as a customer.
Magazines and newspapers are not free, but are ad-subsidized.
On-the-air TV (you brought it up) and web sites are ad supported. Since Ubuntu is "free" then ads are not unacceptable to many of us - as long as we can easily turn them off.
Looking at the cost of a non-free OS (Windows), you are getting quite a deal with Ubuntu. Like Slashdot, it is pretty easy to turn off ads. So I think this is more of a "Spirit of FOSS" issue than anything else.
Vote with your wallet. Pick another distro like Mint and watch the Ubuntu experiment and see if it works. Or if the pain of switching is too great, just turn off the ads. I'm OK with the non-geek masses subsidizing my OS.
Place nail here >+
When I want to search the web, I can use the browser. It's always running anyway. When I want to search a specific website, I can register their search engine in the browser's search box or just run a customized Google (&c) search. Why should the operating system for a computer pretend that "the web" or "the cloud" are part of the computer? It just fucks up people's concept of what their computer actually contains and what not.
... and Amazon will log them with your IP. How anyone not affiliated with Amazon can defend this is beyond me.
Doesn't Ubuntu fit anymore on a single CD?
Free software is no longer free, I suppose.
Ubuntu Unity and now ads. Hmmm.
Well, I guess it's time to go back to Crunchbang.
You talk that those Ads could be integrated into the OS, so please explain how does those ads be integrated to Linux kernel? You know that Linux kernel is a monolithic operating system and used in Ubuntu, right?
Oh I agree, the pure Linux Kernel is pretty solid.
However they could be grafted in the custom layers that Ubuntu is grafting on top such as Unity.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
What ads? I have contributed to Slashdot so it allows me to disable ads.... Don't you have a "Disable ads?" tick on top right?
Oh, you are bad boy! Aren't you! You Freerider!
To me...all ads are nothing but spam. They have no influence at all whether we buy this or that. All commercials and any ads are to me and many others nothing but a spam ploy to shirt tail tug on your skirttails to say: Hey looky at what we have.......
If i need something to drive...i know where the dealerships are...i dont have to watch tv to see the latest greatest deal....i can go to the dealership and straight out ask them. They push these ads in your supposed free operating system, because they want to make Pay per click money from Google....These ads may be Amazon ads, but they are from the Google adsense and tuned for Amazon. Who really is making the money from those ads. Is it going to fund more developments of Ubuntu? I am waiting for the GnomeBuntu.....Pure Gnome Distro...if it has Amazon ads...i will go through the system and remove all I see.....I dont like being spammed in my emails, spammed on my TV and damn sure dont wanna be spammed in my own free operating system. I turn all spammers in..and do my best to report them to their hosting and they get stopped temporarily till they get a new hosting account. But I in almost all my emails I own....maybe 43 all together...dont get spammed but maybe once a day by one or 2 people now.....because i figured out how to look at the headers and do my research and find who sent it,,,and then report them properly. Namecheep.....couldnt care less if their members spam people,,,,thats why my next agenda is to have namecheep took down by the government......spam is not to be tolerated by me or anyone else. Over seas, they play all the commercials (spam ) early in the morning......most people are at work....the wives who dont work, but work at home,,,get more house work done,,,because they aret sitting in front of the tv watching soap operas. All that dont get played till the evening when people are home. i say all commercials should be played after midnight and stopped after 7am.....the rest of the day should be filled with movies and comedies to keep us laughing because we know laughter is the best medicine. What do you all think?
I want some feedback. Give it to my everyone.
This comment was made by me: David ORourke: I was logged in too, so there was a mysql error when i was logging in as well. so Mr. Support Guy, please examine your database for errors please. by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23, @01:50PM (#41429455) To me...all ads are nothing but spam. They have no influence at all whether we buy this or that. All commercials and any ads are to me and many others nothing but a spam ploy to shirt tail tug on your skirttails to say: Hey looky at what we have....... If i need something to drive...i know where the dealerships are...i dont have to watch tv to see the latest greatest deal....i can go to the dealership and straight out ask them. They push these ads in your supposed free operating system, because they want to make Pay per click money from Google....These ads may be Amazon ads, but they are from the Google adsense and tuned for Amazon. Who really is making the money from those ads. Is it going to fund more developments of Ubuntu? I am waiting for the GnomeBuntu.....Pure Gnome Distro...if it has Amazon ads...i will go through the system and remove all I see.....I dont like being spammed in my emails, spammed on my TV and damn sure dont wanna be spammed in my own free operating system. I turn all spammers in..and do my best to report them to their hosting and they get stopped temporarily till they get a new hosting account. But I in almost all my emails I own....maybe 43 all together...dont get spammed but maybe once a day by one or 2 people now.....because i figured out how to look at the headers and do my research and find who sent it,,,and then report them properly. Namecheep.....couldnt care less if their members spam people,,,,thats why my next agenda is to have namecheep took down by the government......spam is not to be tolerated by me or anyone else. Over seas, they play all the commercials (spam ) early in the morning......most people are at work....the wives who dont work, but work at home,,,get more house work done,,,because they aret sitting in front of the tv watching soap operas. All that dont get played till the evening when people are home. i say all commercials should be played after midnight and stopped after 7am.....the rest of the day should be filled with movies and comedies to keep us laughing because we know laughter is the best medicine. What do you all think? I want some feedback. Give it to my everyone and everyone. I first posted this I was logged in but when it posted it posted as annonymous coward... I hate that. Because i am never anonymous
Sadly yes and Cannonical does have to pay people to support Ubuntu, however I don't like or use Amazon, I never trusted Amazon and will never use them unless someone puts gun to my head! That said I think this is a marketing mistake and it will boomerang right up the side of canonicals head and further drive disgruntled ubuntu users like I used to be to mepis or Linux mint
Downmodding you ADMIT hosts files = useful -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3136869&cid=41423455
APK
P.S.=> Again - THANK-YOU &, very much... lol!
... apk
why DEBIAN has not succeeded in the desktop?
Most applications are first build for Debian, and I think it is the distribution with more software available.
Mine is a genuine question, I simply do not know.
Advertising == spyware in this day and age, so yes I am finished with Ubuntu. This sort of thing seemed OK when Lindows was around, because there was still some pretense of decency and respect for privacy back then. Now it's all about no-holds-barred surveillance with the extra dollop of whipped cream and double-cherry on top in the form of warrant-less demands for data from the government.
Blocking ads used to be about readability; getting rid of the writhing, flashing, insane pools of upchuck that also brought many systems to a crawl and then became a prime vector for malware infection. It used to involve scraping the crud out of Windows, or using Ablock, or switching to Linux. Now it means switching distros.
Ever tried to run *any* RHEL-related distro on a Macbook? No, wait, don't do it unless you want to bake your CPU.
Ok, I accept it, the writing has been on the wall for some time, but my beloved Ubuntu is sinking fast. Which Distro is the next best? I want my apt-get install and not have to fiddle with X config ever again - Suggestions?
Always has been, always will be.
Why it takes people so long to realize that something that is sucky, but hyped, actually sucks is a mystery to me.
...just make an install with all the same packages except these ads and distribute them. That's how open source works. Complaints about such trivial things in OSS should not be taken seriously.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Or kills it. Most (intelligent) people still on $doze need some special marketing or design or accounting thing that won't run in linux. Or who need it at the workplace. Or in the workspace.
Me, the instant zoneminder, bttv, and serviio (or equivalent) work nice in slackware, I'm out of xubuntu.
Xubuntu's main strong points are the documentation - and the number of working packages that are directed at it - and actually work on it. I have no respect for a distro that f*s up rc.local - and the tutorials to its "substitutes".
*You* are the product.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
sending the information via plain http is really great when being on a public wifi...
anyone could snif your traffic and deduce what you'r using on your machine
1. What does the kernel have to do with it?
2. OS and kernel are not the same thing
3. Monolithic kernel does not mean it is not modular. The kernel is extremely modular.
I notice that people claiming to be "Linux geeks" don't know (or willfully forget) that they can, instead of whining endlessly: 1. remove this ads lens 2. use any desktop environment or distro they damn well please. But then, this is not as fun as complaining.
They're there in their room. You're on your own.
Despite all the shortcomings Canonical has provided a usable operating system for years. I really would not mind paying a registration fee. Or Canonical could go for the "pay what you want" route.
If you are working a job or running a business or freelancing or living, you know how important it is to make money. Canonical is not google. Let us help keep it alive.
Years of hard work down the drain. What a shame.
Then what about http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTEyMDA ?
...and so the endless rambling started....It's just a search option and NOT 'Pre-Installed Ads'. Get your facts straight!
All jokes aside, this could damage Ubuntu's reputation. It basically tells the Linux and potential MS converts that Ubuntu is no better than Apple (and to a lessor extent Microsoft). Including tools that directly guide your usage to the benefit of a commercial interest may be considered intrusive by some. Also the Unity Desktop has suffered from usability and stability issues that have kept more informed people from using it,; some sticking to Ubuntu 11 or others going to alternative distros. Which leads to the the subject that not enough people talking about: alternative user friendly distros to Ubuntu. I myself don't find Ubuntu to be wonderfully user friendly and have had stability problems creep in. Linux Mint http://www.linuxmint.com/ I find more user friendly and stable so I recommend it to friends and clients. SolusOS http://www.solusos.com/ is new but look VERY promising based on Debian. I've used pure Debian in office environments with no learning curve complaints by the employees. Of course Fedora is loved by many although more bleeding edge. Linux Mint in particular is gaining more press among Linux users and potential converts whereas Ubuntu has gotten some not so positive press with the new Unity usability/speed/drivers/integration problems and now this rather close partnership with Amazon on the OS level. Ubuntu and Linux in general does not have a market share near big enough that people will forgive annoyances like this. At least with laptops preinstalled junk is relatively easy if annoying to remove. Perhaps that is so with Ubuntu 12 as well, but why should bother a more user friendly distros is available that doesn't play these games?
Linux Minx uses default search engines of those who contribute money to the OS to generate revenue and I find that perfectly acceptable. You can also add the bigger search engines with ease and its no more intrusive than MS IE 7/8's default search engine.
I feel as if Ubuntu is pushing the limits of including "features" in a similar way Microsoft did in stages: first with WGA in XP, then with the Protected Media Path and its "dial home" feature under the pretense of telling you "you are online" with the "Network Connectivity Status Indicator" (which dials to www.msftncsi.com and can only be disabled with a registry hack as there is no admin interface to change this behavior). MS is playing similar games with MS Office: WGA-like "features", the "ribbon" interface everyone HATES (pushing many to Libre/Open Office), and dramatic price increases to push home/SMB users to buy the cloud subscription model via Office 360. These "features" are of no benefit to the user, are often a detriment (especially to privacy) and/or consume excessive resources at a minimum. The WGA with XP was enough to drive me to Linux and I've been very happy with my move.
The Unity issues are piling up and this new one may hurt Linux advancement in general. I'm certain it will hurt Ubuntu acceptance with the informed Linux community. there are alternatives. Its starting to look as though Ubuntu's previous popularity has made it a bit arrogant and complacent with its user base, similar to Microsoft and Apple. While some may correctly argue that fragmentation can hurt Linux, in some ways its also its strength, so long as core standards aren't broken. This could be a clear example.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Will everyone stop freaking out already! Really! This isn't a big deal!