Ubuntu Budgie Could Be The New Flavor of Ubuntu Linux (softpedia.com)

prisoninmate writes: Budgie-Remix maintainer David Mohammed informs Softpedia about the progress made with the upcoming operating system, whose ultimate goal is to become an official Ubuntu Linux flavor, possibly under the name of Ubuntu Budgie. Even Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said in a Google+ comment last month that it will definitely support if there is a community around the packaging. Since their initial report, it looks like the developer managed to get in contact with the Ubuntu MATE project leader Martin Wimpress, who urged him to target Ubuntu 16.10 for an official status of his soon-to-be-named Ubuntu flavor built on top of the Budgie desktop environment created by the team of developers from Solus Project.

Comments

Bubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bubuntu".
Just saying.

Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

Another ubuntu distro.

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

Distros and Remixes are completely different. A remix is where the exact same repositories are used, just that the installer bootstraps a different set of packages. This means that as soon as core Ubuntu gets an security update, the remix will get the same.

Linux Mint made the mistake of becoming a separate distro, meaning that they had to review security updates, etc. If they'd simply focused on getting cinnamon, nemo, etc into the official Ubuntu repositories, they would now be view more favorably after their breach.

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

The breach had nothing to do with the distro. I like the fact that they try not to have things break when Ubuntu does. I don't want straight Ubuntu. I want Mint. So do most other people.

Re:Another day

[rdelsambuco]

> 50% of human beings? What a dubious statement.

Re:Another day

[MMC Monster]

> 50% of human beings? What a dubious statement.

Ummm... What are you replying to?

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the people that make a decision between other distros and Mint. People want stability, not a fixed local vulnerability but a broken X server.

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it did not, and I was careful not to say that the breach had anything to do with forking.

It has been well known that Mint had been holding back some security patches because they either didn't have time to test, or maybe they didn't have the expertise. Shortly after the breach, it seemed that Mint's security policy just wasn't good enough, and convinced some people to move away from it.

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

> Linux Mint made the mistake of becoming a separate distro

I don't think Canonical would be delighted if a remix of theirs would install illegal content (like law breaking codecs) by default...

Re:Another day

[The123king]

Most people prefer Coke over Pepsi. Doesn't mean that everyone in the world has drunk both and can make an informed choice. Just means the ones who have tried one or the other prefer Coke. Maybe "I don't want straight Ubuntu. I want Mint. So do many other users of Debian-based GNU/Linux Operating Systems." would have been a better choice of words for you grammar nazis out there. I

Re:Another day

[The123king]

THISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHIS. Gave up with Ubuntu after every single fecking update broke something. If it's not sound, it's graphics. if it's neither, then there's some other obscure piece of hardware, such as the parallel interface or the USB ports. Users want a stable API/ABI, not something that's going to change in 3 weeks. Why do you think Windows has been so successful since Win95. Because everything works. It might be an unreliable and unsafe heap of turd, but it'll run my back catalog of applications, which quite often may have cost more than the machine running it.

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you are not aware that Linux Mint uses the Ubuntu repositories for their main edition, so they get security updates at the same time as their parent distro? The same goes for Mint's Debian edition, the package manager pulls directly from Debian's security repository. There is no delay or review by the Mint developers required.

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

And they still manage to stuff that up with package name conflicts. Mint is proving to be an amateur effort; there are better ways to get Cinnamon/Mate.

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldnt agree more. Exactly the reason I dumped Ubuntu switched to Debian. Prior to that I really thought Linux in general was going drastically downhill into something more buggy and unreliable than Windows, then I discovered thankfully it was just Ubuntu.Sadly Ubuntu gives Linux bad name

Re:Another day

[Merk42]

> 50% of human beings? What a dubious statement.

Ummm... What are you replying to?

The breach had nothing to do with the distro. I like the fact that they try not to have things break when Ubuntu does. I don't want straight Ubuntu. I want Mint. So do most other people.

emphasis mine

Re:Another day

[Anonymous Coward]

"It might be an unreliable and unsafe heap of turd"

Clearly your last experience was with Windows 98, because it's neither of those things. I would expect nothing less form trashdot though. The average user here has the intellectual capacity of a walnut that talks directly out of his ass about things to which he has no knowledge.

I'm sure it'll go down a tweet

[Cloud K]

*hides*

Re:I'm sure it'll go down a tweet

[PPH]

It's not down. Just pining for the fjords.

Any actual content?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does TFA actually say anything about it, other than he called him and she said to her?

Great summary

[chispito]

It would be nice if, in the summary, you told me what makes "Budgie" different from every other kind of Ubuntu.

Side note: Is it really a good idea to distinguish your Ubuntu flavor with an animal? I know it's not "Bodacious Budgie" or something along those lines, but it could be confusing nonetheless.

Re:Great summary

[LichtSpektren]

It would be nice if, in the summary, you told me what makes "Budgie" different from every other kind of Ubuntu. Side note: Is it really a good idea to distinguish your Ubuntu flavor with an animal? I know it's not "Bodacious Budgie" or something along those lines, but it could be confusing nonetheless.

Budgie is a DE, like Xfce and GNOME: https://solus-project.com/budg...

The Ubuntu flavors are differentiated by their name (Xfce: Xubuntu, KDE: Kubuntu, etc.), and the animal names designate the release number (16.04 will be "Xenial Xerus" for all of the flavors).

Re:Great summary

[chispito]

It would be nice if, in the summary, you told me what makes "Budgie" different from every other kind of Ubuntu. Side note: Is it really a good idea to distinguish your Ubuntu flavor with an animal? I know it's not "Bodacious Budgie" or something along those lines, but it could be confusing nonetheless.

Budgie is a DE, like Xfce and GNOME: https://solus-project.com/budg... Thanks! Wish I could mod up insightful. The Ubuntu flavors are differentiated by their name (Xfce: Xubuntu, KDE: Kubuntu, etc.), and the animal names designate the release number (16.04 will be "Xenial Xerus" for all of the flavors).

Re:Great summary

[chispito]

Tried to say thanks. Not sure what posting rule of Slashdots that I broke such that my comment was removed. Should have looked at the preview closer.

Re:Great summary

[justthinkit]

You can't find your comment because it looks almost exactly like its parent comment.

You added just one sentence, in the middle of the comment. Otherwise the two look very similar.

Re:Great summary

[SirSlud]

Do you need us to define LMGTFY as well?

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

>You added just one sentence, in the middle of the comment. Otherwise the two look very similar.
Flag as Inappropriate

aka, karma-whoring

Re:Great summary

[hairyfeet]

Its yet ANOTHER desktop environment, because Linux has such a shortage of desktop environments. I swear to God that DEs and fricking text editors seem to be the only damned things that gets made in Linux land anymore.

Because that is what Linux needs to really take off, not a better Windows translation layer so it can run all the bazillion Windows programs that Linux has zero equivalent of, or a way to run Windows drivers so the mountains of hardware that doesn't work or works poorly and gets piss poor support from the devs can actually work...nope, yet another DE, that's the ticket!

And people wonder why MSFT can put out "Windows 10: Eye of Sauron Edition" and the only "competition" they have to worry about is Windows 7....sigh.

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ubuntu flavors are differentiated by their name (Xfce: Xubuntu, KDE: Kubuntu, etc.), and the animal names designate the release number (16.04 will be "Xenial Xerus" for all of the flavors).

So, Bubuntu? :)

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

tbh it looks like gnome3 meets windows10, the worst of both worlds...

Re:Great summary

[Holi]

No we need good references. Why should we do the editors work for them? Telling people to google stuff that should have been included is lazy and assholish.

Re:Great summary

[chispito]

I'm an idiot.

Re:Great summary

[bluefoxlucid]

I only have a Windows PC because I wanted a Unity 3D dev box. Windows 10 is much nicer than 7 and 8.1.

Re:Great summary

[fnj]

Not sure what posting rule of Slashdots that I broke such that my comment was removed.

Your comment wasn't removed at all, but you screwed up the formatting. You quoted the entire thing so it looks exactly like you're just parroting somebody without adding anything. How did you let that get past the preview?

Re:Great summary

[chispito]

Despite what you're suggesting, AC, I actually was grateful for the information his response provided. It was more useful than my original post. I could not mod it up because I posted the parent.

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Flag as Inappropriate, aka, karma-whoring

You smug, useless, officious drudge. Flagging is for grossly unacceptable behavior.

Re:Great summary

[CastrTroy]

What I don't get is why having a different desktop environment requires a whole different distribution. Why not just give the option when installing it instead of having all these supposedly different distributions with different names?

Re:Great summary

[Pascal Sartoretti]

Budgie is a DE

And what is a DE ? Sorry, but two letter acronyms are ungooglable.

Re: Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea I am with you. The enlightenment team never hijacked distros. Imagine if they did, enlightenment Ubuntu eely the eel.

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice high contrast. That's good to see after suffering with KDE for the past four years where I work. We use Dell laptops so the screens are complete garbage, and the very low contrast of KDE means we can't read the menus or clock.

Re:Great summary

[jofas]

Desktop Environment, you casual.

Re: Great summary

[p91paul]

Desktop Environment. A DE usually includes a window manager, panels, widgets, some kind of control center (i.e. power management, screensaver settings, ...) , and some applications like a file manager, a browser, a terminal emulator, etc...

Re:Great summary

[HiThere]

You should be able to fix that by changing your desktop theme..but I've no experience with Dell, so I may be wrong.

Check System_Settings :: Workspace_Appearance :: Desktop_Theme

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! I agree AC. 'twas a careless cut-n-paste. Of course, I flagged your comment becuz you hurt my feelz.

Re:Great summary

[Gavagai80]

Because that is what Linux needs to really take off, not a better Windows translation layer

You're surprised that linux users and developers are more interested in linux software than in windows software? Most of us never use Wine and have no interest in it. Linux development is not generally done as a marketing tactic to try to win over windows users.

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Side note: Is it really a good idea to distinguish your Ubuntu flavor with an animal? I know it's not "Bodacious Budgie" or something along those lines, but it could be confusing nonetheless.

Ubuntu Budgie Smuggler!

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

So if there is so much work on editors in linux, why the hell can't I find one that I don't hate? VI makes me feel like I've time walked to 1976, emacs.... just no. The rest... meh. Hell a dos edit clone would be an improvement!

Re:Great summary

[thegarbz]

I love that out of everything in this thread, the parents post is what someone decided was +4 Interesting. :-)

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't get is why having a different desktop environment requires a whole different distribution.

[sigh] It's Ewebuntu. Means "Debian is too hard" - for those that believe being "sysadmin" (of one box) means "I press Enter. A lot.". Baaa. Mint is better - mob of sheep break away. No! Unity is evil - another mob of sheep break away. Baaa. Cinnamon is better - another mob of sheep break away. Baaa. XFCE is better - another mob of sheep break away.

Non-sheep use Debian and build anything they want. Of course - Debian requires, um, reading skills, so until Youtube catches up to the needs of sheep Ewebuntu variants will keep attracting the sheeples with the attention span of speed crazed goldfish in a disco.

Ironically those mobs of sheep "choose" Ewebuntu/Mint/whatever because they want the freedom that MS/Apple denies them (apparently) - but to them freedom means a limited number of choices. As everyone's needs/wants are different no mob of sheep is ever happy with the limited choices the Debian derivatives give them. Most will remain on the derivative hopping bus switching their fan boi allegiances regularly in their annual insanity of "[insert derivative name here] is the bomb, last years derivative is shit (and I still won't think before I buy hardware). At some point it becomes undeniably obvious that all those 'buntu sheep don't actually use computers - they just play out sysadmin fantasies by constantly installing until it breaks, wailing, then jumping ship. Why? Because Linux is for clever people (according to sheeple) - and Debian derivatives with limited package choices allow them to follow the fantasy while pressing the Enter key (choice is not really what they want, and literacy and attention span is not what they have).

My advice, which will probably fall on deaf ears... pick a derivative that closest approximates your needs. Install it. Open a terminal and type dpkg --get-selections > selections.txt. Then grab the netiso for the Debian release you want (oldstable if you want rock solid, stable if you want solid, etc) and install just the base packages (no DE), then use selections.txt to add the packages you want. Now fix what doesn't work and you'll have the equivalent of the derivative, with more choices, and greater stability. If you find Debian doesn't allow you enough control, rinse and repeat the process with Slack/Gentoo/Arch.

for i in unstable testing stable oldstable;do ./package_count $i;done
Number of packages in unstable:
    main: 25222
    contrib: 160
    non-free: 297
Number of packages in testing:
    main: 23371
    contrib: 140
    non-free: 264
Number of packages in stable:
    main: 20626
    contrib: 134
    non-free: 280
Number of packages in oldstable:
    main: 17165
    contrib: 132
    non-free: 268

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell a dos edit clone would be an improvement!

Squawk. Feed me, feed me, squawk. [sigh] if only there was a way of looking up stuff on the intertubes.

DOS editor? nano?

apt-cache search editor | grep "text editor" | wc -l
60

Which ones didn't you check in your 30 second review?

Re:Great summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the adjective xenial used? It could describe a plant, but not a xerus (ground squirrel)....

Re:Great summary

[Coren22]

You mean it isn't a development environment?

Re:Great summary

[hairyfeet]

And that is why you have no driver support from more than 80% of the hardware manufacturers, your GPU and sound drivers are frankly sad with features that Windows has had for nearly a decade not working or being half ass, your programs are nearly all bad ersatz clones of windows software...minus features said software had 8+ years ago, oh and even OpenGL, a technology that has been embraced by Linux for over a decade? Yeah I hate to break the news but programs written from the ground up to be OpenGL...run better in buggy ass Windows 10 than the latest Ubuntu...I can happily look up the Phoronix article and post a link if you would like.

Linux has been flatline for damned near a decade, you NEED those users because with them comes all of the above, the top shelf software, the support, the better drivers and more hardware working OOTB, and the better performance that comes with drivers being written by the guys that actually made the hardware as opposed to some kernel dev on his lunch break. I mean how fucking sad and pathetic that MSFT can put out an OS that is fricking spyware and what do you gain? Nothing, absolutely nothing, but Linux is still stuck in the 90s, still reinventing the wheel and pretending they are "leet"

Mark my words both Google and MSFT will end up adopting Secureboot across the board and we'll see how "leet" Linux is when the only hardware you can get it to run on is some ancient PC or a beagleboard...and nobody will shed a tear, nobody will care, because Linux refused to step up and compete and will end up just another niche OS like AROS or BeOS. Hell the only thing keeping Linux vital was servers and between RMS fucking the corps with GPL V3 and SystemD shitting all over everything even the big server farms are looking at BSD so even that gravy train is probably gonna dry up...what a sad state of affairs, but that is what you get when you refuse to step up, you wither up and fade away.

BTW I can provide citations for all of this, from the ever dropping GPL adoption and the rise of MPL and BSD to the rise in BSD server adoption so don't be slinging no bullshit and anecdotes, provide citations for any assertions you make or be ignored.

They've been going downhill since Halo 3

[NotDrWho]

No way am I buying an OS from them.

Thank Goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been following the Solus project for quite some time and had several conversations with the lead developer (Ikey - https://github.com/ikeydoherty). It's refreshing to have a project leader be such a stubborn advocate for the Linux desktop at a time when everyone else (or at least Canonical & Co.) are focusing solely on mobile and tablets. The vast majority of us Ubuntu users have slowly watched the desktop age and lack the attention it needs in the name of convergence - this could be the thing that makes me want to run Ubuntu again.

Just to make a point...

[LichtSpektren]

I see a lot of comments like "I would use Ubuntu but Unity sucks" or "I was an Ubuntu fan until Unity ruined it." If Budgie-Ubuntu becomes an official flavor, that will bring the number of officially supported DEs up to 7: MATE, KDE Plasma, Xfce (which is actually supported in two separate official flavors, Xubuntu and Ubuntu Studio), LXDE, GNOME 3, Unity, and Budgie. There is also some talk of making Enlightenment and Cinnamon officially supported. (See: http://www.ubuntu.com/download... )

Re:Just to make a point...

[Thelasko]

There is also some talk of making Enlightenment and Cinnamon officially supported.

They need Cinnamon, end of story. They could have 100 different desktop environments, it doesn't matter if none are as good as Cinnamon. I just switched from Ubuntu to Mint (despite the security breach). Cinnamon is what a desktop environment on a PC should look like.

Re:Just to make a point...

[LichtSpektren]

There is also some talk of making Enlightenment and Cinnamon officially supported.

They need Cinnamon, end of story. They could have 100 different desktop environments, it doesn't matter if none are as good as Cinnamon. I just switched from Ubuntu to Mint (despite the security breach). Cinnamon is what a desktop environment on a PC should look like.

There is a not-officially-supported Ubuntu ISO which is preinstalled with Cinnamon: http://www.cubuntu.fr/

Use what you like, I'm just letting you know :P

Re:Just to make a point...

[bluefoxlucid]

I've used KDE, Gnome2, Gnome 1.8, Gnome 3, XFCE, XPde, Unity, Enlightenment, and IceWM as primary DEs for extended periods. The best one I've ever used was Gnome 3. I interact with it the least: when I need to do something, it happens quickly and efficiently, and I'm on a new desktop with whatever window I need doing whatever it was I was trying to do instead of playing with the DE.

Re:Just to make a point...

[Anonymous Coward]

that will bring the number of officially supported DEs up to 7

The main DE will still be Unity and the main effort and tooling will still go to Unity. Some of the secondary DEs can look and act partially broken for long spans of time when tools that are written for a specific DE are adapted against new changes in their main target DE. For example I use XFCE and some programs it reuses from GNOME ended up with duplicated title bars and sometimes actually failed with missing APIs that Gnome 3 introduced and xfce did not have an equivalent.

For me unity was just the last set of nails in the coffin ( they moved the 2d fallback I needed for VirtualBox with every release until I stopped caring ).

Re:Just to make a point...

[fnj]

number of officially supported DEs up to 7

This is a bit of a carp, but I find this kind of thinking, and the whole concept of distro "flavors", mildly annoying. The number of "officially supported" DEs equals the number of DEs packaged in the official repos, period. I don't know precisely what that number is, because there is a lack of descriptive indexing of exactly what is in the repos, but there is certainly no dependence on having a "flavor" differentiated

Re:Just to make a point...

[Anonymous Coward]

>that will bring the number of officially supported DEs up to 7:

It should be noted that "officially supported" is a bit of a misnomer here. Technically, only Ubuntu is supported by Canonical in an "official" capacity. All the others are "community supported" versions that are built on top of the Ubuntu base install (i.e., no GUI stuff). All those community distro versions are hosted in Canonical's package repos so they have to conform to Ubuntu policies, but actual maintenance of, say, Xubuntu packages, are not by Canonical (though Canonical employees may volunteer to do it), but by community volunteers.

Re:Just to make a point...

[Anonymous Coward]

You really used XPde for an extended period? That thing started off as a bright idea to make Linux look like WinXP but the only releases I ever tried were very alpha in quality.

Re:Just to make a point...

[ThatsNotPudding]

I see a lot of comments like "I would use Ubuntu but Unity sucks" or "I was an Ubuntu fan until Unity ruined it." If Budgie-Ubuntu becomes an official flavor, that will bring the number of officially supported DEs up to 7:

All of them corrupted from cold POST by systemd. #DeckChairs

Re:Just to make a point...

[Thelasko]

There is a not-officially-supported Ubuntu ISO which is preinstalled with Cinnamon: http://www.cubuntu.fr/

Thanks, but that sounds like a recipe for trouble.

Re:Just to make a point...

[ChunderDownunder]

Ubuntu: An ancient African word meaning "too pragmatic to install debian".

Ubuntu has some innovations such as launchpad integration and PPAs but I can't say I miss much running Mate on upstream debian.

(it's Canonical's non-desktop development that holds some interest - I might give Ubuntu Touch another try on my phone once I file a bug on network-specific 3G data support.)

Re:Just to make a point...

[jimmux]

Surely "Cinnabuntu" would be a more appealing name?

Re:Just to make a point...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also some talk of making Enlightenment and Cinnamon officially supported.

They need Cinnamon, end of story. They could have 100 different desktop environments, it doesn't matter if none are as good as Cinnamon. I just switched from Ubuntu to Mint (despite the security breach). Cinnamon is what a desktop environment on a PC should look like.

There is a not-officially-supported Ubuntu ISO which is preinstalled with Cinnamon: http://www.cubuntu.fr/

Use what you like, I'm just letting you know :P

xy problem? Debian has Cinnamon and Mate.

Re:Just to make a point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here with Gnome 3. I like that it is different. It works similar to OS X Expose in how it displays all open windows and how you can flip between desktops. It gets out of my way and lets me multi-task fluidly. One of my annoyances in OS X Expose is that I can't start typing a program name like I can in Gnome 3.

Still not sold on [Alt-tab] and [Alt-tilde] difference, but you can tweak that. I've also turned back on min/max buttons using Gnome Tweak.

Everything else, I strongly recommend that you try it as-is for a month. Then start looking at the other tweaks and Gnome add-ons.

Apparently it's about a new DE

[Qbertino]

Apparently it's a new DE for the next Ubuntu LTS release and forward.
Here's a project link.

It has the vibe of a Korora/OzoneOS or Elementary ripp, both of which look way more mature than this "Ubuntu Budgie" thing.

I don't get the buzz.
Looks like a project in pre-alpha stage, if you ask me.

Re:Apparently it's about a new DE

[Anonymous Coward]

It's yet another attempt to replace the abomination known as Gnome-shell.

The problem is though that not being happy with destroying the desktop, the Gnome developers continued on to destroy the Gtk3 applications by changing the interface on the applications as well, thus dooming Gtk3 based competitors like Cinnamon and Budgie.

Good, might consider using Ubuntu now

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped using Ubuntu ever since they introduced Unity. All my installs went to Debian, Linux Mint or Fedora depending on what was needed.

I could have stripped out Unity and installed a decent DE like Cinnamon. But why would I when I can just get a Debian Cinnamon/XFCE/MATE/etc LiveISO or a similar selection of Linux Mint/Fedora Spin iso's right off the bat?

Re:Good, might consider using Ubuntu now

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI there's more than one official flavor of Ubuntu. You can get official Ubuntu live ISOs for XFCE (since 2006-06-01) and MATE (since 2014-10-23).

Link to links

Re:Good, might consider using Ubuntu now

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel like an idiot. Did a quick google search before I posted and didn't find a link to those.

Budgie!

[HouseOfMisterE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Lubuntu compared to Budgie-Remix

[khz6955]

How does Budgie-Remix compare to Lubuntu?

Re:Lubuntu compared to Budgie-Remix

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 15% more hipster.

Re:Lubuntu compared to Budgie-Remix

[Anonymous Coward]

It's aimed at "modern" users.
Captcha: idiotic

Re:Lubuntu compared to Budgie-Remix

[Anonymous Coward]

Lubuntu is based on Razor-QT, Budgie is based on GTK. Both are low resource, though Budgie looks to be more bleeding edge, where LXQT is more universal. LXQT is trying to rebase to a new platform slowly so some things can be a bit disjointed, Budgie is ground up so some things are not yet implemented. Both will function just fine for most people.

Re:But does it use systemd?

[GuB-42]

It will probably use systemd. I think that upstart is officially dead now, latest release was in september 2014.

Ubuntu budgie, fucking muzzie

[Anonymous Coward]

So David Mohammed wants to target Ubuntu 16.10 and take control of the official version. Fuck that, I'd as soon use Windows as a terrorist-controlled system

Still won't use it

[tom229]

Ubuntu lost me a long time ago when they started doing everything their own way despite the cries of the community. If anything both Ubuntu and Android has taught us it's that an operating system simply being open source is not enough to guarantee user freedom. The Arch Linux philosophy is to provide the core services of a Linux distribution and then get the fuck out of the way. Other projects can then build their idea of an OS on top of the Arch core. If one flavor of Arch gets out of control we can move on. This seems to be a much healthier approach to OS design. Anyone currently using Ubuntu, I would recommend check out Antergos. It will start impressing you right away by letting you choose from 8 or so DM's from the same installer. I say this as nothing more than a happy Antergos user for almost 2 years.

Re:Still won't use it

[LichtSpektren]

That's really only been an issue for Mir, and I think Canonical turned out to be right on that matter: they're now selling converged-desktop mobile devices with Mir, whereas Wayland is still alpha-quality. In the other cases: Canonical actually invented Bazaar before git became the norm, and they've since switched to git. They dropped Upstart in favor of systemd.

Re:Still won't use it

[tom229]

There's many more differences than this. While doing my linux systems administrator certification some time back I remember continuously running into disclaimers: if you're certifying with Ubuntu the process is a bit different. They have their own display manager, they manage config files for many popular applications differently, and they've shown a general culture of trying to lead the pack into whatever their vision for personal computing happens to be at that time. Virtually all software companies do this today so it might not seem that strange to you, I just don't believe that's how an operating system should behave.

Re:Still won't use it

[Eunuchswear]

they're now selling converged-desktop mobile devices with Mir, whereas Wayland is still alpha-quality.

Wayland works pretty well on my phone. What's alpha about it?

just restin'

[Pseudonymous Powers]

Ubuntu Budgie Could Be The New Flavor of Ubuntu Linux

I prefer albatross flavor.

Looking Glass anyone ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it time someone made a distro with an updated version of Sun's Looking Glass UI ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass

What happens when he sells out?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Yesterday there was a thread about some popular Chrome extension. The original developer who built trust sold it out On March 23. The buyer loaded it up with malware, session hijacks, routing through shady proxies etc. Took about 2 weeks for Google to eventually pull the extension off. In the comments I saw some android apps too have the same issue.

Now what happens when a distro developer builds a loyal following and then sells out?

Re:What happens when he sells out?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the big deal? It would be the same thing that happens when any other piece of software you use gets taken over or sold to a new developer. If you like the changes from the new developer, you stick with the software. If you don't like it, you move on to something else. I fail to see anything uniquely pertinent to linux distros in this regard.

Re:What happens when he sells out?

[Anonymous Coward]

You call it debian, and move on.

Re:What happens when he sells out?

[Gavagai80]

It would be somewhat easier for a malware author to buy out one of the hundreds of revenueless linux distros than to purchase Microsoft.

Re:What happens when he sells out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you have to buy a whole company to just install some malware? That doesn't make any sense financially speaking for the malware badguys. But even if such an unlikely scenario came to pass, users would simply stop using the malware-infested software and use something else just like they did with that chrome extension once the word got out. It makes no difference whether it's an entire OS or a browser extension, the user will move on to something else.

Re:Ho hum...

[LichtSpektren]

Your last sentence is key there. If people like making GUIs, what's the point of complaining? Why do you care? They're giving them away to the world for free to use in case anybody wants it. Perhaps the time could be better spent elsewhere, but it's still practically a service of charity.

This highlights the difference between FLOSS and proprietary systems. If you hate how mangled the GUI is in the newest version of macOS or Windows, you're screwed. But Linux and the BSDs have a lot of great options to one's preference.

Re:Ho hum...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you WRITE it.

Oh, hurray...

[PvtVoid]

... another Windows Start Menu clone.

Windows 10 Interface

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not want!

I don't know Clark

[Anonymous Coward]

Who else instantly thought of the Australian slang phrase 'Budgie Smuggler'?

Re:I don't know Clark

[ChunderDownunder]

I'm from Victoria and I'd honestly never heard of the expression until a federal politician decided to parade his manliness, apparently quite seductive to rusted-on Liberal-voters, in red Speedos.

But, But It Was Written...by Mohammed!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dare you question the Profit?

Re:But does it use systemd?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Ubuntu hasn't even created systemd unit files for MySQL yet! They should concentrate on finishing their shoving of systemd down our throats before moving onto projects that just don't mean anything.

Re:But does it use systemd?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Ubuntu hasn't even created systemd unit files for MySQL yet! They should concentrate on finishing their shoving of systemd down our throats before moving onto projects that just don't mean anything.

Because MySQL isn't obviously an important enough piece of software for Ubuntu to bother fixing. Oh wait.

Re:Ho hum...

[Anonymous Coward]

"i.e. you won't be able to right click anything and find all it's properties, the file explorer will have the usual usability issues."

You don't use Linux, do you?

Re:Ho hum...

[Anonymous Coward]

And on another note when are we going to get some actual decent world class software to run on our Linux desktops ? Where's the equivalent of Photoshop ? Reaper ? When will VSTs be supported ?

I don't think that's ever going to happen unless something goes horribly wrong with Windows. Adobe's not interested in the 37 people who use Linux right now. Either is QuickBooks, UPS WorldShip, or any of the others that are required for "real work." Having said that, I think "ransomware" is a thing that's horribly wrong, but it's apparently not horrible enough yet.

Budgies?

[ScrewMaster]

"Show me your budgies."

"Budgies? Budgies? We don't need no stinkin' budgies."

Re:Budgies?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was funnier when UHF stole this line and changed it from badges to badgers.

Sneak it into the repos

[Kryptonut]

And then you can call it "Ubuntu Budgie Smuggler"

Re:Ho hum...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can actually use Windows with different shells. Not many people do it, especially since most of them cost money, but they do exist.