I recently got a Mac, and agree with some of your statements about the platform, but I won't be buying applications in this manner. I'll upgrade to Tiger when the time comes, but I'll always give precedence to physical media on anything that isn't a phone.
The thing about entrusting someone to be the gatekeeper is that eventually he will close the gates on you.
This release contains new improvements, like an update to the Ubuntu One online service (with music streaming), Shotwell instead of F-Spot, the new Unity interface (for netbooks), and an upgrade to just about every piece of existing software.
I currently run Debian Testing. Aside from the music streaming, it sounds to me like my decision to migrate to Debian instead of upgrading to 10.10 was justified. I couldn't care less about default packages (F-Spot vs. Shotwell) and I don't run a netbook. Furthermore, I can pretty much guarantee that almost all of my software is more up-to-date (or, upgraded) than any package in 10.10. Unless you need your hand held to perform the simplest of tasks, I suggest swimming upstream instead of continuing to latch on to a derivative that is functionally identical, new font and wannabe-Mac interface aside.
In my opinion they release new versions too quickly. I know there are a lot of differences between versions, but what I'd like is if they slowed it down by a bit.
That way, they could release each new version as a dramatically different thing than the previous ones. At this rate, Ubuntu 11.x will be roughly the same as Ubuntu 9.x
I don't think it should be like that.
Also, someone up-comments (I figure that's how I refer to someone above me in the list) pointed out the horrible mess that the init scripts are. This is absolutely true.
Someone find them and mod them up, please.
I completely agree. I've recently made the decision to go upstream and install Debian (testing) on my home system instead of upgrading to 10.10; the last three releases of Ubuntu have proven to be a complete nightmare to upgrade (for me, at least) without a clean install. I rather like the idea of (at least theoretically) never having to re-install my operating system and manually building "deprecated" programs that I prefer to use due to a major distribution upgrade.
I can assure you that the HP G60 mentioned in this article can boot a regular Vista Disc. And I can assure you that the key on the bottom of the notebook can be used to activate that copy of windows once installed.
Obviously you've never owned a G60. These things get extremely hot (specifically the GPU) which often translates into the key on that sticker being rendered unreadable, as it has on mine and others I know who own this model. Luckily for me, I made a note of my Windows key. Others might not have been as paranoid as I in doing so.
No, Sun used the CDDL because they hate the restrictions on GPL. The sharing issues go both ways, Sun wanted to keep some ownership. It's not like the BSD license exists just to spite GPL.
This is the third time I've seen someone post something to this effect in the past week. I smell a smear campaign.
Nonetheless, I'm calling BS here. Daneese Cooper, one of the individuals who helped draft the CDDL, stated that they based the CDDL on the MPL "partially because it is GPL incompatible. That was part of the design when they released OpenSolaris." It was made deliberately GPL-incompatible, but this has nothing to do with 'restrictions' in the GPL.
Because if you want to ask someone to try out Linux, you are better off showing them something like what they are used to. And, increasingly, that's Windows Seven.
Ubuntu (and its variant, Mint) were what got Linux in my household, and I suspect that is true of many people. Ubuntu made an experience that is similar enough to Windows XP that my wife could easily switch to it. It has a start-ish sort of button, a notification-ish sort of tray, a favorite-ish sort of quicklaunchy area, boxes that show what windows you have open that allow you to click on them to go to them, and even a clock in approximately the right place and (up until recently), an underscore, minimize/restore, and "Big X" in the right places. It made it a lot easier to transition my wife to Linux when I could just install Mint and have her do very basic operations pretty much the same way she used to in XP. Later, I showed her the package manager so she could "add/remove programs", etc.
The layout, while by no means identical to Windows XP, is similar enough that people won't have their brains go boom. Try them out in KDE, IceWM, or XFCE, and their brains asplode. And I don't blame them. You can also easily configure Gnome to be all but unrecognizable to a Windows XP user, and for advanced users who want things to work a certain way, that's marvelous. But for someone who has used Windows for years, it's good to minimize the changes they'll need to go through to accept Linux as a substitute.
When I show Mint to people running Windows Seven, especially those for whom Seven is most of their Windows exposure, they get confused. Probably about as confused as I get trying to figure out how to help people do things in Windows Seven, since I use Windows XP when I use Windows. It takes me a bit longer to do things in Seven. Not that Seven is bad, it's just not what I use daily, and I'm not used to it.
I, for one, welcome a "Windows Seven"-ish variant of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is "training wheels for Linux", even though it's still a serious and solid distro that is well-supported. It's arguably the one that most people will tend to recommend to a newbie at the moment. If there's an easy way to make it look like what your newbie has already used, I'm all for it.
I don't think that's a feasible way to get people to migrate to Linux. Giving people a semi-familiar environment might make it less daunting on first boot, but it also slows the process of learning how to properly use the system by failing to challenge the assumptions new users often bring with them; it reinforces the misguided idea that everything is supposed to work the same way as they are familiar with (after all, it LOOKS the same). Linux is not Windows, and Windows is not Linux. If you'll only touch Linux because it's been skinned to look like Windows, you won't get far.
I downloaded the torrent to confirm that neither my name nor my wife's name is present in the dataset. It doesn't seem so far-fetched that some larger entity than myself might be downloading the torrent for a similar reason; namely to ensure that their employees aren't leaking information about the company.
Of course, I'm sure there will be more nefarious uses of this data, but I think for most people it's being downloaded out of curiosity rather than malice.
Censorship, in the context of being a free speech issue, only applies to government restriction upon it. Are you free to go home and view the website? Then there's no free speech ramifications. At work, your job is to do your job; visiting the Sex Party's website probably doesn't fall into that category for most workers.
For those of you who are saying "this is just a private organization so it does not matter" I have to say you are all missing the point.
Irrespective of *why* A_FIlter is being applied, this is a CLEAR EXAMPLE of why filters are stupid, pointless, destructive and MUST never be government mandated.
Never. Absolutely Never. Not for ANY reason should the government FORCE EVERYONE to submit to "a filtered internet".
why?Because stupid shit like THIS INCIDENT will happen, and whether that is accidental or deliberate is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.
But that's just it... there is no government filter, and there is no government mandate. Sensationalizing the story by making it into something it isn't is what misses the point; a private organization has the right to filter access on its own machines/networks, and should similarly be free from government mandates that take away the right to do as they wish with their own property.
How Ironic that the day this post shows up on/. VODO had an release up which is a movie and is 100% legal and very highly transferred over torrents.
The.Yes.Men.Fix.The.World.P2P.Edition.2010.XviD-VODO & The.Yes.Men.Fix.The.World.P2P.Edition.2010.HQ.x264-VODO
This study is flawed and what trackers did they use or how did they truly pick the randomization?
I mean if they pick the 1000 random torrents from a piracy site, then my guess is their results would this way, but if they select other trackers/locations/etc they would likely find that 100% of the traffic is legal and proper.
Also remember that statistics just show how biased the statistician is when they interpret the results and decide how to present them.
Ironically enough, I happened to be seeding a Linux distro and 'The Yes Men Fix the World' when I saw the article summary. Imagine if they had included VODO's trackers in their analysis...
But these applications aren't weighted by popularity, something that should seem obvious to anyone, especially after the example the Apple App Store, Adroid Marketplace and Firefox Addons website show us. Also, most screenshots fail to load, and the summary/blurb about the applications, particularly the more obscure ones, are less than helpful. To a user uncomfortable with linux, and computers in general, this is very intimidating.
The Software Center is pretty straightforward, with applications sorted by category (and subcategory with 10.04) complete with descriptions and the ability to search. It even includes some proprietary stuff like Adobe Reader and Flash. There are certainly some kinks that need to be worked out, and I agree that sorting by popularity would be nice, but this is far from the only criteria of user-friendliness and it certainly doesn't constitute "in-depth knowledge". If pointing and clicking is intimidating, perhaps we need to go back to the DOS/CLI era. In any event, this side argument fails to demonstrate Ubuntu's alleged shortcomings in terms of web browsing.
Had you followed the links, you would have seen it was lunatic ranting about lunatic ranting across certain less intelligent sections of the FOSS blog world. In the last few weeks, there has been much ado about nothing regarding some fonts Canonical is proposing to use in Ubuntu 10.10, probably in their drive to strengthen branding. But of course, because they didn't roll it out EXACTLY like those idiot bloggers would like, you'd think Canonical was violating the GPL or something...
I did, in fact I read several of his blithering rants. Be that as it may, you were using the site as the centerpiece of your argument that Ubuntu isn't suitable for a user who only needs to browse the web. I was kind enough originally to ignore the fact that the status you ascribe to him as an "expert authority" on software doesn't mitigate the fact that he clearly has an unreasonable bias, casually using loaded terms like freetard and employing spotty logic (such as that ogg isn't mp3, therefore it's bad) in many of his writings. Some of his criticisms are valid, or at least understandable, but it becomes clear very quickly that he has an automatic, borderline dogmatic disdain for anything open-source, especially Linux; hence the title of his blog. You're deluding yourself if you see anything other than an ignorant, ranting lunatic posting on Linux Hater.
I'll take your silence on Ubuntu's alleged "big problems" with surfing the web as an admission that you were blowing smoke and spreading FUD, by the way.
...but even for that relatively simple job there are big problems with Ubuntu.
I've never had a problem surfing the web using any Linux distro, much less Ubuntu. This includes my days as a linux n00b when I had no understanding of the structure of the filesystem, didn't realize the advantages of a package manager, and feared the terminal. Browsing the web is NOT an issue for Ubuntu, and when compared to the heightened risk of malware/virus infection on a comparable Windows machine I find this to be an odd statement.
When I first visited Linux Hater, I thought I was dealing with extreme ignorance.
My first exposure to Linux Hater was your link, which led to a page where a lunatic is ranting about a font and declaring ogg sucks because it isn't mp3. I think your initial thoughts about that blog were correct.
users still need to have in-depth knowledge to do basic stuff, like install new applications
You consider clicking the 'Applications' menu and scrolling to and clicking 'Ubuntu Software Center' in-depth knowledge?
Dell is right.
Wrong. You've failed to measurably quantify what makes Ubuntu unsuitable for web browsing other than pointing to a blog with an anti-Linux agenda and making weird assertions about the level of expertise it takes to read and use a menu. Ubuntu is perfectly suitable for a wide variety of tasks, and surfing the web is certainly among them.
So, question: If I use Panda am I supporting Scientology or did they really distance themselves from the CoS after French Media outed them?
Honestly, I couldn't care less if Panda has some tie to Scientology. I'm secure enough in my religious beliefs to let the software do the talking first, and the ideology of the developers doesn't really matter to me. If I was a/b/tard I'd be singing a different tune perhaps, but I'm not.
I've actually "used" OpenOffice for about 6 years now, and I've been very productive with it. Even when opening.doc or.docx files, I rarely run into the issues you describe, and when there are problems they're minor formatting issues that are easily fixed. Just because you switched Kool-aid flavors doesn't mean you have to piss in everyone else's.
Slashdot Mirror
I recently got a Mac, and agree with some of your statements about the platform, but I won't be buying applications in this manner. I'll upgrade to Tiger when the time comes, but I'll always give precedence to physical media on anything that isn't a phone. The thing about entrusting someone to be the gatekeeper is that eventually he will close the gates on you.
I can't be the only one reminded of NG Resonance from Deus Ex: Invisible War...
This release contains new improvements, like an update to the Ubuntu One online service (with music streaming), Shotwell instead of F-Spot, the new Unity interface (for netbooks), and an upgrade to just about every piece of existing software.
I currently run Debian Testing. Aside from the music streaming, it sounds to me like my decision to migrate to Debian instead of upgrading to 10.10 was justified. I couldn't care less about default packages (F-Spot vs. Shotwell) and I don't run a netbook. Furthermore, I can pretty much guarantee that almost all of my software is more up-to-date (or, upgraded) than any package in 10.10. Unless you need your hand held to perform the simplest of tasks, I suggest swimming upstream instead of continuing to latch on to a derivative that is functionally identical, new font and wannabe-Mac interface aside.
In my opinion they release new versions too quickly. I know there are a lot of differences between versions, but what I'd like is if they slowed it down by a bit. That way, they could release each new version as a dramatically different thing than the previous ones. At this rate, Ubuntu 11.x will be roughly the same as Ubuntu 9.x I don't think it should be like that. Also, someone up-comments (I figure that's how I refer to someone above me in the list) pointed out the horrible mess that the init scripts are. This is absolutely true. Someone find them and mod them up, please.
I completely agree. I've recently made the decision to go upstream and install Debian (testing) on my home system instead of upgrading to 10.10; the last three releases of Ubuntu have proven to be a complete nightmare to upgrade (for me, at least) without a clean install. I rather like the idea of (at least theoretically) never having to re-install my operating system and manually building "deprecated" programs that I prefer to use due to a major distribution upgrade.
...and it's the predecessor to SCO Unix. Decency wasn't part of the equation.
I can assure you that the HP G60 mentioned in this article can boot a regular Vista Disc. And I can assure you that the key on the bottom of the notebook can be used to activate that copy of windows once installed.
Obviously you've never owned a G60. These things get extremely hot (specifically the GPU) which often translates into the key on that sticker being rendered unreadable, as it has on mine and others I know who own this model. Luckily for me, I made a note of my Windows key. Others might not have been as paranoid as I in doing so.
No, Sun used the CDDL because they hate the restrictions on GPL. The sharing issues go both ways, Sun wanted to keep some ownership. It's not like the BSD license exists just to spite GPL.
This is the third time I've seen someone post something to this effect in the past week. I smell a smear campaign. Nonetheless, I'm calling BS here. Daneese Cooper, one of the individuals who helped draft the CDDL, stated that they based the CDDL on the MPL "partially because it is GPL incompatible. That was part of the design when they released OpenSolaris." It was made deliberately GPL-incompatible, but this has nothing to do with 'restrictions' in the GPL.
Stronger? Hardly.
Because if you want to ask someone to try out Linux, you are better off showing them something like what they are used to. And, increasingly, that's Windows Seven.
Ubuntu (and its variant, Mint) were what got Linux in my household, and I suspect that is true of many people. Ubuntu made an experience that is similar enough to Windows XP that my wife could easily switch to it. It has a start-ish sort of button, a notification-ish sort of tray, a favorite-ish sort of quicklaunchy area, boxes that show what windows you have open that allow you to click on them to go to them, and even a clock in approximately the right place and (up until recently), an underscore, minimize/restore, and "Big X" in the right places. It made it a lot easier to transition my wife to Linux when I could just install Mint and have her do very basic operations pretty much the same way she used to in XP. Later, I showed her the package manager so she could "add/remove programs", etc.
The layout, while by no means identical to Windows XP, is similar enough that people won't have their brains go boom. Try them out in KDE, IceWM, or XFCE, and their brains asplode. And I don't blame them. You can also easily configure Gnome to be all but unrecognizable to a Windows XP user, and for advanced users who want things to work a certain way, that's marvelous. But for someone who has used Windows for years, it's good to minimize the changes they'll need to go through to accept Linux as a substitute.
When I show Mint to people running Windows Seven, especially those for whom Seven is most of their Windows exposure, they get confused. Probably about as confused as I get trying to figure out how to help people do things in Windows Seven, since I use Windows XP when I use Windows. It takes me a bit longer to do things in Seven. Not that Seven is bad, it's just not what I use daily, and I'm not used to it.
I, for one, welcome a "Windows Seven"-ish variant of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is "training wheels for Linux", even though it's still a serious and solid distro that is well-supported. It's arguably the one that most people will tend to recommend to a newbie at the moment. If there's an easy way to make it look like what your newbie has already used, I'm all for it.
I don't think that's a feasible way to get people to migrate to Linux. Giving people a semi-familiar environment might make it less daunting on first boot, but it also slows the process of learning how to properly use the system by failing to challenge the assumptions new users often bring with them; it reinforces the misguided idea that everything is supposed to work the same way as they are familiar with (after all, it LOOKS the same). Linux is not Windows, and Windows is not Linux. If you'll only touch Linux because it's been skinned to look like Windows, you won't get far.
Thanks, Encyclopedia Dramatica... I mean Anonymous Coward.
I downloaded the torrent to confirm that neither my name nor my wife's name is present in the dataset. It doesn't seem so far-fetched that some larger entity than myself might be downloading the torrent for a similar reason; namely to ensure that their employees aren't leaking information about the company. Of course, I'm sure there will be more nefarious uses of this data, but I think for most people it's being downloaded out of curiosity rather than malice.
Voiding a warranty isn't the same thing as breaking a law.
It sounds to me like this guy wants the Internet to become 4chan. No thanks.
Private censorship is still censorship.
Censorship, in the context of being a free speech issue, only applies to government restriction upon it. Are you free to go home and view the website? Then there's no free speech ramifications. At work, your job is to do your job; visiting the Sex Party's website probably doesn't fall into that category for most workers.
For those of you who are saying "this is just a private organization so it does not matter" I have to say you are all missing the point. Irrespective of *why* A_FIlter is being applied, this is a CLEAR EXAMPLE of why filters are stupid, pointless, destructive and MUST never be government mandated. Never. Absolutely Never. Not for ANY reason should the government FORCE EVERYONE to submit to "a filtered internet". why?Because stupid shit like THIS INCIDENT will happen, and whether that is accidental or deliberate is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.
But that's just it... there is no government filter, and there is no government mandate. Sensationalizing the story by making it into something it isn't is what misses the point; a private organization has the right to filter access on its own machines/networks, and should similarly be free from government mandates that take away the right to do as they wish with their own property.
Just imagine how much less national debt we would have if religions had to pay taxes.
I doubt it would make even a noticeable dent. I suppose you'd also be in favor of taxing secular non-profits as well, right?
How Ironic that the day this post shows up on /. VODO had an release up which is a movie and is 100% legal and very highly transferred over torrents.
The.Yes.Men.Fix.The.World.P2P.Edition.2010.XviD-VODO & The.Yes.Men.Fix.The.World.P2P.Edition.2010.HQ.x264-VODO
This study is flawed and what trackers did they use or how did they truly pick the randomization?
I mean if they pick the 1000 random torrents from a piracy site, then my guess is their results would this way, but if they select other trackers/locations/etc they would likely find that 100% of the traffic is legal and proper.
Also remember that statistics just show how biased the statistician is when they interpret the results and decide how to present them.
Ironically enough, I happened to be seeding a Linux distro and 'The Yes Men Fix the World' when I saw the article summary. Imagine if they had included VODO's trackers in their analysis...
Probably intentionally.
Sorry, for some reason I thought I was replying to the same person I did above. Please disregard any statements with that implication. :-(
But these applications aren't weighted by popularity, something that should seem obvious to anyone, especially after the example the Apple App Store, Adroid Marketplace and Firefox Addons website show us. Also, most screenshots fail to load, and the summary/blurb about the applications, particularly the more obscure ones, are less than helpful. To a user uncomfortable with linux, and computers in general, this is very intimidating.
The Software Center is pretty straightforward, with applications sorted by category (and subcategory with 10.04) complete with descriptions and the ability to search. It even includes some proprietary stuff like Adobe Reader and Flash. There are certainly some kinks that need to be worked out, and I agree that sorting by popularity would be nice, but this is far from the only criteria of user-friendliness and it certainly doesn't constitute "in-depth knowledge". If pointing and clicking is intimidating, perhaps we need to go back to the DOS/CLI era. In any event, this side argument fails to demonstrate Ubuntu's alleged shortcomings in terms of web browsing.
Had you followed the links, you would have seen it was lunatic ranting about lunatic ranting across certain less intelligent sections of the FOSS blog world. In the last few weeks, there has been much ado about nothing regarding some fonts Canonical is proposing to use in Ubuntu 10.10, probably in their drive to strengthen branding. But of course, because they didn't roll it out EXACTLY like those idiot bloggers would like, you'd think Canonical was violating the GPL or something...
I did, in fact I read several of his blithering rants. Be that as it may, you were using the site as the centerpiece of your argument that Ubuntu isn't suitable for a user who only needs to browse the web. I was kind enough originally to ignore the fact that the status you ascribe to him as an "expert authority" on software doesn't mitigate the fact that he clearly has an unreasonable bias, casually using loaded terms like freetard and employing spotty logic (such as that ogg isn't mp3, therefore it's bad) in many of his writings. Some of his criticisms are valid, or at least understandable, but it becomes clear very quickly that he has an automatic, borderline dogmatic disdain for anything open-source, especially Linux; hence the title of his blog. You're deluding yourself if you see anything other than an ignorant, ranting lunatic posting on Linux Hater.
I'll take your silence on Ubuntu's alleged "big problems" with surfing the web as an admission that you were blowing smoke and spreading FUD, by the way.
...but even for that relatively simple job there are big problems with Ubuntu.
I've never had a problem surfing the web using any Linux distro, much less Ubuntu. This includes my days as a linux n00b when I had no understanding of the structure of the filesystem, didn't realize the advantages of a package manager, and feared the terminal. Browsing the web is NOT an issue for Ubuntu, and when compared to the heightened risk of malware/virus infection on a comparable Windows machine I find this to be an odd statement.
When I first visited Linux Hater, I thought I was dealing with extreme ignorance.
My first exposure to Linux Hater was your link, which led to a page where a lunatic is ranting about a font and declaring ogg sucks because it isn't mp3. I think your initial thoughts about that blog were correct.
users still need to have in-depth knowledge to do basic stuff, like install new applications
You consider clicking the 'Applications' menu and scrolling to and clicking 'Ubuntu Software Center' in-depth knowledge?
Dell is right.
Wrong. You've failed to measurably quantify what makes Ubuntu unsuitable for web browsing other than pointing to a blog with an anti-Linux agenda and making weird assertions about the level of expertise it takes to read and use a menu. Ubuntu is perfectly suitable for a wide variety of tasks, and surfing the web is certainly among them.
OH NOSE! Web servers will be able to SEND DATA TO YUOR BORWROSAR!!1 HAX!!!!!1
Seriously, are you smoking crack?
Not just data, but binary data. If you don't understand the attack vectors this opens up refrain from mocking those who do.
So, question: If I use Panda am I supporting Scientology or did they really distance themselves from the CoS after French Media outed them?
Honestly, I couldn't care less if Panda has some tie to Scientology. I'm secure enough in my religious beliefs to let the software do the talking first, and the ideology of the developers doesn't really matter to me. If I was a /b/tard I'd be singing a different tune perhaps, but I'm not.
You could try something like F-Prot or Panda Commandline scanner, and just update the definition files on your USB drive manually from time to time.
I've actually "used" OpenOffice for about 6 years now, and I've been very productive with it. Even when opening .doc or .docx files, I rarely run into the issues you describe, and when there are problems they're minor formatting issues that are easily fixed. Just because you switched Kool-aid flavors doesn't mean you have to piss in everyone else's.