Letting the user know what you've just let me know would probably work fairly well.
Unfortunately too many just don't care. It doesn't work, and thats Ubuntu's fault...I see it all the time on the forum, even after the position is presented. Thats why I'm pushing for a script to get Real Player so this isn't even an issue.
I'm leery of installing the Debian menu -- that cripples the best thing about Ubuntu right there. It would be great if programs from universe got shuffled off into a "Misc." menu or something.
Maybe that will happen when:
A. Debian does it or
B: We have more people working on the Universe packages. Till now we have to make do.
I do realize that there is a Synaptic option for editing repositories. The problem is that it is simply a convoluted way of editing it by hand. All I should have to do is make a menu selection. The unsupportedness issue strikes me as foolish. A "Warning: Unsupported Repositories" message would be all that it would take to clear things up. This may in fact even clear up other problems -- I saw nothing about support in the guides on the web that recommended editing sources.list.
Thats because the guides are unsupported too. This is actually getting resolved in the future- it is being worked out so that the backport repo (the biggest line to add to the sources.list) and the Guide will be made official and soon things might be a little more together. Ubuntu is VERY new (we have not even had two releases yet) so the kinks are being worked out. I promise that this is a concern though.
And given that you seem to be the answer guy, there was one Ubuntu problem that I forgot to include. Multimedia support. I couldn't play an MP3 without installing new software, to say nothing about avi files. Is that going to be changed in a future release?
No...that will never happen. Why? It costs 75 cents per player to legally distribute a product that can play MP3s. Ubuntu has already shipped over 1 million CDs (who knows how many downloaded) and at those rates the foundation would be broke within a few years. There is the option of the "pay once" fee...but that would be more an option for rhythmbox than Ubuntu. Plus the cost of that upfront fee is enough to pay another developer for a whole year- something that would improve Ubuntu a lot more. The best we will do is maybe one day have a script that installs the Real Player (aka the legal Linux MP3 player)- unless you have $60,000 you are willing to donate. As far as the other codecs go- Ubuntu will include those the day when copyright disappears and it can't get in trouble for legally distributing the codecs (so never).
Disclaimer: I know a pretty good bit about the project seeing as how I'm a moderator (and one of the largest posters) on the forum.
This is great news for Ubuntu. Up until now its fans knew it was in good hands (Mark has a lot of money) but we didn't know his level of commitment. Now we do. I think part of the reason the foundation was made was because of Ubuntu's success as a new distro (few have their name so known in such a short time) and because there will be a push in the future to get Ubuntu in places that demand stability in organization- businesses and schools. In particular, the next release Breezy will begin Edubuntu a goal of Mark to turn Ubuntu into an OS that can meet the needs of schools.
Hopefully this will once and for all establish Ubuntu as one of the big players in the Linux scene, and further legitimize its claim to the great Debian heritage.
This is a sincere question. Please don't mod me to flame bait. I have been a gentoo user for quite sometime now and am not sure what the difference between ubuntu and debian are. Is there much? Why is ubuntu so hyped?
Disclaimer: I know a pretty good bit about the project seeing as how I'm a moderator (and one of the largest posters) on the forum.
For me personally Ubuntu just does a lot of the little things correctly. Its based off of Debian, so it has access to the what might be the biggest package repo in the land (I don't know about Gentoo , but Ubuntu has 15000+ packages in all of its repos together), but the developers only support a small part of that so unlike Debian there are timely releases. Like Fedora and Dropline, Ubuntu has a great Gnome desktop (I'll admit that Kubuntu isn't as polished) that is very useful from the start.
It has a great community (can't compare it with Gentoo, its a different crowd) that is more than willing to help. Our how to section is excellent.
It supports important things like Mono and Python, and helps Debian catch up to the modern era (by adding things like Xorg).
Finally, Ubuntu is easy to use out of the box (for most nerds) but can be VERY configurable (though probably not as much as Gentoo) and is a happy medium between a Xandros and a Slackware.
Hello...you have some good points and I'll try to get through them all. I know a pretty good bit about the project seeing as how I'm a moderator (and one of the largest posters) on the forum.
Sound.
Sound is the biggest problem in Hoary, and it is the thing that WILL be fixed in the next release. I know that that certain answer is considered to be lame in OSS circles...but its true.
Synaptic. Synaptic does its job, I can say that. But the user interface leaves a lot to be desired. I upgraded to Hoary yesterday. Why did that have to involve editing sources.list by hand?
You don't have to edit the sources.list by hand- it can be done in synaptic. The problem is that it takes ten minutes to fix in all the little boxes in synaptic with the info, while it takes all of one minute to copy and paste a new sources.list...so that is the preferred method. You might think "why isn't it easier than that?" The reason is that all of those things you are adding in the sources.list are unofficial and unsupported, so the developers are scared that if they made it any easier then they will have people thinking they are responsible for those other repositories (they are not- the pay support only covers whats in the main).
Applications. Why the hell do newly installed applications need to be added to the menus manually? This is Ubuntu's biggest flaw. When you install a new program, you'd better know how to invoke it from the command line -- and good luck finding that out from Synaptic's description, which disappears after install anyway.
A lot of time you have to kill gnome-panel to see newly installed applications (killall gnome-panel) and the new installed things will show up. In other cases (things from the Universe repo) you need the ugly, disorganized Debian menu to see the program- it was left out because its a unsupported mess. To get it-
sudo apt-get install menu
Firefox. Ubuntu's web browser of choice, Firefox, is unresponsive after opening new tabs. Firefox is much nicer in Windows. And IE for Windows is far more responsive than either.
Firefox is the new OSS standard browser. It is more of a resource hog than IE I admit...but its not your only choice.
sudo apt-get install epiphany
and your problem is solved. Epiphany is even a supported application.
Folder Navigation. I don't like the fact that there is no back or up arrow when exploring file folders. This is massively stupid UI design.
Thats Gnome's design. I dislike spatial nautilus as well...but one command fixes it:
Then uninstall bittorrent and use it instead. Then when you are downloading torrents, change the settings from "automatic" to "dsl/cable slow" (unless you have a 2 way 10mb pipe).
Umm...the developers didn't want to support the new packages. Its a smart decision, those new packages might bring bugs and mess up a done deal. They are still easily availible. I have never had a stability problem using Ubuntu Backports. The person that runs it is really nice and picky about bugs...
Honestly the only thing I got out of Luminocity is disappointment- its just a toy and I wanted a replacement for Metacity. It just a tech demo....I wish I wouldn't have seen it because now I believe it will take years (or 3-4 releases) to get Gnome to do that. Its not usable as a Window Manager...its just to show Window's fans and say "look what Linux can do."
As far as eye candy in the near future goes, the best thing we have in Linux is xcompmgr. I bought a cheap Nvidia card just to try it out...and it is awesome (well..the fading is..drop shadows are overrated to me). For those that complain that xcompmgr is slow..well you don't have an Nvidia card do you? This program was finally the straw that broke my back and convinced me to toss my ATI card. The $30 bucks spent on a 5200 fx was well worth it....
To bad xcompmgr is only a little more stable that Windows ME or I would use it full time. So personally I care less about Luminocity in the Universe and more about a new Xorg with a more stable (PLEASE!!!) xcompmgr....
I see this point brought up a lot and its just wrong. 99.9% of users can't read source code and can't modify programs in any meaningful way, and they gain nothing from having a program be open source.
Straight up bullshit. Most users have a lot to gain from OSS, even if they can't develop. Because of OSS, the software is availible at low cost (someone in the know can compile it and set it up and you can use it for free. Look to the 100+ free Linux distros as an example of that). Also because of OSS, a regular user-if they need to- can pay someone in that 1% to modify the code and tailor it to their need. Try asking ole MS for some of their Internet Explorer code so you can pay someone to modify it how you want. They will laugh at you.
I can't program a lick of anything. But I get a lot out of GPL code. Because its free and I can use it accourding to the license. The only way the BSD license is better it that it gives developers as much free use as the users get under the GPL. So at worst the GPL could be bad for SOME programers. Cry me a river.
The GPL is a lot like militant islam; it is always seeking to force others to take its viewpoint, and seeks to eliminate all other faiths.
Good comparison. You are correct- GPL fanatics have killed thousands of people. Good call you jerk. The GPL is an OPTIONAL thing. You can take it or leave it. You choose to leave it. Fine. But don't pretend you are forced to take it.
Gnome needs to just stop competing against KDE and allow their work to be folded into KDE.
Actually it would be harder to fuse the two together then it would be to make a whole new DE.
Gnome said it was about the licensing, and that has been resolved for how long now? How many years?
And in that time a nice desktop was made that many people use....so why not keep it around?
Linux needs a standard desktop - user's don't want to be forced to choose -
Why? I like that I have a choice. Only a fool likes things to be decided for him.
app writers don't want to have to choose and no matter what - lose some customers - and Gnome is bleeding away resources that could go to KDE.
Who says those resources would go into KDE? If anything, if Gnome died the momentum would be picked up be XFCE.
Why does it offend you that Gnome exists? I HATE the way KDE looks, and I'm so glad Gnome is around. In your world where the choice is made for me (KDE only), I would chose not to use Linux.
Ultimately it would mean me picking an arbitrary fixed exchange rate, which may work out worse for US buyers (someone said it converted to $18.61 so I might round up to $20, for example).
You are trying to target us Americans- make it $19.95. That sounds nice, like an everything else here. Trust me on that one. I don't know why....but it sounds better to Americans. I guess we think "its just 19 bucks" or something.
We're considering MP3 sales, but I don't want to leap into the work & money that setting up the infrastructure would take, if I don't know we'd get a reasonable number of buyers. So, basically, the more people who express an interest in that format, the more likely we'll do it!
If you want to keep advertising on slashdot, at some point it would do you well to make it so people can buys some.oggs. Think of your audiance.
Meanwhile, most ATI cards now have open source drivers with 3D acceleration and that presents a much better overall usability picture for the average user. They just do their updates and get the latest and greatest with no effort on their part.
I wouldn't call it "the latest and greatest." Only with an Nvidia card does xcompmgr fly.
I've seen those Gentoo forum discussions -- while trying to solve the fact that an upgrade to gcc has somehow hosed my X setup (?!?). Yeah, Linux is definitely ready for the desktop...
LOL!!! You complain that GENTOO isn't ready for the desktop? Of course- its a workstation OS by nerds for nerds. Thats like saying that a new fighter jet that the Airforce just bought "isn't ready for commercial flights." It was never meant to be!
You need to encounter a better grade of conservative.
And lose some stereotypes.
Maybe I did have some over generalizations, but I have met a lot of conservatives (I go to the most conservative public university in the nation) and this response is common. What you are probably talking about is old school conservatives, people that in the modern age are called libertarians. Not a problem with me...probably is my favorite political boat.
The reason being, productivity would plummit if everyone started smoking this stuff casually. Due to the drop on GDP, the government would get less tax revenue. Yet, you will never see a ban on caffeen.
Sad thing is...whenever I push conservatives against the wall on the issue (aka cut through all the other FUD) this is their core reasoning. Pot is bad because it might make you more apathetic which will decrease productivity. Its like conservatives only care about the big picture, and they put power above freedom.
You only use Linux because you think you're "cool" by doing so.
That and I got tired of Windows....jeez you say it like it's a bad thing!
You probably have no real programming/hacking experience,
Not a lick. I have experiance in areas that can't be off-shored as easily.
and the fact that you run a "distro" based on a hippy bastard "distro" obviates the fact that you surely masturbate to hentai and have regular fantasies about violating small quadroped housepets.
You are like the best troll ever. Can I have your autograph? That was awesome!
Slashdot Mirror
I agree...would you please post a bug on bugzilla?
Letting the user know what you've just let me know would probably work fairly well.
Unfortunately too many just don't care. It doesn't work, and thats Ubuntu's fault...I see it all the time on the forum, even after the position is presented. Thats why I'm pushing for a script to get Real Player so this isn't even an issue.
Maybe that will happen when:
A. Debian does it or
B: We have more people working on the Universe packages. Till now we have to make do.
I do realize that there is a Synaptic option for editing repositories. The problem is that it is simply a convoluted way of editing it by hand. All I should have to do is make a menu selection. The unsupportedness issue strikes me as foolish. A "Warning: Unsupported Repositories" message would be all that it would take to clear things up. This may in fact even clear up other problems -- I saw nothing about support in the guides on the web that recommended editing sources.list.
Thats because the guides are unsupported too. This is actually getting resolved in the future- it is being worked out so that the backport repo (the biggest line to add to the sources.list) and the Guide will be made official and soon things might be a little more together. Ubuntu is VERY new (we have not even had two releases yet) so the kinks are being worked out. I promise that this is a concern though.
And given that you seem to be the answer guy, there was one Ubuntu problem that I forgot to include. Multimedia support. I couldn't play an MP3 without installing new software, to say nothing about avi files. Is that going to be changed in a future release?
No...that will never happen. Why? It costs 75 cents per player to legally distribute a product that can play MP3s. Ubuntu has already shipped over 1 million CDs (who knows how many downloaded) and at those rates the foundation would be broke within a few years. There is the option of the "pay once" fee...but that would be more an option for rhythmbox than Ubuntu. Plus the cost of that upfront fee is enough to pay another developer for a whole year- something that would improve Ubuntu a lot more. The best we will do is maybe one day have a script that installs the Real Player (aka the legal Linux MP3 player)- unless you have $60,000 you are willing to donate. As far as the other codecs go- Ubuntu will include those the day when copyright disappears and it can't get in trouble for legally distributing the codecs (so never).
This is great news for Ubuntu. Up until now its fans knew it was in good hands (Mark has a lot of money) but we didn't know his level of commitment. Now we do. I think part of the reason the foundation was made was because of Ubuntu's success as a new distro (few have their name so known in such a short time) and because there will be a push in the future to get Ubuntu in places that demand stability in organization- businesses and schools. In particular, the next release Breezy will begin Edubuntu a goal of Mark to turn Ubuntu into an OS that can meet the needs of schools.
Hopefully this will once and for all establish Ubuntu as one of the big players in the Linux scene, and further legitimize its claim to the great Debian heritage.
I personally hope that some of this money will be spent on creating more bounties to create some of the GUI tools the distro currently lacks.For now this is a great thing.
Hip Hip Hoary and long live Ubuntu!
Disclaimer: I know a pretty good bit about the project seeing as how I'm a moderator (and one of the largest posters) on the forum.
For me personally Ubuntu just does a lot of the little things correctly. Its based off of Debian, so it has access to the what might be the biggest package repo in the land (I don't know about Gentoo , but Ubuntu has 15000+ packages in all of its repos together), but the developers only support a small part of that so unlike Debian there are timely releases. Like Fedora and Dropline, Ubuntu has a great Gnome desktop (I'll admit that Kubuntu isn't as polished) that is very useful from the start.
It has a great community (can't compare it with Gentoo, its a different crowd) that is more than willing to help. Our how to section is excellent.
It supports important things like Mono and Python, and helps Debian catch up to the modern era (by adding things like Xorg).
Finally, Ubuntu is easy to use out of the box (for most nerds) but can be VERY configurable (though probably not as much as Gentoo) and is a happy medium between a Xandros and a Slackware.
Thanks for you time.
Sound.
Sound is the biggest problem in Hoary, and it is the thing that WILL be fixed in the next release. I know that that certain answer is considered to be lame in OSS circles...but its true.
Synaptic. Synaptic does its job, I can say that. But the user interface leaves a lot to be desired. I upgraded to Hoary yesterday. Why did that have to involve editing sources.list by hand?
You don't have to edit the sources.list by hand- it can be done in synaptic. The problem is that it takes ten minutes to fix in all the little boxes in synaptic with the info, while it takes all of one minute to copy and paste a new sources.list...so that is the preferred method. You might think "why isn't it easier than that?" The reason is that all of those things you are adding in the sources.list are unofficial and unsupported, so the developers are scared that if they made it any easier then they will have people thinking they are responsible for those other repositories (they are not- the pay support only covers whats in the main).
Applications. Why the hell do newly installed applications need to be added to the menus manually? This is Ubuntu's biggest flaw. When you install a new program, you'd better know how to invoke it from the command line -- and good luck finding that out from Synaptic's description, which disappears after install anyway.
A lot of time you have to kill gnome-panel to see newly installed applications (killall gnome-panel) and the new installed things will show up. In other cases (things from the Universe repo) you need the ugly, disorganized Debian menu to see the program- it was left out because its a unsupported mess. To get it-
sudo apt-get install menu
Firefox. Ubuntu's web browser of choice, Firefox, is unresponsive after opening new tabs. Firefox is much nicer in Windows. And IE for Windows is far more responsive than either.
Firefox is the new OSS standard browser. It is more of a resource hog than IE I admit...but its not your only choice.
sudo apt-get install epiphany
and your problem is solved. Epiphany is even a supported application.
Folder Navigation. I don't like the fact that there is no back or up arrow when exploring file folders. This is massively stupid UI design.
Thats Gnome's design. I dislike spatial nautilus as well...but one command fixes it:
gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser true
There now it is as you want. If you have any more questions...please come ask them on the forum.
Here is a tip. Get Bittornado.
Then uninstall bittorrent and use it instead. Then when you are downloading torrents, change the settings from "automatic" to "dsl/cable slow" (unless you have a 2 way 10mb pipe).
Umm...the developers didn't want to support the new packages. Its a smart decision, those new packages might bring bugs and mess up a done deal. They are still easily availible. I have never had a stability problem using Ubuntu Backports. The person that runs it is really nice and picky about bugs...
Yep...Ubuntu gave them good jobs...what an evil thing.
buntu is slightly repackaging the work of the real packagers, the Debian people, and calling it a new distro.
Plus stuff like new Xorg, Mono, and Gnome before Sid get it. Thats easy to forget though.
It's basically a hostile fork, and we are the worse for it.
I disagree.
Luminocity Howto
Honestly the only thing I got out of Luminocity is disappointment- its just a toy and I wanted a replacement for Metacity. It just a tech demo....I wish I wouldn't have seen it because now I believe it will take years (or 3-4 releases) to get Gnome to do that. Its not usable as a Window Manager...its just to show Window's fans and say "look what Linux can do."
As far as eye candy in the near future goes, the best thing we have in Linux is xcompmgr. I bought a cheap Nvidia card just to try it out...and it is awesome (well..the fading is..drop shadows are overrated to me). For those that complain that xcompmgr is slow..well you don't have an Nvidia card do you? This program was finally the straw that broke my back and convinced me to toss my ATI card. The $30 bucks spent on a 5200 fx was well worth it....
To bad xcompmgr is only a little more stable that Windows ME or I would use it full time. So personally I care less about Luminocity in the Universe and more about a new Xorg with a more stable (PLEASE!!!) xcompmgr....
Straight up bullshit. Most users have a lot to gain from OSS, even if they can't develop. Because of OSS, the software is availible at low cost (someone in the know can compile it and set it up and you can use it for free. Look to the 100+ free Linux distros as an example of that). Also because of OSS, a regular user-if they need to- can pay someone in that 1% to modify the code and tailor it to their need. Try asking ole MS for some of their Internet Explorer code so you can pay someone to modify it how you want. They will laugh at you.
I can't program a lick of anything. But I get a lot out of GPL code. Because its free and I can use it accourding to the license. The only way the BSD license is better it that it gives developers as much free use as the users get under the GPL. So at worst the GPL could be bad for SOME programers. Cry me a river.
The GPL is a lot like militant islam; it is always seeking to force others to take its viewpoint, and seeks to eliminate all other faiths.
Good comparison. You are correct- GPL fanatics have killed thousands of people. Good call you jerk. The GPL is an OPTIONAL thing. You can take it or leave it. You choose to leave it. Fine. But don't pretend you are forced to take it.
I just want to say that you presented the best case for the GPL I have seen. If I copy and paste (I will), I'll credit you.
Actually it would be harder to fuse the two together then it would be to make a whole new DE.
Gnome said it was about the licensing, and that has been resolved for how long now? How many years?
And in that time a nice desktop was made that many people use....so why not keep it around?
Linux needs a standard desktop - user's don't want to be forced to choose -
Why? I like that I have a choice. Only a fool likes things to be decided for him.
app writers don't want to have to choose and no matter what - lose some customers - and Gnome is bleeding away resources that could go to KDE.
Who says those resources would go into KDE? If anything, if Gnome died the momentum would be picked up be XFCE.
Why does it offend you that Gnome exists? I HATE the way KDE looks, and I'm so glad Gnome is around. In your world where the choice is made for me (KDE only), I would chose not to use Linux.
You are trying to target us Americans- make it $19.95. That sounds nice, like an everything else here. Trust me on that one. I don't know why....but it sounds better to Americans. I guess we think "its just 19 bucks" or something.
We're considering MP3 sales, but I don't want to leap into the work & money that setting up the infrastructure would take, if I don't know we'd get a reasonable number of buyers. So, basically, the more people who express an interest in that format, the more likely we'll do it!
If you want to keep advertising on slashdot, at some point it would do you well to make it so people can buys some .oggs. Think of your audiance.
I wouldn't call it "the latest and greatest." Only with an Nvidia card does xcompmgr fly.
LOL!!! You complain that GENTOO isn't ready for the desktop? Of course- its a workstation OS by nerds for nerds. Thats like saying that a new fighter jet that the Airforce just bought "isn't ready for commercial flights." It was never meant to be!
And lose some stereotypes.
Maybe I did have some over generalizations, but I have met a lot of conservatives (I go to the most conservative public university in the nation) and this response is common. What you are probably talking about is old school conservatives, people that in the modern age are called libertarians. Not a problem with me...probably is my favorite political boat.
Sad thing is...whenever I push conservatives against the wall on the issue (aka cut through all the other FUD) this is their core reasoning. Pot is bad because it might make you more apathetic which will decrease productivity. Its like conservatives only care about the big picture, and they put power above freedom.
No...but you still have to deal with it. When I switched I sold my card ATI on ebay and got a new Nvidia card to avoid that problem.
That and I got tired of Windows....jeez you say it like it's a bad thing!
You probably have no real programming/hacking experience,
Not a lick. I have experiance in areas that can't be off-shored as easily.
and the fact that you run a "distro" based on a hippy bastard "distro" obviates the fact that you surely masturbate to hentai and have regular fantasies about violating small quadroped housepets.
You are like the best troll ever. Can I have your autograph? That was awesome!
The insightful mod was made for this.
Other corporations maybe?
This made my day. My favorite distro is finally important enough to be used in a "Linux is dead" post by a BSD troll. Go Ubuntu.
We don't have a prison system based on rehabilitation in the U.S. We have a system based on detainment.
Thats when you ssh in and do it for her. Like a good grandson....
Linux fan who knows that Linux isn't quite ready for the desktop yet.
Whose desktop? It does well on a nerd's.....
No offense parent....but you are really talking out your ass on this one.