Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#51

Post by _emacsomancer_ » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

mcny wrote: post #26

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree. While standardization has its benefits, I think homogeneity also has significant drawbacks. Unfortunately, rare is the Linux desktop environment that gets things right for me. KDE comes close, I guess. I haven't seriously tried KDE, though I've heard lots of good things about it recently. I don't know why Ubuntu chose GNOME over Mate, the latter seems a perfectly fine typical desktop environment paradigm.…

I've recently started playing with i3. It is very nice. I don't know how to do a lot of things. I have to Google how to connect to a new WiFi connection every time on my phone. However, I like it a lot. Worst case scenario, I have to reboot and log in with gnome. Personally, I am all for standardization and homogeneity. We need standards and homogeneity. I would gladly steamroll over all the people who oppose "monocu…

> You can't please everyone but I think gnome is the right answer for most people. Don't like something? Come join the discussion at https://gitlab.gnome.org (I hope I got that right)

The problem is I think the deep issues I have with Gnome are not things which are easily fixed, e.g. "stop leaking memory", "don't be a single-threaded Javascript process", "allow me to control workspaces independently on each monitor/screen", &c. &c.

I would love to see Gnome improve though, even if I never end up using it, but I am not currently seeing any obvious signs that this will occur.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#52

Post by roryisok » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 6:01 PM UTC

roryisok wrote: post #14

jitix wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually stopped using linux as my main OS in 2010 because of Gnome3 and Unity. The "Applications","Places","System" menu was clear, intuitive and desktop oriented. I never liked KDE, and MATE seemed like a rather unoptmized fork. So it left me with using Xubuntu VM on a Windows host (and I hate Windows because of it lacks bash). Once I moved to the US I started using Mac and never looked back. The best thing that…

> The best thing that Apple does is that they don't try to merge desktop and tablet UX With all the IOS apps they keep bringing to macOS, the merging of the IOS and macOS dev teams, and the imminent release of ARM macbooks I wouldn't get comfortable

Not sure why that got downvoted but ok. Just expressing my opinion that apple are moving toward exactly this

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#53

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

themodelplumber wrote: post #45

ddtaylor wrote: post #43

Mark changed his mind a lot and Canonical has started and cancelled many projects to the point it's hard to care about their new stuff anymore. Oh you're supporting netbooks and doing a distro related to it? Cancelled. Oh you started a cloud service that stores files forever? Cancelled. Oh you created a competitor to X and Wayland for compositing? Cancelled. Oh you created an alternative window manager to replace Gno…

Sure, it's a bummer to see potentially cool stuff get canceled. But Ubuntu was all about innovation from the start. I wouldn't mind seeing twice as many canceled projects, because it's a sign that you're willing to put yourself out there and fail often. Innovation has a cost, and if part of that cost is "we can't support netbooks but other distros will, heck you can even use Xubuntu if you want" that's fine with me.

That would be fine if they were choices on the side, but most of these were foisted on users as the default choice, only to be canceled later. Making the whole exercise a complete waste of time rather than an interesting experiment.

For example, they could have instead contributed to MATE for the last decade, and it might finally be as good as Windows 2000.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#54

Post by themodelplumber » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

thefifthsetpin wrote: post #46

themodelplumber wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's a bummer to see potentially cool stuff get canceled. But Ubuntu was all about innovation from the start. I wouldn't mind seeing twice as many canceled projects, because it's a sign that you're willing to put yourself out there and fail often. Innovation has a cost, and if part of that cost is "we can't support netbooks but other distros will, heck you can even use Xubuntu if you want" that's fine with me.

> Ubuntu was all about innovation from the start I thought it was about making a distro that was approachable and accessible? Source: vaguely remembered "What does ubuntu mean?" promo videos from many years ago.

Yes, and at the time that was a huge innovation. Don't ask a neckbeard, but it was a huge innovation.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#55

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

gnomewascool wrote: post #40

jasonkostempski wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last thing a DE should do is consume so many resources nothing else can run properly. There is no benefit to it. DE's should use almost nothing and run lag-free on 10 year old hardware. Show me a single feature in Unity that saved so many people, so much work that it justified extra power consumption across the world. Hell, show me a single feature that didn't actually slow people down compared to, let's say, xfc…

1. Global Menus — by being at the edge of the screen, their "height" effectively became infinite (for the purposes of Fitts's law), so you could very easily and quickly move your mouse to them. However, if they annoyed you, you could turn on Locally-Integrated Menus (at least in later versions of Unity). 2. HUD (Heads Up Display) — by just tapping Alt and typing, you could quickly select an option from almost any app…

Those are nice, though #1 breaks down with multiple monitors. None really required a new DE, could have been added to any of the existing.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#56

Post by h1d » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

ddtaylor wrote: post #43

Mark changed his mind a lot and Canonical has started and cancelled many projects to the point it's hard to care about their new stuff anymore. Oh you're supporting netbooks and doing a distro related to it? Cancelled. Oh you started a cloud service that stores files forever? Cancelled. Oh you created a competitor to X and Wayland for compositing? Cancelled. Oh you created an alternative window manager to replace Gno…

Challenging on new things needs courage. He has paid for all the cancelled projects. Did it cost you any? Any you complaining just because you can't catch up?

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#57

Post by dman » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 10:14 PM UTC

h1d wrote: post #56

ddtaylor wrote: post #43

Mark changed his mind a lot and Canonical has started and cancelled many projects to the point it's hard to care about their new stuff anymore. Oh you're supporting netbooks and doing a distro related to it? Cancelled. Oh you started a cloud service that stores files forever? Cancelled. Oh you created a competitor to X and Wayland for compositing? Cancelled. Oh you created an alternative window manager to replace Gno…

Challenging on new things needs courage. He has paid for all the cancelled projects. Did it cost you any? Any you complaining just because you can't catch up?

Is Ubuntu not a profitable entity at this point? Is Mark still paying for everything out of pocket?

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#58

Post by h1d » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 10:17 PM UTC

stewbrew wrote: post #22

Serious question: What are the advantages of Ubuntu on a server over, say, Debian?

Ubuntu has a more stable schedule of LTS that is 2 years apart but Debian is only "roughly" 2 years which makes it easier to plan when to make the upgrades.

Also stuff like having root disabled and letting normal users use sudo by default and having had unattended-upgrades that does automatic security update installed by default makes you feel there's actually someone who cares doing the QA.

And it has great number of packages along with PPA in case there isn't one pretty much allows you to handle most software without manual compile/install/update process which is a nightmare from admin perspective to do.

And the fact it had worked great on me over the last 10 years against 100 or so servers makes me feel confident using it.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#59

Post by mcny » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 1:11 AM UTC

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #51

mcny wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've recently started playing with i3. It is very nice. I don't know how to do a lot of things. I have to Google how to connect to a new WiFi connection every time on my phone. However, I like it a lot. Worst case scenario, I have to reboot and log in with gnome. Personally, I am all for standardization and homogeneity. We need standards and homogeneity. I would gladly steamroll over all the people who oppose "monocu…

> You can't please everyone but I think gnome is the right answer for most people. Don't like something? Come join the discussion at https://gitlab.gnome.org (I hope I got that right) The problem is I think the deep issues I have with Gnome are not things which are easily fixed, e.g. "stop leaking memory", "don't be a single-threaded Javascript process", "allow me to control workspaces independently on each monitor/s…

I have seen these problems as well and yes the community seems dismissive of the issues with various *-factories https://askubuntu.com/questions/480753/remove-evolution-cale...

I mean I still can't get over the asinine comment covered here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4757077

Very poor choice of words which will hurt us for a long time.

Archived at https://archive.fo/NbzkY

This is the opposite of the standardization and cooperation across desktop environments and window managers that I want!

Re: Mark Shuttleworth on where Canonical and Ubuntu Linux are going next

#60

Post by spotinsun » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 8:32 AM UTC

willtim wrote: post #30

stewbrew wrote: post #22

Serious question: What are the advantages of Ubuntu on a server over, say, Debian?

From the article: "Canonical can deliver an OpenStack platform to an enterprise in two weeks with everything in place."

Should delivering "OpenStack platform to an enterprise in two weeks with everything in place" even something that is considered an accomplishment? I have heard such statement from Canonical but I don't understand why it's something to talk about. Why not in an afternoon? One of their competitor products, Sardina FishOS, can be delivered in an afternoon. Our experience was that the whole process in FishOS was automated. From conversation with one of their customers (a European bank), we were told that in their case, they deployed a bank-wide OpenStack cloud in a day, including Ceph. With this in mind, Canonical's two weeks would seem 13 days too long? Of course, that would cut 13 days of services revenue for Canonical ...