Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#41

Post by dkarl » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:29 PM UTC

moxiemk1 wrote: post #15

sandGorgon wrote: post #14

On the other hand, I am getting tired of the way that Ubuntu is focusing so much on getting its fonts right, that critical aspects like suspend/resume are broken, but not fixed. Bug 568711 ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/568711)... particularly nasty because it is a confirmed bug in suspend/resume that has a lot of people being affected by it - but has been relegated to medium severity and is c…

It seems highly improbably that the people working on fonts and design would otherwise be working on suspend/resume. Medium severity sounds right for a bug that only affects users with certain hardware. High severity should be reserved for things with a wider impact, or else it loses its meaning.

The number of users affected is unknown, but the list of laptops mentioned in that thread is pretty varied, and it makes Ubuntu unusable for those folks.

I know OSS needs to be more attentive to aesthetics, but let's not forget that "Ew, I just can't STAND these fonts" is a different kind of unusable from "I tried six obscure workarounds listed in a bug report, but none worked, so I installed a different OS." Using a laptop exclusively as one's primary computer is extremely common these days. If showstopper bugs are tolerated on laptops, the perception of Linux viability for non-tinkerers is going to regress back to five or ten years ago when it was common to encounter bugs like this in a desktop install.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#42

Post by jdub » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:31 PM UTC

someone_here wrote: post #3

This release uses a new interface font, which is the first major OS (that I know of, anyways) to not use a Helvetica-like font for their GUI. Mark Shuttleworth talks about the decision and impact on his blog: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/537

Practically every Linux distro uses DejaVu Sans (previously Bitstream Vera Sans), which is not Helvetica-like. Windows and OS X don't use Helvetica-like fonts either.

I think you might be smoking an Arial hash pipe... because Helvetica is clearly too good for you! :-)

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#43

Post by MrRage » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:38 PM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #40

jbarham wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am getting tired of the way that Ubuntu is focusing so much on getting its fonts right FWIW I tried to install Ubuntu on my wife's laptop and the main thing that made her go back to Windows was the look of the fonts . So I think Canonical is right to focus on polishing up things that can attract non-technical users.

This is shocking to me. Windows font rendering isn't even close to what Ubuntu-packaged cairo/freetype is capable of, especially on high-DPI screens. Or perhaps she didn't like the fonts themselves? In that case you could have copied a bunch of Windows fonts, for instance Consolas looks absolutely gorgeous under FreeType. I applaud Ubuntu for their font efforts. They were the first distro to package non-crippled Free…

I've always preferred Window's font rendering because its very readable on a low DPI screen, which is most of the screens out there.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#44

Post by nailer » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:42 PM UTC

cpach wrote: post #13

retube wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

screenshots: http://www.webupd8.org/2010/09/ubuntu-1010-maverick-meerkat-...

Oh, nice to see a light, pale theme, like in Mac OS. It's much easier on the eyes, at least for me.

Anybody else think this is the first ever professional looking Linux distro they've ever seen?

Congrats to the Ubuntu team.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#45

Post by jbarham » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:43 PM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #40

jbarham wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am getting tired of the way that Ubuntu is focusing so much on getting its fonts right FWIW I tried to install Ubuntu on my wife's laptop and the main thing that made her go back to Windows was the look of the fonts . So I think Canonical is right to focus on polishing up things that can attract non-technical users.

This is shocking to me. Windows font rendering isn't even close to what Ubuntu-packaged cairo/freetype is capable of, especially on high-DPI screens. Or perhaps she didn't like the fonts themselves? In that case you could have copied a bunch of Windows fonts, for instance Consolas looks absolutely gorgeous under FreeType. I applaud Ubuntu for their font efforts. They were the first distro to package non-crippled Free…

How is FreeType intrinsically better than the Windows font renderer? Microsoft has the advantage of subpixel font rendering (aka ClearType) although admittedly that because it's patented (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#Patents).

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#46

Post by carlrice » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:54 PM UTC

acabal wrote: post #23

sandGorgon wrote: post #14

On the other hand, I am getting tired of the way that Ubuntu is focusing so much on getting its fonts right, that critical aspects like suspend/resume are broken, but not fixed. Bug 568711 ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/568711)... particularly nasty because it is a confirmed bug in suspend/resume that has a lot of people being affected by it - but has been relegated to medium severity and is c…

Agreed. Shuttleworth & co seem more interested in tweaking visual desktop stuff (window buttons, windicators, indicator applet, etc.) than actually making sure their software is as bug-free as possible. Every time I upgrade to the newest release (literally every single upgrade since Hardy, when I started using Ubuntu) a bunch of stuff that used to work breaks. Lucid hasn't been as bad as others (Jaunty and Karmic I'm…

I hear ya, but these things are just as important. Poor user experience is a bug and graphical tweaks and updating the indicator platform was much needed. I will admit windicators, multitouch and head tracking parallax should take low priority, but most of their designers wouldn't be fixing driver bugs if they weren't turning up the pretty.

With the latest stable 10.04 I have had very little trouble if any. Granted I am on a ThinkPad. When I ran it on a Macbook Pro and its slightly tweaked "standard" hardware it ran like crap and took a lot of coaxing to get up and running until I just gave up and got the right hardware for the job.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#47

Post by old-gregg » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:54 PM UTC

jbarham wrote: post #45

old-gregg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is shocking to me. Windows font rendering isn't even close to what Ubuntu-packaged cairo/freetype is capable of, especially on high-DPI screens. Or perhaps she didn't like the fonts themselves? In that case you could have copied a bunch of Windows fonts, for instance Consolas looks absolutely gorgeous under FreeType. I applaud Ubuntu for their font efforts. They were the first distro to package non-crippled Free…

How is FreeType intrinsically better than the Windows font renderer? Microsoft has the advantage of subpixel font rendering (aka ClearType) although admittedly that because it's patented ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#Patents ).

Because FreeType does it too, in fact FreeType employs every single trick there is: bytecode interpreter, hinting, subpixel rendering, etc. But it has an advantage of being configurable i.e. it doesn't follow "all size fits all" path. Slight hinting + subpixel smoothing with enabled bytecode interpretation yields incredible output on high-DPI screens.

However, IIRC there's a Microsoft-made utility that allows you to tinker with ClearType settings making it more high-DPI friendly as well (doesn't come with Windows but search for it on their site)

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#48

Post by old-gregg » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:57 PM UTC

MrRage wrote: post #43

old-gregg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is shocking to me. Windows font rendering isn't even close to what Ubuntu-packaged cairo/freetype is capable of, especially on high-DPI screens. Or perhaps she didn't like the fonts themselves? In that case you could have copied a bunch of Windows fonts, for instance Consolas looks absolutely gorgeous under FreeType. I applaud Ubuntu for their font efforts. They were the first distro to package non-crippled Free…

I've always preferred Window's font rendering because its very readable on a low DPI screen, which is most of the screens out there.

You can't possibly prefer Windows font rendering simply because FreeType can be configured to render exactly the same output. What Ubuntu ships by default is drop dead gorgeous on high-DPI screens and really nice on regular monitors, but you can configure it to render text indistinguishable from Windows. ArchLinux has alternative "clear type cairo/freetype" packages that are just that.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#49

Post by sandGorgon » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:57 PM UTC

tolini wrote: post #31

Ok, my previous comment ("Who cares?") seemed to be thoughtless or even offensive (~15 downvotes in 5 minutes), and I have to acknowledge that it lacked quite some arguments. So let me ask: why does this news deserve so much attention to stand in front of HN? What interesting innovation, except the GUI, has brought this new OS release? Is an OS all about GUI and look & feel? Generally speaking, I am just fed up with…

Generally related to the UI, but from a technology viewpoint - this release will use Freetype 2.4 which is the first released that is not patent encumbered by Apple or Microsoft (all those patents expired in May)

Though Ubuntu has always shipped with the patent encumbered stuff turned on, but I think we are going to see some interesting innovation in font rendering going forward.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) Release Candidate

#50

Post by carlrice » Thu, Sep 30, 2010, 3:58 PM UTC

fierarul wrote: post #20

sandGorgon wrote: post #14

On the other hand, I am getting tired of the way that Ubuntu is focusing so much on getting its fonts right, that critical aspects like suspend/resume are broken, but not fixed. Bug 568711 ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/568711)... particularly nasty because it is a confirmed bug in suspend/resume that has a lot of people being affected by it - but has been relegated to medium severity and is c…

Fonts were the most ugly part of Linux by far to me and the reason I bought an iBook long ago. The other reason was perfect hardware support so I could suspend / resume properly. I don't expect Canonical to support all the hardware in the world, but everybody stares at the OS font all day long.

Smoothing and proper metrics were default in 9.04+ and before that accessible via a GUI interface for manual tweaking. Replacing FreeSans with a well tailored family is just finishing the job (so you don't have to.)