Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#61

Post by pointyhat » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:18 PM UTC

rjbond3rd wrote: post #29

acabal wrote: post #20

Nope. Ubuntu won't be ready until upgrading Firefox (or any individual package) doesn't force insanity like opposite window controls or Unity without asking. Regular people aren't interested in seeing drastic and seemingly nonsensical changes like that for no reason, and almost certainly aren't interested in being part of some grand OS experiment. They want something that is consistent and works. While package manage…

> Having to swallow upgrades to every single package on the system just to get one package ... [means] ...instability... Just curious, have you really experienced instability by installing all updates on any mainstream distro? If so, could you share what happened? I've not had that experience but would like to know about it.

+1 here. mysql-server is compltely broken in 10.04LTS.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#62

Post by wazoox » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:21 PM UTC

shadowfox wrote: post #57

wazoox wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu and Fedora, though the most common desktop distros, also are notoriously NOT very stable. Fedora is RedHat beta-test playground, and Ubuntu is built from a Debian-unstable snapshot. OTOH many people complains that Debian, RedHat or CentOS are too long to implement the latest features, but this is the price to pay for extreme reliability. Know your needs, choose accordingly.

I just wish there was a middle ground though where you dont have to choose between extreme reliability + years of waiting and fast turnaround + notorious instability

Debian testing is both reliable enough (I think there were no more than 2 cases when an upgrade would lead to an unusable state in the past 8 years) and not too far behind the bleeding edge. Or you could use a rolling release distro such as gentoo, arch, or in a related world FreeBSD.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#63

Post by wazoox » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:27 PM UTC

larsberg wrote: post #13

bruce511 wrote: post #8

The point about it running well on old hardware is well taken. Installing a new OS onto an old box very often results in an apparent speed-up. I was amazed at how fast my old pc was when I upgraded to a new pc, and re-installed XP from scratch on the old one. It was amazing. Unfortunately we then started loading software on it, doing all the normal day-to-day stuff on it, and it's since slowed down again. Unfortunatl…

> Unfortunatly installing Ubuntu on _new_ hardware is a different thing altogether. This. I made the unfortunate mistake of trying to install Ubuntu on one of the new Toshiba Porteges. I was not expecting such terrible device support (built-in Intel graphics would freeze or kernel panic in full-screen; insert/remove to the HDMI port would cause X to run up to 100% of CPU and be unresponsive to input; screen dimmer wo…

Unfortunately laptop support somewhat lags behind in Linux, mostly due to bizarre hardware idiosyncrasies. Toshiba, Sony are particularly despised for their botched BIOS and ACPI, strange hardware management, and complete lack of alternate OSes support. Most of the time Asus, Dell and Lenovo laptops work, though.

However it's unfortunately a good advice to always check with a live CD that your distro actually supports decently the laptop you're about to buy.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#64

Post by sneak » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:34 PM UTC

It can't sync music to iPhones or iPod touches. My dad loves his iPod and would scream if I tried to replace it.

The ubuntu solution? Just run XP in a VM to run iTunes!

I bought him a Mac.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#65

Post by rkalla » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:35 PM UTC

Ubuntu is no replacement for Windows. It can be a potential alternative, but it is in no way some sort of drop-in replacement.

This particular article reeks of someone who doesn't actually need to get work done "Free is unbeatable!" and "Windows is a poor value for the price!" -- uselessly ambiguous and all-inclusive statements.

If you are a PC gamer, big into video editing or professional image editor using the Adobe suite, Linux is not an option for you. Please ignore all the people that tell you WINE "totally works great" and has "no problems!" and is "rock solid"... I would recommend jamming glass in your ears if you see someone talking like that.

You are certainly welcome to try and take them up on that, but you'll decide in under a month that all the little gotchas you only find once you dive deep will drive you crazy.

I understand the intent of these articles ("The year of Linux on the desktop!") but people have been writing them since 1998 and it has never been true, all that has happened is each OS has grown up to fill its particular niche and if your use-cases fall in that niche, then you are all set... otherwise the move will be a complete waste of time for you.

The only reason Linux has been able to make more headway (IMO) is a good majority of our lives have moved online with web-based apps so the reliance on Linux matching parity with the software on other platforms has lessened.

There is no amazing new office suite for Linux, it's still OpenOffice and always will be. I don't know if KOffice will ever hit critical mass or individual GNOME-based efforts will grow beyond clean v1 implementations.

There is no fantastic PIM software that finally replaced Outlook.

There is no awesome, stable, robust video player except 75 different shitty GUI interfaces to mplayer's codecs that work for the most part then core dump sometimes oh but then are easily fixed by recompiling with the --bullshit flag turned on.

It just goes on an on... of course your mileage will vary depending on what kind of user you are, the more intense/hardcore you are the more warts you'll notice and try and fix/workaround (key bindings, mouse button support, audio card, hardware acceleration, optimal power saving management, etc.) and after a month of pissing half your day away with some broken configuration for the 10th time, you'll go back to some other OS.

The lighter or more online user, you'll probably be just fine.

That is my own personal opinion from 13 years of trying to finally adopt Linux as my primary desktop OS, even giving up games to make it so and finally giving up with Ubuntu 11.04 after realizing I was always going to have the same magnitude of problems... no matter what.

Ok, I've lead with my neck out, everyone go ahead and comment about how their desktop is "rock solid" and I must be brain-damaged and doing something wrong consistently for the last 13 years to always have this experience.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#66

Post by jshen » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:36 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #44

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #31

I used Linux (Ubuntu primarily, but I dabbled in the other distros from time to time) as my only OS on my netbook for 5 years (through college and my first few internships / job). For that atmosphere is was great: it taught me the UNIX philosophy, I can work a command line shell and vim like a beast, I knew a lot more about OSs and programming in general than if I was using Windows, and it overall prepared me excelle…

> I could spend a whole weekend getting a driver to work properly, and fiddling with kernel options. I haven't done that stuff since around 2005. I just install a standard distro, and leave it to do what it does. It Just Works out of the box. It even detects my Raid5 and sets that up for me. Debian is my choice because of the rolling updates in testing -- I don't even want to think about version numbers. I use Linux…

About a year ago I installed linux (ubuntu) for the first time in years on a dell machine. I had to spend a few hours fiddling with the video drivers to get it to work right.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#67

Post by timtadh » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:41 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #54

illume wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell have good support. They have some deal with canonical, so it seems most of their laptops work great. Also, ASUS ones run quite well. ASUS even ship linux on their netbooks. My girl friends netbook runs for ages on it. So much that it has never run out of battery on us. Sent from my Ubuntu Dell.

Any particular Dell models? I've heard bad things about Asus and compatibility with touch pads, etc. Not true? (I had Thinkpads before, but am considering a change in the next month.)

I am very happy with the XPS 1330m laptop. I don't know if they still make it anymore, but I bought it with ubuntu pre-installed and it has been fantastic.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#68

Post by nickpinkston » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:48 PM UTC

My parents (mid 50's non-techies) run Ubuntu and love it. I installed it at first, but they've been able to do the rest. Including installing the updates, new printers, Chrome and similar things. I don't see how they can be that much of an exception to the average Joe. Just an anacdote...

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#69

Post by acabal » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:49 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #60

acabal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last time I checked, Ubuntu kept existing setup, desktop etc. when upgrading. Have you ever dist-upgraded an Ubuntu distro? Upgrading to Lucid moved your window controls. Upgrading to Natty turned on Unity. While it's true that upgrading from, say, XP to Win7 will change your start menu, the point is that you can still upgrade your "packages" on XP, WITHOUT having to get the new Win7 start menu. > I'm speechless, o…

> the point is that you can still upgrade your "packages" on XP Like DirectX 10 or 11? The fact that you can upgrade is due to the abnormal shelf life of this particular release of windows. Try upgrading most programs on a win98SE or win2K machine. > Obviously YOU don't know what you're talking about; Debian Mint (LMDE) is based on Debian-testing, which is supposedly HIGHLY unstable. Mint is based upon Ubuntu, which…

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm referring to. I'm specifically referring to rolling-release distros, of which LMDE is one. It's based on Debian-testing.

Regular Mint is indeed a milestone-based distro built on Ubuntu. But LMDE is a rolling-release based on Debian-testing, with no relation to Ubuntu. That's specifically what I'm referring to.

There are certainly other stable rolling-releases out there, but I think everyone can agree that a distro like Arch is about a lightyear away from being Grandma-friendly (which Ubuntu more or less aims to be).

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#70

Post by BenoitEssiambre » Sat, Aug 27, 2011, 3:53 PM UTC

I find the UX in Ubuntu much better than Windows and OSX ( haven't tried Ubuntu 11) mainly because of how fast and instantaneous everything is. Every time I try a Windows machine I am appalled at how unresponsive it is and how often programs freeze. OSX is better but I still find it has usability issues. I think if I'd become a regular user of OSX and learn the keyboard shortcuts I would be a satisfied customer. However, for a casual user like me (pretty much just for xcode), I find myself often annoyed at my mac. I curse at OSX, every time I use iTunes, every time I plug my iPod and the photo application locks up my mac for seconds even though I've never used this application, when windows pile up everywhere and there is no task bar to quickly switch between them, only slow multiple step processes with annoying animations.

I'm also surprised at how many OSX features are a poor implementation of old unix ide features. For example, I'm used to have multiple desktops on Linux. I've been using this since the mid 90s. Gnome has it, kde has it, I've used it on CDE the Sun interface. OSX has Spaces but it is horrible mainly because there isn't a taskbar icon that allows you to switch 'space' with one click. Worst even, the Spaces doc icon is a tease that looks like a proper desktop switcher but doesn't work that way.

In term of hardware support (and to a lesser degree software support), I admit Linux is behind. But this is a chicken and egg problem. If more people used Linux, hardware manufacturers would make sure their drivers worked with Linux. I have zero interest in doing manual configuration, so in the past ten years, buying a computer has consisted of bringing a Live Ubuntu disk to Bestbuy and poping it in to make sure everything on the computer works out of the box. By using this method I never have to fiddle with anything to get Ubuntu to work. It's very easy to do and my computers end up costing me half the price of macs by allowing me the choice of a smaller 1.5 hour battery (I'm almost always plugged in anyways) and lower quality display (so the contrast is not as good, big deal). My current laptop is a one year old (corei3, 4GB ram, 500GB HD) that cost me $600 (useless Windows licence included!) + $100 for a two year extended warranty and Linux makes it feel much faster than any other computer I use. Chrome on Ubuntu is a crazy fast web experience.

I've been hesitant to suggest Ubuntu to non technical users mainly because I don't want to be responsible for providing technical support but I do believe Ubuntu is probably ready for it. Maybe I should suggest it more given that they call me for problems with their win7 or osx anyways and I often find myself thinking: this wouldn't happen on Ubuntu.