Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#71

Post by kungfooey » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 2:49 AM UTC

Zak wrote: post #26

Ubuntu used to be Debian that just worked. Now it's trying to be something more, but it seems to have lost the "just works" part. When I tried 11.10, I had problems with several of the desktop environments crashing or being very visibly broken. I had poor graphics performance. I had no suspend/resume. All of these things worked on the same computer a year ago. I think Ubuntu may be trying to move too fast. Moving fas…

I agree with you. I have been an Ubuntu user since 6.06, and 11.10 was the buggiest release yet, by far.

I actually bought a Mac on Friday. I need a development environment that works. I don't like spending time yak-shaving when I could be solving real problems.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#72

Post by vacri » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 2:52 AM UTC

va_coder wrote: post #54

hippich wrote: post #7

Unix power user, huh?.. If you are unix power user - you should not care much about default desktop. You should customize it right away from the moment you installed _any_ distro to fit your needs. Ubuntu do a great job of turning more people into nix environment. And it is good for you and for nix developers.

Ctl-Shift-T is the start of my session, regardless of UI

F12 can work the same way - check out guake. I both like and dislike it, but it works for friends of mine.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#73

Post by gbog » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 2:53 AM UTC

Cieplak wrote: post #34

This is somehow reminiscent of Sun Tzu's _Art of War_. My interpretation of the article: it would be more prudent to compete with Apple's weaknesses (developer friendliness) than to compete with their strengths (UI, zero configuration).

Apple's main weakness is Microsoft.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#74

Post by vacri » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 2:54 AM UTC

devmach wrote: post #63

I think, the problems with the Ubuntu are : 1- They think users are plan stupid so they have to decide what's good for users. 2- They're just copying from Apple, don't think about why apple did like that. This will end up with a mess. When i use my friend's mac, i think "this thing can't be better" and then when i use ubuntu with unity all i can think is "What the f k they were thinking ?"

In response to 2), I use a friends mac and think "wtf were they thinking" quite often. Default browser can't fullscreen/kiosk mode? Resize from only one corner, not any border? Heavy reliance on keystrokes with low discoverability?

Apple makes a nice bit of kit, but please, can we stop with pretending they've got it perfect?

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#75

Post by Zak » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 2:58 AM UTC

phamilton wrote: post #61

Zak wrote: post #26

Ubuntu used to be Debian that just worked. Now it's trying to be something more, but it seems to have lost the "just works" part. When I tried 11.10, I had problems with several of the desktop environments crashing or being very visibly broken. I had poor graphics performance. I had no suspend/resume. All of these things worked on the same computer a year ago. I think Ubuntu may be trying to move too fast. Moving fas…

My biggest problem with Ubuntu is that it seems like you can treat it like Debian, but you can't. I don't know how many times I've updated files in /etc and had them rewritten by the Ubuntu specific GUIs without me knowing it. I almost want Ubuntu to either abandon the traditional Debian subsystem or have a "Power User" configuration where you can tell it to use /etc files over the GUI config.

I think Mint Debian Edition may be what you want. It's providing me with what I used to get from Ubuntu.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#76

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 3:03 AM UTC

Surely the author should just pick a different distro? Why is this Canonical's problem? Isn't this sorta the whole point of Linux? If you don't like something there is seemingly infinite choice so you can always have what you want.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#77

Post by PerryCox » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 3:04 AM UTC

hasenj wrote: post #53

nkassis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about something as simple as changing you screensaver? My few years working as a sysadmin in a maintenance department at a University (read low tech knowledge) tells me people who care if they couldn't change something as simple as that yet you can't do that in Ubuntu 11.10. Changing fonts is another thing that's pretty annoying in this release but not as big a miss as the screen saver to most people. I hit thos…

From what I understand, they do plan to put more configuration options eventually, but they're focusing right now on getting the defaults right. P.S. I don't understand why the screen saver is important (or why it even exists, for that matter).

I couldn't agree more. Lots of people are panicking about Unity because it's not as configurable as Gnome use to be, but they forget that we're in a transition period. Unity is brand spanking new, and I'm sure it'll have more configuration options in the future.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#78

Post by freshhawk » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 3:07 AM UTC

I agree wholeheartedly with his take on this halfassed push towards poorly designed minimalism masquerading as user friendliness but I disagree that ubuntu should be some kind of developers distribution, that's never what Ubuntu was supposed to be. It's entire purpose is to be a novice distribution.

Power users should not be using it, it's not built for them.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#79

Post by ashishgandhi » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 3:10 AM UTC

gujk wrote: post #58

ashishgandhi wrote: post #50

> Given the growing lockdown of Apple’s systems I see that kind of stuff said from time to time. But I don't quite understand. How is it growing? And people talk about it (App Store) as if it's terribly evil of Apple but it's okay when it gets done on say a Xbox.

XBox is no one's primary PC, and is only used for diversions, not work and hobbies. Entertainment is more fungible than livelihood and passion.

If you talk of "primary PCs" (OS X) it's as open as proprietary gets - more than say Windows - such as the kernel is open source.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#80

Post by analyk » Sun, Oct 30, 2011, 3:11 AM UTC

nsomaru wrote: post #37

jsz0 wrote: post #6

What percentage of users are developers? 5 percent? Lower? It's unwise to cater the entire OS to the needs of such a small minority especially when they are the best suited to change the environment to meet their needs. Complaining about needing to download Xcode is a perfect example of why it is wrong. If it's bundled into the OS you're wasting 4GB of space on tens of millions of machines to save the 5% a 4GB downlo…

I think the point was that it should not be a 4GB download to get a C-compiler. Your point makes sense if you accept a 4GB download just for a compiler. There are many Linux distro's that come with a C-compiler which are less than 4GB in total size.

I think your view of the 4GB download is going to depend on your Internet speed. At 1 MB/s or so, I've found it annoying to wait an hour for a download, but it's hardly the end of the world for an occasional thing. Could definitely be improved.