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Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

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Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#81

Post by tung »

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 totally agree. Unity in particular feels like alpha quality software. I like the idea of a sleek, modern, composited desktop, but Unity isn't there yet.

Releasing early and often is good. Pushing that software on people who didn't choose it is not. I feel like there should have been a "Try Unity" button at the Ubuntu installer so people like me could just wait until it's ready.

Maybe I'll be happy with Unity in two years. But in that time I'll have to suffer stuttering, lag and the whims of armchair UI theorists who think Alt-Tab should jump workspaces by default.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#82

Post by veyron »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #79
gujk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is that true of osx lion? How do you recompile and load the kernel?

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#83

Post by cpeterso »

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…

Besides Unity, what does Ubuntu currently offer that Debian's testing or unstable releases don't? I'm also surprised that people are using Ubuntu on servers.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#84

Post by hack_edu »

cpeterso wrote: post #83
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…

Besides Unity, what does Ubuntu currently offer that Debian's testing or unstable releases don't? I'm also surprised that people are using Ubuntu on servers.

It's perfect for a tiny dev server or toy machine. I was surprised, and tend to use Ubuntu on my non-critical servers.

Debian testing/unstable works just great; I keep meaning to move toward it instead. Though I really do feel that Ubuntu packages come better configured and ready to go. None of this has bit me in the ass yet.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#86

Post by statictype »

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…

Unless you have some religious zeal to use OSS software there is no good reason to even consider Ubuntu over Windows or OSX.

Problem with making sweeping statements like this is that you now make it difficult to continue any sort of rational discussion.

(and so, I downvoted you for that last line even though you had some good points to make)

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#87

Post by mikeash »

trimbo wrote: post #13

A generation of hackers may have started with BASIC on Apple IIs, but getting a C compiler on a modern Mac is a 4GB XCode download The size of Xcode annoys me too, since I never use it. So I've been using this GCC install on my Mac: https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer Couple hundred megabytes. It's still a lot larger than Orca/C was on my Apple IIgs (1 or 2 3.5" floppies?), but then again, compilers com…

Off topic, but you must be the first person I've ever encountered who also used ORCA/C.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#88

Post by cookiecaper »

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…

The problem is that Ubuntu is not focusing on the fundamentals and they're not putting enough money into testing.

I know well and good that Ubuntu was conceived because Shuttleworth felt that Linux was ready for the big time and that Red Hat etc had too much penchant to devote resources into low-level bickering that ultimately had relatively little effect on your average end user instead of focusing on improving user experience, but now that Ubuntu has moved the user experience so far forward, they should reconsider that mission. The places where Linux is most lacking is low-level compatibility for things like fast 3D acceleration and power management.

Canonical should use some of its funds (aka "Mark Shuttleworth's money") to buy the 100 best selling laptop models each year, set rigorous testing standards, spend six months developing a new release and then take however long is necessary to make sure that everything passes on the last three years' best selling laptops. In this process, they should not be shy about contribution to X, kernel, etc., and should distribute patched versions of these if necessary to get compatibility.

That, combined with Ubuntu's user experience work, is what will really make Linux a completely viable desktop computing platform. Far too often things break between releases and/or upgrades.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#89

Post by lsc »

eh, personally, I also hate unity. I am a linux SysAdmin, so if I want to go muck around in the internals or install and configure my own window manager, sure, I can. But that's not why I use ubuntu on the desktop. I use ubuntu on the desktop because it just works. If I want to tinker with Linux, I can do it on a server and get paid for it. With older versions of ubuntu? heck, getting drivers is usually easier than with windows. Most things? plug and go, no downloading a driver from a third party website or anything. You plug it in and it just works. (Some things require more work. Those things get taken back to Fry's. Again, desktops are low-value. I'm not going to spend too much time messing with them.)

The problem is that unity is, well, it's garbage. If I wanted a mac, I'd buy a mac. I liked the old gnome defaults; they were pretty good. Right now? I'm on ubuntu 11.10, and I'm considering another distro.

Unity is simply unusable; It's annoying for all the reasons that the mac interface is annoying, only the whole thing is done, well, worse. Just finding a program is a huge pain in the ass. So I'm running gnome-legacy, which is okay, but still pretty annoying compared to older ubuntu versions.

So yeah; I'm pretty irritated. Not irritated enough to buy a mac, mind you, but likely irritated enough to spend some time looking at other distros, if I'm going to have to spend effort on my X setup, I'm going with a distro that is supported for more than three years.

Re: Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

#90

Post by gnok »

veyron wrote: post #82
ashishgandhi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is that true of osx lion? How do you recompile and load the kernel?

It is, to an extent.

For OS X 10.7.2, you can grab the source at http://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1699.24.8/.

The "README" at http://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1699.24.8/README has instructions on building and installing the kernel. Admittedly, while I have never actually done this, I've seen lots of instructions floating around for doing this "correctly".

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