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Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

lunduke.com

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Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#71

Post by SkyMarshal »

I just upgraded 11.10 to 12.04 final beta yesterday, and so far I can confirm what he says about performance and stability - 11.10 was ok, but 12.04 is noticeably better.

Two problems 12.04 solved:

1. On 11.10 I was getting frequent kernel panics when watching flash in a browser (Youtube in Chrome, Chromium, Firefox), and when watching video in Movie Player. That's all gone.

2. In 11.10, Ubuntu Software Center was sluggish as hell, so much so that I never used it. It's much faster now, just a smidge away from being downright snappy, and hence useable finally.

I like how the upgrade (via sudo do-release-upgrade -d) resulted in what seems to be a really clean installation, and that I didn't have to do a fresh install to get that (still scarred from my Windows days).

I hear battery life is improved as well but haven't tested that yet. Hope that's true.

This is on an hp dm1-4050us, Intel i3-2367, HD3000, 8GB RAM, 5400rpm hdd.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#72

Post by tbatterii »

adamtaylor wrote: post #64

The current obsession with tablets is maddening. Tablets are great for many things, but I still spend much of my life sitting at a workstation: a computer with a keyboard, a mouse, and (lucky me) a big-ass monitor. So, for me, it's just sad that everyone is now rushing to optimize their OSes for tablets, often at the expense of usabilty in a workstation-like configuration.

my thoughts exactly. Lucky for linux/ubuntu users, there's lots of choices for your desktop environment.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#73

Post by tumblen »

knewter wrote: post #58

Multi-monitor support in 12.04/gnome3 is unbelievably good. There are tons of horror stories, that I've lived and that I've read, regarding multi-monitor breaking jut when it's most needed (presentation at conferences, etc). This has happened to me in the past. Now, my system keeps track of my preferences per-configuration, so plugging in the monitor that I mirror display on automatically does mirroring, and plugging…

This is great news, thanks for mentioning it!

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#74

Post by SkyMarshal »

cobychapple wrote: post #22
stock_toaster wrote: post #2

> The short version: Ubuntu 12.04 is the best release they’ve ever had and > absolutely blows the upcoming releases of Windows and MacOS X out of the > water in just about every way that matters. The second half of that statement may be a touch hyperbolic.

When I read this article, I was open to hearing how this could be the case, but then I read: "Working with Ubuntu 12.04 is quite simple and elegant… until you want to sit down and see what applications are available on your system." Which sounds like it really doesn't blow anything out of the water. Then I also read: "click the “Ubuntu” button in the top left, then click the little white icon on the bottom center tha…

He's not the best writer. The point he meant to get across is that that's a nitpick, not a huge problem, but he spends several paragraphs explaining the problem and only a few sentences explaining that it's just a minor nitpick and overall the experience is good. Totally out of proportion, leading readers to weight the bad more than he intended.

Key phrases:

> In short: It’s fast. Stable. And generally a pleasure to use.

> In fact, this is my only big gripe with the Unity interface. And it’s not a big one. I’m nit-picking here.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#75

Post by SkyMarshal »

cobychapple wrote: post #24

The author says that doing something simple: "takes several clicks on parts of the screen that are nowhere near each other and are not immediately obvious the first time you see them". ... and that this process requires the user to: "click the “Ubuntu” button in the top left, then click the little white icon on the bottom center that is, I assume, representative of “a comb, a pencil and a building with pacman on it”.…

> In fact, this is my only big gripe with the Unity interface. And it’s not a big one. I’m nit-picking here.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875361

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#76

Post by ditoa »

cturner wrote: post #41
demetris wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says more about the quality of the review than about the relative merits of the 3 systems. These things are simple: If Ubuntu were so much better, or just plain better, than other operating systems, more people would use it. Firefox is, and has been for a long time, much better than IE, and so people use it. OpenOffice/LibreOffice is not better than Microsoft Office, and so people don’t prefer it over Microsoft Of…

Firefox is an interesting example, because on little things it behaves differently in windows to linux. For example - double click the address bar in Windows - highlights a token. Do it in linux, highlights the whole link.

Yeah Fx is annoying with its inconsistent defaults between platforms. The one you mention is because browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll is set to true on Windows but False on Linux. Why I have no idea!

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#77

Post by SkyMarshal »

Karunamon wrote: post #43
dfc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No self respecting debian user encourages the use of non-free video drivers.

No self respecting user cares - they want want does the job in the most effective manner. Anything else is pointless, stallmanesque self flagellation.

Agree and disagree. It's not pointless, it's principled, and Stallman has this way of being right in the long term, so we ignore him at our peril.

However, for Linux to be a 100% replacement for Windows or OS X, we have to use to non-free software for some things. You could always choose not to do those things, as Stallman does, and sometimes I'm tempted given how little real utility movies and whatnot have in my life, but for Linux and all the free software it brings to make headway with the general public, non-free software is a necessary evil.

It's a tradeoff, both sides have pros and cons, gotta know them, and make an informed choice.

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#78

Post by SkyMarshal »

sharms wrote: post #33
swah wrote: post #21

My yearly "lets see if Ubuntu is good enough now" a few days ago: installed the beta, froze when I connected the external monitor. Then the same happened with 11. And with Xubuntu. And I went back to Windows 7.

Let me offset that with a different view: I have bought 4[1] different laptops over the past month, running Ubuntu 12.04 on them. One of my key tests was plugging in my external HDMI monitor, in which it worked for all of them. In all seriousness, if this is happening to you send me a private message and we can look over your specs and dig into what could be causing it. [1] HP Envy 15 3033, Acer S3, Asus TimelineX, M…

How is Ubuntu on Macbook Pro? I'll be in the market for a new laptop soon, and MBP is a consideration, but I'd like to dual boot Ubuntu (using Basecamp?). Seems there was some issue with BIOS and bootstrapping, is that solved now?

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#79

Post by SkyMarshal »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #47

What's with Ubuntu's versioning? 8.04, 8.04.4, 10.04, 10.04.4, 11.04, 11.10, 12.04? I don't understand it. Anyone knows? http://releases.ubuntu.com/

Also, the x.04 versions are LTS releases, every two years. 10.04 and 12.04 are both LTS.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

Re: Ubuntu 12.04 Review: This is the Distro you’re looking for.

#80

Post by SkyMarshal »

waterhouse wrote: post #8
pan69 wrote: post #4

I've tried the beta of 12.04 the past few weeks. Unity is still a pile of ----. Gnome Shell (3) isn't much better and fall back mode (Gnome Classic) is riddled with bugs that basically makes it unusable as a desktop to work on. The Linux desktop has finally officially failed.

As an effort to make this conversation productive for all involved: could you name a couple of these bugs in Gnome Classic?

Don't feed the trolls, just downvote and move on. If it was his intent to make the conversation productive, he would have. It's not hard.
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