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Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

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Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#161
post #25
post #10

I can live with this (or uninstall it) but will they fix my audio? It had been fine after about 8.04, but has been broken by every update that included Unity by default.

%> sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio %> sudo reboot You're welcome.

You got a down-vote from me.

pulseaudio works fine for the majority of users.

pulseaudio actually brings some nice features to the linux desktop

pulseaudio bashing was cool a couple years ago, you're late to the party

And - quite frankly - the GP didn't state his problems at all, so you were just trolling (-> 'Remove this software package that really is just an elaborate hoax to destroy sound. The internet says so!')

And .. 'you're welcome' is really low..

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#162

What Canonical/Ubuntu should do is some text like this: "When you use Ubuntu we receive affiliate revenue based on your usage. How would you would like the money distributed?" Then have some sliders like the Humble Bundle to proportion it to the program authors, GNU/fdo etc, EFF and Canonical. Everybody wins that way - folks who don't like Canonical can set their share to zero percent. And just by using the system yo…

Why would Canonical do that? This is one of the streams that help pay designers and developers. When I bought my phone I did not complain about not giving the money to EFF or GNU. When I bought my car I did not wish for a slider about donating some to Audi OR Costco OR give it to the gov. It's just, well, not something a bussiness would do.

Because Canonical has repeatedly screwed this up. Remember when they "took money away" from some music player. Now this. Canonical is basically at odds with the providers of software for its platform (eg browsers, music players).

So either they can be an adversary, or they can work with them. It is a far better story that Google kickbacks for the Firefox usage on Ubuntu go to more than just Canonical.

You didn't buy a phone or a car (both of which are hardware and have large per unit BOM and manufacturing costs) from a company that is community oriented and where the vast majority of the components were provided for free by others in the spirit of openness, freedom and community.

Now Canonical can (and has the legal right to) take every cent and modify everything so they are the only ones to gain. And in a short term oriented business sense that is the right thing to do. But it doesn't help in the long term. Canonical depends heavily on its users and its suppliers.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#163

I don't think Ubuntu has really thought this through. Besides the privacy problems, making your software into adware is incredibly destructive to its image. Ubuntu can no longer be used by any self-respecting or privacy-conscious company or individual. Imagine the CTO of IBM - "So, this Ubuntu is adware? And it sends all our searches to Amazon? Are you kidding me? Get out of my office and get me a list of real OSes,…

This is pure hyperbole. It would take one of IBM's Linux IT people half an hour to modify the Ubuntu disc image to remove the offending package.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#164
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what point you're talking about. The one and only point you made was that dpkg force removes packages at runtime and it doesn't do that. What other point is there?

It's right there in my comment: > the point of apt-get being better than dpkg for this still stands.

What I don't understand is why apt-get is better than dpkg. You haven't explained that.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#165

I don't think Ubuntu has really thought this through. Besides the privacy problems, making your software into adware is incredibly destructive to its image. Ubuntu can no longer be used by any self-respecting or privacy-conscious company or individual. Imagine the CTO of IBM - "So, this Ubuntu is adware? And it sends all our searches to Amazon? Are you kidding me? Get out of my office and get me a list of real OSes,…

This is pure hyperbole. It would take one of IBM's Linux IT people half an hour to modify the Ubuntu disc image to remove the offending package.

Time that nobody wants to or should need to spend, and time that isn't necessary with other distros.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#166

I don't think Ubuntu has really thought this through. Besides the privacy problems, making your software into adware is incredibly destructive to its image. Ubuntu can no longer be used by any self-respecting or privacy-conscious company or individual. Imagine the CTO of IBM - "So, this Ubuntu is adware? And it sends all our searches to Amazon? Are you kidding me? Get out of my office and get me a list of real OSes,…

Yep, one of my favourite things about the Linux desktop has always been it's relative lack of adware/spyware/whatever.

Thing is , I imagine most of Ubuntu's current users are savvy enough to just remove this and get on with their lives therefor grossly reducing the affiliate revenue they would get.

I actually wouldn't necessarily be against some amazon integration into the OS, for example having a 'shopping' lens might be convenient, especially if it let me manage my cart and track shipping etc all from inside my OS.

I don't even understand how this is especially useful to amazon anyway. I usually use the home lens to search for programs, what use is knowing that I typed in 'sublime text' to amazon?

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#167
post #129
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, Lubuntu or just go Openbox.

When I used LXDE, it had a long way to go before it could be considered equivalent to Xfce, and I ended up switching back. The ultra-lightweight window managers may be in fashion, but Xfce is mature and polished and easy enough for my mother to use, and I can't say that about Lubuntu. The typical Ubuntu user probably won't miss much on Xubuntu. When they find that mrxvt doesn't let them use Ctrl-C/V to copy and paste…

I had a similar experience. Xfce could handle my differently-sized dual-monitor setup easily. LXDE failed such that it thought to put some things off-screen where I could never reach them.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#168
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your unsubstantiated claim still stands...

I don't understand why you're making such a big fuss about this rather inconsequental point. All I'm saying is that you should generally use apt-get and not the lower level tool dpkg. I used an incorrect justification for that (removing doesn't lead to an inconsistent state), but you still should preferrably use apt-get. Let's get back to debating more interesting stuff now.

That's just wrong.

When removing packages it just doesn't matter. When installing, it also doesn't really matter. dpkg can't fetch packages from the repositories, but it will mark them and a following apt-get install -f will fetch them flawlessly.

A few years ago you had to be careful when mixing apt-get and aptitude, and thus probably also when mixing aptitude with dpkg, as far as i know that is not the case anymore. Even a following autoremove should work.

You haven't mentioned one single valid cause why it should be wrong to use dpkg, and I'm pretty confident that you won't, because afaik it isn't. And i'm pretty sure.

(Just jumping in because dfc mentioning he really wants to know. Just think about apt-get as a frontend for dpkg which calls dpkg to install and remove .debs, but also fetches them from the internet and notices when they are no longer needed because they were installed as a dependency for a now removed package.)

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#169
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what point you're talking about. The one and only point you made was that dpkg force removes packages at runtime and it doesn't do that. What other point is there?

It's right there in my comment: > the point of apt-get being better than dpkg for this still stands.

That's you saying there is a point. That's not you telling us what the point is.

Re: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed

#170

Honestly, if Ubuntu dropped their ridiculous, underdeveloped, undersupported Ubuntu One services and partnered with Amazon to integrate theirs (Cloud Player/Cloud Drive/etc), that would be a MAJOR improvement for both them and the end-user. Excellent cross-platform cloud services and marketplaces integrated with the OS would be great for bringing less-technical users to the platform in the wake of the proposed "Windo…

It would be a major improvement... For users in the United States. For everybody else, it would be completely useless.
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