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Ten years of Ubuntu

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Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#111

Post by wazoox »

peatmoss wrote: post #76
wazoox wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Dell XPS 13 developer edition that came preinstalled with Ubuntu. It's almost as good as a Mac; it's light, it has good battery life, a nice 1920x1080 screen. Things lacking compared to MacBook air: no Thunderbolt (though does the Air have it?), the trackpad isn't made of glass and doesn't feel as good as a Macbook one, but it's reasonably close (and buttonless). All in all, it's an acceptable Mac alternativ…

> (though does the Air have it?) Yeah. I've got the MBA 11" with it. How good is good battery? My MBA is the first device where I'll take it out for a full day's work without thinking of bringing my power adaptor.

Unity sucks battery like there's no tomorrow; with Unity I'd say 5 to 8 hours, but with windowmaker and light low, I'd 7 to 9 hours is doable.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#112

Post by mattfrommars »

_nedR wrote: post #109

As an Ubuntu user since 10.04, what I would really like to see is Ubuntu matching or beating Windows/OS X with regards to battery life. When I first installed 10.04, my ubuntu setup actually beat Windows Vista in battery life and stability. Then 10.10 came out with serious power regressions (related to kernel regressions, Unity, etc.) - which I still blame from killing my battery. Since then, Windows 7 and 8 have got…

Have you tried TLP out?

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#113

Post by slgeorge »

Dewie wrote: post #24
adamors wrote: post #15

"Linux for human beings" sounds like an oxymoron to me, after 5+ years of tinkering with Linux on the desktop. After years of Ubuntu (and Arch, Debian, Mint etc.) I'm not ashamed to say I'm really happy on OS X. Less customisation and more time to focus on actual work/leisure.

Ubuntu is really user-friendly... until you are having any kind of non-trivial problem, which can happen to anyone if they are unlucky with their drivers, the sound doesn't work, etc.. Then you are relegated to copying command line gobbledygook from askubuntu into the terminal, being able to understand nothing about what it does. At least with those tedious "click on X, then on Y when that pops up"... you're able to…

I would estimate (from a relatively well-informed position) that about half the serious issues that users face are due to hardware interactions. You'll remember that a few years ago the famous example was WIFI chip-sets.

The reality for the distributions is that if there is good support from the component manufacturer and the OEM then you can provide a good user-experience. We put massive effort into enablement with manufacturers such as Dell, HP and Lenovo [1].

As a user the best thing you can do is to buy hardware with components that will work. In the old days that used to mean looking at hardware component and comparing them to whether they worked with Linux. Now we have certification sites.

The second sort of problem is the general end-user issues. I actually think that Ubuntu is beyond the point where you need to open the command line for normal end-user activities. The big weakness there is that there's no equivalent of the 'Genius Bar' for Linux users.

[1] http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#114

Post by slgeorge »

testing3212 wrote: post #110
hiou wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this at the top? It's obvious flame bait. Yeah, we get it. You are really worried about yourself and your time. Yeah, we get it that you want to make a generalization that "All the other distributions" don't have 100% support. Which is obviously not true by any respect. I'm typing on one right now that both Debian and Arch work without issue. "I don't care about starting weekend projects that become week long…

> It's been almost 10 years since I've had that experience with Linux. This is over 4 desktops and 3 laptops. Can we please bury this meme? Maybe with desktops, but even just last year, trying to get wi-fi setup on my beagle bone or raspberry pi were hell. Multiple programs to do the same thing, and none of them work quite the same. So running scripts from the command line with the usual commands wouldn't work, so th…

Sure! So how did you go with running Windows or Mac OSX or Android on that Beagle Bone or Raspberry Pi?

Linux is the _only_ OS in existence that can run across the variety of hardware it hits. Whether it's from phones through to Supercomputers. Funnily enough when you get to different bits of the hardware spectrum you have to have different skills and capabilities - running on custom ARM hardware doesn't count as standard.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#115

Post by hiou »

testing3212 wrote: post #110
hiou wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this at the top? It's obvious flame bait. Yeah, we get it. You are really worried about yourself and your time. Yeah, we get it that you want to make a generalization that "All the other distributions" don't have 100% support. Which is obviously not true by any respect. I'm typing on one right now that both Debian and Arch work without issue. "I don't care about starting weekend projects that become week long…

> It's been almost 10 years since I've had that experience with Linux. This is over 4 desktops and 3 laptops. Can we please bury this meme? Maybe with desktops, but even just last year, trying to get wi-fi setup on my beagle bone or raspberry pi were hell. Multiple programs to do the same thing, and none of them work quite the same. So running scripts from the command line with the usual commands wouldn't work, so th…

"trying to get wi-fi setup on my beagle bone or raspberry pi were hell"

Can I ask which wifi card/chipset you chose? Was it one that you researched and found out was 100% Linux compatible? Assuming you did do that and didn't find something that was barely hacked to together to have partial support did you actually find editing /etc/network/interfaces with the text below difficult?

auto wlan0

iface wlan0 inet dhcp

    wpa-ssid GUESS_WHAT_GOES_HERE

    wpa-psk PSK_MEANS_PASSWORD
I'm going to assume you chose a wifi solution that was not 100% linux compatible. One that had a weird firmware blob or something else. My point is that I watched someone spend a week trying to get a wifi card working on Linux. He called me up for help so I looked up his Laptop and wifi card. I went on Ebay and spent $7(with shipping) for a card that was 100% compatible, swapped it out and it just worked.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#116

Post by Dewie »

slgeorge wrote: post #113
Dewie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu is really user-friendly... until you are having any kind of non-trivial problem, which can happen to anyone if they are unlucky with their drivers, the sound doesn't work, etc.. Then you are relegated to copying command line gobbledygook from askubuntu into the terminal, being able to understand nothing about what it does. At least with those tedious "click on X, then on Y when that pops up"... you're able to…

I would estimate (from a relatively well-informed position) that about half the serious issues that users face are due to hardware interactions. You'll remember that a few years ago the famous example was WIFI chip-sets. The reality for the distributions is that if there is good support from the component manufacturer and the OEM then you can provide a good user-experience. We put massive effort into enablement with…

I guess I was lucky in that installing Ubuntu on my Acer mostly just worked. I had some problems, which were not easy to figure out as a Linux rookie, but some help from forums and installation of some proprietary drivers were enough to give as good of an experience for casual use as I was having on Windows.

Since I installed Ubuntu initially out of necessity, I never really had the time to consider whether my hardware would be supported or not.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#117

Post by thearn4 »

testing3212 wrote: post #110
hiou wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this at the top? It's obvious flame bait. Yeah, we get it. You are really worried about yourself and your time. Yeah, we get it that you want to make a generalization that "All the other distributions" don't have 100% support. Which is obviously not true by any respect. I'm typing on one right now that both Debian and Arch work without issue. "I don't care about starting weekend projects that become week long…

> It's been almost 10 years since I've had that experience with Linux. This is over 4 desktops and 3 laptops. Can we please bury this meme? Maybe with desktops, but even just last year, trying to get wi-fi setup on my beagle bone or raspberry pi were hell. Multiple programs to do the same thing, and none of them work quite the same. So running scripts from the command line with the usual commands wouldn't work, so th…

Yeah, I have to agree with this. I used GNU/Linux on my laptop exclusively when I was in grad school, and every "sudo apt-get update && upgrade" felt like taking a turn in Russian roulette. The generic device drivers were almost always a nightmare. Power management was abysmal. And this was on a Lenovo machine that is generally considered to be pretty Linux friendly.

While I never did have a problem that wasn't eventually solvable, I finally came to accept that I really don't like playing sysadmin, and would much rather know that I can pick up my machine, perform library updates, and actually go work on something at a moments notice.

At least on a laptop. On a desktop machine, I'm willing to be much more patient.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#118

Post by hiou »

thearn4 wrote: post #117
testing3212 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's been almost 10 years since I've had that experience with Linux. This is over 4 desktops and 3 laptops. Can we please bury this meme? Maybe with desktops, but even just last year, trying to get wi-fi setup on my beagle bone or raspberry pi were hell. Multiple programs to do the same thing, and none of them work quite the same. So running scripts from the command line with the usual commands wouldn't work, so th…

Yeah, I have to agree with this. I used GNU/Linux on my laptop exclusively when I was in grad school, and every "sudo apt-get update && upgrade" felt like taking a turn in Russian roulette. The generic device drivers were almost always a nightmare. Power management was abysmal. And this was on a Lenovo machine that is generally considered to be pretty Linux friendly. While I never did have a problem that wasn't event…

Just for my own curiosity, did you intentionally chose a Laptop that you knew was 100% compatible to begin with?

Edit to the downvoter who can't use their words: The above comment said "Lenovo machine that is generally considered to be pretty Linux friendly". Seems like a relevant question as to whether that meant 100% compatible via Lenovo's declaration or online research and an educated guess. It was a sincere question as Lenovo does provide specific information about Linux compatibility.

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/pd031426

Mind explaining to me what I did wrong there?

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#119

Post by Eiriksmal »

thearn4 wrote: post #117
testing3212 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's been almost 10 years since I've had that experience with Linux. This is over 4 desktops and 3 laptops. Can we please bury this meme? Maybe with desktops, but even just last year, trying to get wi-fi setup on my beagle bone or raspberry pi were hell. Multiple programs to do the same thing, and none of them work quite the same. So running scripts from the command line with the usual commands wouldn't work, so th…

Yeah, I have to agree with this. I used GNU/Linux on my laptop exclusively when I was in grad school, and every "sudo apt-get update && upgrade" felt like taking a turn in Russian roulette. The generic device drivers were almost always a nightmare. Power management was abysmal. And this was on a Lenovo machine that is generally considered to be pretty Linux friendly. While I never did have a problem that wasn't event…

@Sibling comment: The Linux Laptop resource websites can't keep pace with the short lifecycles of the typical laptop. It's either pay $400 for this outdated laptop I know will work out-of-the-box with *nix, or spend $300 on a machine that's 1.2x faster with unknown compatibility.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#120

Post by t0mislav »

rkuykendall-com wrote: post #67
SunShiranui wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elementary does look like OSX, but I wouldn't judge them negatively for that. I've been using the distro for a while and I'm quite happy with it.

As a mac user that gets nervous when Apple announces new OS X versions, I'm glad there are linux users out there keeping the principles that make OS X great alive. If OS X ever goes too iOS / iCloud for me to bare, I hope Elementary is waiting for me with the same attention to detail, stability, and ease of use that god me hooked on OS X.

Same thing here.
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