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Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

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Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#141

Post by pyre »

pqs wrote: post #138
pyre wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is editing the registry or hunting down drivers for a new version of Windows better? When was the last time that installing a new Windows involved registry hacks. I'll admit that I haven't used Windows 7 or Vista, but I don't remember hacking the registry on Win95/98/ME/2k/XP installs. Maybe you shouldn't get so bent out of shape so quickly. It's not like he was bashing Linux and promoting Windows/OSX. If someone g…

Would this be better with another distribution?

Not necessarily, but someone griping about needing to wait for Service Pack 1 of a Windows release before having a stable platform wouldn't have gotten the same response.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#142

Post by ivenkys »

chancho wrote: post #127
ivenkys wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true. Ubuntu's avowed mission is to bring Linux to the Masses. For the masses, a computer still "looks" like Windows. Ubuntu being a Funded initiative unlike Arch(my choice), Gentoo, Crunchbang et all needs to fund the development of typography on Linux. Yes, its possible to download msttcorefonts (with some creativity you could also get the Consolas set of fonts) and get Cleartype or Os X type smoothing - but as…

I think you overestimate how closely "the masses" pay attention to fonts. (Unless you're talking about "the masses" of programmers and designers, which actually is still a healthy chunk of Ubuntu's potential market at this point.) Yeah ok the hinting isn't so great and Bitstream Vera Sans is a little too wide but it's not THAT bad.

I should have been clearer - most programmers i know are happy to try out the various font customization techniques and some of them accept it even - by "masses" i meant the large number of people who have used a computer(primarily Windows) before and are willing to give Ubuntu a try, but they do not want or know how-to fiddle with font customizations. This group of people is the natural customer for Ubuntu and i believe the vast majority of them go back to their previous O.S simply because the default fonts for them are not Windows-like. My point is Ubuntu would better serve its "natural customer" by focussing on making the O.S look good for this group of people i.e. look Windows-like by default, rather than other newer features.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#143

Post by daleharvey »

f00 wrote: post #112
daleharvey wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am honestly having a hard time believing someone with decent eyesite can say ubuntu(3) is fuzzy while osx(1) is not, ubuntu obviously chooses sharpness over balance (H and E), however osx has virtually every lowercase character heavily aliased, its blurry to the point where its almost 2 shades lighter than its supposed to be and there are individual characters A, u, B, a where it is almost a joke

I absolutely admit that OS X has a somewhat fuzzy appearance, particularly at small point sizes. This gets exaggerated with the MS Core/Web fonts, which were designed for the screen (stems that line up with pixel boundaries, etc), and have hinting that is specifically designed to be compatible with MS ClearType. Ubuntu has similar (but not exactly the same) levels of fuzziness, but the rendering is inaccurate. Charac…

its kerning not tracking, and its only off in a few minor places (for the same reason the midline is off in H E), in those paragraphs I can find around the same mistakes from both the renders around the kerning (both make pretty identical errors)

I use osx every day, I am very used to it, I just prefer ubuntus rendering by quite a long way

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#144

Post by viraptor »

ivenkys wrote: post #142
chancho wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overestimate how closely "the masses" pay attention to fonts. (Unless you're talking about "the masses" of programmers and designers, which actually is still a healthy chunk of Ubuntu's potential market at this point.) Yeah ok the hinting isn't so great and Bitstream Vera Sans is a little too wide but it's not THAT bad.

I should have been clearer - most programmers i know are happy to try out the various font customization techniques and some of them accept it even - by "masses" i meant the large number of people who have used a computer(primarily Windows) before and are willing to give Ubuntu a try, but they do not want or know how-to fiddle with font customizations. This group of people is the natural customer for Ubuntu and i bel…

The masses still use Comic Sans for presentations. They don't really know or care what that serif/sans business is all about and they definitely don't care about the default font. As bad as it is, that's what I see all around.

But I'm not sure what is the problem with font customisation you're referring to. There's a dialog with 4 basic choices (from "blurry" to "crisp, subpixel) and another dialog for fine tuning where you see examples for every single option. How can it be simpler?

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#145

Post by martey »

spamizbad wrote: post #90
ivenkys wrote: post #82

Its all well and good for Ubuntu to push further ahead but they would do a real big favor to the push of Linux on the Desktop if they could solve 1 major issue , remove the ugliness in the default rendering of the Fonts. Yes, i know it can be done via a bazillion font config options and yes its very powerful and flexible, but lets get it right by default.

Basically, here's what's going on: 1) There aren't many free typefaces for daily use that are beautiful, so you have to buy (or commission) several and "open source" them. 2) Techniques for AA font rendering that maximize aesthetics and readability are protected by numerous software patents. Years ago there was a short-lived patch in Xorg that had a modern font-AA algorithm that held its own against the competition,…

A lot of information surrounding #2 is discussed at http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#146

Post by avdi »

jsz0 wrote: post #93
rufugee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long has it been since you looked at Ubuntu's fonts? I use both OS X and Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is at least equal to OS X these days IMO.

I dunno... http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu139/jsz0/fonttest.png

I'm using Ubuntu and my fonts look nothing like that. And no, I don't use the Microsoft fonts. Something's messed up on that machine.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#147

Post by mwexler »

windsurfer wrote: post #33
mwexler wrote: post #20

Just whiny, but why does Ubuntu (or most distros) not give any idea of minimum/average disk required for install in their system requirements area? I know, I can customize the install so as to reduce or increase space requirements, but even a suggestion that "a straight default install requires around 2gb of space for programs, and 1gb for swap" would be helpful.

From http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/desktop/features : System requirements Ubuntu is available for PC, 64-Bit and Mac architectures. The Alternate installation CDs require at least 256 MB of RAM (the standard installation CD requires 384MB of RAM). Install requires at least 3 GB of disk space.

Hmm... I guess I never thought of Sys Req as "features". I would expect it in the release notes (not present) or on the download page (not present). Placing at the bottom of the "features" page is obfuscating, in my opinion, if it is placed nowhere else.

But good of you to find it; I would never have thought to look at the Features page. Again, whiny of me.

And even Canonical forgets it's there; now that you pointed it out, some searching reveals a similar page, http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/desktopedition, which says it requires 4 GB of space.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#148

Post by mwexler »

mseebach wrote: post #26
mikeyur wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you're probably trying to install it on something obscenely old" Or something new, like an SSD on which you're attempting to dual/triple boot.

Yeah, well, good point. My point was that a userfriendly distribution shouldn't present technical information that isn't absolutely vital. And it's really easy to find, by the way: http://www.google.com/search?q=ubuntu+requirements

Hmmm... I guess I thought a userfriendly distro should be friendly to the user by providing me info I didn't know I needed to ask up front, and hiding things that are merely technically interesting or edge case. Disk space is probably the former. Asking me to "just google it" is probably not the response Ubuntu/Canonical or any other product would want.

BTW, since it crashed on install instead of catching that my partitions weren't large enough, that's a fail. But by merely providing the info on the DL page, they might have saved themselves some credibility loss as a "user friendly" distro.

But I do appreciate that you didn't throw a lmgtfy.com link in, which would have been really embarrassing for me.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#149

Post by mwexler »

robotron wrote: post #35
natrius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disk space requirements aren't obscure technical information. Providing it wouldn't confuse anyone, especially not anyone adept enough to install an operating system. It should be provided.

It's right there on the features page. That takes fewer clicks than finding the requirements for Windows 7.

And I ask: is that the right place for System Requirements? And should that be the ONLY place it's mentioned? Is requiring space really a "feature"?

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#150

Post by telemachos »

bokchoi wrote: post #128
telemachos wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is editing the registry or hunting down drivers for a new version of Windows better? Or how about waking up to Snow Leopard having deleted your $HOME folder? Operating systems have their issues - it's inevitable...

> Is editing the registry or hunting down drivers for a new version of Windows better? I can't remember the last time I edited the registry or had to install a driver manually. Don't get me wrong, I run Ubuntu and I like it. The upgrade process on the whole is much better than a even a few years ago. I just loathe upgrading since it can take weeks to iron out problems with the upgrade. Invariably there are issues wit…

Here's the funny thing: I actually dislike Ubuntu (I run Debian at home and use OSX at work), and I loathe Windows. But of course, none of that matters (saying "I run Ubuntu and I like it" is a bit like saying "some of my best friends are ").

The point isn't whether you or the other respondent has recently edited the registry or hunted down a driver. The point was that all operating systems have their troubles.

The standard gripe about Linux distros is hardware related. Well, um, duh: if the hardware is closed source, there are going to be problems getting things to work just right. Hardware manufacturers cater to Windows (for obvious reasons) and Apple controls what hardware their os runs on. Ubuntu, Gentoo, Debian et al. are not in a position to do this. So, yeah, there are probably always going to be those kinds of troubles with Linux.

That said, you can't beat the price, the ability to get at the source code (if that matters to you) or the package manager (for Debian-based distros, at least).

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