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Thank you, Ubuntu

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Re: Thank you, Ubuntu

#111

Post by lmz »

rwl wrote: post #45
MisterWebz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, i might have unnecessarily blamed Ubuntu, but it's still a problem that needs to be fixed. And as long as that problem exists, i won't recommend Ubuntu to the average computer user.

Why? The "average computer user" is precisely the kind of person who is likely to have commodity hardware that is supported by Ubuntu. Would you not recommend it because you can't guarantee that Ubuntu will work with all her hardware? If that's the problem, then what would you recommend? Can you guarantee that some other OS supports every piece of hardware she owns? Or are you holding Ubuntu to a higher standard? If…

Hardware can be expected to work on Windows. If they don't, it's the hardware manufacturer's fault. There might be nothing you can do about it, but it's their fault. They manufacturers are expected to support Windows. If hardware doesn't work on Ubuntu, it's your fault for installing an unsupported system.

Re: Thank you, Ubuntu

#112

Post by vog »

Gormo wrote: post #83
IgorPartola wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose instead? So far package management solves these problems for me: 1. Upgrading the entire OS at once. 2. Easy updates. 3. Almost never having any issues with incompatible software. When issues arise I can easily roll things back or wait until they are fixed. 4. Never having to hunt for software on the web. 5. Ability to script server/workstation deploys. 6. Never having to spend more than 5 minutes…

I'm only speaking to the dependency-resolution function that makes package management necessary on certain OSes. Public application repositories sharing a standard interface still have some nice features. But if the applications are all statically-linked, I don't have to worry about dependency conflicts, and some things are a lot simpler, e.g. copying the binaries off to a flash drive to take them to another system,…

Under Windows and OSX, statically-linked or self-contained packages are indeed the only way to stay sane when deploying an application.

However, this comes at a price: You'll always have to provide a newer version of the application whenever a serious issue is fixed in one of your dependency libraries. This means extra work for you. Also, you'll have to take care of an auto-upgrade mechanism.

On systems with a package manager, you'll only have to provide updates if you fix an issue in the application itself. You also don't have to write an auto-upgrade mechanism. Just upload a new package to your server.

However, if you don't care that much about users' security, statically linking is indeed a lot less work than using a package manager.

(FWIW, I'm the maintainer of Mingw-cross-env (http://mingw-cross-env.nongnu.org/). This is a project that provides a cross-build toolchain for statically linked Windows applications. It builds a cross compiler and lots of free software libraries. We have that kind of discussion from time to time on our mailing list.)

Re: Thank you, Ubuntu

#113

Post by retube »

demallien wrote: post #25
IgorPartola wrote: post #17

I keep try to evangelize the fact that things like apt are one of the biggest wins for the various UNIX-like OS's. In Windows world installing software takes both finding it and configuring the installer. On a Mac you have to at least find it. On Ubuntu/Debian/etc you just have to know the name (or you can search a central database). Also no more Java/Flash player/Acrobat Reader "needs to be updated" messages. You up…

yeah, until the repository maintainers mess up, create two packages that are in conflict, and yet both installed on your system, and now every attempt to update your software fails because you have out-of-date dependencies that can't be updated due to the conflict. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit bitter about my fedora install at the moment :) That said, I think you overestimate the delta between OSX and the va…

fedora- are you talking about rpm? Yes, this is a nightmare- package conflicts are common-place, and generally a real b*tch to fix. RPM was the main reason I ditched Fedora and switched to Ubuntu. In 3 years I don't think I've ever had an install failure or conflict or any problem with apt-get. It's always worked flawlessly.

Re: Thank you, Ubuntu

#115

Post by alinajaf »

barnaby wrote: post #92
endlessvoid94 wrote: post #86

I love ubuntu as much as the next guy. I run all my servers with ubuntu. But to say that Mac OS X is not as usable as ubuntu is blatantly wrong.

I too used to think like you do. But I've been using Ubuntu at work, and now when I go on a Mac I actually miss the usability features of Ubuntu. Just a tiny example: hitting alt and clicking anywhere on a window to move it instead of going to that top bar. Or the multiple different ways to switch between apps. etc. etc. There's probably 100 small things that I now can't live without. So I would say the statement "Ma…

I would agree with this. At my new job I was forced to use a Mac for my first couple of weeks and it was like being put in a straight-jacket. A lot of the gui can be manipulated from the keyboard in gnome, and this is what I missed the most. If Mac had alternatives I'd be happy to use them, but they weren't immediately obvious after a google or two.

Conversely if you're a 'mouse person' then this may not be an issue for you.

Re: Thank you, Ubuntu

#116

Post by rbanffy »

orky7 wrote: post #97
patio11 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 95% of components work on Ubuntu, and your computer life involves 25 components (start counting, you'll hit it pretty quickly), Ubuntu is totally broken for about 75% or so of users. If Mom's camera or wireless doesn't work, she does not perceive the computer as being mostly functional.

all those components come with drivers provider by the vendor of that component for windows(mostly) machine only. Linux doing a great job catching on all those components but the thing is linux is mostly behind. if Vendors helps linux community a little we should be going hand in hand.

Every vendor publishes their own buggy version of drivers for what is essentially the same hardware, all neatly packaged with some buggy "value added" crapware that introduces new and unpredictable behaviour mom has to deal with.

No. I really prefer the Linux way.

Re: Thank you, Ubuntu

#117

Post by wyclif »

IgorPartola wrote: post #79
swies wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://ninite.com is getting close to apt-get for Windows. We're working on a Mac version too. Things are better on Linux, but not all rosy. Installing Dropbox, for example, is a surprisingly crappy experience (windows popping up, separate proprietary daemon download, etc). That, and way more user requests than you'd imagine, is why we have http://ninite.com/linux now too.

Certainly looks promising. For some reason it reminds me of Portable Apps. As for Dropbox, yes, I recently went through installing it. Terrible experience on Ubuntu. I think the reason is mostly that it is using a proprietary daemon. A FUSE driver seems like a much better idea, and if they released it under an open license, it would be as easy as apt-get install dropbox.

I've had nothing but a completely smooth experience with Dropbox on Ubuntu. YMMV?

Re: Thank you, Ubuntu

#118

Post by wyclif »

nivertech wrote: post #30

Ubuntu is excellent, except: 1. Firefox and Chrome are very slow and freezing, when opening many tabs. 2. Flash plugin is crashing constantly 3. OpenOffice is very slow and freezing. Can't render properly MS Office documents.

I recommend the nightly chromium dev build if you can do it.

Re: Thank you, Ubuntu

#120

Post by astine »

Gormo wrote: post #84
koenigdavidmj wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then some central library has a security hole and half your system has to get updated, instead of just one thing. Also, you might like http://sta.li/ ;)

True enough, if the security hole is in a library that half of the software on my system is using. But most applications have fairly frequent update cycles for their own codebase anyway, and it's just as likely that an update to a central dynamically-linked library might introduce a new security hole that instantly compromises half of my system at once. Thanks for the link to sta.li, I'll check it out. What I'd reall…

"What I'd really like to see is a Linux distro that managed applications the way OSX does - every program is contained in its own directory."

That exists, it's called Gobo Linux. I've never touched it, but you can give it a try:

http://www.gobolinux.org/

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