Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#121

Post by rbanffy » Sun, Aug 28, 2011, 1:19 AM UTC

drtse4 wrote: post #21

No,it's not. The article seems to suggest that ubuntu is an OS that the non-geek joe can install and use without experiencing any issues, it just works. Well, just wait until he decide to upgrade to the next ubuntu release or try to install some restricted driver. Good luck to these newbies if they don't have a friend who knows linux. I've just upgraded from 10.10 to 11.04 yesterday and only after 5-6 hours i've foun…

> The article seems to suggest that ubuntu is an OS that the non-geek joe can install and use without experiencing any issues, it just works.

While my mother (a 76 year-old lady) asked me to install her computer, she has been using her trusty IBM desktop always running the latest Ubuntu since 2006 or so. Never had an issue. She can read her e-mail, share files with friends. The only ability she lost was to infect her machine with the most horrid forms of malware. I don't think she misses it and I, certainly, don't.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#122

Post by rbanffy » Sun, Aug 28, 2011, 1:21 AM UTC

If you develop software that runs on anything that's neither an Apple or a Windows machine, Ubuntu has been ready for prime time since 2006 or so. It all depends on what you use your computer for.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#123

Post by fingerprinter » Sun, Aug 28, 2011, 1:46 AM UTC

acabal wrote: post #73

CrazedGeek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doing a dist-upgrade, which is exactly like going from XP to Win7. Stay on LTS if it bothers you that much.

That's precisely my point. In the Linux world, your distro version is inextricably linked to the versions of every major and minor software package in a way that just doesn't happen in Windows. If I stuck with Lucid, I'd still be using Firefox 3.6. (Yes you could add a PPA, but opening the terminal is beyond the technical skill of the average user.) Linux won't succeed on the desktop until the phrases "Upgrade Firefo…

Ubuntu has a security policy to upgrade supported versions to the latest supported browser version. So, in Lucid, if 3.6 is still supported by Mozilla, that is the version still on maintained (you know, for consistency...thing thing most people here are railing against).

However, as soon as mozilla drops support for 3.6, the latest supported version is installed. This happened for Lucid, as I understand it.

This is a sane policy, IMO.

If, however, you are on Lucid and want to run a different version of Firefox, it is rather trivial. You can find it in Ubuntu Software Center after adding a repo and install it. This is NOT what most non-technical people want to do, however, and that is why the policy makes sense IMO.

And, I agree, FF auto-upgrading itself to 6 is nice on OSX and XP, but that is a Mozilla thing, not Linux. Mozilla makes that difficult to do and the various linux distros need to deal with it.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#124

Post by alextp » Sun, Aug 28, 2011, 3:24 AM UTC

jerhewet wrote: post #11

alextp wrote: post #2

Which is a pity when you think about how crappy and unfinished the unity UI in ubuntu 11.04 is. In years this is the first time I've stopped using a standard ubuntu (now I'm using Gnome 3, which is almost as bad).

Unity is the incarnation of everything I hated (and worked hard to disable) in Windows 7. I rebooted and selected Ubuntu Classic as the default, and haven't looked back.

At an internship at MSR I recently used windows 7 for real, and after I got through the first week the general experience was maybe more pleasant than ubuntu with unity. Even things that annoyed me at first (grouping windows by program in the task bar, for example) grew slowly.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#125

Post by actf » Sun, Aug 28, 2011, 4:58 AM UTC

dorian-graph wrote: post #4

What an awful article. Nothing here was 'new' but rather the same things that have been said in near every other 'Year of desktop Linux!' articles. Replace the post date with any year going back to ~ 2006 and it wouldn't be out of place at all. Also, any writer that is suggesting primetime usage of a Linux distribution and then suggests to use WINE or a VM solution is out of his mind. It's amusing how the writer refe…

He mentions he's fed up with the financial cost and the need to activate Windows, and cites these as reasons to use linux. He then later suggests running Windows in a VM to deal with "dodgy programs". At least I'm not the only one that finds the irony here hilarious.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#126

Post by svnk » Sun, Aug 28, 2011, 1:09 PM UTC

ineedtosleep wrote: post #87

ori_b wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had it just work on a Fujitsu tablet, several Thinkpads, and a couple of HP laptops. And any desktop I've cared to try so far.

Pretty much what I was thinking. I've messed with Linux HP, Lenovo Thinkpads and Ideapads, and most other major manufactured laptops. From Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Slackware, Mint and plain Debian, I've never had major issues with hardware. IIRC, the last time I had a hardware/driver issue that pissed me off to no end was back before Fedora even existed.

I have an HP dm1z, and I still haven't gotten the wireless drivers to work (RALink)

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#127

Post by berntb » Sun, Aug 28, 2011, 2:34 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #54

illume wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell have good support. They have some deal with canonical, so it seems most of their laptops work great. Also, ASUS ones run quite well. ASUS even ship linux on their netbooks. My girl friends netbook runs for ages on it. So much that it has never run out of battery on us. Sent from my Ubuntu Dell.

Any particular Dell models? I've heard bad things about Asus and compatibility with touch pads, etc. Not true? (I had Thinkpads before, but am considering a change in the next month.)

I thought a bit and then got the idea to use a web tool called "Google"...

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification

I found a couple of laptops which are locally available and suitable.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#128

Post by mvts » Mon, Aug 29, 2011, 10:06 PM UTC

cosgroveb wrote: post #79

mvts wrote: post #28

Ubuntu is great, I have it up and running on my laptop since about 2 years. But I have WinXP, too. Just because I need Fireworks (I absolutely can't get along with PS or Gimp) and Wine is okay, but it makes the applications so slow... That is really the only damned reason, I still have to switch between Win and Linux on my Laptop. If Adobe's products would run flawlessly on Linux, I'd never touch Windows again.

Have you tried renice'ing the Fireworks process while it's running on Wine? I got Counter-Strike playable at about 30fps that way on a fairly weak machine (Core 2 Duo w/ 2GB RAM). Not bad, really.

It's also about several features which aren't quite working under Linux. But I'll try that.

Re: Why Ubuntu Linux is now ready for primetime

#129

Post by mvts » Mon, Aug 29, 2011, 10:11 PM UTC

nzonbi wrote: post #41

mvts wrote: post #28

Ubuntu is great, I have it up and running on my laptop since about 2 years. But I have WinXP, too. Just because I need Fireworks (I absolutely can't get along with PS or Gimp) and Wine is okay, but it makes the applications so slow... That is really the only damned reason, I still have to switch between Win and Linux on my Laptop. If Adobe's products would run flawlessly on Linux, I'd never touch Windows again.

I used to be like that, until I tried Inkscape in Ubuntu. Past the learning curve, and you will never need Fireworks again.

Hm yeah I recently discovered Xara Xtreme, what seems to be quite similar to Fireworks from my point of view. I once tried Inkscape but it literally grossed me out just like photoshop did. Maybe eventually I'll give it another try.