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Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

wiki.ubuntu.com

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Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#311

Post by sixbrx »

mattkevan wrote: post #308
jlgreco wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have missed the point. Show me the Android equivalent of Debian. Show me an Android project, with all of the unskilled users that come with it, that is anywhere near as organized as the Debian Project. Show me that legions of unskilled users have allowed this Android project to achieve hardware compatibility at all comparable to what Debian achieves on the desktop. Such a project does not exist . I assert that it…

Why do we want the layman to be using Linux? To give Valve more Linux customers or something? Idiot users are toxic; anything that touches them rots. Wow. The level of arrogance and elitism on display here is breathtaking. This is why Linux on the desktop is irrelevant. Not the fact that it's incompatible with most mainstream software, not the fact that it's low profile or the fact that most Linux desktops look and f…

> Making things shinier and more accessible does not equal dumbing things down.

Except in practice, it almost always seems to. Which is why I don't and can't do any significant development, or work of nearly any kind for that matter, on Android, or an iPad.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#312

Post by reidrac »

mnazim wrote: post #306
reidrac wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Launchpad supports Bazaar only. That's one of the "top ten reasons" to switch to Bazaar according to the docs [1]. That said, I don't really think Canonical is "forcing" anyone besides playing the "defaults" card in the distribution they control, and even then you can simply not use the stuff is installed by default (although I think that making the desktop dependent of some applications that I may not want to use is…

Launchpad, like Github, is offering a service and that too free. It is not a valid argument. It would be like asking Github why don't they support other VCS. > making the desktop dependent of some applications that I may not want to use Examples please.

I don't know if it is a valid argument or not, but according to Bazaar docs it's one of Bazaar's strong points.

AFAIK the official Lanuchpad FAQ says Bazaar is the best VCS for the project:

https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad/+faq/37

And apparently they can (or want to) support only one. Fair enough.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#313

Post by McP »

Jach wrote: post #309
mnazim wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Launchpad, like Github, is offering a service and that too free. It is not a valid argument. It would be like asking Github why don't they support other VCS. > making the desktop dependent of some applications that I may not want to use Examples please.

But github does support other VCS!

Really? Link please

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#314

Post by phaemon »

vor_ wrote: post #285
HerraBRE wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Placating the tech crowd by giving away fragments of low level code is really just marketing and a way to retain talent that would otherwise refuse to work for them. It's not as if their users can actually use any of that stuff to change how their macs work (without switching to a different OS or browser).

You'd be complaining if they contributing nothing. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

He said they weren't doing enough. You're pointing out he'd also complain if they did even less.

Seriously?

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#315

Post by mindcrime »

acabal wrote: post #33

Maybe this is a good idea, I don't know about X/Wayland enough to say. But it worries me that Ubuntu is increasingly striking out on its own. What I like about the GNU/Linux ecosystem is that a lot of distros share a lot of common underpinnings, and everyone benefits from a large community fixing bugs and improving those underpinnings. It's also less knowledge to have to keep in your head for system administration st…

I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing or not. I mean, sure, it's handy to be able to switch distros seamlessly, but has that ever really been possible (aside from going from, say, Ubuntu to Debian, or Fedora to CentOS)? Going from Fedora to Ubuntu or vice versa, for example, has never really been a completely seamless experience.

It's always been the case that, in the strictest sense, "Linux" is a kernel, not an Operating System, and each distro is really it's own OS. That they had a lot in common was a fortunate bit of happenstance in a lot of ways. Now, they start to diverge, that may mean more competition, which should lead to faster innovation and even more progress. And as long as everything is F/OSS, the distros that pick a bit of tech that "loses" can always switch to the "winner" later.

I'm not saying that it would be totally pain free, mind you. But I can see how this sort of move might benefit everyone in the long run.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#316

Post by mindcrime »

riotingpscifis wrote: post #301
vor_ wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which will probably have a net harmful effect on the free software culture. Mind explaining how funding the development of free software hurts free software?

1) Replace GPL code with BSD code 2) Release a subset of the features to open source community Why would Apple be so allergic to GPL unless they want the ability to close stuff? If really you think Apple would stay open if they dominated the market look at the iPhone.

This is only "hurting free software" if you are a complete radical like rms, who believes that any closed source software is an affront to humanity, blah, blah. Otherwise, it doesn't matter what Apple closes, as everything that was Free before, is still Free afterwards. If you don't like Apple's stuff, fork it. If you don't like closed source software, don't use it. I don't see anybody putting a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to use Apple stuff.

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#318

Post by mindcrime »

csense wrote: post #99
scotu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unity fiasco": any data on the net decrease of ubuntu users caused by unity?

I personally dropped Ubuntu for Linux Mint. I've heard a lot of people say they hate Unity. It's not hard data, but it's anecdotal evidence that there's a substantial set of people that really hate it.

I despise Unity. I'm only using it right this minute because our company standard desktop at the $DAYJOB is Ubuntu.

Personally I find the state of desktop Linux to be fairly close to abysmal at the moment. I'm not sure we're any better off now than we were with Gnome circa 2000 or so.

I had, and still have, high hopes for KDE once Qt went LGPL, and I do run KDE on my personal laptop. It's not bad, but there are some major pieces of software that don't have Qt native versions. sigh

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#319

Post by tedks »

mercurial wrote: post #304
tedks wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what you dislike about bazaar and Unity? Or how Canonical is able to "force" a vcs on its userbase? I've used Unity since it was released, never had any issues, and generally think it's the best GNU/Linux window shell around. Bazaar is also ridiculously simple, and I've started using it as a front-end to every other vcs. The support for git is a little rough, but I can do in one command what git…

I don't know if this constitutes a "power user" usage pattern, but watching a colleague try to work with Unity with dual monitors was hugely amusing. I'm curious to know what you can do in one command in bazaar that you need 4 in git to do.

Here's my power user setup for dual monitors with Unity:

1. Plug in dual monitor to HDMI port. 2. Use Unity.

What did your colleague have trouble with?

(Four might have been slight hyperbole, but git is a usability nightmare. I forget what exact task I can do in one command that it takes 3-4 to do in git, there's probably some set of absurd arguments to do it in fewer, but I don't know them and am not willing to spend hours reading tutorials to discover what magic buttons I have to press to get git to do what I want.)

Re: Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

#320

Post by mindcrime »

achiang wrote: post #220
jlgreco wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has desktop Linux been a failure? By what measure, adoption of people who are not in it's niche market? Would it stop being a "failure" if we got a bunch of laymen using it? Compare community desktop linux distros with community distros of something more oriented towards the masses... say.. Android. The Debian Project is a well oiled machine, coherent and consistent. Everything has a well defined process. Technically…

You keep putting up strawmen. Show me the desktop Linux equivalent of Android, not Cyanogenmod. It doesn't exist - and you can measure that failure with any number of metrics. If Ubuntu can achieve that type of success and protect the freedom of users with the GPL (instead of the permissive BSD model for hardware makers) then we will have accomplished something in the world.

Show me the desktop Linux equivalent of Android, not Cyanogenmod. It doesn't exist - and you can measure that failure with any number of metrics.

Sounds like what you're really saying is "you can come up with any metrics you want, then define that as failure to justify my position". There's really no objective basis for saying "desktop Linux is a failure", especially when there's no objective standard by which we could say "desktop Linux is a success" either.

Like somebody else just said "market share? Who cares?" Market share is a means to an end, not it's own end. Desktop Linux works reasonably well for a certain population of people with a certain set of values. Does anybody expect that desktop Linux should gain Microsoft Windows like ubiquity?

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