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Ten years of Ubuntu

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Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#71

Post by tormeh »

peatmoss wrote: post #65
tormeh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we need is for Canonical to release their own laptops where they support the entire hardware+software combo. Canonical Nexus, please? Any other company with their own Linux distro and hardware would also work, I guess. I really like Unity, though.

The Nexus model chooses a manufacturer and then works with them to create the current year's creation. I'm not sure Canonical has enough resource or leverage to do that. That said, I'd love to see an Apple-esque model where I could point to 3 laptops each year and say "large, medium, and small" and know that they would work completely with zero fussing. Maybe Canonical could start down this road by refitting their de…

Well, a big benefit of Canonical selling it's own hardware is that they could use the price of the hardware to pay for OS work.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#72

Post by cfontes »

cyphax wrote: post #3

I was an Ubuntu user for a few years. I remember when they'd ship the CD's out for free. One of those things that made Ubuntu great. It was also really good at presenting a very usable Gnome 2.x desktop that was ready to use from the first boot, and I was a very happy user for a while, until they started shipping software a little bit too soon (PulseAudio for example; suddenly Ubuntu didn't have sound out-of-the-box…

Exaclty same thing happened to me. I saw Unity, tried to put gnome back. I got fustrated. I formatted and installed my later distro.

Happy ever after.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#73

Post by sandaru1 »

One of the main reasons Ubuntu got popular (compared to other distros) on Sri Lanka because they shipped free CDs. Lots of people in Sri Lanka didn't have Cable or DSL internet connections by that time. It was limited to a smaller area of the country - even when people had it, it was 512kbps.

No one was going to bother download a huge distro DVD to try out a new OS. However, when you get a CD, you tend to try it out. The smooth installation process certainly helped a lot.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#74

Post by cuu508 »

agumonkey wrote: post #44
eloisant wrote: post #37

What I really loved in Ubuntu is that they were the first distribution that really considered itself an OS, not "a way to install Linux" and make choices about what it should include. All the other distributions started by asking whether you wanted KDE or Gnome, Abiword or OpenOffice, and ended up installing a bunch of software you may or may not want "just in case". Ubuntu made choices, if you didn't like it you cou…

It's strange. I have a hard time remembering why I liked Ubuntu right away. Maybe a blend of good enough looking, works out of the box mindset, which made a community grow rapidly and kicking a nice network effect where you would quickly find solution on their board/wikis. I was impressed later when they managed to bring new Window Management ideas without too much time or pain.

Warty Warthog happened to match my ideal environment out-of-the-box. With Fedora, Suse I'd have to to install my preferred apps, configure Gnome the way I like, with Warty it was all already there. Also it had modern kernel with lots of stuff in it. For me specifically it was SATA support and PPTP encryption stuff.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#75

Post by peatmoss »

m_mueller wrote: post #33
broodbucket wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't entirely their fault. There are quite a few Macbook components that are closed source and don't even function correctly in Windows.

I think he means any laptop, period, not just Ubuntu running on a Macbook. Once you're used to having a POSIX OS that's pretty much perfectly integrated on a device with 16GB+, HiDPI display and extremely good touchpad, it's just hard to settle for Ubuntu on a Dell/HP/Lenovo IMO. So far i couldn't find anything that matches Retina display quality (including software support, which is just as important as the hardware…

Given how ubiquitous Apple laptop hardware is, and how few models there are, I've never quite understood why Canonical hasn't invested more into a goal of ensuring perfect operation on Apple hardware. Maybe they have, and there are simply limits to what they can achieve.

I sure do wish there were a not-obviously-inferior alternative to the OSX/Apple stack that ran Linux.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#76

Post by peatmoss »

wazoox wrote: post #70
latch wrote: post #11

There's gotta be a lot of OSX users like me who'd switch in a heartbeat given better laptop options. I know they're getting better, but it still isn't that close.

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.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#77

Post by deepakprakash »

cyphax wrote: post #3

I was an Ubuntu user for a few years. I remember when they'd ship the CD's out for free. One of those things that made Ubuntu great. It was also really good at presenting a very usable Gnome 2.x desktop that was ready to use from the first boot, and I was a very happy user for a while, until they started shipping software a little bit too soon (PulseAudio for example; suddenly Ubuntu didn't have sound out-of-the-box…

Yup, the free CDs is what I remember as the first thing about Ubuntu - and the fact that it worked out of the box.

There is a fun story as well: We were in college (in India) at the time and my friend went ahead and ordered 100 CD's or so (they actually encouraged it at the time for distribution). The package arrived at the local Post Office after a few weeks and he was asked to go collect it, which seemed strange. Anyways, he went and to his wonder was told to pay import duty on it by the customs! He argued for a while saying it was educational material and that it was being shipped for free - to no avail. He finally gave up and asked them to keep it for themselves and walked out.

In the end, they chased after him before he left the premises and gave it to him - no import duty, nothing.

I got my CD from this set. :)

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#78

Post by latch »

wazoox wrote: post #70
latch wrote: post #11

There's gotta be a lot of OSX users like me who'd switch in a heartbeat given better laptop options. I know they're getting better, but it still isn't that close.

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…

The Sputnik? Only available in limited countries -- not mine (at the time I was looking, or now) which is an absolute deal breaker. There also wasn't a 16GB option (also not for the air, but there is for the 13" rMBP) and the real-world battery life is 2-3 hours worse than the air or rMBP.

I'm not saying it's a bad laptop, but I am saying it isn't as good. And the select country thing is a joke.

Re: Ten years of Ubuntu

#80

Post by jonalmeida »

pjmlp wrote: post #41

Ubuntu LTS is the only GNU/Linux distribution that keeps me on Linux on one of my laptops (an Asus netbook). All the other distributions fail short of 100% laptop support out of the box. As I am no longer on my 20's with lots of time to spare, either it works out of the box, or it doesn't. I don't care about starting weekend projects that become week long projects just to get something working. Or just trying out dis…

I'm in my 20s and I feel the same way. It was fun initially to play around with different distributions, but I liked my work and I wanted to get things done without having to spend unnaturally long amounts of time setting things up.

In my case, I frequently update to x.04 releases or x.10 if they are more stable for updated packages that I rely on.

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