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Ubuntu 17.04 review

arstechnica.com

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Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#81

Post by microtonal »

lotsoflumens wrote: post #68
oblio wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nothing new: Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers. Or if you want to see a funny image, click this link: https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html If you're easily offended, google instead for "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers".

I think we see that in all software projects. It is usually more fun and maybe even easier to redesign than to fix. I prefer to think of it as "aggressive refactoring" - which is not necessarily bad. I think the process of software maintenance (in the context of KDE development) could be much improved if their reporting process had less friction and collected more relevant information so that the turnaround would be…

It is usually more fun and maybe even easier to redesign than to fix.

I think that there are interesting exceptions. For instance, the *BSDs are sometimes maddeningly conservative. But if you have last used FreeBSD 5.0 or OpenBSD 3.0, you are up and running on the latest versions in no time.

I hadn't looked at FreeBSD for years. Tried the latest version 6 months ago or so and configuration was pretty much the same as 10-15 years ago. There are new cool features (ZFS, bhyve), but it is all logical UNIX.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#83

Post by peatmoss »

apatters wrote: post #37

As someone who uses Ubuntu on both desktop and server here are my concerns about Ubuntu and Canonical at this stage. I think Ubuntu is awesome and has done huge things for Linux, particularly on the desktop. A) Canonical's R&D investment is shifting from desktop components to server components. On the one hand I'm sure the server version will get even better which is great. But it's hard to imagine how this could tra…

For giggles, I put Fedora on a Macbook Pro. Wayland + Gnome works surprisingly well, and I can see the appeal for some users. But I'm right there with you on XMonad.

I'm not wed to XMonad or any of the extensions, really (for example mostly vanilla dwm, which XMonad was based on, works fine). But I am wed to the keyboard shortcuts and basic functionality of XMonad + dmenu. I'd probably be very happy if there were an XMonad style tiling option in Wayland Gnome.

But, I can't help but feel a little weird about some of the free *nixen moving away from X11. I don't see Wayland running on OpenBSD any time soon, for example. I worry that this will be yet another thing that leaves the old world of diverse, but standards-adhering Unixes behind. I'm genuinely not even sure whether that's a bad thing, though my gut reaction is that a Linux monoculture isn't what I'd want.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#84

Post by microtonal »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #77
microtonal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, Red Hat's revenue is steadily growing[1] and there are very few RHEL desktop users. Fedora is probably also less popular than Ubuntu and its derivatives. [1] https://investors.redhat.com/financial-information/financial...

I'd be very surprised if Ubuntu's revenue wasn't increasing at a much higher rate than Red Hat's.

Interesting question. Some data points that I could find.

Canonical: 2009: ~30M, 2013: 65.7M, 2016: 103.3M

Red Hat: 2013: ~1.4B, 2015: ~1.8B, 2016: ~2.1B, 2017: 2.4B

Consequently: Canonical 2013-2016: ~1.57x, Red Hat 2013-2016: 1.71x.

So, their revenue seems to be increasing at a slower rate and Red Hat's revenue is almost twentyfold that of Canonical. Moreover, Red Hat is operating on a quite large profit, while Canonical is on a loss.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#85

Post by Shorel »

educar wrote: post #54
qznc wrote: post #46

Canonical/Ubuntu has practically stopped innovating for the desktop. There are a few ideas which need a big player, but nobody steps up. 1. Copy update-in-the-background from Chrome OS/Android. If you want to actually improve it, try to provide an undo button (which will never work 100% though). Either use two partitions or disk snapshots for the background system. Do the wake-up-at-night-for-update trick of Android.…

Linux users will not pay for appstore. There is no money to be made here. Just another timesink. You need to first attract significant non-developer users to Ubuntu (which is tied to making better laptops).

Yep, there was already a pay store with Ubuntu One. Bought some games there.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#86

Post by StavrosK »

holtalanm wrote: post #11
reacweb wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

already using ubuntu gnome since 2013 because I did not like unity. I am so glad this is becoming the main flavour of ubuntu. If I have well understood, any new installation of ubuntu should use ubuntu gnome in order to be future proof. Or am I missing something ?

or you could use almost any other flavor of ubuntu, since it is highly doubtful they will be going anywhere any time soon. I personally prefer Lubuntu, or LXDE installed over Unity.

Are there any problems if you install LXDE/XFCE on a normal Ubuntu installation?

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#87

Post by Shorel »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #47
apatters wrote: post #37

As someone who uses Ubuntu on both desktop and server here are my concerns about Ubuntu and Canonical at this stage. I think Ubuntu is awesome and has done huge things for Linux, particularly on the desktop. A) Canonical's R&D investment is shifting from desktop components to server components. On the one hand I'm sure the server version will get even better which is great. But it's hard to imagine how this could tra…

I believe that the reason that Ubuntu is winning the server market is because it won the desktop market. Ubuntu is on most production servers because devs are more familiar with Ubuntu than alternatives since they use Ubuntu on their desktop. That's certainly the reason why I use Ubuntu or Debian on all the production servers I've spun up. I'm sure Ubuntu is well aware of this issue, and of course they're also dog-fo…

At work I have to use CentOS. And CentOS 6 at that. The amount of old packages is painful.

Ubuntu servers can be upgraded in place, CentOS means reinstall every time. Also, there's a PPA for everything in Ubuntu.

Therefore for my laptop and for all personal projects, I use Ubuntu. CentOS only brings me painful memories.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#89

Post by lotsoflumens »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #64
holtalanm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used KDE until they released that godawful Plasma desktop. Don't get me wrong, it looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL, but it crashes constantly, and it is a crapshoot on whether or not it will actually even BOOT within a virtual machine.

I use KDE Neon as my daily driver and I did not have a single crash in the last 4-5 months. I _love_ Plasma 5.9!

That's interesting.

I think I want the complete opposite though - I want the latest Ubuntu core with a stable desktop.

Re: Ubuntu 17.04 review

#90

Post by wtbob »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #55
microtonal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going back to why Canonical dropped it, I'm pretty sure that's because they are giving up on the Linux desktop in general. Indeed, Canonical had the same realization as Red Hat ~2000-2003: there is no money in the Linux desktop, there is a lot of money in enterprise services and support. Since Canonical has to make a profit, it is smart of them to drop unprofitable projects such as the phone.

And now Ubuntu has passed Red Hat in the # of servers metric because devs like me choose their Linux server OS based on familiarity with the Ubuntu desktop OS.

You're right, but I'd just like to plug Debian for servers — it's a really well-made distro, put together for sysadmins by sysadmins in large part.

And it's pretty wonderful on the desktop too!

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