Ubuntu News Discussion thread

[amdfangirl]

I've notcied that most of the news about Linux is about Ubuntu.

The Ubuntu Software Center, which was originally known as the Ubuntu Software Store has been expanding a lot since its introduction back in Ubuntu 9.10. Beyond just replacing Synaptic as the default package management GUI in Ubuntu, the Software Center for Canonical's operating system has been extended over succeeding Ubuntu releases to offer support for reviews, purchasing paid Linux applications, and other enhancements as it tries to become more user-friendly and follow the ways of Apple's App Store and other competing platforms. The latest move is to offer support from the Ubuntu Software Center to purchase electronic books and magazines.

Canonical has already been selling music via Ubuntu One (do you actually know anyone though who uses this though as opposed to Amazon's MP3 service, etc?), but now the latest effort is about pushing paid books and magazines through Ubuntu's software portal. The initial books and magazines are coming from Canonical partnering with Pearson Technology Group and Linux New Media.

It doesn't sound like these books/magazines will be protected by any sort of DRM, but rather is just downloading an Adobe PDF version of the content when purchasing. "The Ubuntu Software Center brings together free and commercial applications, tools and games available for users. Through a simple interface users can find, select, review, buy and install software quickly and easily. With these partnerships, Ubuntu users will be able to purchase high-quality electronic productions of magazines and eBooks. Once purchased, users can download them as highly visual PDFs to their Ubuntu computers or e-readers."

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTAwNTU

Personally I think this is going too far. Just where does volunteer community driven OS end and commercial opportunity start?

Don't paid-applications defeat the ideals of Linux to a certain point...

At least it's DRM free...

 

[Pyroflea]

I'm disappointed with the decisions made by Canonical over the last few releases. Oh well, I've stopped using Ubuntu, so it's no longer an issue.

 

[amdfangirl]

Canonical and Dell are teaming up to sell computers with Ubuntu preinstalled at stores in China. The program, which could help improve the mainstream visibility of the Linux-based operating system, will span 220 retail locations.

According to a statement that Canonical posted this morning on its official blog, the products will be set up with marketing materials that tout the virtues of the Ubuntu platform. Retail staff will also be trained to explain the products to consumers.

Dell initially began offering products with Ubuntu preinstalled to general consumers in 2007 after seeing significant demand on its IdeaStorm site. As we pointed out at the time, the IdeaStorm upvotes were coming from advocates of the platform rather than consumers who genuinely wanted to buy Dell computers with Linux preinstalled. We argued that it would be more sensible for Dell to simply indicate which hardware configurations are Linux-compatible rather than providing preinstallation.

There have been a few incidents where consumers who were confused by the Ubuntu option ended up with a product that they didn’t want or understand—sometimes with bizarre results. Dell no longer appears to offer Ubuntu on regular consumer models from its US website. Visiting dell.com/ubuntu shows an error message: “no configurations are valid for the chosen filters.”

Canonical has also previously experimented with retail placement of installation media. Boxed copies of Ubuntu were sold at Best Buy in 2008 for $19.99. It’s not clear if that effort had a meaningful impact on Ubuntu adoption, but it seems unlikely.

China is generally thought to be more friendly to Linux on the desktop. Various government agencies in the country have adopted the open source operating system as part of an effort to eliminate piracy in government IT. Many of the government deployments in China reportedly use the native Red Flag Linux, however, rather than a foreign flavor of the operating system.

http://arst.ch/re4

Btw, the Chinese sign reads

"Free to share operating system"

You gotta love me for that

 

[bmouring]

yeah, I've long ago installed Ubuntu for the last time on my own hardware, they've lost their way (which I really only used on my laptop since I wanted a bit of flash and relateability that mactards and windows lusers can relate to/envy)

 

[audiovoodoo]

So is the general consensus Fedora for new installs? I've been thinking Ubuntu had lost its way a little even as an outsider looking in.

I thought I was getting a clean XP Pro copy with a PC I got given yesterday but it's clearly a dodgy copy so unless I manage to dig out my old personal copy I'm going to need to install some form of Linux on it before I give it to my brother. Items such as Flash support are a bit of a must have, Fedora or Mint are seeming like the best options.

 

[Pyroflea]

I'm trying out a few other distro's right now. Trying out Fedora (again), Arch (again), still liking Debian but it still has it's problems. Gonna try some more exotic distro's too I think.

 

[amdfangirl]

So is the general consensus Fedora for new installs? I've been thinking Ubuntu had lost its way a little even as an outsider looking in.

I thought I was getting a clean XP Pro copy with a PC I got given yesterday but it's clearly a dodgy copy so unless I manage to dig out my old personal copy I'm going to need to install some form of Linux on it before I give it to my brother. Items such as Flash support are a bit of a must have, Fedora or Mint are seeming like the best options.

I would say Linux Mint.

Best distro to learn Linux.

Really awesome GUI installations. Plus Ubuntu compatibility makes lots of software avalible for it.

Or Fuduntu if you want the Fedora and the ease of use.

 

[bmouring]

My go-tos when suggesting to others these days are:
Mint: New to Linux, want a distro they don't have to think about too much
Arch, Fedora: Have been around the block, suggestion depends on what they use the computer for
Debian: Servers or solid desktop setups
Gentoo: Those who want to learn the nuts and bolts, masochists

 

[amdfangirl]

According to an early report from ZDNet, Shuttleworth will announce plans to bring Ubuntu to smartphones and tablet computing devices. The company says that it has been discussing the plan with hardware partners for the past 18 months. No specific hardware vendors have been named yet and there is presently no concrete timeline for product availability.

Canonical’s focus for the first half of 2012 will be stabilization and improving the platform for the enterprise desktop. As we previously reported, Ubuntu 12.04—scheduled for release in April—will offer an extended long-term support period for business users. After the 12.04 release, the focus will reportedly shift towards mobile.

Ubuntu’s new Unity shell will play a key role in Canonical’s plans to bring the Ubuntu user experience to smaller screens. The platform already has preliminary tablet support, including experimental functionality for touchscreen-based window management. It seems likely that the Qt-based Unity 2D experience will serve as the mobile implementation. The Qt Quick user interface design framework is well-suited for building touch-friendly mobile experiences.

http://arst.ch/rf4

First Libreoffice, now Ubuntu... The mobile phone revolution has begun, notibly without me in it.

 

[audiovoodoo]

Well I tried Fedora 15 32-Bit on it last night on my brothers new donated box. Seriously, if I'd had a Windows ME CD to hand it would have been better. Lord only knows what was going on with it but two Kernel panics and the stability of a drunk giraffe on roller skates. I'm sure the old ATI card didn't help but it was running in VESA mode while I tried to find drivers yet still refused to play nicely. I then tried to download a copy of Ubuntu 11.10 and create a bootable pendrive from it following some instructions on pendrivelinux.com but then find Fedora still uses Grub1 and the instructions and scripts were for Grub2. I ended up giving up and leaving the old faithful EeePC as his PC.

I've just been playing with Ubuntu 11.10 32Bit on my own rig and hate the new UI to the point I could no longer recommend downloading the default build. It might work with a touch screen but for me it's just a UI fail. I think Kbuntu is looking like the *buntu default for me now.

I think I'll have a play with Mint next and see if I have better experiences. Nothing can be as bad as Fedora was for me last night and it would have to go some to look as ugly as the latest Ubuntu.

 

[amdfangirl]

I told you I don't recommend Fedora.

It's for a good reason you know.

I just tolerate it because blue is my favourite colour and I grew up with it.

Plus it's not too bad if you use the LXDE spin.

 

[bmouring]

I think that any distro* on a random/old/obscure/really new hardware platform has a reasonable chance of panics/something important not working, the beauty being it's pretty easy to move on to the next and see if it's any better (or, for the old salts, pulling a latest kernel in-situ and injecting it into the new install, easier on some distros than others)

*other than perhaps Debian, except for the "new" hardware

 

[amdfangirl]

Linux is like natural selection.

There's got to be one for the job.

 

[amdfangirl]

I use Linux Mint now.

So silly I am... joined the cloud today... but I trust Canocial more than Dropbox.

Ubuntu One was just too tempting...

 

[audiovoodoo]

It's not that strange a box I was playing with. HP 330 with a swap of Ram to 1Gb and the stock 40Gb drive changed to an old 120Gb I had in the parts bin. The graphics was the old 64Mb Radeon that I used to use when I first started playing with Linux a few years back. It's all fairly mainstream so the Panic and instability surprised me.

I ended up installing Mint 11 LXDE 32Bit and it's now working like a champ. If nothing else having a distro install all the things you need like codec packs didn't half speed up matters. Forget the philosophical debates, my brother just wants his music collection to play. It even managed to install the ATI drivers with no prompting; a first for any distro I've used with that HW.

I've now had a clear-up of my PC and have a couple of spare drives configured. I'm going to have a play with Mint 11 64Bit Gnome, but the one based on Debian rather than Ubuntu. It's supposed to be a bit quicker if a little more likely to break once in a while. Once I get that up with a nice VM solution I'll man up and have a play with something that helps my knowledge grow.

 

[amdfangirl]

Ubuntu One just killed every single file I told it to backup.

Being me, I had a RAID array backup, the computer synced them both

Being me, the recycle bin was set for an SSD. Bypass file rename and forget, physically wipe like TRIM.

Being me, that meant no data recovery.

Being me. It sucks.

I miss you Fedora

 

[chamaecyparis]

I think that any distro* on a random/old/obscure/really new hardware platform has a reasonable chance of panics/something important not working, the beauty being it's pretty easy to move on to the next and see if it's any better (or, for the old salts, pulling a latest kernel in-situ and injecting it into the new install, easier on some distros than others)

*other than perhaps Debian, except for the "new" hardware[/quote]

Caveats, caveats, always caveats!

FYI: check out antiX

 

[amdfangirl]

Shuttleworth's appeal is to the sense of adventure that has always been intrinsic to free software. Users don't like change, but change happens, and Shuttleworth is hoping that users will adapt, and Ubuntu will grow.

The reception of Unity has not been universally positive. The "classic" GNOME desktop has been abandoned, and users are unhappy. Unity's panel and Dash don't behave as they expect – and they bemoan the lack of configurability. Unity is a project under development, and may have been thrust on users too early. Developers at the Ubuntu Developer Summit have promised that configurability and other refinements will come later.

Other users have responded differently and user testing among novice users has yielded some surprising results.

Shuttleworth's gamble is that users will change their minds as they gain familiarity, that Unity will gain traction as a universal interface, scalable across all devices, and that it will be as attractive to a certain class of user as Apple claims to be. Only time will tell whether Oneiric Ocelot, and the advent of Unity as the only choice for the Ubuntu desktop, marked the moment when Ubuntu began to scale the heights of universal acceptability, or fell back to earth with a bump.

http://www.h-online.com/open/features/HealthCheck-Ubuntu-The-search-for-unity-1377292.html

Good writeup about the direction of Ubuntu.

 

[audiovoodoo]

Reminds me of one of my former employers. Deliver the product early without any design considerations for admin or users then worry about it afterwards. Just a suggestion but maybe introducing it as an optional UI, listening to feedback and refining it before you scare away huge numbers of your new users might just be an idea?