Ubuntu is NOT a part of community

[tormod]

(Removed screaming fonts)

This is not a bug accidentally appeared in Ubuntu, this is feature!

Canonical designed it purposely and it had never been in Debian! So this is sign of non-free trend in Ubuntu.

This is because Ubuntu allows shipping of the enhanced, non-free Revolution version, while Debian can not. Actually the "evil" Ubuntu version was prepared by the "good" Debian maintainer, so maybe things are not as black and white as you would like or is able to apprehend?

Ubuntu Linux is made by Canonical + the Ubuntu community. People from both these groups are also key people in Debian. This example just shows how good that works.

[next9]

(Removed screaming fonts)

This is because Ubuntu allows shipping of the enhanced, non-free Revolution version, while Debian can not. Actually the "evil" Ubuntu version was prepared by the "good" Debian maintainer, so maybe things are not as black and white as you would like or is able to apprehend?

This is not about good or bad. This is about free or non-free. Mr. Blackstar wrote something pejorative about non-free SUSE. Suse does not advertise proprietary software and does not annoy users to install it. No matter whether it is good or bad, black or white, ubuntu is not so free, as Blackstar noticed. Obviosly it is less free than SUSE.

[daveerickson]

So let me say upfront, I am NOT a linux expert by any strech of the imagination. I have dabbled in it for about the last 10 years and finally cut my home Windows usage about 4 years ago.

Before I completely cut ties with Windows I used Red Hat, tried Fedora and even had Gentoo running on my machine, compiling all the time, but still it was running.

After finding that it just took too much time and effort to keep my system running the way I wanted I kept going back to Windows. Then one day while pissed off at some other stupid thing that Windows was doing I meandered to Distrowatch and saw Ubuntu at the top of the list. I believe it was Hoary at the time so I tried it out. I ran the installer and in 10-15 minutes I had a working install.... I was stunned!

Since then I have gravitated towards Ubuntu and the support community and have brought maybe a dozen other people into the fold ranging from complete dependance on free software or at least keeping a watchful eye on it so they can completely jump ship from Windows at some point in the future.

Just after 9.10 was released I was feeling very antsy and wanted to dive deeper into linux, and having read that compile times were way down with some optimizations and caching I went to try Gentoo out. After 4 days of weekend and after work tinkering I admitted defeat and searched out other options. This is not a slam against Gentoo, I really like the idea of it, but I need to learn more about setting up my kernel. I then tried Arch, again I liked the idea of a rolling release. Got it up and running without much issue, went to add a repository to install the non-ose version of virtualbox and found that this repository was telling the package manager it had a different version than what was actually stored in the repository, so it would fail the checksum every time I tried to install it. Furthermore, I trusted adding the official virtualbox repo from the company shipping the product, who was behind the repository I had added?

At that point I really felt home sick for Ubuntu with the ease of setup/use, and abuntance of direct support from the developers of products I used most often. So, I booted up the livecd, and in about 20 minutes I was back into a working desktop. Spent less than 30 minutes to add the repositories I needed, updated my system, installed the apps I wanted and was off to work and play.

I am SURE in the future I will dabble in Gentoo or Arch again. The draw of what they offer intrigues me, but I am just not skilled enough, yet, to drink from that cup. In the mean time Ubuntu will keep me using Linux and evangelizing it to those I know.

So, what makes Ubuntu "great" for the linux community? It is easy, it works, and it brings in users. The flames at Ubuntu remind me strongly of Rupert Murdoch's rants about Google News. Instead of chastising Google for sending traffic their way, why doesn't News Corp find a way to entice the customer to stick around and generate ad revenue, or build a valuable comumnity with the traffic instead of blaming Google for making money while giving them viewers? Once a person is involved with Ubuntu they can start seeing what else is in the Linux community, it is up to the rest of the community to entice the users to their camp and make them want to stay.

Dave

[yotambien]

Not just a font rendering issue. But things like that do help.

One very important thing to note:

SIMPLE THINGS SHOULD BE SIMPLE TO ACCOMPLISH

Before Ubuntu was released, there didn't seem to be as much emphasis on this.

I'm not sure about that, somebody mentioned other distributions that aimed to make things easier for the user before Ubuntu. I do think, however, that the perceived success of Ubuntu drove other distribution to focus on the shiny bits of usability. You keep repeating that Ubuntu is easy and simple, but apart from the closed source graphics drivers I don't see any example of things you can do in Ubuntu that you can't with the same number of clicks in any other distribution.

It's mostly being able to achieve a satisfying desktop experience by users who don't wish to pour over source code in order to work out how to get something enabled or working.

You are resourcing to FUD now. Not even Gentoo users have to fiddle with source code. Their system downloads it and compiles it, not all that different to download a binary package.

But how? Gnome is Gnome in every distro. What is it so different? The point about the Ubuntu forums full of people having problems is a fair one. Somehow it doesn't turn out as easy as usually sold. My biggest qualm about Ubuntu is that it's not all that different to Fedora when it comes to add new stuff. I understand that there's a lot of enthusiasts that want to try the very latest software developments, kernel, X server, what have you. That leads the distribution to exactly the opposite direction that they claim it goes. It's nice that you don't have to e.g. use the command line to connect to your WPA wireless AP, but what advantage is that when later you have some major breakage because they add largely untested bits everywhere?

I don't know of any disto that's in a position to fix every flaw in every package. If Linux has broken software, that's not a distros fault. A distro is there to package a software suite to provide a digestable user experience for end users. Otherwise, why isn't everyone doing the Linux from scratch thing?

You didn't get the point. Of course it's not the fault of the distribution if certain version of the X server is broken. But it's their responsibility to make sure that what they're including is production ready and won't cause disruption to their users. I gave you examples of Ubuntu failing to do this.

KDE 4.0 was a preview. 4.1 was the release version. ANyone not wanting to go with 4.0 could've stayed with their current distro.

Also, compiz is almost always enabled where the drivers will support it, and it's pretty easy to disable.

Including a half baked version of a package as important as KDE is irresponsible, and was one of the reasons why KDE 4 got horrible reviews. No matter how much the KDE team said it wasn't ready yet, they had to ship the new cool thing. Enough for user frindliness, it seems.

Compiz may be pretty easy to disable for you. For the new users that you were defining as the target of Ubuntu it may be not. It gets worse, because it won't cross their minds that the random lock-ups, slow 2D performance or flash videos not working in their shiny new OS have something to do with some effects turned on. The result is an extremely poor impression of Ubuntu, in particular, and of Linux in general.

I don't think any of that reflects the true nature of the situation. PulseAudio was initially no cure all, but it's pretty good now. I can find corner cases for all sound solutions that are unsatisfactory one way or another. For the most part it now just works.

They also don't "sail as close to the wind" as Fedora.

Did the examples I gave not happen?

If PulseAudio works now, it is NOW when they should ship it, and not when they did, with the result of breaking things that everybody gives for granted like having proper sound in Skype.

You are failing to address how a distribution that is supposedly so user friendly dares to introduce untested packages that affect the correct and basic functioning of the system. Fedora is labelled as 'experimental', whereas Ubuntu as 'user friendly'. Instead of accepting the labels compare both distributions in terms of kernel, X servers and drivers versions shipped with each of them.

Ubuntu's position is a difficult one. On the one hand they have to distance themselves enough from Debian so as to not be perceived as a clone--which by and large it is. On the other hand they sell this user friendly idea, the OS for human beings, and all the marketing associated with it. Yet a third factor is that they have to keep the cool factor alive. Of course, with a ridiculous 6 months release cicle this is very difficult to achieve, so they keep introducing the latest cool bits here and there. This, at the same time, helps them to attract the enthusiast portion of Linux users.

[next9]

Forgot to mention non-compatible combination of kernel and intel xorg drivers they uselessly included into last ubuntu version. This is the easy of use? I say No. This is just a marketing hype "Hey, we are first everywhere"

[BlackStar]

I'm not sure about that, somebody mentioned other distributions that aimed to make things easier for the user before Ubuntu.
I do think, however, that the perceived success of Ubuntu drove other distribution to focus on the shiny bits of usability. You keep repeating that Ubuntu is easy and simple, but apart from the closed source graphics drivers I don't see any example of things you can do in Ubuntu that you can't with the same number of clicks in any other distribution.

Let me provide a concrete example, which might help explain this "perceived" success of Ubuntu:

You have a cousin who knows little about computers (imagine she is a psychology student or something). One day, she calls that she complains that her laptop is too slow and tells you that she hates it (she wished she had bought a Mac instead of that Acer machine that was half the price).

She probably has 1GB of RAM, a slow 160GB disk and Vista Home Premium preinstalled (a run of the mill '07 laptop). After two years, her machine will have every last crapware it could have acquired in the hands of a non-techy user: an expired installation of Norton, browser toolbars, the whole Nero she-bang, the Windows "Live" suite, about 20 different messengers and a two service packs waiting for installation. If you are lucky, she might be using Firefox instead of IE7.

Since she's half the country away, you can't just show up, reformat her machine and be done with it. Solution?

1. Download Ubuntu.
2. Burn a cd (use Nero, dummy!)
3. Install it (double click the installer, click next, enter your name and password, click next, done!)
4. Reboot.

She can still do what she did before: browse the internet, read emails, write and print documents, watch movies. The difference is that her system boots in 25'' now, instead of 120'', programs load faster, the machine makes less noise (because the disk doesn't swap all the time) and the whole system is much more secure.

Now try doing that with, say, Mandriva or Mepis. Try explaining the concept of partitions and how she can resize her Windows partition without losing her data. Try explaining why she should enable the non-free repositories and type some stuff in order to listen to her music (hey, I could do that out of the box on Windows, Linux sucks!)

It's an interesting experiment, you should try this sometime. It shows exactly where Linux distros are still lacking (Ubuntu included) and what they still need to improve.

Including a half baked version of a package as important as KDE is irresponsible, and was one of the reasons why KDE 4 got horrible reviews. No matter how much the KDE team said it wasn't ready yet, they had to ship the new cool thing. Enough for user frindliness, it seems.

A lot of major distros fell into this trap, not just Kubuntu.

Compiz may be pretty easy to disable for you. For the new users that you were defining as the target of Ubuntu it may be not. It gets worse, because it won't cross their minds that the random lock-ups, slow 2D performance or flash videos not working in their shiny new OS have something to do with some effects turned on. The result is an extremely poor impression of Ubuntu, in particular, and of Linux in general.

Beginning with Ubuntu 9.10, Compiz runs flawlessly even on Intel 945 IGPs. I've installed 9.10 on Intel, AMD (radeon and fglrx) and Nvidia machines and I have not experienced any of the issues you mentioned (other than slow flash, which has little to do with Compiz itself).

If PulseAudio works now, it is NOW when they should ship it, and not when they did, with the result of breaking things that everybody gives for granted like having proper sound in Skype.

Release early, release often. That's one of the core tenets of the OSS world.

In fact, if Ubuntu hadn't included PulseAudio then, it would still be as broken now as it was 18 months ago. Do you really think Skype or Adobe would have bothered adding Pulse backends if Ubuntu had said, "we won't be shipping PulseAudio in the immediate future"? Would ALSA devs bother to fix obscure driver bugs that only showed up under PulseAudio, if noone was using it?

Edit: syntax.

[mugginz]

Not just a font rendering issue. But things like that do help.

One very important thing to note:

SIMPLE THINGS SHOULD BE SIMPLE TO ACCOMPLISH

Before Ubuntu was released, there didn't seem to be as much emphasis on this.

I'm not sure about that, somebody mentioned other distributions that aimed to make things easier for the user before Ubuntu. I do think, however, that the perceived success of Ubuntu drove other distribution to focus on the shiny bits of usability. You keep repeating that Ubuntu is easy and simple, but apart from the closed source graphics drivers I don't see any example of things you can do in Ubuntu that you can't with the same number of clicks in any other distribution.

Do you really need me to qualify my comments to the degree you seem to be suggesting? yawn...., and here we go.

Before Ubuntu was released, there didn't seem to be as much emphasis on this. However, Ubuntu isn't the ONLY distro in the entire world to focus on this. When it hit the scene it certainly felt like the most ready to use though. In addition to this, when it hit Ubuntu also had positive statements made about it from various industry commentators, and I'm also sure that there are various other minor issues that came together to boost its status in the mind share of Linux users. But, in relation to Mandriva, Fedora Core, Suse, RedHat, and co, it certainly felt like the most ready for use by end users. From release onwards, Canonical has maintained a practical and pragmatic perspective on what should make an easy to use, and pleasant to use distro.

Remember, 5 years ago it was the position of many that end users should be command line jockeys for the day to day management of their desktops. There were of course efforts from some to change this for the better. But Canonical seemed to really hit the mark in this respect for a free distro.

It's mostly being able to achieve a satisfying desktop experience by users who don't wish to pour over source code in order to work out how to get something enabled or working.

You are resourcing to FUD now. Not even Gentoo users have to fiddle with source code. Their system downloads it and compiles it, not all that different to download a binary package.

There have been times where in order to manage the config of certain packages end users have been directed to view source code to see what options are available, and what values to use, etc. This is by no means common, but it does illustrate the perspective of some developers that think end users should just shut up, stop winging, and go and hit source code in that way. The 'by programmers for programmers' attitude hasn't completely gone away, but it's mostly hidden these days thank god.

This wasn't directed at Gentoo, but at some of the software distros are expected to ship. I might add that thanks to Ubuntu's market share, an Ubuntu user will usually have debs built for them for software not directly packaged by the distro, and will remove the need to even build from source.

But how? Gnome is Gnome in every distro. What is it so different? The point about the Ubuntu forums full of people having problems is a fair one. Somehow it doesn't turn out as easy as usually sold. My biggest qualm about Ubuntu is that it's not all that different to Fedora when it comes to add new stuff. I understand that there's a lot of enthusiasts that want to try the very latest software developments, kernel, X server, what have you. That leads the distribution to exactly the opposite direction that they claim it goes. It's nice that you don't have to e.g. use the command line to connect to your WPA wireless AP, but what advantage is that when later you have some major breakage because they add largely untested bits everywhere?

I don't know of any disto that's in a position to fix every flaw in every package. If Linux has broken software, that's not a distros fault. A distro is there to package a software suite to provide a digestable user experience for end users. Otherwise, why isn't everyone doing the Linux from scratch thing?

You didn't get the point. Of course it's not the fault of the distribution if certain version of the X server is broken. But it's their responsibility to make sure that what they're including is production ready and won't cause disruption to their users. I gave you examples of Ubuntu failing to do this.

I will restate that I don't feel Ubuntu is perfect, but I find that on balance, it's generally the best though in most areas for me, and most other people I know.

You gave examples of Ubuntu shipping less that stellar packages, but I think you'll find that Ubuntu is no orphan in relation to this, and a user always has the option to not use a particular distro version until a release comes along that suites their own needs.

KDE 4.0 was a preview. 4.1 was the release version. ANyone not wanting to go with 4.0 could've stayed with their current distro.

Also, compiz is almost always enabled where the drivers will support it, and it's pretty easy to disable.

Including a half baked version of a package as important as KDE is irresponsible, and was one of the reasons why KDE 4 got horrible reviews. No matter how much the KDE team said it wasn't ready yet, they had to ship the new cool thing. Enough for user frindliness, it seems.

Compiz may be pretty easy to disable for you. For the new users that you were defining as the target of Ubuntu it may be not. It gets worse, because it won't cross their minds that the random lock-ups, slow 2D performance or flash videos not working in their shiny new OS have something to do with some effects turned on. The result is an extremely poor impression of Ubuntu, in particular, and of Linux in general.

I guarantee that you'll be able to find novice users that had difficulties with Ubuntu shipping with Compiz enabled by default, and I guarantee I'll be able to find users of other distros that had difficulty trying to get Compiz going.

Even OS/X isn't 100% perfect in every area. A distro has to make decisions that provide the best experience for the majority of users and Ubuntu has an excellent track record in this respect. Again, they are not perfect. NO distro is!


The inclusion of KDE 4.0 was certainly not Kubuntus finest hour and I guess that proves that no one is perfect all of the time. That one decision doesn't undo everything that ubuntu has achieved in my view however. I also didn't see a mass exodus from Ubuntu because of this.

Did the examples I gave not happen?

If PulseAudio works now, it is NOW when they should ship it, and not when they did, with the result of breaking things that everybody gives for granted like having proper sound in Skype.

Skype with PulseAudio was broken for some and worked for others.

Skype without PulseAudio was broken for some and worked for others.

Also, was Ubuntu the only distro that shipped PulseAudio at that time?

You are failing to address how a distribution that is supposedly so user friendly dares to introduce untested packages that affect the correct and basic functioning of the system.

If you're suggesting that there is some magic distro that gets EVERYTHING perfect, then by all means name it, and watch everyone flock to it.

The entire Linux software stack has varying levels of breakage and stable functionality. A distro has to strive to get the best balance of functionality and package newness versus lack of features and package staleness. The introduction of new functionality sometimes brings some brokeness for some. No distro is perfect in this regard.

Remember. A user has to select a distro from the available distros. They cant select one from the as yet unshipped mega perfect distro. They obviously most often choose Ubuntu to be the best balance of what's out there.

Fedora is labelled as 'experimental', whereas Ubuntu as 'user friendly'. Instead of accepting the labels compare both distributions in terms of kernel, X servers and drivers versions shipped with each of them.

Ubuntu's position is a difficult one. On the one hand they have to distance themselves enough from Debian so as to not be perceived as a clone--which by and large it is. On the other hand they sell this user friendly idea, the OS for human beings, and all the marketing associated with it. Yet a third factor is that they have to keep the cool factor alive. Of course, with a ridiculous 6 months release cicle this is very difficult to achieve, so they keep introducing the latest cool bits here and there. This, at the same time, helps them to attract the enthusiast portion of Linux users.

At the end of the day surely Ubuntu's popularity lives or dies by the user experience it provides in relation to what else is available. If and when there is something out there that's judged better for the common use case, I think you'll find people move to it. Remember there's not the same barrier to entry to moving to another distro as there is moving say from Windows to Linux.

[next9]

Let me provide a concrete example....

1. Download Ubuntu.
2. Burn a cd (use Nero, dummy!)
3. Install it (double click the installer, click next, enter your name and password, click next, done!)
4. Reboot.

I really does not understand what does this ugly mendacious ubuntu propaganda means! Mandriva you mentioned, has the same easy live CD installer. No unnecessary option. Just a name, disk partitions and install. Opensuse has this easy live CD too. This is not ubuntu exclusive!

She can still do what she did before: browse the internet, read emails, write and print documents, watch movies. The difference is that her system boots in 25'' now, instead of 120'', programs load faster, the machine makes less noise (because the disk doesn't swap all the time) and the whole system is much more secure.

Now try doing that with, say, Mandriva or Mepis. Try explaining the concept of partitions and how she can resize her Windows partition without losing her data. Try explaining why she should enable the non-free repositories and type some stuff in order to listen to her music (hey, I could do that out of the box on Windows, Linux sucks!)

It's an interesting experiment, you should try this sometime. It shows exactly where Linux distros are still lacking (Ubuntu included) and what they still need to improve.

Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit

Madriva and Opensuse live CDs easilly resize Windows parition, install bootloader etc. DrakX and Yast are far better in partioning, than any other GUI tool in ubuntu.

Dont know about Mandriva, but Opensuse know to play mp3 by the default, Ubuntu does not. You just lie because even ubuntu needs external medibuntu repositories for varied multimedia.

Release early, release often. That's one of the core tenets of the OSS world.

In fact, if Ubuntu hadn't included PulseAudio then, it would still be as broken now as it was 18 months ago. Do you really think Skype or Adobe would have bothered adding Pulse backends if Ubuntu had said, "we won't be shipping PulseAudio in the immediate future"? Would ALSA devs bother to fix obscure driver bugs that only showed up under PulseAudio, if noone was using it?

This starting to be worse and worse. ALSA is developed mainly by RedHat. PulseAudio is developed mainly by RedHat. All these technologies are used first in Fedora - RedHat brand comunity distro.


As i found out. You are typical Ubuntu idiot, blessing ubuntu for having exclusivelly thing, that are common in other distributions, blessing ubuntu for include new technologies other distributions included long time ago...

The only thing I don't know is, whether you are so religious ubuntu fanatic and lier, or you just don't know anything else.

[mugginz]

Forgot to mention non-compatible combination of kernel and intel xorg drivers they uselessly included into last ubuntu version. This is the easy of use? I say No. This is just a marketing hype "Hey, we are first everywhere"

The Intel hardware in my Aspire One has never run better than it has with the latest Ubuntu release.

I've found it to be absolutely excellent.

[next9]

The Intel hardware in my Aspire One has never run better than it has with the latest Ubuntu release.

I've found it to be absolutely excellent.

Im talking about 9.04 not the 9.10. In ubuntu 9.04, they included Linux 2.6.28 with new GEM, but because of the beginning of driver development for GEM and EXA -> UXA design change, Intel drivers were not ready for that kernel. Intel GPU performance was terrible in 9.04.

Including that combination of kernel and Xorg drivers was huge fault.