Is Ubuntu a Serious Desktop Contender? 463
Exter-C asks: "2006 was the year that a large amount of people started to talk Ubuntu as a possible contender for the Enterprise Linux desktop. There are several key issues that have to be raised: Is Ubuntu/Canonical really capable of maintaining Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS) for 5 years? I know this is not a new question but the evidence after 6 months seems to be negative. A case in point is the 4-5+ day delay for critical updates to packages like Firefox. Given that such a large percentage of people use their desktop systems on the web critical, browser vulnerabilities seem to be one of the core pieces of a secure desktop environment (user stupidity excluded). Can Ubuntu/Canonical really compete with the likes of Red Hat, who had patches available (RHSA-2006:0758) the day that the updates came out?"
Aren't they really (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Competition? (Score:1, Insightful)
To be trurly competitive Linux needs to change it's marketing image. Right now it's 'GEEKS for GEEKS'. That's the main reason why people stay away from it. I work with few people who used Linux during their studies. They were forced to use command line and stay away from X-Window. Now they hate it. Think what kind of message it passes downstream...
Plus Linux is terribly undocumented. For Average Joes of course. Books are GEEKY looking, and not really user friendly... Why not to release packages with GOOD book + CD(s) + (optional) + USB live distro + poster + stickers and so on? Do it once per year and people will get hooked. Especially with USB distors - that's true Plug and Play. That can also apply to OpenOffice and other FOSS.
Next? Why not to stick to 1 year realease cycle and do some proper relaease that will work with every kind of software? Why every distro is good for something particular but not everything?
Before FOSS comunity overcomes their fear of users, competition will be only another word. Wake up! Linux has a great possibilities, but we're wasting it.
I'm posting as AC, otherwise you would kill me for that post. Karma whoring it is...
Ubuntu is my desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu (with some necessary updates and enhancements) is a perfectly capable operating system, and the Gnome2 desktop serves my needs just fine. I can do everything (and more) that my windows box can do, plus I get to use my choice of scripting languages to customize my experience.
Nothing is hidden away from me in cryptic registries, and I run only those things that make sense to me. On my Windows box, there are several programs that have installed themselves over the years, and seemingly cannot be uninstalled. I keep most of them disabled and beaten down, but can't seem to eradicate them entirely. Even tools from my huge international IT industry company don't seem to be able to keep the buggers off of my Windows machine. Number of virii or malware programs on my Ubuntu box? Zero.
So, yes, Ubuntu can be an effective and pleasing desktop.
tried installing ubuntu for the past few weeks. (Score:2, Insightful)
i have one pc at home.
it's connected to a wifi network belonging to my landlord on a weak signal.
i have no control over the ap so i can't change any settings or its location
or improve the signal
or run a network cable to it.
so i look around to find a usb wifi adapter that will work with ubuntu. had tried a pci card but that will not get a good enough signal so it has to be a usb adapter which can be at the end of a 2 metre usb cable.
don't want to risk my windows partition so i buy a new disk.
then try ubuntu install only for a bunch of errors caused by the dvd rewriter
'hdc: ide_intr: huh? expected null handler on exit'
'buffer i/o error on device hdc, logical block'
curses. get my mitts on a dvd rom drive and over christmas i try that. it works! ubuntu installs! excellent! love the interface. boots much quicker than windows. try to access the wifi network and... no joy!
now i've gotten the following device onto the network
* nokia 770 internet tablet (signal so weak that it will only work when the metal sheath is off)
* nintendo ds web browser (the ap is considered unsupported and online gaming won't work but the browser can be coaxed into working with it)
* nokia e61 web browser (took the longest but now that it works i can access gmail and web pages anywhere, joy!)
* windows 2000 which the pc normally runs. about once a week the usb adapter has to be moved to pick up a better signal.
so i don't consider myself a wifi newbie. i tried everything i can think off. couldn't find any software builtin to ubuntu to search for wifi networks, using ubuntu 6.10. i eventually got the thing transmitting packets but not a one came back. then there are 2 adapters listed wlan0 and wmaster0. which to use? other people have reported this and gotten no answers.
i will keep trying as windows is getting more annoying with wga and assorted viruses and crap but until i can get it working i cannot recommend it to family which is really what i want to start doing. might pop out and buy a linux mag with a few distros on it and give them a shot instead.
sorry for the saga, just venting annoyance,
moylan
Yes it is ready for its coronation. (Score:3, Insightful)
Desktop is the last place for linux adoption (Score:5, Insightful)
Why Ubuntu? Why not...... (Score:4, Insightful)
*rant mode off*
This reply should have been a ASK Slashdot, but we all know we miss actual articles. So I wont put us through it.
Ben
Re:These aren't the big issues at all (Score:2, Insightful)
The closest I managed was an ancient Performa 6360 from 1997, and that's because it's about as basic as it gets. Technically it WAS completely supported, but not all features at the same time. By the time X supported accelerated graphics on its onboard ATI, kernel support for its ethernet controller had died years before and panicked the machine when used.
On the other hand, I can't remember a time WinXP or various incarnations of MacOS didn't support something on the machines I was running them on. Linux works well as my server, but I got too sick of fucking around with insane shit constantly to bother with it as a main desktop, and now I use a Macbook.
sure, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
And Free Software is not always about being better, it's about being Free.
After a few years of using only Linux (various distros, Ubuntu for past year) I would never install a proprietary system on my computer.
Just look where proprietary software is leading - DRM, spyware, adware... It's much easier to hide these "features" in closed-source software.
Ok, Windows supports all the hardware, Linux does not - oh well, I just check hardware for Linux compatibility before I buy it.
I just believe that Free Software is the only way we should go. Things like DRM just hurt customers, they simply haven't realized that yet.
Re:ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some other insightful questions for the next 'Ask Slashdot':
"Is Microsoft evil?"
"Is OSX beter than Vista?"
"IE7 or Firefox on Mom's PC?"
fud, notfud, yes, no, maybe (Score:3, Insightful)
Ubuntu has a potential, but it's not some kind of magic distribution.
Re:sure, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
That statement sums up why Ubuntu, and probably Linux, will never be a suitable replacement OS on most desktop systems.
ATTENTION SLASHDOTTERS (Score:5, Insightful)
For fuck's sake, this is not a Windows/Linux article. Please at least read the first sentence of the posted article in future, before taking the opportunity to vent your Windows vs Linux obsession.
Now, does anyone have anything to say about the Enterprise Linux desktop?
Ready for the desktop? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu is a fairly good Linux distribution, with a pretty good set up. The Firefox update issue is probably not a fair consideration, since it's not actually Canonical, it's a function of Debian's issues with Mozilla.
The problem I have with Ubuntu's push is that it isn't really being pushed as a desktop for business so much as it is a desktop for the average user, to replace Windows or Mac. Unfortunately, it isn't ready for that, and it may actually be hurting itself because of it. If you're saying to people "Just download the CD's, and install it, it'll work with no problems.", you're asking for trouble. The people that are willing to give it a try are not expecting a Windows/Mac clone, but they do have certain expectations! Principally, that they're not going to spend the next three months learning how to debug, compile, edit configurations, and spend hours searching through various wikis, FAQ's, and web sites to actually use their computer for something.
These are the "first adopters", and the more unpleasant their experience, the harder is to get Linux out of the server/geek realm and into the home. It's been my experience that server OS's tend to make mediocre desktop OS's. That's been true whether it's Linux or Windows or (fill in the blank). The things you need to do on a server are different from what you need on most desktops. There's also a difference in needs between a business desktop and a home desktop. I think Linux is (mostly) ready to be a serious contender on the business desktop. Unfortunately, it isn't ready to be one on the home desktop. I think it could be one, but the community needs to listen and to look at what the average user actually is running into.
Here's a quote I found about Linux on the desktop on one of the other boards I frequent, that really helps summarize what needs to happen: "Come on nerds, would it really be such a terrible thing to spend $180 for a Linux will full hardware drivers and software codecs plus telephone support or even to pay $50 for a CD that gives you everything in the way of proprietary drivers and codecs ready to go for all your hardware and multimedia as opposed to spending hours and hours and hours downloading just bits and pieces of the solutions from all over the place and fighting to get them working? It's not like people who really want to couldn't still do that, but a simple, truly easy, less expensive alternative to the $400 Vista for the average Joe is what it is going to take to get the average Joe to come over from the dark side--and no one is ever going to have a prayer of winning the fight for open standards as long as all those ordinary Joe's are still living on the dark side."
Why compete against Red Hat? (Score:3, Insightful)
-Rick
Re:Why Ubuntu? Why not...... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll call that "selective memory".
I wonder why someone couldn't bring it back, limit the crap in the install, but make it available (you dont need emacs or vi, you need Write or a notepad).
Actually, no. I don't want any of those because for me there's really two types of text editors - plaintext (config files, code, small notes etc.) and formatted text (OpenOffice/KOffice style). I'd like just the one advanced text editor please.
Keep many common services that people may just want on their pc like httpd, ftp, ssh, but get rid of SQL servers and the like for advanced users.
Huh? People want to run a http deamon, but not any SQL database for a LAMP or similar setup?
Give a good browser (firefox with alot of preinstalled extensions) with a good starting page.
Let me guess - this customized Firefox should contain the extensions you like, right?
Links to office apps, browser, drives, on the desktop.
Again, your preferance. I prefer having commonly used apps in a toolbar.
DONT SLACK ON THE NETWORKING (more IM's, browsers, clients, etc).
More browsers? You just wanted one!
DONT GIVE ME 5 MEDIA PLAYERS, just one really well maintained one would be great (vlc if the comment above werent true).
Right.. so everyone will just agree that vlc is better than mplayer (with frontends) and xine.
And for gods sake, drop all the extra games, apps, etc. If someone needs anything in particular for a desktop os, they WILL download it.
Ten of the same I can understand. But if there's one app, what's wrong with it being installed? Is it the extra 5MB of HDD space killing you? The menu link? And it's always possible to not preselect any package. Been there, done that... install debian base and apt-get your way from there.
Basicly, I never understood this. If I got one or fice or ten applications which do the job, great. My problem is when the number is zero.
Not yet. (Score:3, Insightful)
And hardware support is still not as good as Windows. There are still a lot of things with no drivers. That never will have drivers. Yes, hardware manufacturers are to blame for this, but that doesn't matter to my computing experiece. And software support is still lacking. Few games are getting ported and while Amarok is at least as good of a music player as WinAmp, there is still no Linux equivalent to the beauty of Media Player Classic.
So why should I switch? Why should anyone switch? So my answer to your question is still no. It's getting closer. Maybe in a few years. But not now.
Don't forget the others. (Score:5, Insightful)
#2. People who are using some other Linux distribution as their desktop.
#3. People who are using a Mac or *BSD or whatever.
#4. People who are using Windows because of reasons A, B, C and/or D.
Whether X is a "serious desktop contender" really depends upon what YOU consider to be the requirements for a "serious desktop contender".
Do people ask the same question in other areas of their life? Do they go to a pizza place and question when pineapple and Canadian bacon pizza is "suitable" for dinner?
Do they go to a Ford dealership and ask whether a Ford is "suitable" for driving?
And so forth.
Yes, plain and simple (Score:3, Insightful)
If any Linux environment is going to gain serious market share away from the Windows-only non-experts of the world, it's going to be a free and easy-to-use system like Ubuntu.
Re:Not Linux for Humans (yet) (Score:3, Insightful)
So have you tried to run off a live CD? Freespire comes with the codecs that are not included in most Linux distributions that can be installed later. The problem is they are not installed when you run most live CD's so much online content won't play such as flash, MP3's, PDF's, and many movie formats.
You have got to be kidding. (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Comments, you can actually add comments to text config files.
2) You can use a normal text editor, normal version control (ever tried putting the registry in subversion?) and other well-honed text tools to work with text based config files.
Re:ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are just as many Slashdot users out there saying "Linux users need to realize that if they want their OS to survive blah blah blah" like you. Could you muster up an original thought? I've seen your post thousands of times on Slashdot. Funny that you are reading a LINUX thread and you are bitching about Slashdot's Linux users always talking about how amazing Linux is. Perhaps it's because you are READING A LINUX THREAD...
If you don't like Linux that's fine, but don't assume you know what Linux needs to survive. You're obviously retarded if you can't figure out how to click on "Applications" instead of a "Start" button, so why are you assuming you know what Linux needs to survive.
This article is stupid none-the-less because it's basically flamebait in itself. There are many people who have been using Ubuntu as their desktop OS for at least a year. It does everything I want it to do, so YES it's definitely ready for MY desktop. If it's not ready for yours, fine....don't use it. Stop pretending you know something that no one has thought of or said before though. Linux users don't need to realize anything. You need to realize something. We don't care if you use Linux or not. We aren't going to make a dime off it if you decide to use it. We like it. We've got the right to say we like it. You have the right to say you hate it, but realize that the things you may want from a desktop OS is not exactly what everyone else wants. For some people, Linux has been ready for the desktop for years. For some of us it's the perfect OS. Why would we want to change it so it's perfect for you. You already have your perfect OS that you love. Should we make Linux more like what you want? Blah this flamewar has been going back and forth for years. Just get over yourself and realize that You don't realize what Linux needs to survive. You know what your OS needs to survive. So just STFU, and read something other than a thread completely about Linux.
Re:Not yet. (Score:3, Insightful)
How exactly do you fix things that break in Windows? I ask because it's usually registry edits and magic downloads that end up fixing the problems I have. While there isn't a set format for those cryptic /etc files, there are usually headers that tell you what to do, along with those wonderful MAN pages. With Windows, I have no choice but to google the problem & hope someone else has come up with a solution. Even the few times I've called MS support, I usually get the 'we can't help you - reinstalling should solve your problem' response from the phone droids.
Also, do you consider the prevelance of spyware on the average home Windows machine to be a maintenance problem that should be included in the discussion on how easy it is to maintain a computer?
Re:These aren't the big issues at all (Score:3, Insightful)
Addressing only at this point the home users, if prospective Linux adopters can't do trivial things like burn CD's without jumping through hoops, then you have problems. What about some basic "life" applications? The Songbird project is a nice idea, but it's not ready yet and certainly nowhere near the level of iTunes and it almost certainly won't support Windows or Apple DRM, so any purchased tracks will either be lost or will have to be burned to CD and re-ripped into your music library. Video editing: there is nothing that remotely approaches Windows Movie Maker, much less iMovie.
Ubuntu is a nice O/S, but it's not quite there yet.
Honey, not vinegar. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now obviously not all, not even a majority of linux people are going to do that to new folks, but enough do that we have the unfortunate reputation to most folks of being the caricature of the jackass IT guy best described in the "Nick Burns, your company's Computer Guy" sketches on Saturday Night Live.
One of the responses to this is "well I learned this the hard way! I read all of these man pages and read all of these forums and spent a year learning to code!". Congratulations, that is a great accomplishment, and no one is trying to lessen it. Those methods might not work for everyone, or even most people who are trying to learn. I, for one, found the man pages to be horribly inaccessible. Most of them don't even have examples.
Time to open the treefort, people learn a lot better when you're nice to them.
Re:These aren't the big issues at all (Score:3, Insightful)
I think he was exagerating, but in windows, a lot of wireless cards come with thier own wireless configuration tool, which may or may not be in use. So it is fairly common for users to enter in their WEP key in the the netwrok wizard, have it not work and then have to enter it again in the wireless cards own configuration utility (which has disabled the windows wizard) in order for it to work. Now you could blame the wirless card manufacturer for this problem, but you can also blame them for not supporting linux, so there you go.
Those codecs are proprietary so they can't legally be distributed with Ubuntu. And whoever you downloaded them from (even the windows version) is probably breaking the law. So its not ubuntu having religious problems with them, its that they chose not to break the law. OMG! Ubuntu is not breaking the law to make things easier for you! The bastards!
And it is far, far easier to to get them working under ubuntu too. The instructions are laid out on ubuntuguide.org and only take five minutes. when you're done, all the codecs are installed and will be updated whenever you update the system. Try that on windows.
First why the hell are you using xubuntu and not the regular ubuntu? Xubuntu is more for people who know what they're doing which you obviously don't. The 8.3 format is the iso standard for CDs. This has been extended with Joliet (by MS) and Rockridge (for Unix). Rockridge allows long filenames and user permissions. Joliet just allows long filenames. Fortunately every cd burning app I've used in linux burns everything as a hybrid so that it supports both the Joliet and Rockridge extensions. You just fucked around with your cd burning app and made it burn pure iso CDs with no extensions.
How about sh script? Oh and maybe a cron daemon so my sh script will run daily. And my sh script will make use of commands like grep, find, sed. And I may need my sh script to check some system settings too. I can do that under windows, right?
I prefer Nautilus to browse my files. Some of my files are on other systems and its able to access these files using ssh. Also the text editor is able to save and load files using ssh too. Makes it really easy to make a quick change to a file on another system over the internet. That works in windows, right?
Sometimes I'm using my laptop and I want to play songs on my desktop which the speakers are connected to. So I just tunnel X over ssh and then my media player/organiser displays on my laptop, but when I press play the sound comes out of the speakers on the desktop.
All that would work on Windows XP, right? Hello?
Sure they do. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pay attention to that.
Most of the computer users are using Windows. Therefore, that caricature is about a Windows support person and Windows users.
And "most people" are not going to try Linux because "most people" use whatever OS was installed when they purchased the computer from Dell or HP or such.
Very few people will even try Linux. Those few are (aside from the trolls) the few who understand how the system works (hardware / OS / apps / etc).
The trolls simply want Microsoft Windows
Phone support for Linux is available to those who need it. Red Hat provides it. Canonical provides it. The reason you don't hear about it that much is because the people who use it are usually supporting corporate servers, not home desktops. The people who run Linux on their home desktop already know how to use the Internet to find the answers they need.
Phone support for home users of Linux will be necessary when Linux is pre-installed on machines sold to home users by Dell and HP and so forth. And when that happens, Dell and HP and the others will provide the phone support.
But that is a long ways away. Look for Linux to gain in the corporate/government desktop market first. And the phone support for those will be the same as it is today. They will have their own IT staff trained on Linux and the specific apps that they use.
Ubuntu on the desktop is ready, today, for those people who have requirements that are met by Ubuntu.
Other people have different requirements. It's as simple as that.
Re:These aren't the big issues at all (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ready for the desktop? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it'd be great. Call us when you get permission to redistribute all those "bits and pieces" that aren't in the repositories (even debian with their DFSG has a non-free section) exactly because you don't get permission to redistribute them, not even those that are free as in beer. Same goes for binary driver blobs. Even if you paid patent licenses like mp3, mpeg2 and mpeg4, there's plenty Windows codecs and drivers you couldn't even pay for if you wanted to. Don't forget that two of the most important formats, WMA and WMV are controlled by a corporation that has absolutely no interest in licensing them for Linux. And crappy companies like Macromedia who can't even keep their Linux flash player from falling several versions behind the windows counterpart.
In short, it's very nice to talk about "in an ideal world" but it's not going to happen and that has nothing to do with the nerds. Go ahead, try it and you'll find the problem isn't that noone would buy it, the problem is it can't be produced. The closest you'll get are "automators" like EasyUbuntu, Automatix, debian-multimedia etc. which all ignore the legal issues.
Re:ummm... (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems like every discussion I read....where Linux is the topic, there are at least 20 posts putting down Linux and Linux users. To make things worse, these comments are usually +5 insightful. Yet people still complain that Slashdot is full of Linux Zealots. Maybe it's because I don't read many Windows discussions. I follow my own advice and only read the discussions that pertain to me. Though I wouldn't be in the wrong if I did, because I use both. Maybe there should be a slashdot poll to find out just how the community is divided. If I had to guess, I would say that slashdot is 75% Windows lovers these days at least.
I don't see that. (Score:4, Insightful)
I tend to hand out on the Ubuntu channel and I don't see that.
No. Linux is free (as in speech, as in beer).
Accomplishing a specific task in Linux takes effort, the same as it does in Windows or any other system.
But most people have already invested the time to learn how to accomplish that task in Windows and they no longer remember the effort it took.
I've taught people who have never used a computer before. I know the effort it takes for them to learn. My best example was a woman who could not double click with a mouse. She had to hold it still with one hand and click the buttons with her other hand.
A week of playing solitaire and she had mastered the double click and fine mouse control.
Compare apples to apples, okay?
Again, those are the ones who already know how their systems work and how to do research online. Those are the ones who switch to Linux and stay there.
Well, that's a pretty good example of what I was saying. Linux is a kernel. Even a whole distribution is just an OS.
Who would hype it (and who would believe that hype) to the same level as "the second coming of Christ"?
What is inaccurate?
That most people use Windows? Nope, the facts contradict you.
That most computer support people are Windows support people? Nope, the facts contradict you.
Therefore, the caricature is of a Windows support person. Whether you want to accept that fact or not.
Nick Burns isn't supporting their Linux boxes. He's supporting their Windows boxes.
No. If he was doing Linux support he would be a lot less amusing because far fewer people would have experienced that type of Linux support.
Which is the reason you don't see "Nick Burns, jet engine mechanic" as a comedy routine. It wouldn't be funny because very few people would have any experience with that situation.
Nick Burns is funny to so many people because so many people have had similar experiences with Windows support personel.
Not with Linux. With Windows.
Trolls complain about Linux simply because it is different from Windows and they don't want to re-learn their "computer skills". But the reality is that they don't have "computer skills". All they have is "Windows skills".
Re:Things must be changed to be taken seriously (Score:2, Insightful)
Ubuntu, if you ever cared to look it up, is a reference to the spirit of forgiveness and humanity that inspired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela to create the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to keep South Africa from spiraling downward into civil war and slaughter. It won them the Nobel Peace Prize.
The choice of name is deliberate. Mark Shuttleworth, the man whose millions have allowed this whole process to happen, is doing his tiny part to mend South African society by following the example of some of the greatest political thinkers in modern history. The philosophy behind Ubuntu Linux is: An educated society is an enlightened society. So Shuttleworth and his foundation are spending millions of dollars promoting this principle.
Ubuntu isn't branding; it's what this software is. Heck, they're even giving away CDs [ubuntu.com] to anyone who asks.
So with all due respect, try to learn just a little about something before voicing an opinion on it. You would really benefit from a learning to practice Ubuntu from time to time.
HTH HAND