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Thoughts on (k)ubuntu
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06-02-2008 2:11am#1
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You must have some pretty interesting hardware, as I've yet to see Ubuntu crash
Might be a KDE vs Gnome thing.Slutmonkey57b wrote: »I'm not thrilled that I don't get a choice where things are installed
You do if you install manually.0 -
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I'll offer you this advice: After installing, get yourself automatix. It installs all the good stuff for you. video drivers, flash, mp3 support, dvd support, java for your web browser, skype, etc. etc. etc.
Originally Posted by Slutmonkey57B The OS is either "ready to go", or it isn't. While I could well spend another 2 weeks researching and fiddling to get good functionality out of it, the simple truth is that XP was giving me good functionality within 1 day. Maybe in future the ubuntu devs will include automatix and thunar, or synaptic, but the OS has to stand on its own two feet to be judged properly. If anything, the quality of third-party "replacement" apps only serves to show up the shoddiness of the default ones, and that sort of choice reflects badly on the OS.
Windows doesn't have native support for any of those things listed either.
Seriously though, I really dislike KDE and it would have put me off linux if it was the first display manager I used. I do like GNOME alot though and because of this I find ubuntu much much better than Kubuntu. I have gone from a windows only user to exclusive ubuntu, laptop and PC. Even my mother and sister re using it on the home PC with no complaints.
In short, give it a bit longer, you will really love it.0 -
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Yes, a computer is a tool. But it is a pretty useless tool without the software that developers write to run on it! They are doing it for free so that anyone that wants to use it can. And the fact that you don't feel grateful to them for letting you use the "tool" (which lets face it, would be of no use to you without an OS) without charging you anything astounds me. Even if you hated the OS and never looked at it again, you still have no reason to blame the people that make it possible.
It isn't a question of "blame". It's a question of "does what they've provided work?" If it doesn't work, then providing it serves no purpose - a broken tool is a broken tool, regardless of whether it's free or not. You shouldn't expect to thank someone who's handing out hammer handles on street corners on the basis that it's a free hammer. Again this is a cultural issue with software development, where "good enough most of the time" has always been an acceptable state of being. Software is an esoteric art and as such has been able to get away with standards of provision that simply don't apply for their colleagues in the hardware world.I'll start with the main point I want to make. Do you intend informing the Ubuntu/Kubuntu people of your experience? You don't appear to be looking for specific solutions, and after spending so much time informing random boardsies about it, I can't imagine you'd be opposed to relaying the experience to the relevant people who can do something about it. (Include your hardware configuration if you do.)
I'm sure they're pretty tied up with coding Hardy, what?
As with the swap space issue, Linux is different. Packages are split across different parts of the file system hierarchy - executables, libraries, header files, and content go into different places. This is for historical reasons. It has it's problems but I can't say its' ever caused me any trouble. BSD, Solaris and other UNIX-alikes share this historical baggage, Apple ditched it for OSX. Each has their problems and benefits.
Oh, I have no doubt the installer is doing its job the way it needs to be done. My interest in that case was more along the lines of wondering why the recommended, or default install system is so closed off to the user. While apt-get and whatever worked nicely for me, I'm not about to start (for example) partitioning a 500 gig drive into separate little sections for /boot /etc /home to suit the filesystem, and that's more a reflection again on me expecting the OS to do the tedious work for me while I use the computer. The install process on kubuntu I found uniformly great - apart from adept problems - but that one issue just caught my interest towards the end, and then more as a "what happens when that 3 gig partition runs out? Will it cop on there's another 3 disks it could be saving stuff on?" sort of question.A friend of mine tried installing it recently on his MacBook, and it went not perfectly but better than yours, to my surprise. Then on his desktop, it broke in ways I didn't think possible. He's given up, and I don't blame him. Yours and his situations are real, and there's real place for criticism in the Ubuntu/Linux world (though again, it's best directed at the relevant Ubuntu folk). Plenty of us don't want to exist in an echo-chamber.
Nevertheless, I think you'd be better served by laying off the ad hominem attacks and acknowledging that it's actually pretty unlikely that Linux developers in general are mountain dew addicted paranoiacs who don't care that their software doesn't work with your machine.
Heh. I exaggerate for comic effect. On a serious note though, I'm not intending to attack the devs themselves, or the work they've put in. But I do think it's necessary to call something for how it operates, rather than what its intentions are. Good intentions are nice, but at the end of it, Linux has a job to do and it needs to do it well. Very well if it wants to increase its uptake, because it doesn't just have to be "good enough" or "as good as the competition" - it has to be so much better than the competition that going through the hassle of changing is worth it.Are these kind of threads getting more common?
I thought the topic deserved a more considered reaction than the "why I'm sticking with XP" thread started off with.Also you need to ask for help from people. Use IRC for real-time help if you don't have someone who can sit beside you and show you what to do when you hit issues.
I would have to say my biggest frustration with the install, and the usage experience was simply this:
A lot of the info, and the fixes I needed, were readily and helpfully available (some of them were unhelpful admittedly!). However, they were all online. Given that the devs know they have problems with Wifi, I honestly cannot make sense of the decision not to take those html files, and slap them on the DVD. They're in a format where they don't even have to write a hand-holding Mac Help Centre app to do it. It's as though they were so unsure of their own OS that they assumed that everyone would be dual-booting and switching OS's to find out what's going wrong. That's probably true, but I found that the simple worst offence of the whole thing. It was a glaring, shining example of how the devs could have made the whole thing simpler for users, newbies, and themselves, but chose not to take it, for no reason I can fathom.I don't really know what the comment refers to exactly. What is stupid?
The above. I didn't mind the fixes I had to implement in that case. I minded that they were unnecessary and easily avoided.
Anyway, all the feedback is appreciated and I'm sure I'll try linux again. In about another two releases' time. 0 -
Slutmonkey57b wrote: »If it doesn't work, then providing it serves no purpose - a broken tool is a broken tool, regardless of whether it's free or not.
But it does work, you just didn't know how to get it to work, or didn't look up the solution and put in a bit of effort. The outcome you get affected by the amount of effort you put in. Simply wiping a partition when the graphics driver doesn't work is not effort imo.Slutmonkey57b wrote: »I'm not about to start (for example) partitioning a 500 gig drive into separate little sections for /boot /etc /home to suit the filesystem, and that's more a reflection again on me expecting the OS to do the tedious work for me while I use the computer.
You only need three separate partitions if you want a more usable system. /boot, / and /home (swap as well but that isn't the same). And the installer doesn't do this because it is giving you the choice. Some people are happy with just one partition and others want their system to be more failsafe. This is not exactly tedious work. It takes a less than a minute.Slutmonkey57b wrote: »Linux has a job to do and it needs to do it well.
And it does for many, many people. But you have to extend yourself a bit as well (mostly due to hardware manufacturers not playing nice).Slutmonkey57b wrote: »I thought the topic deserved a more considered reaction than the "why I'm sticking with XP" thread started off with.
Yep, at least you put in the effort of giving an explanation of what went wrong.Slutmonkey57b wrote: »I would have to say my biggest frustration with the install, and the usage experience was simply this:
A lot of the info, and the fixes I needed, were readily and helpfully available (some of them were unhelpful admittedly!). However, they were all online. Given that the devs know they have problems with Wifi, I honestly cannot make sense of the decision not to take those html files, and slap them on the DVD.
They could not put help on the DVD for all the different types of Wifi cards. What would be next, all the different types of graphics cards? They are trying to fit as much software on the DVD as the can. I want that software, not help files for all sorts of combinations of hardware, as I'm sure most other users do.0 -
Envy to install video drivers. It even has a text console if X gets screwed.A base install works, but is more or less useless until you install the proper video drivers etc.
I tried automatix myself and didn't like it at all. apt-get or even the gui Synaptic does the job for me.Khannie wrote:I'll offer you this advice: After installing, get yourself automatix. It installs all the good stuff for you. video drivers, flash, mp3 support, dvd support, java for your web browser, skype, etc. etc. etc.
UgggglleeeeeeeKhannie wrote:For a file manager, I use "thunar". It's actually from the xfce window manager. It's closer to windows explorer and very lightweight. I love it. I've attached a screenshot.
I'll stick to Nautilus thanks 
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But it does work, you just didn't know how to get it to work, or didn't look up the solution and put in a bit of effort. The outcome you get affected by the amount of effort you put in. Simply wiping a partition when the graphics driver doesn't work is not effort imo.
If showing a Black Screen and making the system unresponsive is your idea of a "working" piece of software, then I despair. For the record, I tried 3 drivers on exactly the same hardware:
1: Built-in kubuntu X driver.
2: Standard install fglrx driver.
3. ATI catalyst 8.1 driver.
Of these three, Driver#2 did not work. All other paramaters were the same. This means that Driver #2 is broken and does not work. This is not a case of PLBKAC. As regards "effort", it takes significantly less effort for the guy who makes the DVD images to replace a broken fglrx driver with a working updated one (swift revision times are supposed to be one of the cornerstones of Open Source), than it does for me to reboot into a working OS, look up the solution online, then spend time fiddling in the boot console to fix the problem.You only need three separate partitions if you want a more usable system. /boot, / and /home (swap as well but that isn't the same). This is not exactly tedious work. It takes a less than a minute.
On the contrary, I feel it is tedious work. Why should I repartition all my existing (dual boot) drives just to suit the OS's file system? The OS is supposed to be working the hardware for me, the drives are formatted in a system it understands, so if it can't bring itself to install onto empty space without me holding it's hand, that's not my problem. But I did say that this issue was more a case of me not being prepared to do it than a fundamental design flaw.They could not put help on the DVD for all the different types of Wifi cards. What would be next, all the different types of graphics cards? They are trying to fit as much software on the DVD as the can. I want that software, not help files for all sorts of combinations of hardware, as I'm sure most other users do.
If MS can fit the hideous bloated mess that is Vista on a DVD, then I'm pretty sure Ubuntu can stick a couple of megs of HTML on theirs. If it installs fine off a CD, then they've got a spare 4 gigs of space on a DVD to fill. They don't even need docs for every piece of hardware out there - they just need the official help docs and the troubleshooting stickys - that would solve a hell of a lot of newbie questions, and install problems.0 -
Envy to install video drivers. It even has a text console if X gets screwed.
Hi. My name is ctrl + alt + F1.I tried automatix myself and didn't like it at all. apt-get or even the gui Synaptic does the job for me.
Base install + automatix = functional ubuntu IMO. It's the first thing I do after an install.Ugggglleeeeeee I'll stick to Nautilus thanks
To each their own. I think Nautilus is lacking. Thunar has some _lovely_ features. Chief among them is multiple file rename (even allows regex based). Also allows your own scripts in the right click menu (I use an rm -rf script for avoiding the trashcan, etc.). Not sure what you find so ugly about it. I actually think that the "classic" windows explorer is the best file manager I've used to date. Maybe that's where we differ. 0 -
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Yadda Yadda YaddaHi. My name is ctrl + alt + F1.
Actually the time I needed the -t was after an xserver update - I didn't uninstall the drivers first. TBH I was pissed when I just hit the update button. Upshot was that X was ****ed. Envy -t + reinstall nVidia drivers = working again.
Base install + install what I need using apt-get = functional ubuntu.Base install + automatix = functional ubuntu IMO. It's the first thing I do after an install. And for a Gentoo geek I'd expect you to understand
Nautilis is as basic as hell tbh. But it suits some purposes. Krusader FTW tho. fc put me on to it today - love it already - even in Gnome.To each their own. I think Nautilus is lacking.0 -
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You're right, it is, and it's unfortunate, but I honestly don't see what can be done about it. The number of devices out there is huge, and the interactions between them much larger again. If every software producer, be it MS, Sun, Apple or open source developers, waited until they had a failure rate comparable to hardware vendors, little software would ever get released. It's possible, but it's incredibly expensive. Is the only option to not release it?Slutmonkey57b wrote: »Again this is a cultural issue with software development, where "good enough most of the time" has always been an acceptable state of being. Software is an esoteric art and as such has been able to get away with standards of provision that simply don't apply for their colleagues in the hardware world.
The issue is further complicated when, in the case of ATI's drivers for Linux, you're dealing with a binary object that you can't support or debug yourself provided by a company that has no apparent interest in ensuring compatibility. As the distro developer, you have a choice to include or omit that driver with known issues. Omitting it means that people will have graphics, sure, but no acceleration. Including it means putting up with possible major issues for the end user if they opt to install it.
Which they're doing in order to improve it. That takes feedback.Slutmonkey57b wrote: »I'm sure they're pretty tied up with coding Hardy, what?
That's fair enough. Personally I like to specify what goes where myself, for reasons bman outlined above. But doesn't the Ubuntu install include a 'Just click ok' option that automatically configures your partitions for you? I'm pretty sure it does. As to automatically expanding, it doesn't do that, though many partition formats support growth. It'd be nice though certainly. Does windows do it?Slutmonkey57b wrote: »a reflection again on me expecting the OS to do the tedious work for me while I use the computer. The install process on kubuntu I found uniformly great - apart from adept problems - but that one issue just caught my interest towards the end, and then more as a "what happens when that 3 gig partition runs out? Will it cop on there's another 3 disks it could be saving stuff on?" sort of question.
Again a good point. Not one that would occur to me personally, but then I'm the sort to hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 when I get a video card error. I would say though that if you feel you might do one thing to improve the situation, contact the Ubuntu folk about this point and add your voice to the idea that these docs should be included as standard. (Albeit with a warning that the online docs will be more up to date and correct.)Slutmonkey57b wrote: »A lot of the info, and the fixes I needed, were readily and helpfully available (some of them were unhelpful admittedly!). However, they were all online. Given that the devs know they have problems with Wifi, I honestly cannot make sense of the decision not to take those html files, and slap them on the DVD.
To clarify, you don't need multiple drives to use multiple partitions. As to Windows using whatever space it finds regardless of format - really? Since when? I've never seen Windows recognize anything other than FAT or NTFS partitions. By 'share space on the Linux partition' do you mean FAT/NTFS space on a disk primarily given over to Linux?Slutmonkey57b wrote: »What you are proposing is that I set some of my existing drives (which happen to be full of data I need) as linux partitions to suit its filesystem. The other OS I am booting is perfectly capable of seeing disks as disks-and using whatever space it finds, regardless of whether it is an NTFS or Ext3 format. If I want to install something from windows, I can use spare space on the Linux partition.
I don't quite see it as a growing trend (wouldn't know tbh) but likewise I don't like it. By way of a caveat though, the OP mentioned that his original jabs at the developers were meant as humour but they didn't come across that way. I've found much of it combative.I haven't read all of the thread, but I did want to add this: There's a growing trend of people trying linux and being a bit less than happy with it. When they come on here to express their dissatisfaction there's a growing trend of lynching them.0 -
You're right, it is, and it's unfortunate, but I honestly don't see what can be done about it. The number of devices out there is huge, and the interactions between them much larger again. If every software producer, be it MS, Sun, Apple or open source developers, waited until they had a failure rate comparable to hardware vendors, little software would ever get released. It's possible, but it's incredibly expensive. Is the only option to not release it?
Absolutely the levels of accuracy cannot be as high for software as they are for hardware. But that doesn't mean that the only choice is "buggy and released" or "nothing at all". Think of comparisons between two software packages you've used on any platform to perform the same function (Azureus vs uTorrent is my favourite for obvious reasons) - in any case the superior software is the one which shows the evidence that it has been worked on until it's ready, rather than until the release deadline comes up, and the devs go "eh, we'll fix it next time" - only to be overcome with feature creep. I found it telling using kubuntu that the stable, quality apps uniformly had a horrible UI experience. There seemed to be an law of inverse proportion between the polish of the UI and the stability of the underlying code.The issue is further complicated when, in the case of ATI's drivers for Linux, you're dealing with a binary object that you can't support or debug yourself provided by a company that has no apparent interest in ensuring compatibility. As the distro developer, you have a choice to include or omit that driver with known issues. Omitting it means that people will have graphics, sure, but no acceleration. Including it means putting up with possible major issues for the end user if they opt to install it.
An excellent point. However, both drivers #2 and #3 were closed source and provided by ATI. Therefore a working, closed source, proprietary driver *could* have been provided instead of a broken one.To clarify, you don't need multiple drives to use multiple partitions. As to Windows using whatever space it finds regardless of format - really? Since when? I've never seen Windows recognize anything other than FAT or NTFS partitions. By 'share space on the Linux partition' do you mean FAT/NTFS space on a disk primarily given over to Linux?
Neither XP or kubuntu would recognise their rivals formats "out of the box". Having installed (in both cases free) drivers, both could read and write each other's partitions. What I mean in this case, is best described by example.
Say you have three physical drives. You use drive A as your install drive for both XP and linux in separate partitions, and you've installed support for both OS's to read each other's file formats. Drives B & C house data that you've brought over from another machine. Drive A runs out of space, drives B & C still have space you can use, but partitioning them would potentially destroy the mission critical data they house. You need to download and install Azureus, for all the legitimate Linux ISO's that torrenting was designed for. XP will realise there is no space on drive A, but will ask you where you want to install it. XP does not care which physical device you're using, and isn't limited by its hereditary file system structure. Will linux expect me to create a partition on one of the other drives and assign it a part of the linux file structure before it will install? Given that I can't do that, what are the options?I don't quite see it as a growing trend (wouldn't know tbh) but likewise I don't like it. By way of a caveat though, the OP mentioned that his original jabs at the developers were meant as humour but they didn't come across that way. I've found much of it combative.
It's a metaphor for the unending struggle of sudo apt-get install module-assistant build-essential fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++5 linux-headers-$(uname -r) versus the new initiate to the linux experience. 0 -
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Perfectly true; but the thing is, your buggy and released is my hey-it-just-works. I know this is going to sound flippant and dismissive but the fact is that for a distribution, they want to release the software that people want to see released. When their bug tracker is telling them that, say, few desktop machines and a larger number of laptops are having any problems with a specific package, do they withhold it until they've reached a critical point? Given the heterogeneity of hardware out there, where do you pick the cut-off point?Slutmonkey57b wrote: »But that doesn't mean that the only choice is "buggy and released" or "nothing at all".
Of course, this could simply come down to the fact it works on my hardware (and I'd be arguing your side if it didn't
) - but I think it holds on its' own, picking that cut off point is hard, and you'll invariably end up leaving (a few|some|a lot of) people out in the cold. The Debian project for instance, had glacial release cycles for exactly this reason, and ended up frustrating their users. (Then again, they've got about 15,000 packages for each of about 12 architectures, so it's another kettle of fish.)
I don't follow this; how? (I'm predicating this on the 'could' being on the part of the Ubuntu folk, is that right?) This is only possible if the driver provider is bothered to fix and release in a timely manner, and that's not always been the case. So it comes down to my point that it's a hard choice for the distro maintainers - release a driver they can't fix with known problems on some configurations, or omit it and annoy anyone who wants it and may have the correct hardware.Slutmonkey57b wrote: »Therefore a working, closed source, proprietary driver *could* have been provided instead of a broken one.
This is changing mind you, with the full release of ATI and Intel specs, we'll see fully open source and more maintainable drivers going into the mainline kernel tree over the next few years; and in fairness, I've found NV at least to be solid and stable, so fair play to them for providing drivers for an unpopular platform. Hopefully they'll join the bandwagon ATI/Intel bandwagon too.
Ok, that's clearer. Short answer, yes, it will expect space to be given over to it. In theory you could install software anywhere so long as there's a driver that has read/write support, thus it could be possible with ntfs3g. You'd force the packages to be installed to wherever that partition was mounted. Whether you could trust it to the extent you could trust the ext3 or reiser etc drivers, I don't know, I've not used it.Slutmonkey57b wrote: »Will linux expect me to create a partition on one of the other drives and assign it a part of the linux file structure before it will install? Given that I can't do that, what are the options?
Thing is though, even if you're primary disk is crammed full, and your secondary disk with important data is, say, 75% full, you could repartiton it to a 75%/25% ntfs/ext3fs without losing data - it's certainly possible if you wanted to. Obviously not ideal (and formatting gives me the heebie jeebies), but then under-budgeting for disk space if you're doing anything non-trivial is a losing proposition.
It's funny y'know, I used to be able to rattle out stuff like that, but Ubuntu has domesticated me, I can honestly say I've done little in the way of that over the past couple of years, other than the odd 'apt-cache search foo' 'apt-get install foo'. I mustn't be a Real Linux User.Slutmonkey57b wrote: »sudo apt-get install module-assistant build-essential fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++5 linux-headers-$(uname -r)0 -
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