6 ms·

Ubuntu 10.04: The Perfect Consumer Operating System?

46 points by gibsonf1 17y ago

graywh 17y ago
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1218613 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1218613
pierrefar 17y ago
I've heard this sentiment before. Every year since 2000 has been proclaimed the year of consumer Linux. Yeah, sure, 2010 is the one and Ubuntu will do it. I've been testing every single release of Ubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSUSE on my laptop for the past few years and never did any last more than a few weeks. It's just too abrasive an experience. Sadly, I will download and try this year's crop and, predictably, they will be rubbish. And next year, it will be the same story again.
- rufugee 17y ago
  Apparently you live in an alternate universe. I've been using Linux for my desktop OS since 1999, and Ubuntu since 2004, and it's been a consistently great experience. Sure, there are warts on occasion, but that's true with all OSes. Ubuntu has been solid enough to keep me productive by day (as a CTO of a company of over 1000 employees), and by night (as a consultant). I even bought a MacBook Pro last year and gave OS X a try. It lasted around a month. My frustration with its completely odd UI design decisions, dismal package management (ports, fink), and second-class treatment of open source software led me to install Ubuntu on the laptop and wipe OS X. Couldn't be happier with it now. 2010 may not be the year of Linux on the consumer desktop, but it's another year of Linux on my desktop, and I couldn't be happier.
  - bjelkeman-again 17y ago
    Dismal package management. The article talks about a consumer OS. My mom would have a fit using Ubuntu and demand her Windows 95 back if I replaced her Mac OS X (which I moved her onto) with Ubuntu. :) For a CTO, like you, with technical skills I think Ubuntu really can work, specially if open source software is important. But as a consumer operating system? I think the iPhone OS is closer to what my mom needs than what Windows 7 or Mac OS X is. Of course, consumers gets more tech savvy as time goes...
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - Tichy 17y ago
      I've had my mum on Ubuntu for 3 years now, she's fine with it. Because of the package manager and repositories I think Ubuntu is the best OS for mums: all the updates happen automatically. What special needs does your mum have?
      - rdtsc 17y ago
        Ditto for my mom. She would not trade her Ubuntu OS for anything else. I showed her Mac OS X and Windows Vista and she said they are both hard to use and confusing for her. She has been using Ubuntu for 4 years now. Granted, I administer it for her remotely. But she goes online, reads email, chats, uses Skype, and so on.
  - ugh 17y ago
    “alternate universe” No alternate universe needed. Different people don’t have to have the same requirements and preferences. No one right screw for the one right nut. People and Operating Systems are sadly|luckily quite a bit more complicated than that. That’s just why discussions about the general superiority of any one Operating System are always so horrendously stupid. (This sentence is a general comment and not a response to you. You specifically write about your needs and your needs only, no claims of general superiority involved. Just to clarify.)
  - pierrefar 17y ago
    I'm very happy you've found that Linux serves your desktop needs. For me, I would never host on anything but Linux or FreeBSD, and my phone is a G1 Android. But your desktop is only one of ~1-2% of desktops that use Linux. The "alternate universe", i.e. the 98%+ of the world, are happy with Windows or OSX, some of them by choice. Your clearly a very happy with Linux, but don't project this happiness on others. The open source world could learn a lot from the story of Firefox. When the market was frustrated with a slow and insecure IE, Firefox came along being very fast and secure. Us geeks loved it, recommended it to non-techie friends and, these benefits were important to them too. What benefit does desktop Linux give me? The only real new benefit coming in Linux is the fast boot up. That is a real consumer benefit. I can't think of another real benefit in the current crop of distros.
    - matclayton 17y ago
      The other real tangible benefit is $$$ certainly compared to the top end Windows releases, although the snow leopard price is hardly a deal breaker.
      - pierrefar 17y ago
        In terms of absolute money number saved, yes absolutely. But how much do you value your time in terms of learning and setting up a different OS?
        jorgecastillo 17y ago
        I live in a third world country so at least my time is pretty cheap compared to a license. Some hours reading the manual, web searching or asking in forums vs (26 8-hours working days) x ($15[The average income in my region]).* Most people use Windows but have it unlicensed. I am not rich so yeah Linux look dirt cheap to me and I don't even use Linux I use OpenBSD. I definitely think the government should push open source in all areas we would be better off. Right now kids are learning to use Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Coral Draw, Flash and Visual basic 6. I have to remark that they are learning all this stuff in fairly mediocre way. Also don't forget government and public institutions sites that are non standards compliant and flash heavy. *In my comparison $1 = 10 Pesos. The price of Windows 7 Ultimate is 4,004.17 Pesos in Mexico.
  - swombat 17y ago
    Why do you feel the need to do consulting work at night if you're the CTO of a 1000+ people company?
    - tome 17y ago
      He says "Ubuntu has been" so perhaps he means he has been CTO and consultant at different times.
      - rufugee 17y ago
        No. Consulting on the side allows me to keep my skills sharp on the development side. I am a coder and entrepreneur at heart, and being a CTO by day doesn't provide a lot of hands-on coding opportunities.
    - euroclydon 17y ago
      Some people: 1) get bored at their day job. 2) need it to pay the bills. 3) can't get motivated to try out new technology, unless there is a REAL customer willing to pay.
  - herval 17y ago
    so the guy lives in an alternative universe because YOU like Linux?
    - Tichy 17y ago
      It disproves the claim that Linux is unusable.
      - herval 17y ago
        so if I proclaim that you don't exist in my universe, then you will magically disappear and it will count as proof? there's enough room in the world for people to like ANYTHING. Just because a minority likes something (say, eating human flesh?) it doesn't justify it as 'right', 'good' or even 'common'....
        Tichy 17y ago
        Well if there is at least one person who can use Linux, it is obviously usable. I don't understand what you are getting at? Are we working on the assumption that Linux is unusable, and we have to provide sufficient proof of the opposite? Why would we approach the issue that way?
      - tptacek 17y ago
        No it doesn't. I used Linux and FreeBSD as my desktop pretty much throughout all of the 1990s. Was Linux ever a "usable" desktop operating system in the '90s?
        Tichy 17y ago
        I don't know, was it a "consistently great experience", as the other comment said?
        tptacek 17y ago
        It was if you liked using GDB to start your mail reader.
  - tvon 17y ago
    First, that's a lot of up-votes (+25) for a completely subjective, "personal experience" response (call that my critique to the community). As for your comment itself, you've been using Linux since 1999, of course the current state of affairs is going to seem fantastic to you. In 1999 installing linux was a big console-based adventure full of unknowns and question marks... things today are obviously much, much simpler. Point being, your perspective on "Linux for the Consumer Desktop" is highly skewed. I mean, if asked a year ago, or two years ago, would you have said much differently?
    - papachito 17y ago
      > In 1999 installing linux was a big console-based adventure full of unknowns and question marks... things today are obviously much, much simpler Except it wasn't with distros like Mandrake (now mandriva), no matter how much linux haters like to repeat that lie, Linux has been easy to install for the last 10 years. Now try to install OSX on anything else than a Mac, you'll have fun. If you don't want to have installation issues, get a pre-installed machine.
  - alanthonyc 17y ago
    Off topc: does the multi-touch track pad work with Linux on your Mac?
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Agreed, I've never tested a Ubuntu operating system that had the same usability feel as windows (which is my current OS more by habit than choice), or even that has the same refined-but-alien feel of using OS X (I've rarely had grasp of a mac for longer than a few hours, but despite feeling alien I can still navigate and do everything I can with windows, simply because I'm computer-savy), but Linux never even achieves that feeling. It has an unrefined ad-hoc feel to it, things don't seem right or straight.
  - aw3c2 17y ago
    Trust me, if you used Linux for some time you will feel the same about Windows. I certainly do. It starts with installing programs by download installers, goes over not having windows dock on each other and ends with having no useful terminal.
    - barrkel 17y ago
      How are commercial apps normally installed on Linux? (I'm presuming it's not by downloading installers.) I'm not a fan of arbitrary window docking - I have my own layout system based on cascading - while Cygwin rxvt provides most of what I want out of a terminal, shell etc.
      - gizmo 17y ago
        You download installers, just like you would for Windows. If you want to install Komodo IDE for Linux you download the tarball and double-click the excutable (or start it from a console). Want to install github firewall install? Download tarball, double-click excutable.
      - stonemetal 17y ago
        Actually it is by downloading installers(or at least it has been in my experience. Houdini, Java, etc. )
        Tichy 17y ago
- dalore 17y ago
  You haven't actually said why it was an abrasive experience. Plenty of people are happy with Ubuntu as a desktop.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  > Every year since 2000 has been proclaimed the year of consumer Linux People have been overly optimistc in the past, but I think even the less tech savvy can use Linux by now.
kingkilr 17y ago
Eh, I use Ubuntu as my primary OS, and I have for a number of years. I'm running 10.04 now, and it's good (obviously, or I wouldn't use it day to day), but I don't think it's any more than incrementally better than 9.10.
samd 17y ago
A regular user should never have to go to the command line to do anything, but I can't seem to avoid that with Linux.
- ricree 17y ago
  Out of curiosity, what do you find yourself having to use the command line for? I tend to use it out of preference, but I can't offhand think of any "regular" tasks I do that would require it. Some more obscure bits of troubleshooting might occasionally require it. But even there the gui options seem to have almost everything covered unless you start going a lot deeper than any regular user will care to.
  - samd 17y ago
    It was during troubleshooting, I couldn't get my dual monitor configuration to save unless I launched the config menu as sudo from the command line. Of course it didn't tell me this was the problem either.
    - gloob 17y ago
      A regular user doesn't have dual monitors, though. That said, I've had some issues with previous versions of Ubuntu that took some mucking around to fix, especially with sound and occasionally with wireless (though the latter has always worked fine on my laptops).
      - ricree 17y ago
        I have as well, though in my experience a lot of those issues have been fixed. Especially with sound, I haven't seen much in the way of problems since 9.10 shipped with a kernel that ran pulseAudio acceptably.
      - andrewvc 17y ago
        Regular users? No. Gamers, Graphic Artists, People who work with anything involving large amounts of on screen data, yes. None of these people should have to know how to use the CLI just to get two monitors working. I had the same problem with dual monitors for the record.
deleted 17y ago
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gwern 17y ago
Not even close. The 'cloud' is half-baked (I was rather embarrassed when I sent out share links for a PDF to a bunch of people, and it turns out that none of the share links worked, ever), no one cares about the music store when audio doesn't reliably work, etc.
deleted 17y ago
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deleted 17y ago
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- mcav 17y ago
  Wireless has been a problem for me too. Edit: No, I'm not trolling. Try getting a Marvell 8335 to work. I couldn't.
- jrockway 17y ago
  Nice Linux troll from 10 years ago. Since hardware is more standardized these days (Intel video / wireless / hd-audio), Linux rarely has hardware compatibility problems. Sure, there are bugs, but it's software. On my OS X box (that I finally killed off and replaced with Debian), I couldn't eject DVDs if they were in VLC's playlist. Drag to trash, nothing would happen, hit the eject button after that, nothing would happen. A reboot was the only way to get the DVD back. Welcome to software.
  - bobbywilson0 17y ago
    I am not trying to troll Linux. My apologies. I really want Linux to be successful for consumers. I just feel like they are jumping the gun saying the latest Ubuntu release will be the release that changes consumers. I think there are still big issues with Linux in general that makes it unsuitable for everyday consumers. What about apps? A few of the apps they are used to will be cross-platform. Most will have a linux-y replacement, but some commercial software they were using on Windows or OS X just won't be available for Linux. Even today I am wrestling with getting the right video driver that doesn't break hdmi audio, and fix the overscan on my hdtv. I know that bugs are an inherent problem with software, it breaks that's all there is to it.
  - Zak 17y ago
    Did you try `diskutil eject` - possibly preceded by `diskutil unmount force` to get your DVD back? Certain bugs and odd software interactions require the use of the command line to fix on every OS, as do problems that appear seemingly at random. I currently have a Windows 7 installation that started hanging during the boot process at classpnp.sys for about 5 minutes. A reinstall did not fix the problem. If I was a typical consumer, I'd probably send the computer in for warranty service.
jrockway 17y ago
For what people use personal computers for these days, I agree that Ubuntu is a good choice. Everyone's favorite web apps work, you can play movies, and you can make Word documents. Add a little eye candy, and people are happy. What's even nicer is not needing CPU-sucking anti-virus protection scanning every file in the background, draining your laptop's battery life. If you want to install software, you don't have to go to some random website; you just open the software installation control panel, type a keyword, click a button, and start using the software. Even Apple realized this was a good idea, and copied it in the form of "the App Store". There will never be a perfect desktop OS (ever use OS X or Windows!?), but Linux is certainly becoming a great competitor these days. I no longer shy away from recommending Ubuntu; it meets most people's needs, and it's easier to maintain that Windows or OS X. Who would have thunk it!
- AngryParsley 17y ago
  While it does succeed in areas where other OSes are weak (package management!), Ubuntu still has a lot of annoyances. For example... Copying and pasting is broken in some apps: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/11334 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/11334 Desktop icons cannot be auto-arranged: https://bugs.launchpad.net/nautilus/+bug/20284 https://bugs.launchpad.net/nautilus/+bug/20284 Screensavers can't be customized: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/+bug/22007 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/... Context menu for an USB pendrive shows "Unmount", "Eject" and "Safely Remove Drive": https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/453072 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/453072 There are a lot of others listed here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bugs https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bugs Checking off features on a list isn't enough to make a good operating system. Like baseball, you have to work on the fundamentals to win. (Jeez that last sentence sounds corny.)
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    Did you just list bugs specifically shortlisted by Ubuntu as minor, easily fixed interface issues and use that very work to argue that they're not focussing on these things?
kierank 17y ago
Not until they lose the Fisher-Price look.
- kylec 17y ago
  Did you even read the article? The whole first page is devoted to the improved, more professional look of the OS.
  - peyton 17y ago
    This release has a different menubar color. That's nice, but it doesn't address the fundamental ugliness and disunity of the OS. What Ubuntu needs is a change the magnitude of, say, OS9 -> OSX or XP -> Vista.
  - kierank 17y ago
    My point still stands. Though it is gradually getting there.
brent 17y ago
Once again: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=928726 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=928726
sailormoon 17y ago
The social networking client Gwibber is now built right into the desktop. Argh! There's nothing I hate more than seemingly cool open source software being saddled from birth with ridiculous names! Gwibber!? What was the author thinking!?
- e1ven 17y ago
  Twitter isn't exactly the poster-boy of great naming. Names grow on you when you use them more. GIMP, I'll give you, though...
djb_hackernews 17y ago
I made the "switch" a few months ago to Ubuntu 9.04. It's not smooth at all. It regularly hangs (The current window fades gray). All I am doing is hacking django and browsing the web. Flash doesn't work. That might be a Firefox issue. Flash does work in FF 3.5, which I installed, but it installed as a separate browser, not an upgrade. Also, my volume is too low to listen to music or watch movies, which was a bummer because I just moved and don't have a way to do either of those things.
- 3pt14159 17y ago
  Upgrade to 9.10, it is much better for the web. I use 9.04 on my netbook and I get problems like that every now and then too, but my desktop is just fine.
  - cdavid 17y ago
    As far as I am concerned, ubuntu releases have gone downhill ever since 2006 or so. A lot of old issues which have been reported, and are easy to fix, have been hanging forever. But when I had to reluctantly install the 10.04 beta on my new netbook because it was the only way to get support for the crappy broadcom chipset, I was very pleasantly surprised. Everything works, including suspend to disk, sound, decent battery support (last as long as officially reported on windows).
- kellishaver 17y ago
  Here's how I ended up fixing my low volume level issues in 9.10: http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/447122874/alsa-in-ubuntu-9-10 http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/447122874/alsa-in-ubuntu-... And here's how I fixed Flash: http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/451068353/while-were-on-the-subject-of-fixing-things-in http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/451068353/while-were-on-t...
  - djb_hackernews 17y ago
    Where do I send the check?
PostOnce 17y ago
Linux will be used by regular people when the manual editing of configuration files is no longer necessary.
- cdavid 17y ago
  That has been unnecessary for a long time. The only time I edit config files is for things that an average user would not use (vim, shell, etc...). Which file do you feel are necessary to edit by hand in Linux ?
  - pchivers 17y ago
    -/etc/fstab --> needed to get secondary hard drives to automount during boot -/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist --> needed to install my wireless card
    - e1ven 17y ago
      I'm curious- What advantage is there is to using the external drive on boot, rather than have automounter do it on login? Also, the Ubuntu Restricted Driver's manager did't handle the card? How unusual. I've had it handle the majority of WiFi cards I've thrown at it. I suppose that's a compatibility issue- If Windows weren't pre-installed on a new PC, people would have to install drivers there, too.
- bricestacey 17y ago
  Have you ever used Ubuntu? You never need to edit a configuration file on Ubuntu when used as a typical consumer OS.
  - PostOnce 17y ago
    According to you. I have tried several different versions of Ubuntu (8.04, 8.10, 9.x) and every time, I have to edit pages of config files. Add repositories, remove repositories, something is wrong with the networking, my usb is being weird, have to change something to allow it to get the proprietary ATI drivers, blah blah blah. Linux people always come out and say everything is perfect and linux is ready for the desktop. Sit someone down at a linux box who has never used a command line and they will demand a change of OS in a few days or less, simply because you are required to have esoteric knowledge just to make the damned thing usable.
furtivefelon 17y ago
In my experience, most linux distro's battery management doesn't even match windows xp out of the box (no clear way to tune it). It is the only thing that is stopping me from transitioning to linux full time.
- cdavid 17y ago
  Looking at the battery management on the 10.04 beta, the options seem very similar to the ones on my mac book. What do feel is missing ?
  - AngryParsley 17y ago
    It's not the options, it's the actual power management. I have a netbook with XP and Lucid beta. The battery lasts 6 hours on XP and only 4:30 on Lucid. Both OSes are set to dim the screen and spin down the hard disk on battery power. The fan also comes on a lot more often when I'm running Lucid.
    - papachito 17y ago
      The opposite happens here, when I switch from Lucid to Vista. Did you try with a 10 year old version of linux? I think XP is 10 years old now.
- yungchin 17y ago
  That's a good point. From personal experience, I strongly suspect this is mostly due to lack of power-management in the GPU drivers. In fact, on machines with Intel integrated GPUs I've seen battery life as good as on Windows.
kellishaver 17y ago
I made the switch to Ubuntu a bit ago and I know I'm not the "typical user" since I do design/dev work, but I see nothing about the OS that the average person couldn't pick up on in terms of its operation vs. Windows, and it's even more similar to OS X with regards to how it functions. From my limited experience talking to people who've tried linux, what confuses them the most is the linux file structure, which can look a bit confusing until you come to understand it. The average person probably doesn't need to know a whole lot about that, though. Also, the UI and font rendering aren't quite there yet, but they're getting better all the time. The biggest problem that I see, while I love Ubuntu, getting it to a point where I'm totally happy with it as an OS has taken more work than the average user would be able or willing to implement, i.e. doing things like cleaning up the UI and improving font rendering, and fixing some issues I had with Flash out of the box. I had to ditch Pulseaudio because it performed very poorly with my HD audio off my motherboard. Disabling that and installing/configuring ALSA was a bit of an ordeal that anyone not really comfortable with computers probably wouldn't want to undertake. For me, the attraction to Linux (other than having a more productive work environment) is that I can customize the hell out of it and make it however I want. Most people won't want that flexibility and will want it to "just work" perfectly out of the box. Ubuntu doesn't quite do that yet.
JeremyChase 17y ago
Why are we so fixated with getting 'the consumer' on Linux? The only thing I can imagine is that more people using the software might increase the financial donations to FOSS organizations. I doubt it though. In any case, if you can, please donate some money to any open source groups that you use regularly.
theschwa 17y ago
When will Ubuntu get an integrated backup solution? Sure rsync combined with cron works, but it keeps it out of reach for your average user (or even your lazy one).
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Does Ubuntu One (their version of Dropbox) count?
VBprogrammer 17y ago
I've just installed Ubuntu 10.4. I didn't spend much time in the new theme. I found it just looked ugly against the background of most website backgrounds. It didn't have any delimiter between different parts of the toolbars etc. I was very impressed with the work thats gone into the boot time though. I don't have any timings certainly feels like my anemic old Pentium M 1.4Ghz laptop seems to boot in half the time it used to! Firefox 3.6 seems very snappy. Terminals load in less than a second. I'm not sure how much of the difference is just having removed all the accumulated crud though. I'm glad I upgraded, though I was running an old 7.10 installation with a 2.6.24 RC Kernel which was the first one to support my Broadcom wireless card reasonably well.

46 points by gibsonf1 17y ago

Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1218613 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1218613

I've heard this sentiment before. Every year since 2000 has been proclaimed the year of consumer Linux. Yeah, sure, 2010 is the one and Ubuntu will do it. I've been testing every single release of Ubuntu, Fedora, and OpenSUSE on my laptop for the past few years and never did any last more than a few weeks. It's just too abrasive an experience. Sadly, I will download and try this year's crop and, predictably, they will be rubbish. And next year, it will be the same story again.

rufugee 17y ago
Apparently you live in an alternate universe. I've been using Linux for my desktop OS since 1999, and Ubuntu since 2004, and it's been a consistently great experience. Sure, there are warts on occasion, but that's true with all OSes. Ubuntu has been solid enough to keep me productive by day (as a CTO of a company of over 1000 employees), and by night (as a consultant). I even bought a MacBook Pro last year and gave OS X a try. It lasted around a month. My frustration with its completely odd UI design decisions, dismal package management (ports, fink), and second-class treatment of open source software led me to install Ubuntu on the laptop and wipe OS X. Couldn't be happier with it now. 2010 may not be the year of Linux on the consumer desktop, but it's another year of Linux on my desktop, and I couldn't be happier.
- bjelkeman-again 17y ago
  Dismal package management. The article talks about a consumer OS. My mom would have a fit using Ubuntu and demand her Windows 95 back if I replaced her Mac OS X (which I moved her onto) with Ubuntu. :) For a CTO, like you, with technical skills I think Ubuntu really can work, specially if open source software is important. But as a consumer operating system? I think the iPhone OS is closer to what my mom needs than what Windows 7 or Mac OS X is. Of course, consumers gets more tech savvy as time goes...
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - Tichy 17y ago
    I've had my mum on Ubuntu for 3 years now, she's fine with it. Because of the package manager and repositories I think Ubuntu is the best OS for mums: all the updates happen automatically. What special needs does your mum have?
    - rdtsc 17y ago
      Ditto for my mom. She would not trade her Ubuntu OS for anything else. I showed her Mac OS X and Windows Vista and she said they are both hard to use and confusing for her. She has been using Ubuntu for 4 years now. Granted, I administer it for her remotely. But she goes online, reads email, chats, uses Skype, and so on.
- ugh 17y ago
  “alternate universe” No alternate universe needed. Different people don’t have to have the same requirements and preferences. No one right screw for the one right nut. People and Operating Systems are sadly|luckily quite a bit more complicated than that. That’s just why discussions about the general superiority of any one Operating System are always so horrendously stupid. (This sentence is a general comment and not a response to you. You specifically write about your needs and your needs only, no claims of general superiority involved. Just to clarify.)
- pierrefar 17y ago
  I'm very happy you've found that Linux serves your desktop needs. For me, I would never host on anything but Linux or FreeBSD, and my phone is a G1 Android. But your desktop is only one of ~1-2% of desktops that use Linux. The "alternate universe", i.e. the 98%+ of the world, are happy with Windows or OSX, some of them by choice. Your clearly a very happy with Linux, but don't project this happiness on others. The open source world could learn a lot from the story of Firefox. When the market was frustrated with a slow and insecure IE, Firefox came along being very fast and secure. Us geeks loved it, recommended it to non-techie friends and, these benefits were important to them too. What benefit does desktop Linux give me? The only real new benefit coming in Linux is the fast boot up. That is a real consumer benefit. I can't think of another real benefit in the current crop of distros.
  - matclayton 17y ago
    The other real tangible benefit is $$$ certainly compared to the top end Windows releases, although the snow leopard price is hardly a deal breaker.
    - pierrefar 17y ago
      In terms of absolute money number saved, yes absolutely. But how much do you value your time in terms of learning and setting up a different OS?
      - jorgecastillo 17y ago
        I live in a third world country so at least my time is pretty cheap compared to a license. Some hours reading the manual, web searching or asking in forums vs (26 8-hours working days) x ($15[The average income in my region]).* Most people use Windows but have it unlicensed. I am not rich so yeah Linux look dirt cheap to me and I don't even use Linux I use OpenBSD. I definitely think the government should push open source in all areas we would be better off. Right now kids are learning to use Windows XP, Microsoft Office, Coral Draw, Flash and Visual basic 6. I have to remark that they are learning all this stuff in fairly mediocre way. Also don't forget government and public institutions sites that are non standards compliant and flash heavy. *In my comparison $1 = 10 Pesos. The price of Windows 7 Ultimate is 4,004.17 Pesos in Mexico.
- swombat 17y ago
  Why do you feel the need to do consulting work at night if you're the CTO of a 1000+ people company?
  - tome 17y ago
    He says "Ubuntu has been" so perhaps he means he has been CTO and consultant at different times.
    - rufugee 17y ago
      No. Consulting on the side allows me to keep my skills sharp on the development side. I am a coder and entrepreneur at heart, and being a CTO by day doesn't provide a lot of hands-on coding opportunities.
  - euroclydon 17y ago
    Some people: 1) get bored at their day job. 2) need it to pay the bills. 3) can't get motivated to try out new technology, unless there is a REAL customer willing to pay.
- herval 17y ago
  so the guy lives in an alternative universe because YOU like Linux?
  - Tichy 17y ago
    It disproves the claim that Linux is unusable.
    - herval 17y ago
      so if I proclaim that you don't exist in my universe, then you will magically disappear and it will count as proof? there's enough room in the world for people to like ANYTHING. Just because a minority likes something (say, eating human flesh?) it doesn't justify it as 'right', 'good' or even 'common'....
      - Tichy 17y ago
        Well if there is at least one person who can use Linux, it is obviously usable. I don't understand what you are getting at? Are we working on the assumption that Linux is unusable, and we have to provide sufficient proof of the opposite? Why would we approach the issue that way?
    - tptacek 17y ago
      No it doesn't. I used Linux and FreeBSD as my desktop pretty much throughout all of the 1990s. Was Linux ever a "usable" desktop operating system in the '90s?
      - Tichy 17y ago
        I don't know, was it a "consistently great experience", as the other comment said?
        tptacek 17y ago
        It was if you liked using GDB to start your mail reader.
- tvon 17y ago
  First, that's a lot of up-votes (+25) for a completely subjective, "personal experience" response (call that my critique to the community). As for your comment itself, you've been using Linux since 1999, of course the current state of affairs is going to seem fantastic to you. In 1999 installing linux was a big console-based adventure full of unknowns and question marks... things today are obviously much, much simpler. Point being, your perspective on "Linux for the Consumer Desktop" is highly skewed. I mean, if asked a year ago, or two years ago, would you have said much differently?
  - papachito 17y ago
    > In 1999 installing linux was a big console-based adventure full of unknowns and question marks... things today are obviously much, much simpler Except it wasn't with distros like Mandrake (now mandriva), no matter how much linux haters like to repeat that lie, Linux has been easy to install for the last 10 years. Now try to install OSX on anything else than a Mac, you'll have fun. If you don't want to have installation issues, get a pre-installed machine.
- alanthonyc 17y ago
  Off topc: does the multi-touch track pad work with Linux on your Mac?
electromagnetic 17y ago
Agreed, I've never tested a Ubuntu operating system that had the same usability feel as windows (which is my current OS more by habit than choice), or even that has the same refined-but-alien feel of using OS X (I've rarely had grasp of a mac for longer than a few hours, but despite feeling alien I can still navigate and do everything I can with windows, simply because I'm computer-savy), but Linux never even achieves that feeling. It has an unrefined ad-hoc feel to it, things don't seem right or straight.
- aw3c2 17y ago
  Trust me, if you used Linux for some time you will feel the same about Windows. I certainly do. It starts with installing programs by download installers, goes over not having windows dock on each other and ends with having no useful terminal.
  - barrkel 17y ago
    How are commercial apps normally installed on Linux? (I'm presuming it's not by downloading installers.) I'm not a fan of arbitrary window docking - I have my own layout system based on cascading - while Cygwin rxvt provides most of what I want out of a terminal, shell etc.
    - gizmo 17y ago
      You download installers, just like you would for Windows. If you want to install Komodo IDE for Linux you download the tarball and double-click the excutable (or start it from a console). Want to install github firewall install? Download tarball, double-click excutable.
    - stonemetal 17y ago
      Actually it is by downloading installers(or at least it has been in my experience. Houdini, Java, etc. )
      - Tichy 17y ago
dalore 17y ago
You haven't actually said why it was an abrasive experience. Plenty of people are happy with Ubuntu as a desktop.
rbanffy 17y ago
> Every year since 2000 has been proclaimed the year of consumer Linux People have been overly optimistc in the past, but I think even the less tech savvy can use Linux by now.

kingkilr 17y ago

Eh, I use Ubuntu as my primary OS, and I have for a number of years. I'm running 10.04 now, and it's good (obviously, or I wouldn't use it day to day), but I don't think it's any more than incrementally better than 9.10.

samd 17y ago

A regular user should never have to go to the command line to do anything, but I can't seem to avoid that with Linux.

ricree 17y ago
Out of curiosity, what do you find yourself having to use the command line for? I tend to use it out of preference, but I can't offhand think of any "regular" tasks I do that would require it. Some more obscure bits of troubleshooting might occasionally require it. But even there the gui options seem to have almost everything covered unless you start going a lot deeper than any regular user will care to.
- samd 17y ago
  It was during troubleshooting, I couldn't get my dual monitor configuration to save unless I launched the config menu as sudo from the command line. Of course it didn't tell me this was the problem either.
  - gloob 17y ago
    A regular user doesn't have dual monitors, though. That said, I've had some issues with previous versions of Ubuntu that took some mucking around to fix, especially with sound and occasionally with wireless (though the latter has always worked fine on my laptops).
    - ricree 17y ago
      I have as well, though in my experience a lot of those issues have been fixed. Especially with sound, I haven't seen much in the way of problems since 9.10 shipped with a kernel that ran pulseAudio acceptably.
    - andrewvc 17y ago
      Regular users? No. Gamers, Graphic Artists, People who work with anything involving large amounts of on screen data, yes. None of these people should have to know how to use the CLI just to get two monitors working. I had the same problem with dual monitors for the record.

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gwern 17y ago

Not even close. The 'cloud' is half-baked (I was rather embarrassed when I sent out share links for a PDF to a bunch of people, and it turns out that none of the share links worked, ever), no one cares about the music store when audio doesn't reliably work, etc.

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mcav 17y ago
Wireless has been a problem for me too. Edit: No, I'm not trolling. Try getting a Marvell 8335 to work. I couldn't.
jrockway 17y ago
Nice Linux troll from 10 years ago. Since hardware is more standardized these days (Intel video / wireless / hd-audio), Linux rarely has hardware compatibility problems. Sure, there are bugs, but it's software. On my OS X box (that I finally killed off and replaced with Debian), I couldn't eject DVDs if they were in VLC's playlist. Drag to trash, nothing would happen, hit the eject button after that, nothing would happen. A reboot was the only way to get the DVD back. Welcome to software.
- bobbywilson0 17y ago
  I am not trying to troll Linux. My apologies. I really want Linux to be successful for consumers. I just feel like they are jumping the gun saying the latest Ubuntu release will be the release that changes consumers. I think there are still big issues with Linux in general that makes it unsuitable for everyday consumers. What about apps? A few of the apps they are used to will be cross-platform. Most will have a linux-y replacement, but some commercial software they were using on Windows or OS X just won't be available for Linux. Even today I am wrestling with getting the right video driver that doesn't break hdmi audio, and fix the overscan on my hdtv. I know that bugs are an inherent problem with software, it breaks that's all there is to it.
- Zak 17y ago
  Did you try `diskutil eject` - possibly preceded by `diskutil unmount force` to get your DVD back? Certain bugs and odd software interactions require the use of the command line to fix on every OS, as do problems that appear seemingly at random. I currently have a Windows 7 installation that started hanging during the boot process at classpnp.sys for about 5 minutes. A reinstall did not fix the problem. If I was a typical consumer, I'd probably send the computer in for warranty service.

jrockway 17y ago

For what people use personal computers for these days, I agree that Ubuntu is a good choice. Everyone's favorite web apps work, you can play movies, and you can make Word documents. Add a little eye candy, and people are happy. What's even nicer is not needing CPU-sucking anti-virus protection scanning every file in the background, draining your laptop's battery life. If you want to install software, you don't have to go to some random website; you just open the software installation control panel, type a keyword, click a button, and start using the software. Even Apple realized this was a good idea, and copied it in the form of "the App Store". There will never be a perfect desktop OS (ever use OS X or Windows!?), but Linux is certainly becoming a great competitor these days. I no longer shy away from recommending Ubuntu; it meets most people's needs, and it's easier to maintain that Windows or OS X. Who would have thunk it!

AngryParsley 17y ago
While it does succeed in areas where other OSes are weak (package management!), Ubuntu still has a lot of annoyances. For example... Copying and pasting is broken in some apps: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/11334 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/11334 Desktop icons cannot be auto-arranged: https://bugs.launchpad.net/nautilus/+bug/20284 https://bugs.launchpad.net/nautilus/+bug/20284 Screensavers can't be customized: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/+bug/22007 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/... Context menu for an USB pendrive shows "Unmount", "Eject" and "Safely Remove Drive": https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/453072 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/453072 There are a lot of others listed here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bugs https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bugs Checking off features on a list isn't enough to make a good operating system. Like baseball, you have to work on the fundamentals to win. (Jeez that last sentence sounds corny.)
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Did you just list bugs specifically shortlisted by Ubuntu as minor, easily fixed interface issues and use that very work to argue that they're not focussing on these things?

kierank 17y ago

Not until they lose the Fisher-Price look.

kylec 17y ago
Did you even read the article? The whole first page is devoted to the improved, more professional look of the OS.
- peyton 17y ago
  This release has a different menubar color. That's nice, but it doesn't address the fundamental ugliness and disunity of the OS. What Ubuntu needs is a change the magnitude of, say, OS9 -> OSX or XP -> Vista.
- kierank 17y ago
  My point still stands. Though it is gradually getting there.

brent 17y ago

Once again: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=928726 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=928726

sailormoon 17y ago

The social networking client Gwibber is now built right into the desktop. Argh! There's nothing I hate more than seemingly cool open source software being saddled from birth with ridiculous names! Gwibber!? What was the author thinking!?

e1ven 17y ago
Twitter isn't exactly the poster-boy of great naming. Names grow on you when you use them more. GIMP, I'll give you, though...

djb_hackernews 17y ago

I made the "switch" a few months ago to Ubuntu 9.04. It's not smooth at all. It regularly hangs (The current window fades gray). All I am doing is hacking django and browsing the web. Flash doesn't work. That might be a Firefox issue. Flash does work in FF 3.5, which I installed, but it installed as a separate browser, not an upgrade. Also, my volume is too low to listen to music or watch movies, which was a bummer because I just moved and don't have a way to do either of those things.

3pt14159 17y ago
Upgrade to 9.10, it is much better for the web. I use 9.04 on my netbook and I get problems like that every now and then too, but my desktop is just fine.
- cdavid 17y ago
  As far as I am concerned, ubuntu releases have gone downhill ever since 2006 or so. A lot of old issues which have been reported, and are easy to fix, have been hanging forever. But when I had to reluctantly install the 10.04 beta on my new netbook because it was the only way to get support for the crappy broadcom chipset, I was very pleasantly surprised. Everything works, including suspend to disk, sound, decent battery support (last as long as officially reported on windows).
kellishaver 17y ago
Here's how I ended up fixing my low volume level issues in 9.10: http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/447122874/alsa-in-ubuntu-9-10 http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/447122874/alsa-in-ubuntu-... And here's how I fixed Flash: http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/451068353/while-were-on-the-subject-of-fixing-things-in http://kellishaver.tumblr.com/post/451068353/while-were-on-t...
- djb_hackernews 17y ago
  Where do I send the check?

PostOnce 17y ago

Linux will be used by regular people when the manual editing of configuration files is no longer necessary.

cdavid 17y ago
That has been unnecessary for a long time. The only time I edit config files is for things that an average user would not use (vim, shell, etc...). Which file do you feel are necessary to edit by hand in Linux ?
- pchivers 17y ago
  -/etc/fstab --> needed to get secondary hard drives to automount during boot -/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist --> needed to install my wireless card
  - e1ven 17y ago
    I'm curious- What advantage is there is to using the external drive on boot, rather than have automounter do it on login? Also, the Ubuntu Restricted Driver's manager did't handle the card? How unusual. I've had it handle the majority of WiFi cards I've thrown at it. I suppose that's a compatibility issue- If Windows weren't pre-installed on a new PC, people would have to install drivers there, too.
bricestacey 17y ago
Have you ever used Ubuntu? You never need to edit a configuration file on Ubuntu when used as a typical consumer OS.
- PostOnce 17y ago
  According to you. I have tried several different versions of Ubuntu (8.04, 8.10, 9.x) and every time, I have to edit pages of config files. Add repositories, remove repositories, something is wrong with the networking, my usb is being weird, have to change something to allow it to get the proprietary ATI drivers, blah blah blah. Linux people always come out and say everything is perfect and linux is ready for the desktop. Sit someone down at a linux box who has never used a command line and they will demand a change of OS in a few days or less, simply because you are required to have esoteric knowledge just to make the damned thing usable.

furtivefelon 17y ago

In my experience, most linux distro's battery management doesn't even match windows xp out of the box (no clear way to tune it). It is the only thing that is stopping me from transitioning to linux full time.

cdavid 17y ago
Looking at the battery management on the 10.04 beta, the options seem very similar to the ones on my mac book. What do feel is missing ?
- AngryParsley 17y ago
  It's not the options, it's the actual power management. I have a netbook with XP and Lucid beta. The battery lasts 6 hours on XP and only 4:30 on Lucid. Both OSes are set to dim the screen and spin down the hard disk on battery power. The fan also comes on a lot more often when I'm running Lucid.
  - papachito 17y ago
    The opposite happens here, when I switch from Lucid to Vista. Did you try with a 10 year old version of linux? I think XP is 10 years old now.
yungchin 17y ago
That's a good point. From personal experience, I strongly suspect this is mostly due to lack of power-management in the GPU drivers. In fact, on machines with Intel integrated GPUs I've seen battery life as good as on Windows.

kellishaver 17y ago

I made the switch to Ubuntu a bit ago and I know I'm not the "typical user" since I do design/dev work, but I see nothing about the OS that the average person couldn't pick up on in terms of its operation vs. Windows, and it's even more similar to OS X with regards to how it functions. From my limited experience talking to people who've tried linux, what confuses them the most is the linux file structure, which can look a bit confusing until you come to understand it. The average person probably doesn't need to know a whole lot about that, though. Also, the UI and font rendering aren't quite there yet, but they're getting better all the time. The biggest problem that I see, while I love Ubuntu, getting it to a point where I'm totally happy with it as an OS has taken more work than the average user would be able or willing to implement, i.e. doing things like cleaning up the UI and improving font rendering, and fixing some issues I had with Flash out of the box. I had to ditch Pulseaudio because it performed very poorly with my HD audio off my motherboard. Disabling that and installing/configuring ALSA was a bit of an ordeal that anyone not really comfortable with computers probably wouldn't want to undertake. For me, the attraction to Linux (other than having a more productive work environment) is that I can customize the hell out of it and make it however I want. Most people won't want that flexibility and will want it to "just work" perfectly out of the box. Ubuntu doesn't quite do that yet.

JeremyChase 17y ago

Why are we so fixated with getting 'the consumer' on Linux? The only thing I can imagine is that more people using the software might increase the financial donations to FOSS organizations. I doubt it though. In any case, if you can, please donate some money to any open source groups that you use regularly.

theschwa 17y ago

When will Ubuntu get an integrated backup solution? Sure rsync combined with cron works, but it keeps it out of reach for your average user (or even your lazy one).

ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Does Ubuntu One (their version of Dropbox) count?

VBprogrammer 17y ago

I've just installed Ubuntu 10.4. I didn't spend much time in the new theme. I found it just looked ugly against the background of most website backgrounds. It didn't have any delimiter between different parts of the toolbars etc. I was very impressed with the work thats gone into the boot time though. I don't have any timings certainly feels like my anemic old Pentium M 1.4Ghz laptop seems to boot in half the time it used to! Firefox 3.6 seems very snappy. Terminals load in less than a second. I'm not sure how much of the difference is just having removed all the accumulated crud though. I'm glad I upgraded, though I was running an old 7.10 installation with a 2.6.24 RC Kernel which was the first one to support my Broadcom wireless card reasonably well.