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The truth about Goobuntu: Google's in-house desktop Ubuntu Linux

169 points by CrankyBear 14y ago

icarus_drowning 14y ago
Not related to the content of the post (which, it seems, is mostly a rehash of already-available data), but I must say, the comments over at zdnet must really be going downhill-- there are some truly horrific examples at the end of the article.
- freehunter 14y ago
  It event seems the author mangled a direct quote. If you're not sure you can type a quote correctly, copy and paste. And call your editor. “Google is a target Everyone wants to hack us.”
chamakits 14y ago
I don't doubt that Google is a very public and very popular target for those looking to breach insecure systems. Having said that, I've heard this "we are the ones that need this the most" sort of argument that they use to justify their in house network authentication by many other companies in many different scenarios. However, most of the time, the problem they are having applies to just about everyone else in the field they are a part of. Which is why open source development has been so successful. Many with the same problem, helping to implement a common solution, instead of a custom one for each of them. So I wonder, what are the deficiencies of other existing 'network authentication' solutions out there? Why couldn't they help improve those? Why not contribute whatever improvements they've mode to this area?
- hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
  Because they don't wanna fall prey of a 0-day in the wild? BTW, a company like Google enforcing software choices for employees... Meh.
  - fingerprinter 14y ago
    I don't think they do. As far as I understand it, employees can choose Mac, Goobuntu or Windows (though windows has to be justified b/c of the higher overheard of support). Sounds reasonable to me. From talking with Thomas before, if I have this correctly, is that Google doesn't allow offsite development. So it seems most Googlers have a desktop for development and an laptop for other things with NO code on it. I may have that wrong, but I'm sure some Googlers here can verify that or not.
    - packetslave 14y ago
      It's not "offsite development" that's prohibited so much as not allowing source code to be stored locally on laptop HDD's (even with full-disk encryption). You can develop remotely over SSH, NX, NFS, SSHfs, etc., you just can't have the source (or compilation artifacts) on an easily-stolen device.
      - hboon 14y ago
        So thick client development with tools that can't or aren't setup for remote use — eg. coding an iOS app — is usually done on site?
        packetslave 14y ago
        Java developers that use Eclipse or IntelliJ seem to work remotely pretty well using NX or VNC to get a remote Linux desktop, and Googlers who work on open-source projects obviously have different rules for that code. I'm actually not sure what the IOS devs do. They might have different rules since their projects are more standalone and not tied into the rest of the main Google source tree, but it might also be that they just develop on-site. You could probably be fairly successful with XCode using something like SSHfs if you're on a fast enough connection, but I don't know if anyone actually does that.
  - paranoiacblack 14y ago
    So uh yeah, Google doesn't do this at all. And they have open-sourced many of their authentication tools. What's your bias?
- Matt_Cutts 14y ago
  Have you heard about Google Authenticator? http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/ http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/ It's a wonderful, standards-based, open-source project that brings two-factor authentication to Android, iOS, Blackberry, and PAM. I doubt Google would want to talk about every single way that we try to secure our networks from hackers, but Google is pretty good about open-sourcing things (or publishing papers) to contribute to the industry's security practices.
  - chamakits 14y ago
    I did not know about this project. I agree, Google does open up a lot of projects and publishes a lot of papers as well on their work. I guess my comment was a bit of a gut reaction to the wording used that entailed "our problem are unique" which are many times used to justify brand new proprietary projects. I imagine whats used is based on a combination of open source projects (either theirs or others) with their own secret sauce. Which is pretty standard process I guess. Alright, maybe I commented too early. The wording threw me off.
joshu 14y ago
This is probably spam. Poster is likely the author.
- mh- 14y ago
  well, that's an odd definition of spam. also, while writing this I happened to recognize you from reddit.. http://reddit.com/user/joshu/submitted/ http://reddit.com/user/joshu/submitted/
  - joshu 14y ago
    Shrug. And people promote their own projects here, too. I am also not using a voting ring to get crap to the front page. But this is generic blog spam. Abuser of the commons etc etc. Not sure I get your point re reddit?
joejohnson 14y ago
A lot of people I know at Google use a Mac.
- murz 14y ago
  The typical engineering setup is Mac laptop + Goobuntu workstation.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    A typical engineering setup. There are quite a few of us using Goobuntu Thinkpads or Chromebooks. (Since you can't have code checked out on your laptop, a Chromebook is not as disadvantageous as one would imagine.)
    - tylerritchie 14y ago
      Does the chrome secure shell support keyfiles now?
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - nickbarnwell 14y ago
        In the dev release it does. Info here [1] [1]https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/chromium-hterm/4P21C89X6w4 https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups#!...
      - Andrex 14y ago
        Yesterday's update, 0.8.2, added support for them: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/chromium-hterm/GV2lSOoZOnU https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups=#...
    - krzyk 14y ago
      You have a policy that forbids you to checkout code on company laptops?
czervik 14y ago
Here's a video from Puppet Conf 2011 on how Google uses Puppet to manage Linux workstations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8mbMjlr_b0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8mbMjlr_b0
- packetslave 14y ago
  Puppet is also used to manage the large fleet of Mac laptops (and desktops): http://redmonk.com/cote/2008/06/11/puppet-at-google-redmonk-radio-episode-48/ http://redmonk.com/cote/2008/06/11/puppet-at-google-redmonk-...
  - czervik 14y ago
    The link to the mp3 is broken, anyone have a working link?
    - packetslave 14y ago
      Oops, I didn't notice the broken link. The article has a transcript at the bottom, though.
jebblue 14y ago
Ubuntu works for me and my wife and has for years. I pine for the days of Gnome 2 but that's not coming back. If Unity could be made into Gnome 2 but keep Unity people happy then that would be cool.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > I pine for the days of Gnome 2 but that's not coming back. Check out Xubuntu, it's not too different.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    Linux Mint also has a desktop, Cinnamon, that resembles Gnome 2: http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/. I haven't tried Cinnamon, but I've used Linux Mint before and will most likely be switching to Mint next time I reinstall Linux.
  - scoles 14y ago
    Irritatingly, Xfce still feels like a step back from Gnome2. Personally I've come round to Unity and quite like it now.
- kintamanimatt 14y ago
  You might want to look into MATE[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATE_%28desktop_environment%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATE_%28desktop_environment%29
  - ralphc 14y ago
    Linux Mint 13 with MATE is what you're looking for.
- gvb 14y ago
  http://askubuntu.com/questions/58172/how-to-revert-to-gnome-classic http://askubuntu.com/questions/58172/how-to-revert-to-gnome-... sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback This is Gnome3 configured to look very much like Gnome2. The primary differences are that "System Settings" (and some other things like printer configuration) moved to the "gear" at the far right of the top bar and you need to use <ALT>-right-mouse to add shortcuts to the top bar. The <ALT>-right-mouse may only work with Gnome Classic (selected when you log in).
donniezazen 14y ago
I have come to love Arch Linux. Pacman and AUR are much simpler and efficient than APT and DPKG.
- moreorless 14y ago
  How are they simpler and more efficient?
  - antihero 14y ago
    The Arch Build System is utterly wonderful. All you do is define a PKGBUILD and it will handle downloading sources, compiling them, and creating a package. It's so simple that once you've done it a couple times it's basically fuck-all effort to create them for whatever you want. So say I wanted to have dmenu on my systems with a custom colour scheme. I make the colour scheme changes as a patch and then create a package on the AUR like so: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dm/dmenu-dogs/PKGBUILD https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dm/dmenu-dogs/PKGBUILD Then all I need to do is run pacaur -y dmenu-dogs (pacaur is an AUR helper, which automates the process of downloading the PKGBUILD + any patches/local sources, running makepkg, and installing it) on my other boxes and it sorts everything out for me. Pacman itself is also very lightweight and fast, and has a very simple and clearly separated API. Want to know what package owns a file? pacman -Qo /usr/lib/blah. Want to check a package has all it's files? pacman -Qk mypackage. Anything removing is -R, anything querying is -Q, anything installing (syncing) is -S. The last thing I love about Arch is the wiki. It is fucking AMAZING. There are well explained and thought out posts detailing how to install and configure a vast, vast range of software. I even refer to it when I'm not using Arch.
    - wreckimnaked 14y ago
      And installing yaourt[1] makes using PKGBUILDs from AUR and ABS, and binary packages from the repos amazingly transparent and fast. I've never heard of such a level of flexibility on package management. For instance, you can install the precompiled chromium from the repos with yaourt -S chromium; if you need to recompile it from ABS, throw a yaourt -Sb chromium and you are done. To install the binary build from AUR, yaourt -S chromium-browser-bin will do it. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Yaourt https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Yaourt
tomrod 14y ago
Interesting to see this and the "Death of the Linux Desktop" posts both on the front page. Are there heated opinions on the issue here?
- adestefan 14y ago
  Only that both the success and death of Linux on the desktop is vastly overstated.
  - hammersend 14y ago
    That's what I was thinking. I've seen this headline on a few sites in the last few days and the commenters all seem to be talking about Linux in the past tense. Apparently I didn't get the memo because my laptop with Ubuntu on it is still working fine and the projects that I make use of haven't missed a beat. That's some kind of "dead".
    - tomrod 14y ago
      Indeed. I've also become converted (finally) to Unity on a single screen. Still have a hard time with multiple moniters, but whatever.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    It has simultaneously been the Year of the Linux Desktop (tm) and the Year of the Death of Linux on the Desktop (tm) for several years now. The only thing that is new is these stories are hitting HN, instead of just Slashdot like usual.
grecy 14y ago
Interesting comments about using Windows. When it's difficult to use Windows at one of the world's biggest Tech giants, you have to wonder how long windows can stay relevant in the tech/dev space.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Actually, having worked at Google and used Goobuntu (which was great) and then tried to use Ubuntu LTS outside the constant vigilance of a large support team, it isn't a threat to Windows (or OSX). The challenge in an Enterprise that doesn't have a stock to penguinistas to keep it on the straight and true, it goes pear shaped at odd times for unpredictable amounts of time. That and the fact that there is no "real" third party software for it makes a lot of folks sad. (see the other conversation on HN on why that is)
  - moreorless 14y ago
    Dude!! 2013 is the year of the Linux desktop.
  - wtracy 14y ago
    True, I've had my share of bad updates, but Windows goes "pear-shaped at odd times" at least as often as Linux, IME. Care to elaborate further? (I do agree that it is harder to get support people for Linux.)
- fpp 14y ago
  It's always been a big challenge to manage thousands of MS Windows desktops and it certainly has not gotten substantially better with BYOC / mobility of users. The real challenge for MS will come with establishing Windows 8 in the corporate space - don't believe that it will be happening without substantial changes / limitations removed by MS. Reminds me a bit to the first versions of Windows activation / update a few years ago when MS had to paddle back almost the whole way before commercial customers started to upgrade to the new Windows version.
afhof 14y ago
As always, another link bait zdnet article with a flashy title and zero content. Normally I don't bite but I guess I have been taken in and got exactly what I expected. How come zdnet articles still get posted? I have yet to see one that actually brings content to the table that is new or informative.
- joshu 14y ago
  Author is posting it here and gets it voted up by cronies.
- vosper 14y ago
  "That said, desktop problems , even on Linux, will happen" Sounds like something written by someone who's spent almost no time using any of the Linux desktop environments (let alone trying to connect to a projector). And sure, Mac lovers might move to Unity rather than Gnome, Xfce or whatever, but presumably only if someone forced them to use Linux in the first place. Also hilarious is the suggestion that Google's graphic designers are running Ubuntu, considering Creative Suite is Windows and Mac only. I've received seen plenty of creative out of Google, and none of it was done with the GIMP.
  - bad_user 14y ago
    I've been using Ubuntu for years on my laptop, both for work and for home entertainment. I've had no problem connecting to a projector, whenever I needed to do that. Of course, I was careful when buying my hardware. Also, problems do happen, that's why I'm staying on LTS and personally I consider the intermediate versions as being beta-quality. And the Unity stuff is not stable and is too rigid, so I switched to Xubuntu (Xfce), which is more stable and stays out of my way. Ubuntu may not be ready for normal users that would want it at home, but a company like Google has people ensuring that these workstations are compatible and that upgrades work properly. They also afford to pay for support from Canonical. So the employees choosing Ubuntu can benefit from its advantages with less downsides. considering Creative Suite is Windows and Mac only If I were a designer I would definitely pick OS X over Ubuntu, but on the other hand you can run Creative Suite in a virtual machine like VMWare. And you can even install an X Windows server on your Windows VM and make that Photoshop window work on your desktop as if it was a native app, only styled differently. Also, designing stuff in Photoshop is not the only thing a good designer does. A good designer also writes HTML, CSS and preferably also do a little programming for proofs of concept, amongst others. Those changes may involve running a complex app on your localhost. And it's definitely easier to have access to the same tools that the developers use. And it's preferable to use the same operating system Google uses in production for its servers (at least a virtual machine). none of it was done with the GIMP True, designers don't use GIMP, but GIMP is a perfectly capable app for doing design work. Along with Inkscape. The only thing truly keeping designers on Adobe's Creative Suite is that Photoshop is a de-facto standard, so it's easier to get training and support for it and it's also easier to send the raw files (PSDs) to other people.
ripratm 14y ago
There is an entire talk about this at some Ubuntu conference a few months back. Basically exact information, this article is just a rehash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3pT_9nb8o&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3pT_9nb8o&feature=playe...
WestCoastJustin 14y ago
Here is a talk from May 2012 by Thomas Bushnell (the same guy) about Linux on the desktop and Google. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3pT_9nb8o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3pT_9nb8o
- valgaze 14y ago
  See 3:25 "a reboot costs a million dollars" (x-thousand engineers & workstations idle for 15min quickly adds up)
petitmiam 14y ago
> Bushnell explained that “Goobuntu is simply a light skin over standard Ubuntu.” Given the headline, I was hoping for a bit more.
joshAg 14y ago
""We chose Debian because packages and apt [Debian's basic software package programs] are light-years of RPM (Red Had and SUSE's default package management system.]”" Would someone mind giving a brief overview of why apt is better than rpm (or why someone might think this?)?
- ek 14y ago
  Nowadays, that actually isn't very true for end-users - rpm is catching up really fast in all the areas that dpkg was formerly better in. A good StackExchange thread: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/634/what-are-the-pros-cons-of-deb-vs-rpm http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/634/what-are-the-pro...
  - grandalf 14y ago
    Does RPM have any advantages?
    - Spidler 14y ago
      Better integrity checks, mostly. Built in checksums of files, stricter limits on what you can do as a package ( no controlling terminal and so on ) whereas in deb it's "optional" and "flexible" (aka. not built in and maybe people will get together and decide something) rpm has some build time analysing tools to track library (.so, python, perl, php, ruby imports) use and annotate this as dependencies. This above feature is one that causes the mess when you don't have the full dependency graph for a package, because rpm by itself does no dependency resolution.
    - noselasd 14y ago
      As a developer, I'm actually able to easily package stuff with rpm. creating .debs is stupidly frustrating
      - vidarh 14y ago
        Whenever I've wanted to package .deb's I've just blatantly ignored the official way, and opted for a much simplified setup (write the control file and the pre/post-int scripts, and use a Makefile to build the filesystem hierarchy required and run the appropriate tools). I agree, though, as much as the RPM spec files are horrible, it's still overall simpler.
ableal 14y ago
"Google is a paying customer for Canonical's Ubuntu Advantage support program." Good news for desktop Ubuntu users. 'Chris Kenyon, who is Canonical's VP of Sales and Business Development, and was present for Bushnell's talk confirmed this and added that “Google is not our largest business desktop customer.”' Better yet.
antihero 14y ago
"But Linux on desktop is dead guys!!!" -- An OSX User

169 points by CrankyBear 14y ago

Not related to the content of the post (which, it seems, is mostly a rehash of already-available data), but I must say, the comments over at zdnet must really be going downhill-- there are some truly horrific examples at the end of the article.

freehunter 14y ago
It event seems the author mangled a direct quote. If you're not sure you can type a quote correctly, copy and paste. And call your editor. “Google is a target Everyone wants to hack us.”

chamakits 14y ago

I don't doubt that Google is a very public and very popular target for those looking to breach insecure systems. Having said that, I've heard this "we are the ones that need this the most" sort of argument that they use to justify their in house network authentication by many other companies in many different scenarios. However, most of the time, the problem they are having applies to just about everyone else in the field they are a part of. Which is why open source development has been so successful. Many with the same problem, helping to implement a common solution, instead of a custom one for each of them. So I wonder, what are the deficiencies of other existing 'network authentication' solutions out there? Why couldn't they help improve those? Why not contribute whatever improvements they've mode to this area?

hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
Because they don't wanna fall prey of a 0-day in the wild? BTW, a company like Google enforcing software choices for employees... Meh.
- fingerprinter 14y ago
  I don't think they do. As far as I understand it, employees can choose Mac, Goobuntu or Windows (though windows has to be justified b/c of the higher overheard of support). Sounds reasonable to me. From talking with Thomas before, if I have this correctly, is that Google doesn't allow offsite development. So it seems most Googlers have a desktop for development and an laptop for other things with NO code on it. I may have that wrong, but I'm sure some Googlers here can verify that or not.
  - packetslave 14y ago
    It's not "offsite development" that's prohibited so much as not allowing source code to be stored locally on laptop HDD's (even with full-disk encryption). You can develop remotely over SSH, NX, NFS, SSHfs, etc., you just can't have the source (or compilation artifacts) on an easily-stolen device.
    - hboon 14y ago
      So thick client development with tools that can't or aren't setup for remote use — eg. coding an iOS app — is usually done on site?
      - packetslave 14y ago
        Java developers that use Eclipse or IntelliJ seem to work remotely pretty well using NX or VNC to get a remote Linux desktop, and Googlers who work on open-source projects obviously have different rules for that code. I'm actually not sure what the IOS devs do. They might have different rules since their projects are more standalone and not tied into the rest of the main Google source tree, but it might also be that they just develop on-site. You could probably be fairly successful with XCode using something like SSHfs if you're on a fast enough connection, but I don't know if anyone actually does that.
- paranoiacblack 14y ago
  So uh yeah, Google doesn't do this at all. And they have open-sourced many of their authentication tools. What's your bias?
Matt_Cutts 14y ago
Have you heard about Google Authenticator? http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/ http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/ It's a wonderful, standards-based, open-source project that brings two-factor authentication to Android, iOS, Blackberry, and PAM. I doubt Google would want to talk about every single way that we try to secure our networks from hackers, but Google is pretty good about open-sourcing things (or publishing papers) to contribute to the industry's security practices.
- chamakits 14y ago
  I did not know about this project. I agree, Google does open up a lot of projects and publishes a lot of papers as well on their work. I guess my comment was a bit of a gut reaction to the wording used that entailed "our problem are unique" which are many times used to justify brand new proprietary projects. I imagine whats used is based on a combination of open source projects (either theirs or others) with their own secret sauce. Which is pretty standard process I guess. Alright, maybe I commented too early. The wording threw me off.

joshu 14y ago

This is probably spam. Poster is likely the author.

mh- 14y ago
well, that's an odd definition of spam. also, while writing this I happened to recognize you from reddit.. http://reddit.com/user/joshu/submitted/ http://reddit.com/user/joshu/submitted/
- joshu 14y ago
  Shrug. And people promote their own projects here, too. I am also not using a voting ring to get crap to the front page. But this is generic blog spam. Abuser of the commons etc etc. Not sure I get your point re reddit?

joejohnson 14y ago

A lot of people I know at Google use a Mac.

murz 14y ago
The typical engineering setup is Mac laptop + Goobuntu workstation.
- jrockway 14y ago
  A typical engineering setup. There are quite a few of us using Goobuntu Thinkpads or Chromebooks. (Since you can't have code checked out on your laptop, a Chromebook is not as disadvantageous as one would imagine.)
  - tylerritchie 14y ago
    Does the chrome secure shell support keyfiles now?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - nickbarnwell 14y ago
      In the dev release it does. Info here [1] [1]https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/chromium-hterm/4P21C89X6w4 https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups#!...
    - Andrex 14y ago
      Yesterday's update, 0.8.2, added support for them: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/chromium-hterm/GV2lSOoZOnU https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?fromgroups=#...
  - krzyk 14y ago
    You have a policy that forbids you to checkout code on company laptops?

czervik 14y ago

Here's a video from Puppet Conf 2011 on how Google uses Puppet to manage Linux workstations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8mbMjlr_b0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8mbMjlr_b0

packetslave 14y ago
Puppet is also used to manage the large fleet of Mac laptops (and desktops): http://redmonk.com/cote/2008/06/11/puppet-at-google-redmonk-radio-episode-48/ http://redmonk.com/cote/2008/06/11/puppet-at-google-redmonk-...
- czervik 14y ago
  The link to the mp3 is broken, anyone have a working link?
  - packetslave 14y ago
    Oops, I didn't notice the broken link. The article has a transcript at the bottom, though.

jebblue 14y ago

Ubuntu works for me and my wife and has for years. I pine for the days of Gnome 2 but that's not coming back. If Unity could be made into Gnome 2 but keep Unity people happy then that would be cool.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> I pine for the days of Gnome 2 but that's not coming back. Check out Xubuntu, it's not too different.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  Linux Mint also has a desktop, Cinnamon, that resembles Gnome 2: http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/ http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/. I haven't tried Cinnamon, but I've used Linux Mint before and will most likely be switching to Mint next time I reinstall Linux.
- scoles 14y ago
  Irritatingly, Xfce still feels like a step back from Gnome2. Personally I've come round to Unity and quite like it now.
kintamanimatt 14y ago
You might want to look into MATE[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATE_%28desktop_environment%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATE_%28desktop_environment%29
- ralphc 14y ago
  Linux Mint 13 with MATE is what you're looking for.
gvb 14y ago
http://askubuntu.com/questions/58172/how-to-revert-to-gnome-classic http://askubuntu.com/questions/58172/how-to-revert-to-gnome-... sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback This is Gnome3 configured to look very much like Gnome2. The primary differences are that "System Settings" (and some other things like printer configuration) moved to the "gear" at the far right of the top bar and you need to use <ALT>-right-mouse to add shortcuts to the top bar. The <ALT>-right-mouse may only work with Gnome Classic (selected when you log in).

donniezazen 14y ago

I have come to love Arch Linux. Pacman and AUR are much simpler and efficient than APT and DPKG.

moreorless 14y ago
How are they simpler and more efficient?
- antihero 14y ago
  The Arch Build System is utterly wonderful. All you do is define a PKGBUILD and it will handle downloading sources, compiling them, and creating a package. It's so simple that once you've done it a couple times it's basically fuck-all effort to create them for whatever you want. So say I wanted to have dmenu on my systems with a custom colour scheme. I make the colour scheme changes as a patch and then create a package on the AUR like so: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dm/dmenu-dogs/PKGBUILD https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dm/dmenu-dogs/PKGBUILD Then all I need to do is run pacaur -y dmenu-dogs (pacaur is an AUR helper, which automates the process of downloading the PKGBUILD + any patches/local sources, running makepkg, and installing it) on my other boxes and it sorts everything out for me. Pacman itself is also very lightweight and fast, and has a very simple and clearly separated API. Want to know what package owns a file? pacman -Qo /usr/lib/blah. Want to check a package has all it's files? pacman -Qk mypackage. Anything removing is -R, anything querying is -Q, anything installing (syncing) is -S. The last thing I love about Arch is the wiki. It is fucking AMAZING. There are well explained and thought out posts detailing how to install and configure a vast, vast range of software. I even refer to it when I'm not using Arch.
  - wreckimnaked 14y ago
    And installing yaourt[1] makes using PKGBUILDs from AUR and ABS, and binary packages from the repos amazingly transparent and fast. I've never heard of such a level of flexibility on package management. For instance, you can install the precompiled chromium from the repos with yaourt -S chromium; if you need to recompile it from ABS, throw a yaourt -Sb chromium and you are done. To install the binary build from AUR, yaourt -S chromium-browser-bin will do it. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Yaourt https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Yaourt

tomrod 14y ago

Interesting to see this and the "Death of the Linux Desktop" posts both on the front page. Are there heated opinions on the issue here?

adestefan 14y ago
Only that both the success and death of Linux on the desktop is vastly overstated.
- hammersend 14y ago
  That's what I was thinking. I've seen this headline on a few sites in the last few days and the commenters all seem to be talking about Linux in the past tense. Apparently I didn't get the memo because my laptop with Ubuntu on it is still working fine and the projects that I make use of haven't missed a beat. That's some kind of "dead".
  - tomrod 14y ago
    Indeed. I've also become converted (finally) to Unity on a single screen. Still have a hard time with multiple moniters, but whatever.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  It has simultaneously been the Year of the Linux Desktop (tm) and the Year of the Death of Linux on the Desktop (tm) for several years now. The only thing that is new is these stories are hitting HN, instead of just Slashdot like usual.

grecy 14y ago

Interesting comments about using Windows. When it's difficult to use Windows at one of the world's biggest Tech giants, you have to wonder how long windows can stay relevant in the tech/dev space.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
Actually, having worked at Google and used Goobuntu (which was great) and then tried to use Ubuntu LTS outside the constant vigilance of a large support team, it isn't a threat to Windows (or OSX). The challenge in an Enterprise that doesn't have a stock to penguinistas to keep it on the straight and true, it goes pear shaped at odd times for unpredictable amounts of time. That and the fact that there is no "real" third party software for it makes a lot of folks sad. (see the other conversation on HN on why that is)
- moreorless 14y ago
  Dude!! 2013 is the year of the Linux desktop.
- wtracy 14y ago
  True, I've had my share of bad updates, but Windows goes "pear-shaped at odd times" at least as often as Linux, IME. Care to elaborate further? (I do agree that it is harder to get support people for Linux.)
fpp 14y ago
It's always been a big challenge to manage thousands of MS Windows desktops and it certainly has not gotten substantially better with BYOC / mobility of users. The real challenge for MS will come with establishing Windows 8 in the corporate space - don't believe that it will be happening without substantial changes / limitations removed by MS. Reminds me a bit to the first versions of Windows activation / update a few years ago when MS had to paddle back almost the whole way before commercial customers started to upgrade to the new Windows version.

afhof 14y ago

As always, another link bait zdnet article with a flashy title and zero content. Normally I don't bite but I guess I have been taken in and got exactly what I expected. How come zdnet articles still get posted? I have yet to see one that actually brings content to the table that is new or informative.

joshu 14y ago
Author is posting it here and gets it voted up by cronies.
vosper 14y ago
"That said, desktop problems , even on Linux, will happen" Sounds like something written by someone who's spent almost no time using any of the Linux desktop environments (let alone trying to connect to a projector). And sure, Mac lovers might move to Unity rather than Gnome, Xfce or whatever, but presumably only if someone forced them to use Linux in the first place. Also hilarious is the suggestion that Google's graphic designers are running Ubuntu, considering Creative Suite is Windows and Mac only. I've received seen plenty of creative out of Google, and none of it was done with the GIMP.
- bad_user 14y ago
  I've been using Ubuntu for years on my laptop, both for work and for home entertainment. I've had no problem connecting to a projector, whenever I needed to do that. Of course, I was careful when buying my hardware. Also, problems do happen, that's why I'm staying on LTS and personally I consider the intermediate versions as being beta-quality. And the Unity stuff is not stable and is too rigid, so I switched to Xubuntu (Xfce), which is more stable and stays out of my way. Ubuntu may not be ready for normal users that would want it at home, but a company like Google has people ensuring that these workstations are compatible and that upgrades work properly. They also afford to pay for support from Canonical. So the employees choosing Ubuntu can benefit from its advantages with less downsides. considering Creative Suite is Windows and Mac only If I were a designer I would definitely pick OS X over Ubuntu, but on the other hand you can run Creative Suite in a virtual machine like VMWare. And you can even install an X Windows server on your Windows VM and make that Photoshop window work on your desktop as if it was a native app, only styled differently. Also, designing stuff in Photoshop is not the only thing a good designer does. A good designer also writes HTML, CSS and preferably also do a little programming for proofs of concept, amongst others. Those changes may involve running a complex app on your localhost. And it's definitely easier to have access to the same tools that the developers use. And it's preferable to use the same operating system Google uses in production for its servers (at least a virtual machine). none of it was done with the GIMP True, designers don't use GIMP, but GIMP is a perfectly capable app for doing design work. Along with Inkscape. The only thing truly keeping designers on Adobe's Creative Suite is that Photoshop is a de-facto standard, so it's easier to get training and support for it and it's also easier to send the raw files (PSDs) to other people.

ripratm 14y ago

There is an entire talk about this at some Ubuntu conference a few months back. Basically exact information, this article is just a rehash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3pT_9nb8o&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3pT_9nb8o&feature=playe...

WestCoastJustin 14y ago

Here is a talk from May 2012 by Thomas Bushnell (the same guy) about Linux on the desktop and Google. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3pT_9nb8o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3pT_9nb8o

valgaze 14y ago
See 3:25 "a reboot costs a million dollars" (x-thousand engineers & workstations idle for 15min quickly adds up)

petitmiam 14y ago

> Bushnell explained that “Goobuntu is simply a light skin over standard Ubuntu.” Given the headline, I was hoping for a bit more.

joshAg 14y ago

""We chose Debian because packages and apt [Debian's basic software package programs] are light-years of RPM (Red Had and SUSE's default package management system.]”" Would someone mind giving a brief overview of why apt is better than rpm (or why someone might think this?)?

ek 14y ago
Nowadays, that actually isn't very true for end-users - rpm is catching up really fast in all the areas that dpkg was formerly better in. A good StackExchange thread: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/634/what-are-the-pros-cons-of-deb-vs-rpm http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/634/what-are-the-pro...
- grandalf 14y ago
  Does RPM have any advantages?
  - Spidler 14y ago
    Better integrity checks, mostly. Built in checksums of files, stricter limits on what you can do as a package ( no controlling terminal and so on ) whereas in deb it's "optional" and "flexible" (aka. not built in and maybe people will get together and decide something) rpm has some build time analysing tools to track library (.so, python, perl, php, ruby imports) use and annotate this as dependencies. This above feature is one that causes the mess when you don't have the full dependency graph for a package, because rpm by itself does no dependency resolution.
  - noselasd 14y ago
    As a developer, I'm actually able to easily package stuff with rpm. creating .debs is stupidly frustrating
    - vidarh 14y ago
      Whenever I've wanted to package .deb's I've just blatantly ignored the official way, and opted for a much simplified setup (write the control file and the pre/post-int scripts, and use a Makefile to build the filesystem hierarchy required and run the appropriate tools). I agree, though, as much as the RPM spec files are horrible, it's still overall simpler.

ableal 14y ago

"Google is a paying customer for Canonical's Ubuntu Advantage support program." Good news for desktop Ubuntu users. 'Chris Kenyon, who is Canonical's VP of Sales and Business Development, and was present for Bushnell's talk confirmed this and added that “Google is not our largest business desktop customer.”' Better yet.

antihero 14y ago

"But Linux on desktop is dead guys!!!" -- An OSX User