9 ms·

Coming in Ubuntu Linux 13.04: instant purchases from the desktop

23 points by CrankyBear 14y ago

themstheones 14y ago
They're determined to move away from what made them a cool distro in the first place.
- joeblau 14y ago
  Yeah I totally agree. In two years, Ubuntu has gone from one of my favorite distros to one of my least favorite. I'm on 11.04 and I'll probably stay here until it's EOL'ed then move to Mint.
  - pan69 14y ago
    I'm on 11.04 as well. I'm still trying to find a good desktop alternative. So far there is not much and KDE certainly isn't an option. I'm keeping an eye on Mint as well but I'm not sure if that's going to be it..
    - fingerprinter 14y ago
      Why are you still on 11.04? 12.04 is the LTS release and nearly everyone should be running that this point.
      - rymith 14y ago
        You're kinda unclear as to what the LTS stands for, aren't you?
      - valugi 14y ago
        soon they will launch a bloated LTS version. Time to switch!
      - pan69 14y ago
        If you didn't get it from my previous comment, the reason I;m still on 11.04 is because it's the last version of Ubuntu shipped with GNOME 2, i.e. the last decent desktop environment...
  - shared4you 14y ago
    I was on Ubuntu from 6.10 to 11.04. Then switched to Mint Cinnamon Maya (based off Ubuntu 12.04) recently. Cinnamon looks a lot more like Gnome 2, and loving it. I'm back to installing whatever applets I want! Maya being an LTS, all the better! I recommend you try it
- slurgfest 14y ago
  You mean taking care of driver issues, taking slightly better care of newbies, making it easier to install useful nonfree stuff and releasing reasonably fresh packages in a Debian-based distro?
  - Puer 14y ago
    As a long time Ubuntu user the new "Software Center" is a huge disappointment. Just browsing it is enough to freeze and sometimes crash my computer; Installing packages is difficult and the UI is slow and unresponsive. Unity also frequently crashed on me for seemingly no reason. Also, drivers are just as bad as they were back in 8.04. I still can't watch a fullscreen YouTube video without terrible stuttering, screen tearing or audio lagging. And before you say so, no, it's not my computer hardware that's causing these problems.
    - slurgfest 14y ago
      My point is that Ubuntu's main job is and always has been as a package curator on top of Debian. If you are a long-time Linux user then you should not have a problem using apt-get or synaptic, or installing xubuntu-desktop or whatever you want. You should also be familiar with the concept that some hardware does not come with good Linux drivers. Ho hum. Any popular linux distro lets you choose your desktop and almost everything else, the main reason to choose one distro over another is your faith in their package curation
- Skywing 14y ago
  I don't think that's necessarily fair to say. I've been using Ubuntu since it first came out for probably the same reasons as most other people - aptitude was dead simple and generally seemed to "just work". It probably also won me over initially because out of the box my audio and NIC drivers all worked. Most other features of your average linux system could be found on other distros, so these were the main drivers of me sticking with Ubuntu. Prior to Ubuntu I generally went with Slackware or FreeBSD. I don't think that they're making any sort of direct choice to stop doing those things. I just think that their current desktop manager choices have been bad. I tried installing the latest Ubuntu on my main desktop PC this past weekend and it was a failure. I did get all my drivers working, but they didn't work out of the box anymore. Even once I had them all working, Unity seemed very unstable and in general the experience was very disappointing. It appeared to me that they were positioning themselves so that they could start throwing money making ad software and garbage onto my desktop. Now with the recent blog announcements that they might be enabling direct-from-desktop 1 click purchases and stuff, I doubt I'll ever consider installing it as a desktop, again. At least without xwindows, all of the original reasons for why Ubuntu was awesome still shine.
  - donniezazen 14y ago
    After using pacman and presto, I really don't like debian commandline package management system.
m0wfo 14y ago
I thought I was a tin-foil-hat-wearing nutcase for switching back to Debian but this kinda seals the deal for me...
Puer 14y ago
Unnecessary (and intrusive) features being piled onto an already bloated OS is the reason I, a former Ubuntu fanboy, installed Arch Linux a few months ago: Now I know exactly what's installed on my system and exactly how my system runs and works.
olaf 14y ago
I think, Ubuntu wants to win the huge Windows user masses, so they have to become a better Windows. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1
acabal 14y ago
I get that they have to make money somehow, but I can't help but feel that they should be focusing on polish, bug fixes, and regression management instead of piling on more features like this. I'd be a lot happier if they were adding these features after fixing things like broken Compiz quirks or Unity commandeering the super key and breaking your personalized keyboard shortcuts. Hell, I'd even pay cash money for Ubuntu if they could guarantee regression-free updates and a truly solid desktop (i.e., no "oh yeah it works just fine, except for this long list of annoying problems"). But their priorities seem to be elsewhere. Blame can certainly be assigned outside Canonical but the buck has to stop somewhere. Personally I think this cheapens the desktop quite a bit. I'm already advertised at for 90% of my day, now I get to be advertised at in my one sanctuary, my desktop.
- mneumegen 14y ago
  Agreed that it cheapens it. Surely there's a lot of money to be made in server service/support now that Ubuntu is becoming a major player in the server market.
- jamesjporter 14y ago
  I would be willing to shell out top dollar for a UNIX OS that's as stable as OSX and "just works" the way OSX does but is also as customizable and hacker-friendly as Linux, even if it's closed source. I've been wondering if there's any room for a company in this space—its obviously a very niche market, so you'd have to charge a lot, but I (and maybe other nerds?) would certainly be willing to pay.
  - habosa 14y ago
    There is definitely room for such a company, and the market is not as niche as you'd imagine. If you could provide an environment as user friendly as OS X with top-notch security and all of the customization features of Linux, most software development companies would pursue this option for their teams. I know I'd use it every day, and I'd happily pay for a non-commercial license in the $50 range.
    - 14y ago
josteink 14y ago
Just in time to ruin the OS, now that (a certain, but reasonably large subset of) PC-users are looking for something not Windows too migrate to in response to Windows 8. Fantastic. I know Ubuntu 12.10 made it certain I wont recommend them. This is only making things worse.
- mixmastamyk 14y ago
  Yes, if Unity/Gnome3 weren't enough to scare them away already.
durpleDrank 14y ago
fedora + mate
habosa 14y ago
This reminds me of the evolutions of Mac OS X from Snow Leopard to Lion, and I think it's absolutely ridiculous. Social networks, shopping, etc. are all features that should NEVER be part of the core of the computer operating system. These are things that should be opt-in experiences to the user and are unwanted bloat for many. The only reason Canonical, in my book, can get away with this and Apple can't is that Ubuntu is provided free of charge so there must be some sort of revenue stream, whereas OS X already costs me money and therefore I shouldn't have to put up with anything I don't want.
account_taken 14y ago
Would like a vote on how many ran the command: `sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping` Within my circle, it was the first thing we googled for. I like Ubuntu. Canonical's best best is to go the way of Wikipedia and plead for pledges or seek out crowdfunding. They also have an opportunity to take some share of the desktop market away from Windows 8 but adding in features like this hurts them more than it helps.
donniezazen 14y ago
Ubuntu will eventually become Windows where first thing you do after installation is to remove these bunch of services and applications. Canonical knows their online search would be a failure if it came as a separate software. Hence, Canonical is using its loyal customers as guinea pigs.
mseepgood 14y ago
Ubuntu is becoming more and more a cheap advertising billboard. No longer my Linux. Can't recommend it anymore in good conscience.
mergy 14y ago
"Instant install without Unity"
- readme 14y ago
  Already exists. Use one of the derivatives, like xubuntu, lubuntu, or kubuntu, or ubuntu-server.
ishbits 14y ago
I'm not a fan of this at all. I wonder if there is a market for something like a CentOS/RHEL base system (think slow moving core system) with a faster pace of release for the desktop applications for a small fee. I kinda get this on my laptop using CentOS plus some carefully chosen additional repos..
edwinnathaniel 14y ago
PC-BSD seems to be a good alternative for Ubuntu :)

23 points by CrankyBear 14y ago

themstheones 14y ago

They're determined to move away from what made them a cool distro in the first place.

joeblau 14y ago
Yeah I totally agree. In two years, Ubuntu has gone from one of my favorite distros to one of my least favorite. I'm on 11.04 and I'll probably stay here until it's EOL'ed then move to Mint.
- pan69 14y ago
  I'm on 11.04 as well. I'm still trying to find a good desktop alternative. So far there is not much and KDE certainly isn't an option. I'm keeping an eye on Mint as well but I'm not sure if that's going to be it..
  - fingerprinter 14y ago
    Why are you still on 11.04? 12.04 is the LTS release and nearly everyone should be running that this point.
    - rymith 14y ago
      You're kinda unclear as to what the LTS stands for, aren't you?
    - valugi 14y ago
      soon they will launch a bloated LTS version. Time to switch!
    - pan69 14y ago
      If you didn't get it from my previous comment, the reason I;m still on 11.04 is because it's the last version of Ubuntu shipped with GNOME 2, i.e. the last decent desktop environment...
- shared4you 14y ago
  I was on Ubuntu from 6.10 to 11.04. Then switched to Mint Cinnamon Maya (based off Ubuntu 12.04) recently. Cinnamon looks a lot more like Gnome 2, and loving it. I'm back to installing whatever applets I want! Maya being an LTS, all the better! I recommend you try it
slurgfest 14y ago
You mean taking care of driver issues, taking slightly better care of newbies, making it easier to install useful nonfree stuff and releasing reasonably fresh packages in a Debian-based distro?
- Puer 14y ago
  As a long time Ubuntu user the new "Software Center" is a huge disappointment. Just browsing it is enough to freeze and sometimes crash my computer; Installing packages is difficult and the UI is slow and unresponsive. Unity also frequently crashed on me for seemingly no reason. Also, drivers are just as bad as they were back in 8.04. I still can't watch a fullscreen YouTube video without terrible stuttering, screen tearing or audio lagging. And before you say so, no, it's not my computer hardware that's causing these problems.
  - slurgfest 14y ago
    My point is that Ubuntu's main job is and always has been as a package curator on top of Debian. If you are a long-time Linux user then you should not have a problem using apt-get or synaptic, or installing xubuntu-desktop or whatever you want. You should also be familiar with the concept that some hardware does not come with good Linux drivers. Ho hum. Any popular linux distro lets you choose your desktop and almost everything else, the main reason to choose one distro over another is your faith in their package curation
Skywing 14y ago
I don't think that's necessarily fair to say. I've been using Ubuntu since it first came out for probably the same reasons as most other people - aptitude was dead simple and generally seemed to "just work". It probably also won me over initially because out of the box my audio and NIC drivers all worked. Most other features of your average linux system could be found on other distros, so these were the main drivers of me sticking with Ubuntu. Prior to Ubuntu I generally went with Slackware or FreeBSD. I don't think that they're making any sort of direct choice to stop doing those things. I just think that their current desktop manager choices have been bad. I tried installing the latest Ubuntu on my main desktop PC this past weekend and it was a failure. I did get all my drivers working, but they didn't work out of the box anymore. Even once I had them all working, Unity seemed very unstable and in general the experience was very disappointing. It appeared to me that they were positioning themselves so that they could start throwing money making ad software and garbage onto my desktop. Now with the recent blog announcements that they might be enabling direct-from-desktop 1 click purchases and stuff, I doubt I'll ever consider installing it as a desktop, again. At least without xwindows, all of the original reasons for why Ubuntu was awesome still shine.
- donniezazen 14y ago
  After using pacman and presto, I really don't like debian commandline package management system.

m0wfo 14y ago

I thought I was a tin-foil-hat-wearing nutcase for switching back to Debian but this kinda seals the deal for me...

Puer 14y ago

Unnecessary (and intrusive) features being piled onto an already bloated OS is the reason I, a former Ubuntu fanboy, installed Arch Linux a few months ago: Now I know exactly what's installed on my system and exactly how my system runs and works.

olaf 14y ago

I think, Ubuntu wants to win the huge Windows user masses, so they have to become a better Windows. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

acabal 14y ago

I get that they have to make money somehow, but I can't help but feel that they should be focusing on polish, bug fixes, and regression management instead of piling on more features like this. I'd be a lot happier if they were adding these features after fixing things like broken Compiz quirks or Unity commandeering the super key and breaking your personalized keyboard shortcuts. Hell, I'd even pay cash money for Ubuntu if they could guarantee regression-free updates and a truly solid desktop (i.e., no "oh yeah it works just fine, except for this long list of annoying problems"). But their priorities seem to be elsewhere. Blame can certainly be assigned outside Canonical but the buck has to stop somewhere. Personally I think this cheapens the desktop quite a bit. I'm already advertised at for 90% of my day, now I get to be advertised at in my one sanctuary, my desktop.

mneumegen 14y ago
Agreed that it cheapens it. Surely there's a lot of money to be made in server service/support now that Ubuntu is becoming a major player in the server market.
jamesjporter 14y ago
I would be willing to shell out top dollar for a UNIX OS that's as stable as OSX and "just works" the way OSX does but is also as customizable and hacker-friendly as Linux, even if it's closed source. I've been wondering if there's any room for a company in this space—its obviously a very niche market, so you'd have to charge a lot, but I (and maybe other nerds?) would certainly be willing to pay.
- habosa 14y ago
  There is definitely room for such a company, and the market is not as niche as you'd imagine. If you could provide an environment as user friendly as OS X with top-notch security and all of the customization features of Linux, most software development companies would pursue this option for their teams. I know I'd use it every day, and I'd happily pay for a non-commercial license in the $50 range.
  - 14y ago

josteink 14y ago

Just in time to ruin the OS, now that (a certain, but reasonably large subset of) PC-users are looking for something not Windows too migrate to in response to Windows 8. Fantastic. I know Ubuntu 12.10 made it certain I wont recommend them. This is only making things worse.

mixmastamyk 14y ago
Yes, if Unity/Gnome3 weren't enough to scare them away already.

durpleDrank 14y ago

fedora + mate

habosa 14y ago

This reminds me of the evolutions of Mac OS X from Snow Leopard to Lion, and I think it's absolutely ridiculous. Social networks, shopping, etc. are all features that should NEVER be part of the core of the computer operating system. These are things that should be opt-in experiences to the user and are unwanted bloat for many. The only reason Canonical, in my book, can get away with this and Apple can't is that Ubuntu is provided free of charge so there must be some sort of revenue stream, whereas OS X already costs me money and therefore I shouldn't have to put up with anything I don't want.

account_taken 14y ago

Would like a vote on how many ran the command: `sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping` Within my circle, it was the first thing we googled for. I like Ubuntu. Canonical's best best is to go the way of Wikipedia and plead for pledges or seek out crowdfunding. They also have an opportunity to take some share of the desktop market away from Windows 8 but adding in features like this hurts them more than it helps.

donniezazen 14y ago

Ubuntu will eventually become Windows where first thing you do after installation is to remove these bunch of services and applications. Canonical knows their online search would be a failure if it came as a separate software. Hence, Canonical is using its loyal customers as guinea pigs.

mseepgood 14y ago

Ubuntu is becoming more and more a cheap advertising billboard. No longer my Linux. Can't recommend it anymore in good conscience.

mergy 14y ago

"Instant install without Unity"

readme 14y ago
Already exists. Use one of the derivatives, like xubuntu, lubuntu, or kubuntu, or ubuntu-server.

ishbits 14y ago

I'm not a fan of this at all. I wonder if there is a market for something like a CentOS/RHEL base system (think slow moving core system) with a faster pace of release for the desktop applications for a small fee. I kinda get this on my laptop using CentOS plus some carefully chosen additional repos..

edwinnathaniel 14y ago

PC-BSD seems to be a good alternative for Ubuntu :)