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Ubuntu Linux Review
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Sep 27, 2004 05:53 PM
from the with-a-name-like-shuttleworth dept.
from the with-a-name-like-shuttleworth dept.
JimLynch writes "Pardon me while I pimp one of my own stories. We've got a review of Ubuntu Linux up on ExtremeTech. Check it out. Overall we had quite a positive experience with it, we think it's going to be a good distro as it matures. If you're looking for an easy-to-install debian distro, give it a download." Update: 09/27 23:25 GMT by T :
Eugenia writes with another review from USALug, and a 6-page comprehensive Ubuntu preview at OSNews, writing "Gnome's & Ubuntu's release manager Jeff Waugh also had an interesting interview detailing lots of interesting tidbits. The final version of Ubuntu is expected mid-October."
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Longer/better review (Score:5, Informative)
Or (Score:4, Informative)
Not Debian (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not Debian (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Not Debian (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and your analogy sucks, too.
Parent
Re:Not Debian (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem pretty hung up on the potential for a fork - odds are, we define the word "fork" differently. I view Ubuntu as a short-term, temporary fork, similar to the branches in the Mozilla project, where every new release is effectively a short-term departure from a frozen snapshot of the trunk, which returns to the trunk to refresh and renew on a regular basis. I also do not view it as the end of the world. Unlike rpm based distros, most Debian-based ones (or at least those that lasted, anyway, progeny, etc) do not appear to fork to the same degree as RedHat / Mandrake / ten thousand others.
You might find the following blog entries from Jeff Licquia (a Progeny developer) interesting. He's got a lot better perspective on the issue than most:
Ubuntu universe is a snapshot taken twice a year, without any security fixes or updates. I have run sid for several years now, and quite like living on the bleeding edge - I do not plan on updating only every six months, and I also don't worry too much if anything breaks beyond my repair skills - that is why /home and /var live on their own partitions. But Ubuntu fills a gap for someone who is not ready to deal with sid on a regular basis - who wants a different compromise of stability and freshness than the regular Debian release cycle.
Parent
Re:Not Debian (Score:3, Informative)
Ubuntu will also have a dev branch, once the first version is released. The dev branch will be similar to sid... daily changes etc.
Not a fork (Score:3, Informative)
Wireless Card (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what brand of wireless card it was, but if it was one with a Broadcom chip inside, well your SOL on that one. If they would give out the specs, we'd have drivers for them.
Re:Wireless Card (Score:3, Informative)
Ubuntu? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Ubuntu? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Afri/AfriLouw.htm
and a lot of other things.. but I'm too lazy to look for them.
Parent
Re:Ubuntu? (Score:2)
Re:Ubuntu? (Score:2)
RFTA. Typical acronym for the Slashdotters.
Poor review (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Poor review (Score:2)
Re:Poor review (Score:2)
software and hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
The main thing, it seems, is that this disto provides a spoonful of sugar to make the Debian medicine go down. But this sugar may not be enough for laptop users. Quoting from the article, we were disappointed (but not surprised) that Ubuntu did not detect or configure the wireless card in our laptop. So that spoonful of sugar may be deceptive ... some real skill may be required after the pointy-clicky stage. Is it a good thing to mix the difficult and the simple?
Re:software and hardware (Score:3, Informative)
That being said, they have released an evaluation install, not a final. That's scheduled for mid October, IIRC. It's therefore not suprising to see some things - especially wireless - flaky or non-functional in the eval release. The final is supposed to be a lot better
Re:software and hardware (Score:2)
Works with my Apple G5 (Score:5, Informative)
Why you should care (Score:3, Informative)
I wrote a Slashdot comment explaining why Ubuntu is interesting. Click here [slashdot.org] to read it.
A comment [slashdot.org] by Doc Ruby states that Ubuntu is not package-compatible with Debian. I said otherwise in my comment linked above, but I haven't checked it out for myself yet so I'm probably wrong.
steveha
Oh great... (Score:5, Funny)
Boss: Say, that sounds like it will decrease our ROI, while providing value to our shareholders. However, why don't you install Ubuntu Warty Warthog Linux on one test machine, and Indigo Salamander Pumpkin Dog Linux on another machine, that way we can objectively compare their packaging systems.
Re:Oh great... (Score:3, Funny)
Where Ubuntu is coming from and going to (Score:3, Interesting)
This distro, from my point of view (I'm South African), makes excellent sense for people wanting to install Linux and basically just get up and working without having to fight through masses of obscure applications. It provides what 90% of average computer users need and use on their computers:Office productivity, mail, browser, messaging, graphics and media player. That's it, no fluff.
This distro is exactly what is needed (once they sort out the various bugs) for a home user or small business to get started. Given that there has only been a move to competition in the telcom business in South Africa this month, and that SA has had the world's highest rates out, wireless networking has not been a major feature in the SA IT landscape up until now, so I think that not working detection of Wireless NICs is not a major priority at the moment.
I'm really proud about this, as it gives SA its first distro aimed at the country.
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:5, Informative)
One large benefit is the fact that every distro is different, has different goals and aspirations.
Some people want a server, some people want a desktop, some want to run an FTP server.
If your looking to say, run an ftp server, wouldn't it be nice to get a distro that has an ftp server built in to the kernel?
You're more likley to find the distro that does exactly what you want with so many distro's around.
That's the purpose, and advantage to the proliferation of distros.
Parent
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, isn't this the purpose of the SysV init system, to provide a separate runlevel for X as well as a stripped down network-and-servers-only runlevel?
Choice is bad where it limits interoperability. You don't see
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a feature, not a benefit. These are not the same thing. A benefit would be something like "not all distros are susceptible to the same failure modes", or the like.
So, what is the benefit of many distros, as opposed to (say) switches I can flip in a standard distro?
-jcr
Parent
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:3)
Because some distros include things that someone else would not want in their distro at all. Some distros use mutually exclusive methods of configuring certain kinds of software. And who would get to be in charge of this "standard" distro? Who would get to decide what goes into the distro and what doesn't?
Asking this question is like asking, "What's the benefit of there being so many brands of auto
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you're less likely to find one that does what you want, having to research 50 distros all claiming to be everything to everybody.
"Specialized" distros that are made for a specific purpose are great. Knoppix, Smoothwall, and Damn Small are examples of distros with specific reasons for existence. The problem comes when someone wants a desktop Linux distro, and there's an army of them claiming to
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Some people want a server", doesn't imply that
"some people want a desktop", doesn't imply that
"some want to run an FTP server", while redundant, doesn't imply that.
Unless you are saying that the distributions shouldn't even bother to include Mozilla, Konqueror or whatnot in their binary builds??
There is a key difference between building a browser -with- an OS
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:3, Informative)
" If your looking to say, run an ftp server, wouldn't it be nice to get a distro that has an ftp server built in to the kernel?"
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:2)
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:4, Funny)
Don't take this wrong, but do you know a "linux user"? Most of us are little obsesive compulsive, erratic, and curious. We have nothing to do but become pastier and pastier while trying out distros.
In short....we get one more to play with, flame, fight and argue over, and most importantly compare/contrast/disect to our hearts content.
Parent
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:2)
Nope. I've been on
-jcr
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, that's all depending on the perspectve...
On Topic: Your complaint on choice boils down to the same question as when people decry the existence of mutliple desktop environment projects - who is supposed to enforce anything?
Ok, assue that we have too many distros, and that it is hurting the community in some unsepcified way. How do you suggest reducing the number? You can assume that people building on, or using, any given distro aren't wi
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:2)
Complaint? I was just asking what the benefit of distro proliferation was.
-jcr
Re:extrapolating a logical progression.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Having each app statically linked or with its own libraries means you:
1) waste memory
2) waste developer effort
3) waste bandwidth
4) waste hard disk space
5) make maintaining systems a nightmare (DLL-hell)
6) Open yourself up to security problems - look at Microsoft's problems with their jpeg lib spread all over the system.
6) lose the abili
Re:updating (Score:3, Insightful)
It reduces to the same problem of keeping libraries and the applications using them compatible, except now you have twenty or thirty as many files to keep track of.
In which case, you might as well just use system-wide shared libraries, with a few compatibility libs installed for those apps that need it.
You can do per-application testing with a chroot, if you feel the need.
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:2)
Jeff Waugh : At its core, Ubuntu *is* Debian. Our six-monthly releases are based on Debian's "sid" development branch, with lots of bugfixing and integration work (which goes back to Debian), and some special additions such as the very latest GNOME releases. Ubuntu 4.10, which we call the "Warty Warthog" shipped GNOME 2.8 in our Preview release last night.
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:5, Insightful)
What benefit, exactly, do Linux users get from the proliferation of distros?
No-one gets any benefit directly from the fact that there are a large number of distros.
However, for each specific distro, there is apparently at least one person who likes that distro better than the alternatives. Which is enough.
If someone decides he wants to make AbominationDistro, which is existing distro X but with the meaning of /etc and /usr switched around, and he creates it - more power to him, that doesn't influence me at all - and he has the distro he wants.
Parent
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Very simple answer for you. You like Debian, I like Slackware, my work uses RedHat, but we are switching to SuSe soon. Some people like Mandrake, other's swear by Gentoo. Every Distro fills a niche, every person has a niche. The more distro's the better. If you have an issue with an array of choices, you can use Windows or Solaris. Some of us really like to have a distro that provides EXACTLY what we want.
You can not please
Re:I've just got to ask.. (Score:2)
I've used many distros I like. But every time, they're missing something I liked from another distr
Re:This review sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
"At the end of the installation, we were asked if we wanted to use APT (Advanced Packaging Tool) to update our system. We said yes and our system was updated over the Internet before we even booted into our Gnome desktop."
This totally glosses over the connection to the internet. Was it by broadband, satellite link or modem? Did the installer correctly identify the modem if there was one and did it create a connection
Re:This review sucks (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This review sucks (Score:3, Interesting)