Why Is The Ubuntu Hoary Beta Release A Milestone? 30
Mayank Sharma writes "As reported earlier on /., Ubuntu released the "beta" Live CD of their next version, Hoary Hedgehog. While, there have been several Ubuntu reviews after that, no one seems to have covered why the release was an important one. Here I review the CD and, based on a irc conversation with Jeff Waugh, try to explain why this CD is a milestone for the Ubuntu project."
-- Will upload a few screenshots soon -- (Score:2)
Article Text (Score:2, Informative)
Anyways, the final Hoary is still a couple of months away with its release scheduled in April 2005. What we have here is the Live C
Re:manual mounts are what's wrong with Linux! (Score:2, Interesting)
"To use your partitions, create appropriate directories under /mnt and mount the device manually."
That is exactly the thing keeping me from switching to Linux. I recently tried Suse 9.1 Pro, and Mandrake 10.1 Community. Both detected all of my hardware fine with the exception of my external hard drives(USB2.0, 160GB drives formatted with FAT32).
Everytime I try to switch to Linux there is always one piece of hardware that doesn't work, and everytime I give up after spending a week trying to get it to w
Re:manual mounts are what's wrong with Linux! (Score:2)
Why MP3s aren't a double-click away from working. (Score:4, Informative)
This seems like a bad thing at first blush, but it's a good thing that Ubuntu is not distributing software that some users can't redistribute (notably, users in countries burdened with software patents, like US users).
It's a real hassle to not be able to double-click on a file and have it do the right thing immediately, but there is a good reason for not including MP3 software: (for those who aren't aware of this) MP3 is patent-encumbered. In some countries all implementations of MP3 are covered by patents held by the Fraunhofer corporation and patent licenses are acquired through Thomson. If you want to merely share a verbatim copy of a GPL'd MP3 player with your friend (again, in some countries), you need a license [mp3licensing.com].
This restriction makes the software non-free for some users, despite the license. This is why free software proponents endorse the use of unencumbered protocols and file formats to do the same job. Ogg Vorbis is a fine replacement and most reviews I've read say that the Vorbis codec sounds better than MP3, or can sound just as bad but with a smaller file size. Have a friend set up a blind test for you [xiph.org] and figure out what you like.
There are restrictions on various other kinds of formats too, and there are unencumbered replacements for most of them.
Re:Why MP3s aren't a double-click away from workin (Score:1)
USA citizens are less than 300 milions in a 6 bilions people world.
I think that linux distributions should break their chains and start to distribute codecs as well.
Random factoid (Score:5, Funny)
-offtopic? check
-non-negative comment about christians? check
mod shield, activate!
The linked article is obviously highly inaccurate. (Score:1, Funny)
Answer (Score:1, Informative)
And the answer is...? (Score:2)
But why is it a milestone? (Score:1)
Re:But why is it a milestone? (Score:2)
Re:But why is it a milestone? (Score:1)
Re:But why is it a milestone? (Score:1)
Re:But why is it a milestone? (Score:2)
More of a milestone, I would think, is that there's one for ppc as well which, despite this next article [slashdot.org] would make it the first graphical live cd for ppc
Re:But why is it a milestone? (Score:2)
The Warty Warthog was a very popular release. So they've probably had a surge of feedback and support for the Hoary release.
The upgrade was pretty painless. Just had to edit
Re:But why is it a milestone? (Score:3, Interesting)
The old Warty Warthog LiveCD didn't even boot - I got a black screen.
This new LiveCD worked perfectly and even detected my touchpad's on/off button! (Something no other distro I've tried has ever done.)
It worked so flawlessly, in fact, that I decided to install Ubuntu. I'm using it right now, in fact. Its just so... perfect. The default configuration is so wonderfu
Personal Exp. (Score:2)
Re:Confusing (Score:1)
Well (Score:1)
So I figure I'd get the torrent. 5 hours later and still zero seeds, 0 progress on the amd64 iso.
Screw it. This "large user base" apparently is in someone's head, because no one seems to be willing to distribute this distro.
And, why, exactly, Is Hoary "Important?" (Score:3)
Great: a new ubuntu (I am just about to install the first one.) So I searched the article for ONE reason why I should skip Warty and download Hoary in vain.
Grumble, grumble... "The state of journalism nowadays...."
What different with Hoary? Why important? (Score:1)
Re:A lot needs to change (Score:3, Informative)
It's still my favorite desktop distro, though. But then, I must confess I am a Gnome bigot.
Re:A lot needs to change (Score:2, Informative)