Somewhat Unsatisfactory user experience of Ubuntu

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Steve T

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Says it all really, not a good day in the OS universe.
Before linux ever gets on the vinegar stroke of its development, it will be too late. Who needs that crock of **** in their life.

If time is money, this system is far too expensive, if your time has no value, it may be seen to be cheap.

I spent a bomb on this xollob:thumbsdown:
 
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Teehee.... And relax.... ;)
 
Have I missed something in Linux land?
 
Linux either works for you or it doesn't. I've had as many experiences on the doesn't side as the does. I use Linux for HTPCs these days....
 
It will boot, it won't boot, it will boot,it won't boot...

This must have been named after the most frequent exclamation from friends of people who just installed it, " U *unt U" :bang::bang::razz::thumbsdown:

End of, windows 7 on its way:thumbs:
 
I run W7 on the desktop and Linux Mint on the laptop.

I really like Linux Mint but I find W7 a lot easier to switch on, work, switch off. I wouldn't use linux on an 'important' computer, only to browse web/non-essential stuff, I trust Windows more with my work.
 
In some ways Linux has had it's chance at staking a claim, smart phones and tablets along with windows 7 and the need for an eco system and making things simple and accessible means there is No real place for Linux, it just doesn't tick enough boxes. There are some interesting bits, but these will appear in osx and windows over the next few years.
 
Can't get rid of the bloody thing now:bang::bang: and only one beer left:'(
 
Dale_d3100 said:
In some ways Linux has had it's chance at staking a claim, smart phones and tablets along with windows 7 and the need for an eco system and making things simple and accessible means there is No real place for Linux, it just doesn't tick enough boxes. There are some interesting bits, but these will appear in osx and windows over the next few years.
Click to expand...

Not sure Linux has had its day, but as an operating system for the masses to compare with Mac and windows, its got a long way to go.
But, you will find Linux in a lot of servers and it seems to work very well in that environment.
My NAS uses Linux, the GUI is pretty simple but seems to work effectively. But then, I am not trying to install a printer on it!!!!:bang:

Over the years I have had a few goes at installing Linux. Red Hat, Ubuntu, some annoying Penguin thing and a couple more. I find them so frustrating to do anything with, I always gave up. Then I bought a Mac....

Allan
 
I used to use redhat. Only real issues were the screen drivers. If you had a funny graphics card you'd have a rotten time getting it to work.Once working it was fine though. I ran it for several years and it was so much more reliable than windows 98se.

If it alternates between booting and not then you need to check the log files for what is wrong. They're usually in /var/log There might be some gui thing to check them these days.

I also use linux on a web server. They generally just work and stay up for months without attention.

Linspire is supposed to be the easiest linux to work with.
 
A lot of the time it's what you are used to: so use what you are used to and stop bashing your head against a brick wall. Simples.

Me, I haven't used windows for umm, at least 15 years (tho I do have one windows app that I can't get for linux, that I runs under wine adequately).
 
A lot of embedded products run Linux. IMHO, that's where it's best utilised ;)
 
I run linux as my day to day desktop but I would still be hesitant to recommend it for the majority. For photography related work I still boot into Windows as colour management on linux is too much work even for me. Having two monitors I am buggered if I can apply a different profile to each and as I prefer to use Lightroom and PS over the open source alternatives it reduces my desire to fight on with it.
Last weekend there was a kernel update which reduced the install to booting to a login prompt. Could not get a windows manager to load at all. Took me 30-40 minutes to work out that the update had removed a boot option switch which was there to handle the graphics driver. I really can't see the masses putting up with that kind of rubbish!
 
To be fair to linux, I'm not really qualified to denounce it as crap, my ability to use it? yes, but for all I actualy know it could be a great os. I've just stuck win 7 on that new build and downloaded firefox 11 (I think it is) a doddle. My overall impression is that both are fine but are edging towards a 'too crammed with toy's' feel. I wish I had the time to faff around with linux and customise it to suit me personally but don't have the time, patience or knowledge.
 
Posted from a virtual machine running Ubuntu.

To be honest it's a perfectly usable system, and in many ways a lot more intuitive than windows. Sure you may have to do a few bits and pieces through the terminal to get the best out of the system, but everything that counts is configurable through the GUI.

The only thing stopping me moving completely to Linux is the lack of really good photo related stuff available for it, hence I'm still slumming it with Mac OS X. That said there's nothing stopping you using Linux for photo or other media work, it's just that what's available isn't on par with the offerings for Mac or Windows. That's not the fault of the OS, that's the fault of the commercial software developers ignoring the platform.

To be honest if you're a general computer user that needs mostly web, email, office type stuff then Linux is the way to go IMO. Although I wouldn't choose Ubuntu anymore, I'd go for Linux mint, which is Ubuntu, but without the trainwreck of Ubuntu's latest GUI (Although you can still install a Gnome environment in Ubuntu if you so wish).
 
Unix, which Linux is a version of, has many advantages over windows. Stability, security, less overhead and therefore speed, security oh and did I mention security! but comes with a cost in user friendliness.

Most of the internet is based on unix systems, Google Mail anyone?

Ubuntu is one of the more user friendly distributions in my opinion, there are derivatives too. I currently run Ubuntu Dream Studio which is aimed at graphics/music users. So far everything I've wanted to do with it I have been able to do without much hassle.

If you really want a challenge try using True64 or better still VMS.

All that said I too prefer to use PS so have windows for that too :)

I don't hold with the mac vs windows vs linux arguments, whatever works for you and you are comfortable with is the one you should use.

Paul.
 
It might seem easy when you've had it for years but I was not impressed I needed to search for obscure code words and such to do what are simple things in Windows.
And why does it ask you for a password for every little thing?
That is what passes for security - hardly works when you have to do it so often you just OK anything after a while.
To give an elderly machine a new lease of life for web browsing/email I could live with it.

Even installing the most basic things is very daunting when there are no clues as to how to do it, and they give everything such wacky names too! :gag:
 
If all the different iterations of open source operating systems were as easy to use as Windows or OSX, then all the geeks would have nothing to play with to say how great their OS is compared to Windows. It has to be geeky and slightly harder to setup and use.
 
Thinking about this more laterally... I run a version of *nix on every computer I use - on Windows I install Cygwin simply to have access to a unix-like command line. This is where Unix excels. You can do anything with command lines if you want - normally much easier than with a GUI. I think one of my most used tools is the unix find command. Combined with regular expressions it makes finding files a doddle, but you need to know how to use it. I wouldn't use a machine I couldn't install a unix like command line on as I use it so often.

The user interface is completely different though. The times I have used it, I've found lots of minor bugs which make it annoying to use. It is, after all, just a windowing system and a windowing system with bugs is annoying enough to get wiped from my system. There are better alternatives out there (umm... Windows 7).

As to dual boot - why? I've never understood that. I run a mixed network at home - I have Win 7, Win XP, FreeBSD and Linux systems all cooperating very nicely on the same network (even to the extent that the FreeBSD machine is designated the Windows Master Browser). If you are doing it to run different programs that are unavailable in your environment, that feels very much to me like a case of the tail wagging the dog ;)
 
I used to use unix for years in my day job. When I first started using it back in 95 it wasn't that much different to using a windows machine but as time has gone on windows/mac blew it away. Unix/Linux struggles with hardware support and when you can get hardware to work the drivers are not upto the same standard as those for windows at the end of the day why as a business would you optimise your hardware for 1% of the market. I Last year I had the pleasure of working on an old unix box again for 6 months fortunately they have now all been replaced.
I have installed several versions of Linux over the years but have never really found a use for it so normally end up deleting the image. Where it does excel is on servers, stb, and isn't android a fork of Linux.
 
Steve T said:
Andy,I would dearly love to understand all that:lol:
Click to expand...
OK. The cut down version.

Unix/Linux is brilliant at the command line but the windowing systems have too many quirks/restrictions as a stable user interface.

Better?
 
pablo_paul said:
Where it does excel is on servers, stb, and isn't android a fork of Linux.
Click to expand...
Yup, Android is based on Linux.... with enough differences to make it a second cousin.

Android - another thing coming to a stb near you soon....
 
arad85 said:
OK. The cut down version.

Unix/Linux is brilliant at the command line but the windowing systems have too many quirks/restrictions as a stable user interface.

Better?
Click to expand...

Yep, with regards to Linux and Unix running the standard windowing environments, but no as regards to Mac OS X. Mac OS X is basically Free BSD Unix with knobs on, and it has a pretty damned good, if proprietary, windowing system, even the old X windowing environment under OS X works pretty much flawlessly for most things.
 
pablo_paul said:
Unix/Linux struggles with hardware support and when you can get hardware to work the drivers are not upto the same standard as those for windows at the end of the day
Click to expand...

This used to be the case but with the exception of some TV cards I can't remember the last time the hardware/driver support caused me a problem.
My last build is a i7-2600K on a ASUS P8P67-Pro with SSD drives and it was simply a case of installing from DVD, popping onto Nvidia for drivers - install was run a script and answer a few questions and done - and it simply worked.

Even installing software has become as easy as Windows mostly. The days of being stuck in dependency hell are mostly gone. Compiling and making source code can still cause hair loss and venting :)
 
Under Linux I've had problems with the following hardware:

  • Video GPU acceleration with any ATI hardware (big, big issue...)
  • New TV cards (as mentioned)
  • Remote controls
  • LCD displays (OK, a STB one there)

I've had loads of issues with the Windowing system though - far too many to mention.

BTW: I run a FreeBSD system (actually BC-BSD) as my main fileserver. Rock solid, runs ZFS (which is worth installing any OS on a fileserver IMHO).

Do I get extra geek points for going on a 5 day course on BSD internals in the late 80's or possibly early 90's led by Mike Karels?
 
arad85 said:
Yup, Android is based on Linux.... with enough differences to make it a second cousin.

Android - another thing coming to a stb near you soon....
Click to expand...

But in the process of being folded back into the kernel source tree at least.
 
4wd said:
It might seem easy when you've had it for years but I was not impressed I needed to search for obscure code words and such to do what are simple things in Windows.
Click to expand...

Computers were all like that, once upon a time. What Windows does is insist you have the graphical user interface and not provide command line ways to do some things so you're forced to click around trying to find the right thing to do whatever you need. With linux, the GUI is entirely optional, you don't even have to load it. In fact, I don't even have X11 installed on any of my linux boxen.

4wd said:
And why does it ask you for a password for every little thing?
Click to expand...

Cos you're not logged in as root. Log in as root and it won't ask you for the password ever again, even if you type in (DO NOT DO THIS!)

rm -rf /

In case that was not clear. DO NOT DO THIS!
 
Habitually logging in as root is not a good plan. Fix the reasons why you need a password. Eg. add yourself to the right group so you can use a peripheral, fix the ownership or permissions on a directory so you can write to it, etc. Set up 'sudo' so you don't need to enter a password if you do temporarily need root/greater permissions.

It's most amusing to hear swearing from the next cube when one of your colleagues has merrily trashed his system with rm -rf whilst root.
 
BethAtTheHug said:
It's most amusing to hear swearing from the next cube when one of your colleagues has merrily trashed his system with rm -rf whilst root.
Click to expand...
Real programmers (as opposed to quiche eaters) have rm aliased to rm -f already ;)
 
BethAtTheHug said:
Habitually logging in as root is not a good plan. Fix the reasons why you need a password. Eg. add yourself to the right group so you can use a peripheral, fix the ownership or permissions on a directory so you can write to it, etc. Set up 'sudo' so you don't need to enter a password if you do temporarily need root/greater permissions.

It's most amusing to hear swearing from the next cube when one of your colleagues has merrily trashed his system with rm -rf whilst root.
Click to expand...

All good advice. Although I've never set up sudo to not need a password as I find the password request makes me think about what I'm about to do. If I need a period with superuser privileges then I find "sudo <insert shell of your choice>" does the job for me. I really can't remember the last time I had to root myself ;)
 
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