Ubuntu 10.10 -- A Perfect 10?

[KeypoX]

I just installed 10.10, my first time trying any sort of linux. Took an hour, everything works, it's fast, and it installed all the software I need. My only question is, why doesn't everyone use this?

Games, and office are prob top two reasons. Besides the fact that 99% of people have no clue what ubuntu/linux is.

For some friends that have wanted to try it, as soon as something doesnt work the way it should, or does in windows. They give up, not worth the hassle. I agree somewhat, I use it cause the hassle is what makes it fun.

 

[Zargon]

yeah, gaming is why I dont use it daily

and I live in a windows environment

its bad enoug working in XP and coming home to 7

 

[Greenman]

For my in laws, it was perfect. They want email and the web, and they want it easy. I gave them an old motherboard with a 2ghz Athalon cpu, and 512 megs of memory. I salvaged the 40 gig hard drive out of their dead box that was half full after 4 or 5 years of use. The only thing I had to buy was a $29 video card. There was some training involved, the window control buttons are on the left in Ubuntu, that's a big change for old people that know nothing about computers.

 

[lxskllr]

The buttons are easy to move so you can put them in the right place. I'd like to kick the guy in the balls that gave the final go ahead to that stupid idea :^S

 

[MrColin]

The buttons are easy to move so you can put them in the right place. I'd like to kick the guy in the balls that gave the final go ahead to that stupid idea :^S

That sounds a bit extreme, but yeah, wtf were they thinking?

I tried it in a VM last night. I noticed some cosmetic changes but I really wasn't impressed enough to risk mucking up my 10.04 installs with encrypted home folders. It seems like I just got 10.04 working how I want on my 4 computers.

 

[Zargon]

The buttons are easy to move so you can put them in the right place. I'd like to kick the guy in the balls that gave the final go ahead to that stupid idea :^S

how?? its seriously bothering me, and I get about an hour a night messing with it tops right now. and I need to get into trying to configure squid soon

 

[lxskllr]

how?? its seriously bothering me, and I get about an hour a night messing with it tops right now. and I need to get into trying to configure squid soon

Check out this page...

http://exploreubuntu.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/moving-buttons/

I /think/ you can do it in UbuntuTweak also. That's a cool program in any case. You should install it and play around. It makes changing trivial things easy. You know, the kind of stuff you wouldn't mind changing, but can't be arsed into figuring it out manually?

http://ubuntu-tweak.com/

 

[Zargon]

awesome thanks for the links.

as a windows power user, IT admin, that used to be OK in Solaris, I always got annoyed by all the 'linux is so easy everyone should use it' stuff, when you would then ask a basic question and get RTFM, after spending 3 hours on the crappy help page finding nothing

 

[lxskllr]

You're welcome :^) The thing with Linux, is it CAN be easy. When things go right, it's every bit as easy as Windows, if not more so. OTOH, if you run into problems, they can be a real bitch to get through, and a lot of the links you find are forum posts made by people that don't have a keen grasp of English :^D Also, something like moving the window buttons CAN be done in Linux. It might take some digging, but the tools are readily available. I have no idea how you'd do that in Windows. I'm guessing you'd have to create a whole new theme to get that done. I doubt the stock themes could even be hacked to move the buttons.

Imo, that's one of Linux's strongest points. While something may not be readily doable, anything is possible if you put the time in. With Windows some things are just impossible unless you can code a whole new app that has the functionality you're looking for.

 

[TBSN]

I've been running Mint 7 (an Ubu fork) on my portables. But, Mint 7 is about to be orphaned.

Soooo... I'll probably give Mint 9 a whirl, on my laptop and netbook.

The funny thing is, I can't stand Mint on the desktop. Mint works fine, but it just doesn't *look* right, IMHO.

The antithesis is, I can't stand Ubu on portables. LoL!

I'm a Windows guy but I've had past, fleeting affairs with Linux (the deepest I got was building a hobbled, terrible arch linux install). I played with Mint and Ubuntu. This shiny new 10.10 version is luring me in. I want to put it on my Lenovo R61, which is pretty well supported by linux. Should I choose Mint over Ubuntu?

One thing that I couldn't stand about linux was the terrible battery life I got on my laptop. How is it in Ubuntu (out of the box) lately?

If this is off topic feel free to chastise me.

 

[Ksyder]

Try the nosquint plugin for Firefox.

That seems to help. I like the added flexibility and functionality. Thank you!

 

[TBSN]

I just installed 10.10 on my laptop. Some thoughts:

Ubuntu is striving for an OS that is accessible to the average computer user ("linux for people") but it's not there yet.

On every boot I got two of these:

modprobe: Fatal: Could not load /lib/modules/2.6.35-22-generic/modules.dep: no such file or directory

It boots up after it hangs on that for a few seconds then works fine. It's a wide spread bug, and I fixed it in the terminal by following what someone said on the bug page.

Then the automatic wifi network tries to connect, only to prompt the keyring to ask me for my password. Fixed that easily by following directions and editing some stuff in the terminal.

So those two problems were solved relatively easily, BUT for the average user running into a FATAL error, which certainly sounds pretty severe, and having to use the terminal to fix it is too much!

Like I said, it's probably not a problem for most Linux users, but I'd really like to see Linux spread to the "mainstream," but having to fix things right off the bat in arguably the most accessible distribution isn't ideal... But I guess it's come a long way, no?


Now, to figure out what the hell I'm doing in this new toy :twisted:. The type looks a little soft and blurry and I'd like to change the look of the windows. But I'm excited .

 

[Nothinman]

So those two problems were solved relatively easily, BUT for the average user running into a FATAL error, which certainly sounds pretty severe, and having to use the terminal to fix it is too much!

If those are the only problems you've seen, then I'd say it's still doing better than Windows in most areas.

 

[SickBeast]

That seems to help. I like the added flexibility and functionality. Thank you!

You're welcome.

 

[Greenman]

Very cool. I'll have to go over this weekend and move the buttons.

 

[TBSN]

If those are the only problems you've seen, then I'd say it's still doing better than Windows in most areas.

Yeah I'm pretty impressed, now that I've been playing around with it some more. It's especially nice that all the hardware works right out of the box! The volume up/down keys work, the brightness up/down work, and even this little led "ThinkLight" on this thinkpad works. I only criticize it because I hope that soon I'll be able to tell a friend, "hey, try this OS out" and they'll be able to do it all by themselves without quitting because it's too hard. But now that I think about it, most windows users can't even upgrade to a new windows themselves, opting rather to get a new pc :hmm:

 

[mcveigh]

I've been using it since the first beta and the whole experience has been the best Ubuntu yet for me.

My laptop is an old thinkpad T43 and windows XP just is a dog on it. but Ubuntu flies! it's saved me from needing a new laptop!

 

[Nothinman]

Yeah I'm pretty impressed, now that I've been playing around with it some more. It's especially nice that all the hardware works right out of the box! The volume up/down keys work, the brightness up/down work, and even this little led "ThinkLight" on this thinkpad works. I only criticize it because I hope that soon I'll be able to tell a friend, "hey, try this OS out" and they'll be able to do it all by themselves without quitting because it's too hard. But now that I think about it, most windows users can't even upgrade to a new windows themselves, opting rather to get a new pc :hmm:

Exactly, people forget that most people never try to install Windows from scratch and if they did they'd throw their hands up in frustration from all of the drive letter, partitioning, drivers, hundred reboots, etc issues.

 

[Zargon]

Exactly, people forget that most people never try to install Windows from scratch and if they did they'd throw their hands up in frustration from all of the drive letter, partitioning, drivers, hundred reboots, etc issues.

uh....whats the last version of windows you installed?

dont get me wrong, with default options ubuntu was easy, but so is windows, post XP, which came out....what 8 years ago?

 

[KeypoX]

Check out this page...


http://ubuntu-tweak.com/

Ubunut tweak should be default in all ubuntu installs.

 

[Nothinman]

uh....whats the last version of windows you installed?

dont get me wrong, with default options ubuntu was easy, but so is windows, post XP, which came out....what 8 years ago?

I installed Win7 on my work laptop and it's obviously better than XP, but it was still a lot more time and work to get the same functionality compared to Linux.

 

[Ksyder]

You're welcome.

unfortunately, had to kill the no squint extension, it is causing degraded image quality for me for some reason.

 

[Zargon]

I installed Win7 on my work laptop and it's obviously better than XP, but it was still a lot more time and work to get the same functionality compared to Linux.

functionality how?

I just did a win 7 install saturday am, installed windows, installed office, ran the updater, copy'd my wifes files, bam, shes back at 99% to what she was 3 horus earlier.

I am not saying ubuntu is any harder, but how does it get easier/less work?

 

[Nothinman]

functionality how?

I just did a win 7 install saturday am, installed windows, installed office, ran the updater, copy'd my wifes files, bam, shes back at 99% to what she was 3 horus earlier.

I am not saying ubuntu is any harder, but how does it get easier/less work?

But you only installed Office, I don't know about your wife but I do a lot more with my laptop than just Office and even so, the Gnome Office apps are installed by default with a Gnome desktop so I don't even have to do that separately. I've got at least a dozen extra things that need installed on Windows right after a fresh install that are all included in Debian. Which means they're installed a lot easier and they're updated with the rest of the system. And if it's a reload I can skip the "copy files back" part too because my /home partition will be separate from the OS.

 

[Zargon]

But you only installed Office, I don't know about your wife but I do a lot more with my laptop than just Office and even so, the Gnome Office apps are installed by default with a Gnome desktop so I don't even have to do that separately. I've got at least a dozen extra things that need installed on Windows right after a fresh install that are all included in Debian. Which means they're installed a lot easier and they're updated with the rest of the system. And if it's a reload I can skip the "copy files back" part too because my /home partition will be separate from the OS.

my wife doesnt do much

I guess I need to toss CS4 on it.

Included software is such a shitty argument dude, we all know, if office came with windows MS would get their ass sued. They can't help it.

the evil adobe software trilogy flash/shockwave/acrobat.