your assessment of Ubuntu

[wpshooter]

If you have taken a look at the Ubuntu/Linux operating system can you give me your estimate as to how long in either months or years that you think it will be before Ubuntu becomes equal to or better than M/S windows as far as ease of use as afforded by well designed GUI tools and by well designed installer interfaces for application software ?

I know you don't have a crystal ball but what do you think from the progress you have seen so far.

Thanks.

 

[Brazen]

4.033 months ago.

 

[n0cmonkey]

It depends.

For someone used to Microsoft Windows: Never
For someone used to Linux: Done
For someone used to Apple's Mac OS X: Probably never
For someone used to VMS: People use VMS?

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: Brazen
4.033 months ago.

Then I must have something wrong with my Ubuntu installations because I can not seem to find a GUI for doing many of the tasks, etc. that I used to do in M/S windows. And many of the programs that need to be installed in my Ubuntu installation require sometimes up to several pages of terminal line entries as opposed to clicking on just one executable file in M/S systems.

Thanks.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

All that's needed for ease of use is just a little bit more work on the partitioning for the gui installer. A noob still doesn't know how to partition a hard drive (not like an installation of microsoft windows is any better, its 10x worse) and they'll probably end up destroying a partition they wanted to keep while installing ubuntu (just recently happened when my bro gave his friend an ubuntu disc). I have a few ideas on how to make it more noob proof, but I definantly think it should be worked on.

If Ubuntu is preinstalled then its already easy to use. It already has everything you need in its menus. It has a graphical deb installer as well as graphical front end for apt-get for installing software and gui tools for configuring network cards, checking devices, etc.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: wpshooter
Then I must have something wrong with my Ubuntu installations because I can not seem to find a GUI for doing many of the tasks, etc. that I used to do in M/S windows.

Is there a certain example? Personally that's the reason I switched to Suse. Yast is one of the best administration tools I've used. It can easily do a lot of administrative tasks with the gui. More than I could do with Windows.

Originally posted by: wpshooter
And many of the programs that need to be installed in my Ubuntu installation require sometimes up to several pages of terminal line entries as opposed to clicking on just one executable file in M/S systems.

Could you give me an example? Not saying you're wrong, but I would like to know what you're talking about.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: wpshooter

Originally posted by: Brazen
4.033 months ago.

Then I must have something wrong with my Ubuntu installations because I can not seem to find a GUI for doing many of the tasks, etc. that I used to do in M/S windows. And many of the programs that need to be installed in my Ubuntu installation require sometimes up to several pages of terminal line entries as opposed to clicking on just one executable file in M/S systems.

Thanks.

Yeah, you are going to have to be more specific. There are gui tools for almost everything. And everything I need installed has been in Synaptic - mostly just click a check box, hit apply, and the program is installed; it can't get any easier.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: wpshooter
Then I must have something wrong with my Ubuntu installations because I can not seem to find a GUI for doing many of the tasks, etc. that I used to do in M/S windows. And many of the programs that need to be installed in my Ubuntu installation require sometimes up to several pages of terminal line entries as opposed to clicking on just one executable file in M/S systems.

Thanks.

If you want a quick and easy (the lazy way ) Ubuntu install go over to UbuntuForums.org and look in the 'Tips & Tricks' section. In there you'll see Automatix. Follow the instructions and you'll have a working Ubuntu system in less time than it takes to setup Windows.

Also, once you get the hang of the way Linux (or apt anyway) works it's easier to install software in Ubuntu than Windows. I would say it takes about 4-6 months of reading and trial & error to get comfortable with Linux. My only problem with it is when something goes wrong I don't know Linux like I do Windows. The good news is you can usually Google the error output in the terminal and find a solution.

 

[wpshooter]

Well for example for a big part, printer setup in Ubuntu does not work and what I commonly referred to as network printer sharing on a M/S network (say for instance an HP printer interfaced on the LPT1 port of one Ubuntu computer and then trying to print to that same printer from another Ubuntu computer on the network) is from what I have seen so far, impossible to accomplish.

When you ask for advice on how to do this, instead of someone telling you that you need to have this parameter and thus checked on the GUI printer interface they instead start telling you that you need to go to this or that configuration file and they start giving you sometimes as many as several pages of instructions for lines in that configuration file that you need to either delete and/or edit in order to have any hopes of getting the printer to print.

In M/S windows this was a simple process of clicking on a few preset parameters on a well designed GUI interface and the printer was shared on whatever workstation on the network you wanted it to be. If this is true in Ubuntu then, I am a monkey's uncle as the old saying used to go !!!

And this is just one example of things that are NOT properly designed - but probably the most obvious.

Thanks.

 

[Mesix]

Give Kubuntu a try. KDE as a very easy and capable printer GUI that supports networking printers.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: wpshooter
Well for example for a big part, printer setup in Ubuntu does not work and what I commonly referred to as network printer sharing on a M/S network (say for instance an HP printer interfaced on the LPT1 port of one Ubuntu computer and then trying to print to that same printer from another Ubuntu computer on the network) is from what I have seen so far, impossible to accomplish.

When you ask for advice on how to do this, instead of someone telling you that you need to have this parameter and thus checked on the GUI printer interface they instead start telling you that you need to go to this or that configuration file and they start giving you sometimes as many as several pages of instructions for lines in that configuration file that you need to either delete and/or edit in order to have any hopes of getting the printer to print.

In M/S windows this was a simple process of clicking on a few preset parameters on a well designed GUI interface and the printer was shared on whatever workstation on the network you wanted it to be. If this is true in Ubuntu then, I am a monkey's uncle as the old saying used to go !!!

And this is just one example of things that are NOT properly designed - but probably the most obvious.

Thanks.

I think that's a CUPS issue, complain to them.

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: wpshooter
Well for example for a big part, printer setup in Ubuntu does not work and what I commonly referred to as network printer sharing on a M/S network (say for instance an HP printer interfaced on the LPT1 port of one Ubuntu computer and then trying to print to that same printer from another Ubuntu computer on the network) is from what I have seen so far, impossible to accomplish.

When you ask for advice on how to do this, instead of someone telling you that you need to have this parameter and thus checked on the GUI printer interface they instead start telling you that you need to go to this or that configuration file and they start giving you sometimes as many as several pages of instructions for lines in that configuration file that you need to either delete and/or edit in order to have any hopes of getting the printer to print.



In M/S windows this was a simple process of clicking on a few preset parameters on a well designed GUI interface and the printer was shared on whatever workstation on the network you wanted it to be. If this is true in Ubuntu then, I am a monkey's uncle as the old saying used to go !!!

And this is just one example of things that are NOT properly designed - but probably the most obvious.

Thanks.

I think that's a CUPS issue, complain to them.

If Ubuntu is going to have a viable O/S then they should get either fixed by CUPS or abondon that piece of software and write one of their own that can be depended on and that it does not take a rocket scientist to get it to work. I really can understand all they have done with this O/S and then something like printer setup is apparently just being ignored.

Thanks.

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: Mesix
Give Kubuntu a try. KDE as a very easy and capable printer GUI that supports networking printers.

I have tried Kubuntu, but I don't like it as well as I do gnome. Too much overkill and from what I have read, may not be as stable as Ubuntu.

Yes, maybe I am hard to please, but I sort of expect things to work as easily if not easier than in M/S windows, I want to use the O/S to run applications not learn how the intermost workings/configurations of it work.

Thanks.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: wpshooter
Well for example for a big part, printer setup in Ubuntu does not work and what I commonly referred to as network printer sharing on a M/S network (say for instance an HP printer interfaced on the LPT1 port of one Ubuntu computer and then trying to print to that same printer from another Ubuntu computer on the network) is from what I have seen so far, impossible to accomplish.

When you ask for advice on how to do this, instead of someone telling you that you need to have this parameter and thus checked on the GUI printer interface they instead start telling you that you need to go to this or that configuration file and they start giving you sometimes as many as several pages of instructions for lines in that configuration file that you need to either delete and/or edit in order to have any hopes of getting the printer to print.

In M/S windows this was a simple process of clicking on a few preset parameters on a well designed GUI interface and the printer was shared on whatever workstation on the network you wanted it to be. If this is true in Ubuntu then, I am a monkey's uncle as the old saying used to go !!!

And this is just one example of things that are NOT properly designed - but probably the most obvious.

Thanks.

Well, I know there is a GUI for adding a printer which works fine. It can even add network printers shared through cups or shared through Windows. I don't know about setting up the shares though, I've never done it, and taking a quick look I didn't find any GUI-ness for that. It looks like editing the cups config is pretty simple though.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: wpshooter

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: wpshooter
Well for example for a big part, printer setup in Ubuntu does not work and what I commonly referred to as network printer sharing on a M/S network (say for instance an HP printer interfaced on the LPT1 port of one Ubuntu computer and then trying to print to that same printer from another Ubuntu computer on the network) is from what I have seen so far, impossible to accomplish.

When you ask for advice on how to do this, instead of someone telling you that you need to have this parameter and thus checked on the GUI printer interface they instead start telling you that you need to go to this or that configuration file and they start giving you sometimes as many as several pages of instructions for lines in that configuration file that you need to either delete and/or edit in order to have any hopes of getting the printer to print.



In M/S windows this was a simple process of clicking on a few preset parameters on a well designed GUI interface and the printer was shared on whatever workstation on the network you wanted it to be. If this is true in Ubuntu then, I am a monkey's uncle as the old saying used to go !!!

And this is just one example of things that are NOT properly designed - but probably the most obvious.

Thanks.

I think that's a CUPS issue, complain to them.

If Ubuntu is going to have a viable O/S then they should get either fixed by CUPS or abondon that piece of software and write one of their own that can be depended on and that it does not take a rocket scientist to get it to work. I really can understand all they have done with this O/S and then something like printer setup is apparently just being ignored.

Thanks.

That's all fine and dandy, till windows breaks...then there is nowhere to go. I've not had any problems with cups or printer setup myself, but I think well commented config files >>>>> 800 different tabs in 20 different righ click->properties options. Compare IIS to apache, 5-6 files to edit and your done.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: wpshooter
If Ubuntu is going to have a viable O/S then they should get either fixed by CUPS or abondon that piece of software and write one of their own that can be depended on and that it does not take a rocket scientist to get it to work. I really can understand all they have done with this O/S and then something like printer setup is apparently just being ignored.

Thanks.

I guess that depends on what you mean by viable.

Could you add a printer? Could you print? Don't be a whiner, be a doer. If it's broke, fix it.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: wpshooter

Originally posted by: Mesix
Give Kubuntu a try. KDE as a very easy and capable printer GUI that supports networking printers.

I have tried Kubuntu, but I don't like it as well as I do gnome. Too much overkill and from what I have read, may not be as stable as Ubuntu.

Yes, maybe I am hard to please, but I sort of expect things to work as easily if not easier than in M/S windows, I want to use the O/S to run applications not learn how the intermost workings/configurations of it work.

Thanks.

The thing is, this is a server setup and they expect anyone setting up a server of any kind to be fine with a little more in depth configuration. So while a quick GUI tool would be nice, right now it's probably not a high priority.

Ubuntu does have a server version, which doesn't even install a GUI. It's just command line, because that is what server admins want. So again, a GUI for a type of server set up is not going to be a high priority since most server admins prefer CLI anyway.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: nweaver

Compare IIS to apache, 5-6 files to edit and your done.

5-6 files to setup Apache?!! :Q

I edit 1. (off topic, but: by default CentOS's apache install (maybe others) will read any .conf files in the /etc/httpd/conf directory, so I create one file with a virtual host in it and put all config in there, taking precedence over any of the default config). Yeah, put a couple lines in a single text file and you have a working website, with a lot more features than IIS.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: wpshooter
If Ubuntu is going to have a viable O/S then they should get either fixed by CUPS or abondon that piece of software and write one of their own that can be depended on and that it does not take a rocket scientist to get it to work. I really can understand all they have done with this O/S and then something like printer setup is apparently just being ignored.

Thanks.

I guess that depends on what you mean by viable.

Could you add a printer? Could you print? Don't be a whiner, be a doer. If it's broke, fix it.

Or, Conanical makes their money through support. Call them up and they will hold your hand through setting up a shared printer.

 

[Nothinman]

Yes, maybe I am hard to please, but I sort of expect things to work as easily if not easier than in M/S windows,

And that'll never happen as long as you keep a closed mind and cry whenever something doesn't work exactly as you think it should. Ubuntu and Gnome are both very concerned with usability and making things easier so if you want to help them fix the problems you find I'm sure they'll listen, but if you're not willing to help you don't have a whole lot of room to complain.