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Taking Adrian Kingsley-Hughes' advice about matters of Linux is only marginally better than taking Steve Ballmer's advice. Neither one knows much about it, really, and both have some interesting biases -- but Ballmer is just slightly more likely to lie outright.

Kingsley-Hughes' articles about Linux, by the way, appear in his "Hardware 2.0" weblog at ZDNet. Think about that for a moment. He's supposed to be the hardware guy. When you want information or advice about Linux, get it from a guy who's expected to know something about operating systems rather than someone who's supposed to know which graphics adapter works best with World of Warcraft.

You're completely missing the point. Here is a guy who's a windows hardware expert, and he has a history of windows bias. Despite that, he's saying positive things about Linux. Not just positive things, but things like

"In fact, Ubuntu 8.04 is the first Linux distro that I've come across that I would consider loading onto my notebook to replace Windows. Throughout my testing Ubuntu 8.04 beta has been reliable and performed flawlessly."

When a windows guy who isn't an OS or Linux nerd says something like that then it's pretty significant. Far more so than it if it was said by someone who's been running Linux since 1995.

Edited 2008-03-24 10:37 UTC

"Despite that, he's saying positive things about Linux."

He's saying blindingly ignorant positive things about Linux, though. Even when he reverses his position on something about which he's been wrong in the past, he still manages to be wrong in the manner he says it.

Anything in particular you're thinking about? I read the article and on the whole it seemed quite reasonable. Nothing too wrong or ignorant about it.

There's just no pleasing some people.

Pretty much any 3d graphics card since 2000 will work with world of warcraft. You should have said crysis. lol

Edited 2008-03-24 19:14 UTC

So does this mean only professional musicians can review music, only directors can review movies and only programmers can review applications?

What it means is that you should take an orchestra director's gushing about how fast a Ford Escort goes with a grain of salt.

Yes, it is.

There are, of course, exceptions ... Vista compared with XP is a perfect example of regression in a later version.

Supposed to yes, but it is far from always true. Anybody who's been around software long enough can come up with plenty of examples of where the latest version (and especially and Beta of the latest version) was inferior to the previous version.

Also note he said best Linux distro ever, not best Ubuntu release ever. There's a difference.


No, but it might just change his world. The features and polish added to 8.04 might very well be just the things needed to push him to take the plunge.

Maybe they have figured out how to make Ubuntu look like Vista?

Does that suck for the other distros? Technologically, no, that's why open source licensing works so well. But you don't want to code/maintain/develop for a distro that only a handful of people use.

Unless you are creating software that is only meant to work on a particular distro then the software will work just fine on all of them without making any changes whatsoever.

Any thoughts about that here? Is Ubuntu slowly but steadily eating away others' desktop mind/market share? Or are all main distros growing?

At the moment it does seem most people do equate Linux with Ubuntu. Most reviews too where they f.ex. compare Linux vs Windows they choose Ubuntu. It is somewhat unfortunate cos now a lot of other good distros won't get to shine in the spotlight at all :/

Since/if Ubuntu is such a great, flawless system, why is anyone still using anything else? Isn't it better to unite under one Ubuntu flag? All our bug reporting efforts will then be concentrated on one distro; etc. And the new user's complaints, 'why are there so many distributions' will disappear too.

I personally will never start using Ubuntu. I have never liked it. Every time I have tried it I have found one or another big issue which required quite some work to get it working..It's like it's patched boat which does look OK outside (I don't say "good" just because the theme is so horrible) but the bottom is leaking. Though, this is just my opinion and my experiences with it.

"Every time I have tried it I have found one or another big issue which required quite some work to get it working.."

Such as?

"Every time I have tried it I have found one or another big issue which required quite some work to get it working.."

Such as?

I don't remember all anymore, sorry, I just haven't bothered to memorize them all. But I remember the last time I tried Ubuntu 7.10: no matter what I did it always failed to initialize my USB keyboard even though the mouse worked! Thus I couldn't even install it, even less try to fix it.. The strange thing is though that 7.04 did get the keyboard working just fine. Anyway, because I couldn't make 7.10 work I just opted to install Gentoo (that's what I am most familiar with)

To whomever who is modding my posts down: please, tell me why? I am not bashing Ubuntu, I just answered the guy's question :O Modding me down just because I do have issues with Ubuntu isn't going to make those issues disappear.

I'm not the OP, but after using Ubuntu as my main OS for about 5 releases I'm done with it. There's a lot to like about Ubuntu, I think they've done a huge amount for general usability in Linux, especially for end users, but their quality control is just not good enough.

There are major regressions in every release (just check the message boards after a release for the slew of "my xyz device doesn't work any more!", and my personal experience, using Ubuntu on a desktop, laptop, my girlfriend's computer and a home server, is that out of about 14 upgrades I've done of Ubuntu, probably about 5 of them have upgraded cleanly without dying in the middle of the process for one reason or another. I hasten to add I'm not someone who uses Automatix, or lots of third party debs, I stick to the main repos wherever I can.

I really think that Ubuntu is too focussed on its release schedule and is too willing to ship with what I personally consider major bugs.

Anyway as I say, apart from the quality control I think Ubuntu is great and I wish them luck, but I'm off to mamma Debian.

I haven't specifically answered your question, and I haven't reported many bugs recently, but here's a list of bugs I've either reported or subscribed, or those bugs that my reports were found to be duplicates of.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/~slight-/?field.searchtext=&orderby=-...

Debian does handle upgrades better than anything else, but beware if you stray any farther than that from Ubuntu... The RPM based distros are quite horrific for upgrades! And don't even get me started on source-based ones.

I've been saying this for a long while - Linux needs to have a stable API that is not always changing. It needs one package management system. It needs to stop the plethora of application clones that all aim to do the same thing, and merge applications into one 'killer breed of application'. It needs to standardise on one desktop. Choice is great, but it's a double edged sword, and this choice is something that really does turn a lot of people off on using Linux from my experience.

Concentrating on one application/desktop environment etc will allow more developers to work on the project, decreasing bug fix times, increasing implementation of new feature times etc.

Sadly, trying to explain this to Lunix Loversâ„¢ is almost like Tom Cruise giving up Scientology to become an Atheist.

When this starts happening, you'll find proprietary 3rd party software vendors will start porting to Linux more frequently, Linux drivers will become more frequent and so forth. Oh, and if the Linux kernel development team actually stop sucking up to the big corporations, and actually start developing the kernel to favour desktop users...

See, Microsoft has a code base for servers, and one for Desktops. Linux has one codebase, and whilst it simplifies development to some degree, it allows favouritism for one group over the other (usually the group with the biggest money), which skewers development.

BSD has it sort of right, although the licence is crud imho.

Dave

I've been saying this for a long while - Linux needs to have a stable API that is not always changing.

What are you referring to? The kernel or some user-land library?

It needs one package management system.

Why? What's wrong with having several ones? Home-users don't care, system-admins neither.

It needs to stop the plethora of application clones that all aim to do the same thing, and merge applications into one 'killer breed of application'.

That would just hinder development, not boost it. First of all, a whole lot of apps which seem somewhat similar do things different way, allowing them features their alternatives don't have. Secondly, if there was only one single app for f.ex. media playing..what would you do if that app didn't have the feature you need?

It needs to standardise on one desktop.

It has. GNOME and KDE are the standard DEs on any home-user oriented distro. Power-users on the other hand are just often delighted to experiment with alternatives.

Well, I'll happily use my Microsoft Windows operating system cos it works, and works well and does what I need it to, and merrily watch as Linux becomes well, less adopted than ever.

More people are now switching from Windows to OS X than Windows to Linux, and if the Linux community doesn't want to get its head out of the sand, it'll just end up being a geeks o/s. You can mock me now, but history will show me as being right in ten or 20 years.

Linux has already missed the boat - the fact that people are happy to pay $$$ to Apple for a hardware and o/s change, than try a freebie Linux download says it all.

It's amazing at how many idiots are out there that call a post flamebait, or a person a troll just because they think outside of the box, rather than think like a lemming like the rest of the community.

But hey, it's your loss (i.e. the Linux community), not mine. I gave up on Linux a while ago for the very reasons that I've pointed out in my earlier post.

Dave

PS Linux is even losing out in the server stakes, with more and more enterprises switching from UNIX to Windows Server 2003, or even from Linux back to Server 2003 (or from earlier versions of Windows server to Server 2003). We also see IIs making large inroads into the web server market now. I know all of your Lunix Luddites will say Microsoft is fudging the stats etc, and with attitudes like that, the Linux o/s is sure to go downhill.

Well, I'll happily use my Linux operating system cos it works, and works well and does what I need it to, and merrily watch as Windows becomes well, less adopted than ever.

More people are now switching from Windows to OS X than Windows to Linux, and if the Linux community doesn't want to get its head out of the sand, it'll just end up being a geeks o/s. You can mock me now, but history will show me as being right in ten or 20 years.

I don't actually care if Linux was just a geek OS. It works, it works good, it's good-looking, and it does what _I_ want, not what some company wants. So, so what if Windows users don't flock to Linux? Doesn't bother me.

Linux has already missed the boat - the fact that people are happy to pay $$$ to Apple for a hardware and o/s change, than try a freebie Linux download says it all.

Newsflash: people have been buying Apple hardware and software since the foundation of Apple. They'd be bankcrupt if that wasn't true!

Besides, that's like comparing apples and oranges here: if someone wants a new computer, does she download a Linux livecd or buy a new computer?

Nah, next time try to troll atleast with some arguments, okay?

Windows server 2003 Reliability Average downtime in a year 9 hours

Linux Server (RedHat,Other) ZERO

Which is more reliable?

merge all applications for a killer breed, but split off the kernel for convenience/ personal preferences?

this sounds like a standard flamebait rant.

Except of course won't play out like that. If, for example, the KDE project was magically shut down, do you really think all (or even most) current KDE developers would become GNOME developers? The thing is when people are working for free (and often even if you're paying them) they'll only work on things they think are fun. All KDE and GNOME developers have looked at both projects and picked the one they think looked fun to work on. If that choice is removed they're just as likely to find something else entirely to do with their spare time.

That's the essentially unchangeable nature of open source. It's very easy to find plenty of developers willing to work for free, but basically impossible to guide them to work on what a central authority considers important.



I think you'll find that most people have no problem understanding your argument, they just realize it is at best highly impractical and at worst incorrect. And insulting people is hardly helping.

And at the end of the day if everybody thought like you, Linux wouldn't even exist.

Isn't it better to unite under one Ubuntu flag? All our bug reporting efforts will then be concentrated on one distro; etc.

Ubuntu's handling of bug reports is bad enough as it is with the users it already has. They basically ignore most bugs unless it happens to be high profile or interesting to them. I am a user of Ubuntu, by the way.

UBUNTU error reports.

On my tri-boot system (3 hard disks), UBUNTU would not dual boot with XP on disk1. (Dual core Intel). But two other distros did ok.

What you have to realize is that Linux is very much like the car industry was in the 1940's. Then every car owner carried a toolkit in the trunk. Every car owner changed his own sparkplugs, batteries, etc.

Ubuntu is only one of many fine distros. On my system, my two defaults are Fedora 8 and PCLINUXOS. Both work fine, and I use each of them on alternate days.

It sure sucks for other vacuum cleaners...

I would hope that this never happens. A little competition among distributions is a good driving force for improvement. The problem with bug reporting is better solved by making common rules, i.e. standars for how software should interact in Linux.

First of all Canonical is very good at marketing, and Ubuntu isn't always as good as they make it sound. (E.g. compare Ubuntu 7.10 with OpenSuse 10.3, and you get that Wow feeling, that Microsoft thought they had reserved for Vista).

What's the best desktop distro varies over time, somtimes it will be Ubuntu, sometimes it will be OpenSuse or even something from Red Hat.
Having different distros, makes it less likely for a good idea to get killed for some organizational internal reason in one company.




Just to be replaced with complaints why doesn't it do what I need. The good thing about open source is that you can twist it to fit your needs.

The problem with many distros doesn't exist as I see it, there are just a few that really counts, unless you have some kind of special interest that needs to be addressed. The ones I'm thinking of is of course distributed by Red Hat, Novell, and Canonical.

The reason for being the ones that counts have very little to do with their technical merits, and more to with their ability to do business, how well they can convicne their customers that they can provide viable support and actually be there for them if something goes wrong in a long time to come.

This should be a hint that Ubuntu is not such a great, flawless system, but instead you seem to conclude that people use other distros because they don't know any better. I have tried Ubuntu several times, and I still prefer PCLinuxOS, especially for beginners. Linux Mint, an Ubuntu derivative, is also better than Ubuntu in my experience (of course, other people's experience may be the opposite).

Anyway what I like most is the fact that GNU/Linux is free software, so whoever wants to create a new distro, package manager or desktop environment can do it. That's not going away, get over it. When a project is clearly better than the rest, developers flock to it because they like it, not because someone convinced them that having too much choice is bad.

On concentrating efforts... you have to factor in the law of diminishing returns. Too many developers in the same project are no use if the project is not modular enough. When there's just one big project, developers lack the perspective and friendly competition that many small independent projects with similar goals can provide.

Several little projects, being compatible with each other through open standards wherever it makes sense, and facilitating migration where being compatible doesn't make sense (like in radically new, experimental systems) seems a better and more realistic antidote for fragmentation than de-facto standardization around the biggest player.

Who's bragging? This article wasn't written by Canonical. It seems that some Linux users read every article about Ubuntu and then moan that someone's written an article about Ubuntu.

Honestly, people spend all this time advocating Linux, and then when someone writes in the mainstream computing press of their positive experiences with Linux and advocates switching from Windows, what happens? You complain that one distro is getting all the limelight. Cheer up.

The article specifically talks about Gnome features, and that's good publicity for Fedora and all Gnome-based distros. There are reasons why Ubuntu is more popular than Fedora, and Red Hat have been addressing things like codec support, boot times and package management. There's no reason why Ubuntu should continue as number one forever, so just accept the good publicity for what it is.

Edited 2008-03-24 12:50 UTC

I have a little game I play. Just something for my own amusement. I have a list, here, of the OSNews users whom I know are going to show up in this thread and do just that. I note the time that the story was posted, and then the elapsed time until the user shows up to post his anti-Ubuntu rant, and plot that on an OO.o chart. They rarely disappoint, tend to be getting faster on the draw, and I begin to worry about them when they don't show up on time.

Edited 2008-03-24 13:38 UTC

I REALLY want to see this chart! Mind emailing it to me?

You should get out more.

Ok they brag about SELinux, GFS, most likely the clustering, been there done that in Fedora and RHEL5.1 Enterprise....

Been there, done that in Gentoo since ages. So? Do you see me complaining Fedora is way behind? Do you see me complaining when some other distro gets new features? Nuh-uh, I am just glad if distros get better, no matter which distro it is.

I am NOT trying to start a flame war, however the Ubuntu guys seem to think the world revolves around them. These technologies have already been implemented in Fedora way before they had it on the 'Ubuntu' radar.

So, if some distro has a feature that Fedora doesn't then does that mean Fedora is "way behind"? Or will you take a defensive stance and claim that that feature is unneeded anyway? No, it is you here who seem to think the world revolves around Fedora. Just because someone writes about Ubuntu it doesn't mean that all Ubuntu users believe Ubuntu is the center of the galaxy -.-

Plus, the fact Red Hat/SuSE is the Linux distro for the Enterprise Data-Center and the desktop.

Give some arguments instead of just trying to state your opinion as a fact.

If someone wants to try a Linux distro the Fedora model in my opinion seems to be more logical and the way the file system is laid out.

How the file system is laid out?? O_o Wtf? What's the difference between Ubuntu's file system layout and Fedora's?

Fedora is targeting a completely different market then Ubuntu at this point in time and those features are not overly important to the home desktop user.

Besides that fact I would argue that Ubuntu is the way to go for a home user based on the fact it is the most commonly used and the easiest to get help with.

Go, beta test stuff that's not ready for mainstream use for Red Hat if that's your thing. It's not in Ubuntu for a reason. I'm thinking Ubuntu includes those things too fast actually - PulseAudio is nowhere near usable in Fedora 8 or Ubuntu 8.04 beta.

Ah.. The usual "Fedora had feature X before ubuntu"-post.

If any ubuntu story didn't get a post like that, it just wouldn't be osnews.

First off, I actually prefer Fedora to Ubuntu. I find it to be much more polished. However, you don't see me slandering Ubuntu with these whiny posts. Just enjoy your Fedora in peace and let the Ubuntu users enjoy their Ubuntu in peace.

Indeed. They are really quite different distros. And they excel in different areas, with different kinds of users. For example, if you are a less savvy user who wants to do "normal" things like watch movies that aren't in Ogg Theora format, Ubuntu will make sure you know that the codecs are not Free and might be patent encumbered. But it will give you a choice, and if you decide you want to watch the movie anyway, it will help you find the right codecs to make your own machine do what you want it to do. Fedora, currently, will direct you to the price list for pay for codecs, but will refuse to even take you to the web site where you can buy them. As of Fedora 9, if I understand correctly, it will just tell you that you don't need to be watching that, anyway, without showing you the pricelist. For many users, that's Ubuntu:1 Fedora:0.

On the other hand, for an administrator responsible for many desktops, and for the users of those desktops, too, Fedora really shines. Which is not to say that is the only place it shines.

I do not hesitate to recommend Ubuntu to new users who are going to be administering their own machines. But I would not consider anything but Fedora or CentOS for desktops I administer.

Fedora, CentOS, and Ubuntu are pretty much the only distros I need. But I do need all three.

On a slightly different note, I have noticed more anti-Ubuntu sentiment coming from fans of other distros than I have "anti" sentiments from Ubuntu fans regarding other distros. I guess we sometimes forget that a rising tide lifts all boats.