Yet another possible change in Ubuntu’s core components: they’re mulling over replacing GDM with LightDM. Why? Well: “Faster – the greeter doesn’t require an entire GNOME session to run. More flexible – multiple greeters are supported through a well defined interface. This allows Ubuntu derivatives to use the same display manager (e.g. Kubuntu, Lubuntu etc.). Simpler codebase – similar feature set in ~5000 lines of code compared to 50000 in GDM. Supports more usecases – first class support for XDMCP and multihead.”
I love the direction Ubuntu seems to be going. Thinking outside the box…
I’m can’t wait to play with these future releases.
Thinking outside the box…as in off your Linux box entirely. Many of the changes proposed for Ubuntu are poorly conceived and not very well executed. Unity, for example will take three or four (or five) releases before it’s usable or as feature complete as Gnome 3 (though I’m no fan of the Gnome Shell either.) The same situation exists with Wayland, which is nowhere near prime time at the moment; from what I read on LightDM’s home page it’s exactly the same boat. All of these radical changes will no doubt bring regressions and frustration to Ubuntu’s user base, which are comprised of fresh Linux converts and newbies. Given Ubuntu’s arguably poor track record with regards to bug fixing, many of these regressions may persist across several generations of Ubuntu. What a great way to convince newcomers to Linux how “superior” and stable it is as an operating system. Meanwhile, more conservative Linux distros like Mepis, PCLinuxOS and the like, which offer great, rock solid Linux experiences for novices and experts alike will remain obscure because their innovations are eclipsed by the tech darling Ubuntu. I think it’s great that Ubuntu is thinking of new and interesting directions in which to take Ubuntu, but a slow and steady approach that ensures things are done right is best. Not a fast and loose barrage of half-implemented changes that confuse and confound users.
You are assuming stable releases won’t be stable. I think that’s a big assumption. And, if stability is your main objective, just use debian proper or one of the other distros you mentioned.
I think you mght be over reacting.
Given that Ubuntu is supposedly the Linux for the masses, one would think stability would be a top priority. After all, Linux is so much more stable than Windows could ever be, right? As for the changes breaking something, I think one need only look back at previous Ubuntu releases, particularly every release after 8.04, to see just why people don’t like it when Ubuntu does drastic changes. They seem to do changes for the sake of changing things, not always because it’s a better or approach and they never test anything very well besides. Sorry, but six months between releases is not enough time to do it properly, and Ubuntu’s track record proves it. The one change they’ve proposed that I think *must* be implemented is to separate out the software repositories so that people don’t have to upgrade their os to get the latest Firefox via software center. Imho, that one should take top priority, as it will help the masses more than any visual or display manager change. Follow it up, naturally, with replacing X as the core display technology. Then, and only then, worry about trivial things like the login display manager or visual theming. What good is a theme when the rest of your os is half-baked?
Ubuntu has become “Linux for the masses”, or at least the most popular distro, by doing exactly what you criticize them for, not by being “half-baked” and not being scared to innovate.
I don’t think everything they do works out perfect. When you make an omelette, you have to break eggs. I think they are moving in the right direction. And, I still like Ubuntu. Having said that, it can be annoying to pay the price of innovation. I moved to Debian from Ubuntu a couple of years ago because I got tired of Ubuntu updates breaking small things. But, I’ve never felt like Ubuntu was half-baked. And, I am planning to reinstall Ubuntu in the next couple of weeks. I forgive the rough spots because they get ironed out. And, the end result is worth it.
I just installed Ubuntu on my 74 year old dad’s laptop. He’s way happier with Ubuntu than Vista. It runs so much faster. And, because he was already using Firefox and Thunderbird, he never missed a beat.
More on topic, isn’t it possible that some of the troubles that Ubuntu runs into with innovating due to legacy code in X or code that just isn’t required for their audience? Getting rid of code that doesn’t support your mission might result in fewer rough spots and free them up for even more innovation.
Chill out. Focus on the end result, don’t dwell the rough spots and in the end, you will probably have a distro that you can proudly recommend to friends.
Edited 2010-12-11 16:15 UTC
Innovate how? By moving titlebar buttons to the left? The misuse of brown?
They became #1 by dumping millions into marketing. The major improvements in the past five years have been from kernel contributers, not Ubuntu.
Ubuntu hasn’t done much for Linux market share, it’s simply become the de facto Gnome distro.
If Ubuntu had contributed a 1000000000 lines of code to the Linux Kernel and presented a nothing but a terminal to the user, it would hardly be used.
Yay, this distribution is better then that distribution because it contributed more code to the Linux Kernel. As you all know looking at how many lines of Kernel code contributed is a great way of measuring what is presented to the user. Windows Vista is even worse than Ubuntu because it contributes even less code to the Linux Kernel!
Please note that this post contains sarcasm.
Funny, I’m using 10.10, the latest Ubuntu release. It’s the most stable I’ve seen yet. I’m quite pleased with the latest changes, especially the fact that this release boots in 16 seconds on my old decrepit computer – back when I was running stable Red Hat, it would take 45 seconds.
Ubuntu developers: please keep those changes coming.
Edited 2010-12-12 04:25 UTC
How can proposed changes not be well executed? They are “proposed”.
If you look at Android, it’s linux without X. OSX is BSD Unix, without X. This is the same direction Ubuntu is taking. Why did others dump X, because they don’t need it for their audience. I’m not against X. I want X to stay on my box. But, I want it on Ubuntu the same way it is on my MBP, not required for basic window and mouse functionality.
Again… OS X is not BSD Unix. Not even close. So poor comparison. Besides there’s an X11.app for OS X.
Advice : read the parent post twice.
He’s right though. Darwin is not a BSD, although it is partially derived from BSD.
“It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29
backdoc said the following:
Which is incorrect. Yes there is BSD code in there but there is also Mach code which makes up XNU kernel. It is understandable the confusion given the lines of demarkation are not always clear at times.
As I’ve noted prior posts; if you had Linux + something better than Xorg + a desktop focused on usability, consistency and speed you would have a great alternative to Windows and Mac OS X but like so many projects in the past with such goals it ends up never having enough man power and when there is man power it gets bogged down in politics and philosophical wars. Anyone remember the Berlin/Fresco project – a really nice idea in theory but it never made it off the ground. What ever the decision the community must be willing to break with the past just like Apple have done.
Edited 2010-12-12 10:32 UTC
Ubuntu = New and ‘crazy’ things on top of a snapshot of Debian which means they can be implemented quicker and easier than changing Debian itself.
Debian = Test, Freeze, Release. which seems to take about 2yrs a release at the moment.
I like the Debian approach better which is why I don’t use Ubuntu. You should probably do the same if it causes you this much stress.
I agree 100% with you, but let me add one more thing, I actually like ubuntu very very much because it got me to the linux world 5 years ago, to the point I now work as a Linux junior IT consultant.
Many times, speaking about Ubuntu, people talk about these regressions. By talking further into the problems they have run up against I often find out that their regression is almost every time related to non-LTS releases.
In my opinion, and I believe general critics support this, is that LTS releases are stable and polished as one expects it to be.
Then IF your a sucker for new features like myself and install the new ubuntu release every six months then it’s just normal that you’ll also get the other side of the coin which is basically occasional fallbacks in HW support, or bugged features or speed….
You have choice as a ubuntu user, you can choose stability over feature-richness or the other way around. And if you really not ok with ubuntu, then there’s plenty of choice outside of it too.
But wanting everything at the cost of nothing is simply not posible.
I agree, Debian is the distro to go for if stability is what your after. For me, it can’t happen soon enough for Ubuntu to “innovate” themselves into oblivion. It is the most bug ridden, crash happy Linux distro I have ever come across. At times even updates break the entire system to the point of unusable, why there is so many other distro’s using it as a base for their own I will never understand. I mean it’s not as if Debian can’t be customized and made into a great desktop OS, installing Ultamatix does most of this work for you which results in a Debian install that far surpasses Ubuntu and is most importantly stable.
I just dont know how this could be a bad thing.
Less code that does the same thing is always better.
Although that code is being implemented for the first time in Ubuntu does NOT mean it is new, untested code.
Luckily Ubuntu is not a democracy.
Edited 2010-12-11 10:12 UTC
Its nice to see that the Linux distributions are not stuck in a rut and are actually willing to try something new.
Yes we all remember how pulseadio on Ubuntu was not a shining example of how to implement something at first, but standing still is a great way to become obsolete.
Never crashing or being more stable than Windows just does not cut it any more.
I guess what makes Ubuntu more palatable to new users is that it simple to install and set-up, installing graphic card drivers and installing media codecs is not difficult. And although it almost pains me to say this, I have found it quite easy to teach people how to use tools like the “Software Centre”.
The above coupled with installing Wine 1.2.1 seems to make it an acceptable distribution for a lot of people who just use it to do simple tasks and play the odd game.
Aren’t they doing exactly what you complaining about? Unity and Wayland will not be the default combination for quite a while.
This is excellent. Hope Fedora and others adopt it.
Back in the day when I was looking for something better than win98 I found 3 …
BeOs, Mandrake 8.2 and QNX.
2010 – Linux distro’s won the battle.
I’m telling you, the QNX guys went on and on and on about architecture (included vid when you installed OS).
To this day that thought comes up with every new “improvement”.
… what’s the architecture like in relation to the whole ecosystem?
With a 1% market share.
lol
people equate success by market share ?
i don’t have the numbers but what are they for firefox vs ie ?
yes, market share can be better.
So I guess we should be thankful that Ubuntu focus so much on marketing 🙂
Today, distro’s are equal to Windows/OSX. Whatever Ubuntu’s doing… it’s aimed at market penetration.
One more thing : Linux won the battle but the war are still being fought. Think about that for a while.
Most people equate success of a product by its market share. I find it funny that the Linux community prefer to redefine success when it fails, it been on a 1% install base on the desktop for about 10 years and it won’t change any time soon.
iPod has become the defacto mp3 player, because of its market share and thus success Apple’s stock has gone through the roof since 2000, letting them pretty much have a monopoly on legal digital music distribution.
Windows and OSX are miles ahead of Linux on the desktop. The UI on gnome is still stuck in 1998, forget the nice 3d stuff … no global lock on panels, cut and paste works differently between applications, poor knockoffs of Windows and OSX software.
Most of the best Open Source software is actually available for Windows and Mac (7zip, Paint.Net, WinMerge, Media Player Classic) .. says a lot really.
If Ubuntu is about market penetration, it may be the distro with the largest install base … but that is the largest install base of 1% of the desktop and laptop market.
What are you on about? Won what battle? What war? What is your point?
Edited 2010-12-12 14:51 UTC
I think we’re getting a lil off topic here.
but I’ll reply in hope of bringing it back to what this story is:LightDM vs GDM 🙂 and my initial question about architecture.
I don’t know why you’re mentioning 3d desktops. Personal preference, disabled it.
Distro’s are on the same footing as modern OS’s, what’s so hard to believe about that?
examples:
developer uses windows on his laptop developing software for AIX/jBase/T24 ecosystem.He’s now using Ubuntu desktop.
I’m using Ubuntu/Fedora at home because I’m gaming on consoles and could then ditch windows.
My nephew is a schoolteacher and he’s using opensuse.
My lil niece is using edubuntu(3 and 7 years old) and her mother win7, dad winxp.
The rest of the guys at home (3) uses winxp.
My mother, ubuntu.
The list goes on but I’ll stop. You all get the picture.
The battle’s been won in getting a modern desktop up an running withing hour(s). No need to RTFM, compile etc. like back in the day 🙂
The war : well the war’s bigger than a battle. You need to think bigger. A lil bit outside the box.
I’m talking OSS, patents and business’s attitude towards OSS. That’s where market penetration lies for the desktop.
People: Happy holiday’s and don’t take everything so seriously. Keep perspective.
Love.
shuttleworth is back and the cattle prod is OUT!!!!!
Man Canonical seems to keep rolling with the replacement for older technology, I like it.
Slim is quite nice and very light. Looks nice to.
http://slim.berlios.de/
Ubuntu has succeeded in replacing a couple of failed Linux distributions. Hardly a magnificent feat, unless expectations are really low. I guess in Linuxland, that’s usually the case.
Edited 2010-12-12 12:34 UTC
Does it support onscreen keyboard and gestures?
Didn’t find any documentation about that. Onscreen keyboard is a must.
Edited 2010-12-13 09:20 UTC
The major downside I see is speed.
Although I’ll be able to get faster to the login it will take me longer to get to a workable (Gnome-)desktop.
Personally I prefer a longer boot time if it saves me time from login to a working desktop.
Of course the move makes perfect sense for all Ubuntu variants that don’t use a Gnome desktop imho.