Ubuntu, why it is crap

[ian]

Needing a password to farkle with my own computer in my own home is completely ridiculous. 

No.  Allowing the install of privileged software without any sort of check is what leads to malware being so easily installed.

The problem is that most people lack the sufficient knowledge to spot the difference between something genuine that needs raised privs in order to be installed, and the malware requesting raised privs to be installed.

Especially as malware spam comes with helpful things like:

"Click on the attachment to see the details of the package we are trying to deliver to you, in order to view it you may need to click 'Yes' to any popup boxes that appear."

If an OS could tell the difference between genuine software and malware then it wouldn't need to ask, it could just stop the malware regardless. For a non-certified/signed bit of software it can't.

Well, I'm just back from dislodging another kludge of filthy, sweating malware from a friend's WinXP machine. This is not an uncommon way for me to spend Sunday mornings and personally I would rather be asleep or doing any of 606 other better things. Of course no one ever knows where they come from and they swear blind that they never install them or any other random program off the Internet. And they certainly didn't get them smut surfing.

The problem with authentication is that most users just get annoyed by pop-ups and clicking OK is reflexive - like pesky doorstep callers, users simply want the box to go away. You see the trick where the browser code opens a slew of browser windows - most users will diligently click OK on each one in an attempt to close them. I think a combination of sensible authentication and the repository /AppStore approach is a good one to minimise the opportunities for malware. I'd certainly say the lack of viruses and malware on Linux/Ubuntu (and MacOS) is a huge plus (if only for the fact I get a few extra hours in bed).

I stick with the contention that when a Linux distro works it works. When it doesn't you have the command line and a long future of frustration. I think it's a reasonable criticism and one that needs to be taken on board by any distro that aims to see itself on consumer desktops. It is not easy to design and implement a good, user-friendly, and secure desktop OS. Personally, I am happy to pay for a desktop OS, as I spend too long sitting in front of a computer I want something that works cleanly and smoothly. The modest investment pays off in lack of swearing and keyboard abuse.

[bikesdontfloat]

 I won't let it beat me, there's plenty of distros left and I've got a whole weekend ahead to swear at the computer so I will get it working.  But lets be honest this isn't a slick user experience.

Was the video card you removed Nvidia and the onboard card also NVidia ?

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Bill bloody Gates!!  Ubuntu up and running and so far all is good.  Certainly far better than my memories of OpenSUSE that I tried out 3 or 4 years back.  With the exception of my printer/scanner which I can only pretty basic print functionality from (thanks Kodak - surely a company your size can manage to produce Linux drivers?) everything now seems to be working well.

Now I guess it's just a case of getting used to a slightly different way of doing everything - after years of using Windows just something as simple as the close/minimize buttons now being top left rather than top right throws me.

[Biggsy]

The buttons can be set to top right.  Google.

(Not that I'm a fan of Ubunt/Linux).

[simonp]

Mac has those top left. I've only had a mac a couple of months and already windows is starting to piss me off. This could get expensive as I just noticed new iMacs. Damn you Steve Jobs.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

A lot of posters have said "Ypu can't boot Linux in Safe Mode"

Well - there is an equivalent to Safe Mode.
In order of increasing difficulty:

a) simply press Ctrl-Alt-F1 and you get a text mode login - OK the dread command line,
but login as root and either fix things using command line or on SuSE type YAST2 - the familiar SuSE YAST2 graphical interface works in exactly the same way on a text mode terminal - how good is that then? (its a curses type interface - you tab to select options)

b) Assuming you have ssh enabled on your box, ssh into it from another machine.
Hell, install VNC or NX and you can get that remote desktop in order to run a GUI to fix things

c) learn how to boot your system in single user mode - you can then again install/configure graphics drivers

Also learn that the (yes command line) commands 'init 3' switch the system to a non-graphical state and 'init 5' switches it to a graphical state.
One obvious reason to run  'init 3' then 'init 5' is that you can test that new graphics driver. or X11 graphics setup WITHOUT a reboot. I deal with large, multi-user systems every day and I DO NOT want to reboot them unless I have to - so when recently I've been configuring Nvidia graphics cards on a very big machine other people are running things on it - and I don't have to reboot.

[simonp]

b) Assuming you have ssh enabled on your box, ssh into it from another machine.
Hell, install VNC or NX and you can get that remote desktop in order to run a GUI to fix things

The discovery that I could ssh into my mbp - after appropriate settings made - made me quite a bit happier.  The new model had a bug that caused the graphics to lock up, making it look like the machine had stiffed.  If it recurred, after having fettle a bit, I could ssh in from my iPhone to reboot it cleanly. 

[itsbruce]

A lot of posters have said "Ypu can't boot Linux in Safe Mode"

Well - there is an equivalent to Safe Mode.
In order of increasing difficulty:

What they're mostly asking for, John, is a graphical safe mode.  The daft thing is, the Ubuntu Live CD has just such an option, so all they have to do is go one step further and make it a post-installation option.

Also learn that the (yes command line) commands 'init 3' switch the system to a non-graphical state and 'init 5' switches it to a graphical state.

Not on Ubuntu (or Debian, Gentoo, Slackware and others) though.  Red Hat, SuSE and derivatives, yes. 

[inc]

Personally, I am happy to pay for a desktop OS, as I spend too long sitting in front of a computer I want something that works cleanly and smoothly. The modest investment pays off in lack of swearing and keyboard abuse.

That's fine by me, Windows is probably the best OS for a lot of people although most Linux users have also paid for Windows because it comes pre installed on most machines. I am not really interested what OS people use but it is depressing when someone fails to install Linux then declares it is crap without giving it a chance I doubt many have had to do a clean install of Windows, which takes hours  to install an OS with virtually no applications.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

I just bought a 16Gbyte San-disk USB drive.
I plug it into a Linux box - and a popup warns me there is autorun software on there - and do I want to run it (which wouldn't work under Linux anyway). the disk has on it a slew of DLLs, an update to Dotnet 3.0 SP1 and lots of language files - so you can get special offers from San-disk partners. I'm absolutely sure that San-disk make sure no malicious apps ship on their drives, but the potential for malware there is just staggering.

[itsbruce]

I think MS have only just changed away from that as the default behaviour for Windows, in a recent service pack for Windows 7.

[TimC]

A lot of posters have said "Ypu can't boot Linux in Safe Mode"

Well - there is an equivalent to Safe Mode.
In order of increasing difficulty:

a) simply press Ctrl-Alt-F1 and you get a text mode login - OK the dread command line,
but login as root and either fix things using command line or on SuSE type YAST2 - the familiar SuSE YAST2 graphical interface works in exactly the same way on a text mode terminal - how good is that then? (its a curses type interface - you tab to select options)

b) Assuming you have ssh enabled on your box, ssh into it from another machine.
Hell, install VNC or NX and you can get that remote desktop in order to run a GUI to fix things

c) learn how to boot your system in single user mode - you can then again install/configure graphics drivers

Also learn that the (yes command line) commands 'init 3' switch the system to a non-graphical state and 'init 5' switches it to a graphical state.
One obvious reason to run  'init 3' then 'init 5' is that you can test that new graphics driver. or X11 graphics setup WITHOUT a reboot. I deal with large, multi-user systems every day and I DO NOT want to reboot them unless I have to - so when recently I've been configuring Nvidia graphics cards on a very big machine other people are running things on it - and I don't have to reboot.

Anyone else completely mystified by the language above? I haven't got a scooby what you're on about - and I don't see any handy Ubuntugeek-English/English-Ubuntugeek dictionaries lying around.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

for step (a) simply press the keys marked Ctrl Alt and F1

I'll admit on re-reading my post step (b) is impenetrable geekspeak - if you don;t know what ssh/NX and vnc are then it is meanlingless. Your point it taken.

[TimC]

Personally, I am happy to pay for a desktop OS, as I spend too long sitting in front of a computer I want something that works cleanly and smoothly. The modest investment pays off in lack of swearing and keyboard abuse.

That's fine by me, Windows is probably the best OS for a lot of people although most Linux users have also paid for Windows because it comes pre installed on most machines. I am not really interested what OS people use but it is depressing when someone fails to install Linux then declares it is crap without giving it a chance I doubt many have had to do a clean install of Windows, which takes hours  to install an OS with virtually no applications.

Hmmm. The last two clean installs of Win7 I did - not on cutting-edge hardware - took about 20 minutes each, and were very smooth. Not as quick as Linux, perhaps, but I didn't have to go driver hunting afterwards, or accept that significant elements of my computer or office wouldn't work to their full capacity.

I do feel that much of the Windows/Linux comparison going on is between XP and much newer Linux distros. Comparing Win XP with 2001 issues of Ubuntu might be more revealing - or comparing Win7 with Ubuntu, what, 9.04? I find Win7 to be bloody good at almost every level. I don't have a pathological hatred of all things MS (or Mac - a bigger company - either). I think these various willy-waving comparisons are pretty unhelpful, and tend to be restating old prejudices. At on objective level, Ubuntu is an interesting but incomplete OS which has the potential to make Windows and Mac OS sweat - but it's not there yet.

[TimC]

for step (a) simply press the keys marked Ctrl Alt and F1

I'll admit on re-reading my post step (b) is impenetrable geekspeak - if you don;t know what ssh/NX and vnc are then it is meanlingless. Your point it taken.

Hey, I'm teasing you. I don't understand it, but I could probably decipher it without too much difficulty!

[Phil]

Meh, depends what you want from your OS.  I'm a Java developer.  My company PC has Windows 7 and it's a nightmare to work with.  No sed or grep as standard, and even once installed they don't work properly, pipelines are poorly handled and buggy, and I've got time to make myself a cup of tea between starting up my IDE and actually being able to run a job. 

My colleagues mostly use Macs. 

[inc]

 or accept that significant elements of my computer or office wouldn't work to their full capacity.

 At on objective level, Ubuntu is an interesting but incomplete OS

Do you not think your comments may be seen as a little condescending declaring that "  Ubuntu is an interesting but incomplete OS " and "accept that significant elements of my computer or office wouldn't work to their full capacity."  Your findings, after objective testing of course,     I suspect, will be a bit of a surprise to the millions of Ubuntu users worldwide

[pcolbeck]

I would say that as an OS Linux is pretty much complete. Windows doesn’t do anything that Linux can't do.
The areas where Linux is behind are applications, yes there are loads of good Linux ones but there are some killer apps that don't have a Linux version the big one for most people being Photoshop.
The other problem area is a directory. MS have Active Directory and Novell had eDirectory. For a corporate desktop you really need an equivalent so you can mange rights and access to data from a single place.

[ian]

Mac has those top left. I've only had a mac a couple of months and already windows is starting to piss me off. This could get expensive as I just noticed new iMacs. Damn you Steve Jobs.

Traditionally, I'd read and send a few emails on the MacBook while my work XP laptop grunted into life like some kind of zombie on decaf.

Of course, I can now send emails on the iPad while the MacBook boots. I look forward to the day when the emails send themselves while I sleep.

[simonp]

Mac has those top left. I've only had a mac a couple of months and already windows is starting to piss me off. This could get expensive as I just noticed new iMacs. Damn you Steve Jobs.

Traditionally, I'd read and send a few emails on the MacBook while my work XP laptop grunted into life like some kind of zombie on decaf.

Of course, I can now send emails on the iPad while the MacBook boots. I look forward to the day when the emails send themselves while I sleep.

It’s almost like the 1980s, when computers started almost instantly.  I have never had a Windows PC boot in a reasonable time.

[fuaran]

A lot of posters have said "Ypu can't boot Linux in Safe Mode"

Well - there is an equivalent to Safe Mode.
In order of increasing difficulty:

What they're mostly asking for, John, is a graphical safe mode.  The daft thing is, the Ubuntu Live CD has just such an option, so all they have to do is go one step further and make it a post-installation option.

Its already there. Just choose "Ubuntu (recovery mode)" from the GRUB boot menu. Then there's an option to run in failsafe graphics mode.

[hubner]

To answer the original question; I wouldn't say it's crap but is extremely frustrating to use or at least to set up.

I've just got a new netbook (Samsung N210), with Win 7 which I don't want to use so I've install the latest Ubuntu. There are 2 big problems: the screen brightness adjustment and  the wireless don't work properly, even after I've download Samsung Tools from the Synaptic Package Manager.

If I start the computer on battery power, the screen stays on the dimmest setting and I have use a command line to make it brighter. Each time I turn on the computer the wireless does one of three things and each time it's different: works, not detected, or detected but can't connect.

I've used Gparted to created and re-size the partitions which was easy to use. But then when I tried to use the partitions, I don't have the permission to read or write!

So it's:

Find out where the partition is mounted by opening a terminal and typing 'mount' (without the quotes)

If it's mounted on something like /media/disk just issue the following command:

sudo chown -R username:username /media/disk

Replace username with your logon name.

Then do:

sudo chmod -R 755 /media/disk

Then unmount and remount the drive, or just reboot

It worked, but should people who are not programmers have to do this sort of thing? What's the point of a GUI OS if something as basic as this needs command lines. Even those instructions are not foolproof, "disk" at the end of the line needs to be replaced with the partition name, which is a long string of random numbers and letters. I knew if you type the first couple letters of the name and then press the tab key the rest gets filled in automatically. If you didn't know and had to type it manually, it would be very tedious and very easy to make a mistake.

[itsbruce]

It worked, but should people who are not programmers have to do this sort of thing? What's the point of a GUI OS if something as basic as this needs command lines.

It doesn't.  A standard Ubuntu installation will have at least two graphical disk management utilities.  You don't need to use the cli to manage disks on any of the major Linux distributions and haven't for a very long time now.

[hubner]

It worked, but should people who are not programmers have to do this sort of thing? What's the point of a GUI OS if something as basic as this needs command lines.

It doesn't.  A standard Ubuntu installation will have at least two graphical disk management utilities.  You don't need to use the cli to manage disks on any of the major Linux distributions and haven't for a very long time now.

That would be Disk Utility which I've just found. I've deleted the partitions and made new ones. Disk Utility did unlock one by formating with "take control" ticked but the other one won't stay unlocked. If I mount it one time it's locked,  then if I unmount and mount again it's not locked although there is a still an inaccessable lost and found folder. But I wished the forum post I quote had mentioned using Disk Utility as well as using the command line.

Edit: I've had to use the command line to unlock it.

[inc]

I've used Gparted to created and re-size the partitions which was easy to use. But then when I tried to use the partitions, I don't have the permission to read or write!

Can you not just add yourself to the disk group     this way root is still the owner but you have access.

Code: [Select]

sudo  adduser yourname  disk

[Adam]

Mac has those top left. I've only had a mac a couple of months and already windows is starting to piss me off. This could get expensive as I just noticed new iMacs. Damn you Steve Jobs.

Traditionally, I'd read and send a few emails on the MacBook while my work XP laptop grunted into life like some kind of zombie on decaf.

Of course, I can now send emails on the iPad while the MacBook boots. I look forward to the day when the emails send themselves while I sleep.

It’s almost like the 1980s, when computers started almost instantly.  I have never had a Windows PC boot in a reasonable time.

True.  Windows PC have always lagged behind. 

Although Windows 7 is a lot better, as mine takes less than 25 seconds.