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A critical look at Ubuntu Feisty beta
cpbotha.net — A Linux veteran (since 1993) gives a rather balanced review of Ubuntu Feisty beta. To me, this is one of the first *real* reviews I have seen of Feisty.
concept03- 941 diggs
- digg it
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -53/+9This person ought to just buy a Linux PC, rather than complain about a Windows-oriented PC not working 'hand in glove'. That's his only gripe. System 76 do these... and even Dell will soon be joining, with GPLed drivers.
- SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -2/+77I'm sory, but as much as I like Ubuntu (though I've yet to try Feisty; I'm waiting for the RC); "Buy a new PC" should never be the right answer to any operating system problem. And that applies to Windows just as it does to Linux distros.
- smackywentz, on 10/12/2007, -13/+47I just switched this past weekend to Ubuntu Feisty from XP on my Dell Inspiron 2200 and I absolutely love it! Wireless was ridiculously easy to set up and everything seems to work fine. I run IT at a company in Arlington and I'm switching them from Vista to Ubuntu this weekend. I thought open source would be horrible and all you fanboys were crazy, but I just drank the Kool-Aid and am askin' for seconds.
- scooter12, on 10/12/2007, -9/+43@smackywentz
You are switching them from Vista to Ubuntu? They purchased licenses for Vista ~2.5 months ago and the just said ok for the switch to Ubuntu? Seems a little hard to believe. - NX910a, on 10/12/2007, -6/+31"I’ve had my idiot-zealot phase (”nothing but Linux is good enough”), but fortunately have left that far behind me."
Many, many other people should do this - rageguy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12This article does make some valid points, particularly in regards to setting up monitors and graphics drivers.
I'm sure the Ubuntu team could implement something similar to the wireless situation where proprietary graphics drivers are automagically installed, screen resolutions could be detected from a hardware database, xorg configurations are created by an easily accessible wizard. - sishgupta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17The guys first problem with xorg not doing widescreen out of the box is an xorg problem and should be fixed with xorg 7.3 which is due out during the feisty+1 development cycle so expect it in the next release of feisty. The next version of xorg is definitely something to keep an eye out for as it should make a relatively huge impact for the linux desktop.
It should be noted that the review is very machine based. On both of my computers feisty is flawless, but as always your mileage may vary depending on your hardware. I would recommend testing the livecd for your self and reviewing it on your own hardware. Your experience may be quite different from this reviewers. - Schpariel, on 10/12/2007, -8/+19He keeps blaming his ATi-graphics related problems on Linux!. Everyone knows that the official ATi drivers cause HUGE problems - it isn't Linux's fault if you have a ***** graphics card with ***** drivers.
BTW, ATi said that AIGLX is never going to be supported with the official drivers.
Next time buy a nVidia card instead of bitching about ATi problems in Linux. - trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13"I'm sure the Ubuntu team could implement something similar to the wireless situation where proprietary graphics drivers are automagically installed, screen resolutions could be detected from a hardware database, xorg configurations are created by an easily accessible wizard."
They already have, it's called the Restricted Drivers Manager and it's available in Feisty, the author simply didn't use it. ( a little dialog box will come up telling you that you need proprietary drivers to get full support for your hardware, check the box next to ATi/Nvidia driver and it will be installed and configured )
BTW, I have helped a lot of people on #Ubuntu who have had resolution problems and it always irritates me that the first thing that everyone else suggests when someone says that they can't get resolution X is to open their /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add resolution X.... the reason why it irritates me is that every single time ( without exception ) that resolution is already there and the real problem is that they don't have the correct drivers for their card installed.
Please, stop telling people to learn the syntax of /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Unless they need to set up dual monitor support ( which I will admit is still a PITA ) they will NEVER need to touch it. Ubuntu does an excellent job of configuring GFX cards, but no amount of configuration is going to get the hardware to work without the correct drivers.
If you have an ATi card and you aren't getting full resolution, install fglrx, restart X, enjoy
If you have an Nvidia card and you aren't getting full resolution, install the nvidia driver , restart X, enjoy
If you have an Intel card and you aren't getting full resolution, install 915resolution, restart X, enjoy - cantormath, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2Its your hardware that is the problem, NOT LINUX!!!!!!
- SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15> Next time buy a nVidia card instead of bitching about ATi problems in Linux.
OK, I'll be sure to go back in time 3 years and tell my other self that I will want to experiment with Linux in 3 years time and not to buy an ATi graphics card.
Sorry, that's a load of crap. ATi accounts for, what -- at least a third of all graphics card sold, at a guess? Tell people to buy a new graphics card to run Linux, and they'll tell you to sod off, and go back to XP.
Now, trogdoor's comment:
> Please, stop telling people to learn the syntax of /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Unless they need to set up dual monitor support ( which I will admit is still a PITA )
> they will NEVER need to touch it. [...]
> If you have an ATi card and you aren't getting full resolution, install fglrx, restart X, enjoy
Now that's a bit better! Finally, a useful and informative comment. All those currently whining "It's not Linux, it's ATi, get an nVidia card!" -- stop whining and memorise the sentence "If you have an ATi card and you aren't getting full resolution, install fglrx, restart X, enjoy". Modded up. - bobothn, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3It Seams that the vast majority of his problems stem from putting his laptop in suspend mode. I know that it needs to be worked on but if you are really having that much trouble with it just shut the laptop down and wait the 4 minutes for it to restart each time. Also people need to start boycotting ATI until the realize that they need to release good drivers for their products. I mean how long was it before they had windows vista drivers that worked. They have good card but if you cant use them they are kind of pointless to buy. And AMD use to be the underdog that the techies all rooted for why are they screwing the people that made them popular?
- roosterjm2k2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7What people don't understand, is that is doesnt matter who is to blame for problems.
So technically, its ATI's fault that their cards don't work well with their drivers in linux. Ok.
You know what, most people don't care. All they know, is that their video card doesnt work well in linux. End of story. It works in windows, it doesnt work in linux, windows > linux to them.
It works, really, in any situation (that logic i mean). Say you buy a nice new $2000 radio for your car. (this is just analogy, so dont go nuts over the details). Say the radio is slightly larger than the normal form factor. Now, its time to buy a new car. You find 2 cars that suit your needs. Now, 1 car, even though on the important merits may be less desirable, will work with your nice expensive radio. The other car, while technically better, wont. The reason it wont, is that the stereo is too big. Its the stereo manufacturers fault. The other car just happens to work, and the better (technically) car, though perfectly within standards, wont work. Do you buy a new stereo? Or do you just go with the other car.
Depending on what you know about cars, you may buy another stereo, but if your just trying to drive from point a to point b and listen to a kickass stereo in the process, you might just buy the lower quality car to keep your stereo.
The point? Doesnt matter who you blame, blame is irrelevant. It works in one, it doesnt in the other, end of story.
As tech-friendly folks, we tend to forget that...that most people just DO NOT CARE ... they just want a system that works without problems or the need to tweak it.
Personally, it doesnt bother me. A have laptop, with an ATI Mobile card in it...and a widescreen ... fglrx had it perfect within 5 minutes of finishing the core install of ubuntu (dapper in this case) ... so no real complaints from me. Even the dual monitor setup (i connect it to a 20" widescreen lcd when im home) caused little to no trouble. But, I know what I'm doing and Im comfortable working with it.
Linux will never rise to the top untill people realize that the opinions of the majority of linux users right now doen't count for *****. We're biased, we have a greater knowledge of how to use the system and how to tweak it to our needs, and we don't represent the kind of people that need to be convinced of linux before It can become top dog. - paulmdx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"I run IT at a company in Arlington and I'm switching them from Vista to Ubuntu this weekend."
*Please* report back on what the result is on Monday. I can't wait to hear what happens.
I'm going to go to the trouble of adding you as a friend just so I can digg your article. - bipolar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@roosterjm2k2
"It works, really, in any situation (that logic i mean). Say you buy a nice new $2000 radio for your car. (this is just analogy, so dont go nuts over the details). Say the radio is slightly larger than the normal form factor. Now, its time to buy a new car."
Hmmm.... that would be *your* fault for buying a head unit in a non standard form factor. They *do* actually have standard sizes for head units. I know, that completely bypasses the point you were trying to make, but it does bring up another one. If you don't follow standards, it will bite you in the ass eventually.
- nicoladimaria, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3this one is going homepage
- smackywentz, on 10/12/2007, -15/+1mos def
- diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -18/+9Considering most of his gripes are about hardware support, his criticism is understandable but actually moot. Does anyone complain about a hacked OSX86 not running perfect on Windows-certified hardware?
Like schestowitz said above, there *are* laptops specifically designed for Linux, just like there are laptops designed for OS X and laptops designed for Windows Vista. Complaining about how Linux "is not ready" or is "not yet there" is kinda silly when there are 100% working Linux laptops out there that you can buy from a Linux-hardware vendor.
Do we see people saying OS X is "not yet ready for the desktop"?- falloutsyndrome, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1We saw that during the beta testing, back in 98 . . .
- userundefine, on 10/12/2007, -4/+26I don't think he's saying Linux isn't ready for the desktop. He claims he's been a linux user since 1993 so presumably he uses it for his desktop. He's pointing out some shortcomings though that I think are valid. For example, there should definitely be a GUI tool to add new resolutions instead of sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf. I see this all the time in the Ubuntuforums. I hope the next release takes this into consideration.
Apart from that, I think he adds extraneous information like dynamic multi-monitor support. First of all, it seems like an unusual complaint. How many typical users are there dying for this? I boot up my laptop from hibernated state (Feisty beta, never had a keyboard issue on the Dell Inspiron 6000) and just do standard computer things: browse web, write a few documents, etc. It's not my main computer, but that's not the point. On the other hand, if something that trivial is all there is to complain about, then it speaks volumes about how good the support for typical users is getting.
Ubuntu is getting better all the time. I'm sure the next release will be even better. - pingveno, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Dynamic multi-monitor is extremely useful for someone who does presentations using a projector. Being able to put your laptop on a table, connect a monitor cable, and click a few buttons to start your presentation is invaluable. Linux's difficulties in this area is one reason that I keep a dual boot system (the other being application support, including games).
- Jorlwind, on 10/12/2007, -7/+31It's not a bad review, but I'm a bit disgusted by the way he treats it as a full desktop without a disclaimer (WAIT).
It's a BETA, it is not meant for critical review, its meant for testing, ironing out bugs and (perhaps) a bit of previewing. Its not fair to the development team at this point to review Feisty in this manner until it's released to the masses. Almost all betas will have bugs that won't stand up to a critical eye.- sishgupta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24While I agree to an extent, with only 8 days left before release, and one before the RC, things should be almost as smooth as possible by now.
- noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -21/+3I've been a Linux veteran since 1982.
- robharper, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3Smart ass.
- aprice2704, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Interesting and realistic review -- it echos my own experiences with my Dell 5150 (using Edgy though).
I have to say that some of the problems are just as likely to occur during a Windows install on a randomly chosen set of hardware. The last time I tried a Windows install it was much harder to get going than Edgy.
I am much looking forward to Feisty!! - truegodofwar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6This was exactly my experience. I ended up searching online to change the resolution and found out about this xorg.conf nonsense. So I added, my resolution to xorg.conf and guess what happens? Nothing! It still didn't show up in the list of resolutions I could change too. I had to download resapplet, just to change the resolution. A normal windows users would not be so dedicated. In Windows this just works. How come linux can't be like this?
Also, I still don't know how to fix the battery life.- tehjarvis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Here's how i extended battery on a buddys laptop
sudo gedit /etc/default/acpi-support
change ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=false to true
Enable extra repos if you haven't already and
sudo apt-get install laptop-mode laptop-mode-tools laptop-detect cpufreqd
and do a restart.
Helped him out. Hopefully it'll work for you. - Casedot, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2sooo because you couldn't figure out how to change your resolution, Linux sucks...
btw, it worked for me just fine.
Linux requires a little more effort to configure because it is open source. If they had hundreds of highly paid developers working on it round the clock I'm sure they could put in some more configuration GUIs, but until then, you do it if it is such a big problem for you. All the resources are on online, and I'm sure the community will help you get started. - Cherubim, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3This "experienced" GNU/Linux user tests a beta release and wonders why he's having problems ???
What a retard. This isn't a final release. Furthermore, one edits the xorg.conf file and not x.org in order to change screen resolutions and refresh rates. What a dill.
No Digg for this. A stupid and worthless review. - jma06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@cherubim
Do you even know what the word "retard" means? Contrary to what you seem to think, it does not mean anyone who thinks different from you.
Perhaps you can't see it, but the reviewer shows enough expertise through the review in trouble-shooting and seems to be meticulous in describing problems he encountered as well as link to known bug reports. He has done his homework before starting to write. - truegodofwar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"sooo because you couldn't figure out how to change your resolution, Linux sucks..."
I didn't say that. I actually got it too work...after 20 minutes of dicking around on the internet and messing with the terminal. My point is that small problems like this cause most windows users to give up. With only a little bit of effort these problems can be fixed. - trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I have helped a lot of people on #Ubuntu who have had resolution problems and it always irritates me that the first thing that everyone else suggests when someone says that they can't get resolution X is to open their /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add resolution X.... the reason why it irritates me is that every single time ( without exception ) that resolution is already there and the real problem is that they don't have the correct drivers for their card installed.
Please, stop telling people to learn the syntax of /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Unless they need to set up dual monitor support ( which I will admit is still a PITA ) they will NEVER need to touch it. Ubuntu does an excellent job of configuring GFX cards, but no amount of configuration is going to get the hardware to work without the correct drivers.
If you have an ATi card and you aren't getting full resolution, install fglrx, restart X, enjoy
If you have an Nvidia card and you aren't getting full resolution, install the nvidia driver , restart X, enjoy
If you have an Intel card and you aren't getting full resolution, install 915resolution, restart X, enjoy
- tehjarvis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Here's how i extended battery on a buddys laptop
- tehjarvis, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5I like OpenSuSE (using 10.2 now) but I'm itching to see if they can make Kubuntu better as I like ubuntu's way of doing things better than SuSE's, but prefer KDE to Gnome.
Nice to see it's coming along nicely and it looks like Edgy -> Feisty is going to be a much bigger leap than Dapper -> Edgy was.
Will the Kickoff menu be in Kubuntu 7.04 by default? I like it alot.
My mouth is watering waiting for Feisty Final...- Casedot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1can i ask why you like KDE over gnome? I'm curious because i always thought gnome was better for whatever reason. I like how it separates the different categories of apps in the panel as opposed to the old fashioned "start menu"
- cesclaveria, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2go ahead and try Kubuntu, I have been a happy user since the one before dapper (dont quiet remember the name right now) and I have never looked back to Gnome (even tough, I like it, but KDE suits me better)
- Casedot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1i dont know, i tried Kubuntu but I really got around in Gnome faster. I learned linux on gnome so i am partial to it i guess.
- tehjarvis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For me things are more intuitive in KDE and everything it alot more customizable. Kickoff is the best menu I've ever used. Other than that I guess I love Konqueror, Amarok and Konversation. Not a big fan of Kmail though.
- stmiller, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2
a critical look at ubuntu feisty beta on an hp nc8430 laptop
Published April 10th, 2007 in tech.
I’ve been running Linux since 1993 (kernel 0.99-pl13 if I remember correctly) on most of my workstations and servers. I’ve had my idiot-zealot phase (”nothing but Linux is good enough”), but fortunately have left that far behind me. Now I like teasing idiot-zealots with comments about that shareware Loonix thing.
So for the past few laptops, I’ve been running Windows XP, mostly because this Just Works(tm) on modern laptop hardware. Linux really didn’t cut it when compared to XP: yes, you could install it without too much trouble, but getting 100% out of your laptop (suspend/resume, good power management, full support for modern GPUs, etc) is a different story.
Because XP is getting more scary by the day (WGA things, licensing issues) and Vista promises to be even more scary (binding itself to your motherboard) and because I’ve been hearing many good things about Ubuntu Feisty (the soon-to-be-released 7.04), I decided to give this a shot on my HP NC8430 laptop (Core Duo 2GHz, ATI X1600, 2G RAM, etc.). Initially I was determined to do this like a “normal” user, i.e. no tweaking config files and especially no script writing. I wanted to see how far your average user could get with a state of the art Linux installation on a laptop.
Installation
This was quite impressive: I defragmented my NTFS filesystem, booted from the Ubuntu Feisty live CD and did the install. Without getting all ***** about it, the installer resized my NTFS partition, created a new EXT3 partition and installed itself. Colour me impressed.
General configuration
After the first boot, I was greeted with a VESA-driven x.org and an incorrect resolution. My laptop screen supports 1680 x 1050. The Gnome Preferences | Screen Resolution applet couldn’t go higher than 1280 x 1024. I had to break my first rule and edit the x.org configuration file to add the higher resolution. Why is this still necessary? A novice user shouldn’t need to have to do this!
I also installed the Ubuntu packaged fglrx ATI drivers with the Synaptic package management software, as I depend on good 3D graphics support for my work. The new Restricted Driver Manager helps one to complete this configuration in a user-friendly fashion.
By running “aticonfig –set-powerstate 1″, the GPU can be set to a lower-power mode, leading to a cooler-running laptop, meaning the fans don’t spin up as often. This command can be added to the gnome startup by adding it to System | Preferences | Sessions. With “aticonfig –lsb” one can query the available powerstates. One can only change the powerstate if a single display is active.
I removed “quiet” (but left “splash”) from the GRUB config for the default kernel in order to be able to see boot-up messages. These are helpful, especially when things take longer than they should.
Wireless networking support
This is the part that really impressed me: With Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft), I had to jump through all kinds of very user-unfriendly hoops to connect to my WPA wireless network. Feisty Beta simply popped up a pretty dialog box showing me the detected wireless networks and prompted me for the network key when I selected my WPA access point. I was online… colour me even more impressed!
Power management
This is when my jaw dropped ever so slightly (I’ll get to the “critical” part of this look a bit later): I selected suspend to RAM, which the laptop promptly did. When I pressed the power button to resume, I expected the typical black-screen-crashed-laptop syndrome. Instead, my desktop came back and I could continue working. This is a quantum leap in user-friendly Linux!
However, I soon saw that at every third resume (on average) all my keyboards would be dead.
It turns out something similar to this bug applies to my laptop. By adding the necessary suspend/resume hooks as documented in the bug report (so that the i8042 module is removed before suspend and re-installed after resume), the problem seems to have been solved.
Often after resume, my laptop gets stuck in the text console. I have to switch manually to X with Alt-F7. Another suspend/resume glitch is that the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor gnome applet is stuck on 2GHz for my second core, although the core is running at half that most of the time. In general, things get a bit flaky after resume; often I need to restart X to get back to normal. I could potentially deal with this.
Another disappointing issue is the terrible battery life under Ubuntu Feisty. On Windows, I get more than 4 hours of battery life with average use (wireless network, web browsing, text editing). With Feisty, even after enabling LAPTOP_MODE in /etc/default/acpi-support and putting the GPU in low-power mode as explained above, I get only 2 hours and 40 minutes. This is almost a show stopper.
Out of the box ACPI monitoring support is well-done. With just a few clicks, I could various temperatures and fan speeds on my panel. See the panel at the top of the screen in the screenshot below:
This also shows the Deskbar applet in action.
Dynamic multi-monitor support SUCKS
My laptop has a docking station with an external LCD monitor, resolution 1280 x 1024. The laptop is 1680 x 1050, as I’ve mentioned. With Windows, (hot) docking / undocking always Just Works. It automatically activates the correct resolution without me having to configure anything. So whenever I resume, I have a working display.
Feisty does not quite get this yet. In fact, Feisty needs some serious clue-bat-based attention… When I dock or undock and then resume, I have no display, and no way of getting my display back, besides power-cycling the laptop at every dock / undock. I ended up writing this Python script and binding it to Alt-F5 (for example) so that I would always have a way of activating the next display in the list of connected displays. Oh jeez, even assigning an arbitrary shell command to a global hot key in Gnome is not straight-forward. You have to use gconf as explained on this page. You can query connected and enabled displays with “aticonfig –query-monitor” and activate any subset with “aticonfig –enable-monitor=name1,name2,…,nameN”.
Desktop effects with XGL and Beryl
Wobbly Windows, you know, these are immensely useful and result in a more productive computing experience. NOT!
They are really very nice though. Most of the desktop effects are more nice to look at than actually useful, except for one: The Exposé-like functionality, called “Scale” by Beryl, scales and fits all windows on the current screen so that one can select the window that one wants to select easily.
Because fglrx doesn’t support the XComposite extension, I could not install AIGLX (Ubuntu default) and had to go for XGL and Beryl. After following this guide and making sure to use the external Beryl package repository as explained here (the Ubuntu packages won’t work in this case, they don’t have XGL support), I got the whole shebang to work. MAN this is pretty! Check out the screenshot below for Scale in action (there are non-desktop-effect ways of doing this, e.g. kompose or skippy, but none of them are as slick as the desktop effects version):
As with most other things in Ubuntu, this functionality is not without its caveats. This is even more flaky with suspending and resuming: after resuming, logging out and in will give you a garbled display. I have to restart X at the GDM login screen to get XGL to work again. There are also some focus issues, especially with the Gnome Deskbar (very useful utility, by the way): pressing the hotkey activates the deskbar, but you can’t begin to type, as the current window still has the focus. I managed to fix this by setting the Beryl “Level of Focus Stealing Prevention” (under general settings) to None. Changing to a higher resolution with the “Display Resolution” applet whilst running XGL+Beryl, results in only part of the screen being usable.
Miscellaneous issues
* Palm Pilot synchronisation seems to work out of the box with my Tungsten C, but hangs forever on ToDo synchronisation. Seems it’s due to this bug.
* The built-in Texas Instruments SD card reader works out of the box, but does not automount like other removable media. This is either due to the fact that it’s not seen as removable, or that the driver forgets to assign its parent bus. See this mail thread. I ended up applying this workaround, involving adding rules to the udev system to pmount the SD card.
* Gimp doesn’t understand SMB: URIs, whereas the Gnome Image Viewer does, and gthumb pretends to but doesn’t.
Conclusion
All in all, I’m positive but not quite convinced yet. The Ubuntu people have done a marvellous job, but Feisty Beta (up to date as of 2007-04-10) doesn’t quite Just Work(tm) on the HP NC8430. I had to break my rule of editing config files or writing scripts more than once to get it to work to my satisfaction, and still there are problems that would make it difficult to work in Ubuntu full-time: the miserable battery life, the flaky suspend/resume and the really bad dynamic multi-monitor support. That being said, things like the user-friendly WPA support and the flawless install on an NTFS partition are going in the right direction.
Updates
* This post has been linked by OSNews! You can also follow some of the discussion over there.
PS
Please comment away, but keep it civilised. I’ll update the post as we go along, and give credit where credit’s due. - MudkipsULiekEm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I do this same test every release and never get beyond wireless. I have WPA, and while I can take my laptop downstairs to plug it in, I don't think I should have to.
You tend to lose interest pretty quick when ya can't get connected. I'm always left with the "well, there's always next time" thought.
Then I just go back to using my old distro. I love the theory behind the Live CDs and whatnot, but when you can't get it to work 100% out of the box, it tends to make itself look bad.- truegodofwar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Read the article. WPA works out of the box, just type your password in the little box. I can personally confirm this.
- blamar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@truegodofwar
That's not completely true in all cases. My Linksys NIC with a Broadcom 4306 chipset still needs ndiswrapper to provide full functionality. Although I'll admit that the wireless support has grown leaps and bounds with this release. - MudkipsULiekEm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"Read the article."
Reread my post. I was referring to current and past releases of Ubuntu.
- emblemparade, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Sigh. I'm tired of reviews of free operating systems always beginning with "installation" and hardware woes. This is so unfair and not "balanced" at all! When you buy a desktop or laptop with Windows pre-installed, you can be sure that all the right drivers are there and more or less tested.
A more balanced review would either start with a machine pre-installed with a free operating system, *or* would give a more honest thought as to what it takes to get hardware set up on Windows. From many years of experience with various versions of Windows, I can tell you that you're OK as long as you're have drivers for the current version of the operating system. Older or newer hardware often would require much wrangling and registry editing and weird things to get it to work. Yes, just like with free operating systems.
We're in a weird situation today where people are "switching" to free operating systems. That is, they bought a computer in which all the hardware was Windows-ready, and now are trying to shove a free operating system onto it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The truth is that there are Linux drivers for a vast variety of hardware, including a lot of old hardware that isn't supported well in newer versions of Windows. But the lists don't match.
Perhaps with the new pre-installed Dell machines coming out, we will soon see reviews of free operating systems without the unfair "swtiching" prelude. When that happens, it's inevitable that reviews will be glowing, even when it comes to hardware. Hey, my webcam worked in Ubuntu as soon as I plugged it in. It never worked properly in Windows XP.- weeczar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1It does not fall into that "pre-installed" review category more so because the reviewer is a linux freak. He has run linux long enough to irritate us with the boring details, though being in the "know" is what the linux community is about.
- unsolicited, on 10/12/2007, -13/+4How many mouse clicks you need to find out the CPU type of your laptop?
In XP it is 3
In Ubuntu it is 4
Please improve the usability of Ubuntu.- seenxu, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1I think on xp is 2, on mac is also 2. :D
- justnick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6yeah, that is definitely a show stopper for me as well. I was gonna switch but when I found out it took more than 3 clicks to see what proc I was using, I gave up.
seenxu -- In XP it is 3 unless you have a my computer icon on your desktop, then it is 2. - ClayDragon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16No mouse click at all:
cat /proc/cpuinfo - unsolicited, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3I am talking about mouse clicks and not about command line.
All naive users prefer mouse clicks to access any feature. - unsolicited, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5Why are you downmodding me?
I am a Ubuntu user and trying to help Ubuntu. - plagiats, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I guess because checking "what is my CPU ?" is not the main question you ask yourself on a daily basis. "Where is that application to write spreadsheets?" or "How do I check my e-mails" seems more relevant. Don't they?
- generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"I am talking about mouse clicks and not about command line.
All naive users prefer mouse clicks to access any feature."
Copy that command line into a shell script. Boom, all you have to do is double click :)
(I'm sure you could output it graphically as well, somehow) - unsolicited, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1You guys really are not concerned about naive users.
You are hard wired for developers.
- Izacus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5That pretty much sums up Ubuntu experience on my Toshiba laptop also. Including the crap-working external display support over ATi drivers, awful battery life even with all power-saving turned on and still crappy wireless support (I have to switch between ad-hoc, EAP protected and WPA2 protected networks. The Wireless manager works only with the last mentioned).
Nice work for Ubuntu team, but still not good enough.- ajifans, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4To be fair Toshiba products are among the most linux-unfriendly on the market. Their new motherboards (made by Phoenix) lock you out if you try and install another OS on them.
You can't judge the quality of the product when you're using hardware that was designed to make life difficult for anyone who dares not use Microsoft. - Izacus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Whoo, guess what. My problems have nothing to do with BIOS (and yes, I have the newest version of Phoenix BIOS... it only made sure all special keys work out of the box on Vista). I believe you was told in comments on that article, that it was just a pile of *****.
Mobility Radeon X1600 is the same as in all other laptops, and the same problem remains on all other laptops with this graphics card. Same with wireless, the 3945ABG is standard centrino wireless. It CAN connect to those networks, but I always have to manually invoke the wpa_supplicant or maiually set ad-hoc settings with iwconfig for it to work. Where's the autmatic roaming between those networks (which we have since... eeer... Windows XP SP2? Or even waaay before if you used the software with wireless card)? Not to mention the per-network firewall profiles which autmatically change in Vista. - generalloy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"
Mobility Radeon X1600 is the same as in all other laptops, and the same problem remains on all other laptops with this graphics card. Same with wireless, the 3945ABG is standard centrino wireless. It CAN connect to those networks, but I always have to manually invoke the wpa_supplicant or maiually set ad-hoc settings with iwconfig for it to work. Where's the autmatic roaming between those networks (which we have since... eeer... Windows XP SP2? Or even waaay before if you used the software with wireless card)? Not to mention the per-network firewall profiles which autmatically change in Vista."
ATI is unfriendly to radeon and only the reverse engineered open source drivers work well, with the caveat that they support new cards (like your X1600) slowly.
Automatic roaming, WPA? What about network-manager-gnome? It's default in Feisty Fawn and you can install it from Dapper Drake on, if you like... - Izacus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well, as I said. Netowork manager does not support Ad-hoc or the authentication used on the EAP network, so it's useless for me (since I have to manually setup settings each time or run a script).
- ajifans, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4To be fair Toshiba products are among the most linux-unfriendly on the market. Their new motherboards (made by Phoenix) lock you out if you try and install another OS on them.
- Morphinity, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3This could be the first time I use Linux. I've tried before, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to install.
- SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1(mod down)
- DigitalJester, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Good balanced read. Now, lets get this guy to do more decent reviews. Not, OMFG! Tis ubutnu! LOL. I liked this article. I might actually give Feisty a go.
- richdiggins, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0This guy knows as much about Linux as I know about women and money.... Nada!
- 661p, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Balanced yeah, but still pretty positive! I'm definately trying Feisty
- poodbrown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good Review, nicely put together.
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Feisty is all kinds of awesome. For me (with an ati gfx card), desktop effects worked even when I was in the live cd.
- digitalghost1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I'm using Edgy for my desktop and dual booted on my Laptop with XP. I find it annoying in my noob-knowledge of Linux, the fact that my wireless 3945ABG on my HP Laptop nw8440 doesn't turn ON from within Ubuntu Edgy. I have to enable it in XP, reboot and then Ubuntu Edgy will 'see' it (????) and allow me to connect to my WEP secured wireless network. Otherwise the wireless NIC is not even available as a piece of hardware from the network-gnome-manager.
So, I agree with the article Ubuntu on laptop has some work, the desktop box end support is pretty strong.
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