What is Digg?107 Comments
- themuffinman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26Srsly...I'm a big fan of ubuntu and all, but that was quite possibly the most poorly written article I've read in a while. It's bad even for digg. I'll sum it up:
hey look i found this think called linux and a new version is coming out soon and it has wireless drivers and stuff and its free and microsoft is evil and aero is a copy of mac os and fiesty fawn is coming out this week and stuff - one1plus1one, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21Going with the now cliche "evil corporation" comment in the article kinda threw me off.
If your blog goes with a "preachy" and "this is evil" and "convert now" kinda tone, that's probably the wrong way to win the hearts of people!
I use Windows-XP Media Edition, and I am highly impressed with that OS, and its features. I've grown with XP (learnt how to hack it, and how to shape and mold it's registry) . I really made that OS my own.
For better or worse, XP and Microsoft is part of my history. I don't feel it is "evil" !? I have some great memories of Microsoft products.
But, having said that, I do have a genuine and open mind, and I can't wait to try Ubuntu Linux based upon what my friends have been telling me.
To be honest I've never tried Linux or Unix, but I will soon. (I have even just bought 2 books this week, including a book about the Unix command line.)
I can only remember 3 times in my life being excited to try a new operating system. The first time was when I was a kid at Christmas and the family next door got a PC, and I had to run over to try "DOS 2.1" . The next time was at the release of Windows-XP. And now I've got that same feeling before I try Linux Ubuntu. (Interestingly for some reason, I just didn't have that feeling about "Vista".) - gtluke, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16yeah i don't know.
i'm a casual linux user. i suck at it, but i'm good enough to get it up and running.
once i found ubuntu it became a viable alternative for a desktop for me.
i would probably use it as my primary machine if i could easily play the games i like on it.
i use it now for irc and web surfing. in my novice comparison, its a MILLION times easier to install or upgrade than the others i've tried like mandrake/mandrivia - Judicata, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16People should choose free (as in "freedom") software because it is the right thing to do. I believe that closing off ideas (i.e., software) from society is wrong, and really amounts to a government-sanction monopoly via copyright laws. That is where the FOSS movement comes in - ideas belong to everyone, even if those ideas are expressed in code. (check out the Free Software Foundation or something).
I understand that some people argue for the technical superiority of Linux and other free/open source software, and in many ways that is very true. But there are some areas where it lacks (as an earlier commenter noted on games - although there are a plethora of games for Linux, they're just not going to be as cutting edge). I run Linux (Ubuntu, actually), as my only OS because software should be free. In that sense, yes, big corporations like MS are "evil."
Even if people choose free software for other reasons, they really should know its core philosophical/moral underpinnings. - h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Not going to happen... :)
Jokes aside, I don't think this has ever happened with any distro before. Not at this scale. Newcomers are just discovering Linux, loving it, and really wanting to share their discovery with everyone. So prepare yourself to stumble upon many more Ubuntu headlines... Specially now that Feisty is coming. - alphaterminus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Actually I had never heard of Ubuntu until I kept seeing it on Digg last year. I even complained about it! The whole Vista release cycle pissed me off though, and I decided that I wasn't going to keep getting yanked into the "You need more ram and more cores to run Word and IE and a decent speed, and you need to upgrade when we stop supporting it because you'll get your ass hacked" mentality. I installed Ubuntu by putting the cd in and clicking one button and the little thing worked! I've NEVER, ever had that happen with any Windows Product. And my computer pedigree is...
1984 C64 Basic 2.0 - Loved it and used it for email, Q-link, Word Processing, games for 8 years!
1990 MSDos on a 640 k laptop - meh
1993 Win 3.1 - shoot me
1995 Win 95 - hack me
1995 Mac Quadra to cross-platform an educational program for 6 months - never understood the hype.
1998 Win 98, a nice, if insecure improvement
2000 Win ME - pull my toenails out and kill me slowly while Rosie Odonell farts on my face
2002 Win XP - The first Microsoft product I ever didn't grow to hate
2007 Was going to go with Vista but since I own 12 computers (home and self-employed office) I said "screw this" and slapped Ubuntu on all but 1 which I use Premier and Dragon Naturally Speaking and a Visioneer (ie no linux support) scanner. All the linux systems are just used for word processing and web browsing and intranet messaging... I love it because people can't fark it up by installing spyware ***** on it.
/And I have a medical degree, not an IT degree and only learn by reading ***** on Digg and googling crap I don't know about like NDISwrapper (For a couple Dell's wireless problems... fixed in 20 minutes after a google search.)
So yeah, Ubuntu, Open Office, Firefox, and other open source variants have finally gotten easy enough for a command line fearing computer hack like me and will probably make Windows Vista the last remotely successful non-linux kernal based OS MS produces. - aacool, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11The original author has written this article for Desicritics - broadbandblog is his personal blog where he's cross-posted the piece, hope that clarifies things.
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Yeah, we all know Cannonical is a charity! Along with Novell and Red Hat. Even smaller distros are started by colleges where the people working on them are given jobs partially to produce such "research". Linux is for the bucks!
- h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11So did you manage to skip the Windows 95 hype? It was massive, people making big lines to buy it, a lot of media attention...
Those were interesting times. Some folks decided to take the OS/2 Warp route instead. - crazybrit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Ubuntu's based on Debian, which makes it easy to install anything. I think that's one of the main reasons why it's touted as being easy to use.
- mdollarsign, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I think 2007 will the year of the Linux desktop. Honestly.
- Tsen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10DX10 in Linux? Through WINE, yeah, but not by default.
Anyways, before 7.04, Ubuntu was a good, but not amazing distro. It wasn't THAT much easier to use than other distros, and you're right, some were actually easier.
But this changes quite a lot. Have you tried playing around with it yet?
They've added
-a Windows settings/file importer to the installer
-fixed the wireless controls (you just click the network icon on the toolbar, then which of the available networks to connect to. Supports encryption flawlessly)
-Automatically downloads and installs codecs for formats you can't access
-Better access to proprietary drivers
-AiGLX by default (unfortunately Compiz/Beryl didn't quite make it to default, but they're easier to install now) - h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Ok, let's clear this up. I said "many of them are installing Ubuntu AND free games", not "for free games".
And what can I say, maybe there are cultural differences? I live in Brazil, and I've seen 15-old boys talking enthusiastically about Ubuntu, in the bus. Do you think something like that would have happened maybe 5 years ago? Would they be talking about Slackware, Redhat...?
Heck, even my girlfriend's little brother decided to install Linux by himself. And he is 14.
This is not crowd manipulation, it's just that the younger ones are more willing to try out new things. And if they are inclined to technology, there's a good chance that one of these new things is Linux. - akira117, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Anyone know if Direct X 10 will be supported in the future? (or just Open GL prob.)
Man M$ is making my decision easier everyday :D
Switching to Linux is something that I have always wanted to do, but just needed a push :D - jcaino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8i look forward to every ubuntu release
i'm running edgy with beryl right now (on an ATI card, no less!) and i aboslutely LOVE it.
i cant imagine using anything else. - crazybrit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8AIGLX is part of X11, so it was always there by default.
- crazybrit, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Awperk, was that a joke?
- prammy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@judicata:
I believe that people should be free to choose whatever they wish to, even if that means paying costly licenses and being restricted in what they can do. I just don't think that companies should be able to force licenseware or even free software down our throats if we don't want them to.
Having said that, if there is ONE market which I believe should use nothing but free software, its education. Having free software in education is very beneficial to the student. You can share it freely and tinker with it and like Eben Moglen said, free software is the world's largest technical library. The other market is stuff made by the government. Rather than release it as public domain, if they release it under a free license such as the GPL, the code stays free for the public to use and prevents it from being taken away by private interests.
@h0ly:
I got OS/2 as well as Windows 95. I have fond memories of OS/2 Warp 3.0. - Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -12/+18"No other system provides the ease of use that Ubuntu Linux does."
That's incorrect..Most distros are just as easy and some easier. - TomFrost, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Grr. Digg needs a function to move/delete posts during edit times.
Digg me.. up? - tony134340, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Last I read on Digg, Ubuntu will be delayed. Maybe it hasn't. Anyhow, I've been very tempted to give in and upgrade to Vista but can't bring myself to it. I grew really comfortable with Kubuntu 6.10 for a while until I switched back due to my games and my scanner is Linux incompatible but I think I'll start using Kubuntu when Feisty debuts and go ahead and buy a Linux-compatible scanner. Perhaps even pay for my copy by donating to the project. I know, talk is cheap, but I got to voice my opinion....Linux is getting more and more to be a viable option for the average and advanced desktop user.
- ray901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@steelmaverick
"I don't understand why people say Vista sucks"
It's more a matter of opinion than anything else, for example, many people prefer to 'own' the software rather than 'rent' it (as MS can turn off your operating system if they feel like it). To us it sucks that you have to get an ok from MS to run your OS, when you make a hardware change. Personally - I can't run Vista as my so called state-of-the-art mobo gives me a "new CPU found - reconfiguring" msg every now and again - under Vista I would have to ask MS for permission to run Vista everytime this happened. Under Linux (or even XP) I can ignore this msg and get on with life. - Ratteler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Hey... I did the same thing with the M$ news on Digg about 3 months ago. I got fed up with the lies about how DRM only effects HighDef Media playback, and how there were so many security improvements in Vista. So I blocked all M$ news. - abhitux, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Yeah, I cross posted this.
- etnlIcarus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I find Amarok is a pain on Gnome. I've got to activate several K services so it doesn't give me error messages and even then, Amarok decides to close itself periodically.
Anyway, buried as lame due to the immature tone of the article. "Evil corporations", and, "Rip off from Mac OS desktop", really isn't necessary in the context of the article. - mlw4428, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5My server likes ubuntu...my computer likes ubuntu...I don't like waiting a day to compile Gentoo.
enough said. - cubee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If everyone i know goes with ubuntu, then it will suck for me cause i wouldn't be making money cleaning peoples pc anymore...:p
- oobuntu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4its a RAM limitation on your old fogey PC. you can get the alternative disk, or.... if you ctrl-shift-f1 to a console before the partimage section and add some swap space, it works too and saves another download. google for the method (keywords mkswap , swapon e.g. http://cutecomputer.wordpress.com/2006/07/18/ubuntu-606-installation-on-legacy-pc-low-ram/ )
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7I don't know if it's legally a duplicate of http://broadbandblog.in/637/ubuntu-linux/ . I see it acknowledged at the top, but it's a shallow url.
- Spr0k3t, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4One down...
- crazybrit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6That's really the manufacturer's fault. My card doesn't work out of the box, but it's easy to set it up with ndiswrapper.
- CrazyNorman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That article hurt my brain to read. Something just felt wrong about the way the sentences were structured, and I had to stop part way through.
- h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@fk3:
Some people do that, some people don't. I've seen people wanting to try out "this new Linux thing" a lot lately. So that's what I am talking about. That alone makes a bigger chance that more Ubuntu articles are going to be written and posted.
Also, you should never underestimate the kids. Many of them have blogs, many of them are installing Ubuntu and free games such as Tremulous, and they think Beryl is a blast! :) Geekier teens even hover around digg, slashdot,...
So aside from just "getting blog traffic", there's something really going on. - h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think it's a "crescendo". Take Ubuntu for instance: we all know the good stuff that will come with Feisty, Gibbon will have some other much needed stuff such as run-time hardware detection on X. Those steps reflect important infrastructural changes.
However, we still depend on companies taking the Linux desktop seriously, and port their apps. Some professionals are still stuck with Windows no matter what (eg: using AutoCAD). With the infrastructure there, and more people willing to use Linux, those companies might start seeing a market opportunity.
Other factors such as the DRM enforcement on Vista might come into play.
So, Linux is definitively heading in the right direction. But to me, the only concrete proof of the "year of the Linux desktop" is big professional apps being ported to the Linux desktop. Until then, it feels a bit like a catch-up game. - Flamekebab, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Call me when Windows plays games designed for Mac.
Or when the Xbox 360 plays PS3 versions of games. - Quag7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think the next release of (K)Ubuntu with KDE 4, maybe one or two point releases in, may be make or break combination for bringing people over to Linux, if any of the hype for KDE is justified (this is not to slag Gnome or engage in some kind of holy war; I just think to a Windows user, KDE is likely to appeal more but I may be wrong and I certainly don't care which WM/WE someone chooses to use).
I don't use Ubuntu/Kubuntu at all, but I'm never upset when it gets press, because my attitude is and has been that good press for any Linux distribution, is good for Linux as a whole. I feel the same about most distributions, but while Linux has had several "flavor of the months", Ubuntu is shaping up to be the Linux distribution of the decade, or at least, the one that non-Linux users have most heard of. Once someone gets their feet wet and decides they want to be a Linux user, then the options to try other distributions present themselves as more realistic alternatives (for example, you Slackware users probably understand that your distribution, while durable, reputable, respected, and loved immensely by many, is probably not optimally enticing to most people coming from Windows (some may find pleasure in the dramatic contrast), even though from a technical standpoint, it's a good boot camp distro to "shock" Windows users out of their habits. I run Gentoo and I'd say the same of it, as well. Some Windows users would benefit from starting with something like Slackware, but a whole lot more would likely get The Fear when faced with it initially. I won't even go into Gentoo).
The value of Linux distros I don't use becoming popular was really driven home to me by the recent Digg (or was it Slashdot) story about who is contributing code to the kernel, and I think Red Hat was right up at or near the top (don't recall). We all benefit from this kind of thing, no matter which distro we use.
I admit that I'm getting tired, personally, of Ubuntu stories every ten seconds, but in the back of my mind, I know that this amount of buzz might be weakening the resolve of at least a few people who were determined not to give Linux a shot. If someone came to me and told me they wanted to try Ubuntu, even though it's not my distro of choice, I'd certainly offer to help them out the best I could. And I've certainly not read anything so far that would turn me off to Ubuntu; the buzz among users of it is fairly remarkable and I am led to believe that the online support community is tops as well.
Now obviously we on Digg know all about Ubuntu, even if we're not Linux users and have no intention of becoming one. I'd like to know how to create a similar buzz on non-techie or Windows-focused forums.
In any case, yay Ubuntu; if it's going to be some kind of vanguard for Linux, we as Linux users and advocates could do a hell of a lot worse. Debian folks ought to be proud of the fact the most popular (and possibly successful) distribution builds on their own, rather than resentful of the fact that Ubuntu is getting the spotlight (I am also a Debian user on my servers).
Alternately Linux will never be popular on the desktop and things will continue to chug along as normal. Which is not something that particularly bothers me that much, actually. But the "big push" is coming (or already on) and Ubuntu's up front. Whether it will be successful, I have no idea. Vista's lukewarm reception is an important moment of opportunity. - puppycrack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Even though replying to your own post is bad, I forgot to say this:
I'm also running TwinView on two 20" monitors @ 1600x1200 each, so that would certainly account some of the limitations I am experiencing with Beryl. YMMV. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Why upgrade to Vista when it won't be out of beta testing for a year.
- fkr3, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6It happens every release. Actually it just happens constantly.
Wait till the day it's released, there'll be 6 installation guides, reviews, how-to's etc. Then the day after there'll be rumours/leaks/bla bla bla about the next version. Then the day after that there'll be all the "so I switched to Ubuntu and I love it!!!" stories again, followed by more rumours and whatnot.
It's a really boring cycle and quite pointless - obviously the users on digg who're going to switch to Ubuntu are already aware of it by now. - FreakyPhil31, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I am extremely satisfied with Ubuntu(still running Dapper Drake). It has everything I need minus cutting edge games and Adobe apps. Runs like a dream... Oh, and it's free!!! What more could you ask for?
- borninda818, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8lol fubes
and now MSFT is complaining that Google is trying to monopolize online advertising. pretty sad - whatitisnt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4FTA: "I still use KDE's applications like Amarok"
Amarok runs fine on Gnome... I use it now with Ubuntu 6.10 gnome.. - daverave999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Perhaps people are excited? I know I am, just a little bit.
- michaelpe2051, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3their seems to be an idea that "paying" for software is bad. i use windows xp with the workplace shell on a 133mhz thin client connected to Vista all the time. works out well but i still have my copy of solaris 10 with java desktop. that's pretty nice and i have been thinking about giving that a try. i also have a 2005 version of ubuntu linux that i would like to try on something.
you know? i have baught every version of DOS and WINDOZE since MS-DOS 2.1 but, i am not thrilled about VISTA and i have been using it for almost a year now. i have been using microsoft's products since the early 1980's but microsoft has changed. as my grandma used to say "they got to big for their britches". they used to be about inovation and now its like they are mainly worried about the bottom line and inconveincing there customers with crap like the WGA and product activation. i for one have endured years of having to call the product activation line over and over again! and now with wga confirming whether i'm activated or not everytime i need an update. i'm sick of it.
there is nothing wrong with paying for good software. 15-20 years ago. we did not have all the "freeware" software that we do now. so if you like solaris or ubuntu or any of the other distro's. i would really suggest looking into something. microsoft is dried up! - gorndog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4demoman,
Please give Feisty a try when it comes out ... I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised. With Feisty (alphas) I experienced almost none of the installtion difficulties that I experienced with Edgy on my older systems. Granted, Feisty had an extra 6 months of Linux kernel improvements and a larger community to work with, but now that enough things "just work", Linux on the Desktop may finally be good enough for a wide swath of folk who are ready for a change. - h0ly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well, you are right, there's no need to stick a desktop-oriented distro into a server box, specially with few resources.
So you chose Gentoo, which is probably easier to upgrade than say, Slack, plus it will compile to your target architecture.
So, that's great :) - nick0909, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3On the download page grab the Alternate Install disk instead. It installs via a text-based system and gets up and running on much lower -end systems. You can even do a fully command-line install if you want. It is quite possible and easy. I do the text-based even on good computers because its just faster.
- stalefries, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Quote:
"Note: This page is not actively updated anymore, and thus is not really representative of what has been done and what is remaining." - EnragedPants, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5What is everybody re posting the same news about the Feisty Fawn release? Yes, it's a lovely distro, but there are others out there... there is no need to tell us yet again that Ubuntu is releasing a new version. We KNOW. This isn't news; the release date has been posted on Digg dozens of times.
- tuartboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5You mean: "From what language was this article translated?"
Sorry for that... -
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