Linux

Thu Oct 27 2011 21:38:26 EDT from Sig @ Uncensored

I went from Ubuntu to Linux Mint Debian Edition for my netbook. I still need a Windows partition for work, but day-to-day I stay in LMDE. I've been pretty happy with it for... I dunno, 6-8 months?

After 8 years of Mandriva now moving to LMDE also - I hope this turns out as well as it looks.

Although hyped as a rolling release, LMDE is (fortunately) not quite that suicidal but close enough to the bleeding edge

 to not be waiting forever for new packages.

our first test install has definitely been rock solid,

My next task is to build it into being a Proxmox VM so I can use it in a USB3 key on whichever of my different computers I happen

 to be around at the moment ( I have one at home, one in the office, one in the field, one at the labs and it seems logical

 just to carry one image around and use that instead of trying to keep each individual machine mirrored)

-- 
TheOneLaw

Fri Nov 04 2011 15:02:10 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Heh. :)

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/886305

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/11/ubuntu-desktop-designers-clarify-on-configurability/

You're not alone ;-)

I also have become disappointed with Ubuntu.  I could probably make the change from Gnome2 to Gnome3 but unity drove me crazy.  I heard there were people who wanted to work on a gnome2 fork but haven't followed the progression.  I tried using XFCE and seem to enjoy that but it is missing some of the features I have gotten used to in Gnome.

I am wondering what distro will be my next choice, the only one I have mildly tested was Fedora.  I am sure any other distro will be fine, but I don't think I will stick with Ubuntu.

Tis a shame, rumor has it, they were trying to move into the phone market.

I became an Ubuntu user in 2006. I didn't want to like it - Ubuntu was marketed as a multicultural, politically correct distribution of the Linux operating system, and as a patriotic American I didn't find that appealing. But I'm open minded so I tried it anyway -- and there was no getting around the fact that Ubuntu offered a desktop that paid attention to detail, looked good, and just worked. This was what we needed, and in the years that followed, Ubuntu rocketed to the top as a favorite of both new and experienced Linux users alike.

Sadly, those heady days have come to an end -- and it didn't have to happen. The Linux that rose to the top of the heap and was going to be the consumer grade Linux on which users, ISV's, and OEM's could focus, fell from grace and became the Linux that likes to alienate its existing users. So what went wrong?

Last year, our friends at Canonical introduced Unity, a new user interface for netbook computers that seemed to make sense at the time. Unfortunately, they then decided to make Unity the primary user interface for all versions of Ubuntu, including those running on laptops and desktops with large, high-resolution monitors.

The vast majority of existing Linux users are rejecting Unity. We want desktops that look and act like desktops, not like overgrown, broken smartphones. The general consensus seems to be that the new favorite is Xfce, which ironically was designed to run efficiently on low-spec hardware. Open source luminary Eric Raymond famously switched from Unity to Xfce after a protracted rant about Unity's unsuitability for general desktop use. Another recent convert is Linus Torvalds, who knows a thing or two about the Linux operating system after having created its kernel -- he switched to Xfce after calling GNOME 3 an 'unholy mess'.

It's possible that the GNOME team may realize that they 'pulled a Vista' with the GNOME Shell and perhaps clean up their mess in the next version. I have no such hopes for Ubuntu and Unity. Unity is Mark Shuttleworth's pet project, and he is openly hostile to its critics. This seems to be the standard procedure being adopted by all Canonical employees, who habitually close threads on their message boards which attempt to discuss the topic.

I've been running my desktops on Xfce for a few months now. Helpful people in various message boards suggested that the easiest way to make Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 usable again is to type apt-get install xubuntu-desktop to install Xfce, and that is indeed the quick fix. But this raises the question: now that the formerly good looking and usable desktop has been taken away, what's the point of using Ubuntu in the first place? Other distributions have largely closed the gap in other places, and the only thing Ubuntu has an edge on right now is a slightly easier installer (particularly if your system requires non-free bits to run). I made the decision to switch to stock Debian, and upon doing so I found that most of the things that I liked about Ubuntu were simply brought forth from the Debian base.

And what of those other devices, the smartphones and tablets for whose touchscreens Unity was intended? Will any of them ever see an Ubuntu installation, other than perhaps retrofits installed by a few end users? For the mass market, we already have a version of the Linux operating system that runs on these devices: it's called Android and its place as the long-term leader is almost completely cemented at this point. There will likely be a few "looks like a tablet but it's really a PC" products, but those will be intended to run Microsoft Windows 8, and Ubuntu will find an uphill battle there similar to the one it currently faces on conventional desktop computers.

Therefore, if Unity is its future, then it is clear that Ubuntu has jumped the shark. The debate is essentially over: there is a general consensus among Linux users that Unity is practically unusable on a computer with an upright display. If this is the direction in which they are committed to continue to go, then the age of Ubuntu has come to an end. In pace requiescat!

I have to admit that I only saw video footage of Windows8 and Unity, but I came to the conclusion that we are probably becoming too old for new concepts. Hearing that people like Raymond and Torvalds change to xfce is not a sign of progress or a legitimate protest for me, but a sign of grumpyness. The oldschool linux users (and possibly all oldschool computer users) are used to some kind of text interface on a ultra low res black/green screen with horribly usability. Display managers are only a method to them for displaying more than one program window at a time. And thats how your usual LUG screenshot section looks like: Some fluxbox or xmonad desktop, having lots of terminals open with your most antique gtk2 theme, making it look like motif was still the hippest thing you could use. This is not what your average user wants!

Now, I don't know what your usual user wants, I am not one of them. I want lots of terminals, too. But I can't stand the rectangular motif looks. I am using enlightenment17 (the desktop) since about six years, because it was the most lightweight but stylish alternative to all the retro looking resource hoggers at that time. I still use it. But I also instantly choose the Classical design on windows XP installs, because I prefer it over the candystyle of the XP default theme. And I now lots of windows users who do this in Win7 installs. These people also are annoyed by every single style or comfort feature which win7 offers. They are control freaks, too. (I know this because I am one myself when it comes to computers, most of the time).

I installed win7 for my mom and girlfriend and they were like "Oh, this looks all so odd" but now they are using it perfectly well and I get less complaints and they are asking fewer times for help. There also must be a reason for the massive popularity of Apple hardware, something they are doing right. And they have one of the most freaking complicated input method with this finder. But especially females and people from non-desing focused branches (I know lots of architects, but also some electrical engineers) like it.

So what is my point here? The point is, that we live in a time were possible most little girls can beat me in a computer game on the Wii/PS3/Xbox. Were more people have a mobile contract than landlines (15 years ago, only drug dealers and brokers had mobiles!), were CPU and GPU powers are so vast that there are almost no limits to your input interface and were touchscreens become more and more popular (if this makes sense or not). 20 years ago, the keyboard was everything and a mouse kind of a nice gift for games. Remember that you PC guys didnt own proper joysticks and gaming on the Amiga/Atari was so much more fun because we didn't need to bang at our keyboards? Now we are moving to the next input method, so moving to new interfaces is just a logical step. If we grumpy "old" men like it or not ;)

Interesting thought.  I was accused of "not liking change" when I said I didn't like Gnome3/Unity.  I am still using 10.4 on my desktop.  Perhaps that not liking change is true, I went from DOS 5.5 to W2K Pro.  I had Windows 3.1 on the machines, but I only used it for a few things. 

I think the newer icon based systems is for dumbing down the user.  I remember jokes about making fast food registers with pictures of hamburgers so the person behind the counter could know what food you wanted without knowing how to read.  The simpler the interface, the dumber the user.

I meant to add a link for the ubuntu smart phone interface mock-up.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/11/unity-phone-tablet-mockup-is-great/

Fri Nov 11 2011 16:59:56 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Hey, question for all you Debian d00dz.

My /etc/apt/sources.list is full of lines that look like this:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free

If I replace the official release names (squeeze, wheezy, etc.) with
the persistent names (stable, testing, etc.) will I automatically be
treated to the next update of each version each time the distributors
change those symlinks to point to a new release?

exactly. And a simple apt-get install <some tiny package you find out to need> will lead into chaos.

for that reason, you should have the distro name rather than stable/testing/unstable in your configs.

I have had other stuff on my mind, but here is a link, How to painlessly switch from Ubuntu to Fedora
http://cristalinux.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-painlessly-switch-from-ubuntu-to.html

It probably doesn't contain anything an experienced user couldn't figure out, but I bookmarked it a while ago.

A clever tiny shell helper:

alias tmesg='dmesg|perl -ne "BEGIN{\$a= time()- qx!cat /proc/uptime!};s/\[(\d+)\.\d+\]/localtime(\$1 + \$a)/e; print \$_;"'

 - by zarath

Mon Nov 14 2011 05:04:20 EST from dothebart @ Uncensored

A clever tiny shell helper:

alias tmesg='dmesg|perl -ne "BEGIN{\$a= time()- qx!cat /proc/uptime!};s/\[(\d+)\.\d+\]/localtime(\$1 + \$a)/e; print \$_;"'

 - by zarath

oops, missing to ignore the blanks in front of smaller timestamps:

alias tmesg='dmesg|perl -ne "BEGIN{\$a= time()- qx!cat /proc/uptime!};s/\[\s*(\d+)\.\d+\]/localtime(\$1 + \$a)/e; print \$_;"'

Not sure where I saw this originally. 
Mageia is a fork of Mandriva Linux, supported by a not-for-profit organisation of recognized and elected contributors.
Further than just delivering a free, secure, stable and sustainable operating system, the goal is to set up a stable and trustable governance to direct collaborative projects

http://www.mageia.org/en/

Ha!  I didn't see that.  I had a bunch of saved bookmarks I was going through and that was one of them.