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Ubuntu experiment over
cauthon.com — A quick post about my decision to give up on Ubuntu, and why
darrencauthon- 3 diggs
- digg it
- StanStutter, on 12/02/2007, -0/+5Tragic loss for the community. I will inform Linus, I'm sure the news will be devastating.
- JanStedehouder, on 12/02/2007, -1/+1At least Darren gave it a try. The big problem is: it look like he thought he was stilling running Windows. I have no idea what he means by requiring to search for missing libraries, since Synaptic takes care of that. The only valid point is that of the ATi card. Of course, when you buy a laptop with Vista pre-installed everything works. But try installing Vista on the box you have at home right now and see how you fare there.
I guess Darren was right to move back to Windows. - pkbarber, on 12/02/2007, -1/+1Have fun with Vista...
- cenarta, on 12/02/2007, -0/+1"installing one program often requires looking through their repository for multiple libraries"
What on earth? I have been using Ubuntu for years and all dependencies are always taken care of automatically.
"It’s very hard to find drivers."
Sometimes. ATI has been especially troublesome until recently when the company decided to open source their driver. However, I can't even count the number of times I have been able to plug devices in my Linux machines and have them just work. Many times I couldn't get those same devices to work in Windows at all, or couldn't find the darn Windows driver online.
"The selection of software for Linux is bad."
Boy, that's a generalization if I have ever heard one and completely unfounded. Would you consider Firefox and Thunderbird bad?
"The “alternative” software for Linux is not as good as the Windows counterparts."
I really beg to differ on this one. I will personally take OpenOffice over MS Office any day of the week. I will never buy MS Office again and in fact you couldn't even pay me to run it. I will give you other programs though. For instance, I still prefer Adobe Photoshop to Gimp, and a couple others but for the most part I am happy with all the software choices in Ubuntu.
"You’re still one tweak away from destroying your GUI."
Too bad in Windows you are one malicious website away from rendering your OS worthless. Security is a band-aid in Windows and has so many more viruses because it is insecure at its core not because of its popularity.
"You have to edit config files with a text editor."
Yes and no. There are more and more GUI options becoming available, Screens and Graphics in Ubuntu comes to mind. However, many times I find that config files are easier to work with and just make sense. For instance, if I want to save a program on my machine and move it to another I just install it and move over the directory with config info in it. Most of these directories reside in the home directory (i.e. .mozilla, .thunderbird) In Windows you have to deal with the registry, a wretched piece of the Windows core IMO.
"It doesn’t look as nice."
Compiz Fusion. All Aero in Vista gives you is that Shift+Tab option, which I never ever use. There are so many pretty options in Compiz that increase my productivity dramatically. Scale and Workspaces on a cube are two that come to mind immediately.
"Today, I bought a laptop running Vista. I love it."
Good, I am glad you found an OS you are happy and comfortable with. Choice is what it is all about anyway. I personally choose Linux and really never see myself going back to Windows. But hey if you like it, then more power to you. I just feel that the choice and benefits in Linux far outweigh any other OS available. - jdhore1, on 12/02/2007, -0/+2I'll copy & pate my comments from Darren's blog here:
OK, i’m going to tackle your issues 1 by 1:
1. Complete and total *****…If i want to install say…Kopete (A KDE-based IM client), I either go into synaptic, search for Kopete and select the package and install it and it automatically handles dependencies, or i open up a Terminal and type: “sudo apt-get install kopete” which also installs Kopete and handles all dependencies. As for stuff that’s not in the repos…It’s either as easy as downloading a .deb file and double clicking it, or downloading some source of an app, extracting it, then just run: ./configure && make && sudo make install and it compiles and installs the app just like any old app in apt.
2. I’ve got 11 systems in my house, all with different motherboards, all with different video cards, etc and every single one of them works out-of-the-box with linux. Yes, you should be a little careful and go with say…Intel wifi over Dell/HP standard wifi (Broadcom) or nVidia or Intel over ATI graphics, but it’s not that big of a deal.
3. I don’t completely understand your problem here, but if all your systems are running the same version of Ubuntu and you haven’t modified the sources.list much, all the available apps will be the same between any computer…and as for selection…Ubuntu has over 22,000 packages in the repos so i’d say that’s a pretty good selection.
4. The alternatives are damn good…GIMP is getting closer to Photoshop every day and the GIMP 2.4 release has a VERY usable UI, OpenOffice is also getting better every day…OpenOffice 2.3 is VERY powerful, it can do anything you need it to and now, it takes less time to open than Word 2007 or even Word 2003. As for Thunderbird…It was never meant to be a competitor to Outlook…If you want an Outlook competitor, pick Evolution.
5. Not for most things…Sure, that’s the quick and easy way to do things, but you can still use the GUI in Synaptic to edit your sources list or that new GUI tool to edit your display settings or stuff like that.
6. It’s the same way in Windows…but at least in Linux you don’t have to screw with random text files much and the system is inherently more stable.
7. By default, i’d say Ubuntu+GNOME looks better than XP or Vista with Aero turned off. Now, it’s easy as hell to turn on Compiz (the fun 3D effects) and unlike the uselessness in Vista, Compiz can actually be useful and it can be configured pretty quickly to look very similar to OS X’s Aqua or Aero or even better.
As for getting linux to work…Well…let me put it this way…When i ran Windows at home, it took me AT LEAST 6-7 hours after a clean reinstall to get it back up to a usable capacity. I recently reinstalled Ubuntu on my main machine at home…After the setup, it literally took me about 20-30 minutes of setup MAYBE to get my system to a usable state…From that alone, Ubuntu seems better/easier.
As for you getting a new Vista laptop…Oh god…Now first, let me mention that back in December/January of this year, i ran Vista as my main OS for like 2 months…It was horrible..Compatibility issues, crashing, resource hogging, slow as crap and that’s all the issues a normal user might have…not counting all the things that are more specific to me and what i do.
There ya go…Sorry to sound like a dick, but I believe i have just rebutted every point you made… - Argus2m, on 12/02/2007, -1/+1Nothing but a bunch of FUD. I guess nobody told you that VIsta is not ready for the desktop.
- cquinnd, on 12/02/2007, -0/+1Vista is just as ready as Ubuntu, for any user who can accept a slight learning curve.
This sounds like a user who is not interested in trying something "too new" for his needs.
- cquinnd, on 12/02/2007, -0/+1Vista is just as ready as Ubuntu, for any user who can accept a slight learning curve.
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