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Ubuntu’s Intermediate Ibex

bitburners.com — When Mark Shuttleworth, the man behind Canonical/Ubuntu, made the comment that Ubuntu should be prettier than Apple OSX in near term I got excited - the man was absolutely right.

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  • adamroach, on 11/14/2008, -11/+84I just wanted to make a comment on digg because I felt good about myself!
    • MattB123, on 11/14/2008, -0/+23You're good enough, you're smart enough and gosh darn it, people like you!
      -Stuart Smalley
    • damndj, on 11/14/2008, -0/+36I dug you up to build your self esteem.

    • davidkeithjones, on 11/14/2008, -0/+11From this day forward November 14th is adamroach day!
    • Lewie, on 11/14/2008, -0/+7We love you!
    • rpgmaker, on 11/15/2008, -1/+2Dugg because ubuntu has looked the same for quite too long.
    • adamroach, on 11/15/2008, -0/+3Thanks everyone!
  • blazewide, on 11/14/2008, -6/+23it would be nice to see ubuntu to make os x look childish >.>
  • AlaskaLoneWolf, on 11/14/2008, -4/+5This is going to change a whole world of experience for so many people.
    • gllopc, on 11/14/2008, -2/+5The article wasn't favorable of Unbuntu's current or coming looks.

      What were you referring to?
    • davidkeithjones, on 11/14/2008, -1/+1A wee bit overreaching there.
  • MistaMatt90, on 11/14/2008, -54/+22mirror: http://tinyurl.com/66qruk
    • olafcore, on 11/14/2008, -0/+5you s.o.b.
    • wlk125, on 11/14/2008, -2/+4I see what you did there...
    • nwlinkvxd, on 11/14/2008, -2/+14Perhaps I haven't been on Digg long enough, but I still find this meme funny.
    • tomazkovacic, on 11/14/2008, -2/+2tinyurl + mirror statement = you fail at posting a actual mirror pic so that everybody else would think this is a copy of the downed site
    • phate2292, on 11/14/2008, -0/+4*****...i needed that mirror *cries*
    • EricAnderton, on 11/14/2008, -0/+5Well played.
  • DigitusAnonymus, on 11/14/2008, -17/+6Ubuntu's Interracial Sex

    That's the first thing that came to my mind when I read the title. Is this a mental disorder? Is it dangerous?
    • FredFredrickson, on 11/14/2008, -2/+9No, it's just stupid.

      Don't worry though, reading comprehension is overrated.
    • webyatri, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3why are people digging that comment down. It's a funny psychological experiment. When I glanced back at the title that is exactly what I read.
    • containimated, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1Perhaps it just looks like something you're used to.
  • tomazkovacic, on 11/14/2008, -8/+1i need a mirror over here ... and pls no rickrolls and actual mirror pics!
  • orvl, on 11/14/2008, -6/+24MIRROR:
    http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fw ...
    • nrox653, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1The mirror is breaking down, I repeat, it is breaking down!
    • mynameistux, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1its dead for me.
  • gllopc, on 11/14/2008, -3/+17Hmmm... I thought by the description of the article it was going to be about how pretty Unbuntu has become. I think a better description, clipped from that same article, would have been:

    "Ubuntu with their orange/brown themes and very basic Gnome looks is possibly the worst looking distribution out of the major players. So here comes release 8.10, the Intrepid Ibex - a first step to the direction of making Ubuntu look good? We’ll see about that…"
  • prae, on 11/14/2008, -1/+64Ubuntu’s Intermediate Ibex
    Nov.13, 2008 in Articles, Columns, Linux

    When Mark Shuttleworth, the man behind Canonical/Ubuntu, made the comment that Ubuntu should be prettier than Apple OSX in near term I got excited - the man was absolutely right. It doesn’t matter how customizable and operating is, or how good can you make it look with some effort if it does look bad out of the box. The out-of-the-box experience is the key to reach the average users, and if that is not aesthetically pleasing a lot of effort is needed to win the user back. Interestingly Ubuntu with their orange/brown themes and very basic Gnome looks is possibly the worst looking distribution out of the major players. So here comes release 8.10, the Intrepid Ibex - a first step to the direction of making Ubuntu look good? We’ll see about that…

    First of all I have to say that I am a big fan of Ubuntu because they do a lot of good for Linux. They productize the most popular(?) Linux distribution, provide good infrastructure for the user communities and gain a lot of positive publicity for Linux. I have also the understanding that Ubuntu contributes significantly to the upstream projects (Gnome, Debian, GNU/Linux). On the other hand I have a hard time understanding parts of their strategy, which in my opinion leads to intermediate releases. Pretty good, but boring, non-innovative and after all pretty damn close to the mother Debian.

    From the live CD boot the latest Ubuntu looks and feels…well Ubuntu, and there has not been a lot of development for the last couple of years (6.10 Edgy Eft was the first Ubuntu version I tried). I have to say that the improvements so far to the visual aspects were a big turn-off. They consisted of a few changed icons, slight gradients in Gnome panels and a new (rather good) wallpaper and thats it. Oh yes, there is the new theme called ‘dark room’, which is even more brownish than the default. I really expected a bolder approach in re-working the user interface as Ibex is the first release after the previous Long Term Supported edition, so it would be justified to drive more radical changes and development. There are many small distributions that have been able to come out with slick visuals, so the required peaces for the puzzle do exist. For an example openSUSE, Ubuntu’s strongest contender on the Linux field, is able to deliver much more pleasing visuals that are more professionally finalized, well thought and more intuitive.

    Under the hood the Ibex brings many improvements from the upstream. Gnome has been updated to 2.24 with slight improvements, the new Network Manager being perhaps the most interesting one as it now provides improvements for Wiress and GPRS/3G connectivity. The 2.6.27 Linux kernel should improve the hardware support in many areas, which is always welcomed and always an issue with Linux on the latest or less common hardware. New X.org 7.4 brings improved multi monitor support, but caused a gap in graphics card drivers which have not been updated to latest X.org revision yet (this should obviously improve over time).

    The word intrepid mean something like ‘fearless’, ‘brave’ or ‘courageous’. Unfortunately the Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex does not live up to it’s name. It lacks any ground braking changes, innovation in design or brave new approaches on the visuals and usability. I would really like to see the most popular Linux distribution to innovate something that would make it stand out from the crows, and especially Debian, more. Competitors like openSUSE and Mandriva are much better in this sense as they are delivering their own value adding features like YaST or Control Center for system administration. Version 8.10 Intrepid Ibex is a small incremental upgrade on the solid foundation of Ubuntu (or Debian), but are these changes worthy a new release? They seem more like a ’service pack’ to Ubuntu v7.04 Hardy Heron, if a Microsoft Windows expression is allowed here.
    • wozyjob, on 11/14/2008, -1/+9Some articles make you feel more stupid after reading them. That was just incredibly uninsightful.

      Some perspective: I have used GNU/Linux for over a decade. I also use Mac OS X daily and Windows when I am forced to at work.

      I installed Ubuntu 8.10 within 24 hours of its release. While it wasn't perfect, it was very impressive. Linux HAS come very far. The fact that we have it as a result of the dedication of the masses makes it all the more impressive.

      Some thoughts on my experience....

      Note: My machine is a very old Pentium III with 384 MB of RAM. Even Windows XP struggles on it.

      Ubuntu experience:
      - Installation: Brainless. Almost perfect.
      - Update manager: Brainless. Almost perfect.
      - Desktop: The prettiest I've ever seen (keep in mind I also use Mac). The bad part was the amount of time I spent admiring it.
      - Networking: Flawless.
      - Sound: Flawless.
      - Battery: Worked flawlessly (on my friend's Thinkpad laptop). Very impressive.

      I repeat: Things have come a long way. I remember the days of fighting with X-Windows configuration files. Those days are long gone.

      Now for the downside (nothing is perfect, you know):
      - I'm not sure how well Suspend and Hibernate work. Why do you need both anyway? Take a cue from Mac OS X.
      - I still see kernel messages as X-Windows (re)starts. I hate that. Once again, look at Mac.
      - Why are the Log-in and Lock Screen dialogs so inconsistent? Make them similar and make them pretty.
      - Desktop: Text-beside-icons does not work. Once again, look at Mac. Watch the way they abbreviate filenames to limited widths, and show a highlight with the entire name when you hover above it. Also, settings for the desktop (icons, filenames, ...) should probably be *on the desktop* (with a right-click).
      - Nautilus File Manager: Similarly (like the desktop issue), when there isn't enough space for the filename, show a highlight with the entire name when you hover above it.
      - Recent Documents: Put an option in gconf-editor for this so we don't have to do silly things to prevent people from seeing files we've been using.

      That's all for now.

      Overall though, how do I grade Ubuntu 8.10? I say 8/10 (no pun intended).

      All in all, I really enjoy the release and commend the team on a job VERY well done.
      • HonoredMule, on 11/14/2008, -1/+5I'd dig you up largely for your critique, but all the positive points you listed have one HUGE caveat, in the "Your mileage may vary" form. Every one of those things are perfect, except when they're not--then they're horrible. The problem lies in the too-large percentage of users for which one or more of those bullet points fail miserably.

        At least on the UI front though, you make some very good points. But for that kind of touch to (important) details, I think you'll have to wait for a robust, mature KDE4. The Gnome team is unshakable in their relentless pursuit of mediocrity and clumsiness.
      • JoelJ, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2Really? You really think it's that pretty?

        I really think that Ubuntu needs to climb out of the ugly tree and jump onto the pretty-wagon.

        I give Ubuntu overall a 6 or 7 /10. Improvements made in 8.10? 3 or 4 /10. Things just didn't feel like they improved all that much. But I must admit, I haven't used it all that much because all my school work requires Windows.
      • Cupantae, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2@HonoredMule:
        All too true. I usually run archlinux and thought I'd set up ubuntu 8.10 for my siblings because it would be a bit "friendlier" but since pulseaudio was giving me bother and there were some very odd glitches involving the titlebars with compiz on, it was less effort to do it the "start from scratch" way in arch to get it usable. I don't understand why there were any bugs in basic core components like sound, though. I'm using common hardware. From my experience, 8.10 actually was worse than 8.04
      • Smuikas, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1I still have yet to find a graphical file manager I like. I pop into them when I have to move multiple files in a directory (but not all of them). But really.. I've yet to use a gui file manager that 'gets it' ... :( part of that, I think, comes from the archaic way we organize files these days... perhaps an undirected graph network would be better than a tree structure. Hmmmmm..........
      • HonoredMule, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1Every new release of Ubuntu starts out much worse than its predecessor in terms of hardware support and overall reliability. I can't figure out why, except to surmise that there is far too little regression testing done to keep the cost down and development pace up. Ultimately, I think the lack of safeguarding against re-introducing problems really just stalls real progress.
    • ghostborg, on 11/14/2008, -1/+0An ibex is an individual of any of several species of wild mountain goats
      hence fearless goat.
    • RaulMuadDib, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2Way to quote the article :)
    • Chordonblue, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1A 'gap' in graphics drivers? I'd say not supporting any GL in the i810/i815 line to be borderline criminal. There are still MANY viable machines that use these chipsets. I've recycled quite a few where I work.

      But 8.10 was shocking in it's lack of support for i810. I mean, we all know Intel's integrated graphics (particularly of that era) are the suck, but the answer shouldn't be forced VESA.

      I know this isn't Ubuntu's fault, it's Intel's since they have superseeded the original 'i810' with 'intel'. I just hope that work continues to fix this.
  • computershack, on 11/14/2008, -7/+1Ubuntu Satanic Edition....
    • MicrosoftBob, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1...for all you LaVeyan basement-dwellers.
  • JohnFlux, on 11/14/2008, -0/+16Mark Shuttleworth said that he had intended to get new artwork out for Intrepid but that hiring suitable artists was taking longer than anticipated. It's hard to find good gui designers.
  • BrainInAJar, on 11/14/2008, -11/+62Step 1 is drop the hideous *****-brown with baby-***** orange themes
    • orangefly, on 11/14/2008, -1/+8when i install ubuntu for people to try, the first thing i do is pretty it up before they see it....
    • davidkeithjones, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3Ubuntu is a paper bag ***** looks wise.
    • ElectricKetchup, on 11/14/2008, -4/+3use Kubuntu. Much better looking themes!
    • ethana2, on 11/14/2008, -2/+1DarkRoom is the best gui theme I've used in my life.
      I used to hate all colors longer than green, but Ubuntu has actually changed my color preferences.
    • ommadawn, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1The first thing I did after installing was switching the theme to clearlooks. It was one click hard.

      Too bad that I had to download some decent wallpapers cause Ubuntu comes just with this brown wall smeared up with *****. The KDE4 ones do well.
  • liquidmetalband, on 11/14/2008, -1/+14How hard can it be to make Ubuntu not look like this? After all this deep programming and driver compatibility, doing a visual improvement is surely the easiest possible thing.
    • Smuikas, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1a half hour of browsing art.gnome and you can find a lot.. I don't know why Ubuntu doesn't use one of those.. not unique enough? Hm. Hire one of the dudes that did one of those, then!
      • willfe, on 11/15/2008, -1/+1Cost of hiring artist. Cost (and/or legality) of using an existing theme. Underlying quality of theme (may look pretty but might have implementation problems) and required testing time.

        All these take time and money. I'd rather have them improve the infrastructure than "make it pretty."

        Oh, and BTW, try Kubuntu. Quite pretty, right out of the box :)
      • Smuikas, on 11/15/2008, -0/+2@willfe:

        Something has never sat quite right for me, with KDE. I've tried just about every iteration since using Mandrake on my old 486 many years back... and I've never quite been able to get used to it.

        True nuff on the cost of hiring an artist, though.
  • freezerburn666, on 11/14/2008, -0/+4i always upgrade so i never really notice any of these new design changes. i will notice new options or components but not colours or gradients. i like my theme and it stays that way. if i install ubuntu on a computer, the brown stays there for about 15 seconds. it's easy to change, maybe it shouldn't be default i guess if it really bugs people that much. maybe the next one should include cairo or awn, so the user can choose between having a bottom panel or a dock, or a side dock.. or i dunno. maybe people shouldn't be so stupid, but that will never happen.
  • hadiz, on 11/14/2008, -7/+7I would be less concerned about making it prettier, and more concerned about improving some of linux's notorious weak points, like compatibility, wireless networking, printing, etc. I know that great strides have been made, but I think this area is a lot more important to getting new users on board then more style with the same amount of substance.
    • sexybobo, on 11/14/2008, -2/+4Wireless Networking has improved leaps and bounds with 8.10
      Printing hasn't been a problem in a while (no matter what make/model of printer i throw at it the printer gets installed and ready to print with out me needing to do anything)
      And i am not sure what you mean by compatibility no it isn't compatible with windows applications but it is compatible with most hardware.
      • Ndiggnation, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2Even on a clean install of 8.10, my USR desktop wireless card would only work, literally, about every other boot, no matter which method or network manager I used to configure it. Same story with a Linksys Wi-Fi NIC I swapped it out for.

        Even the live CDs would do the same thing. Boot once, no Wi-Fi, boot again and it would work. Boot a third time, down. I still don't understand it. Even modifying the network interfaces config myself didn't help, and I had the same problems with Hardy Heron. Hoped it would be better with 8.10 but it wasn't, and I had to go back to Windows for the time being (work machine that just needs to work).

        I love Linux in general, and really prefer to use Ubuntu over everything else (Win, OSX), I've just never had such a show stopping problem with it, and I feel so dirty having to go back to Windows until I can figure out the wireless problems I've been having. Maybe I should go grab one of the daily builds..
      • RaulMuadDib, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1Even Lexmark?
    • talonstriker, on 11/14/2008, -0/+5I'll vouch for the improvement of wireless. In Hardy, I had to install some firmware junk to get the wireless working. Even after installing the firmware, I couldn't detect some networks that I normally could connect to under Windows. Now using, Intrepid, I can detect all the networks and connect to most of them. Intrepid is not upto par with windows, but its MUCH better than Hardy. So that part of ubuntu is definitely going in the right direction.
    • jivemasta, on 11/14/2008, -3/+3Wireless isn't a problem anymore as far as I know. Since they added the Restricted Drivers installer I have no problem installing the drivers for my wireless card. Before 8.04 I had to jump through hoops while hopping on one foot while singing the alphabet backwards on the first thursday of june, to get it working. The only problem I see with all of linux as a whole is installing some programs still requires you to mess with the command line and compile stuff. With the rise of package managers though, it's becoming less of a problem. But there are a few things that still have to be compiled even though you are using the most common cpu and one of the most common distros.
      • vizeroth, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2Getting my wireless up and running the first time isn't a problem, and wasn't really a problem under the previous version (installing the restricted firmware), although it was more of a pain having to plug a cable in to download the files.

        The real problem is that the wireless just stops working at random on boot, when logging in, or when attempting to resume from suspend (which rarely works flawlessly anyway). Installing it has gotten easier over the years, and I'm happy for that, but keeping it running is terrible.

        I will say, though, that my wireless works better, when it works, under Ubuntu than under Windows. The problem is that under Windows it always works, while I have to cross my fingers, hold my breath, and hold the laptop at the proper angle (in all three dimensions) to get it to come up when I log into Ubuntu.

        In general, a laptop user with common components is going to have a lot of trouble with Linux, and most of that is the fault of the hardware, not necessarily Linux itself. However, it's a major barrier that developers have to work on (and they are). People don't care that Intel video sucks and the garbage wireless and sound cards on laptops don't have open drivers. It works with Vista, and people everywhere seem to swallow the hype that Vista sucks.
    • Smuikas, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1Wireless isn't too bad anymore.

      Multiple monitors on anything but an nvidia / ati card (e.g. the Intel card that's soldered into my laptop) is worthless, though. Partially that's intel's fault (the problem comes from activating both the laptop screen and the vga port at the same time, since they're on the same card, I think).
  • xceptionaly, on 11/14/2008, -6/+15Gonna have to agree with the article here. I love Ubuntu and am running Ibex on my desktop right now. It's fast, stable and fuctional. Unfortunately, it is also an ugly, ugly bitch. Ubuntu is like that really awesome girl that nobody wanted to take to prom because of her terrible acne.
    • demodawid, on 11/14/2008, -0/+6At least you can get a new skin in Ubuntu.
      • RaulMuadDib, on 11/14/2008, -1/+1You can put a bag over her head.
      • Icetype, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1She'll grow out of it. Your kids however...
  • Jareth86, on 11/14/2008, -3/+8I honestly think they should focus on making it look nicer. The look of an OS, unlike usability and bugs, is a very easy thing to fix and has dramatic results on how many people want to use it. As of now, Ubuntu suffers from visual blandness.
    • willfe, on 11/15/2008, -3/+1I don't. Looks are secondary; stability and reliability are far more important.

      You can easily obtain and use new skins for Gnome. You can easily switch to Kubuntu ("sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop" I believe) which uses KDE instead of Gnome (let that religious war begin :P) and looks much nicer out of the box than the default Gnome/Ubuntu theme.

      There are easy fixes already available for the "ew! Brown! So ugly!" complaint (including just picking a different friggin' wallpaper and picking a different color scheme -- how bloody hard is this?!?!) that it's become a really, really tired meme.
      • Jareth86, on 11/17/2008, -0/+1Why? They're the easist part of an OS to change, and like it or not, many casual users WILL in fact, judge whether or not they want to try an OS based on how nice it looked in a screen shot. This is the reason that the newb section of the ubuntu forums are constantly flooded with posts asking how to get AWN, or how to "get the cube".
        Tell me with a straight face that Ubuntu didn't gain any users from people watching youtube videos of compiz fusion in action.

        Like it or not, LOOKS MATTER, and if we want to ever see ubuntu go mainstream, you'd better damn well start caring about them.
  • gothsquirrel, on 11/14/2008, -2/+2I'd be using Ubuntu all the time if I could get some apps like digby to run in it. I honestly love Ubuntu. As I see it all within time will linux will over take windows and osx and I feel the time is coming faster and faster.
    • dent42, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3Have you tried using wine? I mean, I don't know what digby is, but if it is a Windows app, it should run on wine.
    • charlescab, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2This is obvoius to MSoft as well, they recently shutdown hotmail service to linux users. They must be scared
    • secrity, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2I don't know what digby is, but Linux has quite a few nice apps, one of them be a good replacement for digby.

      For some reason that sounded like somebody just lost their dog.
    • JonForTheWin, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2Digby is garbage, don't use it.
    • bayonetblaha, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1Digsby amazed me with facebook chat and I hated them for never putting out their promised linux build, but then a facebook chat plugin for Pidgin happened and I'm happy. Skip Digsby, it's not worth it's weight.
  • HiddenCanuck, on 11/14/2008, -2/+3What made me install ubuntu was the effects way back when. As a shallow man, I go for looks first.

    Keep looking good Ubuntu!
  • sw1nglinestaplr, on 11/14/2008, -2/+4Kubuntu KDE4 looks pretty good...
    • talonstriker, on 11/14/2008, -1/+7Looks are all its got. It is pretty slow compared to KDE3.5 and it's usability is meh. I'll check back on it when it hits the 4.8 stage but for now I stay clear of it.
    • ethana2, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3Kubuntu 8.10 failed miserably on my Ubuntu Dell. The LiveCD actually crashed, yes I did verify its integrity first.
      If there's an excuse for that, I don't know what it is.
  • Lythium, on 11/14/2008, -3/+3Stupid question: What are they gonna name the one after Zesty Zebra? O.o
  • and386, on 11/14/2008, -0/+7IMHO this article is a troll. It's just pushing on the point that Ubuntu offers no added value to the linux ecosystem
    and that all of its improvements are from "upstream" :

    - "I have also the understanding that Ubuntu contributes significantly to the upstream projects (Gnome, Debian, GNU/Linux)" when it appears sadly that it is not true. I guess it was just a satirical demonstration of wit since everyone knows that Ubuntu is not really strong on that front.

    - "Under the hood the Ibex brings many improvements from the upstream."

    I feel this article is biased and is an open attack towards Ubuntu. First it's attacking the look of Ubuntu when it's purely a matter of
    taste, then comes the upstream argument, then It goes on digging even more *****.

    I happen to like the look and the user experience that Ubuntu offers, it's consistent and in my book it's huge quality.
    • JoelJ, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2It's not an attack. He's an Ubuntu fan!
      "First of all I have to say that I am a big fan of Ubuntu because they do a lot of good for Linux"

      He's giving constructive critisism. He likes Ubuntu, but he wants it to do well. Ubuntu is competing with two of the prettiest OS ever (Vista/Mac OS). It needs to get cooking before it gets cooked.
  • nightsweat, on 11/14/2008, -2/+11Hmmm. Ubuntu, Mac.. All this article needs is a mention of Ron Paul to be the most Dugg article ever!
    • ethana2, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1It'd be hilarious to find that Barack Obama dual boots Ibex with Leopard on his MBP.
      After he's sworn in I'm sure we'll get a picture of it sitting on the Resolute Desk.
      Ron Paul, however, uses windows.
  • arjie, on 11/14/2008, -1/+4I'm going to say it. I think the Ubuntu 8.10 wallpaper is awesome, I really think so. I think the GDM theme is clean and neat. I _like_ the orange.

    I like Fedora's boot process though, it kicks ass. And Fedora looks slick.
  • d0nkeym0nkey, on 11/14/2008, -0/+6The only "ugly" thing on the current ubuntu desktop, is the default font(s), IMO.
    • jamesmcm, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2Yeah - I'd swap them for the OS X ones, there's a tutorial on it somewhere.
    • JoelJ, on 11/14/2008, -1/+3which shouldn't be the case, which is the point the author is trying to make
    • jjustin01, on 11/14/2008, -0/+4Save the following code to your home folder with the file name ".fonts.conf" then restart Gnome (ctrl+alt+backspace). This will smooth the fonts out better than the default method. If you don't like it, go to your home folder and press ctrl+h (this shows hidden files) and delete the file and restart Gnome. Also, "sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts"

      <?xml version="1.0"?>
      <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
      <fontconfig>
      <match target="font">
      <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
      <bool>true</bool>
      </edit>
      </match>
      </fontconfig>
  • jivemasta, on 11/14/2008, -2/+9I could care less about what it looks like out of the box. Unlike Windows and OSX I can get new themes and shells without hacking the ***** out of it. That is pretty much the glory of linux, if you don't like something, you can change it.
    • voidet, on 11/14/2008, -2/+2So true!
    • Trusegutten, on 11/14/2008, -1/+2The thing is, most people don't. They either do not know how (and it can be hard to find and tinker with the right bits), or do not care to do it. But this does not mean that they do not appreciate good looking OSes.
      One more thing, most people's first experience with Linux is by watching over another persons shoulder. With most Ubuntu installations looking like crap, the first impression people get from Ubuntu is that it is ***** brown.

      The anicient greek were onto something, believing that good and beautiful is two sides of the same thing:)
    • saturn5, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1"I could care less about what it looks like out of the box" - that's one reason Ubuntu still has a very, very small desktop market share.

      And I don't think replacing one Windows file should be considered "hacking the ***** out of it".
  • socialidiocy, on 11/14/2008, -1/+5http://www.gnome-look.org/ got me to love my linux machine even more.
    • p3ngu1n, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2...what happened to gnome-look??

      it's the default "under construction" page....
  • ryanspeck, on 11/14/2008, -2/+2I recently tried Linux for the first time, Ubuntu in particular, only days before 8.10 came out and found it to be a fairly unintuitive experience. I know that I have a full 11 years of experience within Windows at this point and learning a new OS isn't always an overnight process but... it kind of is these days. And I was basically trying to revive the value of an old, slow laptop by using Ubuntu, something that seems to be very common, particularly with this Presario model.

    My experience was that it didn't look all that great in comparison with XP, it worked just about as slowly, it handled wireless badly even after I spent what seemed like an eon trying to get the Linksys PCMIA card to work, it was unintuitive, it completely lacked any kind of easy-to-follow or understandable help to get someone new started in Ubuntu and I had to learn to install drivers and programs on the fly from Terminal in the first few minutes just to get things up and running. And Terminal really shouldn't have to be ever seen by someone new to Linux, much less just to get the thing working properly.

    I wouldn't discourage people from using Linux and, though I though it didn't look that great or work that efficiently on this particular machine, it wasn't terrible, but it just didn't carry the same level of ease and usability as XP, even for a piece of hardware that's 5 years old.

    If they do manage to clean the look up more and make it easy enough that people really can use it straight out of the gate with as much or more ease than XP, it'll cement a real following instead of being a niche product. I'd be really surprised if they do manage to reach that goal, but I do wish them luck even if I'm happy to stick with XP.
    • jimminy, on 11/14/2008, -2/+3Mistake number one is to install a modern desktop operating system into old, slow laptop. Streamlined special distributions are a different story.

      Mistake number two is to install anything from the terminal. Use package management GUIs and package repositories instead. I'd say display drivers are the only drivers to install and they are handled automatically nowadays.

      If you really want to use Linux, get a decent computer with compatible components, install and then just use it. Browse the web and listen to music and edit photographs and code (Linux is great for learning programming) and write a book and play games. Forget almost anything you have learned from Windows and just use it.
      • ryanspeck, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3Well, that'd really be the only point in using Linux: to increase the speed of an old laptop.

        There's a plethora of articles on the internet about getting new use out of the Presario 2100 using Ubuntu. And, realistically, the older the hardware, the better supported it should be out of the box as there's been plenty of time to fix all related problems and get drivers in order. We're not talking about a P2 here. We're talking about a decent Athlon XP with a reasonable amount of RAM.

        But when package management fails you, as it did for me, installing from the Terminal is the only option. And there were many cut & paste tutorials but very little that explained what you were doing and why beyond "this might make it work".

        And, no, even under 8.10 the video drivers still didn't work too well, but were servicable for being able to see the desktop and look at web pages.

        For the sake of toying around I kept 8.10 on the computer under XP using Wubi so that I can get rid of it when bored. But it really doesn't offer anything that XP doesn't do for me.

        Perhaps if I get the itch to experiment again, I'll install it on my desktop to see how it works with fresh hardware, but I'm too busy with actually listening to music, writing novels and playing games to get around to it anytime soon (so good call on your part for predicting what I'm actually doing).
      • Chordonblue, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1Try Xubuntu on a USB stick. You'll find XFCE is a *MUCH* faster environment for an older laptop than Gnome or KDE.

        Remember, Ubuntu's competition is OSX and Vista - not Windows 98. For that, you need a distro like Xubuntu, or my personal favorite, Linux Mint - XFCE version. Both of these are Ubuntu-based, but are optimized for low power machinery.

        That said, video driver support this go around is the suck. There are some old drivers that have apparently been deprecated. My guess is that this will be addressed by next release.
    • mdcollier, on 11/14/2008, -1/+1I have successfully revived a handful of old notebooks with Linux. My fifth grader can use it, which begs the question...
    • ethana2, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2You said something about intuition, and then I saw 'XP' in your post.
      Your intuition has been retarded by your previous use of Windows. My grandma and my mom both find Ubuntu extremely intuitive. If you think Ubuntu is hard to figure out, try OSX for a day.
    • BobCFC, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1Terminal == power

      That's like saying we should never type URLs because we can click on links, or use search boxes because we can bookmark. There is a place for both.

      We are built to use language and the command line is more intuitive than you think.

      You can google search for commands and errors; try googling mouse clicks and it is less precise. you can cut and paste them, you can post them in a chat box or forum, you can tab complete them, you can scroll back though history, you can execute them remotely on a headless server, you can repair a system that won't boot into graphics mode, you can use wild cards, you can alias them, you can string them together into pipes and scripts, you can execute them easily with other programs without needing an api, you can give blind people full power of over their systems. OTTOMH
  • Malarie, on 11/14/2008, -4/+1I dont care if my car porshe is blue, white or yellow. Its a porshe!!
    • dilbert, on 11/14/2008, -0/+6As long as your porshe is a Porsche.
  • raublekick, on 11/14/2008, -3/+1Personally I think Ubuntu is the best looking of the major distros. The brown / orange is easy on my eyes for one thing. I haven't switched from the default theme since... Feisty I believe. The out of the box experience isn't what's important to me, at least on the superficial "looks" level. The great thing about Linux is that there is no box. I think it's more important to encourage the idea of shifting the idea of what software is/can be than to lure new users in. A pretty face can only get you so far. Most of the people whom I've introduced Linux to stick with it not because it looks nice, but because it's consistent (at least more so than Windows and OS X) and it doesn't hassle the user nearly as much.
  • DeathRay2K, on 11/14/2008, -1/+6Anti-aliased windows! I cannot understand why this is never addressed, it would be a big step towards OSX and Aero interfaces in terms of aesthetics, and yet it's one that is consistently ignored with each release.

    Also, I like Ubuntu's brown themes, and when people who don't like them talk about them, they don't seem to realise that it is a personal preference thing, they always simply say that Ubuntu is ugly and that's that.
  • ch40sBr1ng3r, on 11/14/2008, -0/+4Its true what he said about OpenSuse tho. That is the main reason i made that my distro of choice. The installer ( DVD version ) looks professional, and So does the default theme. Plus things like Yast, Slab, and others make it very appealing. Granted things like Nautilus with tabs would be great to have in every distro, but i guess that would be asking for too much.
    • dorkdork777, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2Tabbed Nautilus was upstream, not Ubuntu-exclusive. If a distro has GNOME 2.24, it'll have tabs in Nautilus. ^^
  • JoelJ, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3I'll admit, I just switched to the darkbrown theme, and I can't figure out why they just didn't make that the default theme? It looks so much better. But they still need to get some originality going. Something that will appear familiar but still look different.
    • bigpook, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1You know, I tried the darkbrown theme too and would continue to use it except that it shows hyperlinks in blue(most notable in thunderbird) and for some reason they are just about runreadable.
      They look fine with the human theme though. If someone has a fix let me know.
    • tj111, on 11/14/2008, -0/+3I just switched to the Dust theme, I really like it. Darkroom was just too brown for me.
      http://i35.tinypic.com/2ed8rpw.png
      http://i38.tinypic.com/2i084fn.png
  • oomfoofoo, on 11/14/2008, -0/+1The part about contributing significantly to upstream projects is a total crock. Buried.
    • Kugelblitze, on 11/15/2008, -1/+1I agree but I don't think it's worth a bury, especially since he qualified the statement.
  • i22yb, on 11/15/2008, -0/+2It would be really nice if the Ubuntu installer simply asked the user to select a desktop theme. While we're on the topic, how about prompting for a default cursor theme as well? IMHO they should include crystal cursors and oxygen cursors as choices.
  • Kelmon, on 11/15/2008, -0/+2Being pretty only matters when you have the applications to allow customers to do what they want. When Linux has an equivalent or better for Apple's Aperture application, then the looks of it will matter to me. I did not buy a Mac because it "looks pretty", despite what the Intertubes would have you believe.
  • Kugelblitze, on 11/15/2008, -0/+1I think Ubuntu is a very cool distribution and upon the release 6.06 LTS I was caught up in the excitement. I wasn't excited because I thought "Oh wow an O/S that will get me away from Microsoft and cure every ill I've ever had" I was excited because a new operating system that ran on both PC and Mac was coming out, and it was free! I think any competition in an open market (even open source) forces development and improvement from your competitors. But one thing Ubuntu hasn't nailed down yet is visual appeal, I like autumn colors as much as the next guy but something needs to change, I'm so sick of brown. I like Ubuntu for support and fuctionality, but if we're talking looks I've got to give it to Sabayon with openSUSE a close second.
  • xubean, on 11/16/2008, -0/+1This is the worst critique article I've read about Ubuntu yet. I'm not a basher of critiques, but when it comes to articles such as these, I can't shut up. First and foremost.. what the heck is Intermediate Ibex? Get your title right first... second... Ubuntu 7.04 Hardy Heron, no sorry Mister, it's 8.04.. ok those are small typos, i get it.. but why don't you get the philosophy of Ubuntu's release cycles? You expect a revolutionary product every 6 months? no... Ubuntu's philosophy is "evolutionary NOT revolutionary". Would you like to wait 5 years for a release like Vista.. if so then may be you do belong in the Windows world. The whole aim of a release every 6 months is get incremental changes that make the distro better, and then by the time LTS comes to place they have become phonomenally better, and that's just three years.
    So if you want to give your opinion about a distro, go ahead, that's fine, but at least get the facts AND the names right!
  • nattybohman, on 11/16/2008, -0/+1"There are many small distributions that have been able to come out with slick visuals, so the required peaces for the puzzle do exist."

    I lose all respect for a blogger when I read a sentence like this. "peaces"??

    Is this written by a sixth grader?
  •  

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