The major derivatives of Ubuntu are well known, but what about the others? Just because they aren’t as popular doesn’t mean they don’t have something to offer! We introduce five of the least known, yet simply outstanding distributions.
Tag Archive for 'ubuntu'
While I’m not convinced that Google is our friend, this latest move from Canonical is interesting.
Microsoft has been paying companies to move their sites from Google to Bing and the Mozilla’s director of community development, Aza Dotzler, recommends that users switch Firefox’s default search engine from Google to Bing.
Now, Canonical has struck a revenue deal with Yahoo! and will change the default search engine away from Google (for new installs).
Canonical has negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo! and this revenue will help Canonical to provide developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Platform.
Yes, Google currently has the largest share of web marketing, but if more and more companies start switching to alternatives like Yahoo! and Bing, then things could change dramatically.
While I’m still up, I might as well tell you about my latest article, “Proprietary Software and Linux: Good, Bad or Somewhere in Between?”.
This comes on the heels of Canonical asking users to vote on which software (such as Adobe Photoshop and Apple’s iTunes) they would like to see made available through Ubuntu.
At work most of our computers run Ubuntu (well, they used to) and the upgrade to Karmic has not been fun. Mike’s machine broke X, Evolution on Justin’s machine segfaults whenever he tried to create a new email and it also booted his old 2.6.28 kernel instead of the new 2.6.31 version. AC’s computer lost all his desktop icons in GNOME, the subtitling editing program he uses broke and needed a re-install, the screensaver also locks up his machine… and so on.
On top of all that, a non-technical user which I put onto Ubuntu tried to upgrade at home and it failed too. Also, my boss tried to upgrade his home computer to Karmic for the second time, but it aborted during the process.
This is all about 6 weeks after the initial release.. *sigh*
The guys over at “Make Use Of” have released a new free PDF book for Ubuntu. After a quick inspection it looks pretty good, with reasonable explanations about components of Linux.
According to Ubuntu X.Org expert Bryce Harrington, the number of X.org related bugs in Karmic “literally went off the chart.”
In my recent article on Ubuntu, I made two suggestions to improve the overall experience of for users.
My main suggestion was to delay update-manager from prompting an upgrade until initial major issues were fixed. I copped a lot of flack (read hate mail) for my suggestions. Personally, I believe that someone had to say it – it’s been the elephant in the room for a long time.
Now however, I feel somewhat vindicated as Bryce agrees with me:
One suggestion that I think might be good would be for releases like Karmic where we feel it is a bit more ambitious technologically, to make update-manager hold off on recommending users upgrade for a few weeks. This would give time for SRUs to make their way through the system for critical issues people run into. In fact, this might even be a good idea for the LTS. Anyway, just wanted to toss out this as an idea.
Yes! I totally agree 
Looks like there’s a proposal for Ubuntu to get its very own online music store, in time for Lucid next year. It would be tied directly into the desktop with applications like Banshee and Rhythmbox providing a web front-end for users to purchase music.
That’s quite an interesting suggestion and I wonder if it will come off. No doubt the store will be closed source and proprietary, as we’ve come to expect from Canonical.
Still, if they offer Music in lossless formats, I’d buy them. I have never bought any music online because it’s all lossy MP3, which I detest. For me, CDs remain the best way to get high-quality music on my PC. That would definitely change if I could buy FLAC albums somewhere..
I have written a new article to follow up my previous (admittedly strongly worded) article on Ubuntu, with the two suggestions posted on my blog recently. I have no delusions that it will make any difference what-so-ever, but hopefully it’ll get people thinking about the issue anyway..
-c
Upgrading to Karmic on a Dell Optiplex 755 desktop resulted in broken sound.
It’s a very basic and extremely common card:
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
GNOME has no sound, but opening up the mixer shows the device (analogue stereo output) and indeed when I play a sound I can see it come up on the “applications” section of the mixer.
The problem is that not only does no sound come out, but any application (from Totem to aplay) which tries to play audio hangs.
In Jaunty the sound preferences utility was much more powerful. You could choose between Pulseaudio, Alsa, ESD and OSS for various types of sound, everything was much more configurable. Now in Karmic, that’s replaced entirely and no longer possible – it appears to be Pulseaudio or nothing.
So, the “fix” is to purge pulseaudio and utils, leaving only Alsa. Reboot and magically sound works, but we’re not out of the woods yet!
Problem now is that we have no mixer under GNOME because unlike in Jaunty, it can only talk to Pulseaudio. Starting up the mixer from the command line shows it “waiting for server.” Not only that, but Totem still can’t play sound, presumably because it too is waiting for Pulseaudio.
So, what to do next? Install VLC.
This isn’t even a fix, in fact it’s hardly a decent workaround, but it is sufficient for now. How the average user is supposed to deal with this is beyond me. It’s a pity there is no longer the ability to switch between sound servers..
Update: Looks like this has been an unresolved problem for the last three months.
Everyone seems to know that you don’t upgrade Ubuntu straight away but rather wait one month so that major bugs can be fixed. If that’s acceptable, then my first simple suggestion is for the update manager to not prompt the user to upgrade until the stable release has been out for a month (or whatever time frame works. It could even be dynamically flagged when ready).
The problem as I see it, is that the average user gets notified and upgrades straight away. Problems occur and they’re stuck. Ubuntu (and Linux in general) looks bad.
Simply delaying this a month or two means they are blissfully unaware of the newer version until all the major issues are resolved. When they do upgrade, they should have a much more trouble-free experience. Advanced users can upgrade straight away, discover problems and get them fixed.
Secondly, it seems to me that many of the problems faced with a new version of Ubuntu are due to the fact that it’s a time based release. Come hell or high water, it’s released in that scheduled month. The problem with this is that there’s no room to slip the release, especially when it’s due date is already at the end of the month.
So my other suggestion is simply to schedule the release for the 1st day of the month. If all is well, release it. If there are major bugs that need fixing, then you’ve got 4 weeks to slip the release and still make that month. It won’t solve issues with a fresh install, but many bugs seem to come from upgrading an older version.
Perhaps these two simple suggestions will help overcome some issues users face when upgrading, and will help to make Ubuntu more trouble free and therefore better quality.
Thoughts?