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Post by Lynnrose on Oct 27, 2009 8:51:50 GMT
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Post by mikkh on Oct 27, 2009 12:12:39 GMT
" Each version has an alternative alliterative appellation"
Does that mean a stupid name for no reason? No doubt the Ubuntu hierarchy are chuckling over their warm milk at night thinking up these childish alternative monikers, but I find it slightly pathetic.
The next release is going to be called 'Lucid Lynx' - you heard it here first!
Ridiculous names aside, Ubuntu's rise to fame is nothing short of miraculous considering the dozens of other well established versions that existed before it appeared.
Very few Linux distributions (distros as they're often called) are started from scratch, they're mostly based on a handful of base distros and adapted to fill a certain niche.
The 'big 6' are ....
Red Hat Slackware Debian Mandriva Gentoo Suse
Between them they account for over 90% of current distros and Ubuntu is no different - it's based on Debian.
So why is it so popular?
Does it do anything better than other distros? Not really
Is it easier to use? No easier than dozens of others IMO
Better looking? Definitely not, it's one of the ugliest default desktops going I think
Runs a lot quicker? It's no slug, but it wouldn't get in the top 20 of fastest running distros either
It's all down to clever marketing by millionaire founder Mark Shuttleworth - and that's the big difference I reckon. A lot of distros are basically home projects staffed by willing volunteers but Ubuntu has the luxury of a real backer who knows how to manipulate the media.
There's no doubt it's good, it's just not great or far superior to others
I was having a running battle with an Ubuntu 'fanboi' on another forum, where his main claim to Ubuntu's greatness was the amount of posts the user forum generated! To me that just means lot's of people are having problems, not a measure of how good it is.
I tried the release candidate last week - or tried to try it anyway! I get an error on the install, missing file. It could have been a bad download and if I had known the final release was coming this soon I wouldn't have bothered anyway.
Ubuntu has at least generated interest in Linux, so thanks for that Mark, and for the beginner it is a good choice - it's just not the only choice
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Post by mikkh on Oct 31, 2009 23:11:01 GMT
I settled on Ubuntu Studio to try this new release - big mistake, well it would have been for a complete novice anyway, because it's not just a reworking of Ubuntu like Kubuntu, Xubuntu etc etc, It's a plain ( read unfriendly/geeky) Debian install with no live CD option and no 'wubi' type installer to run it in a Windows partition.
Ubuntu Studio is aimed at graphic and sound professionals and at almost twice the size of ordinary Ubuntu, I was expecting a bit more to be honest. Yes there's a plethora of sound and graphic programs - far too many in sounds IMO and not enough in graphics I thought. Where's the excellent Xara for a start?
The internet section of the start menu contains one solitary option - Firefox and the Office section a single entry of 'spell checker' !! Compared to 20+ entries in the sound menu, this seems more than a bit lop sided.
The default desktop is eye catchingly awful, but luckily that is easily fixed
It's not all bad news though and despite being top heavy on music/sound applications, it's a nice attempt and feels quite solid and speedy in use.
Guess I've got to try plain Ubuntu now to see what the majority will be downloading
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Post by mikeyuk on Nov 2, 2009 10:49:25 GMT
Cheers for the info mikkh. I removed Ubuntu 9.04 last night. Got bored with it lol! After I removed Ubuntu in the ADD/REMOVE section in Windows the Ubuntu option appears in the boot options. I managed to get rid of it by editing the BOOT.INI file and removing the "Ubuntu" line. If anyone else got this problem this is what you need to do. I'll be waiting for the next release of Linux Mint, download it and use the MINT4WIN install and see how that goes.
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Post by mikeyuk on Nov 2, 2009 13:39:16 GMT
Decided to install Xubuntu via WUBI and have noticed a couple of bugs straight away. Performance was fine but after installing the older version of the NVidia driver it slowed things down. Tried changing the driver to higher version and things went pretty smooth then. I followed the instructions to install Compiz and how to run it but that really messed things up. The window borders dissapeared and I couldn't get them back on so ended up removing Xubuntu from the computer.
I think comparing XFCE to GNOME I prefer to use GNOME as it is very easy to configure IMO. I just can't get my head round the XFCE configurations.
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Post by mikkh on Nov 2, 2009 14:05:18 GMT
Yes Compiz is a bit hit and miss on a lot of distros. I got similar behaviour to you on an earlier version of PClinuxOS, but it was fine on Granular (a distro based on PClinuxOS!)
Although I like the graphical tricks it can do, I don't bother installing it anymore
Try Kubuntu if you want a nice looking easily configurable version of Ubuntu. It's based on KDE which is even better than Gnome IMO.
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Post by mikeyuk on Nov 4, 2009 20:06:18 GMT
I've downloaded Kubuntu, burnt it to a disc and used the WUBI installer. I say!! The graphics are impressive. It looks a bit like Windows VISTA. The performance is good too. Only took 30 seconds to get onto the desktop. It takes 3 times more to access the desktop on Windows VISTA.
The only bug i've found (and I think this is to do with the linux kernel, not kubuntu itself) is that when you shut down the computer it makes a weird noise. The fans switch off first seconds before the whole computer shuts down. I'll keep investigating this. It may be a one off.
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