Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
 
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Canonical, the company creating the Ubuntu linux distro, apparently is
getting close to profitable. http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/20/1627243 I haven't used Linux/Unix for several years as my main desktop, opting for Mac's "Unix with a pretty face" OS X. So here are a few questions for our Unix/Linux users: 1 - Have the distro wars settled enough so that Ubuntu is emerging as the desktop of choice? 2 - Can Ubuntu run on the most modern laptops, with full access to the often proprietary device drivers? 3 - Is Ubuntu's package management sophisticated enough that upgrades are trivial to perform and free of version conflicts? 4 - Are there players/viewers/editors for the common media/formats? Maybe this is better asked as: What applications and data formats are you missing most? -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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Hey, Owen. I'm now running Kubunto on about 15 different machines now, both at home and at work. It is the distribution that I have standardized on. These days it is arguably one of the most popular Linux distributions, but like politics, the topic of "Which is the best Linux distro?" is highly polarizing. There are Debian bigots. There are Ubuntu bigots. There are RHEL bigots (although fewer than from the other camps). As long as there are more than two Linux users, there will never be "a desktop of choice". There will, however, probably be a majority opinion, and I suspect that (K)ubuntu will be it.
I run Kubuntu on laptops, and it works flawlessly. With Sun's VirtualBox, I also run XP on them. Since Ubuntu is Debian-based, package management/updates/upgrades are painless and bullet-proof. I can play any media format that is out there. I have not found one that I cannot play/view. Well, ok. Silverlight. There is no native Linux Silverlight client. I am running Kubuntu 8.04 on most of the machines because it is the more stable long-term supported relase. I am running 8.10 on a laptop, for testing purposes. 8.10 is good, but not quite as stable as 8.04, but that is what it is for: to provide a hardend, tested platform a few months from now to become the next long-term release. --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International [hidden email] [hidden email] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: Canonical, the company creating the Ubuntu linux distro, apparently is getting close to profitable. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: -- rec --
I don't expect the distro wars to ever settle. My feed from distrowatch.com has had 23 postings in the 20 days of January.
Ubuntu has run on all of my last three laptops. And, though there were some hiccups when the machines were new, because I tend to buy at the bleeding edge, they all run flawlessly now. I ran fedora and redhat prior to that, going back through 4 more laptops. My current thinkpad has a proprietary fingerprint reader that wasn't supported and the old ways of accessing the accelerometer weren't working when I researched the issues back in november. The issues may be resolved by now.
My talk about package management hell last week (inspired by discovering nixos.org the functional meta-package manager) wasn't based on Ubuntu experiences. Apt and Synaptic do a fine job of managing packages as long as you don't try mixing and matching packages from different system distributions or from idiosyncratic repositories. [Nixos is both a package manager and a version of linux which organizes itself using the package manager. It bootstraps from a minimal core and builds consistent branches of installed libraries and programs. It looks to me like the right way to manage packages and configurations in the long run, but I have yet to get my feet wet with it, or Windows 7, or the jaunty jackelope.]
I haven't noticed missing media/formats. The applications which I have installed under Wine are World of Goo (linux version promised), Firefox (just testing), Robodance (don't ask), and Pathaway (a GPS map manager for the Palm Treo I don't have anymore). I believe that Picasa brought along its own copy of Wine, too, when I installed the linux build a few weeks ago. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
Douglas Roberts wrote:
> I have not found one that I cannot play/view. Well, ok. > Silverlight. There is no native Linux Silverlight client. http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jan-20.html ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Thus spake Owen Densmore circa 20/01/09 11:06 AM:
> 1 - Have the distro wars settled enough so that Ubuntu is emerging as > the desktop of choice? It would be useful for you to define what you want from your desktop (a use case) and then determine which distro best fits. Which distribution you choose is determined by what you intend to do with the machine. For myself, I tend to play around with my desktops a lot but leave my laptops alone. So, for my desktop, I choose Debian. For my laptops, I choose Ubuntu. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Cool. I like this bit:
Microsoft worked late last night to get us access to the code that will be used during the inauguration so we could test it with Moonlight. On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Marcus G. Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Hola
(Because of my pitiful English, see Spanish version at the bottom)
Ubuntu has become a very popular distro. In fact, the most popular. I have seen many people without previous experience in Linux using Ubuntu but always having problems with wirless or their ethernet devices. But windows doesn´t have to worry. Even a Linux fanatic hides a portatil with Vista down the bed... (don't tell nobody). A problem with last distros, at least with the free downloadables, are the propietary codecs. The best distro depends on your chipset. I have three diferent machines with diferent chipset (actually, cheap-set) running well, each one with a different Linux distro. (Two of them Red Hat based and one Debian based) Seems to me that RPMs based repositories are better. On december I upgraded to Fedora 10 from Fedora 9. Zero problems, even more, Fedora 10 corrected problems I had with the previous version. Yum is a good repository. Alfredo
Ubuntu se ha convertido en una distribución muy popular. De hecho, el más popular. He visto a muchas personas sin experiencia previa en Linux usando Ubuntu, pero siempre teniendo problemas con su conexión Wi-Fi o sus dispositivos Ethernet. Pero windows no tiene de qué preocuparse, incluso los fanáticos de Linux tienen un portatil con Vista oculto bajo la cama ... (no le digas a nadie. Un problema con las últimas distribuciones, al menos con las versiones libres descargables, son los codecs propietarios. Me parece que los repositorios basados en RPMs son mejores. He actualizado en diciembre a Fedora 10 desde Fedora 9. Cero problemas, aún más, Fedora 10 corrigió los problemas que tuve con la versión anterior. Yum es un buen repositorio. Alfredo 2009/1/20 Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> Canonical, the company creating the Ubuntu linux distro, apparently is getting close to profitable. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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I meant chipset, sorry.
2009/1/20 Alfredo Covaleda <[hidden email]>
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Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2
Roger Crichlow:
> I don't expect the distro wars to ever settle. What I'd call progress is the degree to which developers of individual programs streamline their programs based on input from various distribution builders. To the extent that doesn't happen (large unintegrated patches or growing complexity in individual programs just for the sake of different distributions), I don't think it helps to have lots of distributions. It probably helps to have the authors of significant programs also employed by some of these distribution builders and reduce the arbitrary abstraction points which naive packagers will not cross. That's an advantage Microsoft and Apple and the large Linux vendors have. To my mind, developers are like players and packagers are like agents (or cheerleaders). I have more Linux distributions around than ever. It's easy with ever-increasing RAM, disk space and virtualization. Current desktop is Leopard in one monitor and full-screen 64 bit Windows 7 in the other (via VMWare). Various VMWare windows around with the different Linux distributions.. No joy running Windows 7 in VirtualBox, by the way. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Hola
I'm pretty amazed with Ubuntu 9.04 - the Jaunty Jackalope - released in April 2009. Well, all Linux distributions are almost the same thing, even more if you are good working with console, but Ubuntu 9.04 is an easy way to use Linux. Last weekend I shifted one of my two development platforms from Fedora 10 to Ubuntu and I think I will married Ubuntu. Hasta pronto y muchos éxitos. Alfredo 2009/1/20 Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> Canonical, the company creating the Ubuntu linux distro, apparently is getting close to profitable. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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Hola, Alfredo!
I've been using Kubuntu for a few years now, switching to it from Mandrake (after switching from Slackware). I agree that 9.04 is Canonical's best distribution yet. Cheers, --Doug On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Alfredo Covaleda <[hidden email]> wrote: Hola ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Slashdot | Canonical Close To $30M Critical Mass; Should Microsoft Worry?
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Me, too. Though they broke some of my tablet setup at the very last moment, while apparently making 99% of tablet setup work automagically.
And they've been hitting these 6 month deadlines for years, now, almost like they were building something tangible out of real stuff with real supply chains. -- rec -- On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:20 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote: Hola, Alfredo! ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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I've been using Ubuntu on a series of Lenovo laptops since Ubuntu 6.?
Ubuntu has evolved from being "high maintenance and frustrating" to "smooth as a baby's bum". The turning point was 8.10 which installed fully on the first go with all the inputtant device drivers working. The only ones not working ootb were the fingerprint scanner and proprietary drivers for 3d graphics. I have never experienced a problem with package upgrades. I totally recommend Ubuntu and look forward to upgrading to version 9. On 08/05/2009, Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]> wrote: > Me, too. Though they broke some of my tablet setup at the very last moment, > while apparently making 99% of tablet setup work automagically. > > And they've been hitting these 6 month deadlines for years, now, almost like > they were building something tangible out of real stuff with real supply > chains. > > -- rec -- > > On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:20 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]>wrote: > >> Hola, Alfredo! >> >> I've been using Kubuntu for a few years now, switching to it from Mandrake >> (after switching from Slackware). I agree that 9.04 is Canonical's best >> distribution yet. >> >> Cheers, >> >> --Doug >> >> >> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Alfredo Covaleda < >> [hidden email]> wrote: >> >>> Hola >>> >>> I'm pretty amazed with Ubuntu 9.04 - the Jaunty Jackalope - released in >>> April 2009. Well, all Linux distributions are almost the same thing, even >>> more if you are good working with console, but Ubuntu 9.04 is an easy way >>> to >>> use Linux. Last weekend I shifted one of my two development platforms >>> from >>> Fedora 10 to Ubuntu and I think I will married Ubuntu. >>> >>> Hasta pronto y muchos éxitos. >>> >>> Alfredo >>> >>> >>> >>> 2009/1/20 Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> >>> >>>> Canonical, the company creating the Ubuntu linux distro, apparently is >>>> getting close to profitable. >>>> >>>> http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/20/1627243 >>>> >>>> I haven't used Linux/Unix for several years as my main desktop, opting >>>> for Mac's "Unix with a pretty face" OS X. So here are a few questions >>>> for >>>> our Unix/Linux users: >>>> >>>> 1 - Have the distro wars settled enough so that Ubuntu is emerging as >>>> the >>>> desktop of choice? >>>> >>>> 2 - Can Ubuntu run on the most modern laptops, with full access to the >>>> often proprietary device drivers? >>>> >>>> 3 - Is Ubuntu's package management sophisticated enough that upgrades >>>> are >>>> trivial to perform and free of version conflicts? >>>> >>>> 4 - Are there players/viewers/editors for the common media/formats? >>>> Maybe this is better asked as: What applications and data formats are >>>> you >>>> missing most? >>>> >>>> -- Owen >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >>>> >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >>> >> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> > -- Saul Caganoff Enterprise IT Architect LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/scaganoff ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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