Ubuntu: Something for Everyone

[Rob Williams]

For the Linux newbie, Ubuntu is the oft recommended distro, for a few different reasons. It's easy to set up, works on a lot of hardware, and doesn't require a manual to understand how to manage it. For the same reason, Ubuntu seems to get a bad rap from more experienced Linux users. Well, I say there's no need of it, and I'm about to explain why.

You can read Brett's latest editorial here, and discuss it here!

 

[Santa-san]

I bought a laptop with Ubuntu on it. After half an hour of trying to figure out how to make it tell me what hardware was installed on the system, it was out on it's ass and windows installed again. Linux is not for regular everyday computer users. Don't make it seem like it is.

 

[AmblestonDack]

I bought a laptop with Ubuntu on it. After half an hour of trying to figure out how to make it tell me what hardware was installed on the system, it was out on it's ass and windows installed again. Linux is not for regular everyday computer users. Don't make it seem like it is.

Linux is not Windows, it never will be, so stop trying to use Linux like Windows. Before you put Ubuntu out on it's ass, trying doing a bit of research first. A quick lspci in a comand line would have told you much of what you need.

Linux requires a bit of learning, but no more so than Windows or MacOS. Oh and Linux is ready for everyday computing, take my father, he's 73 and never owned a computer in his life, now happily uses Ubuntu, Firefox, Thunderbird and Gramps to build his family tree. Same goes for my father in law, he's in his 50's and again never owned a computer, he happily uses Ubuntu, Firefox, Thunderbird & GIMP for plotting charts for his fishing trips for his boat. My 18 year old daughter, used Windows XP until December 2008, when I installed Pardus on her PC (after spending far too much time removing spyware), she now syncs her phone, mp3 player and does all her social networking and school work all from Linux

 

[Santa-san]

Whatever you say mate, but they all had YOUR help right? How shall i know what a "A quick lspci in a comand line" is when I open up laptop with something called ubuntu on it? An operating system that requires programming knowledge to use IS NOT for everyday users. Unless one might know someone like you ofc, which obviously have some sort of education in computers.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Whatever you say mate, but they all had YOUR help right? How shall i know what a "A quick lspci in a comand line" is when I open up laptop with something called ubuntu on it? An operating system that requires programming knowledge to use IS NOT for everyday users. Unless one might know someone like you ofc, which obviously have some sort of education in computers.

And there in lies the problem. Linux is NON-INTUITIVE ... if you don't know the OS and can't get help... just put windows back in your computer and resume being happy.

Since linux was just a playtoy I've occasionally allowed my frustration with windows to override my common sense and installed it on a computer. Always this has ended in one of 3 outcomes:

1) Whatever distro I was trying out would not install fully

2) If it did install there were driver and configuration problems that would require Albert Einstein under direction of God himself to fix.

3) Once installed and working the actual quality of software was so bad that I couldn't stand it. Really... no joke.. some of the worst written, most misbehaving software I've ever seen is on linux platforms.

... "But they all had your help Right?" Exactly. Working by yourself, Linux and it's derivatives will do nothing but frustrate and confuse. You need friends, books, videos and tons of patience to make the transition. It can take weeks or even months to get to a level of proficiency where you can handle most issues by yourself.

Most people learn Windows basic operation in less than 20 minutes....

 

[2Tired2Tango]

Linux is not Windows, it never will be, so stop trying to use Linux like Windows. Before you put Ubuntu out on it's ass, trying doing a bit of research first. A quick lspci in a comand line would have told you much of what you need.

Ok... I've just installed Ubuntu. I'm staring at the screen... Now tell me how exactly do I know or find out what "lspci" is, does or means...

A friend of mine chrips up and says "Type MAN LSPCI" ... and I ask him how I would even suspect that combination of keystrokes represented anything at all?

My point is this... Linux is a wonderful playtoy for those who know Linux. But outside that ever so clever circle... believe me it's about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

 

[eldarion]

Ok... I've just installed Ubuntu. I'm staring at the screen... Now tell me how exactly do I know or find out what "lspci" is, does or means...

lspci means "List PCI" (list your PCI devices). If you don't know what a PCI device is...well... i don't think you should be here.

Anyway, you don't need lspci. Just run "lshw -x" and you get a nice UI with all your devices. If you don't have lshw install it using "Add/Remove Programs". Better, if you have KDE, just open the KDE Info Center.

How shall i know what a "A quick lspci in a comand line" is when I open up laptop with something called ubuntu on it?

Try calling your mom and ask her to list your PC devices on Windows. It's the same thing.

 

[Rambo Tribble]

Insults vs. Insights

In regard to those who denigrate Ubuntu and its adherents: Insults are the last refuge of those without a leg to stand on.

As a computer applications instructor for almost 30 years, I can say that a new student usually finds it easier to navigate Ubuntu than Windows. Those who have learned Windows, however, often have more difficulty simply because they have been programmed to think in contrary ways.

 

[Glider]

OMG Brett, you n00b...

Nah, really, Ubuntu never float my boat, and I doubt it ever will...

 

[Brett Thomas]

@2Tired:
First, the common user doesn't really usually want a specific list of hardware that their machines contain. The common user doesn't care, he's just glad it turns on. The power user has to figure out where in the confluence of all the stars in heaven that this information is under control panel, because Device Manager actually requires RIGHT clicks in nested menus to get to since Windows 2000. It's that way for a reason - it's information most people don't need.

And as for your screen door in a submarine, you've also argued several times against the progress of Windows towards Vista/7. So is it Linux you find difficult to accept, or the concept of learning even a slightly different way to think? So what, you still think systems were best in dos? Yes, because DIR and COPY CON were so much less obscure? Or was XP just the pinnacle of OS function/form to you? If so, that's cool, but that hardly means Linux is useless. Simply that you choose not to understand it because your view of perfection has already been reached.


@ Santa-San,
Learning ANYTHING for the first time isn't simplistic. I can understand EXACTLY what you're saying about man pages and the like. But my argument isn't about Linux being even easier than windows - it's about parts of it being easier. Once you spend a few minutes wandering around, Synaptic beats the HELL out of windows update. You don't have to go look for if your programs have updates, or find out you're behind on drivers. It tells you, it fixes it for you in two clicks and you don't even have to restart your computer.

And as for NEEDING to have something shown, well...my dad JUST asked me today how to paste again. Because Ctrl+V is counter-intuitive to him. He expects it to be P, but then it prints. ALL things need to be 'learned' to some basic extent.

Guys, don't let the Lin vs. Win debate kill the overall argument - Ubuntu was about making linux smarter and more user friendly than it was BEFORE. We can all agree that part is true. My argument starts off with the people who are Uber-users who then go around bashing it and refusing to help or write useful guides for people like Santa-San, instead saying "go learn real linux, u n00b!" I think there's a large problem in the fact that some linux users really WANT it to remain this obscure dark-art, and help maintain that steep learning curve.

 

[Santa-san]

Well written sir, you understand exactly what i meant

 

[gibbersome]

This is why Ubuntu rules:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTRsLW0eet0

/end argument.



Brett, you're absolutely right. I have Ubuntu installed on my computer and only vaguely understand its relationship to Linux. All in all, I don't care because I love how it works.

Though I still stick with Windows because of the familiarity. I guess you can consider me a n00b. But you know what? We're the majority and we're coming for you.

 

[Santa-san]

The day nerds like you come for regular ppl is the day earth ends

 

[2Tired2Tango]

lspci means "List PCI" (list your PCI devices). If you don't know what a PCI device is...well... i don't think you should be here.

Anyway, you don't need lspci. Just run "lshw -x" and you get a nice UI with all your devices. If you don't have lshw install it using "Add/Remove Programs". Better, if you have KDE, just open the KDE Info Center.

Actually I know what it does...

I was tyring to point out that one of the biggest failings of the Linux platform is that it is not entirely something you can figure you way around without a LOT of help and documentation. It would help enormously if one could install Linux and then launch a "Linux for newcomers" tutorial ... take you through the basic GUI principles and some of the more common command line stuff... then remain as a help system later... The big problem is that anyone who is not familiar with Linux gets no help from Linux and very often finding out what command is needed (as opposed to what it does) amounts to hours and hours of wasted time scouring the web for concise information that probably doesn't exist.

Try calling your mom and ask her to list your PC devices on Windows. It's the same thing.

Funny you should mention that... I just got a call today from a senior citizen of my acquaintance... "I'm having trouble with my DVD burner. I checked Device Manager and it's not showing up"... She's 73 years old!

In windows you can find this stuff if you poke around control panel... it's all concentrated into one place... Granted it's not always intuitive, but it is there for people to find...

 

[2Tired2Tango]

@2Tired:
And as for your screen door in a submarine, you've also argued several times against the progress of Windows towards Vista/7. So is it Linux you find difficult to accept, or the concept of learning even a slightly different way to think? So what, you still think systems were best in dos? Yes, because DIR and COPY CON were so much less obscure? Or was XP just the pinnacle of OS function/form to you? If so, that's cool, but that hardly means Linux is useless. Simply that you choose not to understand it because your view of perfection has already been reached.

I argue against BLOAT, my friend. Since Win2000 Microsoft has been dealing mostly in eye candy and needless built in packages... I mean come on... a little barking dog in the search window? Get real.

For the jumping over to Linux thing... Think about someone with hundreds of pictures, personal files, financial information, whatever on their systems... now not only do they need to transfer this stuff to a new file system, they need to learn a new operating system and reconfigure their files to work with new software... That's an awful lot to ask of someone ... especially when the OS you install remains largely undocumented.

I have customers who run Linux on their machines... I've seen what they go through trying to get a new operator up to speed... no thanks.

 

[Rob Williams]

I bought a laptop with Ubuntu on it. After half an hour of trying to figure out how to make it tell me what hardware was installed on the system, it was out on it's ass and windows installed again.

Why did you buy a laptop with Ubuntu when you had no understanding of it?

A quick lspci in a comand line would have told you much of what you need.

To be fair, figuring that out isn't as easy as going to a control panel and reading the icons. No one will stumble on typing in "sudo -s" and then "lspci". Either way, I had a look in Ubuntu 9.04, and I can't believe there isn't a clear way to check your system's hardware. KInfoCenter in KDE does a rather good job of giving a lot of information about system hardware... no idea why there isn't such a solution in GNOME (there could be, but it sure wasn't in my install).

Oh and Linux is ready for everyday computing, take my father, he's 73 and never owned a computer in his life, now happily uses Ubuntu, Firefox, Thunderbird and Gramps to build his family tree.

I'm of the belief that neither Mac OS X or Linux is harder to learn than Linux... but it is hard to adjust from one to the other, but it sure isn't as difficult as some make it out to seem. If you drive a car all your life and then shift to a big rig, you're not going to become comfortable instantly.

An operating system that requires programming knowledge to use IS NOT for everyday users. Unless one might know someone like you ofc, which obviously have some sort of education in computers.

If you don't know someone, and even if you do, there's always a search engine: Google

You cannot tell me that Windows is so common-sense, that you never had to go to a search engine to figure out a problem. Regardless of the OS, you're not just going to know how to do everything.

And there in lies the problem. Linux is NON-INTUITIVE ... if you don't know the OS and can't get help... just put windows back in your computer and resume being happy.

How is it non-intuitive? And there is help... it's called the Internet. Refer to my above response to Santa-san.

Whatever distro I was trying out would not install fully

I am not sure what kind of setup you're running, but I haven't had an issue quite like this since Red Hat 7 (~2001). If you are trying to install on an ancient system, or install an old distro on a new system, I could understand it.

If it did install there were driver and configuration problems that would require Albert Einstein under direction of God himself to fix.

Or someone with more patience.

Once installed and working the actual quality of software was so bad that I couldn't stand it. Really... no joke.. some of the worst written, most misbehaving software I've ever seen is on linux platforms.

Can you give an example what makes a piece of software bad quality? And I am not sure you can ultimately say that the worst-behaving software is on Linux, given you admit you've hardly used it.

Your comments would have been easier accepted ten years ago... today they sound a little exaggerated.

Most people learn Windows basic operation in less than 20 minutes....

Ditto for Linux. No one in my family "knows" Linux, but they often come in and hop on the PC to do their usual things, like browse the web and other basic tasks that the people you speak of would need to do. In general, the OS' underlying layer works different, but aside from the layout, launching applications isn't much different. Both Windows and Linux share a taskbar, systray, "start menu"... I don't know what's so complicated.

A friend of mine chrips up and says "Type MAN LSPCI" ... and I ask him how I would even suspect that combination of keystrokes represented anything at all?

Are you suggesting that you know how to do generally everything on a Windows PC just by sitting at it? Are you that against doing a Google search, reading through the help topics that come with the OS or going straight to the distro's help section?

Aside from that, "man" is an integral part of Linux. If you look in any Linux starter guide, it will teach you about it fast. Again, you don't just hop on any Windows PC and know the ins and outs of the OS instantly.

My point is this... Linux is a wonderful playtoy for those who know Linux.

Well, it's good to know that all the work I've done in the past three and a half years has been accomplished with a "playtoy". That's kind of impressive.

Those who have learned Windows, however, often have more difficulty simply because they have been programmed to think in contrary ways.

The same could be said for the opposite direction. I have no doubt that someone moving from Mac OS X or Linux to Windows would be ultimately confused at first given certain aspects of the OS are handled so differently (mainly behind the surface).

It would help enormously if one could install Linux and then launch a "Linux for newcomers" tutorial ... take you through the basic GUI principles and some of the more common command line stuff... then remain as a help system later..

This is a non-issue. There are niche distros out there, but for most newbies who want to test it out, they're not going to go find something obscure. They're instead going to Google up for suggestions and stumble on common distros like Ubuntu, openSUSE or Fedora... each which offer an insane amount of documentation for your perusal (and extremely robust communities).

For the jumping over to Linux thing... Think about someone with hundreds of pictures, personal files, financial information, whatever on their systems... now not only do they need to transfer this stuff to a new file system, they need to learn a new operating system and reconfigure their files to work with new software... That's an awful lot to ask of someone ... especially when the OS you install remains largely undocumented.

Yes and no. If you were to completely overwrite your Windows install, then sure, that's going to be a lot to ask. By default, though, Ubuntu in particular will automatically mount any NTFS partitions, so people can simply go up to the "Places" menu and access all of their files there. Ubuntu will also offer the ability to import documents in later versions from what I'm aware. If people don't know how to access their files from Windows... all it takes is a Google search. It's simple.

I dunno man, I find it odd that someone with such a rich technical and engineering background gets to flustered with Linux to give up on it so easily. You've either had extremely bad luck, or are really impatient. When I first screwed around in Linux, I had no idea what I was doing, but it didn't take long to learn. I didn't move 100% to Linux until the beginning of 2006, because prior to that, I really didn't devote enough time to understand how Linux differs from Windows. Once I did dedicate time, I learned fast, and ended up liking it so much that I decided to get away from Windows (this pull was especially strong when XP was still the current OS and was riddled with security issues) as much as possible.

Linux today is much easier to learn than Linux of yesterday, simply because there are far less issues to contend with. Even just a few years ago, I'd have issues with a lot of distros, but nowadays, I've never booted up with a distro that hasn't worked well.

 

[sparau]

In windows you can find this stuff if you poke around control panel... it's all concentrated into one place... Granted it's not always intuitive, but it is there for people to find...

I have run ubuntu for years, yes a have a *nix background and i am a programmer, do i do any of that stuff with my home pc? nope, do i need to? nope

As to devices on the system, i am surprised, i have a hardware manager on my system System->Admin->something highly intiutive (fairly sure i didnt go into synaptic and install it) but perhaps it has come from an older version.

The issues with linux start when you need something special, eg: canon dont make drivers for *nix (more of an indication of crapness of canon than linux) so you need to compile and add drivers which will probably break when you do major updates since the system doesnt know about them...

But then the reverse, i installed Ubuntu at home after windows was blue screening constantly and i wanted to see if it was hardware related... nope... i left it running for 43 days constantly as a test until i got bored with it.

Then i tried to add a 1tb sata2 drive to my old 939 motherboard - windows drivers were unstable and kept corrupting the data (and has in fact corrupted it's own installation), hey what do you know ubuntu was rock solid with it.

Or how about Ubuntu has had 2 major revisions and updates (similar to upgrading from xp to vista) without issues or any intervention from me, just click "OK" and leave it for 3 hours while it downloads and installs 2 gig of code... i could just re-install windows xp for the 3rd time for the same period of time... but no, i am going to get a mac for my wifey so she can have photoshop.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

I
Can you give an example what makes a piece of software bad quality? And I am not sure you can ultimately say that the worst-behaving software is on Linux, given you admit you've hardly used it.

I don't recall the program names on Linux right off... however I can give you a pretty decent example...

When I first got into the "networked home entertainment" thing with a friend, we talked about it and decided that such a widely divergent venture (he was building speakers, I was building computers) would be a good chance to make the leap and set these systems up with Linux. Cool... lets do it. So we looked around and settled upon KUbuntu (Ubuntu with KDE) and built a test machine to work the learning curve on.

8 days later we couldn't get the video resolution above 1024x768 and the NVidia drivers were impossible to install, crashing the thing every time we tried. Fine... I --a programmer, electronics engineer and system builder-- actually PAID someone to come and fix the problem... We even paid extra to have him instruct us in how to deal with this in future. (I'm guessing he laughed all the way to the bank...)

So now we had a fully functional system... next problem, video and music players for multimedia files. First discovery... file associations. What file associations? Yes there is a mechanism to recognize certain files are to be opened with certain programs, but adding new files meant having to identify those files to the program launcher --on a file by file basis... not a good plan with some of today's music and video collections. Fine... I'll eventually write software to do something about that...

Now we hit the BIG problem... Whatever was going on with KUbuntu videos that played at the click of a mouse in Windows were bogging, tearing and hesitating like crazy. Music sounded like that "Winchester Cathedral" song from the 70s... Nothing was working even remotely like we'd been lead to believe.

We gave up... Put in XP and had the whole thing up and playing music an hour later.

Your comments would have been easier accepted ten years ago... today they sound a little exaggerated.

This all happened in August 2008.

Are you suggesting that you know how to do generally everything on a Windows PC just by sitting at it? Are you that against doing a Google search, reading through the help topics that come with the OS or going straight to the distro's help section?

Aside from that, "man" is an integral part of Linux. If you look in any Linux starter guide, it will teach you about it fast. Again, you don't just hop on any Windows PC and know the ins and outs of the OS instantly.

Ok try to understand this... it's not exactly obvious to someone who *does* know. How does someone who *does not* know find out what command is needed in any given situation? MAN does a nice job of telling you what each command does... but it gives you absolutely no help whatsoever in discovering which command you need to fix a given problem...

Example: I needed to manually configure a video driver (something Windows can't do) so I had the question: "How do I?" ... with no clue what files needed changing, what setup programs to run or what commands needed to be issued... AND even with extensive searching on the internet I was totally unable to find any "How To" that didn't assume I already knew enough to not need the "How To"...

Bottom line... Linux documentation is mostly written by people who know linux... for people who know linux... They fail, miserably, at explaining anything to anyone who does not come to the game with prior knowledge.

On windows, I can point and click, hack around a bit and almost always find exactly what I need without ever opening the help files... This is because of the extensive visual focus in Windows with context menus, concentrated setup panels, dialogs and wizards for almost everything... I've watched 10 year olds sit down at a Windows machine for the first time and in 15 minutes they're running paint programs, looking at file lists and playing music with the best of them.

I dunno man, I find it odd that someone with such a rich technical and engineering background gets to flustered with Linux to give up on it so easily. You've either had extremely bad luck, or are really impatient.

Maybe I am... after repeatedly loading linux into various machines over the years, giving days on end to the learning task and ultimately giving up in pure frustration over issues that would never come up in Windows... I've pretty much used up my patience for it.

Linux... Ubuntu, etc.... may well be the cats ass in OSs but if a total noob can't sit down and suss their way round problems Windows operators handle intuitively (driver installs, settings changes, UI preferences, etc.) then I think Linux still has a long way to go before it's a viable competator for Windows. *Especially* when things Windows does effortlessly --like playing videos and music-- fall flat on their faces in Linux...

Linux today is much easier to learn than Linux of yesterday, simply because there are far less issues to contend with. Even just a few years ago, I'd have issues with a lot of distros, but nowadays, I've never booted up with a distro that hasn't worked well.

I will grant that it's a lot easier to get along with now than it was 10 years ago... Someone who just wants to type some email and mess around on web pages will find it almost as easy as Windows... but the minute they want to go beyond the most primative tasks, they'd better have books, friends, consultants and lots of Tylenol for the headaches.

35 years in Electronics, 25 years in computers, 10+ programming in Pascal and C, building hundreds of computers... and I had to call for help... What's that tell you about Linux?

 

[Brett Thomas]

I do have one point against Rob - Tango brought up a "Tutorial for users of Linux."

I really don't think that's so awful. Those of us so familiar with Windows skip past it, but has anyone thought of the fact that EVERY WINDOWS since Win95 has come with a little "Basic Walkthrough" video? Same with Mac since the first release of OS-X.

I really don't think that would be an unwelcome addition. Hell, wouldn't even require being on the install CD. Just a little icon that can download the "intro" movie. I'd personally love to see that, and I don't really think there's a reason it can't be included. Just saying "it's easy enough as it is!" is exactly the type of argument that Tango and Santa-San have a point about - simply cause it's easy for those of us who've used it doesn't mean it's completely intuitive.

That being said, someone mentioned that you shouldn't require programming to use an OS functionally. I'm not sure how long you poked around, but you should simply grab an Ubuntu or Kubuntu liveCD and try it out - there's very little reason to even touch a terminal unless you're a power user.


And I still stand behind "Device Manager" being just as complex and esoteric to access as anything in Linux. It's a RIGHT CLICK on "My Computer," then a tab that doesn't really give much info, and then a button on that tab which doesn't really tell you what it does.

 

[aussiebear]

Ubuntu tries to target a certain group. But it can be a struggle if your hardware isn't support in Linux or you need a certain application that is Windows-only. (I don't consider Wine a long term solution...That would be applications that are direct replacements for Windows-only ones).

Linux works especially well for those willing to roll their sleeves up. That's just the way it is: If you want something done in a certain way that you can be satisfied with, you have to do it yourself. The pre-installed approach just doesn't work for me. (Its why I prefer to buy/build systems without any OS on them).

I didn't get into Linux by bringing the habits I developed in Windows. I saw it as a completely different OS. It took me 6 months to break all sorts of habits and understand the basics of the command-line interface. (My last CLI experience was MS-DOS 6.22, so CLI didn't scare me in any way)...In fact, I like CLI because its the most direct way to interact with a system.

For example: In Arch Linux (a rolling release distro), I upgrade my whole system by typing.
=> pacman -Syu
(pacman = package manager; S = install; y = sync with server; u = upgrade whole system.)

That's it. Simple and straight forward.

I do agree that there should be an intro video for beginners though. It needs to give them a perspective of what Linux is, and how things are different compared to Windows. There should be an intro about how to use the package manager, etc.

Giving Linux to a complete beginner without any intro is like jumping into the deep end of a pool. Its going to frustrate people because the learning and approach is too different at a too early stage.


As for the OP's topic: I don't agree with the Editorial's perspective that a performance hit is acceptable in software because modern day hardware is powerful. The main reason is because it causes software developers to assume that bloat is acceptable.

In reality, it isn't.

The most glaring example is Vista vs Windows 7.
=> Do you honestly think people will accept Vista after having experienced Windows 7?

Another is from the P2P world: Vuze vs uTorrent.
=> There's no comparison. One is written in Java, the other is a combo of C and Assembly.

When it comes down to it, people want fast and responsive systems. They don't want applications or OSs to act like they're suffering a major episode of constipation.