Ubuntu Linux

[wtd]

I was previously impressed by Fedora Core 2, but this one's even better, plus there's a LiveCD version for testing purposes.

http://www.ubuntulinux.org

[templest]

News from the 22nd Century (Slashdot.org):

"Today IT Professionals are in a state of panic. Since the huge leap that Linux took into the mainstream market by 'Atakori Linux' from the ancient Gods of CompSci at 'ximbio -labs', companies have run out of names to call any new linux releases coming out (there are currently 13513016400954791094091470914907140910960946 distributions floating around). This raises the question, 'How will we name our distros now?'. This issue has even been taken into concideration by the WNCSPA (World National Computer Science Programmers Association), and a response is expected later this week. More on the story as it unfolds."

... Or, something like that.

EDIT: It's a nice gesture that they actually mail-out copies of their distro in snail-mail. At first I thought they'd e-mail me the link, but wow. It's little things like this that really get a person worked-up about a distro. Hell, if I like it I might just buy it, just to cover the effort they spent in sending me the free copies.

RE-EDIT: Holy shit! My download was at: "28750 KB/s" in FireFox! OMGWTFBBQH4X! Goddamnit! I was so mesmerized I totaly didn't think of taking a screenshot in time. Holy f ûck. It download 240 MBs before it stop spiking though. OMFG, I have one FAT-A SS pipe running through my house. Goddamn! If I only knew how to uncap it. Wow, this was shocking. Whoah. I still can't believe it. That's almost 30 MB/s!!!

[wtd]

Heh. Ubuntu actually does have a meaning. It's Zulu and has a deep profound meaning about the nature of community.

[templest]

Is my sarcasm _that_ complicated to understand?

[wtd]

Sorry about that.

[templest]

Hm, I need some more RAM. But I dumped all my cash on teh laptop so I have to make due (512). Either-way, it's good enough of performance to make a good analysis of the distro. (Remember, I'm running this in VMWare).

First issue I ran into: "sudo". Annoying as hell. I don't really get what the point of it all is. Just give me root access and I'll be happy. Since I need to completely unload Xorg in order to install VMWare-Tools, and since there isn't a way (or option) in GDM to kick you into a terminal-login, I had to remove it. Yes, graphical logins are fine and dandy, but they get extreamly annoying after a while; I wouldn't even mind GDM as much if it only gave me the option to boot into a terminal. I personally am not that big of a fan of GNOME, in fact, I pretty much remove 2/4 of the files that Ubuntu installed to begin with. It doesn't even give you the advanced option to select your installation packages (I'm sure there's an "Expert Install" I might have missed in haste).

After installing VMWare-Tools (and a quick ask-around in their IRC Tech-Support channel), I managed to get things running smoothly.

Not bad of a distro. The only other major problem I have, is that it installs such inane things as Gaim, OO.org, yet manages to _not_ install: gcc, kernel-headers / sources, make, and a slew of other _required_ apps that are essential to any regular linux setup. Apt-Get fixes that though, but still, they should be there to begin with.

[wtd]

I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm currently evaluating it from the perspective of getting users who just need basic internet and office capabilities off of Windows.

The LiveCD in particular is going to be great for getting past the fear a lot of people have of screwing up their computer.

[JHanson90]

wtd wrote:

I was previously impressed by Fedora Core 2, but this one's even better, plus there's a LiveCD version for testing purposes.

http://www.ubuntulinux.org

I don't really get this idea of trying different distributions of Linux to find big differences. I have SuSE, and it seems like it comes with everything that I need. What else is out there? What's the difference between some of the most popular ones, and some not-so-popular but powerful ones?

I chose to ask this here because if you go to a big Linux forum like justlinux.com, you might find that most are very biased for one single distro. Check peoples' signatures.

[wtd]

JHanson90 wrote:

wtd wrote:

I was previously impressed by Fedora Core 2, but this one's even better, plus there's a LiveCD version for testing purposes.

http://www.ubuntulinux.org

I don't really get this idea of trying different distributions of Linux to find big differences. I have SuSE, and it seems like it comes with everything that I need. What else is out there? What's the difference between some of the most popular ones, and some not-so-popular but powerful ones?

Well, it's really easy to find a geek-oriented distro. My goal for a while now has been to find a really polished distro that can be "sold" to non-geeks.

Ubuntu is nice for at least a few reasons.

• It's based on Debian, which is great for stability, and package management is much better than on RPM-based distros.
  
• It has a LiveCD. This makes it a lot easier to convince people to try it.
  
• It comes on a single CD. It's a lot easier to convince people that something is simple if it doesn't come on three or four CDs.
  
• It uses a nicely integrated Gnome desktop. If KDE tries to mimic Windows interface, Gnome tries to mimic the Classic MacOS interface.
  
• Security is high. Very few services are running by default. It also doesn't give root access by default. You can make administrative changes, but you don't have to do it as root.

I think Ubuntu might be pretty close to an ideal desktop Linux workstation.

[templest]

Indeed. You want a distro that you can install entirely from source _without_ any installation procedure, in other words, you load a LiveCD and do _everything_ manually? You get top notch performance. No other distro in the world will run as fast, but you'll have to read a ~200 page manual and it'll probably take two - three days to install, get Gentoo.

Not obsessed about performance, but want a WindowsXP-Easy install? Get Fedora, or Ubuntu. They perform well, non-the-less. But you won't have to lose sleep and destroy your social life in order to squeeze a little more juice out of your box.

[wtd]

The only caveat I would note is that Ubuntu's install is still text-only. It's not hard to use, just somewhat intimidating to look at.

One thing Fedora does have going for it is a first-rate graphical installer.

[templest]

wtd wrote:

The only caveat I would note is that Ubuntu's install is still text-only. It's not hard to use, just somewhat intimidating to look at.

One thing Fedora does have going for it is a first-rate graphical installer.

All you have to do throughout the entire Ubuntu install is hit the 'Enter' key. Done.

[wtd]

templest wrote:

wtd wrote:

The only caveat I would note is that Ubuntu's install is still text-only. It's not hard to use, just somewhat intimidating to look at.

One thing Fedora does have going for it is a first-rate graphical installer.

All you have to do throughout the entire Ubuntu install is hit the 'Enter' key. Done.

Pretty much. Selecting your location if you're in Canada means a little more effort.

[Hikaru79]

Hehe... I placed my order for 10 CD's. I'm curious as to whether they'll ever actually arrive. If they do, you can be sure I'm going to start campaigning LInux to all my Windows friends

The true spirit of Opensource!

[templest]

Hikaru79 wrote:

Hehe... I placed my order for 10 CD's. I'm curious as to whether they'll ever actually arrive. If they do, you can be sure I'm going to start campaigning LInux to all my Windows friends

The true spirit of Opensource!

They will. I'm willing to bet in an ugly box put into some paper-sleeves. If they come individually in actual boxes. I'd be like: "wtf? No... this is too much."