Goodbye Ubuntu

matthewprince

matthewprince

matthewprince

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28 Dec 2007
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261
Oh well, after a week of graphics issues, general instability and a nightmare to make it look nice ive gone back to windows.

Windows 7 infact and am very happy at the moment. I did like Ubuntu, but i think Linux needs to make it much more user friendly, none of this sudo nano stuff. Normal people dont want this , they want a stable, nice looking, secure, user friendly operating system. I dont think any operating system meets that criteria but i would say Windows 7 is looking to be the closest.

OSX is nice and have played around with that but it comes back to the same thing. User Friendliness. Also with OSX i found the mouse movement to be very weird and not precise. Does anyone else get that?

Matt
 
Ok, I've got a reply, the the forums aren't letting me post it...

*edit*

What sudo nano stuff?

It sounds like (everything from here is wild guessing...) that you have hardware that isn't supported, so to get it working you've had to hack around in compiling drives / editing configs etc. This is hard, fair enough, but not exactly Ubuntu (or any distribution's) fault. Imagine how it'd be if Windows didn't support your hardware and you had to faff around in the registry and other obscure places just to get your sound card working. In reality, you don't, because practically every hardware vendor makes drivers for Windows, whilst the same isn't true of Linux.

So, in all likelihood, your hardware wasn't supported, so Ubuntu wouldn't work properly without some hacking. Fine, but lets not think that this leads to the conclusion that Ubuntu needs to be 'more user friendly'. The correct conclusion is that manufacturers / open source devs need to increase hardware compatibility.
 
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Each to their own.

I enjoy the supreme control of my system, nothing is placed out of reach because it would make the GUI messy.

For day to day use I never need the console. The big linux distros have made great leaps in usability in the last couple of years.
 
i know what you mean about the mac mouse movement, it just seems weird once you're used to windows

my mates with mac's always say "bloomin hell, your mouse is way too fast", so i guess it's what you're accustomed to :)
 
OSX is nice and have played around with that but it comes back to the same thing. User Friendliness. Also with OSX i found the mouse movement to be very weird and not precise. Does anyone else get that?
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Using a mightymouse? :p

OSX is infinitely more user friendly than Windows really.
 
The Mad Rapper said:
There's nothing wrong with Ubuntu. If you want to got back to Windows, then fine, but don't **** Ubuntu off to try and justify your decision.
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A bold statement! Even for though I'm certainly an avid supporter of all things open source (and a long time arch user) I can see pretty big problems with ubuntu and linux in general. The main issue, as already pointed out, is hardware support. Clearly it isn't ubuntu's fault that hardware manufacturers choose not to provide support for linux but equally you shouldn't blame someone for jumping ship because it'll take hours to get their hardware working (if at all in some cases). I'm assuming this is what happened with the OP.

It might also be worth mentioning OP that often help in linux is provided in terminal commands simply because it is quicker to give instructions through the terminal. An example would be say you need to install something. Using the terminal this would be 'sudo apt-get "something" ', this is very quick and simple for someone experienced with linux to give instructions to a newbie. It is counter-intuitive to a newbie, but there is still a gui way of doing things. If the guy giving advice gave it through the gui it would be system > administration > synaptic, then search in synaptic for the program, right click and install. As you can see, it's much longer to explain this and there is much greater possibility of it going wrong. Obviously in day to day use the newbie should use the gui.

Essentially what I'm saying is in general don't be put off by the command line, in ubuntu it is simply an alternative to the gui approach for the vast majority of 'normal user' activities. In fact I can't really think of any simple command that must be done through the terminal (excluding scripting of course). Eventually if you're nerdy enough and develop an interest in linux (admittedly most normal users would never get this far) you soon begin to realise that the cli is an incredibly powerful interface, often far more efficient than through the gui (especially so with scripting). This however requires learning, something most users don't want to do.
 
|Thomas| said:
A bold statement! Even for though I'm certainly an avid supporter of all things open source (and a long time arch user) I can see pretty big problems with ubuntu and linux in general. The main issue, as already pointed out, is hardware support. Clearly it isn't ubuntu's fault that hardware manufacturers choose not to provide support for linux but equally you shouldn't blame someone for jumping ship because it'll take hours to get their hardware working (if at all in some cases). I'm assuming this is what happened with the OP.
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Yes, it was a bold statement. I realise I should have added the caveat 'Assuming you have non-exotic hardware.' Linux driver support has come on leaps and bounds, you have to have something either incredibly new or pretty unusual for it not to be supported.

I've never had a single driver issue with Ubuntu that couldn't easily be resolved. Almost 99% of the time everything has worked from the get-go for me.
 
Linux hardware support has certainly improved massively over the last few months/years.

It's not a problem exclusive to Linux flavours either. Take for example an Abit IP-35E motherboard. You install Vista or Windows 7 Beta and find you have no network drivers available - no internet AAAARGH. The manufac driver CD will get you through the Vista problem, but the drivers too old for Win 7 Beta. Easy enough to sort, but a pain - it's a NIC f.c.s!!!

Install just about any Linux flavour and no problems with the NIC.

It's a poor example, I know :D
 
The Mad Rapper said:
Yes, it was a bold statement. I realise I should have added the caveat 'Assuming you have non-exotic hardware.' Linux driver support has come on leaps and bounds, you have to have something either incredibly new or pretty unusual for it not to be supported.

I've never had a single driver issue with Ubuntu that couldn't easily be resolved. Almost 99% of the time everything has worked from the get-go for me.
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I completely agree, but there are different degrees of support. A lot of wireless cards need ndiswrapper to run. I've never actually used ndiswrapper before but from what I understand it can be a bit difficult to set up. Considering how quickly things have moved on in ubuntu (and other user-friendly distros) I could be wrong though, it might be quite simple now.

Neither have I, I've installed various forms of linux on roughly 6 computers and I've never had a problem with hardware support. I suppose the problem appears worse than it is reading the ubuntu forums since people only complain when things go wrong, hardly anyone posts saying how everything is fine. The problem still exists though and it can't be ignored.
 
|Thomas| said:
It might also be worth mentioning OP that often help in linux is provided in terminal commands simply because it is quicker to give instructions through the terminal. An example would be say you need to install something. Using the terminal this would be 'sudo apt-get "something" ', this is very quick and simple for someone experienced with linux to give instructions to a newbie. It is counter-intuitive to a newbie, but there is still a gui way of doing things. If the guy giving advice gave it through the gui it would be system > administration > synaptic, then search in synaptic for the program, right click and install. As you can see, it's much longer to explain this and there is much greater possibility of it going wrong. Obviously in day to day use the newbie should use the gui.
Click to expand...

Well, compare the experience to windows. Open the browser, go to google. Search for the software you want. Open the page. Find the (correct) download link. Download and save the file. Navigate through explorer to where you downloaded the file, double-click to run and answer any of its questions.

Again, a lot to go wrong here, and the experience will be different for every different piece of software. In my view, a lot more confusing than having most of the software all in one place. People learn through repetition, and once they get how to use synaptic once, they'll find using it again easier. Again, compare with windows where fetching different pieces of software requires navigating completely different websites. Not difficult for the experienced web-user, but if I had to sit a novice in front of either process, I know which I'd prefer.

As for driver support, I think you'll find there's a similar problem on windows, but it's not as widely publicised. Many many new motherboards don't have all their features working out of the box in Windows. My sound card wasn't supported in Vista for over a year (in fairness, it's not supported in linux at all!). Non-compatible out-the-box hardware can cause just as many problems on windows as it can on linux.
 
That's unfortunate , especially as you'll find Ubuntu is 'THE' most user friendly linux distro. I do see your point though, I have to work with Virtual Collaborative Environments as part of my honours year. Now while beta software does exist in Linux, it's just more efficient to work in Windows, more productive.Essentially, the best option is to base your OS on the software you need.

However I'm itching to get back into *nix after this trimesters over. ;)
 
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It's a shame but sometimes things just don't work out.
It does take effort and a degree of mental attitude to drop Windows for Linux.

Also... a keen interest in tinkering! Some people just haven't got the patience for it. Windows feels better for them, that is fine. There's no need to defend the virtues of Linux because it doesn't work for a particular individual. Just be there to help people when they do make the switch.
 
I'm currently dual booting between ubuntu 8.10 and xp, it's been like this for about 3 or so months now and i'm finding myself using ubuntu for most things now. I still use xp for the web design/photoshop/illustrator type things but bar that i'm a linux geek now :)

I think if you're coming from windows to linux, the dual boot method is the best option as you'll then have both operating systems to use.
 
Does fedore use the KDE desktop? If yes, can you change it to gnome? As my netbook with xandros has KDE on it and i like the gnome desktop a lot better
 
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