Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

delphiki · 2007-11-23 17:01:52

Now here is where the ideal of hype versus functionality comes in.

Most everyone using gnu/linux nowadays has been to distrowatch.com or some other major website where ubuntu plays a major presence on that website (be it in the form of ads, server contracts, cds, tutorial sessions, project merchandise, etc). Now even though Ubuntu is playing a major role for the Linux community in general, doesn't necessarily mean that everyone will agree on that (i don't think i have to explain this, just look around ). IMHO, I think Ubuntu is giving more of a bad wrap to the linux name more than anything else not because of its presence necessarily, but because of its associated problems.

Indeed, Gutsy is another milestone for Shuttleworth and his team at Canonical, but they definitely have a ways to go before they can become the 'premier' example of the linux community, imo. Many of us here using Arch are here because we believe that simplicity is an important aspect of a distribution and its success. Therefore I think it is clear why there are some here who are staunch in their dislike of Ubuntu; it represents what they have been trying to avoid the spread of, cumbersome complexity.

Again, this comment might sound a bit egotistical and more or less like a rant, but I only mean this in a constructive way only.

Cheers,

Cyrusm · 2007-11-25 05:40:24

I'd just like to say that Ubuntu is serving a purpose for the Linux community. First, it is providing an easy to get alternative for the user who chooses not to do business with closed source, fascist, money-grubbing, corporations. and second, it helps to spread the word to people who before have been afraid of Linux. I know plenty of Microsoft and Mac loving geeks who had a lot of bad things to say about Linux before they tried Ubuntu and got hooked on Linux. Ubuntu was a big help for me, I new of nothing other than Microsoft and GUI's until I gave Ubuntu a try just for a whim. I was sold on linux, but soon got tired of how little you could do from the command line and how much you had to use the GUI for in Ubuntu. Ubuntu Linux is like a bike with training wheels , I wanted a unicycle, so I chose Arch. But I still had to start somewhere, You have to learn how to walk before you can run!

Cyrusm

foxbunny · 2007-11-25 06:56:01

@delphiki

Ubuntu is okay. It's certainly NOT a bad distro, and, as Cyrusm said, it's a very good start for people trying out Linux with a bit of skepticism, if you know what I mean. I myself started with 5.04 and after the first install, it stayed in my box for almost half a year, before I switched away to other distros. It was a good learning experience, and far less painful than any other distro. Their community is not bad either, although I imagine its quality may have degraded a bit lately. I've also tried Gutsy, and if I'm not mistaken, it is the first ever Ubuntu release that has the potential of becoming CLI-free for less demanding users.

As for simplicity... well, that's something *I* like, and I'm not going to try and push it on everyone. If they like the bloat, and if they think a decent OS can't exist with all the 'features', it's their problem, not mine. And I doubt it affects Ubuntu's marketing, too. It ships free CDs. How can you ever beat that? Even I like the free CDs. ;-)

Last edited by foxbunny (2007-11-25 06:59:26)

sjb933 · 2007-11-25 19:10:45

Well, I've been using gutsy for a few weeks now (or however long since my original post). One thing I learned is that it's not a good idea to run different distros sharing the same home partition. If I boot into Arch and then back to Ubuntu (or visa versa) some desktop settings get a little goofy. Anywho, all that being said I'm about to start with a fresh install of Arch. I would be today, but I have no CDs available. I don't really have too many complaints with Ubuntu... Aptitude > Apt-get, but using either makes me really miss pacman. One thing i've gotten irritated with is that, at least as far as I can tell, there is no way to see what files are put where when you install a package in APT, which of course you can do in Pacman.

I also do get a bit aggravated if I try to dig around under the hood of Ubuntu as you all know it pales compared to the simplicity of Arch. Overall it's nice, but leaves the geek in my unsatisfied. And since it seems to have bugged my Arch install, a clean install sounds good. I do like their wireless network manager, and I may miss that... but maybe there's a nifty arch package i have just overlooked in the past.

Oh by the way, for the first time i've been running windows in a virtualbox for a few things I need, and that's been excellent. Runs surprisingly well. Also, thanks for the good convo in this thread. It's definitely turned out to be a good discussion.

Regards,
Shane

Last edited by sjb933 (2007-11-25 19:12:30)

cry0x · 2007-11-25 20:28:07

Ubuntu is fantastic. Everything that the linux community has been screaming for to make the desktop experience better, Ubuntu provides out of the box. I've installed it on probably a few hundred boxes over the years, and it never ceases to amaze me.

oli · 2007-11-26 02:46:44

>I've installed it on probably a few hundred boxes over the years, and it never ceases to amaze me.

Well it's easy to show you another '100 boxes' with a very different experience as it is possible with any OS out there.

elliott · 2007-11-29 19:25:42

I played with it for a short time on a LiveCD, just to get an idea of what is out there for new users, did not impress me at all. At the moment I am playing with a Fedora 8 LiveCD, I am very impressed and would recommend it over Ubuntu to anyone wanting a taste of Linux.

There is no way Fedora is going to replace Arch on my main systems, too used to a rolling release, but I may put it on a spare box to let people play with.

xd-0 · 2007-11-29 21:33:40

Ubuntu is: simpler out of the box, loaded with all the apps a desktop user need, easy click`an`run to get things working.
But Arch: pacman, is as slim as you want it to be, feels like heaven when you have configured all that you need to configure, again pacman.

And one more thing, when I was on Ubuntu I got the feeling that my system was becoming bloated and "unpure", so now and then I did a clean install. But I still haven't got that feeling on Arch, and I have been messing around a lot.

ps. Did I say I love pacman??

ibrahim · 2007-12-05 15:01:30

delphiki wrote:

I think Ubuntu is giving more of a bad wrap to the linux name more than anything else not because of its presence necessarily, but because of its associated problems.

Do you honestly believe that for even a second? Love or loathe ubuntu, nobody can deny that ubuntu has helped to convince thousands, maybe millions of people to try Linux. Of course some won't like Linux and/or ubuntu, perhaps they just prefer windows, perhaps because Linux is not that good, perhaps because ubuntu is not that good. There is no way that the overall impact of ubuntu has been to lower peoples estimation of Linux as a whole

delphiki wrote:

Many of us here using Arch are here because we believe that simplicity is an important aspect of a distribution and its success. Therefore I think it is clear why there are some here who are staunch in their dislike of Ubuntu; it represents what they have been trying to avoid the spread of, cumbersome complexity.

I can't understand why a person would "staunchly dislike" ubuntu because it's too complex. Choose not to use it, ok but "staunchly dislike"? I doubt that you feel the same about osx, I understand that the Linux kernel is somewhat complicated too. Maybe you use hurd, I don't know.

Really though, if you wanted to avoid all complexity wouldn't you use a gui-centric os? With arch you quite often have to understand how something works, then edit a text file. In xp, for instance, that's seldom the case. By definition clicking boxes and not knowing what's happening is less complicated than the arch way of doing things

Cyrusm wrote:

I was sold on linux, but soon got tired of how little you could do from the command line and how much you had to use the GUI for in Ubuntu. Ubuntu Linux is like a bike with training wheels , I wanted a unicycle, so I chose Arch.

Problem with that analogy is that a bicycle has a an undoubted use. Unicycles are not especially practical for everyday usage and in general seem to be only used for show. "look at me, I can ride a unicycle, aren't I clever". I guess the equivalent of "Look at me, I can watch binaries compile, aren't I clever"

Btw, out of curiousity, what commands can you not issue from the terminal in ubuntu?

Last edited by ibrahim (2007-12-05 15:02:56)

Bison · 2007-12-05 18:10:54

Are you kidding? I love the word 'fanboy'. Its currently my favorite way of being condescendent towards those who disagree with me

On to Ubuntu. While I can understand why others would use it (and I have recommended it to almost everyone thats not a linux 'fanboy'), I just can't get past a few things -

init-scripts
packages
distro-weight

kazuya · 2007-12-19 22:48:26

I have to say Ubuntu is one of the many other distros that got alot of newbie former windows and mac users to linux. Ubuntu simply made the use of windows a null point for most starting or ex-window basic and advanced users.

if I had not gotten started on Ubuntu or some of the easier distros to install and use like PClinuxos, mepis, vectorlinux, even dare say xandros first, there is no way I would be using arch today.

I would not even be aware of it. The distro can be whatever you choose it to be. I would not recommend a beginner to linux jumping unto archlinux for example. And if a user understand the Ubuntu or debian system, they can find their way around the complexity. For the end basic user, the complexity is null existent.. I have tried Fedora 5 up to Fedora 8, and although in the front end it looked polished, it did not match up to Ubuntu for useability and stability given the number of crazy experiements I undertook.

Having mentioned the above, archlinux to me is an evolving step of user from basic PC user to one who wants to know more of their system and limit odds of bloat on their system. Archlinux is simply very fast, but also very feature-rich. Before trying it out, even on the Ubuntu forums, under OTHER OS talks, this was addressed by members who were seeking something more than they were getting from Ubuntu or something for fun.

I have always sought after an OS I could install from very old PC up to the newest PCs while being very feature rich. Gutsy raised the bar high for ease of use and I converted many a user just from them trying the livecd.. Arch linux hands to those users the other possibility of what users can have irrespective of the age of their computer. Archlinux like zenwalk and vectorlinux is not bloated at all. It is very easy to work in just like in Ubuntu and others once you get familiar with it.

Configuring arch educates the user more than Ubuntu does. But arch gives me something Ubuntu is lacking as they have different goals.. But I would not say arch is better than Ubuntu. For my wants, Arch is more favorable. For my newbie siblings, it has to be something like Ubuntu Gutsy which has a huge community support. Knowledgeable folks there use and speak highly of arch and arch's developers.. I do not need to hear this anylonger; I see the finished product of arch. It is wonderful and is at a point that it can be as easy to use as Ubuntu for newbies. But the intent of arch is to gets it users to be willing to be educated while using their system.; not to just use it blindlessly. I am thankful for this.

Last edited by kazuya (2007-12-19 22:50:39)

cry0x · 2007-12-20 02:19:45

oli wrote:

>I've installed it on probably a few hundred boxes over the years, and it never ceases to amaze me.
Well it's easy to show you another '100 boxes' with a very different experience as it is possible with any OS out there.

I'm not exactly sure what the significance of your post is, but thanks. I'll be sure to stop praising software I've had good experiences with.

g2g591 · 2007-12-24 00:38:50

I use(d) Kubuntu (Ubuntu but with KDE instead of Gnome) and enjoyed its ease of use, but now that I've got Arch set up (not very difficult) I like it because its uncluttered and boots faster (about 30 seconds, compared to about 2 minutes with buntu, and even about the same as a Gentoo install I had going at one time (a month or so ago) . The only niggle I have with Arch is the lack of a graphical package manager, but I can live without it. Oh and I also learned about Arch from mentions on Ubuntu's forums.

Last edited by g2g591 (2007-12-24 00:52:21)

Arch Linux

#51 2007-11-23 17:01:52

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#52 2007-11-25 05:40:24

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#53 2007-11-25 06:56:01

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#54 2007-11-25 19:10:45

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#55 2007-11-25 20:28:07

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#56 2007-11-26 02:46:44

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#57 2007-11-29 19:25:42

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#58 2007-11-29 21:33:40

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#59 2007-12-05 15:01:30

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#60 2007-12-05 18:10:54

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#61 2007-12-19 22:48:26

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#62 2007-12-20 02:19:45

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

#63 2007-12-24 00:38:50

Re: Ubuntu 7.10 -- Gutsy Gibbon

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