Why Ubuntu isn't for "New Linux Users"

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 11:15 am

mrben wrote:The thing that Ubuntu did that, so far nobody else has done, was successfully produce a widespread, free Debian-based desktop.

Not only that, but I think they kicked Debian in the butt when they really needed it. Others attemped to do it, but no one did.

Debian has a huge community and contributes a lot. I believe Ubuntu woke Debian up before they started to slip into irrelevance. I don't use Debian, but Debian is important to Linux.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:54 pm

The secret is finally OUT!

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 6:22 pm

Chess wrote:
Snarkout wrote:I had to read that several times - I kept seeing as:

"In other words, there is plenty of room for pink teenage girls rooms in basements where the "Slackware guys" lurk."
Whoops - wouldn't want that! Heh. Yeah, well, I guess my attempt at humor missed the mark a bit.

I don't know about that - I was laughing my ass off.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 6:31 pm

mrben wrote:The thing that Ubuntu did that, so far nobody else has done, was successfully produce a widespread, free Debian-based desktop.

I know that there's Mepis, although I'm not sure how free that is - I get confused. And Libranet likewise. However, neither of those is, I believe, nearly as widespread as Ubuntu.

Why is Debian important? Because .debs and apt are still, IMHO, better than RPMs, and Debian is a great base for a system, but tricky to set up. Ubuntu took much of that away.

But that's all my opinion.

Well so in your opinion, every distro needs to be Debian-based in order to be a good distro? From what you say it sure sounds like that's your opinion. When people speak about RPM I always get the feeling that they're describing the old way of using RPM by manually running around the net downloading RPMs and using "rpm -ivh" to install them, and some people may still do that, but I find it really unfair when you compare the "rpm -ivh" stuff to apt-get, because there really is no comparisom, apt-get will automatically fetch and fulfill dependencies, because it's designed that way, and what is the backend for apt-get? That's dpkg, if I were to compare the "dpkg -i" way of installing *.deb packages, to something like YaST, Mandriva's software installation part of DrakConf, or yum, I think we'll get the same unfair comparison.

Besides maybe making Debian eaisier to get installed and use, what does Ubuntu do that say Fedora hasn't done? It's a GNOME desktop, yeah so what, they're lots of those out there. Your argument of "The thing that Ubuntu did that, so far nobody else has done, was successfully produce a widespread, free Debian-based desktop." I find really narrow, because to the users that we so desperately want to get over on Linux, the moms and paps of the world, it doesn't matter if you have Debian as a foundation, or Red Hat, or what have you, what matters is that the system is easy to use and does what they need it to do, and I acknowledge that Ubuntu does do a lot of those things, and does it quite well, but what I don't see is all the people running around shouting (I'm refering to all the fanboys mostly here, I'm not trying to attack anyone on this forum, so please don't feel offended) how new and shining Ubuntu is, and how it does what no-one else has done and blah blah blah. Out of the box, Ubuntu doesn't play mp3s, OK I won't use that per se, as an argument why it's not for the "new Linux user" (Doesn't necessarily mean it's not good for more savy users, I'm talking about people just coming from Windows) because it's not the Ubuntu people's fault that they can't include mp3 support, nor all the codecs and stuff such as DVD playback....... But then, when you're going to add all that stuff, mp3 support, DVD playback, and I can go on, I find that you're almost forced to dive into using commands, if you take the time and read the article I linked to in the beginning of this thread, you'll see the example of Java, Windows people are used to having a somewhat simple installation routine, where you download a .exe file and doubleclick it and it will install and all that happy stuff, on Ubuntu, how do you get Java? Well you have to use a few commands, and for me that's fairly simple to do, but for my mom, it's NOT easy to do, and of course this applies to other stuff than just Java, if you go look at the big Ubuntu guides at ubuntuguide.org or easylinux.info/wiki/Ubuntu, they're all showing you how to do all this stuff with commands, and I'm not sure that that is something I wanna provide a new Linux user with, because if he's coming right from Windows, he's used to doubleclick an executeable file and things install, he's not used to typing commands .........

mrben wrote:I also agree with Chess on the issue of the command prompt. It is one of the most powerful tools available on Linux (unlike the DOS prompt, which was often a liability), and one that should not be discarded lightly. And I think the community needs to seriously address how a new user can understand why it's there, and how amazing it can be, while at the same time giving them the comfort of a usable GUI. All they've heard since Windows came out was that the CLI was bad, but that's just more MS FUD, IMO.

Well, we live in a Windows dominated world, and that's just something we'll have to live with until Windows is dead, which I don't see happening very soon, and while Microsoft runs around promoting it's Vista OS with eyecandy and puff and fluff, we can't just go to the users and begin to show them the cool stuff that a commandprompt can do, that would just turn them off, and they'd go with Microsoft.

Judland wrote:The secret is finally OUT!

LOL, dude that is just hilarious, especially Eric's last comment, holy macro that's funny, sounds like something Allan would ask Dann.

(To Allan: If you're reading this, know that I'm just making a joke based on a lot of Dann's somewhat weird comments during the show)

mrben · Post by **mrben** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 6:21 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:Well so in your opinion, every distro needs to be Debian-based in order to be a good distro? From what you say it sure sounds like that's your opinion. When people speak about RPM I always get the feeling that they're describing the old way of using RPM by manually running around the net downloading RPMs and using "rpm -ivh" to install them, and some people may still do that, but I find it really unfair when you compare the "rpm -ivh" stuff to apt-get, because there really is no comparisom, apt-get will automatically fetch and fulfill dependencies, because it's designed that way, and what is the backend for apt-get? That's dpkg, if I were to compare the "dpkg -i" way of installing *.deb packages, to something like YaST, Mandriva's software installation part of DrakConf, or yum, I think we'll get the same unfair comparison.

The major difference between RPMs and DEBs is that DEBs were designed from the outset to properly resolve dependency issues, even in the dpkg -i era (even though it wasn't automagic in the same way that apt is). I always felt that the dependency stuff in RPMs felt a little 'tacked on'.

Also, all the RPM distros seem to have their own solution for dealing with this - yum, apt-rpm, urpmi, up2date, etc, etc, whereas the DEB distributions all use apt-get.

Also, for the distributions that remain properly 'debian compatible', there is a vast software repository that is, AFAIK, unparalleled.

if you take the time and read the article I linked to in the beginning of this thread, you'll see the example of Java, Windows people are used to having a somewhat simple installation routine, where you download a .exe file and doubleclick it and it will install and all that happy stuff, on Ubuntu, how do you get Java? Well you have to use a few commands, and for me that's fairly simple to do, but for my mom, it's NOT easy to do, and of course this applies to other stuff than just Java, if you go look at the big Ubuntu guides at ubuntuguide.org or easylinux.info/wiki/Ubuntu, they're all showing you how to do all this stuff with commands, and I'm not sure that that is something I wanna provide a new Linux user with, because if he's coming right from Windows, he's used to doubleclick an executeable file and things install, he's not used to typing commands .........

You keep using Java as an example, and I _still_ think that it is a bad example, because I honestly don't know of that many 'new users' who have a need for Java - there just aren't that many sites that use Java. Flash, maybe, but not Java.

Additionally, I believe that Java was originally in the one of the Hoary repositories (and thus installable from Synaptic), but was removed for legal reasons. Although, a friend on IRC seemed to imply that it was back in the Breezy multiverse repository, but I've not checked this yet.

::edit:: It _is_ there (see http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/m ... e1.4-i586/ ) which means that it could be done from Synaptic. ::edit::

Well, we live in a Windows dominated world, and that's just something we'll have to live with until Windows is dead, which I don't see happening very soon, and while Microsoft runs around promoting it's Vista OS with eyecandy and puff and fluff, we can't just go to the users and begin to show them the cool stuff that a commandprompt can do, that would just turn them off, and they'd go with Microsoft.

I'm not suggesting that we _only_ do that. I'm suggesting that, in amongst all the XGL, Cairo, eye-candy/3d stuff, we also need to address how we are going to properly migrate people to a Unix mindset. If all we ever succeed in doing is having a load of people with a Windows mindset using Linux desktops, then I don't believe it will be long-term sustainable - we're not trying to 'build a better Windows', we're trying to build a better, free-er Operating System, and there's a big difference (a paradigm shift, no less).

dennis999 · Post by **dennis999** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 2:56 am

I would tell a windows user to use Ubuntu. My vast experience with linux has been borking three Red Hat systems to the point of being unusable and then getting Ubuntu. My problems with Red Hat and Fedora rusulted from trying to get it to do what my old Windows 98 machine could do. I think you needed to know the magic combination of repositories to which rpms wouldn't total your system. I have had none of this with Ubuntu. I can always find an answer in the docs or by Googling for it. Anything that isn't in the repositories are available by adding plf. So Shockwave mp3 Acidrip Realplayer and the rest can be had through Synaptic.

There is one problem I couldn't get an answer to. The gui calender starts on Monday instead of Sunday. The one in terminal is ok. The irc help people couldn't fix that either. I'm guessing that if I dug around a little I could find out how it got set up that way.

I'm waiting for one of these guys to keep up a KDE system for more than a month or two without it blowing up. I set up one of the Fedoras with it and it really sucked on that. I need to see it on something that it is more made for.

Anyway, I came from Windows and fimd Ubuntu not to be a problem. I've been through Hoary, Breezy, and will upgrade to Dapper(dumb name).

I don't find the command line to be a problem at all. The Ubuntu docs tell you exactly what to type. If you need to go any more into it then that then there are some good books at OReilly and No Starch.

I think one thing that Ubuntu and Linux in general could use some improvment on is audio. The next version of Ubuntu will at least be making some steps in that direction.

So it works for me, I hate Fedora and I'm not buying Suse or anything else. I might have to try Slackware sometime. Some fanboy called Linc says it's pretty good.

Karl · Post by **Karl** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:28 am

dennis999 wrote: There is one problem I couldn't get an answer to. The gui calender starts on Monday instead of Sunday. The one in terminal is ok. The irc help people couldn't fix that either. I'm guessing that if I dug around a little I could find out how it got set up that way.

As far as I have been able to figure out thats a Gnome bug. My calendar on my home box starts on a Saturday. Thats even worse. And my one at work starts on Monday.

The only fix that I was able to find is manualy editing LANG files.

thetza · Post by **thetza** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:41 pm

Karl wrote:
dennis999 wrote: There is one problem I couldn't get an answer to. The gui calender starts on Monday instead of Sunday. The one in terminal is ok. The irc help people couldn't fix that either. I'm guessing that if I dug around a little I could find out how it got set up that way.
As far as I have been able to figure out thats a Gnome bug. My calendar on my home box starts on a Saturday. Thats even worse. And my one at work starts on Monday.

Its not a bug, its a feature. A lot of countries have calendars which start on monday. Probably some that start on saturday too.

Karl · Post by **Karl** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 10:55 pm

thetza wrote:
Karl wrote:
dennis999 wrote: There is one problem I couldn't get an answer to. The gui calender starts on Monday instead of Sunday. The one in terminal is ok. The irc help people couldn't fix that either. I'm guessing that if I dug around a little I could find out how it got set up that way.
As far as I have been able to figure out thats a Gnome bug. My calendar on my home box starts on a Saturday. Thats even worse. And my one at work starts on Monday.

Its not a bug, its a feature. A lot of countries have calendars which start on monday. Probably some that start on saturday too.

I understand that. The bug is gnome not reading the language file correctly and setting the right one. And also gnome doesn't let you pick which day is first.

dennis999 · Post by **dennis999** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:09 pm

After several versions, someone ought to fix that or make it ajustable. It's not that important though. The one in the terminal works. So does the one on the wall.

dennis999 · Post by **dennis999** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:49 pm

Here's a way to do it with no command line,

http://placelibre.ath.cx/keyes/index.ph ... -ubuntu-23

I think that there are others like this too.

no1important · Post by **no1important** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:02 am

Well the lady neighbour who I installed Ubuntu on to her older machine (The one where win XP would not work) a couple of months ago is quite happy with it. Not really any problems, i go ober now and then to show her how to do something but that is just normal after switching to Linux from windows. (Ha ha just ask Judland, when I first started out in Linux with Kanotix, I lost count how many e mails or pm's I sent him)

I found it quite easy to use myself. However, I do prefer KDE over gnome, but I believe Ubuntu is a good distro for Linux Newbies, just like Kanotix used to be.

This Arch (underground desktop) I use now, would be a little to hard for newbies.

dennis999 · Post by **dennis999** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:04 am

I'm going to play with Vector SOHO on an extra drive to try A Slackware derivative and KDE at the same time. I'm keeping Ubuntu for awhile though. It's good and solid.

I think that alot of getting Windows people on Linux is just a matter of getting them to try it for a while. There are usually some serious hurdles to get over before deciding it isn't simple enough. First you have to know it exists. Then you have to know it can do what you need it to do. My bank finally decided that Firefox is secure enough to use a month ago, so now I have no reason to go online with Windows at all. Then what do you do about all the previous work you did. Some file formats are still unconvertable. Here's a dumb Windows guy question. Why isn't there a command line utillity that can unpack an mht file back to html so Firefox can read it? There are just has some packed files in it, nothing owned by M$. I used to use this to keep Windows up and as functional as possible
http://www.mdgx.com/
There are a few more instructions there then Ubuntu has.
You'll get more users when you can use Linux at work, school, or see it in Best Buy or Office Max or on TV. It has been getting alot better even in the limited time I've been using it but getting other people to try it is real slow going. The best way would be to get on the first computer someone sees. There is a Linux group where I am and a Free Culture group at UF that do public events and installfests and even with that there is probably less then a 1% awareness that Linux exists. That is the problem, not that Windows people are morons or that Linux isn't easy enough to use

dennis999 · Post by **dennis999** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 6:43 pm

Someone was reading my mail, the calender has been fixed. It was the locale stuff that I think may have been mentioned above.