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I'm disappointed with Ubuntu

S

SickBeast

Lifer
Well, I've now tried Ubuntu 6 and 7. With 7, it just hosed my rig while trying to automatically get drivers going for my 8800GTS. It now crashes with random characters all over the screen at bootup, and leaves me helpless at a command prompt that I do not know how to work with.

I just wanted to express that I think it *sucks* on here, and perhaps get some feedback because I know Linux is pretty popular on these boards.
 
I've been using alpha and pre-alpha releases for a year now without any issues that I didn't cause or couldn't fix. Maybe if you asked for help instead of giving up...
 
Linux is still pretty hit or miss on the hardware front. It's gotten much better lately. but if you have incompatible hardware it can make things difficult for you.
 
Originally posted by: BlameCanada
Linux is still pretty hit or miss on the hardware front. It's gotten much better lately. but if you have incompatible hardware it can make things difficult for you.
Click to expand...

Feisty Fawn pretty much covered the majority of the problems.
 
I just installed Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron 9200 and it detected everything without a problem. It was actually easier to setup my wireless WPA network in Ubuntu than on my MacBook Pro (although that wasn't hard either). I'm VERY impressed with what Ubuntu has done. Even my little sound/media player buttons on the front of the laptop work!

edit: and I mean I JUST installed it. As soon as I saw Alone's post, above, I decided I'd try it out again. I previously had XP on this machine and before that I had Ubuntu 6.06 and 5.10. This is my playtoy since the LCD is pretty much busted so I don't do anything important with it.
 
Originally posted by: Alone
Originally posted by: BlameCanada
Linux is still pretty hit or miss on the hardware front. It's gotten much better lately. but if you have incompatible hardware it can make things difficult for you.
Click to expand...
Feisty Fawn pretty much covered the majority of the problems.
Click to expand...
Not all the issues, I guess. It did not install on GIGABYTE GA-965GM-S2 (Intel G965). I just built a machine for my friend and tried to install Linux for testing purpose. But it failed. Another bad experience was with 6.10 which wouldn't install on my HTPC (P4MBMS Mobo) with default settings it would result in "kernel panicking" !! - you have to append the option "acpi=force" to the command line and in the grub.conf after installation. Linux is very good and very much usable for day to day home pc usage if you can get it working with your hardware. With Linux, you cannot catch the fish without getting your hands wet! I still like it though -- after all it is free!
 
Originally posted by: AmigaMan
I just installed Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron 9200 and it detected everything without a problem. It was actually easier to setup my wireless WPA network in Ubuntu than on my MacBook Pro (although that wasn't hard either). I'm VERY impressed with what Ubuntu has done. Even my little sound/media player buttons on the front of the laptop work!

edit: and I mean I JUST installed it. As soon as I saw Alone's post, above, I decided I'd try it out again. I previously had XP on this machine and before that I had Ubuntu 6.06 and 5.10. This is my playtoy since the LCD is pretty much busted so I don't do anything important with it.
Click to expand...
Sweet, hopefully Kubuntu is as nice to my laptop as Ubuntu was to yours. I like KDE better, but I've used both versions and they are a great alternative to Windows even for beginners like me. 😛
 
I look foward to using linux in the future, but its not ready for my desktop. too manny headaches cause of my motherboard and ati video card. its also gay that i have to run emulation software to run a windows driver to get my wireless working on my laptop. Look at all the hacks i have to apply just to get it working properly:
http://ubuntu1501.blogspot.com/

And doing all that is easy considering what i have to do on my pc to get ubuntu working, i need to download the alternative installation cd then download the ati driver through the terminal and install it just to get it to boot, all these sounds easy to some of you but when you dont know how to do something all this could take a couple of painful hours to figure out when i could just install xp and be using my pc for more productive things.

OK there are no open source drivers that work for the Dell 1501's wifi card. The good news is that you can use ndiswrapper to use the Windows driver in Unbuntu.
Click to expand...

heres the procedure just to get the wifi working
http://ubuntu1501.blogspot.com/2007/01/fixing-wifi-on-dell-1501.html

does anyone honestly want to sit there and do all that ?
 
hey man thanks for offering, i truly appreciate it and all the help you have offered me, but i think im going to wait for future versions of Ubuntu. Ubuntu actually would of been perfect for my laptop since all i do is surf the net and watch movies, but its still too much of a hassle.

I have to worry about whether standby mode works or if i close the lid if it will automatically go into stand by. AMD allegedly has a driver for the cool n quiet but will it work properly ?

Im not one of those people who just assumed linux sucked, i have given it a chance over and over again and i always run into problems to the point where im more comfortable with windows. Not saying ubuntu isnt ready for some of the people out there

Its a shame they dont concentrate on two distributions , one for business and one for the desktop instead of focusing all the attention on 100's of distributions. Its so easy to make gui for installations but yet we still have to rely heavily on the console which i truly hate. THe console is great for some things but im a gui type of guy. Also i think they could of came up with a better name than "Ubuntu".

 
If you want to run Linux one of the major things that you need to realise that some hardware vendors just realy suck.

ATI sucks. Broadcom sucks. There is nothing anybody can do about them sucking except broadcom or ati. It's not likely that they are going to change any time soon.

There is nothing that Linux developers can do anything about. It's not a issue of making it easier for proprietary drivers either, because proprietary drivers are a source of instabilities, software bugs, and installation hassles.

Every major OEM vendor will have racks and racks of their machines in testing rooms for Windows compatability. Massive amounts of money is thrown at those things.

So in order for you to get the same level of support in Linux as in Windows you either have to pick the hardware out yourself or, like anybody normal person, purchase the hardware from a vendor that supports Linux on those configurations.


People are starting to use Linux more and more on the desktop. That is why companies like Dell are going to start selling and supporting Linux with PCs in those configurations.

Beleive you-me they are not going to be selling them with ATI video cards and they are not going to be selling them with Broadcom wireless devices.

Were Linux desktop is suitable today is for business environments. Places that have a small handfull of people knowlegable with Linux. They will do things like customize user environments and deployments so that people will be able to use pre-configured GUI systems with little to no training.

Linux will work at home environments were the person is or can depend on somebody who is familar with Linux to set it up and occasionally show up to solve the odd issue.

But the major problem is that the infrastructure for Linux support is non-existant. Nobody at ISP telephone support is going to be trained to take care of hooking Linux up to a cable or DSL linux.

There is no 'geek squad' for Linux. There is no brick-and-mortar stores were you can purchase Linux desktops or laptops or anything.

Linux could have the best hardware support in the world (which it currently pretty much does. Much better then Vista), but without the support elements in the community then it's _just_not_going_to_happen_.

For Manufacturers to get Linux support for hardware is very easy. It's usually much easier nowadays to write a Linux driver for a peice of hardware then a Windows driver. But because Windows is the only suitable and usefull desktop for most people at home your simply not going to see companies spending resources on this.


How Linux is going to enter into people's homes is in two possible ways:

1. custom hardware devices.

Linux on cell phones. Linux on PDAs. Devices like the Nokia N800 and things like Linux support for the PS3. Embedded devices. Most people that use some form of backup will use something like a external drive or NAS device. Most of these NAS devices run Linux or FreeBSD. The XO laptop (aka 100 dollar laptop) is another example.

Intel recently dropped it's retail marketting of the Windows-based UMPCs in favor for smaller Linux-based 'MID's.

Devices like phones and other handhelds are rapidly increasing in complexity and capacity while Linux and supporting software is being refined to use less resources and be more flexible.

Java will probably be open sources. Development tools based on the Eclispe IDE framework for many languages are starting to be compared very favoriably with Microsoft's own Visual Studio tools. Some people even considure them now to be superior, especially for large scale and distributed development systems. (personally I don't care, I still just vim for whatever I need)

2. Business adoption picks up due to the low cost of support, high customizebility, and other such things that Linux may have over Windows for certain people.

If people start using Linux at work they will start needing Linux at home.


The simple realities is that with the current culture regarding PCs Linux is only suitable for home use for people who realy desire to use it for whatever purpose.

It's not difficult to figure out why the proprietary drivers for Nvidia are crapping out, for example. You just have to know how to use the system a little bit first.


Ubuntu's major problem right now is Quality Control. They suck at it.

With this release they did ******-tastic things like get suprised by a bug that stopped jmicron drivers from working with a massive number of motherboards.

They only had the RC out for a few days before the final release. This is _not_ enough time.

They have seemed to start to be figuring this out. It's one thing when you have a lot of excitement about the potential and ease of use around your project driving things forward... it's quite anough when you do end up generating a massive amount of attention from people who never used Linux before and you get a massive amount of poeple to try to use it on the first week that a new release is aviable.

The next release should be a lot better. They've stated that next time they are going to concentrate on stability and refinement then new features, which is a helpful attitude.
 
Originally posted by: ciproxr
I have to worry about whether standby mode works or if i close the lid if it will automatically go into stand by.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the wonderful world of ACPI, where the OEM will find a way to ****** it up.

AMD allegedly has a driver for the cool n quiet but will it work properly ?
Click to expand...
cpufreq handles that very well. Your kernel most definitely has it built-in already.

Its a shame they dont concentrate on two distributions , one for business and one for the desktop instead of focusing all the attention on 100's of distributions.
Click to expand...
Think about FOSS in biological terms. Diversity is a strength.

Also i think they could of came up with a better name than "Ubuntu".
Click to expand...
If the worst problem with the name is the "WTF?" factor, then that's not really an issue.
 
Originally posted by: ciproxr
hey man thanks for offering, i truly appreciate it and all the help you have offered me, but i think im going to wait for future versions of Ubuntu. Ubuntu actually would of been perfect for my laptop since all i do is surf the net and watch movies, but its still too much of a hassle.

I have to worry about whether standby mode works or if i close the lid if it will automatically go into stand by. AMD allegedly has a driver for the cool n quiet but will it work properly ?

Im not one of those people who just assumed linux sucked, i have given it a chance over and over again and i always run into problems to the point where im more comfortable with windows. Not saying ubuntu isnt ready for some of the people out there

Its a shame they dont concentrate on two distributions , one for business and one for the desktop instead of focusing all the attention on 100's of distributions. Its so easy to make gui for installations but yet we still have to rely heavily on the console which i truly hate. THe console is great for some things but im a gui type of guy. Also i think they could of came up with a better name than "Ubuntu".
Click to expand...

Which distribution should be the standard for desktop?

For servers?

For embedded devices?

What should the name of Ubuntu be?
 
What is wrong? Can you give your config & exactly what happens when? I find that weird because i've used hoary, breezy and its beta, dapper and the early flights, edgey and now feisty on different hardware and i'm fine.

Originally posted by: ciproxr
heres the procedure just to get the wifi working
http://ubuntu1501.blogspot.com/2007/01/fixing-wifi-on-dell-1501.html

does anyone honestly want to sit there and do all that ?
Click to expand...

If you ignore the comments after the article which is like 70% of the vertical scroll bar, the article is well done. It is highlight with colors on exactly WHAT to do, he has picture for you so you don't mess up, and he literally gives you the commands to input at each step. All you have to do is read it once and then slowly follow it again....
 
Although I feel sorry for anyone with hardware with poor linux support...I suffered through "Iinmodems" - but I got lucky that nvidia, even if its in blob form, supports linux.
 
Originally posted by: magomago
Although I feel sorry for anyone with hardware with poor linux support...I suffered through "Iinmodems" - but I got lucky that nvidia, even if its in blob form, supports linux.
Click to expand...

Blobs are worse than no support.
 
Originally posted by: ciproxr
Its a shame they dont concentrate on two distributions , one for business and one for the desktop instead of focusing all the attention on 100's of distributions. Its so easy to make gui for installations but yet we still have to rely heavily on the console which i truly hate. The console is great for some things but im a gui type of guy. Also i think they could of came up with a better name than "Ubuntu".
Click to expand...
That is the sad part and it is in that way because of the underlying economics behind Linux. Apart from community distributions like Debian or Slackware, most of the time only those who wants to make money will have their own distribution (software has been one of the easiest way to make some quick and big bucks). These companies make some small changes here are there and add some free proprietary drivers for some vendors and label it with their name. So that in the event people (or companies) start using it they can sell the support. They are all waiting for the "community" to fix the issues are sweat for the next version. I like MEPIS because it comes with some of the proprietary wireless and video drivers by default. It is derived from ubuntu.
 
Originally posted by: hasu
Originally posted by: ciproxr
Its a shame they dont concentrate on two distributions , one for business and one for the desktop instead of focusing all the attention on 100's of distributions. Its so easy to make gui for installations but yet we still have to rely heavily on the console which i truly hate. The console is great for some things but im a gui type of guy. Also i think they could of came up with a better name than "Ubuntu".
Click to expand...
That is the sad part and it is in that way because of the underlying economics behind Linux. Apart from community distributions like Debian or Slackware, most of the time only those who wants to make money will have their own distribution (software has been one of the easiest way to make some quick and big bucks). These companies make some small changes here are there and add some free proprietary drivers for some vendors and label it with their name. So that in the event people (or companies) start using it they can sell the support. They are all waiting for the "community" to fix the issues are sweat for the next version. I like MEPIS because it comes with some of the proprietary wireless and video drivers by default. It is derived from ubuntu.
Click to expand...

Mepis relies on Ubuntu to fix issues who relies on Debian to do it first. And of course, Debian is the only one that is starting to realize that proprietary drivers are evil and should not be used. 😉

BTW, Redhat and Novell both contribute to the FOSS community.
 
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