Is Linux worth using for regular computer users? and if so why exactly?

[Nothinman]

I would've moved to Linux full time if it supported all the fonts that I use. Anyway to get around that?

Put the fonts in your ~/.fonts?

I'd imagine if you bought a preinstalled ubuntu dell laptop, you wouldnt have these problems, but don't expect the install to be super duper smooth in all cases. Thankfully the support forums are excellent and you can usually find the solutions you need, but be prepared to edit config files.

And don't expect your experience to be the norm either, I'd say all of the hassle that you went through for X and compiz are the exception instead of the rule these days.

although there are still plenty of apps I'd like to remove (such as gimp) which I cant do without basically breaking the desktop. It definitely needs to be made a bit more modular.

It's perfectly modular, what you're noticing it wanting to remove when you try to remove the gimp should just be the ubuntu-desktop metapackage which shouldn't break anything.

abiword would work well enough for most of my uses, the fact that it cant open a file over a network share is an absolute deal breaker, not to mention ridiculous beyond my understanding. Some apps can open over a share, some apps cant. Its completely inconsistent.

Some support the Gnome VFS and some don't, it's the same as Windows. I've seen plenty of apps break when given a UNC path on Windows. But if you actually mount the share then everything can access the files just fine.

Sadly though, battery life is about 50% less on ubuntu, even with every power management hack I can find. I dont know why it is, but it just is. That combined with suspend/hibernate issues make it totally inappropriate for a laptop that you actually want to use on battery.

That makes it inappropriate for your laptop on battery, the same isn't true for everyone.

Truthfully, if anything, ubuntu makes me want a mac more than it makes me want ubuntu. A mac has the same prettiness as ubuntu, a solid inclusion of preinstalled apps, the same lack of security issues - but it also comes without the battery life and suspend/hibernate issues, the hardware configuration issues, the network sharing issues, and the ability to use a competent version of microsoft office, allowing me to get actual work done. Unfortunately, it is also quite the opposite of free, being more expensive than any PC.

It also comes without the massive amount of free software, the free updates to a new release every 6 months, the awesome package management, the ability to change the UI theme and IMO the prettiness just isn't there with OS X. I seem to be in the minority but I just find OS X ugly and a PITA to use.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
And don't expect your experience to be the norm either, I'd say all of the hassle that you went through for X and compiz are the exception instead of the rule these days.

Indeed, I had less problems with feisty than with gutsy in this area, but I've still yet to manage an install without some configuration file editing on any PC.

It's perfectly modular, what you're noticing it wanting to remove when you try to remove the gimp should just be the ubuntu-desktop metapackage which shouldn't break anything.

They could certainly make that a little more obvious, and I've heard of people who had issues after removing ubuntu-desktop.

Some support the Gnome VFS and some don't, it's the same as Windows. I've seen plenty of apps break when given a UNC path on Windows. But if you actually mount the share then everything can access the files just fine.

I've mounted the share, but abiword still cant access those files.

That makes it inappropriate for your laptop on battery, the same isn't true for everyone.

I dont think its a coincidence that the top all time suggestions on the ubuntu brainstorm site are "fix suspend/hibernate" and "make it use less power".

It also comes without the massive amount of free software, the free updates to a new release every 6 months, the awesome package management, the ability to change the UI theme and IMO the prettiness just isn't there with OS X. I seem to be in the minority but I just find OS X ugly and a PITA to use.

I wont argue that its freeness is its most attractive feature, but in a lot of ways, its also it's biggest weakness. A lot of that free software is great (firefox stands out), but a lot of that free software just isnt up to standards (Evolution, OOffice/KOffice).

I definitely plan on leaving it on my laptop, as over time I'm requiring less and less need to do work, especially on a battery. As a second home PC with modest specs that I can drag into the living room and surf the web, its pretty hard to beat.

 

[Nothinman]

Indeed, I had less problems with feisty than with gutsy in this area, but I've still yet to manage an install without some configuration file editing on any PC.

I don't doubt it, but frankly I find editing config files a lot simpler than dealing with some random GUI tool, especially when it comes to Xorg since there's a good chance X won't start when you need to touch it's config file.

They could certainly make that a little more obvious, and I've heard of people who had issues after removing ubuntu-desktop.

The simplest way for them to ensure that you have the same base set of packages installed is to setup a metapackage like ubuntu-desktop which depends on all of the stuff they want to be in the default install. The package itself has no files or anything, it just depends on other packages so that they get installed so removing it shouldn't break anything. It might make upgrades interesting if you don't reinstall it first but removing it shouldn't adversely affect a current system.

I've mounted the share, but abiword still cant access those files.

Then you did it wrong because mounted anything just shows up like another directory in the filesytem tree, I do it all of the time.

I dont think its a coincidence that the top all time suggestions on the ubuntu brainstorm site are "fix suspend/hibernate" and "make it use less power".

And developers and Intel are working on it, but the 50% difference you've stated isn't the norm AFAIK.

I wont argue that its freeness is its most attractive feature, but in a lot of ways, its also it's biggest weakness. A lot of that free software is great (firefox stands out), but a lot of that free software just isnt up to standards (Evolution, OOffice/KOffice).

It all depends on what you need. I'd rather use Evolution than Outlook, well personally I'd rather use mutt than either of them.

 

[ethebubbeth]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
False for you, maybe. I played around with it this weekend, and loading Google Earth crashed X. Enabling mipmapping in compiz resulted in things turning white (e.g. window previews). It was generally a pretty awful experience. The beta driver I played with late last year was much worse (any app that did blitting - smooth scrolling - crashed the system).

Which driver were you using for your ATI hardware? The open source ati driver or the binary fglrx? On my old laptop with a radeon mobility 9600, the binary driver did not support the composite rendering necessary for some aspects of compiz fusion. I had to setup an xgl session in order to get compiz to work properly. The ati driver was too slow for me to run compiz well or any sort of games. Is this different in the binary driver for newer cards?

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: ethebubbeth

Originally posted by: CTho9305
False for you, maybe. I played around with it this weekend, and loading Google Earth crashed X. Enabling mipmapping in compiz resulted in things turning white (e.g. window previews). It was generally a pretty awful experience. The beta driver I played with late last year was much worse (any app that did blitting - smooth scrolling - crashed the system).

Which driver were you using for your ATI hardware? The open source ati driver or the binary fglrx? On my old laptop with a radeon mobility 9600, the binary driver did not support the composite rendering necessary for some aspects of compiz fusion. I had to setup an xgl session in order to get compiz to work properly. The ati driver was too slow for me to run compiz well or any sort of games. Is this different in the binary driver for newer cards?

fglrx. I did use xgl. It seemed reasonably fast, just unstable, and features wouldn't work properly. It's not really bad using the onboard nvidia chip - it's fast enough for compiz and google earth, and wine is enough of a pain that I reboot to Windows for any gaming (oblivion, crysis, etc).

 

[ethebubbeth]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
[fglrx. I did use xgl. It seemed reasonably fast, just unstable, and features wouldn't work properly. It's not really bad using the onboard nvidia chip - it's fast enough for compiz and google earth, and wine is enough of a pain that I reboot to Windows for any gaming (oblivion, crysis, etc).

It's too bad that ATI's drivers are so behind under linux. My current laptop has an 8400m, which is pretty much bottom of the barrel. However, it beats the snot of my old 9600 mobility, at least under compiz.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The simplest way for them to ensure that you have the same base set of packages installed is to setup a metapackage like ubuntu-desktop which depends on all of the stuff they want to be in the default install. The package itself has no files or anything, it just depends on other packages so that they get installed so removing it shouldn't break anything. It might make upgrades interesting if you don't reinstall it first but removing it shouldn't adversely affect a current system.

So I assume that when hardy comes out, I'll have to reinstall ubuntu-desktop, which will reinstall the default apps, and then I upgrade to the new distro, and then uninstall everything again?

Then you did it wrong because mounted anything just shows up like another directory in the filesytem tree, I do it all of the time.

Whats the proper way to do it, other than "Connect to server...". It shows up on my desktop like the windows ntfs share thats mounted, but any .doc files I double click just don't show up.

 

[Nothinman]

So I assume that when hardy comes out, I'll have to reinstall ubuntu-desktop, which will reinstall the default apps, and then I upgrade to the new distro, and then uninstall everything again?

You don't have to do anything but when something doesn't automagically work you might have to spend some time figuring out what's missing.

Whats the proper way to do it, other than "Connect to server...". It shows up on my desktop like the windows ntfs share thats mounted, but any .doc files I double click just don't show up.

I believe that's still using the Gnome VFS. I don't know if there's a good way to do it through the GUI since I don't use a full Gnome desktop, I always just use either smbmount or /sbin/mount.cifs from the command-line.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Whats the proper way to do it, other than "Connect to server...". It shows up on my desktop like the windows ntfs share thats mounted, but any .doc files I double click just don't show up.

I believe that's still using the Gnome VFS. I don't know if there's a good way to do it through the GUI since I don't use a full Gnome desktop, I always just use either smbmount or /sbin/mount.cifs from the command-line.

Yeah unfortunately that still goes through Gnome VFS. Personally I think it's stupid, I don't see why it doesn't just use pam-mount to configure the user defined mounts.

 

[Nothinman]

Yeah unfortunately that still goes through Gnome VFS. Personally I think it's stupid, I don't see why it doesn't just use pam-mount to configure the user defined mounts.

Yea, they use pmount for USB stuff so I'm not sure why they treat network mounts differently.

 

[jae]

i run dual boot xp and ubuntu because i wanted to learn nix, but i found xp just alot more easier to use. maybe its because im use to the ease of click n play rather than command line codes to do this and tweak that in linux. sorry but i just need more time for it.

my roommate also wanted to use linux installed the dual boot on his laptop.. he had problem after problem with ubuntu. i havent seen him use ubuntu in months

 

[EQTitan]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I've heard of people who had issues after removing ubuntu-desktop.

Format partition anyone?

 

[Nothinman]

i run dual boot xp and ubuntu because i wanted to learn nix, but i found xp just alot more easier to use. maybe its because im use to the ease of click n play rather than command line codes to do this and tweak that in linux. sorry but i just need more time for it.

Once everything's setup you shouldn't have to touch the cli unless you want to and with the right hardware you can get away without touching it ever.

Format partition anyone?

Huh? What's so wrong with 'aptitude install ubuntu-desktop' to fix it?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Yeah unfortunately that still goes through Gnome VFS. Personally I think it's stupid, I don't see why it doesn't just use pam-mount to configure the user defined mounts.

Yea, they use pmount for USB stuff so I'm not sure why they treat network mounts differently.

So what would happen when I use my laptop and I'm not connected to my home network?

Is there anyway to duplicate the offline file functionality in xp/vista where I can locally duplicate the network resources and have it automatically sync?

 

[Nothinman]

So what would happen when I use my laptop and I'm not connected to my home network?

If you don't set them to automatically mount on bootup nothing, if you do then you'll have to wait for it to timeout.

Is there anyway to duplicate the offline file functionality in xp/vista where I can locally duplicate the network resources and have it automatically sync?

That's a good question, I've never even thought about something like that. I'd probably look at something like rsync or unison.

 

[Brazen]

Is Windows worth using for regular computer users?

I submit that is NOT!

 

[wwswimming]

i think it depends a lot on the definition of regular user.

if you just want to be able to do email, edit Photo's, learn a Linux video editor &
3D tools, Linux is good.

if you want to learn industrial strength content creation programs, like Flash
CS3 or Solidworks or 3D Max, then you are constrained by what programs they
run on. usually Mac or Windows.

 

[Nothinman]

Yeah unfortunately that still goes through Gnome VFS. Personally I think it's stupid, I don't see why it doesn't just use pam-mount to configure the user defined mounts.

According to this: http://arstechnica.com/journal...proposed-for-inclusion things should be better with Gnome 2.22 which was just released. The new GVFS has a FUSE connector so that anything mounted via GVFS will really be mounted and accessible to anything whether they support GVFS directly or not.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

According to this: http://arstechnica.com/journal...proposed-for-inclusion things should be better with Gnome 2.22 which was just released. The new GVFS has a FUSE connector so that anything mounted via GVFS will really be mounted and accessible to anything whether they support GVFS directly or not.

Hey that is good news. I had heard that the new GVFS is supposed to be better but I had not heard of THAT feature.

 

[austin316]

can linux run my HD3450 and Blu-Ray drive? also, itunes (I assume) doesn't run, can this thing still sync an ipod.

 

[Nothinman]

can linux run my HD3450 and Blu-Ray drive?

They're going to be ATAPI or SATA like any other drive so sure, they'll be readable. Playing movies is another issue though because of the encryption.

also, itunes (I assume) doesn't run, can this thing still sync an ipod.

Some quick Googlin seems to say that you can't sync an iPod with iTunes in WINE, but there are 3rd party Linux tools for managing your iPod. But I can't comment on any of them first hand since I don't own an iPod.

 

[Brazen]

Supposedly Banshee is the next best thing before iTunes.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Brazen
Supposedly Banshee is the next best thing before iTunes.

Having just spend a good portion of a saturday trying to get my 3rd gen Nano working in Linux, I feel the need to comment on the iTunes issue.

I tried Banshee, Rhythmbox, and a few others that I found by googling. Not a single one of them would see the 3rd gen Nano, Gutsy would not even register that the Nano was even connected. Plugging in my older first gen Nano worked like a charm, however, all almost every application and Gutsy automounted it without a problem. Some further googling revealed that the flaw with the 3rd gen Nano is related to Apple trying to lock the product to windows and MacOS X.

Undeniably, future revisions of linux and its applications will allow support for the newer(currently), but its likely that you can expect future releases of the iPod line to not work with linux right away. Unless Apple changes their minds about releasing iTunes for linux, there is a petition for that.

On a side note, I see now that Amazon has updated their linux MP3 downloader client to fully support linux by allowing album downloads; previously, you had to DL each song individually.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

can linux run my HD3450 and Blu-Ray drive?

They're going to be ATAPI or SATA like any other drive so sure, they'll be readable. Playing movies is another issue though because of the encryption.

also, itunes (I assume) doesn't run, can this thing still sync an ipod.

Some quick Googlin seems to say that you can't sync an iPod with iTunes in WINE, but there are 3rd party Linux tools for managing your iPod. But I can't comment on any of them first hand since I don't own an iPod.

I sync my jailbroken iPod (ipod-convience ubuntu package - from a 3rd party apt repository though for iTouch support). I've had really horrible experience with ATI and Linux though.