Lately there’s been a lot of talk about Ubuntu slipping to the #2 spot on the Distrowatch Linux distribution list. Do I believe more people are using Linux Mint over Ubuntu – not at all! I don’t go to Distrowatch to download Ubuntu and I expect there are millions out there that don’t either. Do I think Ubuntu is better now than in version 8.04? The answer is: I honestly don’t know. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Ubuntu since version 9.04. To me, Ubuntu 8.04 was about as perfect as Ubuntu has ever been, and I’ve been using Ubuntu since version 4.10. What are my concerns? What works and what doesn’t?
The other concern I have is the amount of shifting that’s gone on in the past few years. Gone are lilo and grub in favour of grub2. Xfree86 left us a long time ago for Xorg. Gdm was replaced by Gdm2 and now that’s replaced with LightDM. Remember when configuring /etc/fstab was a matter of inserting /dev/hda1 (or later sda1) and options, not finding out what the blkid (blockid) that long UUID string? Yes, I’ve included ancient technologies here, but the purpose is to show there have been a lot of shifts. And I haven’t even mentioned Unity and Gnome 3 yet…
Linux Mint over Ubuntu – not at all! I don’t go to Distrowatch to download Ubuntu and I expect there are millions out there that don’t either. Do I think Ubuntu is better now than in version 8.04? The answer is: I honestly don’t know. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Ubuntu since version 9.04. To me, Ubuntu 8.04 was about as perfect as Ubuntu has ever been, and I’ve been using Ubuntu since version 4.10. What are my concerns? What works and what doesn’t?
What isn’t working for me, and my chief concern is all about the loss of control. I understand that Canonical and Ubuntu community programmers want to simplify User Interfaces (UIs) to encourage people to use Ubuntu across different hardware platforms. What bothers me is that these simplified user interfaces lack the configuration options the old software had. My advice to UI builders is that when you simplify something and remove options include an advanced tab to allow advanced users to exercise finer control over the option.
The other concern I have is the amount of shifting that’s gone on in the past few years. Gone are lilo and grub in favour of grub2. Xfree86 left us a long time ago for Xorg. Gdm was replaced by Gdm2 and now that’s replaced with LightDM. Remember when configuring /etc/fstab was a matter of inserting /dev/hda1 (or later sda1) and options, not finding out what the blkid (blockid) that long UUID string? Yes, I’ve included ancient technologies here, but the purpose is to show there have been a lot of shifts. And I haven’t even mentioned Unity and Gnome 3 yet…
Unity and Gnome 3 represent both a step forward and backward. Both UIs are a step forward into the increasingly graphical world of hardware improvements. Unfortunately these improvements show that both the Gnome project and the Unity team programmers have decided to abandon the used hardware desktop market. Both UIs don’t work so well even on 2.4GHz systems that don’t have a decent video card. As a refurbisher I see a lot of hardware that needs a half-height video card. We get a lot of systems donated without decent video cards. Dell GX240s, GX260s, GX270s, and Compaq EVOs all don’t work very well with the latest Ubuntu offering unless you throw in a half-height video card. Half-height video cards are rare enough that out of hundreds of video cards we have exactly 2 half-height cards. This leaves the onboard 1MB to 8MB video of the Dell GX260s which really doesn’t work well.
The obvious answer is switch to Lubuntu, the LXDE version of Ubuntu, but as much as I appreciate the lightweight desktop it reminds me of my project’s attempt to create a lightweight Linux distribution (wclp) back in 2001 – it just doesn’t have the polish of Gnome on Ubuntu 8.04.
I know I’m not the only one concerned about Unity. My wife has become increasingly frustrated with Unity since I installed Ubuntu 11.04 over 10.04. Even after showing her how to do things she still gets lost sometimes. I have to support her more than I did with version 10.04, which to me means something is fundamentally wrong. Search is not the answer to everything, many people prefer good old fashioned structure.
I’m also concerned that some things are upgraded to the point of breaking, case in point UbuntuOne and Tomboy. At this point in time they don’t work correctly in Ubuntu 11.10. I’ve tried on several machines at different points since 11.10 was released and found that it just doesn’t work as well as it used to. On one machine I just couldn’t get Tomboy authorized to use UbuntuOne, it just refused to authorize. On another machine at a later date Tomboy authorized but only downloaded 1/8th of my notes and then exited with a non-descriptive error. What it meant for me was reverting back to 10.04 on my work workstation. I don’t have time to wait for developers to fix the error. For me it’s a deal breaker, something I use a lot to synchronize my thoughts at home and work.
Did I report the error? No. Have I reported errors in the past? Yes. Were they solved? Some. I’m sure I’m not the only Tomboy web user.
So what is working for me? One thing I’ve wanted Ubuntu to have for a long time is easy access to my ieee1394 (Apple calls it Firewire) camcorder. In Ubuntu 11.04 not only did I have to install modules but I also had to set up permissions. Ubuntu 11.10 recognized my turned on camcorder the moment I loaded the Kino video editor. Another bug I had with Ubuntu 11.04 was during the import of video it played at lightning speed. In Ubuntu 11.10 importing video in Kino from a ieee1394 source seems to “just work.”
Recent updates seem to have added some stability. When 11.10 was first released I noticed more applications crashing. It doesn’t seem to be the case now.