Why the Ubuntu hype?

mikedisd2

msteinhilber wrote: »

You may very well be frustrated when things don't go as planned the first few attempts but that's a good thing - frustration is synonymous with learning IMO, at least it is with me as the more frustrated I get with a problem the more I learn and the more that knowledge sticks in my head.

Initial frustrations are fine; that natural. Ongoing frustrations are the issue; it comes across as bugs in the system, or not a well written bit code. Examples such my issue with not being able to switch w/l back on, or (again) the cursor doesn't scroll fast enough. It's small stuff but it makes the experience not as pleasant as it ought to be.

I got a book on how to write my own kernel. Maybe I'll start my own distro.

dynamik

mikedisd2 wrote: »

I got a book on how to write my own kernel. Maybe I'll start my own distro.

Welcome to Linux From Scratch!

Have you tried the version directly from Ubuntu yet? 8.10 is pretty damn old; the version they're offering is 10.04. You might have better results.

Daniel333

knwminus wrote: »

Just curious: What do you guys expect out of a desktop os? What makes is usable?

Good question. But the better quesiton would be what do my users expect out of a desk OS?

Me?
1) Current hardware investments to carry foward
2) Current software investments to carry foward
3) Familiarity, I don't like learning where they hide the buttons or esoteric CLIs
4) Ease of use
5) Interoperability with current systems (websites, DRM media etc)

The same reason I get frustrated with Linux are the same reasons I was frustrated with Vista and stuck with XP.

In the last month here are my Ubuntu 10.04 challenges I have run into (I have two desktops and one laptop on Ubunutu 10.04)
1) Shutdown button disappears off the Gnome menu after doing full screen flash, found out it's a known issue with some Intel video cards
2) After installing Vmware all of my VirtualBox VMs stopped working and I started receiving a kernal driver error. Known issue required recompiling the VirtualBox driver. In theory not Ubuntu's fault. But still a problem
3) My 2x2 quad monitor locks up if I place my mouse over near dead center of the screens, turns out known issue with Nvidia cards under Ubuntu since 6.xx
4) A FOSS apps need the Jack sound engine vs Pulse Audio, which when I switch to requires a lengthy reboot. Then my default audio stops works. But my app works. Then I have to switch back to get my podcast stuff to work. Known issue across Linux for some time now.
5) No Flash support on Ubuntu x64 (why do I have 6gigs of ram if I can't use it?). Known issue for years
6) oo.org not opening many documents correctly from sharepoint. I find myself using Word 2003 under WINE, works great.
7) I can't find a decent Visio replacement so I am using Unity mode to work in Visio. Doesn't work with WINE.
No Ica client for x64, known issue. More Citrix's fault of course
9) Sometimes I find apps in RPM and sometimes in .deb. Can we just pick a single package?!!? .msi anyone?
10) I am getting better performance out of the Windows drivers than I am the ATI drivers in full screen movie playback. Often looks choppy. Recommendation from Ubunutu using friends "get a better video card"
11) Very dated versions of apps in the software center.

Utlimately, I worked through most of these issues. But even just one of these could be a deal breaker for a company.

Back to my beer

mikedisd2

dynamik wrote: »

Have you tried the version directly from Ubuntu yet? 8.10 is pretty damn old; the version they're offering is 10.04. You might have better results.

My mistake, it's 10.04 I'm using. I got a copy of Fedora. I'll try VM'ing that one as well.

Thanks for the link.

Hyper-Me

NightShade03 wrote: »

Have any examples that come to mind?

OpenNMS, Zenoss, Nagios, Almost any free linux distro, various imaging/disk duping stuff. Basically anything ive touched.

ColbyG

I use Linux at home for LAMP/Dynamips/SSH servers, but I haven't tried it as a desktop OS for years. It's just not worth the hassle. I'm happy with Windows, especially 7.

Edit: Oh, and the Ubuntu hype. I learned on RPM distros, and stuck with them for a long time as they are what I felt most comfortable with. A year or so ago, I moved from Cent/Fedora to Ubuntu, which I swore I'd never do. I don't think I'll go back to RPM distros anytime soon. Ubuntu just works better for me, and the community/documentation seem superior.

msteinhilber

Hyper-Me wrote: »

OpenNMS, Zenoss, Nagios, Almost any free linux distro, various imaging/disk duping stuff. Basically anything ive touched.

Are you serious? Nagios for one, while it can prove challenging to setup, is one of the most stable, feature filled, and I certainly can cite no problems with speed as well. I also have Zenoss in deployment monitoring almost 500 nodes and around 38k data points and it's been rock solid as far as stability, has plenty of features built-in and more from the community, and it's certainly not slow as with some basic tweaking it works great on a fairly basic single cpu server. I can't speak for OpenNMS as I haven't used it long enough to really familiarize myself with it.

One shouldn't confuse stability, features, and speed as problems a particular software may have with the lack of understanding on how to properly implement them. And I don't at all mean that as an attack, I'm just trying to be realistic - you've said you're self plenty of times before that you are a Windows administrator. I have a lot more experience on Linux and BSD than I do with Windows servers and I wouldn't expect my experience trying to configure similar packages on a Windows server to go as well for me as I could implement say Zenoss or Nagios - but I wouldn't immediately rack it up to faulty software or the OS platform.

DevilWAH

It seems to me people are missing the point of Unbuntu, In my view Unbunut is not aimed at tec savy people. Its for the generaly masses and what it is trtying to be (and fast achiving although not quite there yet) is a replacment for windows for the generaly public.

So far I have installed unbuntu on about 5 or 6 different hardware set ups. From moden PC's to an old toshibia SG20 I had laying around.

The first thing I notic about Unbuntu is that lack of need to install drivers. In most cases when I install windows on a PC I need to follow up with installing a network driver jsut to get on the internet. But with Linux it has always worked out of the box..

It's not perfect yet but I havent suffered any of the proformace problems the first poster has. But its all a bit swings and round abouts, between Unbuntu niggels and windows niggles nither one can yet claim to be perfect.

On the other hand for server application I am starting to really apricate the power of Linux, both from security, proformance and managment point of view. Ok I would not use UNBUNTU for a server instulation, but for a windows person who wants to experince LINUX with out to much hassle I think its the best one to go for.

Bl8ckr0uter

Daniel333 wrote: »

9) Sometimes I find apps in RPM and sometimes in .deb. Can we just pick a single package?!!? .msi anyone?

You could use alien to change those rpms to debs as well as vice versa. I have used it a few times now and it works like a champ.

Alien download - Alien 8.81

ColbyG

DevilWAH wrote: »

(wall of text)

Ok I would not use UNBUNTU for a server instulation

I use Ubuntu for all my home servers. No complaints. We don't use it at work, it's all RH or a flavor of Unix. No idea why, I'm not in that group, nor do I know enough to make much an educated guess other than RH being more established.

NightShade03

Hyper-Me wrote: »

OpenNMS, Zenoss, Nagios, Almost any free linux distro, various imaging/disk duping stuff. Basically anything ive touched.

Imaging and disk duping on linux is def not the best (I'm assuming you are trying to image windows clients). If you are just looking for an automated install process though of linux to linux then between kickstart and ubuntu pre-seed automation works perfectly.

Nagios? Seriously? I deployed Nagios in multiple environments without a problem. I can't imagine that it really wasn't working for you.

msteinhilber

DevilWAH wrote: »

Ok I would not use UNBUNTU for a server instulation, but for a windows person who wants to experince LINUX with out to much hassle I think its the best one to go for.

We have a few Ubuntu servers in our enterprise and they have been just as solid as anything else. I prefer CentOS for a server in most cases, though IMO when you take a look at any major distro available, the differences between them for the most part are not going to really lead to any significant advantage or disadvantage to the vast majority of your typical small to mid-sized environments unless you possibly had a software vendor whom would not provide support unless you were running it off a particular platform or if you required vendor support from your OS supplier (which in Ubuntu's case is available, but not all distros offer paid support).

NightShade03

ColbyG wrote: »

We don't use it at work, it's all RH or a flavor of Unix. No idea why, I'm not in that group, nor do I know enough to make much an educated guess other than RH being more established.

This is a stupid thing that has been around for a while. Red hat and it's control over the enterprise world is doing everything to keep tight grips on "business" servers. Why wouldn't you switch to ubuntu in the work place when it has thousands more packages, just as good support, just as good if not better hardware support, plus more. I think the biggest reason is change....no one likes it. Everyone has been so comfortable with Red hat and the way they do things that they aren't ready to move over for some Distro that hasn't been around as long. Not to mention that Ubuntu and the Red hat do things differently when it comes to implementation (where files/directories are, the boot process, etc). It's not a deal breaker but when you have RHCE engineers that have been doing this for years they certainly aren't going to want to learn a whole new way of doing things.

Also Ubuntu markets themselves as the "everyone-can-use-it-distro". Red hat markets the businesses. If Ubuntu spent less time tryingn to get in bed with Dell to become a desktop choice and more time with hardware comparability on IBM, HP, and Dell Servers they could give Red hat a run for their money 3-4 years from now in the enterprise.

DevilWAH

OK OK I should have made it clearer. While I don't think there is much wrong with using UNBUNTU for a server either at home or at work, I do feel a sesoned LINUX engineer, would rather use one of the more developed enterprised distributions such as RH or run mimuimual installs.

I jsut get the feel that UNBUNTU is aimed at the home / small buisness user rather than large enterprise installes.

Bl8ckr0uter

DevilWAH wrote: »

OK OK I should have made it clearer. While I don't think there is much wrong with using UNBUNTU for a server either at home or at work, I do feel a sesoned LINUX engineer, would rather use one of the more developed enterprised distributions such as RH or run mimuimual installs.

I jsut get the feel that UNBUNTU is aimed at the home / small buisness user rather than large enterprise installes.

I have to disagree. Ubuntu is aimed at everyone. Do you think a home user would need a private cloud or anything like that? Take a look at their webpage Server | Ubuntu I think ubuntu is aimed at replacing RH and other distros as linuxs "it" distro.

NightShade03

DevilWAH wrote: »

I jsut get the feel that UNBUNTU is aimed at the home / small buisness user rather than large enterprise installes.

This is EXACTLY the point I'm making! It shouldn't be for home/small business but for larger enterprises because it has features that are better than Red hat. I wouldn't run a minimal Redhat/Centos because honestly everything I like to test out I can never get packages in the repositories for on Redhat. I don't want to waste my time hunting down dependencies.

ally_uk

How did I get into Linux well I basically had no choice, it was part of my new job role I was given an old Pentium 2 machine and told to install Debian, install two network cards and set it up and configure it as a firewall, This was all done using a network install version of Debian and all the configuration and setup was done through the cli, ok so it was daunting at first and there were plenty of wtf moments but hey this was 4 years ago and Ive been dabbling with Linux since. That's how the passion and love developed for Open Source Products.

Our old servers at work were Debian based they handled the print serving, Domain Control, and File sharing, and believe me these servers were old school, Dual Pentium 3 based Compaqs but they were bullet proof lol they never went down for 2 and half years.

That's the beauty of Linux it's reliable, Cost effective if we were to deploy a windows network then it would be to costly, Plus from the server side, any role a Windows server can perform a Linux server can do so there was no need for us to have Microsoft server 2003.

We have recently upgraded out servers to SME server which is red hat based, the administration is a breeze, can be adjusted using a web gui.

Sure Linux is daunting to learn but if you sit down and break stuff and get to grips with the basics it is a very powerful operating system and it's free so why even complain?

DevilWAH

NightShade03 wrote: »

This is EXACTLY the point I'm making! It shouldn't be for home/small business but for larger enterprises because it has features that are better than Red hat. I wouldn't run a minimal Redhat/Centos because honestly everything I like to test out I can never get packages in the repositories for on Redhat. I don't want to waste my time hunting down dependencies.

But it dosen't have better features. It just has more installed by default. All the things like Cloud computing and all the rest are things that are easy to find for almost any distribution if you need them.

Take for example grid computing that I am doing a lot with at the moment. There is very little pre packaged stuff around for unbuntu. It's all read hat and Debian. And the real hard core boys wh ouse this stuff day in day out, will tell you not to bother with UNBUNTU as you wont find the support for it. No one wants to use it becasue they all want a clean simple sytem to build on.

UNBUNTU is a bit like windows, it included every thing stright out of the box. Which is perfect for home / small buisness.

But if you are building up a web server you don't need all the other little bits. And if you are a webhosting company with 1000's of web server you dont want either the proformace cost or the security issues of all this extra stuff. Now you could do a UNBUNTU minimual install or another distribution minimual install. but in both cases you are losing much of what makes a distribution unique.

Yes UNBUNTU has cloud computing but it it not the best on the market, and if you want to use the better ones you find you have to install from source. However take some of the other main stream distributions and you will find repostitories with packages for many different solutions making testing much simpler.

I can tell you the Debian repositories are far far better than the unbuntu ones.

NightShade03

DevilWAH wrote: »

But it dosen't have better features.

Let me clarify. I should have said more developed. For example the Gnome package that Redhat/Centos uses is waaay behind the version Ubuntu is on. The way the boot process works in ubuntu with upstart is a more developed, and as such offers slightly better boot times. Things like ext4 being the default in Ubuntu but Redhat is still on ext3 (there isn't that much of a difference). So really not necessarily *better*, just more developed. It also helps that Ubuntu has a 6 months release cycle while Redhat is clearly off track with their 18 month release cycle.

DevilWAH wrote: »

I can tell you the Debian repositories are far far better than the unbuntu ones.

Agreed.

DevilWAH

NightShade03 wrote: »

For example the Gnome package that Redhat/Centos uses is waaay behind the version Ubuntu is on.

See many LINUX admins would say to this... "but we would never install this on a server".

The only Linux system I run with a desktop installed are my desktops, and this is what I feel about UNBUNTU, many people moan about windows being bloted and a system hog, with lots of bugs becasue it has so much built in. So I jsut worry that UNBUNTU will go the same way, became a bloated distribution rather then the streamline OS that is one of the big callings of LINUX.

NightShade03

DevilWAH wrote: »

See many LINUX admins would say to this... "but we would never install this on a server".

That's circumventing the point I was making. I would never install it either, but that means for the 5% of people out there that do want a GUI we should leave them with something that looks like crap and probably full of bugs bc the devs are too lazy to update given that 95% of admins don't use it?!

DevilWAH wrote: »

The only Linux system I run with a desktop installed are my desktops, and this is what I feel about UNBUNTU, many people moan about windows being bloted and a system hog, with lots of bugs becasue it has so much built in. So I jsut worry that UNBUNTU will go the same way, became a bloated distribution rather then the streamline OS that is one of the big callings of LINUX.

Couldn't agree more.

Hyper-Me

DevilWAH wrote: »

many people moan about windows being bloted and a system hog, with lots of bugs becasue it has so much built in. .

Those are the same people who bitched about wanting Windows to have more features. They want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Considering how much code and feature set there is in Windows 7 x64, i find it way more stable than OSX or any build of Ubuntu i've ever used.


@Nightshade & Msteinhilber - Admittedly Nagios was the best of the cop and leagues ahead of the others, but there were still some things that i just didn't like about it. Perhaps that could be chalked up to a "Windows" mentality.

Zenoss is "meh" and OpenNMS just makes me want to stab my eyes out.

NightShade03

Hyper-Me wrote: »

They want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Don't do it...the cake is a lie....

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Considering how much code and feature set there is in Windows 7 x64, i find it way more stable than OSX or any build of Ubuntu i've ever used.

I could see where you are coming from on this, particularly if you are heavy windows user. If you took the time to install Ubuntu, load any special drivers, and customize your kernel, I think that you'll find Ubuntu to be just as solid and stable. Be that as it may NO ONE that is just trying out linux or coming from a Windows background is going to do all that so I agree with you in that out-of-the-box Windows 7 is very stable.

That's what is great about IT though we could each implement different systems with different setups and still achieve the same results!

DevilWAH

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Those are the same people who bitched about wanting Windows to have more features. They want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Really? I would disagree with that statment.

I still use windows as my main desktop PC's and would still suggest every one does for the very reason you say. For a singel install it has a massive amount of features.

But for people who have some Linux experince and are prepared to take the time to set it up, a minimual install with only the services required is far stabler and streamline on a LINUX box. It is also far more secure, (or has the potential to be) not becasue LINUX has less exploites than windows. line for line of code I bet they are about the same. But with a minimual install you simple have less lines of code, both to be exploited and to go wrong.

and in many ways I find Linux has the same benifits of the CISCO IOS, the changes you can do on a live system with out need to reboot or fear of failer are staggering. One of the webservers I have has never been rebooted since it was first powered up, thats from the moment I put the debian install CD in teh bare metal system and was about 11 months ago..

It's quite sad, really I was never a Linux fanboy, but having started to use it over the last year or so, I can't belive the value for money (or lack of money). It does require more knowlage to set it up, but there are massive benifits for taking the time.

I hope UNBUNTU does bring it in to the home, about time windows had some good compertision.

Hyper-Me

NightShade03 wrote: »

If you took the time to install Ubuntu, load any special drivers, and customize your kernel, I think that you'll find Ubuntu to be just as solid and stable.

Thats another thing, though. There should never be that much effort required to get a desktop OS the way you want it.

I think Linux has a undeniable value in the server realm and appliance realm, but im not totally sure it will ever make any decent inroads into the desktop space.

DevilWAH

I was just reading today about the downfall of microsoft. and OK the article was a bit OTT I admit.

But it was interesting and in many ways correct. more and more we are seeing things like the IPOD, Android OS, CROME OS... in fact most of us are more than happy to use different operating systems when it comes to phones. And more important with the younger generation they are happy to switch between OS on the fly, PC one minute, IPOD the next, Android phone, Nokia phones... OS's for phones is the fastest growing area in the market and one that Microsoft is almost absence from.

The old stumbling block to LINUX that it was "different" is becoming smaller and smaller. The new generation are no longer scared of Linux, even the admin staff in out company are happy to use UNBUNTU with out training. OK they are only using open office and browseing the web but what more do they need to do. Managemnt have even considered rolling out UNBUNTU to office staff. In the current economic state when over in the UK we are being asked to make 30% cuts, a free OS is something you don't over look.

UNBUNTU is not going to replace the desktop for any hardcore gamer, but for the general office worker who only need the basic office apps, its a viable alternitive.

mikedisd2

NightShade03 wrote: »

Be that as it may NO ONE that is just trying out linux or coming from a Windows background is going to do all ...

I'm working on it.

Bl8ckr0uter

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Thats another thing, though. There should never be that much effort required to get a desktop OS the way you want it.

No offence but that sounds very lazy on your part (if you are talking about yourself).

earweed

Let's not start a

Bl8ckr0uter

I'm serious though.

We are IT pros because we like Technology and we want to make money. If I have to do a little research to make an alternative technology work then so be it. It is why we get $$$ and why we have jobs. Lots of things about Ubuntu are point and click easy so that "Oh it's to hard" it 100% BS. I mean just simple things like flash and drivers are WAY easier with Ubuntu. It took me like 1 hour to get flash working on my fedora main.

Sorry if you read my comment earlier. My mind is in another place and my wife isn't home yet..... But anyway. Give it a shot lol guys. Actually don't so there will be less linux admins in the world and more jobs for folks who want to get into it (like me) lol.