Re: [BLUG] My Ubuntu/Linux bitch

Mark Krenz wrote:

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 07:58:50PM GMT, Joe Auty [joe@netmusician.org] said the following:   

I like Ubuntu, and I like Linux (especially on the server end of things), but we are so incredibly far away from the "year of Linux on the Desktop" it's sort of laughable.      

   That is funny.  I laugh everytime someone says year of Linux on the desktop because I've actually been using Linux as my sole desktop on all my computers for something like 8 years now. The last 5 years of which have been really great with no major issues and all the applications I need. And Virtualbox ensures that I'll always have a solution for running Windows easily if anything special comes up (not often).    

Yes, but you are an uber geek :)

The whole "year of the Desktop" proposition has always implied (to me) that it would be the year of the Desktop not only for geeks like ourselves, but for the masses. Linux is very far away from being consumable by the masses, at least using Ubuntu as a metric... See monitor management, getting sound to work, video, etc.. Then, you have the whole category of usability which is a little hit and miss, in my opinion.

  Does that sound familiar to anyone?  I hear those exact complaints about Linux and people think its Linux, but its not, its simply lack of familiarity. For me, Linux works in a predictable way. And when it breaks, it usually breaks in a way I understand and can easily fix.  If it doesn't, I can easily get at the internals to fix it and often searching for an error message on Google reveals the solution. And the solution usually works.  I usually have my workstation running for 30-60 days before I have to reboot.  Usually I end up breaking things because I try to do too much, like foolishly trying to run some huge scene in Blender that requires several GB of RAM.    

Consider yourself lucky. I'm struggling with kernel errors such as "NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0 (via-rhine): transmit queue 0 timed out" that render my ethernet useless, and "Clocksource tsc unstable (delta = -285503362 ns)", neither of which Grandma has a fighting chance of figuring out.

Both of these are new to Ubuntu 9.10 for me, so I don't necessarily fault Linux as a whole for this, but if Ubuntu is supposed to be the most user friendly of the bunch, this does not bode well. These are not obscure problems that are triggered doing obscure things, I'm not running anything unusual, and both are pretty random and unpredictable.

  As for Mac, I can't say anything about the Mac Mini I have because it hasn't really broken on me yet.  Its actually pretty nice and I respect Apple for making something better for the consumer. But there are still some things that you have to do from the terminal in OS X. Unless someone knows how to mount a samba filesystem through the GUI (without installing some 3rd party app).  OS X will be my mistress OS.    

I'm not a Mac fanboy, but let me reiterate my original plea: Ubuntu needs some Macifying in terms of getting things to "just work".

--
Joe Auty
NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
http://www.netmusician.org
joe@netmusician.org