At first glance, I thought that read Hardy _Heroin_ and started wondering what influence those Afghan poppy-growers had over Canonical.

Ubuntu is a great distro but I fear the release naming scheme, however attractive a few years back, must be causing embarrassment now. The recent alliterative pairings are struggling not to look laboured. Fawns simply aren't feisty; nor, as far as I know, are herons any hardier than most birds.

BTW, if M$ had adopted the same scheme, would Vista be Worthless Weakling or Woeful Wanker?

I, too, like Ubuntu, but I'm concerned that they are too focused with newness for it's own sake. I think they should focus more on making each version better, even including longer lasting, than the previous versions.

In terms of utility, I think a default Ubuntu is already on a par with Windows for most users. So why doesn't Ubuntu already have half of the desktops? I think the general problem with Linux is a cooks-first mentality, whereas most users are more like diners who simply want to enjoy a tasty Linux sandwich. They don't even want to be invited into the kitchen, though I think it's nice that the kitchen is open in contrast to the "We don't need no stinkin' health inspectors" kitchens at Microsoft.

I was rooting for Hungry Hippo myself.

"...would Vista be Worthless Weakling or Woeful Wanker"

Are you implying that we only have three more windows releases left (XYZ) before M$ go bust or something?

That problem being upgrading. Most other distros I've used have at least handled upgrading properly, allowing me to stick with basically the "same" install across versions. With Ubuntu, it's a crapshoot, and I really hate losing my extra stuff every time. A working upgrade path would do more than any of this "long-term support" (which actually means it'll get dropped like a dead baby the moment the next version comes out, and those foolish enough to run it thereafter will be constantly asked why they're not on the latest shiny version; I know this, because it's what happened to me with Dapper (and as an aside, it's not so bad if you only use half the daft name))

For all that, Ubuntu's still about the best out there. I weep at that...

Everyone seems to miss the point that these are only the dev names, just like vista was dubbed longhorn. The difference is that people seem to choose them over the final release (eg in fiestys case 7.04). Probably because it's easyer to comprehend than their rather confusing numbering scheme, and easyer to google for solutions to problems.

Here's bloody hoping!

I made the switch to 100% Ubuntu on my home PC back in April. Feisty (7.04) on a 64bit Semperon, so not a powerhouse, but more than enough for 95% of what I do. The other 5% is graphics and video editing.

I like Ubuntu and wish them well for the future.

"Heron will be the successor to Gusty Gibbon (version 7.10), which is due out in October 2007"

I think you'll find that's Gutsy Gibbon. Perhaps Austin was having illicit daydreams about Fistula whilst typing and experienced a Freudian moment :)

What's next .....

Iniquitous Iguana ?

Jaded Jackal ?

Kinky Kremlin ?

Lousy Lupine ?

...

..

.

Zesty Zebra

Good point about the windows versions, 'Zemmiphobic Zebra' is the best I could come up with.

With updates on Ubuntu, its not something that needs to be done religiously. Its not as though the thing is a heap of buggy bloated crap with stability and security a running joke, so updates are only really needed for packages where vulnerabilities have been found.

As for upgrading between versions, don't. After a few folks have done it and put detailed steps of how to get round any problems on the forums then it may be worth trying but as a rule it is better to have /home on a separate partition and do a re-installation. Apt can give you a list of every package on the system so you can pass the list back to apt after a re-install and have all your software back.

cheers

Joking aside, after trying many, many distros, I've settled with Ubuntu, largely because it's the 'Linux for the Masses' distro. I played it safe.

I'm sure that the vast array of distros is a double-edged sword - great for Linux powerusers who know exactly what they want - but for the novice, the array of distros is totally bewildering. Ubuntu is likely to do well here, as it has the feel of a large, organised and supportive community.

By the way, Ubuntu with Beryl makes Vista's "wow" look a bit silly.

Rampant Rabbit!

Ubuntu is definitely the best Linux distro if you just want to stick the disc in and get working. I was very pleasantly surpised when I stuck my Edgy Eft disc in and got a nice, clear, well explained graphical install. Certainly a step up from my Slackware 0.96 install I've got hanging around on a floppy.

However, their militant stance against non-open source packages meant I had to reinstall Windows and download a package for my ADSL chipset, then reinstall Ubuntu to get my broadband working. Bleeding pain :o(

I know there are licensing considerations to bear in mind, but if they put 2 packages up for download right next to one another (one the "clean" open source one, the other "tainted" drivers etc) and said DOWNLOAD THEM BOTH it would make life a lot easier. Especially if the installer went looking for the 2nd packgage and unpacked the relevant drivers for the hardware it found.

As it is some ppl will find it easy to get going, others will struggle to find out why their broadband/gfx card/bluetooth etc doesn't work.

Venerable Vulture?

Yakkety Yak?

Claiming that Ubuntu Linux is as useful as Windows is just wishful thinking. Most of the applications on Ubuntu are unfinished, buggy, badly documented, and have horrendous, offputting user interfaces. The ones with half-useable user interfaces are mostly just less-fully-featured clones of commercial software.

Don't you mean "I too like Ubuntu..."

I thought that you where going to compare yourself to Ubuntu on some way. "I, too, like Ubuntu work great on older hardware and am a big fan of brown pastelly shades".

I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but... Well, I suppose I am actually.

This post is below my current threshold.

Bwah, it's Friday.

Steve

For most people Ubuntu is at least as good as windows.

Think of the CPU cycles saved because you don't have MyWebSearch and all its cousins on your system.

Steve, no self respecting pedant would use the word "pastelly". Firstly because there is no such word, and secondly the correct word to use is "pastel".

"...unfinished, buggy, badly documented, and have horrendous, offputting user interfaces..." sorry...I drifted off then and started daydreaming about...what was it...don't tell me, I'm getting there...oh yes! Vista!

No, Ubuntu is not perfect, but if it weren't for the massive installed base, commercial investment and shady/monopolistic practices of M$ then Windoze would be dead in the water with a rival like Ubuntu 7.04. In a corporate environment it is manageable, stable and secure. For the novice domestic user with an average PC and an installation CD I'd be willing to put money on them setting-up a working on-line, secure machine in an hour with Ubuntu. Even with XP SP2 that's Bill Gates wet dream.

The problem that the anonymous poster above has ignored is also a fundamental problem with the Open Source community. Because the OS is free, people only look at the free applications.

There is NOTHING to stop commercial software providers from writing software that runs on Linux that needs to be purchased. The only barrier to this in the past has been the penetration of a particular distro reaching a critical mass for the software writers to notice. Ubuntu has a better chance of doing this that ANY other Linux distro to date!

When this happens (and this is a big when), expect equally high quality applications. I'm sure that most users do not really care what the OS is, but do about the availability of apps.

So, everybody. Install, enjoy and tell the world that you are a Ubuntu user.

I was holding out for the "Insane Iguana" version, or 'Perturbed Peregrine', but someone already stole my thunder...

Actually I'm using "Feisty Fawn" & "Dapper Drake" on two of my machines. Only peeve is running 64-bit "Feisty Fawn" on AMD X64 Athlon chip, I haven't yet gotten a Shockwave player to work right... which makes it annoying trying to view YouTube & other web content.

I think "Horny Hyena" would have been a much better choice...

Anyway, the semi-computer-literate blond bird (sorry if she sounds like a stereotype, but what can I do!? That's how she really is!) sitting behind me here in the lab had Feisty Fawn installed in her old laptop, and she is so happy with it. She still has it double boot just in case, but she almost does not use the Win XP partition anymore because she says it is "so slow".

Lucky me, the resident Linux "expert"... :-)

Comma splice bad

Blond = masculine, blonde = feminine. So I think you mean "blonde bird".

Blond bombshell = finding Hulk Hogan when you were expecting Ulrika Jonsson!

Wouldn't that be "Rascally Rabbit"?

Or should we wait for the W's to use Elmer Fudd's version?

"Are you implying that we only have three more windows releases left (XYZ) before M$ go bust or something?"

Don't tease me.

"Claiming that Ubuntu Linux is as useful as Windows is just wishful thinking. Most of the applications on Ubuntu are unfinished, buggy, badly documented, and have horrendous, offputting user interfaces."

I think you'll find that you're actually looking at Windows Fistula, er, Vista. Ubuntu is the one that works, and doesn't place "bling" ahead of function.

The only thing "offputting" about Ubuntu's user interfaces is that the user has a choice. I suppose if you are a ranking member of the Chinese Communist governmnet (or Bush's Cabinet), you might fidn that offputting. Personally, I like being able to switch from KDE Desktop to Fluxbox to Gnome at a whim. This is not Windows; this is a real Operating System with a choice of user interfaces, and a choice that's real, rather than a choice of "how bad do I want the performacne of this crappy toy OS to be today?"

It's an unfortunate truth, acknowledged by any realistic person, that most free software/open source applications, in comparison with commerical ones, are buggy, non-robust, have poor documentation, and have complex, difficult user interfaces. Add to this the problem of fragmentation of efforts, with many similar small projects duplicating each other's work, and a confusing choice of software of wildly varying quality for the end user.

Please note that I'm not discussing OS stability, I'm discussing end-user applications. Although Ubuntu initially looks like it is as easy to use as MS Windows, the reality is that a few experiences of "mystery bugs", unusable complex application interfaces, and endlessly crashing software will make average users end up frustrated with Ubuntu in comparison with MS Windows.

Also, core applications that people need a personal computer for, like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, are unlikely to ever have a Ubuntu version, and the creation of a realistic free software rival seems to be a long way off. There is OpenOffice, but If my experience of it is typical, saying that OpenOffice is competitive with Microsoft Office is more wishful thinking.

HAIRY HARDON ;-P

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=537710&page=5

In general, I found the open source apps listed in Ubuntu to be far more stable then any of their closed source counterparts in Windows. Not once, for example, have I managed to make XMMS (A mediaplayer) crash while doing things it's supposed to do (Trying to force it to read a DVD was entirely my mistake)

The User Interface might be a bit clunky on some apps and I must agree that documentation, while generally very complete, isn't the most friendly.

As for these "Mystery bugs", linux, unlike windows, actaully bothers to tell you what's going wrong and in some cases, even adds WHY it's going wrong. It's easy enough to look your errors up on the internet and find solutions, generally well documented and explained step by step so that even the users least experienced with the terminal will still be able to fix their problems.

Last but not least, on the field of OpenOffice. I doesn't yet have all the funtions of MS office, but it has all the important ones. Its spreadsheets lack a great deal of macro functionality because of the risk of abuse in those macros and OpenOffice has the further advantage of starting much faster then MS office.

Almost every time when someone talks about Ubuntu in public in the media they use these stupid f###ing names.

some people really need to be wired to a slice of angel cake (credit: Douglas Adams).

if the biggest problem with a leading desktop Linux distribution (that also does servers and long-term support) is the clunky release naming scheme, i think we have finally come up with a MS-killer.

not that Vista surprised me.

MS ditched the code base 60% through the development process (because it turned into a monstrosity even they couldn't sell), and baked the current form together in about 2 years, under the watchful eye of Allchin (kind of a Sauron analogy, yeah), then drop-kicked the result out the door, as Allchin quickly and fairly quietly retired from the company.

i was quite puzzled why anyone was disappointed by the result: a bloated, buggy WinXP 2 with fewer drivers, some tweaks and the Aero interface.

considering what the development process is like (the MS management and decision structure is, by accounts of former insiders, a hideous nightmare of bureaucracy and disfunction), getting thousands of code monkeys (for that is how they are treated, not being management) to fly in formation to produce those millions of lines of code, and do it well (code is efficient, maintainable, modular and functional, with few bugs), with no peer review or individual responsibility (it's all "teams" and committees in there), is simply absurd.

the Windows cycle will continue:

[1] release barely-finished, bloated software, without many of the originally promised features;

[2] patch this software for a few years to fix bugs and add functionality originally promised, retroactively producing some documentation in the process;

[3] paste together next bloated, unfinished version and put lipstick (or Aero, if you like) on it (don't call it a pig, please, you'll hurt its feelings);

[4] release with much fanfare and claims of revolutionary functionality, security and ease of use (duplicate some features competitors had for a while, that people really like).

MS has prospered this long thanks to the powerful human herd instinct. the company will likely continue to do well, as long as that instinct continues to trump rational thought and practical considerations.

Picnicking Penguin

firstly RE: "I'll bet they haven't addressed their real problem..."

This was address in 7.04 introducing the option to upgrade wholesale to a new version upon its release, although the system was a bit buggy I beleive it's been ironed out in 7.10

Secondly, no Ubuntu is not truly ready for mass use yet. I love Ubuntu, i'm running Feisty Fawn on my laptop and dual booting it with XP on desktop. But it simply isnt ready for home users, and the uneducated masses of office workers yet. 7.10 is addressing some of these issues by improving user interfaces for display settings (screen resolution etc.) and by the release of Hardy Heron I expect the major interface problems will be resolved.

But Ubuntu, and Linux distrobutions in general are not truly ready to compete with MS outside the server market yet.

I actually did my Computer Science Honours Degree on comparisons between the complexity of windows and linux, performing tests with users of different levels of experience. I found that even for users familiar with Linux, some tasks could take longer or be more difficult to perform due to problems or complexities with the interface.

6 - 12 months from now I see the situation being entirely different, Ubuntu will most probably have resolved all its major issues by then and be on a par with MS in terms of only having bugs that don't present a major hurdle.

To resurrect an old argument, is windows seemingly easier to use because people have used it for years more than Linux and are familiar, or because it truly is simpler?

Personally i believe the former- conceptually Linux should be simpler- especially when doing everything through a shell terminal session, as simply typing the name of an app and hitting enter should be simpler than pointing, clicking and finding on the windows Start menu.

To say Ubuntu is not ready for the home user is a little overly simplistic in my opinion- it works well enough on my home boxes and for more people besides.

You mention losing your added applications. When initially installing, have a separate partition for /home and add a directory for additional programs. Install to your home/directory. When you change distros, you still have the old stuff handy.

As for using the updater/installer such as Synaptics or Yum, it is simple to add the stuff you had on the old distro. And there will probably be some old programs you wanted to get rid of but had not gotten a roun tu-it. Problem solved.

Linux apps stability is for the most part better or at least as good as the M$ and third party apps. The Linux OS is superior to the M$ OS. And whether you can do something faster in a Windows app or Linux app is highly situational - it depends on what you want to do. Familiarity with the system used is a major factor in which is easier. The concept of Linux is User Choice, meaning that having multiple applications that perform essentially the same function is a good thing, allowing the user to choose what they like.

Example of user choice: While I have used and like most of the Ubuntu (and variants) usability, Ubuntu uses sudo to get to the root functions instead of the su + root password to get root functions. I do not agree with the Canonical justification for this difference from typical Unix/Linux functionality and therefore I use Debian 4.0 for this machine. As I said: User Choice.

"Ubuntu uses sudo to get to the root functions instead of the su + root password to get root functions. I do not agree with the Canonical justification for this difference from typical Unix/Linux functionality and therefore I use Debian 4.0 for this machine. As I said: User Choice."

While this is indeed the preferred method in Ubuntu, you can indeed just su yourself and perform admin tasks this way. I agree with Jim, in that I prefer to use su instead of sudo. Then you can just do all the things you set out to do and exit instead of issuing "sudo" at every step. Again, many ways to skin a penguin.

Open Source Code and Linux - Who pays the developers and distributors bills if its free? And do they mind taking the money off fellow programmers who like to earn a living for an honest days work?

If you really want to have a root console, just type

sudo -i

You will retain root access until you exit.

Simpler than changing distros.

Just edit the menus and turn on the System tools menu in which will be found a Root terminal. People really should explore a the shell a little (and that goes for Linux and Windows of all flavours as well as any other OS).