One reason I don't think I would try Ubuntu

[mdg583]

Look at this: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-996781.html

Linux sure doesn't seem end-user ready. 6 users with a problem, but it seems like the chances of coming across someone with significant knowledge of a problem or how to deal with it is slim on Ubuntu forums.

[rliegh]

The last entry on that thread is from November, 2008.

PLEASE tell me that you didn't just go trolling through the Ubuntu forum archives looking for crap to b???h about over here on the FreeBSD forum:stud

[Brandybuck]

One thing I notice about Linux "support", is that you have to sift through reams of garbage to find the right answer. If you aks a question several dozen newbies will give you the wrong answer. Very frustrating.

[ale]

One thing I notice about Linux "support", is that you have to sift through reams of garbage to find the right answer.I agree with you.
And I often have to append -linux or -ubuntu when I'm searching with google something about FreeBSD using terms that could be related to linux too (but it doesn't always obey me).

If you aks a question several dozen newbies will give you the wrong answer. Very frustrating.Or maybe the answers are all correct, but one for $DISTRO_X_V1 another one for $DISTRO_X_V2 another one for $DISTRO_Y_V1.....

[rliegh]

That's why I usually include the terms 'FreeBSD' or even just 'BSD' to my searches. I guess some people prefer to go for the positive, and some for the negative...

[waterstof]

One thing I notice about Linux "support", is that you have to sift through reams of garbage to find the right answer. If you aks a question several dozen newbies will give you the wrong answer. Very frustrating.

I cannot agree with this. More and more local Ubuntu forums are coming up. At the moment I know 2 fora in Dutch. On one of these I only have positive experience. I can't say I have had lots of wrong answers made by newbies.
But I can imagine that this is the case on the global, "official", ubuntu-forum, with > 750.000 members.

[kamikaze]

One thing I notice about Linux "support", is that you have to sift through reams of garbage to find the right answer. If you aks a question several dozen newbies will give you the wrong answer. Very frustrating.Just like here. I've come across a number of wrong answers in this place. I've probably given some myself.

What bothers me here is a lot of arrogance displayed towards the Linux communities. It's one thing to think such things, but quite another to go public with that elitist bullshit.

[oliverh]

There is no "elitist bullshit" just bad behaviour or in words: "the wrong phrase". It's a fact, but then it depends on the community. If you're dealing with e.g. Gentoo or Slackware users you will see much more experience as in such a "young" and desktop oriented community like Ubuntu. But there is nothing wrong with it or how would you cope with beginners? Hide them? There are some FreeBSD people who don't like this forum because it's a place for beginners according to their opinion and so on. You see, it's nonsense to yield such an arrogance - you gain nothing with it.

[hitest]

Each community contributes something to the overall growth of FOSS. It is a mistake to dismiss a group of users.

[meeb]

Each community contributes something to the overall growth of FOSS. It is a mistake to dismiss a group of users.

fullack

[Pushrod]

Each community contributes something to the overall growth of FOSS. It is a mistake to dismiss a group of users.

I think in a lot of cases, that growth is as desirable as a goiter. I remember going to FreeBSD 8 years ago simply because I got sick of trying to choose a distro, and then trying to find docs for it.

A guy at work was setting up Ubuntu on a spare machine, and all I saw was a Windows imitation desktop.

[fronclynne]

Linux sure doesn't seem end-user ready.
Be nice. Based on a quick perusal of youtube, I'd have to say that neither are skateboards, cars, or raccoons.

[hitest]

A guy at work was setting up Ubuntu on a spare machine, and all I saw was a Windows imitation desktop.

Well, it is still FOSS, no matter what the desktop looks like. Lots of shiny GUIs for the novice user is okay. Later on if the user is so inclined they can take a look beneath the hood. ("Hey, what is this terminal prompt thing?")
I think that making the user interface windows-like is brilliant marketing on Ubuntu's part. We may not like or use it,but, Ubuntu is very successful.
I think that as more people use different non-proprietary OSs it'll help to raise awareness about FOSS in general. Curious people will continue to gravitate towards challenging OSs.
We have a dedicated user base; FreeBSD will continue to grow and flourish. :-)

[Brandybuck]

Only in the *Nix world do we complain that our new Open Source automobile is a ripoff of Ford because it has a steering wheel, dashboard, accelerator and brake, just like Ford. "Why can't Open Source auto manufacturers innovate?" is the common complaint.

[oliverh]

Because FOSS doesn't define itself via money but quality. "It's better ..." you know :D

[estrabd]

I use xubuntu on my work lappy, but that was because a year and a half ago FreeBSD didn't support the wireless card. I think it does now, and I am thinking hard about switching - all of my towers run some version of FreeBSD.....but yeah, Xubuntu ain't that bad - especially with dwm, though most days I'd rather use Xfce4.

[mdg583]

Yeah, I guess I was just saying Linux & freebsd are nice for people who are willing to try to learn details, etc. But the shift to a system that 'just works' is a big one. And Ubuntu has grown so much in popularity they must have a huge number of new or very inexperienced users compared to more experienced users.

[fonz]

Whether you love or loathe Ubuntu, imo you have to admit that in many cases it "just works" out of the box and for the user who dislikes Windows but doesn't want to invest too much effort into getting things working that's a big plus.

I'm not a big fan of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/I'mOutOfBeerBuntu but I'm realistic enough to see why people may like it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm posting from a laptop running FreeBSD so I'm ok, I'm just playing the devil's advocate here ;)

Alphons

[kamikaze]

I've seen a couple of Ubuntu systems. None of them worked out of the box.

[fonz]

I've seen a couple of Ubuntu systems. None of them worked out of the box.

The ones I've seen so far did, but then again one's mileage may vary...

Alphons (doesn't like Ubuntu anyway)

[jemate18]

I use Ubuntu for my home PC.... so far, it does what is expected for a home pc that is used by the members of the family with ease and comfortability.

On the ubuntuforums.... There are a lot of similar threads and people keep posting it over and over again, making it hard to dig information. But to give credits to the members that do hardwork and spent time on solving problems, 2 THUMBS UP and more power...

[rliegh]

I've seen a couple of Ubuntu systems. None of them worked out of the box.
Define "worked". I have to install proprietary drivers to get wireless and NVidia to work; but I'd have to do the same under FreeBSD -plus edit /boot/loader.conf to get sound. To me, Ubuntu works better out of the box than does FreeBSD.

Speaking in general terms, I'm relatively experienced as far as it goes -I first tried Slackware in 97 or 98, and FreeBSD in 99. These days I use Ubuntu because it requires the least amount of F*ng with, and applications tend to have the least amount of "gotchas" I've found with other distros. Not to mention that as far as virtualization goes --Linux is much more mature (it has Xen, VMWare, Parallels, KVM and Qemu/Kqemu -FreeBSD only has Qemu and an alpha quality KVM).

I'm not an IT pro; but I'm not a drooling point-and-clicker either, and unless I'm bored and F*ng around, I'm probably running Ubuntu or maybe Solaris because I can slap a CD in the computer and have a stable, running system with the apps I use. (why do I bother with BSD? It's smaller, faster, and more coherent, not to mention easier to build from source -I'm just waiting for the apps and wireless drivers I need to appear on it :))

Wanting an easy-to-use-out-of-the-box experience doesn't make one a moron, it just means that you've got better things to do than chase down trivia on google or in man pages.

[oliverh]

>Wanting an easy-to-use-out-of-the-box experience doesn't make one a moron

Of course not, but you don't learn anything and in the end you will have more problems as the one who solved 'some trivia' in the beginning. It's like school, you will experience the real use of something you have learned maybe sometimes later.

[waterstof]

>Wanting an easy-to-use-out-of-the-box experience doesn't make one a moron

Of course not, but you don't learn anything and in the end you will have more problems as the one who solved 'some trivia' in the beginning. It's like school, you will experience the real use of something you have learned maybe sometimes later.

FreeBSD worked out of the box too for me.:e

[rliegh]

>Wanting an easy-to-use-out-of-the-box experience doesn't make one a moron

Of course not, but you don't learn anything and in the end you will have more problems as the one who solved 'some trivia' in the beginning. It's like school, you will experience the real use of something you have learned maybe sometimes later.
You reach a point where it's no longer learning, however -it's just mindless jumping through hoops (eg -it's 2009; there's no reason I should have to edit anything to enable sound. FreeBSD is the only OS that requires me to do so, Solaris, NetBSD and OpenBSD don't).

Not everyone who uses Ubuntu is new to computers -or even Unix, and a lot of us just simply want to get crap done -"end of" as the kids say.

[meeb]

assuming i understood what Oliver said: If you are forced to enable sound, usermount... you'll earn knowledge which will help in further. Thats not bad.

[rliegh]

assuming i understood what Oliver said: If you are forced to enable sound, usermount... you'll earn knowledge which will help in further. Thats not bad.It's good to know how to do these things, yes. But just because someone doesn't want to worry about taking those steps doesn't mean that they don't know how.

[oliverh]

>But just because someone doesn't want to worry about taking those steps

I don't have to do any trivia while installing FreeBSD. There is a handbook and manual pages, I do my installation in almost no time. So what? You have your very own personal experience and I have a different one. FreeBSD is K.I.S.S. and it has got a excellent documentation, I have to build by very own environment and guess what? I like it :-) Maybe you should try PC-BSD or DesktopBSD. Guess why there are Linux distros like Slackware, ArchLinux or Gentoo? Because there is demand for it, demand for customization, demand for an operating system with a small footprint after the installation, to build the environment you want afterwards. Many people don't want a full blown environment, just to cut out unnecessary or wrongly configured parts afterwards.

>doesn't mean that they don't know how

Experience shows most people don't have a clue and they will not do any better with Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora etc. pp. if something fails - exception proves the rule.

[hitest]

Guess why there are Linux distros like Slackware, ArchLinux or Gentoo? Because there is demand for it, demand for customization, demand for an operating system with a small footprint after the installation, to build the environment you want afterwards. Many people don't want a full blown environment, just to cut out unnecessary or wrongly configured parts afterwards.


QFT! I prefer to use an OS that is fast, stable, secure, without a lot of overhead. That's why I use FreeBSD and Slackware. :-)

[fonz]

Not everyone who uses Ubuntu is new to computers -or even Unix, and a lot of us just simply want to get crap done -"end of" as the kids say.

Right said. For instance: during the process of switching from Slackware to FreeBSD on my laptop, I needed a PC to fall back onto (i.e. keep some backups and do some basic stuff) while I was installing and still am tinkering with my new FreeBSD box. That's why I slapped Ubuntu on there. I instantly had a machine that can do everything I need it to do at the moment without having to spend time getting it to work. Time that instead could be (and has indeed been) spent configuring FreeBSD on the laptop. I'm still ticking things off my TODO/TOFIX list as we speak :beergrin but I am where I am now because I didn't have to first spend time getting that PC going.

Once I'm finished configuring the laptop I'll probably install FreeBSD on the PC as well and set it up as a server, but that's something for later and in the meantime it just does what I want it to do, thanks to Ubuntu.

I wouldn't want to have to use Ubuntu for everyday work and/or getting serious shit done, but imho there's definately a place for it.

Just a thought,

Alphons

[oliverh]

>I instantly had a machine that can do everything I need it to do at the moment without having to spend time getting it to work.

I have a working machine with Slackware in 5-10 minutes, even faster if I use backups of my configuration. People used to the configuration (aka learning) are able to this in the same time without any backups - especially in Slack there is almost no need to compile anything. When do people realize that Ubuntu will not fit everyone in the universe? Vice versa this is true for every distro/operating system available.

Apart from that, I'm using FreeBSD on one machine since several releases without reinstalling it. How many times did you install your "easy" distro? I don't deny the need of systems like Ubuntu for _some_ people, but many people are able to use different systems effectively too without lengthy installations and configurations. A good administrator knows how to avoid circular tasks (therefore we're using computers), this is a technique you can learn.

[jannehh]

Don't know if this is the smartest way to post my first message on this forum but here we go...

I'm going to repeat a lot of things said already here. I have two old laptops and a desktop. One of the laptops is running Xubuntu and it just works. I can let my wife and kids have their way with it and they're happy. I did have some trouble with Xubuntu on another machine and finding help was pain: read literally ten answers to the question I had saying no it can't be done, then few saying yes you can but giving instructions that didn't work in my case untill finally managed to find the one correct answer. There was also another time when the first forum search gave ten correct answers.

I was very glad to notice that two (out of four at the moment) of my kids go to a school with only one Windows workstation, rest is all Ubuntu.

The other laptop is running FreeBSD and it is for my personal growth. I hope it will make me a good person one day. Before that day, I think I will learn a lot. I already have learned a lot but so far it's been from the documentation and other people's forum questions, which is why haven't posted here before.

Oh and this here old desktop runs OS X. Been brainwashed to this OS in my work with print media.