Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

[silver_arrow]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

Hi Everyone,


Thanks for your time.

Actually my purpose in starting this thread was to point out the short-commings of the development process U(K)ubuntu teams are employing. I made clear statements regarding this.
It's definitely place for improvement.

I do not expect such problems to be solved overnight... But a more focused approach in solving the issues this Linux Distro faces will be welcomed. This is my point of view finally.

Why release a new version when the previous one has still problems?... After all no market pressure is on these developers, isn't it? They could take their time and sort out all pending issues. This will make this Linux distro even more respected.

We can't blame indefinitely other hardware manufacturers holding their designs regarding their wireless chips, etc.
If you go on Broadcom's web site you'll see they posted a SDK for Linux, one of them is Debian based, so it's good for U(K)ubuntu also.

There's also this issue in promoting a more organized developer community and interest them to do even more.
How can be done this? Simple I would say:
- Please sit down, think and come with a minimal business model.

From these money just hire a development team to do the job in an organized manner having development standards, etc. This will improve a lot the quality of the distribution.
There's one guy here who said I need Windows... If I nedeed Windows I would come here? I am searching for an alternative os and I am interested about Linux a lot.

But...should we live with the same hardware and configurations nightmares from version to version?
Common people...see the facts... People are very excited about Linux but once you get in these situations you simply look back at Windows or Mac and you say:
- Wow, man, that works there and at least on these os's I don't loose nights to configure my os...

Simple judgement my friends... You want to succeed you must deliver a no brainer installation and configuaration os
A little bit of maturity in these issues is required. This geek type of attitude it doesn't sound well with a Linux distribution which wants to be the best out there.

Time to grow and live up to expectations...which finally you setup...otherwise people will grow tired of these issues and will go away from Linux.


All the best to you,
Silver Arrow

[javierrivera]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

Why release a new version when the previous one has still problems?...

Errr... that exactly the point with Ubuntu. Latest software Debian based.

I really believe that you are completely lost. What you are looking for is called Debian Stable.

We can't blame indefinitely other hardware manufacturers holding their designs regarding their wireless chips, etc.
If you go on Broadcom's web site you'll see they posted a SDK for Linux, one of them is Debian based, so it's good for U(K)ubuntu also.

Yes we can. It's quite easy in fact .

What is impossible is to build drivers for each hardware bit in the world without manufacturers help.

There's also this issue in promoting a more organized developer community and interest them to do even more.
How can be done this? Simple I would say:
- Please sit down, think and come with a minimal business model.

Yes, it was true. You are completely lost here.

Most of the distros out there have a business model. Some of them are even making quite a sane quantity of money.

Can I tell you a secret?. Mark is expecting to recover all those millions that he is pumping into *Ubuntu . And yes, he has a plan.

From these money just hire a development team to do the job in an organized manner having development standards,

Errrrr.... most linux distros are doing this for years.

People are very excited about Linux but once you get in these situations you simply look back at Windows or Mac and you say:
- Wow, man, that works there and at least on these os's I don't loose nights to configure my os...

Much more hardware "just works" in linux than in Mac.

Simple judgement my friends... You want to succeed you must deliver a no brainer installation and configuaration os

We already did succeed. Linux is not some strange future promise. It's the most used server so on the internet. It's used in 90% of the world biggest supercomputers.

OSS is a success, it's in the heart of every os on the world. It power most of websites...

And a linux installation and configuration is no-brainer when you have supported hardware. Much easier than windows.

This geek type of attitude it doesn't sound well with a Linux distribution which wants to be the best out there.

It's not a geek attitude. It's just that you came here saying things that where nice ideas 15 years ago (distros should have a business model, developers need to be paid).

If this was slashdot I'd say:

RTFFAQ.

Nothing new here, move along.

Javier.

[silver_arrow]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

Javier,

I have not come here to antagonize with anyone, to make that clear.
But I will ask you few simple questions:
1. If everything seem so fine in Linux land why all these serious problems, especially on the hardware compatibility side of it?
2. If there's a business model behind this distribution how come we see for every release the same issues all over again?
3. You say Linux is a success on the server side. Partially, let me tell you. Last time I had a project for a major financial company I've seen Sun Solaris and IPlanet, Weblogic, etc...
4. As far as I remember the acceptance of normal folk, will promote this os. I also happen to remember that on the Linux Server (which is an offspring of Unix after all) you don't need a GUI...isn't it?
5. How do you want Linux to get accepted by the wide business community and normal user with such issues it displays from quite some time?

What you don't want to see from my postings is that the first level of excitement should have passed from long ago...
You set goals for this platform, you promote it as the best, etc... you must live up to your promises.
I am trying to tell you and others, that when you want to become important then you must be careful not to dissapoint, simply because people are expecting to deliver on that promise.

That's not to say, that there was no progress. It is... but with a lot of PR which doesn't get supported by the reality of everyday usage, especially by the normal user. I am really amazed to see so many people answering in this thread, being in state of the denial of the current issues this distribution faces.

Is this the appropriate attitude to have when someone raises valid concerns?
Last time I remember, criticizing for a good reason it brought reflection and finally some progress, whether is about an os or human being things must be analysed and solved.

On the other hand I don't think you ever can compare Linux with Mac... Windows with all its mightier dominance can't beat Mac on desktop and the quality of its products. This being said I have a question:

- To which segment of the market Linux in general wants to get sold and accepted?
1. Corporations?
2. Normal Folk?
3. Education?

See, until these strategic things will not be sorted out, Linux will suffer of a lot of zealot type of attitudes and kind of answers I got here... If there's no focus on a particular market segment how do you want Linux to succeed?
A proper, orientation toward a certain market segment will also drive the requirements of this os, that's the point I am trying to make here.

You'll see in time, that many of these distributions will disapear since they have no focus on a particular market and neither a decent product strategy. I predict the following:
1. There will be 2-3 big distributions which will survive.
2. There may be other small ones trying to "make it"...
3. If Linux will become "a serious business" and one of the major companies will bring some innovative technologies in this platform, paying hard their developers, naturally they would like to preserve their investment and their lead
How do you see this situation, because there's no serious licensing model in which a significant intellectual property would be protected in this case.
Why such company would give for free their fruit of intelligence and lose the profit they could have earned rightfully to others which have practically not contributed.

Finally this will happen, because is normal to get your share of the market, thrive thru your own work and merits and finally pay your bills and education of your children in a world which gives nothing for free in the most important aspects of life.


All the best,
Silver Arrow

[Bongo5HH]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

I just did a Linksys USB 54G adapter with this chipset the other day. It is non-trivial with ndiswrapper, but there are howto's out there that work. I had to do an ifdown/ifup, but then it took off. How do I know to do that, I imagine that I read it along the way in a book or on a forum like this. It can be frustrating, but don't blame the developers. Kubuntu is the best distribution I have used and the support on this forum (and the Ubuntu forum) is a big piece of that. If you want to get your wifi working, search first then start a thread and I will share what I learned.

Thanks. I haven't given the install of the WiFi card an "honest" go on Edgy yet. Too busy. I will likely take you up on your offer. It would be great to have the laptop mobile again.

I agree with some of the more reasonable posters above, any Linux Distro needs to pick an audience and solve all (or as many as possible) problems for that audience. That's the key to success in whatever enterprise you undertake. Why would releasing an OS be different?

Some people think of Ubuntu as a huge success now. And in comparison to much of it competition it is. However, it's not "main stream". No matter how many Linux machines my info travels through to get to the server this Forum is operating on it doesn't change the fact that I'm typing from a Windows machine (at work). And nearly everyone else on the net is interfacing with the Net through Windows machines as well.

As Linux becomes more mainstream (and I believe it will) more hardware support will come from the manufacturers.

Until then Linux Distros ought to be wise. IE - what stops the Kubuntu team from making a page of all the supported hardware and include solutions for special cases? Imagine if a user could come to the main website and have all his hardware questions answered = from sorry there's no way it's going to work right to stand on your head and hit Alt-Tab-F6 17 times then say "Kubuntu" REALLY loud and it will work.

Imagine if the popularity grew because new users had the info they needed, and imagine if people bought hardware based on it's support in Kubuntu....

Seems so simple to me. Of course it's not.. I'm not nearly "simple" enough myself to believe the problems can all be solved so easily.

[Freddan]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

Here you go.

http://www.linuxcompatible.org/compatibility.html
http://www.linux-tested.com/

/// Freddan

[Freddan]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

1. If everything seem so fine in Linux land why all these serious problems, especially on the hardware compatibility side of it?

Hardware manufacturers seldom wants to release all of their secrets and inventions of there bleeding edge hardware, and it's not that easy for a kernel developer to make a driver with no real info about the card. When a hardware company does release a driver for GNU/Linux, they WILL make it with a proprietary license and distros with a open source minded philosophy, won't use it. (Debian, Ubuntu and many more). Other stuff as mp3 support, cant be used due to legality problems mainly in US I think :-). If you would have payed for your distro, that wouldn't be a problem, but you got Kubuntu for free so learn to live with it or go buy yourself a copy of SUSE.

Ubuntu is thinking of implementing drivers for nvidia with the next release though, and on that day Ubuntu won't be free (as in freedom of speech) anymore :-(.

2. If there's a business model behind this distribution how come we see for every release the same issues all over again?

"Linux" isn't made by Canonical! If you having problems with some (for example) app in KDE, it's not Linux or Canonical fault. If you having some trouble with for example your wifi card, don't blame developers from Canonical or even developers of the linux kernel, blame the company behind it. Canonical cant be everywhere and fix everything, small steps.

3. You say Linux is a success on the server side. Partially, let me tell you. Last time I had a project for a major financial company I've seen Sun Solaris and IPlanet, Weblogic, etc...

Ehh, Gnu/Linux is a success on the server side, especially web servers. Just cause you have seen some other operating systems, doesn't mean that GNU/Linux isn't doing good.

4. As far as I remember the acceptance of normal folk, will promote this os. I also happen to remember that on the Linux Server (which is an offspring of Unix after all) you don't need a GUI...isn't it?

I don't know where you are heading with this, but as Linus Torwalds himself said about Linux in the business world. "Thats nice, but it doesn't concern me". We aren't fighting about peoples desktops with Microsoft, Linux isn't even on the map. If you want a free Windows to play your games, pirate one!

5. How do you want Linux to get accepted by the wide business community and normal user with such issues it displays from quite some time?

Thats nice, but it doesn't concern me.

/// Freddan

[javierrivera]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

I have not come here to antagonize with anyone, to make that clear.

Nor did I. I just came here to try to help users.

But I can't hide I do enjoy some level of flaming on the net .

1. If everything seem so fine in Linux land why all these serious problems, especially on the hardware compatibility side of it?

Most of the hardware manufacturers, the only ones that can do it, don't bother about linux. They didn't even test their products with it.

You know, where manufacturers are interested in Linux, it works out of the box.

2. If there's a business model behind this distribution how come we see for every release the same issues all over again?

Errrr... I fail to see any connection between business models and issues . Windows has lots of issues and is a hell of a business model.

Ubuntu is not yet a successful business model, but Red Hat or Mandriva are. Both have issues, but they must be doing something right to keep clients paying.

3. You say Linux is a success on the server side. Partially, let me tell you. Last time I had a project for a major financial company I've seen Sun Solaris and IPlanet, Weblogic, etc...

Of course, Linux is not a monopoly on the server side. But it powers more than half the web server of the world (check netcraft). It's on more than 60% of the world supercomputers (top500.org).

Only that is a big success for me. Add the routers, the database servers...

4. As far as I remember the acceptance of normal folk, will promote this os. I also happen to remember that on the Linux Server (which is an offspring of Unix after all) you don't need a GUI...isn't it?

No. It's all about what you serve. You need GUIs sometimes.

5. How do you want Linux to get accepted by the wide business community and normal user with such issues it displays from quite some time?

I don't expect Linux to get accepted by any business experimenting those issues. Linux grow in the desktop should start in places where it's more capable than windows.

I am trying to tell you and others, that when you want to become important then you must be careful not to dissapoint, simply because people are expecting to deliver on that promise.

Well, them just don't make false promises or start false hype, like all the hardware problems can be solved with a business plan an developer organization. It can't. We've been there. We've been unable to do that.

Last time I remember, criticizing for a good reason it brought reflection and finally some progress, whether is about an os or human being things must be analysed and solved.

Yes. Criticizing is good and necessary. But presenting the old issues again is boring.

On the other hand I don't think you ever can compare Linux with Mac...

Of course I can .

Linux is technically wayyyyyyyy superior to Mac OS/X.

Performance wise even windows is better. And both support much more hardware than apple.

For me the only interesting thing in Macs is design.

- To which segment of the market Linux in general wants to get sold and accepted?
1. Corporations?
2. Normal Folk?
3. Education?

Linux is an OS. It doesn't want anything.

If you mean companies selling linux or linux support like Canonical, Red hat, Mandriva, Novell, Oracle... each one has his own segmentation, and usually different products for each market.

If you are asking about Linux as a "comunity"... each one of us has his own secret goals .

If there's no focus on a particular market segment how do you want Linux to succeed?

You fail to understand anything. Linux is not a company. It's a free OS.It has no single owner, no single purpose.

Lot's of people own parts of linux code. Each one has his own reasons and goals. Nokia for example, submits code to the kernel to have an independent OS for his embedded devices.

Again, if you talk about the companies that sell linux, most of them have clear targets (specially the ones that succeed, understanding success as earning money).

A proper, orientation toward a certain market segment will also drive the requirements of this os, that's the point I am trying to make here.

You still don't understand what linux is.

1. There will be 2-3 big distributions which will survive.

Old prediction. Probably it's never going to be true.

2. There may be other small ones trying to "make it"...

Of course.

3. If Linux will become "a serious business" and one of the major companies will bring some innovative technologies in this platform, paying hard their developers, naturally they would like to preserve their investment and their lead

Please define "serious business". Red hat has reported 278 millions revenue, and 79 millions in income last year.

Maybe that is not serious to you. But it's well above what I make in a year, and quite serious for me .

You know, most of the people that work in Linux are getting paid.

I mean, it's not that you don't have a point with all that "business models" and that. It's that you are more than 10 years later.

And please, remember, linux is not free, it's FREE. There are lot's of companies earning money from OSS. And lot's of successful business models.

Javier.

[Freddan]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

You fail to understand anything. Linux is not a company. It's a free OS.It has no single owner, no single purpose.

Linux isn't anything but a kernel that powers a free os. Linux wouldn't be anything without GNU, therefore GNU/Linux is the right term ;-).

Hehe Javier you said...

But I can't hide I do enjoy some level of flaming on the net Wink.

So I just had to. /// Freddan

[javierrivera]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

Hehe Javier you said...

But I can't hide I do enjoy some level of flaming on the net Wink.

So I just had to. /// Freddan

XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

+10 Funny .

Javier.

[Fintan]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

silver arow is right in one point. there is room for developement. and the directionn this thread is taking proves the point. No real solutions and blatent banter. Lets just go on and continue keeping this forum one the most prductive and helpfull places in the linux community.
cheers
f

[btrigg]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

I think everything that should have been said already has been but, like most people, I just can't seem to leave it alone.

Let me preface this by saying I am basically a Linux n00b. I've been running some form of Windows since v3.1.1 (DOS before that) and have only dabbled in the Linux realm. Kubuntu is my third shot at trying to learn/use/develop Linux and it's going to be my last. Here's why:

I may be a Linux n00b, but I am not "just another end user". I'm good with computers. I have a piece of paper that says so.

I've always dinked with things, trying to learn more and more. I have installed, over the years, several different OSes. My first Linux install was Slackware on an IBM Aptiva in '98. The X on that kind of looked like an old Atari 2600 game. In fact, it wasn't worth it. I gave up. A few years later, I read about KDE, so I thought I'd give that a shot and installed (in the loosest sense of the word) it on top of the Slackware that was just sitting there doing nothing. It worked great...aside from the video looking like it was a special effect from The Ring. So I gave up.

Last year, I thought I'd try Linux again. I looked around at the various distros and found Gentoo to be the one most likely to succeed on my 5 year old Compaq Presario (P III, generic everything). It installed, but not easily. I've blocked out most of the memories, but I do recall it took over 2 days to go from beginning the install to actually having a working system.

And I wasn't just installing Linux. I was installing Win95, Win98, Win2k Pro, and Win XP on other boxes. It may sound like I really love installing OSes, but frankly I hate it. It takes forever and it never works right out of the box. Drivers are invariably missing, devices are detected incorrectly (or not at all), and there is always a bunch of crap that is loaded along with it that needs to be cleared out and then something else depended on the thing you just deleted and the pain never ends until you just say, "This is good enough."

So I was fed up with Gentoo because, while it looked great, I kept having to emerge stuff. So I'd come home, do my daily emerge and then work on my Windows box because at least they emerged stuff for me.

So I thought I'd give this Linux stuff one more try - why not, right? I found Ubuntu, liked what I saw, downloaded the LiveCD, fired it up and....

it worked.

It worked on my old beat-up Compaq that didn't have the latest, greatest equipment. Hell, Win2K was even dying on it. Corrupt profile. That sucks. More OS work for me.

So I installed it. Took a couple hours, but that's nothing new (I went grocery shopping while Win2K was being installed and it wasn't done when I got back). And it still worked. I had this slick OS loaded, pain-free, and everything worked. I could even browse my network. Better yet: I could switch, at will, the gdm. I tried Gnome, didn't care for it, and so I went to KDE. I use Gnome from time-to-time, but it's not really striking my fancy yet. Maybe it will someday.

The point is that Linux is an OS. That alone should speak volumes, but to break it down to a basic level: it runs everything on the box. It's not just running some GUI. It's controlling all the I/O. It's managing memory. It is scheduling and running processes; communicating with the processor and all the other chips that take input and provide output. It makes sure that every single bit that gets flipped gets flipped correctly and handles things (as best it can) when they don't.

In short, it provides you with a computer that you can actually use.

I had problems upgrading to Edgy too. It told me that it failed twice during the install. So what?

I paid $0 for it.

And...it still works.

I am a happy, Edgy, Kubuntu user.

PS - Thank you to everyone who develops this stuff. I've tried coding a simple proxy server. System programming is convoluted and dangerous at best. Nice job. Keep up the good work.

[Bongo5HH]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

Kubuntu is free.

Thank you to the Kubuntu team. You have not done your work for my thanks I'm sure - because if you had you likely would have contacted me for said "thanks".

Kubuntu is still a "product" which is being positioned to hold an amount of market share. The price it is offered for is meaningless.

It would hold more market share if it were easier for new users to get just a few things working.

The fact that some users are happy with it is wonderful. I actually am glad it meets your needs. I am in fact very happy with Kubuntu myself (or I wouldnt' be using it) BUT there are things that keep me from suggesting it to people. In fact I wouldnt' "suggest" Linux to anyone I know personally.

If even at the great price of "Free" I can't feel comfortable recomending a product to people there is an issue - a glarring one. Either I'm an idiot, or the OS isn't ready.

Actually, if you look at the OS and related Open Source software, Linux has saved me a great deal of money. But it has cost me much more time than that money was ever worth. I'm "in" now... so I'm staying. But having my time back I it probably would have been wiser to just stay with Windows and buy the software I needed for another year or two.

[TheDarkSavant]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

Amusing. Truly amusing.

The only REALL problem I'm having with Kubuntu/Linux is that I keep installing something stupid, like a new theme from KDE-LOOK, and suddenly Kicker doesn't work. I find out I didn't have KBFX installed, and that caused the theme instalation major problems. Almost all the problems I had were my fault.

Kubuntu is the first distro/OS that auto-detected ALL my hardware correctly from the start. Not even Windows could do that. The problem I had with hardware was installing the graphics driver, because the GUI messed it up, but simply editing the xorg.conf file made all the difference.

Another issue is that a lot of computer illiterate people are starting to use Linux because we brag it's "Ease of use." Face it, Linux is easy to use, but you need to understand it's terminology. My dad didn't know what an X Server was, so when he tried out Debian, he told it to install a desktop environment, but he didn't want to make his computer a server, so he told it not to install the "Sound Server," the "X server," and any other "Server." This resulted in an entirely well made and sleek CLI based opperating system, instead of an entirely well made and sleek GUI based opperating system. When I told him what he did wrong, he didn't think I could be right about what I meant by servers was different from the Windows form of the word, meaning a computer that holds information for a network.

Just want to throw my experience in. I upgraded to Edgy on four computers. On two of them it went really badly and I basically had to reinstall. Being a Linux veteran, I've adopted practices that make reinstalls not so painful, but still, I would rather have avoided it.

On the other hand, Dapper and Edgy have the easiest wireless setup I've seen in ALL operating systems. My wife's XP box has wireless issues all the time, but my Edgy laptop just connects.

Also, Edgy is the first Linux distro I've gotten to connect to my work PPTP VPN. And I did it through a nice gui interface, so no chap scripts or pptpd scripts

My experience with configuring Kubuntu is the same or better than my experience configuring windows. And the Kubuntu wiki is much much more helpful than help I've gotten from Microsoft.

Just wanted to add my Linux experiences, since most posts tend to be negative.

[padre999]

Real Kubuntu User feeding the Hype



I don't get all this fuss.

I installed Edgy on three computers now (fresh installs, no updates) without any problems what so ever. I find it very stable and mature. I expected much worse after all the "bleeding edge" talk.

I know about the limitations that come with Linux, i.e. wireless support etc, but I learned to live with them very comfortably.

So, Kudos to everybody who contributed to this release. I think they did a great job and the hype exists for a reason.

The community is fantastic and I ended up using Kubuntu after lots of other distros before. I can say that the few times I go back to the Windows desktop I miss a lot of the neat features I find in Linux, and I find the MS OS rather tedious and patchy.

One thing that you should consider before starting such a thread is for how long you lived with Windows before, how much you are used to the way it works, and how much you measure other Desktops by what Windows teached you to be the right way.
It is not just a matter of putting another OS on your computer and expect it to do the same thing. It requires to learn a new way of working and thinking.

Just imagine you never used Windows before. Would working in the registry or having to update every single application, defragging, installing drivers, tweaking the system, entering registration keys, rebooting after every little change, etc make a lot of sense for you? It would also be quite hard to find your way and would require a lot of learning.
It probably took you years to master your Windows Desktop. Why should it be different now?

Don't use Windows as the reference model of computing, just see it as one way to do it.

[btrigg]

Re: Stop the Hype and Get Real -- To K(U)buntu Team

I have a prime example of the basic difference between Windows and Linux that happened just a few minutes ago. (Sorry. This horse may be dead, but I like beating it because I am STOKED about learning this stuff.)

On my Win XP Pro x64 box, I have had the "updates are available" icon sitting there for a while now. There are two updates ready to be installed. Have been for weeks.

I'm religious about applying updates, so when it first popped up, I told it to install and then bug me every 5 minutes until I rebooted. The updates failed. No reason. No way to figure out how to get them to succeed. Just a cute message saying something like: "Initializing update...........failed!" (I LOVE the bang).

Tried different things to get the updates to install. No luck. Never had this problem before and Microsoft's "help" isn't.

Fast forward to today. I switch over to Kubuntu and see I have an update for lighttpd. So I tell it to install. It fails. So I try it again and have it show the details. Turns out the config is wrong. So I sudo nano the config and it looks fine. Try to start it manually and it tells me that something is listening on port 80 (apache, I found) and that's why it failed.

So I change the port to 81 in the conf file (all I had to do was uncomment it -- nice), save it, start it, and it's up and running.

Feeling my power (it's ok...you can laugh), I decided to update via command line using aptitude.

It worked.

I can't do any of that in Windows; at least not as easily.

So now my Kubuntu machine is fully updated (with a new version of the OS) while my Windows box has a potential security hole.

Was this something I should have had to do? Probably not. But I'm the idiot who installed apache and caused the conflict in the first place. I'm also the one who fixed it and that alone gives me a great sense of empowerment and pride.

Yay me. 8)