Aardvark

[Bruce Simpson]

This column is archived at: http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2009/0622.shtml

Now I'm pretty impressed with Ubuntu Linux, especially as a server platform.

But there are still some rather strange choices made in respect to the install process and I have to wonder why it wouldn't install from the boot menu but would once loaded as a "live session" from the CD.

And, why tell me that either the CD *or* hard drive has an IO error -- why not tell me which one it actually is?

It's this last 1% which stops Ubuntu from being something I'd truly recommend as an XP replacement - but they're close, damned close.

And if it's a server you're looking for then it's no-contest. Linux would win hands-down.

How many Aardvark readers are yet to try Linux?

If you haven't tried it -- why not? Surely you've got an old PC or two stuffed away in the wardrobe you could use to try it out.

If this lowly Celeron 600 has enough guts to make Linux usable then why not try it on your old machine?

[linw]

My experiences with Ubuntu have not been good. I have had chronic install problems as well. The latest attempt did work OK, for a while. I was trying it out when all the services seemed to stop one by one till I had to reset it. I just can't be bothered anymore!!

[Hopefulone]

Well, I try it every so often and the last time was about 6 weeks ago. I put on my 5 year old notebook. I really like it however it doesn't have the driver support of Windows and it's not as real world friendly. For instance, there was no ATI driver for the 9600 Mobility graphics adapter, so had to the the generic linux one. My printer (Canon MX700) just wouldn't work and there was no driver available anywhere. I could get MS Office 2007 running under Wine, but it was slow as a dog (pretty much like OpenOffice under Windows). Yes, I know you can use OpenOffice and it works pretty well under Linux, but if someone sends me a document for review and it has been done in Word with lots of fancy formatting and graphics, then OpenOffice just won't hack it. There was also a fonts issue in Office 2007 under Wine, so after a week or so of toying with it all, I gave up and headed off to microsoft.com to download Windows 7. Works pretty good too.

[Online Gamer]

Not running Ubuntu on anything, but I am running Slackware 12 on a P3 1GHZ as my private mailserver and web.

I do way to much other stuff to use Linux as a client

I have another P1 133Mhz as a file storage server running stripped down version of Redhat 7.2

I see no need to try Ubuntu at the moment because these are working fine. Also going by Grandpa's advice...
"If it works, don't * BEEP! * with it"

Cheers

---

[BruceNZ]

Ubuntu's package management system uses dpkg and apt, possibly Debian's best contribution to the open source world. I can understand why Redhat did what they did with RPM, but in my 10 or so years of use I have found dpkg/apt/aptitude to be better at dependency resolution that RPM/YUM.

As an aside, "Low and behold"? Shouldn't that be "Lo and behold"?

BruceNZ

[Bruce Simpson]

[Planky]

I've been running Ubuntu on a Pentium 4 (2Ghz) with 1GB of RAM. Never had a problem with the menu install, or install from the LiveCD enviroment.

My main problems with Linux in general is troubleshooting problem software. It took me three hours or so to get LAMP properly working on the above PC (still have problems with it serving flash files) - websites would tell me to edit a config file in one location (which wouldn't make a difference), only to find an identical file in another location which did. The errors returned usually need a software engineer to be able to decipher - if it werent for the fact that linux forums are filled with people asking for help with the same problems, I'd never get anywhere with it.

Edit: Also, one bug I always seem to encounter with Ubuntu is where everything stops functioning - you can click menus, minimize/maximize apps, hover over something and get tooltips, but if you click a button or shortcut, nothing happens. Even clicking the shutdown button doesn't display anything. Only way around it is to hit reset. Wouldn't even begin to know what to do to trace the cause of that one.

[Eythian]

A couple of things:

They're trying to do something about that 'last 1%' problem at the moment: https://launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts.

With your video, the way they do it is "if your video card reports that it supports the basic functions, enable video effects. If it's determined to be lying (more common than you might expect), blacklist it until it's worked around in the drivers." So, if you file a bug detailing your video card, it may be that they have it blacklisted by default in the next release. Or, in an old computer like that, it might be slightly dodgy video memory. That will also explain the visual noise on mode switch (note: they're hoping to get rid of the mode switch in the next release I think)

Dependency resolution is pretty much standard across the board, and has been for years now. We (Linux users) are kinda sitting here wondering why the other OSes haven't cottoned on yet, instead shipping large bundles that contain un-updateable libraries (and so, no centralised security patching)

[Eythian]

[Planky]

[Eythian]

[Grumpy]

I have been thinking of testing Ubunbtu for some years now, so recently cleaned the crap out of a retired PC (circa 1998) installed Ubunbtu 8.10 and it runs like a charm. Version 9.1 is supposed to be an improvement, and I have downloaded the iso, but am happy with 8,10 and the continual flow of updates. As Bruce says, downloading new programs is a piece of cake. BUT.......unfortunately I have had little success with the MS Windows simulators for running some essential programs I have and work with daily that do not have Linux equivalents or have been ported to Linux. So I will have to keep up the XP OS (which is very stable here) for some indefinite time in the future. However, that having been said, I like Ubuntu very much.

[greven]

Your WinXP computer probably just has a faulty hard drive or faulty RAM. If you burn a couple of bootable diagnostic CDs to find out if it is one of those 2 things, I'm sure somebody near you will have some second hand parts they can spare.

As for the multitude of passwords, it is easy to back them up if you use firefox. I back up my whole firefox profile to a flash drive, but you can back up only the password files if you want.

[Eythian]

[JetBoy]

I'm embarking on a similar mission this week, having just installed FedoraCore10 on a P3 / 256M along with crossfire to handle the applications that have to use MS.

I have previously used FC4 and Mandriva a little but they were rather unstable.

Memory requirements are a nuisance given that 256M ram used to be fine on WinXP until SP2 and even worse SP3 came along. I'm currently faced with getting more than the current 512M for my XP machine.

Jeez most of the time I'm only browsing, and i used to do that OK on a Mac with 4 Megs Ram where the OS used less than 2 and the browser took a Meg. If it wasnt for the changes to the WWW and Javascript and the way TCP/IP was handled I'd still be there.

What I'm saying is ALL the current OS seem to take on a whole lot of stuff that we dont really need and the only result is slow internet and obsolete machines.

Ralph

[Eythian]

If you'll pardon a little evangelism, many regions have mailing lists and meetings for discussions on Linux stuff. A complete list can be found at linux.net.nz. I don't know about the other ones, but DunLUG is a pretty informal get-together over a couple of pints each fortnight, and is a good place to ask questions or just chat about whatever you're interested in.

[Peter]

Here is an interesting take on the OS debate - it confirms what many have been predicting, for many users the OS doesn't matter because they live in their browser.