Kubuntu (Revisited)

[crank]

I mentioned this earlier and no one agreed or disagreed, or even noticed[no one notices me, must quit wearing this cloak] , but wouldn't it possibly make more sense for the linux community to try to coalesce around a limited number of distros, with more effort into standards-especially including GUI issues, many I assume able to be cross-distro applicable, stability, and an overall quality-usability-appeal? I don't know if this is naive-pie-in-the-sky, obtuse, overly optimistic, or even oblivious? With so many distros, it's a full time job to try to find one you like and can continue to like, how many of the ones we decide we like, we like because we prefer its array of bugs more than the next guys?

When I first tried OpenSUSE, I was quite impressed with its level of sophisticated tech, it was the first time I had exposure to the whole LVM thing which is really cool, and with the promise/prospect? of central management of the total package like firewall, servers, etc. Of course I could never get it to make nice, not at the level I needed, and I don't have enough experience to know when some of the bugs are not on my side of the screen. So I fall back as I said to kubuntu, and it's familiar quirks and problems, it does as much as I need

[Anupam]

Originally Posted by crank

I mentioned this earlier and no one agreed or disagreed, or even noticed[no one notices me, must quit wearing this cloak] , but wouldn't it possibly make more sense for the linux community to try to coalesce around a limited number of distros, with more effort into standards-especially including GUI issues, many I assume able to be cross-distro applicable, stability, and an overall quality-usability-appeal? I don't know if this is naive-pie-in-the-sky, obtuse, overly optimistic, or even oblivious? With so many distros, it's a full time job to try to find one you like and can continue to like, how many of the ones we decide we like, we like because we prefer its array of bugs more than the next guys?

Agreed with you on that. I have said this myself earlier too. There are so many distros to choose from. Although that's quite good in terms of variety, but, as you say, its really a job trying to find the distro which would work for you.

Although I don't use Linux, but I have always liked it, and worked on Solaris/Unix/Linux for sometime. And so, I follow the Linux forum quite a bit. I always see the Linux users constantly changing distros. I also see that newer versions of some distros are quite disappointing, and/or not stable. Like, earlier version of Mint was rock solid, but the latest version of Mint has not been so.

All this should not happen. For users who have become proficient with Linux, they can manage these things. They can move on to try other distros, and find one that works good.. but where does this leave the general users who want to use Linux as their main OS? They would want things to work out of the box, and the OS should be stable enough. Windows atleast gives you the stability, and does not give as much problems as Linux I guess. Of course problems occur on Windows too, but can be solved sooner.

Seeing the present Linux distros situation, its like, the attention is not concentrated.. its spread over a whole number of distros, with new ones being born constantly. While that is good that Linux keeps growing in numbers, but in terms of evolving into something mature, stable... is Linux there? This might be the cause why even after all these years, there are still less Linux users despite it being free.

Maybe if there were lesser distros and more attention given on achieving standards, and stability, and usability.. some kind of concentrated effort, then maybe Linux will move forward more rapidly, and strongly.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[MidnightCowboy]

I guess in a way it's much like media players and antivirus programs. Each develop a loyal following over time, some stick, but others branch off to pastures new.

Certainly the whole Linux distro thing though is getting a bit out of hand. Some of the forks are confusing enough to the Linux initiated so God knows what newbies or potential Windows migrants must think to it all. They also have such a wide support variation between hardware that you really never know if networking, sound or graphics are likely to work, or at least require jumping through a whole bunch of hoops to do so. Worse still, these things can vary after install no matter what you might have seen during a live trial session. Lastly, to cap it all, everything you've been enjoying perfectly for months can disappear with a single update. SUSE and Fedora amongst others have managed to wipe a lot of folks ability to connect via an update which is not very user friendly I'm now of the opinion that resisting updates is often the best policy. I've never appreciated either how immediately after install another 300+ MB of updates can be beneficial to what you've just done, but maybe there's no logic to these thoughts. Certainly I don't believe security updates to be anywhere near as important to Linux as they are to Windows.

As I said before, for my needs Kororaa is the best KDE distro I've found. That said, V15 if updated destroys my sound unless I boot into the old kernel. The latest V16 gives me no sound at all and I'm just not prepared to hunt for a bunch of extra driver components to suit whatever it is about my card this version doesn't like. I therefore reinstalled V15, switched off the updates and it's been 100% perfect ever since.

[Anupam]

Originally Posted by MidnightCowboy

Certainly the whole Linux distro thing though is getting a bit out of hand. Some of the forks are confusing enough to the Linux initiated so God knows what newbies or potential Windows migrants must think to it all. They also have such a wide support variation between hardware that you really never know if networking, sound or graphics are likely to work, or at least require jumping through a whole bunch of hoops to do so. Worse still, these things can vary after install no matter what you might have seen during a live trial session.

True.

I had the same problem when I last installed Mint on my old computer. I got the sound working after searching on Google, reading forum posts, and going through numerous pages, to finally get it to work. I am sure a non-technical person won't be able to do that.

I mean a simple thing such as sound got to work out of box.

After that, my webcam won't work. I tried searching for it, but I could not get it to work.

For a technical person like me, it can be fun initially searching for it all, and making things work... gives a sense of achieving something.. but, when you don't find solutions, and for every problem you have to go through various pages, and all hoops, you lose interest, and just move on.

The vendors are also to blame, because they do not make drivers for Linux... but well, think of it.. there are so many distros, each wanting to have their own package manager, and what not... how are they to follow everything?

[wdhpr]

Originally Posted by MC

Certainly the whole Linux distro thing though is getting a bit out of hand. Some of the forks are confusing enough to the Linux initiated so God knows what newbies or potential Windows migrants must think to it all.

I believe you have found the kernal of the problem (pun intended)
Not only do the major changes to well known and beloved distros befuddle the experienced linux users it has to throw a screw ball at the newbies. Perhaps an argument could be made that the newbie will learn Gnome3 or Unity desktops and find something like Mint Julia dated and hard to deal with. I somehow dismiss this notion because Mint Julia makes it comfortable for those transitioning from Windows. This leaves me confounded as to the strategy going into these new distros. If I was to guess, it may be a way to transition into the tablet technology which is starting to take hold in the computer market. From what I'm hearing Widows 8 will be geared into this kind of technology so I foresee another Vista like debacle in the works.

I'm finding Kubutu to be the easiest new distro to work with however I'm still using Mint Julia as my main OS. I see no reason to change to something just because its new. I will continue to try new distro's but Mint Julia will remain my work horse.

[Jojoyee]

There's a Linux version that works out of the box -- sound works, wifi works, 3G works, 4G works, camera works, video works, tethering works... And it's called Android. This is a Linux-based OS, but runs on smartphones and tablet computers only.

Win 8 will be used for tablet computers too as Windows Phone is only for smartphones. If so, then Windows has to compete with the Linux-based Android, apart from Apple's iOS.

Will it be one day that Android can be developed further to cover the desktop PCs as well to complete with Windows, Mac OS, and supercede all Linux distros which still can't take a big step forward to capture a good share in the PC market. A reverse take-over

[Remah]

+1 for that last thought.

[J_L]

Doesn't seem that unlikely with the likes of Windows 8 and Ubuntu Unity.

[Anupam]

Good thought Jojo ...

[crank]

Originally Posted by MidnightCowboy

...
Worse still, these things can vary after install no matter what you might have seen during a live trial session.
...

Just to add to this, my recent fevered experiences with numerous distros, with installs and reinstalls, I installed identical systems with identical additional programs, on the same identical hardware-just withing a day or so, and ended up in a very different environment, the only difference that I could see was the order I installed the new applications. I think this may explain so many head-scratching moments from the past.