Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx: A (free) Mactastic experience

It's an Operating System !!

Perhaps you should ask Microsoft why Office isn't available under Linux - after all it is under OSX which has more or less the same market share. As a relative new user of MS Office, I can tell you that I think it's somewhat overrated.

Perhaps you should ask Adobe why CS4 isn't available under Linux. And GIMP isn't quite as bad as you make it out to be - I'm a fairly serious amateur photographer and will often take images into GIMP for some serious tweaking after processing with Bibble Pro (I can actually spend money on applications!) and I don't find it useless at all.

There are plenty of Linux applications out there. Just because they don't have the same names as Windows applications and don't work quite the same way doesn't make them bad.

Never used it

Unetbootin FTW!

Tried it

Didn't see the point. After killing all the bling and making it useable, it's basically 9.10. No upgrade on this here machine. Crossgrade is still being considered, as well as wingrade.

Have you actuallly LOOKED at Ubuntu since about 8.04?

You have to look very hard to find /usr and /bin.

If you were to replace WinXP on your mum's laptop, help her configure the mail client and any "social" logins she needs, and show her where the Firefox icon was, she'd be fine. She might even prefer it.

re. strictly for geeks...FAIL FAIL FAIL with a side order of FAIL

If there is one thing that UNIX like OS's are *MUCH* better than MS, it is the consistent directory naming system.

Remember that Linux, like UNIX, is a multi-user OS, so all of *YOUR* files should be kept under *YOUR* home directory, not scattered across the *SHARED* part of the filespace. This is what makes it possible to have UNIX like systems share their userspace across a networked filesystem, compared with the absolute CRAP of roving profiles in networked Windows systems.

If you look under your home directory on Lucid (or mos of the earlier Ubuntu's), you will find a directory called Desktop, one called Documents, one called Music, one called Pictures, one called Videos and one called Downloads. They are all yours, and will never be interfered with by another user logging on using a different name. If you want more, just create them in your home directory with whatever names you like (I have a local bin and a local lib and a local tmp just for me, but then I am a dyed in the wool UNIX user).

This is one of the fundamental strengths, for as a non-privileged user, you only have write access to the files under your home directory, and a restricted number of temporary directories. So if (and when - even on Linux) you get exposed to some malicious code, only your files are at risk, not the system as a whole!

Erm... what?

First, I haven't had to do anything more complex than a few clicks to get a new app installed or recognise and format a new drive for the last eight years or so. There's very little that actually requires a complete reboot in nearly all Linux distros, unlike Windows... in fact I'd say, apart from the nonsense CLI stuff and the kernel recompile (and who ever needs to do that these days?), your post described windows more accurately than any Linux distro I've ever used. And how is restarting the gui worse than restarting the entire OS? Down and up in a couple of seconds vs waiting long enough to make a cup of coffee which, I suppose, would be a pain if you actually *wanted* that coffee.

What I'm trying to say is, you're full of it. :)

Troll alert! David Lawrence

I hope that this was deliberate flamebait!

The only reason I've had to do something like this in the last 5 years on Dapper or Hardy is when I have tried to get some hardware working when the vendor has not done anything to make it work under Linux themselves.

Remember, when you install a new piece of hardware on Windows, you have this nice shiny round thing with the hardware (it's called a driver CD), that the vendor has put a lot of work into to make it work in Windows. If they bothered to do the same for Linux, you would never have to touch the kernel. Try getting an HP printer working in Windows without the install diskette. It's nearly impossible if it is a printer Windows does not already know about.

For joe average, who wants to write documents, or browse the web, or even plug a printer in (unless it's a Lexmark - spit), everything they need is likely to already be in the distribution, or at least in the repository.

And claiming that you have to reboot twice is rich if you are coming from a Windows environment. Just installing a system from Windows media and the driver loads for XP will require you to boot your machine many, many times more for even Windows 7 than a recent Linux (just built a Windows 7 system over Christmas myself. Easier than XP by far - nearly as easy as the Lucid install I did on my workhorse laptop this morning!)

Go on, give it a try. Build a Windows and a Ubuntu system from scratch, and report back to the thread if you dare.

In a word, yes.

I installed Alpha 3 [yes, alpha] beside my Win7 RC install a month or so ago, manually set up the partitions, and forgot to see if there was an option to tell it to dual boot, and thought I had buggered it.

Nope, it saw the Win boot partition and compensated for it - I can dual boot without even having bothered to consciously set it up. Brilliant.

And I haven't had to use a terminal session for everyday stuff for about two years now.

Instead of attempting - and failing quite, quite badly - to be witty, why don't you try it, it's rather good - at least as good as the jump from Vista to Win7 in terms of "ah, that's a nice touch" moments.

It's been rock solid since A3 for me, and I'm going to download the finished ISO and throw it in my netbook later tonight with a beer [always the best way to install an OS IME]. Once I have remembered to back up /home/steven

Oh, and on a related note - to the mong crowing about /dev, /usr etc - you do realise that all your documents and app settings are installed in /home/$yourname - and all subsequent folders have friendly names, like Documents and Pictures. Another person who should really try a modern distro rather than just spouting the usual feckless, drivel of abject knuckledragging fuckwitttery.

I wouldn't describe myself particularly as a Linux zealot - I use Windows and OS X without a problem when I need to - but drivel is drivel, regardless of what you are spouting it about, and deserves exactly the same level of mocking derision where ever it is found.

Steven R

Fail to the intellectual rejects, but a Thumbs Up for Lucid - best every day distro so far IMHO.

Yes

Yes. go to administration and install software. Lot's to choose from. You can still open the console if you want to. It boots to a GUI in less than 10 seconds.

Eh?

Yeah, I'll hold my hand up and say that I do occasionally get my hands dirty installing the more exotic apps that I might want to run. But then I'm not an Umbongo user.

But, in their defence, I can say that it has been many years now since I've worked on any version of Linux where you absolutely, positively had to do stuff like that. In many ways, a lot of the more popular flavours of Linux, whether this, or my own Linux of choice, openSUSE, or Fedora or any other major player have stuck a lot of effort into making sure that the only way that you will actually need to "open a terminal session and type sudo anything_at_all" is when you want to, rather than when they want you to. The same goes for restarting, though a kernel update still needs it (but tell me a system where it doesn't!)

As for silly hat, funny dances and the like, that's very much your own business, but send a pic into the Reg when you do so we can all have a laugh!

Agreed, but...

I agree emulating Apple's look and feel would be horrible. I am one of those people who can't learn how to like OSX, no matter how many times I use it...

That said, at least in Linux you have a choice. Changing the theme is two or three clicks on the desktop, and it will look any old way you want. Try that on OSX...

Better still, there are at least 3 or 4 other distros which are bound to look the way one likes to begin with.