Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
The User Experience
Now that we’ve had a chance to go over the various features of Ubuntu and its included applications, we can get to the burning question: how is it?
In a nutshell, my own experience with Ubuntu has been that it’s capable of meeting 95% of my daily needs, and 75% of my weekly needs. Outside of the lack of the ability to sync my iPhone (which again is Apple’s fault), on any given day I did not need to boot up Windows. However in any given week I would need to boot in to Windows upwards of several times to run various Windows programs that don’t work under Wine or have a doppelganger for Ubuntu, not counting Windows games which also required booting back in to Windows. The result was that there was more dual booting than I would have liked, but it was acceptable.
What worked best for me under Ubuntu were the most common tasks, which makes sense given Ubuntu’s focus. We’ve already hit on how great Firefox is under Ubuntu, but also music playback, email, and word processing worked well. There was never any point where I felt like I could absolutely not accomplish something related to these tasks when using Ubuntu. However with that I will put the disclaimer that I didn’t find Ubuntu to be significantly better at any of these tasks – it was merely good enough.
If this sounds boring, it is. There’s not a lot to be said about otherwise mundane things that work well. Windows and Mac OS X could do these things, and so could Ubuntu. The distinguishing factor here really isn’t functionality; it’s that all of this was free.
In many situations Windows would still offer a better experience than Ubuntu. Sometimes this is a more polished GUI, as it is Ubuntu often looks like an orange version of Mac OS 9 (the bad Mac OS). Other times this would come down to professionally developed programs having an extra feature or two that while not critical, were nice to have. There are numerous little things like these that still keep Ubuntu well-separated from Windows and Mac OS X.
One item where I feel Ubuntu failed in particular is CLI use, which was a condition I outlined earlier. I wasn’t able to avoid using the CLI under Ubuntu, in fact I didn’t even come close. Some of this comes down to the fact that user generated support often uses CLI commands in lieu of instructions for dealing with the GUI, and in other situations such as mounting ISOs and installing video card drivers the situation was completely unavoidable. These are correctable problems.
Along those lines the default configuration of Ubuntu leaves me scratching my head. For example, Ubuntu has a file indexer and search system ala Windows Search and Spotlight. For whatever reason this indexer is not enabled by default and as a result it’s quite easy to miss. By the same token Compiz defaults to not using v-sync, which means windows will tear when moved. This is something hardware accelerated compositing specifically exists to solve. These items, along with finding a way (any way) to install the Microsoft Core Fonts by default so that the font disparity no longer exists would make the initial experience a better one.
The biggest negative influences in the Ubuntu experience were the items we listed under Things That Went Wrong. It’s easy to pick at things that don’t work, but these also happen to be the things that drove me out of Ubuntu for that moment. Meanwhile the biggest positive influences come down to Firefox and Totem. Neither is perfect, but as I discussed in their respective sections they’re great programs that are much better than the default programs found with Windows and Mac OS X.
Overall I found the Ubuntu experience to be decent, but not spectacular. Next to any issues listed out above, there’s a general lack of killer applications. As a result unless you specifically value the fact that it’s free (in either sense of the word) or the security benefits of it not being Windows, then there’s really nothing there that makes Ubuntu compelling compared to Windows or Mac OS X.
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apt1002 - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link
Excellent article, thank you. I will definitely be passing it on.I completely agree with superfrie2 about the CLI. Why resist it?
Versions: I, like you, originally plumped for Hardy Heron because it is an LTS version. I recently changed my mind, and now run the latest stable Ubuntu. As a single user, at home, the benefits of a long-term unchanging OS are pretty small, and in the end it was more important to me to have more recent versions of software. Now if I were administering a network for an office, it would be a different matter...
Package management: Yes, this is absolutely the most amazing part of free software! How cool is it to get all your software, no matter who wrote it, from one source, which spends all its time diligently tracking its dependencies, checking it for compatibility, monitoring its security flaws, filtering out malware, imposing sensible standards, and resisting all attempts by big corporations to shove stuff down your throat that you don't want, all completely for free? And you can upgrade *everything* to the latest versions, at your own convenience, in a single command. I still don't quite believe it.
Unpackaged software: Yes, I agree, unpackaged software is not nearly as good as packaged software. It's non-uniform, may not have a good uninstaller, might require me to install something else first, might not work, and might conceal malware of some sort. That's no different from any other OS. However, it's not as bad as you make out. There *is* a slightly more old-fashioned way of installing software: tarballs. They're primitive, but they are standard across all versions of Unix (certainly all Linux distributions), they work, and pretty much all Linux software is available in this form. It never gets worse than that.
Games: A fair cop. Linux is bad for games.
GPUs: Another fair cop. I lived with manually installing binary nVidia drivers for five years, but life's too short for that kind of nonsense. These days I buy Intel graphics only.
40 second boot: More like 20 for me on my desktop machine, and about 12 on my netbook (which boots off SSD). After I installed, I spent a couple of minutes removing software I didn't use (e.g. nautilus, gdm, and most of the task bar applets), and it pays off every time I boot.
Separate menu bar and task bar: I, like you, prefer a Windows-ish layout with everything at the bottom, so after I installed I spent a minute or two dragging-and-dropping it all down there.
GregE - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I use GNU/Linux for 100% of my needs, but then I have for years and my hardware and software reflect this. For example I have a Creative Zen 32gb SSD music player and only buy DRM free MP3s. In Linux I plug it in and fire up Amarok and it automatically appears in the menus and I can move tracks back and forth. I knew this when I bought it, I would never buy an iPod as I know it would make life difficult.The lesson here is that if you live in a Linux world you make your choices and purchases accordingly. A few minutes with Google can save you a lot of hassle when it comes to buying hardware.
There are three web sites any Ubuntu neophyte needs to learn.
1 www.medibuntu.org where multimedia hassles evaporate.
2 http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Jaunty">http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Jaunty the missing manual where you will find the solution to just about any issue.
3 http://www.getdeb.net/">http://www.getdeb.net/ where new versions of packages are published outside of the normal repositories. You need to learn how to use gdebi installer, but essentially you download a deb and double click on it.
Then there are PPA repositories for the true bleeding edge. This is the realm of the advanced user.
For a home user it is always best to keep up to date. The software is updated daily, what did not work yesterday works today. Hardware drivers appear all the time, by sticking with LTS releases you are frozen in time. Six months is a long time, a year is ancient history. An example is USB TV sticks, buy one and plug it into 8.10 and nothing happens, plug it in 9.04 and it just works or still does not work, but will in 9.10
Yes it is a wild ride, but never boring. For some it is an adventure, for others it is too anarchic.
I use Debian Sid which is a rolling release. That means that there are no new versions, every day is an update that goes on forever. Ubuntu is good for beginners and the experienced, the more you learn the deeper you can go into a world of software that exceeds 30,000 programs that are all free in both senses.
I look forward to part 2 of this article, but remember that the author is a Linux beginner, clearly technically adept but still a Linux beginner.
It all comes down to choice.
allasm - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link
> I use Debian Sid which is a rolling release.> That means that there are no new versions, every day is an update that goes on forever.
This is actually one of the best things about Ubuntu and Debian - you NEVER have to reinstall your OS.
With Windows you may live with one OS for years (few manage to do that without reinstalling, but it is definitely possible) - but you HAVE to wipe everything clean and install a new OS eventually. With Debian and Ubuntu you can simply constantly upgrade and be happy. At the same time noone forces you to upgrade ALL the time, or upgrade EVERYTHING - if you arehappy with, say, firefox v2 and dont want to go to v3 because your fav skin is not there yet - just dont upgrade one app (and decide for yourself if uyou need the security fixes).
Some time ago I turned on a Debian box which was offline/turned off for 2+ years and managed to update it (to a new release) with just two reboots (one for the new kernel to take effect). That was it, it worked right after that. To be fair, I did have to update a few config files manually after that to make it flawless, but even without manual updates the OS at least booted "into" the new release. Natuarally, all my user data stayed intact, as did most of the OS settings. Most (99%) programs worked as expected as well - the problematic 1% falling on some GUI programs not dealing well with new X/window manager. And had no garbage files or whatever after the update (unlike what you get if you try to upgrade a winXP to say WinVista)
Having said all that, I 100% agree that linux has its problems as a desktop OS (I use windows more than linux day-to-day), but I totally disagree that using one OS for a long time is a weak point of Ubuntu.
P.S. one thing i never tried is upgrading a 32 bit distro to 64 bit - i wonder if this is possible on a live OS using a package manager.
wolfdale - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
A good article but I have a few pointers.1) More linux distros need to be reviewed. Your "out of the box" review was informational but seemed to more in-tuned with commercial products aimed for making a profit (ie, is this a good buy for your money?). I, for one, used to check AnandTech.com before making a big computer item purchase. However linux is free to the public thus the tradeoff for the user would now be how much time should I invest in learning and customizing this particular distro. Multi-distro comparisons along with a few customized snapshots would help the average user on deciding what to spend with his valuable time and effort.
2) Include Linux compatibility on hardware reviews. Like I said earlier, I once used AnandTech.com as my guide for all PC related purchases and I have to say about 80% of the time it was correct. But, try to imagine my horror about 1.5 years ago when my brand spanking new HD4850 video card refused to do anything related to 3-D on Ubuntu. I spent weeks trying to get it to work but ended up selling it and going with Nvidia. Of course it was a driver issue but no where did AnandTech.com mentioned this other than saying it was a best buy.
Thanks for listening, I feel better now. I'm looking forward to reading your Ubuntu 9.04 review and please keep adding more linux related articles.
ParadigmComplex - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
When I first saw that there was going to be a "first time with Linux" article on Anandtech, I have to admit I was a bit worried. While the hardware reviews here are excellent, it's already something you guys are familiar with - it's not new grounds, you know what to look for. I sadly expected Ryan would enter with the wrong mindset, trip over something small and end up with an unfair review like almost all "first time with Linux" reviews end up being.Boy, was I wrong.
With only one major issue (about APT, which I explained in another post) and only a handful of little things (which I expect will be largely remedied in Part 2), this article was excellent. Pretty much every major thing that needed to be touched on was hit, most of Ubuntu's major pluses and minuses fairly reviewed. It's evident you really did your homework, Ryan. Very well done. I should have known better then to doubt anyone from anandtech, you guys are brilliant :D
Fox5 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
One last thing I forgot to say....Good job on the article. I (and many others) would have liked to see 9.04 instead (I don't know of anyone who uses the LTS releases, those seemed to be aimed at system integrators, such as Dell's netbooks with ubuntu), but the article itself was quality.
jasperjones - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I'd like to make one last addition in similar spirit. I appreciate this article as a generally unbiased review that covers many important aspects of a general-purpose OS.And just to be sure: I'm not a Linux fanatic, in fact, for some reason, I'm writing up this post on Vista x64 ;)
jasperjones - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
You're right that there are historical reasons that dictate that one Linux binary might be in /usr/bin, another in /sbin or /usr/sbin, yet another one in /usr/local/bin, etc.However, you really couldn't care less as long as the binary is in your path. which foo will then tell you the location. Furthermore, there's hardly any need to manually configure something in the installation directory. Virtually anything that can be user-configured (and there's a lot more that can than on Windows) can be configured in a file below ~ (your home). The name of the config file is usually intuitive.
But yeah, for things that you configure as admin (think X11 in /etc/X11/xorg.conf or Postgres usually somewhere under /usr/local/pgsql) you might need to know the directory. However, the admin installs the app, so he should know. Furthermore, GUIs exist to configure most admin-ish things (I don't know what it's in Ubuntu for X but it's sax2 in SUSE; and it's pgadmin for Postgresql in both Ubuntu and SUSE)
ParadigmComplex - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Again, if I may extend from what you've said:Even though it is technically possible to reorder the directory structure, Ubuntu isn't going to do it for a variety of reasons:
First and foremost, one must remember Ubuntu is essentially just a snapshot of Debian's in-development branch (unstable aka Sid) with some polish aiming towards user-friendliness and (paid) support. Other then the user-friendly tweaks and support, Ubuntu is whatever Debian is at the time of the snapshot. And while Debian has a lot of great qualities, user-friendliness isn't one of them (hence the need for Ubuntu). Debian focuses on F/OSS principles (DFSG), stability, security, and portability - Debian isn't going to reorder everything in the name of user-friendless.
Second, it'd break compatibility with every other Linux program out there. Despite the fact that Ryan seemed to think it's a pain to install things that aren't from Ubuntu's servers, it's quite common. If Ubuntu rearranges things, it'd break everything else from everyone else.
Third, it would be a tremendous amount of work. I don't have a number off-hand, but Ubuntu has a huge number of programs available in it's repos that would have to be changed. Theoretically it could be done with a script, but it's risking breaking quite a lot for no real gain. And this would have to be done every six months from the latest Debian freeze.
jasperjones - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I disagree with the evaluation of the package manager.First, there's a repo for almost anything. I quickly got used to adding a repo containing newer builds of a desired app and then installing via apt-get.
Second, with a few exceptions, you can just download source code and then install via "./configure; make; sudo make install." This usually works very well if, before running those commands, you have a quick look at the README and install required dependencies via apt-get (the versions of the dependencies in the package manager almost always are fine).
Third, and most importantly, you can simply update your whole Ubuntu distribution via dist-upgrade. True, you might occasionally get issues from doing that (ATI/NVIDIA driver comes to mind) but think of the convenience. You get a coffee while "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" runs and when you get back, virtually EVERYTHING is upgraded to a recent version. Compare that with Windows, where you might waste hours to upgrade all apps (think of coming back to your parent's PC after 10 months, discovering all apps are outdated).