Linux Format forums

zarathustra · Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:14 pm Posts: 83

Well I finally came across a distro which solves 'all' my previous woes with my 64bit boxes. It's called Ubuntu, how bloody marvellous is this distro? On a scale of 1 - 10 it's an eleven!
My laptop was first, everything works, which blew me away as it's a pain in the a*** to install anything on let alone an os. My desktop came next, followed by the server, all hardware worked just fine......hence with a heavy heart my Debian proper platters went onto the nice to have but junk shelves.
What really surprised me about ubuntu is the gnome desktop it's lovely, stable and adaptable. Now this is quite a humbling feeling as previously i'd have said "I hate gnome!" *though not as politely Wink

Now I'm sold on it, way more stable and faster than KDE IMHO.
Oh and the install is so fast, thanks primarily to the kernel giving top support for basic hardware, viz it actually finds hard drives, or wait the better one than that, it finds the DVD from which it just frigging booted! *bloody suse and mandrake were terrible for this.
Anyways I just dropped in to say download Ubuntu, install it and you'll never look back.

regards zara..

Just one gripe, how the heck did ubuntu manage to get all 'special' keys working by default whereas I took hours to 'get it'? *was days really :/*

P.S. I'm using the 64bit version of 5.10 it's soooooo awesome Smile

crispibits · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 1:45 pm Post subject: RE: Ubuntu Rocks!

I know the feeling. I installed it on my laptop, and I was *almost* disappointed in fact that I didn't have to do anything after install - it all Just Worked (tm). My wireless card (rt2500) was detected, which is a first - and it used the 'proper' driver, not that horrendous ndiswrapper. I can't actually think of anything I did have to change. I'd say that the only slightly annoying thing is having to do extra installs to be able to compile stuff from source - but then Ubuntu isn't really aimed at that sort of person I s'pose. It does make me smile about Nelz's sig saying that Ubuntu is African for 'I can't configure Slackware'. I think my preference would be 'I have absolutely no need to configure anything'
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nordle · LXF regular Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:56 pm Posts: 1497

I tried ubuntu again last week, just for a few days, I still can't get on with gnome.
How do people get around their failesystems and interweb rapidly without tabbed browsing?
And how do you turn off that spatial crap, I made a logical guess it would be under preferences, but I couldn't see it.

I like having truck loads of options available to me a couple of clicks away, with gnome, it takes me longer to get around. So I installed kubuntu, pretty good!
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Marrea · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:20 pm Post subject:

nordle

To turn spatial crap on or off in Ubuntu 5.10 - System>Preferences>File Management>Behaviour tab, check or uncheck "Always open in Browser windows"

I think people either love or hate Gnome; likewise KDE. It's what you get used to I suppose.

I quite like Ubuntu myself.

sjeapes · Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2005 12:16 pm Posts: 7

I really like Ubuntu (despite some issues I'm having with Breezy). It's been a while since I haven't tried another distro, when I used Mandrake I was forever installing other distros to find a better alternative

I generally don't bother with Nautilus so the spatial browsing doesn't bother me.
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chiskop · Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2005 11:39 am Posts: 25

Nautilas and spatial browsing also sent me in search of Kubuntu. Which is great.
The disappointing thing about Kubuntu though, is the default blue theme, which makes it look like every other KDE distro.

I love the Ubuntu Humanity theme, it really makes the distro stand out - it looks great and makes me feel warm inside.

johndough · Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 7:50 pm Posts: 77

hi

awaiting 5.10 version, tried 5.03 and it was quickly replaced.

it installs fine, BUT...

in gnome i can never find find anything, and the only distro that has a config area is SUSE with YAST.

so i is a suse/yast/kde chappie.

some distros try, like fedora and mandrake, but dont have the twiddly bits, so they fall short.

fedora is far far better at hardware (usb plugin stuff) than suse ever has been, so i have an install of both;)

crispibits · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:01 am Post subject:

When you say you can't find anything, what are you looking for? The system->preferences/administration contains just about everything I've needed to look for.
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TheLiquidator · Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2005 10:31 pm Posts: 81

Hi

I have a PB Duron 700 Laptop with 384Mb Ram.Nothing too fancy in the hardware arena. I currently dual-boot Win98 with MDV 2006 Powerpack. However, I am finding MDV to be increasingly buggy and slower with each version. Am I likely to get a better result with (K)ubuntu? Can anyone who has done this move give me an idea of the main areas where I am likely to find differences (esp getting extra software like the mplayer pkugins etc.

Thanks

Ian

ggreaves · LXF regular Joined: Tue Apr 12, 2005 1:58 pm Posts: 124

I've just completed the installtion of Ubuntu and yes it was a breeze to install on a dell inspiron 8200. I tried Kubuntu first but the download was corrupted so I'm downloading that with Unbuntu. I'm still not sold on gnome though the Ubuntu desktop is much better than the default gnome setup. Look out SUSE you may be soon be off my laptop...

Marrea · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 11:41 am Post subject:

ggreaves · LXF regular Joined: Tue Apr 12, 2005 1:58 pm Posts: 124

Thats a very good point, but ubuntu has not been on the scene as long as SUSE. The Ubuntu team will get there in the end. I think they have done wonders with the installer for such a relatively new distro and while its not YAST-tique, it does what it says on the tin (hope I'm not breaking (C) laws with that) and does it well.

ggreaves · LXF regular Joined: Tue Apr 12, 2005 1:58 pm Posts: 124

want to see my long term ubuntu test... check my blog
http://upnorthblog.blogspot.com/

Rhakios · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject:

TheLiquidator · Joined: Mon Apr 11, 2005 10:31 pm Posts: 81

I agree that Kat was a major irritation and I quickly uninstalled it. There are, however, other things that didn't work for me - a good example is the combination of kooka and GOCR which together seemed to interpret every character as either / or v!. MCC was very slow.

Perhaps it was the setup. Maybe instead of the default installation I'll do the minimum and just install what I need.

Having said that, Kubuntu isn't that great. A USB key is accessed via hda6/media (weird!) as sda 1 is reported as unmountable and I found a number of unhelpful "extras" such as an inability to load Windows due to the way Kubuntu installed Lilo, an inability to create links to the Windows partition, and the fact that my user password is the root password I found extremely odd. I am sure there will be workarounds but really wonder whether it is worth the mither and whether I'd be better off with MDV given that I also have a day job!

Ian