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Ubuntu's Contributions to Linux
These tidy bullet points list a few examples:
A Trip Down Memory Lane Let's go back in time, back before Ubuntu existed. Red Hat Linux, Mandrake, Libranet, Lindows/Linspire, Xandros, Corel Linux, SuSE, and many others I have forgotten all tried to penetrate the retail consumer market, and to some degree the business market, with their desktop Linux editions. You could actually find most of these on store shelves, and in online computer stores. Then Red Hat discontinued Red Hat Linux, stopped providing free ISO downloads, and quit talking about desktops entirely, focusing mainly on the enterprise server while quietly offering an enterprise "workstation" edition. Mandrake became Mandriva, and continued its habit of teetering on the brink of insolvency. Libranet, Linspire, and Corel all went away. The consumer retail computer desktop is the most difficult of all to succeed in. For some reason the established tech companies just can't figure out Linux-- look at all the failed Linux-based netbooks by the likes of HP, Acer, and ASUS. They stunk and deserved to fail. Look at Dell's on-again off-again affair with Ubuntu, and Lenovo's dithering over whether they like Linux or not. You'd think that after years of so many Linux users preferring Thinkpads they would wise up. I'm not even all that enthused about Android because vendors are up to their same old lockin and spyware tricks. Canonical deserves credit for sticking to free-of-cost releases, libre software, and treading the tricky path of making it easy for users to get proprietary software such as Adobe Flash and Nvidia drivers. Back in those olden days Debian and Red Hat were the most-used Linuxes, and had the most derivatives. Debian was stagnating, with time between releases stretching out longer and longer:
The longest stretch was between Woody and Sarge, nearly three years. That's a long time in the fast-moving Linux world, especially for a point release. There is no such thing as a magic point in time when a piece of software is perfect; it's always a moving target, and many applications reach a point where older releases are unsupportable. I may be seeing cause-and-effect where it does not exist, but Ubuntu Warty Warthog, the very first Ubuntu, was released on October 20, 2004. I think it was a wake-up call for the Debian team and at least part of the impetus for going to a time-based development freeze cycle of two years, started in 2009. Debian development freezes are scheduled for December of every odd year, for releases in the first half of every even year. Pushing Ahead Debian is by far the largest Linux distribution, supporting the most packages and CPU architectures. Buzz entered the world with 474 packages. Squeeze supports over 35,000 packages and 18 different architectures, and now supports the FreeBSD kernel. Ubuntu supports about 13,000 packages and six architectures. For comparison, Fedora has about 11,000 packages and supports about a half-dozen CPU architectures. So one could say that Debian should take longer because it is so much bigger. But there are so many differences between the two that a direct comparison is hard to make. Debian is focused mainly on packaging and supporting great libre software. Ubuntu is pushy-- pushing into new commercial markets, pushing new user interfaces, pushing new technologies, and pushing real community development and involvement. So much of FOSS is wheel-spinning: multiple implementations of the same thing with trivial differences, multiple implementations of the same thing with major incompatibilities, so much scratching developer's itches with not enough regard for end users. Linus Torvalds likes to quote Isaac Newton: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." The saying goes back centuries: Quoting: "Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size." That is from way back in the 12th century. Progress is made by forging ahead and building new things, and building on the works of others. Which is what FOSS is expressly designed to foster. Community Development Ubuntu's most significant contribution to Linux and FOSS is building a true community infrastructure that provides a clear path for users to become contributors, and for newbies to get mentoring and support. The lack of this is one of the biggest shortcomings of FOSS. There are a few individual projects that do this well, but overall I agree with Matt Jadud: Quoting: "...the Learner must demonstrate that they are worthy of the time and attention of members of The Community, and it is not up to The Community to help them get there...If every FOSS project had an educator as part of their team---or, at least, assigned someone as "Project Educator"---we might be able to have a conversation about FOSS projects representing learning communities. But, they don't. The Linux Kernel is not a "learning community." The Mozilla Foundation is not a "learning community." There are lots of people "learning" as they go about their work, yes... but the projects themselves have no educational mission whatsoever...The reason for projects like Google's CS4HS, TeachingOpenSource.org (and the community's outreach effort, POSSE) is to bring educators into the mix. The Community (in general) has taken no responsibility regarding the education of Learners" Fostering a community and providing a space for noobs to learn and grow is a special skill set and a lot of work. But for Linux and FOSS to continue to grow it's the most important job of all, and Ubuntu and Canonical deserve credit for giving this a high priority. UI Follies Change and progress sound good in theory, but in practice they can be fruitless detours, and I think "fruitless detours" sums up most of what passes for user interface (UI) design. My thoughts on UI design will fill another article, so here is the executive summary: I think that Gnome, KDE4, and Canonical are confusing what they think makes a cool visual appearance with real usability. Stay tuned for Part 2 to hear more about this. |
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Comments (17)
A fine and thorough article!
Quoting:..Progress is made by forging ahead and building new things, and building on the works of others. Which is what FOSS is expressly designed to foster.
This is at the heart of why I was originally drawn too, and am now in my own way as an Editor for LXer participating in FOSS. Open Source, and working on a FOSS project is by its design a collaborative endeavor. It forces people to work together for a common cause i.e., greater good. The FOSS model can effectively implement contributions both big and small no matter the size of or how divergent the community may be.
Quoting:Fostering a community and providing a space for noobs to learn and grow is a special skill set and a lot of work. But for Linux and FOSS to continue to grow it's the most important job of all..
Huzzah! You are spot on, especially in regards to noobs who are long-time passive Windows users. One of FOSS's defining characteristics (and fundamental differences from MS) is that it fosters active participation in the management of your own computer, the ability to choose from many different programs to suit your need and an avenue by which you can improve the software you use if you so wish. For most people using Windows their whole life does not prepare them for any of this. And I have seen first-hand the culture shock it can have on new users. We need to find a way to ease people in who need it, which most do..;-)
Absolutely --- and fun, too.
I spent Friday Night and Saturday helping out at a workshop introducing women to Ruby on Rails.
Very cool indeed, and really highlighted to me why free software types shoot themselves (repeatedly) in the foot when they fail to reach outside the community. Unlike the geek-laden crowds I see at many tech meetups, these women were all over the place. We had former schoolteachers, advertising types, and a little posse of Northwestern students looking for The Next Big Thing to go all entrepreneurial on.
These were people who actually know how to talk to the world, ie, how to translate "My way or the highway" into "You know, your way is great, but I think you'll be really happy with my way".
I spent Friday Night and Saturday helping out at a workshop introducing women to Ruby on Rails.
Very cool indeed, and really highlighted to me why free software types shoot themselves (repeatedly) in the foot when they fail to reach outside the community. Unlike the geek-laden crowds I see at many tech meetups, these women were all over the place. We had former schoolteachers, advertising types, and a little posse of Northwestern students looking for The Next Big Thing to go all entrepreneurial on.
These were people who actually know how to talk to the world, ie, how to translate "My way or the highway" into "You know, your way is great, but I think you'll be really happy with my way".
Nice article and I agree with every word.
One minor quibble: My HP Mini 110 netbook did not and does not stink. With the preinstalled Ubuntu everything just worked the way it should. Unfortunately it came out a relatively short time before HP ditched Linux in favor of Windows 7, after creating their own desktop UI no less. Pity, because it really is a nice machine.
@caitlyn --
Agree on HP Mini. I've got one, too, and it's a nice Linux machine.
Got mine for the cost ($38) of a hard drive. The hard drive in it gave out, and getting it fixed with Windows/etc would have cost nearly as much as the box itself.
No such problem with Linux.
Agree on HP Mini. I've got one, too, and it's a nice Linux machine.
Got mine for the cost ($38) of a hard drive. The hard drive in it gave out, and getting it fixed with Windows/etc would have cost nearly as much as the box itself.
No such problem with Linux.
A fine article, Carla.
However much we (or just I) criticize Ubuntu, especially over the past few releases, there's no denyin its value in offering a polished-up, Debian-based distro during a time when Debian couldn't get a stable release out the door, and adding a welcoming, newbie-friendly community besides.
In my view, Ubuntu's success had many positive effects on Debian (and Linux and FOSS in general). "Advanced" users often give Debian a try, and that success has helped make Debian (and most other Linux distributions) better (some a little, some a lot) on the desktop.
However much we (or just I) criticize Ubuntu, especially over the past few releases, there's no denyin its value in offering a polished-up, Debian-based distro during a time when Debian couldn't get a stable release out the door, and adding a welcoming, newbie-friendly community besides.
In my view, Ubuntu's success had many positive effects on Debian (and Linux and FOSS in general). "Advanced" users often give Debian a try, and that success has helped make Debian (and most other Linux distributions) better (some a little, some a lot) on the desktop.
While I agree with My Esteemed Colleague, I believe we've witnessed the perfect storm of user revolt. As much of a PITA as it will be, HeliOS will be moving back to Mint for the foreseeable future. The remastering tool UCK does not work on Mint and the others like RemasterSys have been a dismal failure in regard to Mint, as has Reconstructor. Both Canonical and Gnome have bullet-ridden feet over their UI decisions as of late, and I want to thank Carla for acknowledging the fact.
I think these decisions AKA Unity and Gnome 3 will have far reaching effects for quite some time. That being said, each of those environments are in the infancy stage and we have yet to see what they will become as adults. Unfortunately, I have added my own little temper tantrums concerning these changes so me using the word "adult" may be a bit hypocritical.
Here's hoping that this huge step back on the parts of both parties eventually lead to giant leaps forward....
Although I personally don't think we're gonna see that for many releases.
I'm just sayin'.
I think these decisions AKA Unity and Gnome 3 will have far reaching effects for quite some time. That being said, each of those environments are in the infancy stage and we have yet to see what they will become as adults. Unfortunately, I have added my own little temper tantrums concerning these changes so me using the word "adult" may be a bit hypocritical.
Here's hoping that this huge step back on the parts of both parties eventually lead to giant leaps forward....
Although I personally don't think we're gonna see that for many releases.
I'm just sayin'.
I'm definitely dropping Ubuntu unless things improve (a lot). We're using Ubuntu on a netbook at home, and I tried to move the (Unity) dock away from the left edge, because it tends to pop out unexpectedly when you try to click the Close button on a maximised window, and generally causes a lot of annoyance. The first thing I discovered is that I can't find anything in Unity - things like the various settings windows that Ubuntu earlier has kept in its "System" menu. I must be doing something wrong, since just searching for things isn't going to help unless I know what they are called.
So I googled the problem instead, and found this quote from Mark Shuttleworth (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/12/ubuntu-unity-launcher-won...):
Ok.... so I can't decide for myself anymore where I want my panel.
At the same time, I found a blog post about how the Gnome 3 developers have decided that laptops should suspend when the lid is closed, and that this shouldn't be configurable (unless you dig up the option in gconf or gsettings or whatever). They choose to ignore that many users (including beginners that won't be able to google for the solution if it isn't available in the GUI) will want the computer to keep running even with the lid closed. Have they gone insane?
So I googled the problem instead, and found this quote from Mark Shuttleworth (http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/12/ubuntu-unity-launcher-won...):
Quoting:I’m afraid the location of the Unity launcher is fixed by design. We want the launcher always close to the Ubuntu button.
Ok.... so I can't decide for myself anymore where I want my panel.
At the same time, I found a blog post about how the Gnome 3 developers have decided that laptops should suspend when the lid is closed, and that this shouldn't be configurable (unless you dig up the option in gconf or gsettings or whatever). They choose to ignore that many users (including beginners that won't be able to google for the solution if it isn't available in the GUI) will want the computer to keep running even with the lid closed. Have they gone insane?
Quoting:I think these decisions AKA Unity and Gnome 3 will have far reaching effects for quite some time. That being said, each of those environments are in the infancy stage and we have yet to see what they will become as adults.
Either it's a Catch-22, or developers hate us (or both).
By Catch-22, I mean they can't really develop a new UI quickly enough without a whole lot of users hammering away on it, all the while an unformed UI drives away more users than it attracts.
As I've written before, it's a logical move for Ubuntu to switch to a desktop environment it controls in a way it never could control GNOME. Apple and Microsoft control their DEs, and Ubuntu clearly wants to play in that pool, so they need the same measure of control. But does Canonical/Ubuntu have the resources to go it alone?
> They choose to ignore that many users (including beginners that won't be able to google for the solution if it isn't available in the GUI) will want the computer to keep running even with the lid closed.
They choose to ignore the fact that many users hook a laptop/notebook up to an external monitor/keyboard/mouse on occasion, and may want to close the lid when they do so.
They choose to ignore the fact that many users hook a laptop/notebook up to an external monitor/keyboard/mouse on occasion, and may want to close the lid when they do so.
Quoting:They choose to ignore the fact that many users hook a laptop/notebook up to an external monitor/keyboard/mouse on occasion, and may want to close the lid when they do so.
Actually, to their credit, connecting an external display is supposed to disable the suspension behaviour. On the other hand, that may only add to the confusion for users.
I seem to recall some explanation (I'm not qualified to judge its merits) to the effect that unfortunately, many notebook computers are not properly designed to dispose of exess heat trapped when the lid is closed. So rather than try to guess which hardware can be trusted to take the strain, the default is "closed lid -- suspend".
Apparently (IIRC, and I may not) there are ways for "expert users" to over-ride this behaviour -- but responsibility for the consequences of course rests with aforesaid "experts".
I wasn't really paying attention, and don't recall where I came across this discussion, so feel free to correct me.
Apparently (IIRC, and I may not) there are ways for "expert users" to over-ride this behaviour -- but responsibility for the consequences of course rests with aforesaid "experts".
I wasn't really paying attention, and don't recall where I came across this discussion, so feel free to correct me.
On my netbook (EeePC 901), building a kernel can cause the CPU temp to reach 150 deg F in a matter of seconds. You do not want to hold it on your lap while doing this!
BernandSwiss: in the discussion of the Gnome 3 decision, there was some concern about Macbooks and overheating, apparently. Since Gnome 3 should not suspend if an external display is connected, this doesn't really address that problem at all.
In what I saw of the discussion, the main reasoning seemed to be that settings are bad, and that people should want their laptop to suspend. The overheating problem was mentioned merely as a potential problem with the new decision (when external display is connected).
In what I saw of the discussion, the main reasoning seemed to be that settings are bad, and that people should want their laptop to suspend. The overheating problem was mentioned merely as a potential problem with the new decision (when external display is connected).
I think it's all about wakeup-calls.
Ubuntu served as a wakeup-call for the "slow moving not professionaly managed" Debian. XFCE & co and revolting users provided a wake-up call for KDE (4). Unity did it for Gnome. Wayland (maybe?) for Xorg.
Nice thing is, there's always a "way out" while staying on Linux. Because when on Windows, there's no easy way out without ditching whole Windows.
BTW I think ARM served as a wakeup-call to Intels x86 lap-heaters. There's no reason CPU's should reach such temperatures - ARM's Cortex has clearly shown.
Ubuntu served as a wakeup-call for the "slow moving not professionaly managed" Debian. XFCE & co and revolting users provided a wake-up call for KDE (4). Unity did it for Gnome. Wayland (maybe?) for Xorg.
Nice thing is, there's always a "way out" while staying on Linux. Because when on Windows, there's no easy way out without ditching whole Windows.
BTW I think ARM served as a wakeup-call to Intels x86 lap-heaters. There's no reason CPU's should reach such temperatures - ARM's Cortex has clearly shown.
fact check: Mepis
Very good article overall. I have used Ubuntu but prefer Debian.
I recommend LinuxMint for newbies to Linux.
...but, Mepis pre-dates Warty Wharthog by several years. They were a Debian derivative for several years before trying an Ubuntu base; however, they are now back to a Debian base again.
...but, Mepis pre-dates Warty Wharthog by several years. They were a Debian derivative for several years before trying an Ubuntu base; however, they are now back to a Debian base again.
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You said: "I think that Gnome, KDE4, and Canonical are confusing what they think makes a cool visual appearance with real usability."
It's not just those three: Windows 8 is doing the same ("one GUI fits all"). It's clear that in the desktop world, consuming material beats producing it by orders of magnitude.