New Ubuntu Linux release is easy, sexy

Wired's got a good, non-geek-friendly review of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux, Gutsy Gibbon, which ships today. Ubuntu is the Linux for the rest of us, an operating system packaged for maximum enjoyment with minimum tweaking under the hood. I've been a full-time Ubuntu user for over a year now (and yes, I know that means I'm REALLY late delivering my big Switching to Ubuntu post, life got busy), and I could not be happier -- so much so that I just gave my last Powerbook (which I hadn't switched on in six months) away to a friend who needed a laptop, which means I no longer have anything except Linux machines in my office.

Gutsy carries a number of really smart looking enhancements that address my biggest pain-points with Ubuntu -- primarily the difficulty of configuring multiple displays and printing PDFs. I'm still eagerly awaiting a connection-sharing tool that's as elegant as the one in OS X, but apart from that, Gutsy's looking like a great upgrade.

I'm holding off for a couple of days, though. I bought my last Ubuntu machine, a Lenovo ThinkPad X60 tablet, from Emperor Linux, who charge a small premium for selling pre-installed, supported Ubuntu machines, and they advise me that they're rolling up some changes that will let the Gutsy graphics stuff Just Work with the tablet functionality.

Other notable changes in Ubuntu 7.10 are the latest GNOME Desktop, which provides much improved drag-and-drop support to the user interface, and Compiz, the whiz-bang 3-D desktop effects package, which is enabled by default.
Ubuntu and the GNOME Desktop team have put considerable effort into improving the user experience for accessing many of Linux's under-the-hood options. A new graphical interface makes it much easier to make adjustments to monitor settings and set up a dual-monitor workstation -- both of which previously required using the command line.
Beyond these key enhancements, Gutsy Gibbon incorporates some of Mac OS X's most useful desktop traits to improve the user experience. New to this release is fast user-switching, a mimic of the same feature in OS X for switching between user accounts without logging out. Another nod to Apple is the improved Spotlight-like applet designed to search the hard drive and act as an application launcher. Printing has also been overhauled, and each print dialog now features a default virtual "PDF printer" which allows any application to output PDF files, something Mac OS X users will recognize.

Link

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

Kyle Armbruster

Y’know, reading all this has really changed my mind about Linux. I guess all that unsupported hardware I had was all in my mind last time!

Here I go, installing Ubuntu… Looks great! Updating… So slick! Now to get down to installing apps.

Okay, I’m assuming there’s iTunes support now, right?

No?

Well, that’s okay, I can get by with KiT00ns4Linux or whatever… I don’t use iTMS that much, so I guess I’ll just cope.

K, now to find the ProTools Linux port… Shit… There isn’t one… What am I going to do when I need to give files to the media office? I guess I’ll need to keep a Windows partition for that…

Okay, now for my various psych research software… Oh my god! Not a single one is available for Linux! More stuff for the Windows partition…

Well, I guess I can just use Windows for work and Linux for everyday fun stuff like playing ga— What the…

And why the hell isn’t my wi-fi working?

…You know what?

I think I’m just going to delete this Linux partition.

And finally…

Dragonphyre #18, that was a deliciously-crafted post. There’s no two ways about it. You had me going there!
ted

Cory, come off it. You’re just getting better drag and drop support and multiple monitor support, you’ve waited all this time for PDFs to print..

Sounds to me like even a regular XP build would be more usable. Or wait, what’s wrong with the OS X machine you appear to be struggling to recreate with a more ideologically pure OS?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why Linux suits some people (primarily heavy compilers of code, hackers in the trad sense), but you come across as a GUI user, the sort of person that OS X was made for. Not tryin’ to start a flame war here, mind.
Kyle Armbruster

If you just want to word process, read the web, and listen to MP3s–and you don’t mind doing it on weird software no one has ever heard of and that doesn’t work quite right, but is free–then–oh, I forgot: and don’t mind not being able to use any of the software they sell at any store–then–oh, and you have to be really careful about what hardware you buy and be open to spending several days editing conf files to get it to work, if you’re lucky, because there probably won’t be manufacturer support–and if you tend to think that “free” is better than “works right”–then Linux is for you!

If however, you’re one of those weird people who need to do more with their computers than type, read the web, and play MP3s, luckily, there are a couple other options: Windows and, to a lesser extent, MacOS.
jtf

I got sick of Windows the day before I left home for college, when I had to spend hours repairing a computer after the bloody OS imploded when it didn’t like my phone’s ‘hotsync’ software. A week later I was running ubuntu.

I’m sorry to all you haters, the *only* thing I use Windows for is to play games, and even though I’ve stripped down the XP partition to not even contain an email client, it’s still slower, flakier, and more fragile than my ex-girlfriend. Ubuntu provides me with excellent word processing, music support, and reading the web… and I really don’t want to go to a store to get the software I need. I don’t want to pay $70 for something that works slower and dies whenever it encounters something new.

As for corporate support, well, let’s just say I wish all corporations offered as much support as the people on ubuntu forums.
Mattz

I recently moved into a flat where we have three clashing OS users living together.

Myself, the Windows XP user (with a Vista partition for when I can use my shiny DX10 pixel pusher), C who uses his Macbook Pro and B who uses Ubuntu as both the OS for his laptop and for our media centre altar.

Having had the opportunity to play with Ubuntu a little bit, I was quite impressed that it offerred this GUI, which is some strangely comfortable hybrid of Mac and XP as well as potent power user access that my flatmate demonstrated to me (I was so proud when I executed my first Sudo command). Having played with the Mac as well, I felt reminded of Vista, overt bells and whistles wrapped in a very expensive (but oh so beautiful) laptop casing.
Still the problem of games support holds me back from going to it as my main OS, but when the next HDD or format comes round, I’ve got a good feeling that Ubuntu will be getting a good look in. Definitely the Linux build that would be leading the charge to convert the masses to the Cult of the Penguin.
Simon Greenwood

Kyle@#6:

Who buys software in a store these days? I don’t think I have for Windows or OS X for at least five years. If you need to do that, then stick with Windows, keep paying that Microsoft premium for software that is nearly all replaceable with free or open source software and keep your head in the sand. You don’t need Linux and Linux doesn’t need you. If fact, dammit, you *can’t* download Linux. I forbid it. You might learn something.
PrettyBoyTim

Hmm. Going to http://www.ubuntu.com gets me ‘Ubuntu 7.10 Coming Soon’ and ‘Ubuntu 7.10: 00 days to go’.

I wonder when it will actually appear?
DragonPhyre

I heard from a friend who still runs Windows that if you are just going to have a partition to run games, you should install Server 2003. Apparently, since it’s a server, it loads/runs nothing in the background, and that makes it better for games.

I don’t know, so I can’t say. This was from a friend. take it with a grain of salt.
Davy

I’m glad to know you’re liking the Linux. Whenever you get around to writing the article, I’m sure it will be worth the wait.

I hope when you gave away the Powerbook you had the PPC version of Ubuntu loaded onto it.

There’s even a PPC release of Gutsy that runs on old Macs and PS3′s.

FOSS FTW
k386

@Kyle, I would really recommend that you don’t run Ubuntu. Really, give up now… don’t bother any further rebuttals. Not worth your awesome time. Stay in your lovely windows cocoon and feel all warm and safe. You’ve spent the money, you damn well deserve that much.

The main thing I am waiting for before I give the old heave-ho to this – last remaining – infernal windows installation is a decent piece of open multitracking audio software. With all major standards as export options.

I haven’t given UbuntuStudio fair shakes yet, but I am waiting for.. what did Gizmodo call it today? Horny Hippo? I’ll take that… as a randy hippo $: sudo /etc/init.d/laughmypatootoff start
papyromancer

For those of you feisty:

Upgrade by typing “sudo update-manager -c -d”
pigpen

“New Ubuntu Linux release is easy, sexy”

are you calling ubuntu a slut?
zeta

@ Kyle: Sorry, but you are obviously clueless.

@ PrettyBoyTim: Ever heard about different timezones? Canonical is a London based company. Feisty was released around midnight CET, therefore they have still 12 hours to go.
Gabriel Burt

Hey Cory, regarding sharing your network connection, looks like there’s some awesome work being done to make it happen:

“Youâ€™ll be able to have more than one device active at one time, and share an internet connection between them. For once youâ€™ll be able to easily share that $9.99/hr hotel WiFi connection with your friends over ethernet, or an ethernet connection with your friends over WiFi.”

http://blogs.gnome.org/dcbw/2007/10/15/networkmanager-07-is-the-new-chuck-norris/
Kyle Armbruster

@K386, I, too, would love to see an open DAW package, but, yeah, it has to export to major standards. I’m not married to Windows–hell, I don’t even particularly like it–it’s just that that is where I can run all the software I need and want.

And that is true of most people. If you are cool with working through the hassles of switching to Linux, congratulations, you’re in the top 1 percentile of computer users. Your experiences and tastes, however, are by no means generalizable to the other 99%.

And although it does seem Cory is all about the GUI, let us not forget he was a sysadmin for many years, and probably is plenty comfortable with a command line. Most people haven’t looked at one since 1995 at the very latest, if they even had a computer then. Non-Mac computers finally really, really took off with Win95 and then the internet explosion in the following few years. Many computer users entire computer experience has been at the GUI level. Telling them they need to “type one commend on the shell” to play a DVD is akin to telling them all they need to do is rewire their car’s fusebox to turn on the radio. Not only would they be uncomfortable doing it, but they would demand to know why. And they might not do it right and cause themselves all manner of trouble in either case.
Anonymous

iTunes? Oh yeah, that thing that deletes all the music that you bought with it, if you move to another country. Yeah that’s a vitally important piece of software that everyone absolutely must have, because there is nothing else that can manage and play music.

That you happen to like some particular softwares that are not available for under Linux, does not mean that they are criteria for everyone else.

I can’t run Synaptic or anything like it under Windows. I can’t read ReiserFS [no wife murdering jokes, please; we've heard them all by now, and i don't think she would be amused], ext2, ext3, or ZFS volumes under Windows. Accessing large directories on remote filesystems is maddeningly slow under Windows. I can’t non-destructively resize partitions under Windows (at least not without shelling out another big wad of cash). I can’t edit Word or Excel files under Windows (without shelling out a bunch more). I can’t generate PDF files (without shelling out yet more).

What’s that? Those things are not important to you? Perhaps you now have some inkling of how i feel about people prattering on about the handful of Windows or MacOS exclusive apps that are not important to me, and i don’t use even when i am running Windows, and wouldn’t use even if i ran it full-time.

Hardware compatibility? I have yet to have any hardware fail to work automatically under MEPIS (a Debian derivative)â€”including a dying hard drive that Windows puked at. The only hardware that i’ve had that it would have a problem with was a ca 2001 ATI video card that Win2k and XP couldn’t use, eitherâ€”an experience that turned me into a steadfast nVidia customer. (But that’s another story.) So your arguments are not universal.

Run the OS that you need and want, and stop striving to invalidate others’ choices. No one is demanding that you change over.

[Composition side note: terms like "freetard" (or any 'tard portmanteau) betray blind prejudice and general shallowness. You might as well say "LOL FAG GAY GAY GAY". Do yourself a favour and avoid that bandwagon. You'll be twice as likely to be taken seriously as a wielder of intelligence.] :)
Eduardo Padoan

#5 Ted: Cory, come off it. You’re just getting better drag and drop support and multiple monitor support, you’ve waited all this time for PDFs to print..

PDF got *better* printing support, but you could print PDFs on Linux since the early 90s. And by better drag and drop dont mean also that this feature was created now. It is just used more. But if youdont try, you will just keep guessing and trolling.
corpse 1

I’m getting kind of sick of Ubuntu and what it’s doing to/for Linux. The only people it’s attracting are end-users who probably had a thing for OS X before, and they’re bringing along their douche-bag, holier-than-thou attitudes with them. Using Ubuntu (more warmly known to some as ‘Noobuntu’) isn’t something to brag about. Your fancy GUIs and lack of no CLI knowledge what-so-ever impresses no one.

Someone else mentioned it before in a comment, despite the ‘gains’ Ubuntu has made in being the easiest Linux distribution to use for inexperienced users, it’s still not ready for your average idiot.

I’m a power user, gamer, and programmer, and even I wouldn’t use Linux on my desktop. That is, if there were drivers for most of my hardware in the first place.
Phil Staite

Wow, feel the ubuntu hate. Calm down kiddies, it’s only an OS.
bort

i had to use windows for something the other day and i had forgotten how long it takes to start up. I had also forgotten about the windows and error messages that pop up whenever you start it and no matter how many times you get rid of them some other window finds a way to start popping up every time you start.

I saw it mentioned once but i just thought i’d bring it up again that WINE works with a lot of windows games and programs. World of Warcraft actually runs a little better on my roommate’s computer in WINE than XP.
MBlack

New to this release is fast user-switching, a mimic of the same feature in OS X for switching between user accounts without logging out.

Has the reviewer even used Linux before? Multiple simultaneous logins are not a new feature to Linux. What a joke! I hope Cannonical is not claiming that as a new feature in their design because that would be quite the misrepresentation.

Multiple consoles and multiple X-Servers have been around a long, long time. I couldn’t setup a Linux machine or do maintence on one without them. If CTRL+ALT+F# isn’t your thing, most Window Managers will let you do have multiple log-in’s if you use the appropriate display manager (KDE with KDM, for example). If Cannonical is attempting to take credit for a feature like that, they’ve lost some respect in my eyes. Hopefully its just ignorance on the reviewer’s part…
Kyle Armbruster

You guys realize that outside of “the blogosphere” most people haven’t even heard of Linux?

I have installed every version of Ubuntu since 6.04. I have set up plain Debian and Ubuntu computers for clients. And every time I do, it is a major hassle to, in the end, get a computer that does little more than type, browse the web, and play MP3s.

I know it runs teh internets. And that is where it belongs: on servers no one has to look at and try to use as a desktop OS.

If you’re fine with using free knockoff software, that’s great. But most people actually have to use specific software tools to do their jobs, and unless you’re a developer or you type for a living (e.g. Cory) they aren’t available on Linux. Those who really do just want a computer surf the web, do email, and play MP3s are the kind of people who actually do buy software at Best Buy and Wal-Mart, and will use whatever OS is on their computer (which they also bought at BB or Wal-Mart) at the time.

And hell, you can include me in that brick-and-mortar-software-buying category as well, since that’s where I usually buy games. –Games that don’t run on Linux.

I hate MS as much as the next guy. But Linux is not really a viable option for the vast, vast, vast majority of computer users. People who can’t see that are simply blinded by freetard ideology.
kowala

i’m still having trouble convincing my friends they need this operating system. Sorta like an overbearing religious zealot on soap boxes espousing the ways that bizzar spiritual texts have altered his life in profound ways. All to a crowd of scared street stagglers who are fine enough with their own religion, and are still wondering why this bum has pieced together cloths, missing teeth, and can’t play proprietary media formats.
strider_mt2k

I’m always surprised at the passion an OS discussion seems to bring with it.

I’m an XP user, but I dipped a toe into Ubuntu with a little box I threw together for just such tinkering.
I’m not a programmer, but I tinker with lots of stuff, PCs included.

(I came up in the DOS days but brother that terminal ain’t no DOS!!)

It really is like learning a brand new language if you’ve used something else for years and years.
Different people are going to deal with that differently.

The way I see it, if it keeps older machines useful for folks when they would have otherwise gone useless then it’s a VERY good thing.
Choices are good in any respect.

I myself went back to WinXP simply because it’s what I’ve been using for years, it’s comfortable for me and my hardware, and most importantly I own a couple of copies of it.

If you don’t own an OS Ubuntu is a damned sight better than nothing at all.
Actually it deserves more respect than that because for a fair-to-middlin’ user with at least fair-to-middlin’ hardware it’s an awesome choice.
zour

@Bort: You’re saying that you are a competent Linux user but had so little knowledge of windows to configure start-up programs correctly?
Eduardo Padoan

#15 Kyle: Don’t know about “vast, vast, vast majority of computer users”, but the vast majority of the earth population are not computer users. Just like my fathers, 2 years before. Now they are happy Ubuntu users.
Stefan Jones

How does it run on older machines? I rescue machines from dumpsters and fix them up. I have a nice Dell PIII-600 MHz / 512 Mb system right heyah that might want to be a Linux box . . . will Ubuntu run well on it?
DragonPhyre

Man oh man… I love it when a new Distro is released. I almost took off work for it.

Because it would have taken me that long to configure it!

*rimshot*

But it’s not all bad… Take Compiz for example. I mean, the last time Windows looked this wobbley was when I got that virus after that all-night drinking party!

*rimshot*

Yeah, just the other day I was trying to install Steam so I could play Portal.

Boy are my fingers tired!

*rimshot*

I tried to play a DVD the other day. What a piece of work that was. I not only had to type in one command on the shell, but it automatically downloaded and configured it for me! I didn’t have to do anything, other than put the disk in after that!

*crickets*

And updates! Oh man… Don’t get me started! I get a little popup window that says there are updates for me to install. I click the button, and they install. I mean, I didn’t even have to restart my computer AT ALL!

*crickets, coughing*

Umm… How about this? I wanted to listen to some music on my computer, but I have so many CD’s, and I didin’t want to be swapping them in and out all the time… So I put one in, and it asked me if I wanted to save them to my HD. But not before it downloaded all the cover art and information about each track. Then it proceeded to rip them to a directory that was the artist name, album name, and then it numbered all the tracks. But the weird thing was this OGG format. The files were smaller than MP3, they had more information about the song inside the file, and they sounded better! BETTER! What is up with that?

*chairs shuffling, people getting up to leave*

Wait… I got more! I wanted to edit a family photo, and it downloaded and installed thie program called The GIMP! Not only did it take seconds to download, but it looks almost like Photoshop, and has almost all the same tools! In fact, you can open Photoshop files, and edit them, and have them still work in Photoshop!

Come on! Don’t leave!

I have one program that handles all my AIM, MSN, ICQ, YIM, IRC and Google Talk! I mean, it’s just one program, instead of 6! It also puts all the IM messages in one window with tabs on the top! talk about convenient!

Wait!

I don’t have to run anti-virus, spyware, or any sort of firewall at all!

My computer is so much faster to startup and shutdown as well!

I get free updates on all my software, not just my base OS! And if I want to install new software, I don’t have to go to the store and buy it I load up a program and it shows me what is ready to be installed!

All of my Icons look good at any resolution, because I use Vector art that scales up without any pixelation!

I have an intelligent system monitor that makes sure that both of my CPU’s get utilized evenly so my system is responsive even if it has been on for days!

I don’t have to run Scandisk or Defragment anymore, unless something has really gone wrong!

No, please! Don’t go! WAIT!
hyperkine

It’ll run ok for basic email, web browsing, and word processing. More than that, get a better system.
Brian Carnell

“@Bort: You’re saying that you are a competent Linux user but had so little knowledge of windows to configure start-up programs correctly?”

The problem with Windows is you spend an inordinate amount of time doing busy work like dealing with all the apps that insist on loading themselves at startup without ever asking, much less receiving, permission from the user.

The average Windows user might know how to go to the Startup folder and fiddle with that. Few that I know would know what they’re doing fooling around with MSCONFIG.

And that sort of begs the question…if Windows is so user friendly, WTF does it require mucking around MSCONFIG just to stop some program from hijacking your machine at startup, and if I’m going to have to drill down that far to accomplish such basic tasks, why not go all the way into the supposedly user unfriendly Linux?

I had to spend far less time mucking around with settings to actually control my machine with Ubuntu than with Windowx XP.
Brian Carnell

@6

If you just want to word process, read the web, and listen to MP3s–and you don’t mind doing it on weird software no one has ever heard of and that doesn’t work quite right, but is free–then–oh, I forgot: and don’t mind not being able to use any of the software they sell at any store–then–oh, and you have to be really careful about what hardware you buy and be open to spending several days editing conf files to get it to work, if you’re lucky, because there probably won’t be manufacturer support–and if you tend to think that “free” is better than “works right”–then Linux is for you!

That’s just silly. I’m pretty much Windows XP-centric and have no idea how to edit a .conf file, but I was able to install and get up and running with Ubuntu on an old laptop in far less time that it takes for the bi-yearly wipe/reinstall of XP.

I was very surprised how easy it was to use. Like others, support for games is really the only thing keeping me from switching. I know it is possible to use things like WINE to set up support for all my XP-based games, but that’s a bit more time and effort than I want to invest at the moment.
Alan Yeung

Bless the Linux guys for keeping up the fight. I think they’re nuts, but the kind of nuts that gets operating systems built and slowly more polished over time is fine with me. That’s a good kind of nuts :)

I keep an Ubuntu virtual machine around for when I want to run the occasional Linux app (in my case, specifically WEP crackers with full packet injection support), and it has gotten a lot better. Ubuntu has brought a lot of focus to usability issues.
Eris Siva

Stefan – If you’re looking for something on an older machine, try out Xubuntu:
Xubuntu.org

I had a system pretty much identical with your setup and was running Xubuntu perfectly fine. Way faster than XP was running, anyways. Its basically Ubuntu but with the XFCE window manager and applications with a smaller ‘footprint’.