Ubuntu

Is there anything it cant do better than mac and pc?

Anything “creative” – really not a fan of the audio/video/photography/graphics software on offer.

I’ve never found a music library as good as itunes. I’ve played with Banshee, Amarok, Songbird, Audacious, QuodLibet etc etc and found them either to be really slow or unstable with a big database or have a really poor search/play front end.

Open to more suggestions though!

no idea but it looks good thanks for the heads up 😉

Funny, I prefer Rhythmbox to iTunes.

You can’t beat free.

I love it, free and reliable. Whatever you need to know is readily available on the Web or you just ask here.
I’m a regular web user, I listen to music, watch videos and arrange my digi snaps.
Go for it, unless you have some very specific needs in which case another distro might be more suitable. Linux From Scratch tends to cater for such people.
Enjoy!

I’ve already got, i just posted after i got itunes and spotify on it after a lot of work… but i have them, and thats the important thing. Its very fast and reliable… i just wanted to know anything its rubbish at?

To be fair, all operating systems have their weaknesses.

I have it on a home server and it has been bother free for years. A couple of the desktops are just about perfect too. However, my eeepc needs me to drop to the command line to recompile the wireless driver every time the kernel is updated. What I’m saying is if you don’t have time to learn a new OS, the point will come where you have to learn, or abandon it for something else.

On balance, I reckon it has Microsoft well beat without even taking cost into account. I don’t think a comparison with Apple can be made though as their OS is tied to their hardware (although interestingly, Mac OS can be shoe-horned onto non-Apple products with geek trickery).

The falling down point is the software that won’t run on it. In my case, it’s Autocad that requires me to keep an old copy of XP kicking about. That narks me. That’s not the fault of linux though, that’s market forces.

Be aware that Spotify only works on paid for accounts as it’s apparently not capable of displaying the visual adverts hence the paid only option. Sure you can run it in Wine but I can’t be arsed and with the new free limits the (also new) 4.99 subscription I don’t mind paying (for now).

Regarding Wine I’ve always found it ‘difficult’. However, I get Crossover Office free, and it copes with running lots of other Windows software beside Microsoft Office. It’s a much better product, as you’d expect since it is ‘upstream’ of Wine.

However, as linux is evolving everything gets better all the time.

better than mac and pc

Except you’re probably running Ubuntu on a PC, and Macs these days are basically PC’s. Damn Microsoft and their attempt to steal the PC moniker for themselves!

I’ve been playing with Ubuntu a bit lately and pretty pretty impressed actually. I’ve been a Linux user for 10 years or more, and always avoided the “easy” distributions in favour of having total control over my OS without having to fight for it.
But, I don’t really have the time to keep up with my knowledge as well these days, and I’m pretty tempted to run Ubuntu on my work machine. It’ll certainly be better than the Windows 7 rubbish I’m running at the moment!

Windows 7 is way better than Ubuntu, especially as I got it for free 😛

I’m using ubuntu as I’m typing right now… I think it’s great, don’t bother with LDFE or XFE the standard gnome is great – I’ve also heard that linux mint is very good and has lots of extras that you don’t get on the standard ubuntu build

spotify works well in wine but I would run a mile from itunes on linux – itunes itself is written for max OSX and the windows version is frankly a bit of a bodge, so trying to run the bodged version under wine would be rubbish… unless anyone can tell me how to run the OSX install in linux???

rhythmbox will fill an ipod happily, the only thing it may struggle with is an iphone but I haven’t an iphone so couldn’t comment – and it will find music fine as far as I’ve experienced

I’ve always fancied it on a mini PC / laptop just for web based stuff as i used a lot of 3D cad stuff on my main PC but then my phone kind of covers that area now. I still fancy running it on something, i just need an excuse

Yeah. I’ve be working on/administrating/hacking unix/linux systems for oooh, about 25 years. I’m a hard core *nix advocate but I’ll still be the first to admit that there are areas where it falls down.

If you drop the free component of linux aside for a moment, the wealth of quality applications available for windows and osx are often superior. Yes, the better ones cost money but that’s fair enough. I’m thinking specifically in the areas of graphics and games (well, games for the PC anyway). I’ve seen some fairly nifty music creation programs on the MAC too.

I think there’s a place for all these OS’s but each have their own strengths. I personally wouldn’t dream of having a non-linux build in the house (I have about 4 at the moment), but for photo editing in particular, the main computer in the house is windows 7.

“always avoided the “easy” distributions in favour of having total control over my OS without having to fight for it.”

Bit confused by this. I too have used linux for years, and use some of the more hardcore distros, but you have just as much control over Ubuntu as any other distribution. It’s just that all the fiddly bits are behind a noob friendly veneer.

I liked the look of rhythmbox and had it fill the ipod fine, it just took an age to search an 80Gb database. Songbird was the same. Any reason these should be slower than itunes (run on XP, dual boot)?

Bit confused by this. I too have used linux for years, and use some of the more hardcore distros, but you have just as much control over Ubuntu as any other distribution. It’s just that all the fiddly bits are behind a noob friendly veneer.

All the grade A linux geeks I know, use Ubuntu as they say it’s the easiest to tune. And I’d agree. apt is an awesome tool.

I have a 40gb Rhythmbox database that is spritely on modest hardware. If your library lies within XP on a FAT or NTFS partition this could be the source of the problem. Solution, move to EXT3/EXT4 i.e. to within Ubuntu.

The only big weakness seems to be 3d acceleration… its getting better but isn’t able to compete with windoze because ATI/Nvidia don’t throw enough resources at it

Sun’s VirtualBox for stuff you can’t run in wine… assuming your pc has the grunt required

I want to use ubuntu but some things just put me off. Getting my parents going on an acer revo with the stock linux being replaced with ubuntu has been painful in places. HP printer not working straight away (CUPS service not starting). webcam not working. using a usb to ps/2 connector on a keyboard wasn’t working. can’t get HD video working properly-forgotten what the related graphics stuff was called.

from personal experience i really want multi button mouse functionality. my main use of the computer is admittedly and using side scroll to change tabs and a side button for closing tabs is really really useful but i’ve been unable to make it happen in ubuntu.

Conquerors point is a good one.

Thing to watch though, last time I looked the Virtualbox in Ubuntu Software Centre is the fully free version (i.e. no propriety or non open source components) and so can’t deal with USB devices, because there are software patents surrounding this. But if you go to the Virtualbox.org website you can get a free proprietry version that has full functionality 8)

If you’re a purist a workaround for memory stick file transfer (for example) while in a hosted os is dropbox on the host and virtual oses.

I use the proprietry version though because I need to use my usb printer in the virtual O.S.

Footnote – my knowledge is maybe two years out of date, but this issue deserves a google before trying Virtualbox.

Yep, music sits on an NTFS partition, with a second for XP and then an ext4 for Ubuntu. Sounds like you might have hit the nail on the head Waderider, ta.

dirtbiker100, Ubuntu doesn’t work on all hardware unfortunately, the live CD exists so you can try the OS to see what works.

johnnfb, only a guess, no guarantees.

And if your hardware is struggling with the regular Ubuntu, there are always lighter versions – Xubuntu Low Resource being the prime example (my P2 ThinkPad with 128MB RAM runs Ubuntu 5 now but will get a light distro soon-ish).
BTW If you really need a different distro try Fedora Core or whatever freebie comes with Linux Magazine.

“always avoided the “easy” distributions in favour of having total control over my OS without having to fight for it.”

Bit confused by this. I too have used linux for years, and use some of the more hardcore distros, but you have just as much control over Ubuntu as any other distribution. It’s just that all the fiddly bits are behind a noob friendly veneer.

I might be a bit out of date on Ubuntu stuff to be fair. My impression of easy distros the past was that it was quite a hassle to get around / turn off all the ‘noob friendly’ stuff. Even if the total time to get what I wanted ended up being the same, it felt more annoying than installing the stuff initially.

Similarly with package management systems – last time I looked at RPM or APT based distros the package management was just not as elegant as portage. Actually I haven’t used RPM since around 2001 when it was really, really horrible.

Of course, the faster technology moves and the more different stuff we want from our computers the harder it is to manually configure and understand every part of your OS and so the more appealing ‘easy’ distros look.

imho ‘out of the box’ ubuntu is not as good on power and temperature management on some laptops – without tinkering I have had overheating and sleep/resume errors.

Although its less resource hungry – my battery life is less(?)

dirtbiker100

Im surprised at that.

For the graphics it should just be a case of going into the restricted drivers, i’d be surprised if it hasn’t detected it

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/hardware/C/restricted-manager.html

The USB/ps2 adapter, you sure its all plugged in tightly. No reason for that not to work. ps2 it has to be in before the OS is booted – not hot swapped in.

stuey

with the latest version I’d disagree, now broadcomm network drivers are there – there’s very little ubuntu doesn’t find – some things like graphics drivers are in restricted drivers tool which aren’t enabled – you have to enable them

but installing ubuntu only requires 1 reboot I think .. it installs in about 10 minutes from a DVD is my experience.. try that with windows.. and less fetching of drivers from the net manually

I only have one niche piece of hardware (an ESI Julia soundcard) Ubuntu sorts it out no problems

I know Sat Navs are a pain though, as the USB driver to connect it is windows only (Garmin and TomTom guilty).. so thats one for virtualbox or another machine

It’s ok, but I quite like Win7 these days.

My ubuntu build is a bit smegged on my laptop. There’s no boot up screen (it’s just black), and half the time it reboots during this ‘black screen’ phrase, the other half it seems to spend ages doing something (prolly fscking).

I’ve got bored of having to search the net to fix silly things like this.

Mind you, it’s great on my desktop and work pc.

graphics – it works fine for office applications and the 360 resolution on youtube but I want vdpau to work for my hd helmet cam stuff and it won’t.

they’re using the computer fine now, and its pretty good for them. silent, 65w power usage, mounts to the back of the new tft screen they bought so its out the way, ubuntu with open office, evolution mail, gnucash among others and they’re happy.
saved a big chunk of money over a standard big black box running windows and with the 65w psu they’re still saving.

“and i don’t have to pay for windows?” – nope
“and how much does the software cost?” – nothing
“when are you going to install antivirus?” – i’m not linux doesn’t really need it unlike windows

“so why isn’t everybody using it?”

I’ve been playing with Ubuntu a bit lately and pretty pretty impressed actually. I’ve been a Linux user for 10 years or more, and always avoided the “easy” distributions in favour of having total control over my OS without having to fight for it.
But, I don’t really have the time to keep up with my knowledge as well these days, and I’m pretty tempted to run Ubuntu on my work machine. It’ll certainly be better than the Windows 7 rubbish I’m running at the moment!

Me too it was when the gentoo wiki got lost a few year ago I went to ubuntu because I had a problem with my gentoo system and needed a working system ASAP.

Although its less resource hungry – my battery life is less(?)

stuey, “powertop” can help identify the causes of this.

Thanks grahamp – i’ve used powertop and some cpu frequency scaling to rein it in. Although I prefer Ubuntu – it still isn’t completely ‘silver surfer’ proof – took about 3 hours to sort out all my Dad’d bugs- in fairness same amount of time to do an ‘XP lite’ install.

I guess more mainstream hardware has some advantages.

If you take your photography seriously and need colour management or Photoshop then forget it. I’ve dual booted my PCs a couple of times with Ubuntu and after a while just found myself booting into windows all the time. The software installation on Ubuntu used to be arcane. Anything you couldn’t find on the software database/installer had to be loaded as a tarball which is further under the bonnet than I want to go.

Anything you couldn’t find on the software database/installer had to be loaded as a tarball which is further under the bonnet than I want to go.

This is incorrect. To be blunt, how to use “sudo apt-get xxxx” is about step one on the linux learning curve.

uponthedowns

http://projects.gnome.org/gnome-color-manager/

this now comes with Fedora on install I believe… probably be able to get it going in ubuntu as well

Anything you couldn’t find on the software database/installer had to be loaded as a tarball which is further under the bonnet than I want to go.
This is incorrect. To be blunt, how to use “sudo apt-get xxxx” is about step one on the linux learning curve.

+1