My experience with ubuntu

[Atahualpa]

Since I left 5GB of my new HDD over for linux, I took the next logical step and tried the much praised ubuntu 5.04.

So I downloaded the ubuntu x86 install cd (around 600megs).
The installation setup is very straightforward and did find and recognize all hardware (I didn't try wlan though, because I have a PCMCIA card that I didn't use), without the need to specify anything. This is definately a big plus, I mean actually it's the way it should be, but since I didn't expect this I was very happy

The preconfigured Linux System is another big plus as it seems to be able to run without a root account (making excessive use of sudo). Ofc it's also annoying that you get asked for your password so often, but well.
After installation you are brought to a nicely looking login screen with most preconfigured for you. Great!

The first I noticed was a strange looking icon. Turned out it was an automatic software update. Good thing, I did the update (and did NOT need to restart the computer, unlike that stupid windows xp that is popping this stupid dialog in my face every 10 minutes right now)

Now unfortunately what I had to learn is that it's still Linux, or Gnome or whatever you want to blame. The GUI is unresponsive and unprecise. And either my (usb) mouse didn't work properly or sometimes the button got clicked only the second time I hit it.
And then I had some very strange experiences. I wanted to mount the Windows Partition, but could not find anywhere how to do that, so I had to fire up a root shell and issue "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt". Fine, I went into explorer and opened the folder /mnt, when all of a sudden the window disappeared without warning. Huh? So I tried to right click on it, resulting that the folder suddenly disappeared from the view. I thought this must be a permission problem, so I searched on the internet for an fstab entry. This time everything worked and I thought wow I could get to play my music. I fired up the Gnome-Musicplayer (it had some strange name that I can't remember) and pointed it to the music on the partition. It imported just 2 things into its library, because it didn't have a plugin for reading mp3 files ????? Are they completely crazy? The de facto industry standard not supported out of the box.. come on.
Well, since, like Asher, I just installed it for university use, I went back to Windows and it's quite unlikely that I am going back to ubuntu regularly.

Additionally localization is still lagging. I had set to use German as language but still some applications are english.

Conclusion:
Hardware detection is good, installation is superb, but the applications, the UI and Gnome is still the old ****.
There are so many GUI errors, it's horrible. Also everything was so ****ing big, I tuned the font to 85dpi and it was a little better, but still the elements were so clumsy and all...
I am somewhat dissapointed.

Maybe KDE is better, I haven't tried.

[Sava]

what is an ubuntu?

[Provost Harrison]

African tribe, wave incredibly sharp pieces of fruit at strangers...

[Atahualpa]

Argh, I think I was hit by a banana

[Urban Ranger]

There are so many GUI errors, it's horrible.

???

[Asher]

Gnome and KDE lack the spit & polish of their grown-up brethren, I believe that's what he's referring to. Inconsistencies, buggyness, weird designs, etc.

That and the crashing/lockup of a lot of simplistic Gnome apps.

[Urban Ranger]

Each GUI has its own idiosyncrasies, afterall, design is an art, not a science. There aren't any cut and dry laws (in the sense of scientific laws - the "laws" in GUI design are nothing more than guidelines) to use. Finder is very different from Explorer, but it didn't take me more than a couple of days to get used to it.

As for Gnome apps, most of them run stably in my experience.

If you like neither Gnome nor KDE you can always try Xfce or another window manager. This is one of the nice things about GNU/Linux.

[Atahualpa]

For example I noticed most windows do not have ok and cancel buttons, but only a close button. I think this is bad, because "close" doesn't have the tone to accept the changes made, it's completely disconnected. Plus the absence of a cancel button is stupid, as you don't always want to submit something. Even if I haven't changed anything, I almost always hit "cancel" when I just want to look at settings, so that I can be 100% sure that not even a change I made by error and didn't notice gets stored.

Another thing I noticed when migrating from Trillian to Gaim for example is that in Trillian the own user is marked red and the chatting partner blue, while in Gaim its vice-versa. I couldn't find in the options where to change this. And this is not something to be taken lightly, because everytime I checked one of the windows I noticed something blue at the bottom and immediately thought the other one has replied. Quite annoying.

There should be some help for users migrating from Windows. As you say, UR, each GUI has its own idiosyncrasies, BUT I don't like to get used to them ALL. I've grown used to MS Windows over the years and getting used to another GUI is just not worth the time.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Atahualpa
Plus the absence of a cancel button is stupid, as you don't always want to submit something.

Yeah, that can be annoying. Happily these are usually settings that can be easily reversed.

Perhaps you can send the Gnome team a feature request?

Originally posted by Atahualpa
Another thing I noticed when migrating from Trillian to Gaim for example is that in Trillian the own user is marked red and the chatting partner blue, while in Gaim its vice-versa. I couldn't find in the options where to change this. And this is not something to be taken lightly, because everytime I checked one of the windows I noticed something blue at the bottom and immediately thought the other one has replied. Quite annoying.

Ah, good point. As I said you can try to get it changed by talking to the developers of gaim.

One of the good things about FOSS is you can participate in the development process - doing debugging, for example, put in feature requests, or even do actual programming.

Originally posted by Atahualpa
There should be some help for users migrating from Windows. As you say, UR, each GUI has its own idiosyncrasies, BUT I don't like to get used to them ALL. I've grown used to MS Windows over the years and getting used to another GUI is just not worth the time.

There are pros and cons to both choices. Yes, you save yourself time not learning something new, but you need to fight constantly with all sorts of slimeware and malware, put up with Microsoft tax and the way they treat end users like dirt (unless you are some really big end user, such as the PRC), etc.

So you either pay the cost up front or later. It's your choice.

[Atahualpa]

I just tried to make a bug report from gaim, despite not being really interested. Sourceforge said I had to register, oh well, there you go...

If they want participation in the development process, why are there no tools to do so?

[Asher]

One of the good things about FOSS is you can participate in the development process - doing debugging, for example, put in feature requests, or even do actual programming.

It's unrealistic to say people and "program" and "debug" the programs. I'm more than capable of doing so, but I refuse to -- that's my job, I'm not going to do that on my home computer because open source software tends to be of a lower quality.

You can make feature requests to commercial software too -- IBM receives these all the time from companies and individuals alike. They get added/changed/modified where appropriate, not from some high school kid hacking the code and in the process causing 4 more regressions, but by the software engineers who designed that module in the first place.

Microsoft has entire programs revolving around this if you join them. They even send you beta programs (Windows Vista, Office 2006, Visual Studio 2005) for you to use and give extensive feedback on.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Atahualpa
I just tried to make a bug report from gaim, despite not being really interested. Sourceforge said I had to register, oh well, there you go...

If they want participation in the development process, why are there no tools to do so?

Many people just fill out bug reports. I do that for Mozilla, OpenOffice, and a few other other projects.

As for tools, it depends on what you want. CVS is used for version control (at least on Sourceforge), and there are FOSS tools for program development out there, eclipse being the most well known one. If you want to just do stuff in Java netbeans is a good IDE/RAD. They are there, all you need to do is a little digging around. There are even webpages with aggregate information.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Asher
It's unrealistic to say people and "program" and "debug" the programs. I'm more than capable of doing so, but I refuse to -- that's my job, I'm not going to do that on my home computer because open source software tends to be of a lower quality.

[Lower quality? Windows, esp IE, is filled with huge gaping security holes that you can move supertankers through]

In many ways FOSS is a cause. It's like environmental protection or helping out the poor.

Why do people spend their spare time picking up trash from beaches and watersheds, stand on street corners in the summer to raise funds, get out of bed in winter mornings to paint strangers' flats, etc?

It's a different mentality. Some persons are more inclined to help than others, but most people are capable of doing so - they may even enjoy the work.

[Asher]

Lower quality -- yes. Compare XMMS to Winamp, OpenOffice to Microsoft Office (or even Corel Office), GAIM to MSN Messenger, etc.

There are exceptions -- I believe Firefox is of a higher quality than IE, but this is mostly because IE has been stagnant for 5 years. But generally, open source programs are of lower quality than commercial counterparts. Just an observable fact of anyone who's tried switching to Linux on the desktop.