Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
First Thoughts
Since this is Part 1 of a 2 part series, rather than ending on a conclusion, we’ll end on some first thoughts.
In searching for an answer to our question of whether Ubuntu is good enough to convince me to switch, I ultimately have failed to find enough compelling reasons to entice me as a user to switch to Ubuntu for my day-to-day operations. I should make it clear that this is not taking price into consideration – this is only taking into account my current situation as a Windows Vista user. Ubuntu does plenty of things well and I could certainly use it for my day-to-day operations, but there are few things it does better and more things it does worse as compared to Vista, such that using Ubuntu likely hurt my productivity even after I adapted to the differences. It’s hard to fully compete with commercially developed software when you’re giving yours away for free, so I don’t consider this a surprise.
From a performance standpoint, there’s little reason to switch in either direction. As I stated early in this article performance was never a serious condition for evaluation anyhow, and the results don’t change that. Ubuntu outperforms Vista at times, but at other times it looks to be held back by compiler differences and the disadvantage of needing to play nicely with proprietary products that don’t return the favor (e.g. SMB performance). As far as I am concerned, Ubuntu performed no worse than Windows for my day-to-day needs.
Now there are some situations where performance is important enough that it can’t be ignored, and the gap wide enough to make a significant difference. In Part 2 we will be looking for these situations.
I do think there are some niches in which Ubuntu works well, where the operating system itself is the killer app. One such situation is (or rather was) the Netbook market. It’s a market that used to be dominated by Linux operating systems, including Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix. On such devices where you don’t have the resources to do anything fancy, Ubuntu’s weaknesses become less important. Meanwhile price becomes more important. However cheap copies of Windows XP specifically for the Netbook market appear to have killed this idea for now.
For what it’s worth I do have an older laptop (for guest use) that currently runs XP. For the same reason as the Netbooks, I’m considering replacing XP with Ubuntu 9.04 for the security benefits of it not being Windows. I’ve already had to wipe the machine once due to a guest getting it infected with malware.
As I haven’t gone too much in depth yet, let’s talk about user-to-user support. In spite of its user-friendly label, I have not been particularly impressed with the Ubuntu support structure. A lot of this comes down to the difficulty in finding help for existing issues, in spite of colorful names like Hardy Heron to help weed out results. Ubuntu’s Wiki, package archives, and forums all have a great deal of old information that turns up with searching. Results for 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon for example are now a historical curiosity – support ended for Gutsy back in April. Those pages and threads are largely unhelpful, and yet they clutter the search results of Google and the Ubuntu site’s search engine, pushing down more relevant information. Meanwhile the opposite is also true: results for newer versions of Ubuntu are also unhelpful.
The source of the problem comes down to 3 things. 1) Old information still exists and apparently doesn’t go away very easily. 2) Particularly for Ubuntu’s forums, they are divided up by topic but not version. 3) New versions of Ubuntu are published too often.
Now #3 is probably going to be a bit of a touchy subject, but it goes back to why we started with 8.04 in the first place. Either you’re on the upgrade treadmill or you’re not. Ubuntu moves so fast that it’s hard to jump on board. This is good from a development perspective since it allows Ubuntu to improve itself and get feedback sooner, but I don’t believe it’s good for users. A working user-to-user support system needs a lot of knowledgeable users, and the Ubuntu community is clearly full of them, but they seem to be spread out all over the place with respect to what versions they have experience with.
It’s to the advantage of less-knowledgeable users that they stick with a well-tested LTS release rather than be on the bleeding edge, but that’s not where the most knowledgeable users are. Compared to the Mac community where everyone is in sync on Leopard, or the Windows community where everyone is hating Vista and lusting over Windows 7, there’s a lack of cohesion. User-to-user support would be better served by having the community less spread out.
I have mentioned this previously, but the driver and packaging situation needs to be reiterated. While I don’t think the Linux kernel developers’ positions are unreasonable, I do think they’re hurting Ubuntu as a user-friendly operating system. The driver hell I had to go through shouldn’t have occurred, and if there was a stable API for “binary blob” drivers perhaps it wouldn’t have. The pragmatic position is that users don’t care if their drivers are open source or not, they would rather things just work. Ideals can only take you so far.
Along these lines, the packaging/repository system and the focus on it needs some kind of similar overhaul. I like how it allows updating software so easily and how easy it is to install software that is in Ubuntu’s repositories. But software that is not in a repository suffers for it. Installing software shouldn’t be so hard.
Finally, there’s the value of free as in gratis. Ubuntu may not be perfect, but I am still amazed by what it does for the price of $0.00. It’s a complete operating system, entirely for free. This is something that needs to be recognized as a credit to the developers, even if it doesn’t encourage anyone to switch.
Looking forward, coming up in the next couple of months will be the launches of Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Ubuntu 9.10. Compared to where Ubuntu stands with 8.04, there’s a year and a half of time for improvements, along with another LTS release due inside of a year. I think the new releases of Windows and Mac OS X are going to tip the scales away from Ubuntu in the immediate future, but given the lifetimes of those operating systems it’s going to give Ubuntu plenty of time to improve. This is something we’ll take a look at first-hand with Part 2 of this series when we look at 9.04 and more.
As a parting thought, we’d like to hear back from you, our readers, on the subject of Ubuntu and Linux in general. We’d like to know what you would like to see in future articles, both on the hardware and software side. Including some form of Linux in some of our hardware tests is something we’re certainly looking at, but we would like specifics. Would you like Linux-focused hardware roundups? What benchmarks would you like to see in Part 2 of this series (and beyond)? We can’t make any promises, but good feedback from you is going to help us determine what is going to be worth the time to try.
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brennans - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
I use both XP64 and Hardy (Ubuntu 8.04).I am also a power user.
Both these operating systems have pros and cons.
Cons for XP64:
1. It does not recognize my hardware properly.
2. Finding 64 bit drivers was/is a mission.
Cons for Hardy:
1. It does not plug and play with my hardware (i have to compile the drivers).
2. Not as user friendly as windows.
Pros for XP64:
1. Windowing system is super fast.
2. User friendly.
Pros for Hardy:
1. Recognizes my hardware.
2. Command line tools are awesome.
Conclusion:
I think that the article was good.
I am one of those people who has always had problems installing windows straight out of the box and thus find that paying a large amount of money for their buggy OS is unacceptable.
I can get a lot of stuff done with Hardy and it is free and if I find a problem with it I can potentially fix that problem.
I also find it unacceptable that manufacturers do not write software (drivers or application software for their devices) for Linux.
For me, it is difficult to live without both XP64 and Hardy.
ciukacz - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
http://www.iozone.org/">http://www.iozone.org/JJWV - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
How can people use something like Aero and its Linux or OSX equivalents (that pre-dates it if I am not mistaken) ? The noise is just hiding the information. Transparency is one issue, another are those icons that are more like pictures : one looses the instant recognition. With Aero knowing which is the active window is not something obvious, you have to look at small details. The title of the window is surrounded by mist making it more difficult to read. Even with XP the colour gradient in a title bar is just noise : there is no information conveyed by it.The OS GUIs are more and more looking like those weird media players, with an image of rotary button that is to be manipulated like a slide button.
The evolution of all applications to a web interface reminds me of the prehistory of personal computers : each program has its own interface.
The MS Office Ribbon UI is just in the same vein: more than 20 icons on each tab. The icon interface is based on instant recognition and comprehension, when you have so many it turns into a mnemonics exercise. And of course with MS one does not have a choice : you just have to adapt to the program. An end user is only there to be of service to the programs ;-)
If i want to look at a beautiful image I will do it, but the when I want to write an letter or update a database all those ultra kitsch visual effects are just annoying.
As a summary the noise is killing the information and thus the usability.
Ronald Pottol - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
The thing with windows has been seen before, back in the win 3.1-OS/2 days it was found that while one instance of excel didn't run any faster under OS/2, two in separate VMs (ok, not technically the same thing) ran in about the same time as one on windows.I like the package management, and hate when I have to install something that doesn't support it, it means I have to worry about updates all my self. If they have one, they I get updates every time I check for Ubuntu updates, very handy. Nice to get the nightly Google Chrome builds, for instance (still alpha/very beta).
Frankly, supporting binary kernel drivers would be insane. Now they are stuck supporting code they cannot look at and cannot fix, they cannot fix their mistakes (or are stuck emulating them forever). If they supported them, there would be even more of them, and when they wanted to fix something broken or that was a bad idea, they would have to wait a reasonable amount of time before doing it, so it would be supported. Frankly, I don't see why people don't have automated frameworks for doing this and automated deb/rpm repository generation. I add their repository, when I get a kernel update, perhaps it is held up a day for their system to automatically build a new version, but then it all installs, instead, I am stuck with having to run a very old kernel, or not having 3D on my laptop, for instance.
cesarc - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
I found this article very interesting, because is oriented to windows user and is helpful to them because you just didn't die trying it.But you can't blame ubuntu (or any distro), about the pain in the ass a video card's drive could be to install, blame ati and nvidia for been lazy, and if using wine for playing games is not as good as playing in windows blame games company for don't release a GNU/linux version.
Also, the thing about why GNU/linux overpass windows in file management is because ntfs is a BAD file system, maybe if windows somehow could run under ext3 would be even better than it is.
And why your negligence to use a console (stop saying cli please), you are not opening your mind trying to use GNU/linux as a windows just because it is not windows is a completely different os. Look from this point of view... something that you can do in windows with 5 clicks maybe you can do it in GNU/linux in just one line of bash code. So, sometimes you will use GUI and others you will use console and you will find that having this options is very comfortable. So start using the console and do the same article a year later.
I hope some day have a paid version of GNU/linux (still open source), that could pay salaries to programers to fix specific issues in the OS.
In the other hand, when you do the IT benchmark is very disappointing that you don't use linux with those beautiful Xeons. Servers environment is were GNU/linux get stronger. And Xeons with windows are just toys compared with unix on sparcs or power architectures.
PS: try to get 450 days of uptime in a windows 2003.
rkerns - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
Ryan,Thanks for your good work.
Many people considering linux are still on dial-up. These are often folks with lesser expertise who just want to get connected and use their computer in basic ways. But getting connected with dial-up is something of an adventure with many distros and/or versions. Ubuntu 9.04 has moved away from easy dial-up, but Mint7KDE includes KPPP for simple dial-up connection. Mint7KDE has other nice features as well.
I am asking you to expand your current picture of the landscape to include people who want to use linux with a dial-up connection. This of course would have to include a brief discussion of 1) appropriate modems and 2) distro differences. Thanks,
r kerns
William Gaatjes - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
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lgude - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
Really glad to find this in depth article after all this time. Thank you Ryan. I too have run Ubuntu as my main OS even though most of my experience is in Windows and have had similar experiences. Because this was a very long article it got into detail about things like the Package Manager or the multiple desktops that I have not seen discussed elsewhere from a user perspective. As someone else pointed out it is moot what people would like or complain about if they were moving from Linux to Windows or OSX, but imagine for a moment if they were used to getting the OS and all their apps updated in one hit and were asked to do it one app at a time and expected to pay for the privilege!If you go on with the Linux series I'd like to see discussion of the upcoming Ubuntu and other distros - I've been impressed with SUSE. I'd also like to see projects on how to build a Linux server and HTPC - including choice of distro and the kind of hardware needed. I'm less sure of where benchmarking is really useful - the tradition of detailed benchmarking at AT arose from the interest in overclocking and gaming which I think is a much lesser consideration in Linux. More relevant might be comparisons of netbook specific distros or how to work out if that old P4 will do as a home server. There is a lot of buzz in the tech world about things like Symbion, Chrome OS, Moblin, Maemo on portable devices that could possibly draw new readers to the Linux tab at AT. A great start in any case.
jmvaughn - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
I just wanted to say thank you to the author for a very thorough article. After reading it, I decided to use Ubuntu for a PC I'm building out of spare parts for a retired friend who's on fixed income. My friend just uses web, e-mail, and some word processing, so this will be perfect.The article gave me a good idea of what to expect -- a good honest appraisal with all the good and bad. After installing Ubuntu 9.0.4, I am very impressed. The install was very quick, and easier than XP. Everything is quite snappy, even though it's running on a AMD 3800+ single core processor and an old hard drive.
xchrissypoox - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
I only skimmed the article (I saw the part on gaming being poor), I'd like to see a comparison of several games using the same hardware on windows and linux (results given in fps). If this has been mentioned sorry and good day.