What is it with ubuntu?
 

I haven't had a close look at that os.

What is it about Ubuntu that its users clamour atop the rooftops to
scream out its praises?

What has Ubuntu done right that Mandr(ake|iva), Knoppix, Debian, RedHat,
Gentoo etc haven't?

What's its lineage?

What's its packaging system? Portage-based? RPM-based? Deb-based?

And, how ready is it for Joe Windows SixPack's grandmother?

--
Cheers
EB

--

One who is not a conservative by age 20 has no brain.
One who is not a liberal by age 40 has no heart.

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

Evil Bastard wrote:

> I haven't had a close look at that os.
>
> What is it about Ubuntu that its users clamour atop the rooftops to
> scream out its praises?
>
> What has Ubuntu done right that Mandr(ake|iva), Knoppix, Debian,
> RedHat, Gentoo etc haven't?

Dunno. Maybe sending people free CDs helps ;)

> What's its lineage?

It's closely related to Debian.

> What's its packaging system? Portage-based? RPM-based? Deb-based?

deb

> And, how ready is it for Joe Windows SixPack's grandmother?


--
Chris Hope | www.electrictoolbox.com | www.linuxcdmall.co.nz

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

Evil Bastard wrote:
> I haven't had a close look at that os.

theres the problem.

> What is it about Ubuntu that its users clamour atop the rooftops to
> scream out its praises?

simple, clean and useful.

> What has Ubuntu done right that Mandr(ake|iva), Knoppix, Debian, RedHat,
> Gentoo etc haven't?

less crap to deal with, it's the windows 2000 to windows XP, all the
functionality that you need, without the bullshit pretty menus(unless
you want them)

> What's its lineage?

debian

> What's its packaging system? Portage-based? RPM-based? Deb-based?

deb.

> And, how ready is it for Joe Windows SixPack's grandmother?

not overly, but it is pretty damn good. give it another couple of versions.

--
http://dave.net.nz <- My personal site.

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 12:40:12 +1200, Evil Bastard wrote:

>What has Ubuntu done right that Mandr(ake|iva), Knoppix, Debian, RedHat,
>Gentoo etc haven't?

I spent a week or two trying out an arbitrary few of the hundreds of
distros out there - Ubuntu, Mandrake, Linspire and RedHat9. I only
heard about Ubuntu through this NG. I really didn't fancy spending the
rest of my life comparing all the others <g>.

My requirements were:

1) Run on relatively low spec PCs.
2) Easy install - no geeky stuff.
3) Good hardware detection (network, video, audio, USB etc.).
4) Easy update procedure - for kernel, GUI and apps.

For me, Ubuntu came out first - by a long way - with RedHat9 the
worst.

>What's its lineage?
>What's its packaging system? Portage-based? RPM-based? Deb-based?

Debian based. Take a look at: http://www.ubuntu.com/

>And, how ready is it for Joe Windows SixPack's grandmother?

With my old(er) PCs running on things like Win98, I simply can't
afford to upgrade them all to XP. An easy translation from a Win32 GUI
is essential - I'm the token geek of the family. The Open Office apps
(plus the Gimp) are pretty well up to anything people are used to
using in Windows ... for free.

Linux GUI flavours are plentiful, but the version of Gnome that got
installed by default by Ubuntu was perfectly fine - no worse for "Joe
Windows SixPack's grandmother" than Windows - in some cases, even
better.

I've "played" with Linux since RH6, and Ubuntu 5.04 is the first
distro I'd consider trying out on gran.

I'm really not interested in the "holy war" - I use Linux and WinXP -
plus FreeBSD for web work. Horses for courses.

Adam.

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 13:20:31 +1200, Dave - Dave.net.nz wrote:

>Evil Bastard wrote:
>> And, how ready is it for Joe Windows SixPack's grandmother?
>
>not overly, but it is pretty damn good. give it another couple of versions.

5.10 (Breezy Badger) is imminent. Looks pretty good, judging by the
specs on the preview. New OpenOffice, PHP5 etc.

I was looking hard at it, as I needed to test a few functions in PHP5.
In the end, I installed it [PHP5] on my 5.04 setup - thinking I could
always wipe the HD ready for 5.10 if things didn't work out.

PHP5 only took about 15 minutes to install/upgrade, so I loaded up my
phpinfo() test page and was shocked to see it pop up - with everything
running. I nearly choked on my coffee - I hadn't even touched any of
the ini files.

I'd tried doing it in RH9 - only to get into some horrific RPM
Catch-22 dependency muddle that I just couldn't resolve.

Adam.

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 14:24:02 +1200, Adam wrote:

> On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 12:40:12 +1200, Evil Bastard wrote:
>
>>What has Ubuntu done right that Mandr(ake|iva), Knoppix, Debian, RedHat,
>>Gentoo etc haven't?
>
> I spent a week or two trying out an arbitrary few of the hundreds of
> distros out there - Ubuntu, Mandrake, Linspire and RedHat9. I only heard
> about Ubuntu through this NG. I really didn't fancy spending the rest of
> my life comparing all the others <g>.
>
> My requirements were:
>
> 1) Run on relatively low spec PCs.
> 2) Easy install - no geeky stuff.
> 3) Good hardware detection (network, video, audio, USB etc.). 4) Easy
> update procedure - for kernel, GUI and apps.
>
> For me, Ubuntu came out first - by a long way - with RedHat9 the worst.
>
>>What's its lineage?
>>What's its packaging system? Portage-based? RPM-based? Deb-based?
>
> Debian based. Take a look at: http://www.ubuntu.com/
>
>>And, how ready is it for Joe Windows SixPack's grandmother?
>
> With my old(er) PCs running on things like Win98, I simply can't afford
> to upgrade them all to XP. An easy translation from a Win32 GUI is
> essential - I'm the token geek of the family. The Open Office apps (plus
> the Gimp) are pretty well up to anything people are used to using in
> Windows ... for free.
>
> Linux GUI flavours are plentiful, but the version of Gnome that got
> installed by default by Ubuntu was perfectly fine - no worse for "Joe
> Windows SixPack's grandmother" than Windows - in some cases, even
> better.
>
> I've "played" with Linux since RH6, and Ubuntu 5.04 is the first distro
> I'd consider trying out on gran.
>
> I'm really not interested in the "holy war" - I use Linux and WinXP -
> plus FreeBSD for web work. Horses for courses.
>
> Adam.

aye aye aye
I believe there is a KDE desktop version.
I'm waiting for it to develop a bit more before switching from Mandrake.
I've used Debian before and the apt package manager is the best.
RH6 was my first intro to rpm hell after using Corel, which was resurrected as
Debian based Xandros - they could have called in Phoenix Linux :=)

cheers
BrianM

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

BrianM wrote:

> On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 14:24:02 +1200, Adam wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 12:40:12 +1200, Evil Bastard wrote:
>>
>>>What has Ubuntu done right that Mandr(ake|iva), Knoppix, Debian,
>>>RedHat, Gentoo etc haven't?
>>
>> I spent a week or two trying out an arbitrary few of the hundreds of
>> distros out there - Ubuntu, Mandrake, Linspire and RedHat9. I only
>> heard about Ubuntu through this NG. I really didn't fancy spending
>> the rest of my life comparing all the others <g>.
>>
>> My requirements were:
>>
>> 1) Run on relatively low spec PCs.
>> 2) Easy install - no geeky stuff.
>> 3) Good hardware detection (network, video, audio, USB etc.). 4) Easy
>> update procedure - for kernel, GUI and apps.
>>
>> For me, Ubuntu came out first - by a long way - with RedHat9 the
>> worst.
>>
>>>What's its lineage?
>>>What's its packaging system? Portage-based? RPM-based? Deb-based?
>>
>> Debian based. Take a look at: http://www.ubuntu.com/
>>
>>>And, how ready is it for Joe Windows SixPack's grandmother?
>>
>> With my old(er) PCs running on things like Win98, I simply can't
>> afford to upgrade them all to XP. An easy translation from a Win32
>> GUI is essential - I'm the token geek of the family. The Open Office
>> apps (plus the Gimp) are pretty well up to anything people are used
>> to using in Windows ... for free.
>>
>> Linux GUI flavours are plentiful, but the version of Gnome that got
>> installed by default by Ubuntu was perfectly fine - no worse for "Joe
>> Windows SixPack's grandmother" than Windows - in some cases, even
>> better.
>>
>> I've "played" with Linux since RH6, and Ubuntu 5.04 is the first
>> distro I'd consider trying out on gran.
>>
>> I'm really not interested in the "holy war" - I use Linux and WinXP -
>> plus FreeBSD for web work. Horses for courses.
>>
>> Adam.
>
> aye aye aye
> I believe there is a KDE desktop version.

Correct. It's called Kubuntu. http://www.kubuntu.org/

> I'm waiting for it to develop a bit more before switching from
> Mandrake. I've used Debian before and the apt package manager is the
> best. RH6 was my first intro to rpm hell after using Corel, which was
> resurrected as
> Debian based Xandros - they could have called in Phoenix Linux :=)

--
Chris Hope | www.electrictoolbox.com | www.linuxcdmall.co.nz

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

In article <dhcpkt$2kd$1@lust.ihug.co.nz>,
Chris Hope <blackhole@electrictoolbox.com> wrote:

>Evil Bastard wrote:
>
>> What has Ubuntu done right that Mandr(ake|iva), Knoppix, Debian,
>> RedHat, Gentoo etc haven't?
>
>Dunno. Maybe sending people free CDs helps ;)

A humanist-type philosophy, plus backing from a philanthropic foundation
set up by a very successful, and generous, businessman.

Inviting pictures of varied groups of smiling people in the
wallpaper--the graphical equivalent of "Don't Panic" in large friendly
letters. :)

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

Evil Bastard wrote:

> I haven't had a close look at that os.
>
> What is it about Ubuntu that its users clamour atop the rooftops to
> scream out its praises?

It's Gnome-based GUI...and fairly up to date....and free.

> What has Ubuntu done right that Mandr(ake|iva), Knoppix, Debian, RedHat,
> Gentoo etc haven't?

Not much....in fact, less. They still have a text install and no obvious way
to resize and NTFS p0artition when installing. That last "mystery" has been
solved for some time on most other major distros.....including Xandros,
which I would rate far ahead of Ubuntu.

But yuo have to pay for Xandros (Deluxe version, anyway).

> What's its lineage?

Debian.

> What's its packaging system? Portage-based? RPM-based? Deb-based?

Deb...though most distros can handle both rpms amd debs these days.

Xandros does this easily.

> And, how ready is it for Joe Windows SixPack's grandmother?

It isn't, really......but for a free distro, it's pretty good.

But if you want a GOOD Nana's-desktop distro, get Xandros or Linspire.

I put my 69 yo mother on Xandros 3.0 a couple of months ago and she loves
it.

No viruses.
No adware.
No spyware.

LOTS of software.

Re: What is it with ubuntu?
 

Adam wrote:

> I've "played" with Linux since RH6, and Ubuntu 5.04 is the first
> distro I'd consider trying out on gran.

You may want to have a look at Xandros 3.0.

My 69yo mother likes it.

I did the install....but she uses it every day.

Having said that, she could probably have done the install herself -
including allowing the install to re-size her Windows parititon.

......compared to Ubuntu which would have floored her completely with its
text-based install, asking many questions she would not have understood at
all.....and no obvious way offered to re-size her Windows partition.