mission of ubuntu

[num]

I have been using Ubuntu since 6.10 I know it and I myself have no problems with it but the fact it hasn't been changed but Ubuntu is trying to get more users over to Linux makes no sense to me.

Gimp sucks compared to Photoshop and so forth.

[num]

The file system doesn't make sense, if you are used to the way Windows hides most of the important directories in /Windows. After you've spent several years using a Linux distribution, the file system makes a lot more sense than the Windows file system.

the scatter approach to installing applications makes no sense for example. have one folder named Program Files and keep all the program files there. Simple.

[deadflowr]

File structure designs are unimportant to the average user.

Gimp and other free software only "suck" because they have to tip toe through the landmine field of potential patent/copyright issues.

[mike acker]

The big problem is that users come to Ubuntu, expecting a windows alternative, and try to apply the knowledge they've gained over the years to using Ubuntu, and finding that what they learned, can't be transferred to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu has got to the point, where there really isn't a need for the CLI. In day to day usage, of my desktop system, I only use a terminal when I feel like it, there really isn't a need for it.

The file system doesn't make sense, if you are used to the way Windows hides most of the important directories in /Windows. After you've spent several years using a Linux distribution, the file system makes a lot more sense than the Windows file system.

For instance I find the Windows file system confusing, as it looks like they keep adding directories without fixing anything. Witness the duplication between Documents and Settings and Users. There also seems to be no set place where user programs are installed. Some of them are in the 40+ directories located under the Windows directory, while others are located in Program Files and Program Files(X86), and what is the Program Data directory for?

Windows has done a great job of hiding the way it works from it's users, I personally prefer the openness of a Linux distribution.

Edit At the moment, my Windows 8 installation is kind of useless, as it wants me to remove the network card, before the drivers can be installed, where as all I did is shut down the system running Ubuntu, insert the network card, and restart the system. The NIC was automagically detected, and the driver loaded without any fanfare.

this is really a very thoughtful and well written post .i particularly like the remark "There also seems to be no set place where user programs are installed." . .i would add: or no particular means by which programs are started .which leaves me wondering "what all is really running in this box ? .there seems to be no way to know

as far is avoiding WINE is concerned right now I'm looking at a few programs that I use a lot on my Windows/7 machine that I've not found substitutes for:

1. Browser: all I ever use is FIREFOX anyway
2. eMail: all I ever use is THUNDERBIRD anyway
3. Office: all I ever use is LibreOffice anyway
4. FileDirectory Service: I use Explorer2 -- which will be missed
5. WS-FTP the FTP plug-in for FIREFOX is adequate
6. ULTRAEDIT -- I bet they have a Linux version -- although for most needs GEDIT is OK
7. CLIPMATE -- archive system for ^C cuts -- will be badly missed
8. FILESEEK -- Fuzzy searching text thru multiple directories -- need equivalent
9. MusicBee -- the Rhythm Box is not a replacement for this
10. AUDACITY -- available on Linux
11. Canon: camera utilities -- needed
12. IRFANVIEW -- needed

at this point my plan is to continue use of the existing Windows7 computer OFFLINE.

[oldos2er]

900M new Linux users/day ? that's exciting! I need a source for this figure!!

So in 8 days, roughly, the entire world will be running Linux! lol

james64468 said 900,000, which I still think is a highly overinflated figure.

[num]

File structure designs are unimportant to the average user.

do you have some statistic on this? it doesn't seem like it would be that big of a deal to switch over to a different one. having to each users that /bin is where software goes instead of having a one folder for programs called Program Files is pretty strange. There is really no reason not to switch over if not at least offering a fork to see how it is embraced.

what is the Program Data directory for?

Storage of temporary program data such as configurations

Gimp and other free software only "suck" because they have to tip toe through the landmine field of potential patent/copyright issues.

doesn't make them suck any less.

[Paqman]

[CODE]have one folder named Program Files and keep all the program files there. Simple.

Why? I honestly couldn't care less where the system installs program files to as long as it works. /bin, /usr/bin, /opt, who cares? All the interesting bits (the config and data) go in /home. Simple.

I don't find the Windows file system structure at all intuitive. There probably are better ways to structure a filesystem than what LSB lays down, but it sure isn't the Windows way.

[cariboo]

The file system doesn't make sense, if you are used to the way Windows hides most of the important directories in /Windows. After you've spent several years using a Linux distribution, the file system makes a lot more sense than the Windows file system.

the scatter approach to installing applications makes no sense for example. have one folder named Program Files and keep all the program files there. Simple.

All programs installed from the repositories are installed in /usr, the only things installed elsewhere are programs/packages created by third parties, which are installed in /opt, it can't get much simpler that that.

Keep in mind that Linux was designed as a multi-user operating system, so programs have to be installed, where all users have access to them.

[deadflowr]

do you have some statistic on this?

Try talking to the average person about file systems and their various designs, and see how long it takes them to eagerly get away from you, or change the subject to something more interesting like football or music or movies.

[JKyleOKC]

Linux is derived from Unix -- which was developed at PARC along with C -- by the legendary Brian Kerrnigan and Dennis Ritche. Unix was designed to provide a computer for controlling telephone switching -- and security was built in at the start.

If you're going to cite history, at least get it right, please. While Kernighan was a key figure in the rise of Unix, and even gave it its name, he was not the co-developer of it. Ken Thompson was Dennis Ritchie's collaborator. And they were with Bell Telephone Labs in Cherry Hill, NJ, not PARC on the west coast.

Neither was it designed to provide a computer for controlling telephone switching, although it was later adapted to that purpose along with many others. The original purpose was to allow Ritchie and Thomspon to continue playing a game they had created on MIT's MULTICS system where both had been on-site representatives of BTL. When Bell pulled out of the MULTICS project, they found an unused mini and created their own single-user version of MULTICS in order to continue playing the game. Then, to justify keeping the system in service, they got other folk to use it for text editing and the forerunner of desktop publishing.

Kernighan suggested the name as a sort of anti-pun on single-user versus multi-user, and it stuck. He and P. J. "Bill" Plauger then wrote "Software Tools" which was the first book to expound what has come to be known as "the Unix philosophy" of stringing together many small programs, each of which does just one thing but does it well, to accomplish large goals. It's still very worthwhile reading despite being 36 years old this year!

BTL was a real center of computing advancement in the 70s and 80s; it's too bad that the avarice of AT&T management kept it from becoming as widely known as other hotspots of the times!