Ubuntu 12.10- is it really this bad?

[cariboo]

@Statia, I'm not sure how kubuntu bug reporting works, but I'd suggest you might get more help if you post your problem on the Kubuntu forums.

Also as a tester, you don't need to be a programmer, any one can be a tester from new users to experienced users, and those in between.

[QIII]

Some testers are often deliberately NOT programmers, so they don't fall prey to the expectations programmers might.

For a programmer, as for all humans, it is easy to feel like everything is working just fine because it works just as we expect it to -- we wrote it after all!

Testing occurs on many levels.

Pick up and nock arrow. Bend the bow and loose it. If the arrow doesn't fly true, take it back to the guy making the arrows and tell him what it is doing.

Don't just throw down the arrows, furrow your brow, bad mouth the arrow maker and throw rocks at him (from a distance.)

[obxhdx]

Once I got sick of this problem and bought an Intel on-board powered computer. Now I'm happy.

[Favux]

Actually this is a not too surprising outcome.

Since I don't follow testing closely I can only give you a casual observer's point of view. We'd need some of the testers I'll mention below to fill things in.

There had been a dedicated group of testers for Ubuntu. Unfortunately small in number but robust. However coinciding about with Unity and Plymouth some disruption occurred. Basically some testers felt they were being persecuted for what they felt were objective appraisals. Their perception was that what were felt to be "negative" comments and those making them were being attacked by those who didn't appreciate any criticism, real or perceived, of Ubuntu.

I gather more got upset when they perceived an unfair attack on a gal from Britain and her two cents on Plymouth. Apparently thought she had demonstrated expertise and should have been listened to not attacked and driven away.

Anyway a number of long time testers got alienated and left. A fair amount of the collective tester community's expertise and collective memory was no longer available. I think Quantal may have had the smallest testing community ever. Since a common complaint has always been that Ubuntu dev.s didn't pay enough attention to the testers I honestly don't know how much an impact that had. Maybe more than some thought given Quantal?

Ubuntu has a new community relations person and part of their job is interfacing with testers. And maybe some folks have learned to be a little more judicious. So hopefully the tester pool will increase and Quantal will be an aberrant blip.

[Statia]

Sounds familiar. I concede with a critical review and get accused of throwing stones and badmouthing.

[Statia]

@Statia, I'm not sure how kubuntu bug reporting works, but I'd suggest you might get more help if you post your problem on the Kubuntu forums.

It seems the Kubuntu bug reporting is mostly the same as in Ubuntu, only with a KDE version of apport: apport-kde. The bug also does not seem to be Kubuntu specific, as someone on the forum here reports the same bug with Xubuntu.
The bug has been filed in Launchpad in August, but has not been assigned yet. Now I would would think that a bug that prevents receiving of bug reports should be high priority, but apparently not.

Thanks for the suggestion to post on Kubuntu forums, I posted there and will see what happens.

[QIII]

Sounds familiar. I concede with a critical review and get accused of throwing stones and badmouthing.

I'm not trying to be nasty. I'm trying to make a point about when criticism is most effective. Easy to point fingers after the fact. More effective to actively affect change before release.

There is nothing wrong with a critical review. In fact, such criticisms are absolutely necessary. There was no question raised about the validity of your observation. A user should not have to go hunting for something as common as installing a driver. (But remember that some of the questions about the effectiveness of installation fall to the OEM.) Nobody said that was an unfair observation. The question was about timing.

We who make arrows (no, I'm not an Ubuntu dev, but I am a software developer), testers and QA departments appreciate criticisms before release, not criticisms about our motivations and abilities after we've passed a faulty batch of arrows out. Do you think we like passing out faulty arrows? Your observations up front in testing during the development cycle would be constructive. That's the point of suggesting you become a tester.

The former criticisms are constructive. The latter are not.

If you don't want to volunteer to do it for Canonical directly, join the U+1 Team. It looks like I have less time to devote to testing RR than I did QQ. You can pick up my slack. Give Canonical both barrels during the development cycle. Consider it continuous UAT prior to release. We can have an effect on the final product.

By the way, don't assume I am deluded into believing Ubuntu is above criticism or that I am an Ubuntu cultist or apologist. I use Fedora every bit as much as I use Ubuntu. Ubuntu is far from perfect.

[dodjob]

Hi there,
I don't want to be a disrespectful bad guy but I have used ubuntu for about 5 years now and I must be honest I never had so much problems with it since my upgrade to 12.10.
really, I mean the impossibility to run unity in failsafe graphics is quite a problem for a n00b like me.
I have it running on two machines equipped with nvidia card gt220 and gt330m both fail to start x at any kernel update and yes I know it's missing some packets in order to install the nvidia drivers correctly .. but it's the case for month now!
Second my system freezed. this didn't happend for years O_o'
It's honestly the first time I hesitate to install it around me... a complete noob couldn't install the missing linux headers, update Grub with adding "text" to the command line and reinstall the drivers from the terminal.
another thing bothered me was the amazon adds. altough I understand the need to add such things I don't understand why they didn'tadd the possibility to directly search in the "software center" from there...
Finally the overall system is really slower than the lts. I really regret my upgrade and again I'm a complete ubuntu fan and trully loved their direction until now.
This post may remain completly unreaded but it did help me to feel better
Hope to haven't hurt anyone with it though ^^
Gruß,
H.

[Gremlinzzz]

Ubuntu 12.10 gives you all the latest features, while Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS comes with extended support.I would recommend Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS.

That's between the 2 choices.
I prefer Xubuntu

[Dr. C]

I installed it on an older computer AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 7800 GS (the high end AGP Nvidia Graphics card) and it works great with the Nouveau driver and Unity.