always a but guys, always a but...
well first let me say welldone on an awesome flavour of ubuntu. previous experience was with version 5 and it was a bad experience (let's just leave it at that...)
My business offers open source business solution consulting. in other words, I go out to companies, and advise them on open source alternatives to propritory software. when a client takes my advise, I fowards a percentage of my consultancy fees to the relevant open source projects. In all I have contributed several hundred dollars in the last year.
Now I am always looking for a better solution, and the new ubuntu seems to be just that... very similar in certain vital aspects to the familiar MS Windows evironment (god I hate getting those shivers down my spine), yet fundamentally Linux to the bone.
BUT my loading it on my test system was not with out it's trauma, and taking into account that I am a hardcore OSI fanatic, I never gave up, but most other people would.
First grievance... The GUI is to resource hungry. I understand that it runs as a live CD, but you need to be a little more resourceful in this area. Have the CD start at 640x480 56Hz, and then step through the resolutions first, then the refresh rates each time asking the user to click on a confirmation button. If he doesn't see anything, then he must leave it and after 10 seconds or so, the gui should drop back down the previous good resolution/refresh rate.
You see, my test system is just that, a machine made up of scraps. And the monitor is a 13.4" SVGA 800x600 display (whose power button has been hard wired cos it broke to often). I had to go borrow a 16.8" 1280x1024 display from my book keeper (as my normal PC is a laptop so couldn't borrow that screen).
Now to the in experienced user, Ubuntu would not be working, and he would switch back to Windows (there's those damn shivers again). Meanwhile, the problem was just a ID10T error...
Second issue... and this one was resolved using my experience. Your average user would have been lost. I couldn't not partition the harddrive (Seagate 40GB 5400 rpm PATA IDE) during the install process. Kept bring back various error messages. First thought would be that it's a dud harddrive, but I know it's good, as I install a different Linux Flavour every week. So I went to System and Partitioned it from there... worked perfectly. Restarted the Install... seleced Manual Partition and just skipped through... But I reckon you need to just check things there, as again it could cause someone to leave Linux all together.
You see, that I don't think I will ever understand. You average computer user has several dozen bad experiences with Windows (shiver) every month, but they just keep moving on... but put them infront of Linux or any other alternative, and all they need is one bad experience and they are willing to turn their back on Open Source forever... that must be one of the paradoxes of science and nature and stuff...
I reckon it's been baffling great minds since the dawn of gorillas and apes and stuff...
Peace out guys... and will let you all know if I am going to approve Ubuntu and register as a partner...
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