Linux Desktop Readiness Thread

[mark]

I voted "Other". I think a lot of people could run with Warty right now, providing the installation & some tweaking were done by a nerd/geek/guru (pick 1). Teaching them to update their system with Synaptic should take maybe 5-10 minutes.

Re: printer drivers - I worked for a major printer manufacturer for 15 years and with "just" DOS, Windows and Mac we were losing the driver wars every day. An OS tweak (that really shouldn't affect printing) or a new version of a "favorite" app that handled printing just a little differently and we were back to the drawing board. Writing a good printer driver is science, art and a lot of black magic & luck and anybody that can do that has a lot of respect from me.

That's a fairly long-winded way of saying that I don't think we're going to see Linux drivers on a CD out of the new printer box any time soon. The Linux software environment is just too fluid, too subject to rapid change and revision. I mean, these guys would like a shot at not having their code go obsolete by the time the CDs are burned. And newer peripherals (digital cameras, multifunction output devices, etc.)? Please - I get a twitchy stomach just thinking about 'em.

Also, until some kind of resolution is reached regarding multimedia - video, audio, DVD playback, etc. - Ubuntu (and Linux in general) is going to continue to be a tough sell. My sister-in-law is a nice lady, intelligent, not afraid of computers or trying something different - but she wants to be able to watch her movies, see the streaming video from her favorite web sites - and doesn't want to hear about legal issues or Microsoft lock-out. In my experience, that's a pretty common attitude.

Finally, we have to remember that most "ordinary" people don't want to spend hours tinkering to get something to work. Not everybody has the required mindset (or the luxury of the time) to go to the lengths that even a casual Linux user (like me) pursue to get it "just right". They want stuff to work, and work now - and if you don't offer them that, they'll move on to something else that says it does.

[Daniel G. Taylor]

I'd say Hoary has a good chance of being ready for normal use. Warty is cool, but there are a few things already in Hoary that make it so much nicer from a normal user's viewpoint.

That said, I thought I'd make a comment about the printer issue. Want to make sure you can buy a printer that you plug in and just works for Ubuntu? Buy an HP printer. HP has free software drivers for all of their printers, and I can tell you from personal experience that they work great. Show other companies that we will financially support companies that release their drivers as free software.

[ubuntu_demon]

I will install mplayer,xmss,firestarter and thunderbird for them. And do a daily :

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade -t hoary-security -y
apt-get upgrade --trivial-only
apt-get auto-clean

I will give a short introduction and explain how to install software.

I would like to create an custom-hoary-cd when it reaches stable for this purpose.

see :

easy GUI based custom ubuntu cd creation tool
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=5981

and

building ubuntu-based distro?
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2669

[HungSquirrel]

Something to think about: I know very few non-geek Windows users who I would trust to do a Windows install unsupervised. Most Windows users get Windows installed by their computer manufacturer. At this point I think the Ubuntu install really isn't much more difficult than a Windows XP install.

[ubuntu_demon]

Something to think about: I know very few non-geek Windows users who I would trust to do a Windows install unsupervised. Most Windows users get Windows installed by their computer manufacturer. At this point I think the Ubuntu install really isn't much more difficult than a Windows XP install.

True.
The only reason why I think warty installation is a bit harder than windows XP is the partioning part.

[ubuntu_demon]

see :

easy GUI based custom ubuntu cd creation tool
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=5981

Maybe this would make installation/configuration by a nerd for someone else a bit faster.

[TravisNewman]

Technically if you can make a custom cd, you could probably add anaconda to it, though I don't know why you'd want to. Too many anaconda crashes for this geek to be satisfied with it. But yes, depending on how custom the custom cd creation tool is, yeah definitely.

However, I'd kinda like to see any work on the installer being passed on to the Ubuntu dev team so that they can include it. They've said in the past that they're going to make a graphical installer eventually, whether it be in hoary or grumpy.

[ubuntu_demon]

I do not want to work on the installer. That's too big of a project for me. Besides I like the current installer (except from the partioning part).

I am just proposing an easy GUI based custom ubuntu cd creation tool. If we could together agree to nice proposal for it someone might implement it. Maybe I will do it myself (my first linux application )

The custom ubuntu cd creation tool I propose is focused to be easy for nerds. Not to be something everyone could do.

But maybe we could use it to make an Ubuntu environment that's more equiped for average-desktop-users.

[ubuntu_demon]

I made the following proposal in

Click And Run in Ubuntu???
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...ed=1#post28718

An ubuntu website that reviews software something like this :

http://cws.internet.com/

So users could go to this website and learn about software, read reviews, watch screenshots and download the software.

We need :

deb://softwarepackagename

A user clicks on a deb:// link. Gets a dialog : "do you want to install softwarepackagename ?"

If the user clicks "yes" :

apt-get update -q
apt-get install softwarepackagename -q

[ubuntu_demon]

I would like to know why people chose the option grumpy or grumpy + nerd. Just curious.