craigmarshall
December 6th, 2009, 11:30 PM
Hi,
Some background (lengthy):
I've happily used half at least half a dozen GNU/Linux distributions in the past since before 2000 I believe, never full time for anything except servers, but I've done my fair share of dabbling (I've used Fedora, Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, Opensuse, mandrake, DSL, etc.), but I have yet to find one that installs cleanly and is reasonably usable out of the box (on at least two laptops of mine, that I can remember) without having to do command line stuff and memorize or searching for several steps to do outside of following the standard CD instructions. I am capable of doing the fiddling around, I've maintained servers and that's the only way to talk to them, but I don't want to fuss with this stuff any more for a home machine when I want to get home-stuff done. I used to work in IT and I've switched to woodwork, and now I see myself as an end user only.
I do prefer Ubuntu to all the other distributions that I've tried, It has Gnome, it has apt, it is full featured, it has a large user base, a good philosophy, etc. Unfortunately, these reasons are not enough on their own!
Interestingly, I have spent time and effort over the years switching to open source programs, and that has been a success for the most part. I don't use many proprietary programs. I get most of my stuff done with emacs, inkscape, gimp, apache, lighttpd, php, python, vlc, vnc, ssh, etc. I do still use a few closed source programs, primarily sketchup and skype, probably a couple more.
Anyway, I have successfully used Ubuntu a few times in the past, starting at around 4.10 I believe - back when I was willing to fiddle with command line stuff and config files, five years on from back then, I think it should just work. I tried using ubuntu on a Macbook Pro from mid-2006 (which I posted about in 2007: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=374098) and also a mid-range Toshiba laptop from about a year later (which I posted about earlier this year: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1155147). Neither really worked without excessive fiddling.
My current problem (finally):
I have just spent 30 minutes, the bandwidth and a blank CD downloading 9.10 and burning it. I tried installing it and running it live, on the previously mentioned Toshiba notebook, but all I get in both cases is a blinking cursor on a blank screen. I googled for help, and I came up with the vga=771 trick from a post on this forum. I tried this trick and didn't get anything but a blank screen - not even a cursor this time.
Conclusion (This will sound trollish):
I very much hate Windows and I tolerate OS X, but I have never had to request this kind of basic help on any windows or OS X forum - so OS X is currently the OS of choice at the moment. Both OSes just install, so they can be commended (!) for actually being able to install onto my hardware and make use of it without excessive fiddling and help requests. Ubuntu should be at least this good - I would like to use Ubuntu only.
When can I expect this basic functionality from Ubuntu, for installing to work? I promise that I'll make a date in my calendar and try again. Waiting with hope: :popcorn:
Thanks,
Craig
Some background (lengthy):
I've happily used half at least half a dozen GNU/Linux distributions in the past since before 2000 I believe, never full time for anything except servers, but I've done my fair share of dabbling (I've used Fedora, Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, Opensuse, mandrake, DSL, etc.), but I have yet to find one that installs cleanly and is reasonably usable out of the box (on at least two laptops of mine, that I can remember) without having to do command line stuff and memorize or searching for several steps to do outside of following the standard CD instructions. I am capable of doing the fiddling around, I've maintained servers and that's the only way to talk to them, but I don't want to fuss with this stuff any more for a home machine when I want to get home-stuff done. I used to work in IT and I've switched to woodwork, and now I see myself as an end user only.
I do prefer Ubuntu to all the other distributions that I've tried, It has Gnome, it has apt, it is full featured, it has a large user base, a good philosophy, etc. Unfortunately, these reasons are not enough on their own!
Interestingly, I have spent time and effort over the years switching to open source programs, and that has been a success for the most part. I don't use many proprietary programs. I get most of my stuff done with emacs, inkscape, gimp, apache, lighttpd, php, python, vlc, vnc, ssh, etc. I do still use a few closed source programs, primarily sketchup and skype, probably a couple more.
Anyway, I have successfully used Ubuntu a few times in the past, starting at around 4.10 I believe - back when I was willing to fiddle with command line stuff and config files, five years on from back then, I think it should just work. I tried using ubuntu on a Macbook Pro from mid-2006 (which I posted about in 2007: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=374098) and also a mid-range Toshiba laptop from about a year later (which I posted about earlier this year: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1155147). Neither really worked without excessive fiddling.
My current problem (finally):
I have just spent 30 minutes, the bandwidth and a blank CD downloading 9.10 and burning it. I tried installing it and running it live, on the previously mentioned Toshiba notebook, but all I get in both cases is a blinking cursor on a blank screen. I googled for help, and I came up with the vga=771 trick from a post on this forum. I tried this trick and didn't get anything but a blank screen - not even a cursor this time.
Conclusion (This will sound trollish):
I very much hate Windows and I tolerate OS X, but I have never had to request this kind of basic help on any windows or OS X forum - so OS X is currently the OS of choice at the moment. Both OSes just install, so they can be commended (!) for actually being able to install onto my hardware and make use of it without excessive fiddling and help requests. Ubuntu should be at least this good - I would like to use Ubuntu only.
When can I expect this basic functionality from Ubuntu, for installing to work? I promise that I'll make a date in my calendar and try again. Waiting with hope: :popcorn:
Thanks,
Craig