where is ubuntu going to?

[japs_it88]

I think Ubuntu is becoming too much a distribution for the masses, losing much of its power in this transformation process. From Ubuntu 5.10 till now many progresses have been done, but also many option disappeared from our favourite operative system. Ubuntu is following too much the phylosophy of "the fewer option i give to the user, the less the user can mess up the computer". But that also means that the most of us, middle-experienced linux users will not find what firstly brought us from windows to linux, that pleasure of learning new things, of seeing our machine with a different eye, the eye of the user who can truly decide how his machine will work.

I think that, in the effort of making things easier, ubuntu is not anymore offering a long list of useful features that i was always courious to explore, that i was courious to learn what they would do, but also that, becaming every day a little more expert, i would eventually find very useful.

People who have power to decide how ubuntu, and the whole linux, gnome, kde, mozilla and similar, should pay attention to carefully balance the target of their works, otherwise they will certainly lose most of the people who chose Ubuntu as the right compromise between an easy to use system and the most powerful and complete, but also spartan and difficult to use system.

[raul_]

I don't know what you're talking about...

[maxamillion]

I don't know what you're talking about...

Going to have to agree. I don't get what you are trying to say.

[smoker]

I think Ubuntu is becoming too much a distribution for the masses, losing much of its power in this transformation process.

mass appeal, now why would we want that!

i think if you want something with less appeal to the masses then there are plenty other distros out there, or you could always start your own!

[puppy]

Well in this week's TWiT podcast (This Week in Tech) Leo Laporte and friends were discussing the future of operating systems into 2007. They started by saying that they were specifically talking about Windows Vista, Mac OSX and linux, specifically the Ubuntu distribution which is very popular of course. Isn't it great that linux has moved so far (ok I'm paraphrasing a bit, but not much)

I absolutely respect the views of the people on that podcast, and what it says to me is that if they consider Ubuntu to be a serious option as someone's main OS, how that can be a bad thing in *anyone's* book is beyond me (unless you're a damp basement dweller of course :rolleyes: )

[qamelian]

Most of the increased simplification isn't even Ubuntu's work. It's the result of increased simplification by the Gnome developers. While I love Ubuntu, I'm learning to hate Gnome because, in some cases, I'm finding Gnome to be over-simplified to the point of actually making some things I want to do or configure to be more difficult. Every time I have to resort to gconf-editor to change a setting, I get one step closer to switching back to KDE. Fortunately, Ubuntu works so well right off the bat that I don't bother changing much any more.

[zgornel]

It is a case of "linux becoming user friendly" frustration. :D .

[d3v1ant_0n3]

I find GNOME to be lacking in many options that KDE presents to you in a nice menu entry. BUt they tend to be configuration options that you rarely need to fiddle with, so don't really NEED a menu entry, IMO. But this isn't Ubuntu's fault. it's the GNOME devs. And I don't see it as a fault, so...yeah.

I find the elitest paradox quite funny with some people:

"Everyone should use Linux! M$ Sux0r5!!!"
"Oh No! They're making a distro that people can easily use! It sucks!"

[qamelian]

I find GNOME to be lacking in many options that KDE presents to you in a nice menu entry. BUt they tend to be configuration options that you rarely need to fiddle with, so don't really NEED a menu entry, IMO. But this isn't Ubuntu's fault. it's the GNOME devs. And I don't see it as a fault, so...yeah.

I find the elitest paradox quite funny with some people:

"Everyone should use Linux! M$ Sux0r5!!!"
"Oh No! They're making a distro that people can easily use! It sucks!"

This is going to vary from user to user. User A isn't necessarily interested in configuring the same features as User B. I remember a friend of mine mentioning that he could never understand why some people would want to customize a certain feature in KDE. I gues I went kind of glassy-eyed at his statement because, at the time, it was always the first thing I changed whenever I did a KDE install! Just a matter of taste.

[aysiu]

If Ubuntu is becoming "too mainstream," then it's finally starting to live up to the hype. From the very beginning, its motto has been Linux for Human Beings--a misleading motto for Warty, certainly. Bug #1 is about appealing to the masses by making sure Windows doesn't come preloaded on most people's computers:
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

So if you thought Ubuntu was made to appeal to hardcore geeks, you were the one who hopped on the wrong distro. You should be using Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, or LFS.

[Kernel Sanders]

I've seen similar whining about Firefox believe it or not. Firefox 1.0 is the best, and 2.0 is too simple, to much a browser for everyone etc...

Well duh, the more people that can use something the better! ](*,)

[puppy]

Well for one thing I'm not scared about recommending that fairly tech-savvy friends install linux anymore - as long as it's Edgy ;) I agree on the configuration issue, except for screensaver options - come on Gnome guys, we can be trusted to fiddle with those, honest [-(

[3rdalbum]

Interesting piece of trivia: Originally, the designers of the Mac OS didn't want users to have the ability to change their desktop pattern, to prevent users from creating an ugly one. Luckily they changed their mind.

If Ubuntu is going somewhere, they HAVE to get Bulletproof X right, and get multi-arch support working. These are the two biggest areas where Ubuntu lags behind.

[japs_it88]

hi everyone,
i'm really afraid i didn't make you understand what i meant to say: I love ubuntu, and i like things getting easy for everybody. it is the most wonderful thing in this earth that everyone has a valid alternative to windows or mac, but i also think ubuntu should - in a sort - "educate people to do more".
an elite-oriented distro is not cooler. i actually claim the opposite: it is good that everybody have easy access to the advanced features linux has.
what i wanted to underline is that i feel like we are trying to appeal to more people by hiding some features, instead of imlpementing them so that most people can understand and use them.
i also know this doesn't depends on Ubuntu but on a long list of organizations (gnome for example, as someone has pointed out)

a little example to understand: until a while ago the network settings menu offered the option to chose your default device for connection, which could be useful for some. this option disappaeared in edgy.

my post wants to be a constructive discussion, not a baseless criticism.
hope this made a little more sense.

[raul_]

What you don't understand is that all of those things can be done. Just because there's not a button, it doesn't mean that it can't be done. If people want, they do whatever they want. There is nothing you can do with gentoo that you can't do with another distro. The only difference is in what's preloaded

[az]

what i wanted to underline is that i feel like we are trying to appeal to more people by hiding some features, instead of imlpementing them so that most people can understand and use them.
i also know this doesn't depends on Ubuntu but on a long list of organizations (gnome for example, as someone has pointed out)

a little example to understand: until a while ago the network settings menu offered the option to chose your default device for connection, which could be useful for some. this option disappaeared in edgy.

I still don't know what you are talking about. The direction that Ubuntu is going is to use a networking tool that just works. One that requires as little configuration and consequently little knowledge about networking to use. If you can't configure your networing to your liking in Edgy, it's a bug.

[japs_it88]

The direction that Ubuntu is going is to use a networking tool that just works. One that requires as little configuration and consequently little knowledge about networking to use. If you can't configure your networing to your liking in Edgy, it's a bug

See, that's where the problem is: why can't just anybody, from beginner to expert, have all the options available?
By removing options from the distribution, you are forcing -in some way- the beginner into beginner-level knowledge. Putting some extra option doesn't mean making a distro less user friendly or less appealing to the masses.
of course there must be a balance between too many and too few options given to the user, but my fear is that this balance is leaning too much to the second case

[aysiu]

a little example to understand: until a while ago the network settings menu offered the option to chose your default device for connection, which could be useful for some. this option disappaeared in edgy. I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but this idea of GUI options disappearing isn't a Ubuntu thing. First of all, let's be clear--you are talking about GUI options, probably. My guess, if I know Gnome, is that the setting is available in a text file somewhere or in gconf-editor.

But you should also realize this is a Gnome thing. Gnome strives to be simple. In many ways that simplicity is a strength. In other ways, it's a weakness. That's not Ubuntu. That's Gnome. If you look at Kubuntu Edgy or Xubuntu Edgy, you'll see that there are more or just as many GUI options as there were in Dapper.