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View Full Version : The article I was working on, "30 Days of Ubuntu Linux" has been posted



Brian Boyko
March 5th, 2007, 10:30 PM
Thank you guys for all your help. I couldn't have written the article without you.

30 Days of Ubuntu Linux.

http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=

laidback
March 6th, 2007, 02:53 AM
And thank you for taking the time to wtire the article.

mart007
March 6th, 2007, 03:14 AM
Good article - enjoyed. Thanks.

dyous87
March 6th, 2007, 04:02 AM
Yes i read it myself, nicely done. It was a good read :)

aysiu
March 6th, 2007, 04:14 AM
Moved to the Cafe from General Help.

NT4usB
March 6th, 2007, 04:16 AM
Well done!
Mind if I share it with everyone I know?

ayates
March 6th, 2007, 04:29 AM
Good read. I had never come across [H]ard|Forum. So, while I was there, I signed up.

unbargained
March 6th, 2007, 04:30 AM
good article :)

FuturePilot
March 6th, 2007, 04:32 AM
That was a great article. I'm still in the middle of it but I'm loving it:popcorn:

jimrz
March 6th, 2007, 04:51 AM
Good job, Brian. Enjoyed your article and thought it a pretty fair representaion of what one can expect to encounter.

Bad luck that you had one of the few HP printers not well supported since, as a rule, HP hardware is generally more linux friendly than most.

tdwester
March 6th, 2007, 04:52 AM
Vrey well written article.

akiro.yamamoto
March 6th, 2007, 04:54 AM
Concise and balanced...
Good Job.
D

Zyphrexi
March 6th, 2007, 05:39 AM
when I started with linux I HAD to learn the X configuration file. (wasn't xorg back then)

ironically enough I found slackware easier to configure than ubuntu.

konungursvia
March 6th, 2007, 05:46 AM
Pretty good article for an amateur. I would have used easyubuntu though.

gldvxx
March 6th, 2007, 06:07 AM
wow great article!! very intelligently written!!!!!!!! i came to ubuntu from Mac, so some of the software installing and hardware/software compatibility issues have not been foreign to me. as far as gaming goes, as a mac user i almost feel like there are more gaming options (for the games ii like to play) on Linux! but i should probably discuss this on your forum... :D thanks for a great article!!

Cloudy
March 6th, 2007, 06:34 AM
Good article, Brian.

fdrake
March 6th, 2007, 06:47 AM
it reminds me my first experiences with linux .... Tough times .

izanbardprince
March 6th, 2007, 07:17 AM
First the issue with launching Ice Weasel and having it spawn an instance of Firefox, whenever you have an instance of Firefox running and open another one, it simply clones whatever is in memory, thats why you can't have the 32-bit and 64-bit versions open at once.

Now for Flash and Java, just run the 32-bit plug-ins through Ndiswrapper, and they'll work fine in the 64-bit Firefox.

karellen
March 6th, 2007, 08:03 AM
nice article, very detailed and complete ;-)

sgstarling
March 6th, 2007, 02:44 PM
Well done and thorough!

I have a question for Brian or anyone though. On page 6 (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCw2LCxoY29uc3VtZXI=), theres a thumbnail of a screenshot that shows firefox page load times down in the firefox statusbar. I assume that's an extension? What extension is it?

PriceChild
March 6th, 2007, 03:01 PM
This thread popped up in the staff forum because of its /. appearance.

I think its one of the fairest reviews of Ubuntu/Linux. Following those by a certain other website (see my blog) this was a very refreshing read.

Sad to hear that you had such huge problems with gnome-panel, these aren't common at all and I haven't heard of these with anybody else.

I'm also a bit disappointed that you had to resort to automatix etc. to get certain things going. There is an absolute wealth of information the wiki which has links from your default homepage (file:///usr/share/ubuntu-artwork/home/locales/index-en_GB.html): file:///usr/share/ubuntu-artwork/home/locales/index-en_GB.html

Everything automatix can do, you can do cleaner, and learn more whilst doing :)

Pricey

Sunflower1970
March 6th, 2007, 04:29 PM
My brother sent me a link to this article yesterday. He found it on Slashdot.

It was a great article. Felt very balanced. :)

JohnSilver
March 6th, 2007, 05:32 PM
Well done and thorough!

I have a question for Brian or anyone though. On page 6 (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCw2LCxoY29uc3VtZXI=), theres a thumbnail of a screenshot that shows firefox page load times down in the firefox statusbar. I assume that's an extension? What extension is it?

I believe the extension is FasterFox (http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/).

ShadowVlican
March 6th, 2007, 08:37 PM
great well written article by one of the most visited hardware technology websites on the internet, HardOCP

it put forward some issues that many first time users will face and deal with, i can totally relate to his article

OldTimeTech
March 6th, 2007, 08:49 PM
Read the article, thought it was great!!!!!!

Brian Boyko
March 7th, 2007, 10:52 PM
Well done and thorough!

I have a question for Brian or anyone though. On page 6 (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCw2LCxoY29uc3VtZXI=), theres a thumbnail of a screenshot that shows firefox page load times down in the firefox statusbar. I assume that's an extension? What extension is it?

Fasterfox - which I downloaded just to show you exactly how long it took for that page to load.

bobbybobington
March 8th, 2007, 12:42 AM
That was one of the best Linux articles I've read in quite sometime. Keep up the good work!

DrainBead
March 8th, 2007, 01:00 AM
Thank you guys for all your help. I couldn't have written the article without you.

30 Days of Ubuntu Linux.

http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=

"The Gnome taskbar stops responding to mouse clicks and the Applications menu does not respond. I save what work I could and reboot, which resolves the problem the first time. For future incidents, I made sure to create an icon on the desktop to launch the system monitor, instead of just having it in the application bar. From there I can kill the Gnome panel process and (like in Windows) it restarts none the worse for wear. A minor bug - and certainly within the realm of bugs I've seen on other OSes."

That's not a "minor bug", would i deploy a system where such a thing would be mentioned as a "minor bug"? Definently not, what is a major bug if that one is minor?

And you should probably have mentioned that a ctrl-alt-z would be all that was needed, for a Linux user it seems like you are not aware of how Linux works and for a Windows user you seem to be apologizing for major problems.

I have a bazillion of other problems with your article but i'll keep them to myself as they are probably only pet-peeves of mine and won't interest most people.

But to be honest, it seems more like a fanboys response to another crappy article.

freesitebuilder
March 8th, 2007, 08:02 PM
This is an interesting article about trying Ubuntu (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=).

The intro says

Many people, daunted by Vista's hardware requirements and product activation issues, claim on various boards how they plan to "switch to Linux." We spend 30 days using nothing but Ubuntu Linux to find out if this is truly a viable alternative for the consumer.

It's 11 web pages, but easy to read, and you can choose a particular topic from the drop-down menu.

His conclusion - he's keeping Ubuntu as his main OS, but adding dual-boot Windows for a couple of things he can't do on Ubuntu. If you're a beginner like me, or still thinking about it, you'll find it a useful read.

Delvien
March 11th, 2007, 01:10 PM
This is an interesting article about trying Ubuntu (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=).

The intro says


It's 11 web pages, but easy to read, and you can choose a particular topic from the drop-down menu.

His conclusion - he's keeping Ubuntu as his main OS, but adding dual-boot Windows for a couple of things he can't do on Ubuntu. If you're a beginner like me, or still thinking about it, you'll find it a useful read.



this was a wonderful read.

Sef
March 11th, 2007, 01:40 PM
Moving to Community Cafe.

karellen
March 11th, 2007, 02:42 PM
I know about that article, it appeared on tuxmachines.org some time ago

beefcurry
March 11th, 2007, 02:43 PM
sounds like my own experience :P

%hMa@?b<C
March 11th, 2007, 02:55 PM
I find it funny that he compared kino with Adobe Premire. He should have compared premeire with cinelerra and kino with windows movie maker. then it may have been more of an equal test.

PriceChild
March 11th, 2007, 03:02 PM
*threads merged*

Trebuchet
March 11th, 2007, 03:14 PM
Great article. I just rediscovered [H]ardOCP a few days ago, and yours was the first article I read.

How about a six-month or one year followup article?

JAPrufrock
March 11th, 2007, 04:43 PM
Great read. All in all pretty positive about Ubuntu. However, our beloved 64-bit OS took a beating:


If you've read so far, I've had a really, really hard time trying to get things to work in 64-bit Ubuntu. Truly, 64-bit Ubuntu isn't worth it for the desktop user, and should stay in the IT departments and programmer lairs until development catches up. With both Mac OS X and Vista in 64-bit versions, Linux can no longer lag behind if it expects to be taken seriously.

If you take the above as true, and have also read Eric Steven Raymond's article, World Domination 201 (http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html), it would seem that Ubuntu (Linux) will stay out on the fringes of the OS world for a few more decades. I may start a thread on the 64-bit forum to discuss this.

laidback
March 11th, 2007, 06:09 PM
Dear Brian,
A very good read, thanks. A couple of points if I may. You didn't mention anything about security which I think is a strong point fo Linux. By security I mean the whole lot, users, access control, virus issues (lack of) etc. When running my XP box I loathed the constant notifications that I needed to update my virus protection, oh and by the way your subscription is about to run out so please post £n to us by return. Linux is free in more ways than cost.
It would be handy to point out that there are numerous printers that are supported, I like you had one that wasn't. Fortunately for me Cups in Ubuntu now has support for my Samsung ML1610 laser so I'm now in happy land.
A good read, many thanks for the time you must have spent. It's very useful to compare your experiences with my own, did I miss anything?, is there more? etc.

I was most pleased to read your conclusions, in your situation I think it's a pragmatic outcome.

Laidback

Brian Boyko
March 13th, 2007, 01:32 PM
I find it funny that he compared kino with Adobe Premire. He should have compared premeire with cinelerra and kino with windows movie maker. then it may have been more of an equal test.

Actually, the comparison to Premiere was made because Premiere is the program HConsumer usually uses to test encoding times when we evaluate computer hardware. We simply had tons of Premiere data and very little Windows Movie Maker data; nevertheless, this comparison was only for encoding times; the user interface was the big concern, and I found Kino's daunting.

-- Brian Boyko

Brian Boyko
March 13th, 2007, 01:35 PM
Dear Brian,
A very good read, thanks. A couple of points if I may. You didn't mention anything about security which I think is a strong point fo Linux. By security I mean the whole lot, users, access control, virus issues (lack of) etc. When running my XP box I loathed the constant notifications that I needed to update my virus protection, oh and by the way your subscription is about to run out so please post £n to us by return. Linux is free in more ways than cost.
It would be handy to point out that there are numerous printers that are supported, I like you had one that wasn't. Fortunately for me Cups in Ubuntu now has support for my Samsung ML1610 laser so I'm now in happy land.
A good read, many thanks for the time you must have spent. It's very useful to compare your experiences with my own, did I miss anything?, is there more? etc.

I was most pleased to read your conclusions, in your situation I think it's a pragmatic outcome.

Laidback

Thank you.

I really didn't mention anything about security because I really felt that I could test security adequately. The article was about my experiences with Linux, and an absence of security problems could mean an absence of need.

In short, it would have been conjecture to say that Linux had better security without implying that I had some objective measure by which to say so. In a lab I could probably make this claim, but this article was about my personal experiences.