Linux Desktop Readiness Thread

[Wight_Rhino]

It's a Great Pity that the OP mentioned, let alone Compared Feisty to XP, because his very valid points will now turn this thread into a Win v Linux "discussion" as everyone assumes defensive positions.

Important questions will not be asked, let alone answered. Amongst the "Debate".

Three years down the road (and 6 releases) why are many getting issues that seemed to have worked in previous releases? Why can't we build on the success instead of bouncing between bugs like a pinball; sound, wireless, usb, and now drive detection.

Is it in our genes to keep "fiddling", rather than take a breather and ensure that everything that worked in the previous release still works? Think about it, if everything that's been "fixed" over the last three years stayed fixed what a distro we would have!

[u.b.u.n.t.u]

Anyhow... GNU/Linux is all about choices: if you prefer to use M$ Windows, that is a respectable and understandable choice as well

Having a 19" CRT monitor locked in at 800x600 at 50Mhz is not a "choice".

So rather than rant on about Ubuntu not working and XP/Vista being so much better, etc, etc, etc

You need to re-read what I think of Vista as you wouldn't have said that.

Did you open a bug ticket for this?

Yes I have an open ticket and yes I have supplied details and yes I will be assisting with troubleshooting this so that by Gutsy Gibbon it should hopefully be all fixed.


I REALLY wanted to use Fiesty Fawn but it doesn't work on my system. Specifically my monitor - Viewsonic. After many hours over two days, I am just sharing some thoughts.

Ubuntu has to take the good with the bad.

I want Ubuntu to work. I am prepared to do my part, but I won't pretend it is fine when it isn't, that is all.

Thanks for the replies - some worthwhile posts!

[Seisen]

Linux isn't perfect what do you expect. Be glad you didn't use Linux back in the day when you didn't even have GUI's, all you had was a command line. If more companies would write drivers for Linux you wouldn't have the problems you have. What kind of graphics card do you have anyway?

[JerseyShoreComputer]

I think like most people, my biggest complaint is with the wireless. I have an IBM Thinkpad A30, Pentium III-933, and 1gig of RAM. It has the ATI Radeon Mobility M for graphics. With some tinkering and going to the community for help, I managed to use ndiswrapper and get the Linksys wireless to work. Now, the only thing that does not work is connecting to a projector - just cannot seem to get that external VGA out working.

Not compare that to my problems with Windows. I had nothing but problems with the graphics way back when with 95 and 98. For me, Win 200 and XO worked great right out of the box - no complaints. Vista crashed my computer twice on install, and I am still waiting for drivers to use somethings, although it is 100% stable at the moment.

I think like most people here, I would like to use Ubuntu for almost everything and reduce my use of Windows. I can't do that yet, but maybe with Gutsy all the problems will be fixed. It seems like it works for some, and not for others depending on the hardware and how you installed it.

I hope you can all get it working, it is really pretty nice when it works. (Yes, I said it, when it works)

[Snoo]

I hear what you are saying. I've just dual booted Edgy Ubuntu (just upped to Feisty) with XP.

My plan was to get into Ubuntu now and never need to upgrade to Vista. Never really had a problem with XP other than security and it gradually clogging up. Even though I keep it in good shape.

So how has my switch been? Well Rhythm box seems to have problems importing music folders, there's sound problems, DVD's don't seem to play, I can't connect my phone (crashes) and all manner of other niggles (wireless,, Yawn!). Now all these things are fixable if I spend time on each one with the wonderfully helpful people on this forum. And I'm up for spending time doing this for the greater good of myself. I can always use XP easily to carry out the tasks I want. But the thing is, after initialy telling people how great it looked, I feel I couldn't really reccomend it to anybody. There is no way my family are gonna be able to use this. Is my dear old mother really going to sit at the command prompt editing code? Nope. She can barely plug in a USB! I have a Mac also and I was expecting something similar but feeling less like a Fisher Price My First Computer. Now it feels like I have My First Degree in Programming. I certainly feel like I've gone from Edgy to Feisty!

[u.b.u.n.t.u]

It's a Great Pity that the OP mentioned, let alone Compared Feisty to XP, because his very valid points will now turn this thread into a Win v Linux "discussion" as everyone assumes defensive positions.

I hope no one does. I am all for Ubuntu and against XP. That said, I need Ubuntu to work for me and with Fiesty Fawn it doesn't.

That is the context.

Ubuntu is the future, no question, but with 7.04 I feel really disappointed and am just expressing that.

This is not a Linux - Windows debate.

XP works. It does. However Vista is not the way of the future. That belongs to Linux, and specifically to Ubuntu.

I want Ubuntu to work because I want to use it.

My rant comes after two days, many hours buried in editing xorg.conf and I have had enough.

A proper fix is needed and this is being worked on for Gutsy Gibbon - that is my understanding.

[meborc]

have you tried reconfiguring your X? ... the screen resolution problem is based on the videocard and drivers... have you installed the proper ones? what is your video card mark and model?

go to ctrl+alt+F1, then

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

and chose the resolution your computer uses...
then ctrl+alt+F7 to get back to the graphical mode... and then ctrl+alt+backspace to restart your X

[kvonb]

Mate, you have one of the easiest and best supported video cards, I can't understand why you are having so many probs.

I have the exact same card, and a 21" Sony screen, when I boot from the Feisty (or any for that matter) CD, I get 1024x768.

Yeah that's not the best, but it's useable, and suffices until I open a terminal and run:

 sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Or edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add my frequency ranges.

You can search this forum for info on how to do this, it is VERY well documented.

Do you have anything connected to the TV out connector of the video card? When I have my TV connected, whether it's turned on or not, my screen res defaults to 800x600 and will not go any higher. Try unplugging it if that is the case and reboot.

Also, once you have Feisty installed, download and install the Nvidia driver from www.nvidia.com, it comes with an excellent utility for setting the resolutions.

Of course you will have to do some research and work to get it installed, but there ya go, I'm sure it won't hurt you too much.

As for XP, there are hundreds of video cards that will boot into 256 colour mode until you manage to find the correct driver and install it.

This is a driver issue, not the fault of Ubuntu who in all fairness have to cover as many different setups as you can imagine. Microsoft have the benefit of the co-operation of the hardware manufacturers, by whatever method they employ to assure this co-operation, legitimate or otherwise!

I'm sure if you donated millions of dollars to the Ubuntu team, or more specifically, the people who give their time freely to do all the hard work for us, then you would be happy with the results.

[thomas.hoyland]

agreed
my laptop worked perfrectly in edgy
no problems at all
however now feisty wont even get to login!
it stalls on the firewire component which cant be turned off, lol

not impressed

i think edgy is the better of the two, just enough cool stuff and light weight

tom

[eentonig]

I can truly understand the agony and frustration people experience when things don't 'just work'. I had my share of sh*t in the past.

But you always have to consider the big differences between Windows and Linux. And not from feature x point of view. But from a HW and operational point of view.

Windows publishes a list of certified HW, they garantuee works with their products. If your hw is not on that list, they'll laugh in your face (actually, they'll politely ask you to contact your hw vendor). And they know that 99,99% of the HW vendors do everything they can to make their product 'just work' for Windows.

Linux (or better, the distributions) publish a list of HW 'reported' to be working for their product. They don't have the budget or ressources to certify a huge amount of different HW. They have to depend on the community to tell them if things work or not. Even worse. They most of the time can't even rely on the design notes/source codes to see why something does or doesn't work. And 99,99% of the hw vendors don't even think about Linux when designing their product. So it's sometimes a little miracle things can be made to function.

There only a few things you can do when you experience such problems.

* complain at your vendor that it doesn't work for linux. (They wont help you, but they'll slowly become aware that there is a market for linux drivers).
* Report the issue to your distro's developpers (Ubuntu made this real easy for you). You wont be garantueed a solution. But at least they know about the issue and maybe try to resolve it. If so, be gratefull.
* Post your problem on the forum as specific as possible. Maybe someone has a solution or workaround.

What NOT to do?
* Complain. it's free, it doesn't come with a garantuee.

How to avoid if you can't risk this happening?
* check the available lists of HW that is known to work. And adapt your shoppinglist to it.