Ubuntu blues

[Tollef Fog Heen]

* Martin Alderson 

| Sorry guys, but this is turned into a flamewar.

Then we should either end the thread or turn it into a non-flamewar.
I think there are interesting issues raised in the thread which we
should discuss a bit further.

| I don't have the effort to continue it, but needless to say I feel
| that aslong as Linux continues to have this attitude of 'WIND0WZ
| SUX0RZZ111LOL', it's not going to address the real issues.

Linux, like Windows, has a community around it.  The Linux community
is diverse and you'll both have moderate people saying something like
'I prefer Linux because of A, B and C (which are all valid reasons'
and those people saying 'Windows sucks (with some random spelling of
both words)' without any reasonable explanation.

Ubuntu is trying to be more of the first than the last,  We have the
code of conduct, we have an open development process and try to have a
friendly tone when talking to each other.

| I thought it was very funny that someone commented that Bash was more
| familiar than Windows for them. Gee, that's got to be 1% of the
| computer-using population.
| 
| Also, installation is stil a huge issue on Linux. This needs fixed, and fast.
| 
| apt-get is not good enough for the reason it's centralized and _STILL_
| requires per-distro packages. This is not good enough - I can run
| Win3.1 apps on XP absolutely fine.

apt-get is a debugging tool and should not be used unless you know
what you are doing.  Use a proper frontend like Synaptic or aptitude.
I don't see why centralisation is a problem -- can you elaborate a bit
on that?  Per-distro packages, well, naturally.  Or you can go with
LSB and what that provides.

Most people I've talked to absolutely love how apt and one repository
of all the useful stuff works.  Compared to Windows, you don't have to
go one place to fetch your Office package, one place to get your IM
tool, another place to get a good programmer's editor and so on.  To
me, that usually takes a couple of days when I install a Windows
machine, while on Ubuntu, I just install the packages and don't have
to hunt them down.  Since you get the packages from different places,
you have no way to be sure you get security updates without spending a
lot of time checking web sites for updates.

The last point is important.  Most vulnerabilities with worms that
have affected Windows boxes have been patched by MS before, but the
user has never installed the patch.  I would be surprised if there
wasn't a lot of other applications out there in the same state.

| Also, as for this 'Linux is more difficult to exploit' stuff, I don't
| really believe it to be honest. It doesn't really matter anyway since
| the main problem is USER CONSNETED SPYWARE INSTALLS. Please tell me
| how Linux is going to stop this? How can you stop someone installing
| spyware.deb or whatever when they type their password and press OK -
| answer? You can't.

It's a lot easier to track down and remove for somebody who knows how
UNIX works.  Yes, I agree that's not an answer to a beginner.  So, let
me rather ask the question: why would you download a .deb from
somewhere and install that rather than rely on your central
repository?  You have loads and loads of free software which does not
include spyware (since spyware, if it came with the software, would be
removed by whoever packaged it).

| [...] and I think GTK2 is still less stable (or harder to write
| stable apps for) than Win32 apps.

I find most GTK2 apps nice and stable on my system, but I guess this
is an example of 'Your Mileage May Vary'.  Do please file bugs in
bugzilla if you find reproducible bugs.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen                                                        ,''`.
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are      : :' :
                                                                      `. `' 
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