The Many, the Humble, the Ubuntu Users | Hacker News Reader

The Many, the Humble, the Ubuntu Users

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54 pointstype047 comments

After years of mucking about with different distros, Ubuntu was the one that stuck. More than that, its the one I install for friends and family - helping people save money turning creaking winXP/Vista machines into sleek and simple Ubuntu ones - no muss, no fuss, a webbrowser and music player is all they really need - and it still works today as well as the day Ubuntu was installed.

Seconded. I have tried every distro under the sun and come back to Ubuntu as my daily driver on desktop and laptop. Nothing comes close in terms of package availability, ease of use, firmware, inter-op with non-free software, etc.

Also I never understood the hate for Unity. It is the most responsive, performant, intuitive, and helpful GUI I have ever used on Linux.

I'm also a big unity fan. I see some people grumble that it hasn't changed in a few releases, and you realise they just don't get the point - Unity has been polished to fix all those glitches that used to make linux desktop feel half baked. That means not overhauling the whole infrastructure every two years, but incrementally polishing each area in turn. That takes patience and long term management. The result is good looking and functional and most importantly acts to enable you to get things done that have nothing to do with the window manager.

I don't get Unity at all. I use Ubuntu maybe once a month and every time I have trouble remembering how to use it. Is it really intuitive to you?

I also have installed it on some machines for friends and family who are less computer literate. They understand Windows, OSX, iOS, Android and Gnome after a while but Unity is just hopeless.

I'm curious what you/they 'do' on the desktop?

Maybe it's the dash thing? Maybe the lack of a list of things to scroll through to choose a program?

I've always found unity pretty simple and easy. It seems to handle all graphical tasks fine and if I need a terminal I open a terminal.

I find it really difficult to believe that someone used to OSX could have much issue with Unity. I mean if you put the osx dock on the left screen edge you pretty much have unity. And if nothing else, you have great big icons for web browser and office suite by default which are kinda hard to miss. My introduction when i replaced XP on my friends old laptop was literally 'that big firefox icon opens firefox. wifi icon does wifi settings. now you're good to go'

I used to dislike Unity, especially the menu in the top bar thing, but after working on a Mac for a while, I've started to actually enjoy it (or at least not hate it). Also allowing to move the launcher to the bottom is nice too.

>its the one I install for friends and family

Yes, you hit the nail on the head. Ubuntu is just debian for computer illiterate.

And windows and Mac? For people who are just illiterate?

I love most of Ubuntu's tools, but I can't stand Unity. It's ugly, it's slow (compared to other Linux DEs, obviously, it's still Fast Enough for most people), and worst of all it shows all the graphic pornography I have in my pictures folder when my colleagues try to use Super-F to find things after being used to macOS. I prefer Elementary because it fixes #1 and #3, or Xubuntu because it fixes #1 a bit, plus #2 and #3 splendidly

What about the textual pornography, is that safe from unity?

Doesn't show up on the preview, you should be safe

To misuse Cunningham's Law:

System Settings > Security & Privacy > Files & Applications

Then choose what document types (if any) to show in dash search.

That should solve #3 perfectly.

I can't stand Unity, I have been using Ubuntu since just about when Unity was introduced, but have always used Gnome Flashback on Ubuntu.

It's the first thing I install after installing Ubuntu on a computer.

http://tipsonubuntu.com/2016/10/16/install-classic-gnome-fla...

Have to agree with this; I recently went on a big distro downloading binge, as I was sure I was missing out on something that was more modern, shinier, and had sexy features I didn't know I needed 'till I tried them.

I ended up deleting the lot. For me, Ubuntu just works, and has the features I like, is well supported, and has a strong community.

I satisfied myself with a new theme and desktop background. Then again, I also drive a Camry :)

I've been using KDE neon which actually works very well. The core of it is LTS Ubuntu (currently 16.04), but the Plasma DE gets updates pretty much every day and KDE apps get updated about once a week. Except for one time when my proprietary nvidia driver stopped working after a big update to the DE (now I use the nouveau driver), it has been pretty much flawless in terms of stability.

Hmm, looks interesting. I use KDE on Kubuntu 16.04, but have been annoyed by some memory leaks in Plasma that eventually cause Plasmashell to lock up at 100% CPU in the Qt GC system.

I tried upgrading via the ppa backports but the updated Plasma broke a ton of things. Given that my demands on the DE are really minimal it made me consider switching off of KDE.

Same, I downloaded practically every major distro over the last month as research for what to put on my new Thinkpad.

Once the new machine arrived this week, I just stuck Ubuntu on it and deleted everything else.

I came to complain about my experiences with Ubuntu's issue management process but realized that I ought not complain about something I get for free, is incredibly powerful, useful, and managed by an army of volunteers.

So, I'm not complaining about it and am thankful for what I get, despite my struggles interacting with their change management policies.

As you as complaints are balanced by positive feedback about what works, never feel bad to complain.

In some ways Ubuntu has kinda lost it's course with the whole Unity unification. Fedora 25 spins are now much nicer use if you don't mind upgrading every year and if you want LTS type of system Ubuntu still rocks, although I find it much less stable than it used to be.

I have to agree, Fedora 25 is very nice now.

I also like, where they are going in long term - see Owen Taylor's "Reworking the desktop distribution" talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNLPkMDf9LI

How well is KDE supported in Fedora?

I liked the Fedora Interface, but it lacks several packages that I use (Kodi comes to mind, but there were others) SE Linux is always reporting security issues and makes enabling any networking feature a royal pain. Worse, when something doesn't work there is a fraction of the support articles and posts on the Internet. They also changed the package manager from Yum, so a lot of new things to learn since I last used 17. At least they seem to have fixed the network management. Anyway, the recent upgrade to 25 killed my display adapter, and after spending way too much time trying to sort out and reinstalling, I switched back to Ubuntu for desktop. I still use Debian for servers/beaglebone. I also like having a common package manager and config files for both systems. YMMV....

> it lacks several packages that I use (Kodi comes to mind

    $ dnf search kodi
    kodi.x86_64 : Media center
    ...

> They also changed the package manager from Yum, so a lot of new things to learn since I last used 17

    $ yum search kodi
    Redirecting to '/usr/bin/dnf search kodi' (see 'man yum2dnf')

    kodi.x86_64 : Media center
    ...

Try using it. It doesn't have the same modules as Ubuntu, so the answer is to load from a separate source. Even then, Kodi Remote wouldn't work (SELinux?), no visualizations, sound subsystem issues and I was done. I have bettter things to do with my time.

My father used to be a big Ubuntu fan, before Unity came along, which he instantly hated (describing it with words like 'childish' and 'tinker-toy'). I tried him on various alternatives, such as Mint or KDE, all of which were pretty unsatisfactory for various reasons.

But then, just recently, I gave Ubuntu another try, and discovered that MATE is an out-of-the-box installation option --- and it's lost all the Unity nonsense and now provides a clean, stripped down, unfussy desktop environment where everything works and nothing gets in your way. Both he and I like it a great deal, and because it's an official Ubuntu release it's way more stable than Mint is.

> and discovered that MATE is an out-of-the-box installation option

Yeah, Ubuntu MATE is nice, when using net-installer i.e MinimalCD one could get just the Ubuntu + MATE + system-utilities without all the bloat and then just add the preferred programs no fuss, no buzz.

Xubuntu has been fantastic for me, hasn't changed much in many years.

"But despite the sneers, I kept hammering a theme in speech after speech and conversation after conversation that went sort of like this: “Instead of scratching only your own itches, why not scratch your girlfriend’s itch?"

Jesus. I am not a screaming social justice warrior. But really, is this trope of women being computational idiots going to last forever? Why does the community put up with it?

There are a MILLION other nouns that could fit into this sentence.

Full quote

> “Instead of scratching only your own itches, why not scratch your girlfriend’s itch? How about your coworkers? And people who work at your favorite restaurant? And what about your doctor? Don’t you want him to spend his time doctoring, not worrying about apt get this and grep that?”

I'm guessing the line was born from an attempt to share Linux with his SO.

I'm not sure about the person you replied to, but it's the presumption that the reader is a straight male implicit in that question that bugs me. Unless the author is known for his bi/lesbian audience...

The probability that the audience is male is greater than 85% in the tech industry though.

If a bi/lesbian audience makes it OK then a high percentage male audience should make it OK too.

It's not that one thing or another makes it okay. There are more neutral ways to phrase it that don't needlessly exclude vast potential audiences.

> Instead of scratching only your own itches, why not scratch your partner’s itch?

> Instead of scratching only your own itches, why not scratch your lover’s itch?

> Instead of scratching only your own itches, why not scratch your sweetheart’s itch?

> Instead of scratching only your own itches, why not scratch your mate’s itch?

Depending on who you ask, at least a plurality of men are at least a little bi, but a double whammy of homophobia and biphobia keeps them closeted. Why make them twitch a little when a small change in wording solves the problem? Being a good for-public writer is all about maximizing your potential audience without diluting the message. "Girlfriend" rather than any of a slew of more neutral terms needlessly dilutes the message.

Personally, I would cut the question entirely since restricting the message to partnered people doesn't serve any purpose.

> ...that bugs me. Unless the author is known for his bi/lesbian audience...

OK, well you said it yourself. It bugs you unless the author has a bi/lesbian audience. So either you were wrong for saying that or you're wrong here. Which is it?

> There are more neutral ways to phrase it that don't needlessly exclude vast potential audiences.

In this situation, there was no vast audience that was excluded. However, in any case (thankfully) you're under no obligation to please every single minority group with your speech.

> ...restricting the message to partnered people doesn't serve any purpose.

Gee, I bet you're real fun at parties. It was one little line item out of a list of other situations. Try getting over it maybe?

Also, try being yourself instead of attempting to please every single other person in the world (and failing, since it simply cannot be done). Life is way easier and more fun if you just accept yourself instead of constantly trying to contort your personage to please others.

When I say things, they're coming from my point of view. Not yours or anybody else's. So, I might put something about "wives" in there since I'm married. (Oh, the horror!!!!!) You're being selfish by denying me my point of view and demanding that I not offend you in any small way.

What right do you have to demand that I couch everything in neutral terms??

You have none. Your complaint is ridiculous.

Not a single one of your interpretations of my words was correct. Take a deep breath and read again, with the understanding that I'm not making a...

> complaint

It was a simple, honest, friendly suggestion on word choice from one writer to another. This was a professional courtesy, not the rabid screed you misread it as. What I did is constructive criticism, something I see lauded here a lot at HN, and with good reason. You misread it as something very different.

You can either read again, interpreting it in a reasonable manner, or you can take your own advice:

> Try getting over it maybe?

And move on. Either way, my participation in this thread is over. I'm not sure if you're the author of the piece, but you're behaving the way an inexperienced writer does the first time they receive anything other than praise, and I find it very annoying (which means you're probably not the author, given his credentials).

Bye. :)

> Not a single one of your interpretations of my words was correct.

There's no other way to interpret it. You spoke quite clearly. I challenge you to find one person who would interpret it any differently than I did.

> It was a simple, honest, friendly suggestion...

No it wasn't. It was a complaint. You said "...presumption that the reader is a straight male implicit in that question that bugs me."

> Take a deep breath...

Says the guy who gets bugged that somebody said the word "girlfriend" and then proceeds to complain about it on HN...

That's hilarious.

> ...or you can take your own advice...

I didn't get annoyed by something so ridiculous in the first place, so there's really nothing for me to "get over".

I don't mind refuting and correcting people like you. It needs to be done or else we'll end up in a world where nobody can be themselves.

> Either way, my participation in this thread is over.

Good. Next time you should really consider participating in the first place if all you have to add is that "something bugs me".

> I challenge you to find one person who would interpret it any differently than I did.

I do. I think your interpretation is bizarre.

OK. Explain yourself and your interpretation. I don't know what it is...

Starting with his first comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13444512

Is that a complaint or a suggestion? He is saying that it was a "friendly" suggestion and that I somehow interpreted it as a complaint.

It also clearly says that he would NOT be annoyed (i.e. it would be OK) by the author's words if the author is known for having a bi/lesbian audience. True or false?

There's really not much there to misinterpret. So, I look forward to hearing your own analysis. Thank you!

Crickets

He's telling technical people to cater to people who aren't themselves. They aren't necessarily "computational idiots"; they just don't intimately know how or why a computer works. They don't write code, but they still need to use a computer to get a job done, preferably as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The paragraph before that excellently illustrates this point:

> There was a time when, in Linux circles, mere users were rare. “What do you mean, you just want to use your computer to type articles and maybe add a little HTML to them?” the developer and admin types seemed to ask, as if all fields of endeavor other than coding were inferior to what they did.

Stop being critical about things that don't matter, and start being useful.

> He's telling technical people to cater to people who aren't themselves.

> Stop being critical about things that don't matter, and start being useful.

Seems like indubitably's comment met both goals: being useful, catering to people who aren't the author. As someone very different from the author, I appreciated indubitably's comment.

> Like Ubuntu, it just needs to do its job extremely well and with little fuss.

Come on now, if it was a quiet open source project, I'd agree. But it's funded by a multi-millionaire and pours a lot of gas on the fire you wouldn't see otherwise. Ubuntu is self sustaining now from its corporate support contracts, but it got where it is in the typical startup fashion of burning investor money and shows up in news quite often for a Linux distro, not just doing a job without fuss.

I think the quote is suggesting that the OS provide little fuss, with no reference to fuss from the organization.

Long time ubuntu user here , I 'd change the wallpaper and install some basic software and that's it . I'd use and installation for ~2 years

https://elementary.io/ pay zero or donate if you want.

I was going to mention Elementary OS, too.

It is essentially Ubuntu, but with the Pantheon DE. Don't try running it (or Unity) inside a VM though, unless you like having input lag.

The best DE i've found for a VM is either MATE or LXDE. XFCE isn't bad either.

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