Filed under: Developer, Linux, Canonical
Frustrated EEEUbuntu dev says "Ubuntu sucks."
by Lee Mathews Oct 16th 2009 at 11:00AM
It was a SourceForge community choice award winner this year - for best new project. Now, however, it looks as though the distribution's future may be in jeopardy. On his personal blog, Wyatt expresses his frustration at receiving blame for problems actually caused by things like wonky Intel video drivers and kernel bugs.
Things which he feels are the result of carelessness of Ubuntu developers. "...They missed something as stupid as the ntel tiling kernel bug which caused every Intel card out there to crawl during any OpenGL function. There is no excuse for their release of alpha grade drivers and less than alpha grade kernel code into their release distribution," Wyatt writes.
He also hits on an issue that has given me grief in the past on multiple laptops - knowing what to do when you shut the lid. "Who needs suspend anyway, not like its a useful feature and all on an ultraportable." If it bothers me, I can certainly see how it would vex someone who develops a Ubuntu-based OS.
In closing his post, Wyatt gets in one last parting shot: "Maybe I should buy a copy of Windows 7, I hear that it actually works. How can we expect non-techical users to use this pile of garbage that is 'Linux'?"
Ouch.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DukeXC said 12:26PM on 10-16-2009
Ubuntu sucks, therefore Linux is garbage?
No, Ubuntu sucks, therefore Ubuntu sucks. Canonical is the company committing bad code to staggered releases and sticking their hands in the guts of the kernel to mess around with things to make them more "user-friendly."
Ubuntu was a great OS in 2007 and a decent OS in 2008. 9.04 was awful.
Maybe he should try developing an Arch-based Eee OS?
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Justin said 12:33PM on 10-16-2009
@Duke
He was saying that Ubuntu is a poor distribution and if it is a new users only introduction to Linux it is giving Linux an unnecessarily bad name.
Fred Thompson said 12:32PM on 10-16-2009
Suspend isn't useful? Try carrying a computer for presentations. Suspend lets you work on the computer when you get snippets of time, such as in an airport, and it helps you look competent. Low-level IT geeks boot a computer and load the apps and data they need during a presentation. That shows neither respect for the audience nor mastery of technology as a tool to accomplish the goal. Opening a laptop and quickly starting shows the person is the master which gives credibility to the message.
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Lee Mathews said 12:32PM on 10-16-2009
I'm going out on a limb and saying that he's being very, very sarcastic, Fred. Suspend not working properly is a huge failure, IMO.
Mike said 1:55PM on 10-16-2009
yeah I use EEEbuntu and I really wish it'd do something when I close the lid, I have to manually select "suspend." I'm sure he is being sarcastic and I totally get his point.
But overall I think he's coming from a code standpoint, and the fact for users remains that Ubuntu is still the only distro that works really easily for people. I hope he doesn't give up on the project, it really makes the most of my Eee 900.
If 8.10 was so great, why don't they just go back to using it? I'm not a programmer and I don't know much about the subject, but it's less than optimal hardware so why bother always having the latest Ubuntu as its basis?
Bruce said 12:38PM on 10-16-2009
It strikes me that the incremental releases are not necessarily intended for every day users but rather a means of pushing the boundaries and seeing what can be achieved. The LTS release, on the other hand, is intended for long term use and perhaps Wyatt should stick to these instead. If even the LTS is unsuitable to Wyatt's tastes, then he can always move to Debian or even a custom build using something like Linux From Scratch. Ultimately, no-one is forcing Wyatt to use Ubuntu, there are any number of choices available in Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and so on. It seems a little unfair to freely choose a distro you know has regular releases with the latest versions of software and then blame that distro for the inherent hurdles that come with that process.
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MarkyB86 said 12:56PM on 10-16-2009
Good point, he chose Ubuntu over all others. His fault.
dodo said 12:55PM on 10-16-2009
that's why i stopped using linux. it just doesn't work. it is fun to play with. but on the long run it is really frustrating.
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Brien said 12:59PM on 10-16-2009
Amen brother. I've been saying Linux is dying for years.
Here's more bad news for Linux, Windows 7 Embedded is coming SOON. And it will rock the $%#@ out of "netbooks". Why?
1) It has better power management.
2) It can now be customized / installed directly on devices (just like regular Windows, no more flashing/deploying). You only need the components you want (e.g. remove IE8 insert FireFox...or not. IE8 is nice.)
3) It's almost free. Windows Embedded licenses are cheap.
4) The biggest deal, it's the same code as Windows 7 on the desktop. Microsoft now has a unified codebase with Windows 7. Maybe only devs realize what a big deal this is, but it's huge.
Honestly, I think Windows Mobile is a joke. It's going to be on Feature Phones only. Real Windows phones will run Windows Embedded starting in Q3 of 2010.
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Rob said 4:11PM on 10-16-2009
I don't think that's entirely true. Windows licenses are already dirt-cheap for netbooks, as they are set at something like 5% of the selling price. There is only a small segment of the market that uses Linux, and it will probably continue to do so. The standard version of seven will be on most netbooks, and the value of better power management and similarity makes it worth the extra cost for most people.
8r13n said 8:28PM on 10-16-2009
@Rob
"The standard version of seven will be on most netbooks, and the value of better power management and similarity makes it worth the extra cost for most people."
...Embedded is cheaper than regular Win7, that was one of MY points.
Check out this $76 netbook that runs Windows CE...
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/c/a/News/Sungworld-netbook/
In a few months (give or take) that laptop will be shipped using Win7 Embedded.
Microsoft will kill on the low-end laptop like never before.
...And fyi, Microsoft is calling them "Smartbooks" now not Netbooks.
Harsh said 1:05PM on 10-16-2009
Its seems to that if it was all Ubuntu's fault then he could just rebase his distro off a "more stable" distro like fedora, arch, or openSuse. But he wont/cant because he knows they ship exactly the near enough the same drivers and thus with near enough the same problems or "known problems". I have to agree the latest Ubuntu releases aren't what they used to be in terms of quality, but half of that blame goes to the upstream projects.
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Cam said 11:59PM on 10-16-2009
Fedora isn't exactly what I would call stable. Considering that the browser included in my 11 fresh install was Firefox 3.5b4, I wouldn't think stability is a big concern.
whiskey said 8:05PM on 10-17-2009
Yeah, there's a solution for the drivers, and if he had done his research better he would have added it and released it again with the newer kernel and driver needed.
BTW, this is the reason why you stay with LTS. Had he known this, he would have saved himself the trouble.
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glacia said 8:02PM on 10-18-2009
Poor baby. I guess he knows how every other OS maker feels now. 99.9% of all problems blamed on an OS happen because of third party code. Maybe you should buy Win7 now that you're seeing what that OS faces every time it comes out.
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pristy.site said 6:10AM on 10-18-2009
Every new thing requires some time to learn and linux too.
If Intel have useless graphics it's not Ubuntu fault.
Any yes Ubuntu is going to face some bigger challenges when more and more people use this type of OS, just bring it we are ready at lest community is.
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