|
What is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is an operating system. If you're here, you probably knew that. What you might not know is that Ubuntu has tens of millions of users on the desktop, and the majority of cloud servers are running Ubuntu*. Ubuntu is also making a play for mobile: there are already Ubuntu-based tablets available, and phones will be shipping sometime in 2014. If you live in China, you can go to physical Ubuntu stores and kiosks and buy devices supporting Ubuntu. If you live elsewhere, you can buy Ubuntu devices online from major vendors like Dell and smaller vendors like System76. While Ubuntu is an open community project, the trademark is not: if you see a hardware vendor saying a device supports Ubuntu, that means they are paying Canonical to certify the machines. How to install? You can, of course, just download and run Ubuntu on any old machine. The default image can run on DVD or USB key and serves as both an installation media and a bootable live environment (handy for recovery, even of Windows systems). If you are planning on dual booting, the general advice is to install Ubuntu after Windows, as the Windows boot loader can be rather selfish about hiding other operating systems. If you are dual booting Mac OSX, you will need to jump through even more hoops. What are these other -buntus? The Ubuntu project is actually a class of operating systems all sharing the same software archive and core system components. Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Server, and all the others are literally the same operating system with a different set of default packages installed. If you aren't happy with your desktop environment, you could install eg lubuntu-desktop onto a stock Ubuntu system and switch which one you use at the login screen. As of this writing, there are the following official flavors:
Unfortunately, this is wrong. Linux Mint used to be more or less Ubuntu with a different default install and the addition of the Mate and Cinnamon desktops. These days, however, Mint has decided to go off the deep end and start deliberately breaking things. As a much healthier alternative, I will point to the Ubuntu Mate project, who will in all likelihood become an official flavor just like the above. Both Mate and Cinnamon will be available out of the box on 14.10, at which point there will be no reason at all to use Mint. I've installed. What will I first notice? This is a pretty good interactive demo of what a default install looks like. Ubuntu's default desktop is different. In general the interface is designed to minimize "stuff" that's not the application content like window borders, panels, and so on. Maximized windows have their controls moved into the top panel, for instance, along with a global menu. The scroll bars are similarly very thin, with a drag tool that comes into view when you mouse near them. On my old netbook Ubuntu/Firefox was showing literally twice the web page content as the default Windows/IE. There is also a well thought-out series of indicator menus in the upper right. They start monochrome, and light up when something wants your attention. They're designed to be easy to ignore if you're working on something important. Unlike proprietary OSes, we are free to modify the majority of applications our users use to take advantage - music players will put controls in the audio menu, IM clients in the messaging menu, and so on. This contrasts with the Windows experience where every application puts it's own little icon in the system tray (so many, in fact, that Windows now autohides most of them). If you install such a Windows app with Wine, however, its indicator will be right next to the rest. Use the Software Center This is how you get software on Ubuntu. It's on the default launcher. There is a lot of first party software in Ubuntu - almost every open source project has been packaged and placed into the distribution. Software Center also acts as an app store, and many proprietary things are available there as well. Make sure you install the ubuntu-restricted-extras package by clicking this link. If you ticked the special box at install time you should already have it. This includes useful stuff like mp3 codecs that we can't for legal reasons bundle by default. Blame the US patent system. To install just flash, click this magical link inside Ubuntu. Very occasionally, you may want a third party piece of software that is either not available on Ubuntu or more up to date than is available on Ubuntu. For instance, to install beta versions of Wine you will need to click 3 buttons in the options menu. In general you should not expect to compile things from source, download binary files by hand, or other archaic nonsense. Technical Support: I highly recommend AskUbuntu.com, the Ubuntu Stack Exchange site. This is generally a way better place than traditional forums, mailing lists, and so on for asking questions. Especially highly complicated and interesting questions. You can even log in with your facebook account if you like. You can also try this thread, of course. Version numbers? Major versions use a Year.Month scheme and get an alphabetical adjective animal code name. LTS, or "Long Term Support" releases come out every 2 years and are supported for 5. LTS point releases (eg 14.04.1) come out intermittently and consist of updated images, mostly to support newer hardware. If you let update manager run you already have the latest point release. Between LTS releases, there are 3 major non-LTS releases, one every 6 months. You should probably be using the LTS releases. The interim releases are supported for only 9 months, and you are expected to migrate from one to the next within 3 months of them becoming available. Upgrading from older Ubuntus: You can choose from:
ShadowHawk fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 17, 2014 |
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 13:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:03 |
|
|
Do we have a date for when do-release-upgrade will upgrade 12.04 LTS to 14.04.1 LTS? I imagine any day now, right?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2014 19:21
|
|
|
Fangs404 posted:Do we have a date for when do-release-upgrade will upgrade 12.04 LTS to 14.04.1 LTS? I imagine any day now, right? It'll probably be a staggered rollout.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 04:18
|
|
|
ShadowHawk posted:These days, however, Mint has decided to go off the deep end and start deliberately breaking things. Care to explain this nonsense? Mint is used on the desktop more than Ubuntu from what I know.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 04:51
|
|
|
Megaman posted:Care to explain this nonsense? Mint is used on the desktop more than Ubuntu from what I know. As far as popularity, Wikipedia statistics show as of this week 7.6 M hits from Mint and 994 M hits from Ubuntu. That makes Ubuntu approximately 130 times more popular, provided you think the Wikipedia-browsing habits of Ubuntu and Mint users are roughly comparable. Personally, I blame distrowatch for this weird misconception. Apologies if I come off as rude, I really don't mean to sound pissy I've just been dealing with tons of support emails from Mint users who think that my packages are broken and it's 100% Mint's fault. I don't even claim to support Mint, but they keep hearing that it's basically just Ubuntu.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 05:39
|
|
|
ShadowHawk posted:Apologies if I come off as rude, I really don't mean to sound pissy I've just been dealing with tons of support emails from Mint users who think that my packages are broken and it's 100% Mint's fault. I don't even claim to support Mint, but they keep hearing that it's basically just Ubuntu. poo poo I just decided to reinstall everything and opted for Mint. I've noticed some odd issues with wine in particular, was very frustrating. I guess I'll switch over to Ubuntu again.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 08:54
|
|
|
Yeah, I've recently given Mint a go but ended up running into issues with Wine as well. Instead I've opted for Xubuntu, since Xfce offers a pretty close experience to Cinnamon.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 09:00
|
|
|
Upgrading from 13.10 to 14.04 caused further slowness for me on Unity. I never really liked Unity but it got to the point where it became unusable, switched to lxde which is just so much better  .
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 14:32
|
|
|
ShadowHawk posted:If you aren't happy with your desktop environment, you could install eg lubuntu-desktop onto a stock Ubuntu system and switch which one you use at the login screen. For what it's worth, I would recommend choosing the environment you want in advance and installing the appropriate distro spin. Installing kubuntu-desktop on a fresh xubuntu install on my girlfriend's laptop screwed up a load of icons and the 'look and feel' generally when she decided she didn't like KDE and switched back to XFCE.
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2014 23:08
|
|
|
What's the performance/pita factor of swap partition vs swap file for Ubuntu these days for virtualization? I need to build some VMs in VMWare vSphere that will need to be production ready and instead of having 10 different templates due to their swap partition sizes. I'm thinking I could get away with one template and add a swap file after it's deployed with a script but I am worried about performance issues or problems that I could run into later if anyone has any experience with this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 07:19
|
|
|
Tailored Sauce posted:Upgrading from 13.10 to 14.04 caused further slowness for me on Unity. I never really liked Unity but it got to the point where it became unusable, switched to lxde which is just so much better What graphics card do you have?
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 14:00
|
|
|
Bob Morales posted:What graphics card do you have? Radeon 4870
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 15:59
|
|
|
ghostinmyshell posted:What's the performance/pita factor of swap partition vs swap file for Ubuntu these days for virtualization? This sounds more like a general virtualisation question so you can try asking over in the virtualisation megathread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3467608 I'm pretty sure Dilbert As gently caress is sober right now.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2014 17:10
|
|
|
I had a weird Certificate / RADIUS question, and I don't know where to ask it. We're using RADIUS to connect to WiFi. Every user has their own username/password, provided by Active Directory. We currently use Windows for RADIUS authentication, but I want to move to Linux. Scenario 1, using our Windows server: 1) If a user enters the wrong username/password (on initial connect), they are never prompted to accept the certificate. It just "hangs" or times out. 2) User has to cancel the connection attempt and start over. Issue: User is left to wonder if the server isn't responding, their credentials were entered wrong, etc. Not good. Scenario 2, using another department's WiFi: 1) If a user enters the wrong username/password (on initial connect), they are still prompted to install a certificate, but then they get the "wrong password" notice. Issue: None, really. If they enter the wrong information they get told they entered the wrong information! Scenario 3, using our new FreeRADIUS w/ Ubuntu setup: 1) If a user enters the wrong username/password (on initial connect), they are still prompted to install a certificate. 2) The system prompts them again for username/password, but no matter what they enter, the system keeps using the wrong username/password originally from Step 1, and it will just keep prompting for a username and password! 3) User has to cancel the connection attempt, even if they are 110% sure their username/password is entered correctly. Issue: Not only is the user not told they originally entered in the wrong username/password, but they are lead to believe the system is prompting them again to give them a chance to enter it in correctly, even though it still uses the wrong username/password! Does anyone know what I am talking about, or how to get it to act more like Scenario 1 or 2? Ubuntu 14.04.1, FreeRADIUS 2.1.12, Samba 4.1.6. I'm using mschap/ntlm_auth with FreeRADIUS, and Winbind/Kerberos with Samba. Everything works fine if the user enters the correct information on their first attempt. I'm just not happy with how things are handled if/when a user accidentally enters their name or password wrong.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 18:16
|
|
|
Look at me, I'm a designer for Canonical! *copy/pastes Apple icons because Apple*
The Merkinman fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Aug 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2014 13:42
|
|
|
The Merkinman posted:Look at me, I'm a designer for Canonical! *copy/pastes Apple icons because Apple*
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2014 15:10
|
|
|
ShadowHawk posted:None of those icons for Ubuntu are in Trusty from what I can tell. When's the image from? Maps and Calculator are definitely current icons from the Ubuntu Phone promo images on the site, but I wouldn't say that necessarily reflects the state of Trusty on the desktop. http://www.ubuntu.com/phone
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2014 15:47
|
|
|
ShadowHawk posted:None of those icons for Ubuntu are in Trusty from what I can tell. When's the image from? sudo apt-get install unity8 /usr/share/icons/suru/apps/
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2014 15:53
|
|
|
The Merkinman posted:Look at me, I'm a designer for Canonical! *copy/pastes Apple icons because Apple* Add elementary.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 03:42
|
|
|
Longinus00 posted:Add elementary. Surprisingly, Elementary OS is not as bad. The browser is just the round Midori icon, calculator is I think the GNOME Adwaita one, Address book is copied, and maps doesn't exist. So yeah, Elementary OS, the Linux distro that wants to be Mac OS X so bad, is copying Apple less than Canonical.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 17:04
|
|
|
The Merkinman posted:sudo apt-get install unity8
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2014 20:13
|
|
|
ShadowHawk posted:Ahh ok the Unity8 tech demo icon theme. It's not shipping yet so there's still time to muck with this stuff. It's pretty embarrassing the way you present it. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 04:03
|
|
|
Does unity still suck and spy on you via amazon?
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 05:20
|
|
|
Helpimscared posted:Does unity still suck and spy on you via amazon? According to https://fixubuntu.com/ it will be fixed in 14.10
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 05:23
|
|
|
Wow those icons are embarrassing. The only one that's not ripped off Apple, the maps, is clearly ripped of Google. One more reason for me to highly recommend numix-icon-theme-circle (and also numix-gtk-theme).
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 05:58
|
|
|
Helpimscared posted:Does unity still suck and spy on you via amazon?
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 18:05
|
|
|
do-release-upgrade is still not working for 12.04LTS. It's been 2 weeks since the point release hit. I don't want to do do-release-upgrade -d because I don't want the development version. Is there any public reason why it's not working yet? [edit] Looks like there's a long thread on this problem here. Fangs404 fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Aug 8, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 02:13
|
|
|
For some reason I decided to upgrade an ARM mini-computer I own from 12.10 to 14.04 and not everything broke, just a lot of things. Am I right in thinking that Gnome desktop no longer works without any hardware acceleration?
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 02:38
|
|
|
Fangs404 posted:I don't want to do do-release-upgrade -d because I don't want the development version. do-release-upgrade -d on 12.04 will upgrade you to 14.04, not to a development version. I believe the -d switch is best thought of as "upgrade to the next version, even if it isn't released/activated for the tool to upgrade to without -d".
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2014 04:34
|
|
|
I just installed ubuntu on my new xps 15 9530. Love the computer, especially the UHD+ display. That said, it doesn't appear that ubuntu supports scaling in the same way that windows does. I'm not too concerned about touchscreen support, but are there any tips as far as fixing the interface to be more useable with high DPI displays? I've scaled the dock icons, and firefox to an extent, but still terminal and other programs do not look very good. As a last resort I suppose I could tweak the resolution, but I hope there's someway I can keep it high and have ubuntu as my primary OS.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 02:22
|
|
|
Wait are you all really suggesting that since the icons are too similar to other instantly-recognizable icons, users should switch to different icons that look less like what the entire world expects to be the icon for a web browser? Also, that chart is technically incorrect(yes, the very best kind I know  ): you should be using the "browser" icon instead of the chrome icon.I mean really, who cares whether the icons are the same? Barring some sort of IP lawsuit it's not like anyone is injured in any way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 19:30
|
|
|
I am not a book posted:Wait are you all really suggesting that since the icons are too similar to other instantly-recognizable icons, users should switch to different icons that look less like what the entire world expects to be the icon for a web browser? As of more recent versions of Android, Chrome is the browser  A brand's identity shouldn't depend on a competitor. Why tempt an IP lawsuit? Apple has successfully sued Samsung for doing the same thing. The Merkinman fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Aug 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 20:03
|
|
|
The Merkinman posted:As of more recent versions of Android, Chrome is the browser
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 20:16
|
|
|
I am not a book posted:Wait are you all really suggesting that since the icons are too similar to other instantly-recognizable icons, users should switch to different icons that look less like what the entire world expects to be the icon for a web browser? Not from this distance, your honor.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 20:22
|
|
|
The Merkinman posted:iOS is not "the entire world". Android has a higher user base than iOS and as far as Chrome, it is leagues ahead of Safari in terms of user base. I'm not suggesting the icon should then copy Chrome though. Yeah you're right by install base iOS isn't the majority, but by design paradigm, iOS is what people recognize. The IP thing though, yeah that might be an issue, I don't know because I'm so freetarded I poo poo RMS.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 21:36
|
|
|
Is anyone else streaming over Steam with Ubuntu as a client? I have Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 on the client machine running on my old Gigabyte motherboard with a Phenom II X2. I'm using the onboard video (4250 I think) which runs HD video just fine but the sound using Steam streaming over HDMI is very noisy - not in an overloaded way but almost more like aliasing noise. I've poked around and it seems the only way people have gotten around this is to use the analog stereo outs on their computer. Has anyone had any luck fixing the HDMI issue or is that so new that it's still being pinned down?
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2014 22:45
|
|
|
I am not a book posted:Wait are you all really suggesting that since the icons are too similar to other instantly-recognizable icons, users should switch to different icons that look less like what the entire world expects to be the icon for a web browser?
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2014 05:21
|
|
|
ShadowHawk posted:The main trouble is that the safari icon itself isn't very good. Aping it is just mindless. Nothing in it suggests web browser -- the iconogrpahy vaguely suggests the word "Safari", but there's nothing browser about it at all. The emblem isn't even round (like every other browser). "Mindless" isn't a negative when you're trying to hit users on a subconscious level, I'm going to be pissed if I have to spend any noticeable time identifying what icons do what. If you're going after the mythical person who has never seen an iphone before then yeah go hog wild on completely unique icons, but there aren't many of them that are going to be buying BQ phones.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 05:50
|
|
|
C'mon, really? There's a huge range of possibilities between "totally random non-identifiable icon" and "the exact same layout and colors". Does the "contacts" icon need to have letters on the right to be subconsciously identified quickly? Does the calculator app need to have a 2x2 grid with equals on the lower right in orange? It's not like that's a super obvious design; my instinct, if I wanted to go with symbols instead of just blocks like the Windows icon, would be to include division as well, or just addition and subtraction like the Android icon. Having multiplication but not division feels like a very specific thing. If it were say a 3x2 grid with = taking two spaces would it take longer for iPhone users to figure out what it was for? I doubt it. I mean, I agree with your point of "who really cares". The real reason I like the numix icons is that they look good, I couldn't care less if they're the same as some other platform. But the point about the icons needing to be easily identifiable? B.S. It's laziness. E: It does make a good argument for going with third-party icons, in a way. It shows that the Ubuntu team put very little effort into their icons, so going with icons that have real thought and effort behind them is an easy choice. And if I'm going third-party anyway all the better that Canonical spends less time on icons and more time on everything else. But these are so close I wouldn't be surprised if they get sued. Even minor things like pointing the compass in a different direction and choosing some different colors here and there could go a long way to make it less obvious, I think. SurgicalOntologist fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Aug 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 06:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 10:03 |
|
|
SurgicalOntologist posted:I mean, I agree with your point of "who really cares". The real reason I like the numix icons is that they look good, I couldn't care less if they're the same as some other platform. But the point about the icons needing to be easily identifiable? B.S. It's laziness. Oh for sure Numix looks really nice, not my particular cup of tea but I can appreciate the work that's gone into it because it really shows. You're kind of missing the point of an ideogram though if you think that they don't need to be easily identifiable; I really don't even know how to respond to that, because the idea that I should have to guess what a button does is completely foreign to me. Look at this picture. It uses some cultural shorthand obviously(slashed circle), but it's immediately obvious what the intent is... and that's how computer interfaces should be. Anything else makes interaction difficult for the user, which defeats the entire purpose. If they had just changed the colors and the way the needle was pointing, I'd be having this conversation with someone else about "look how badly Ubuntu rips off Apple". edit to your edit: Would we be having this same conversation about the floppy icon as a ideogram for "Save" if we were both 30 years older? I am not a book fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Aug 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 06:12
|
|