Mark Shuttleworth Reveals Ubuntu Netbook Remix 245
Glyn Moody writes "In an interview with the Guardian today, Mark Shuttleworth talks about the upcoming Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a tailored version for ultraportables, produced in collaboration with Intel." The new version of Ubuntu is barely mentioned in this interview, but it's tantalizing -- SUSE looks nice on the HP Mininotes, but for people who are used to and enjoy Ubuntu, it's an option to look forward to.
Netbook remix on Launchpad (Score:4, Informative)
DJ Mark? (Score:3, Funny)
It's about time (Score:2, Interesting)
Problems = No hard disk protection, bad power management, rotation only works if you disable DRI (and therefore OpenGl), pen input is problematic. Fan control = broken. Basically, everything that makes a portable or a tablet work on a hardware level is at version 0.1. Sure XP is broken on many things, but, the basic stuff seems to be there, and, XP's handwritin
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That's the idea. I don't recall Ubuntu ever being designed or targetted for tablets.
Re:Dislike Ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
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BTW, the Sys-V init stuff is getting replaces with something else but can't recall the name. Something "new".
LoB
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Re:Dislike Ubuntu (Score:4, Interesting)
The only real problem is that if is to slow. In a standard system that uses init.d each script is run one at a time. But what if you happen to have one of those eight-core systems and a very fast disk array. Whouldn't it be great if the system could take advantage of those eight cosres to make startup run 8X faster? Solaris does this. It looks at dependancies between services and starts up as many as it can in parallel. Once you have a dependancy graph (that says for example that FTP and Apache need networking but FTp does not need apache then you can launch both FTP and Appache in parallel. You can also take advantage of the graph wen you stop services too to prevent errors like bringing down the network when it is needed by FTPd. The whole init.d and "run level" idea is just not well suited to this new idea.
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Re:Dislike Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Not using conventions i.e (at least in the Ubuntu versions I've used)
I prefer the slackware way of
but there are few good things about Ubuntu, it made Linux and Open Source much better to new-comers, works almost always out of the box
It's friendly (but silly IMhO) to people who migrate from Windows, and it's the greatest achievement made in the last few years. friendly OS for Windows migrating users.
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As a Linux user, I despise Ubuntu, I can't explain why, but I think it's too GUIsh along with other things like
/sbin/dhcpcd doesn't exists.
/etc/rc.d/rc.X instead of /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d/rc.(level)/rc.ssh?
Not using conventions i.e (at least in the Ubuntu versions I've used)
I prefer the slackware way of
but there are few good things about Ubuntu, it made Linux and Open Source much better to new-comers, works almost always out of the box
It's friendly (but silly IMhO) to people who migrate from Windows, and it's the greatest achievement made in the last few years. friendly OS for Windows migrating users.
I can tell you why you despise it. Because it's considered mainstream Linux, and you are an arrogant prick who previously enjoyed looking down on the masses.
not only that, he's a command line bigot. command lines are powerful tools, and i can't imagine an OS without one, but they're clunky (have to learn commands and switches and make sure things with spaces all get re-parsed with quotes around them, i scripted a lot in my Free BSD days, needing to add quotes all the time in scripts drove me batty) CLUNKY i say, i avoid the command line as much as possible, it is my last resort, the #1 reason i stopped using Free BSD was all the Bias towards Command Line Inter
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I don't get this attitude. More people move to Linux ==> Linux is more commercially viable ==> More development of Linux and more apps for Linux.
The more the merrier as far as I'm concerned. I wish I could work on Linux at work, but because of its tiny market share, I can't get the compilers/CAD tools necessary. So I'm forced to be on Windows with Cygwin.
Re:Dislike Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Solaris is older than Linux, so it must be the superior operating system.
Monarchy is older than democracy, so it must be a better form of government.
I can make my examples more absurd, if you want.
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Re:Dislike Ubuntu/sbin/dhcpcd doesn't (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, that's because it's called /sbin/dhclient3. It's called that because that's what it's called in Debian.
He didn't say Ubuntu is unlicensed. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course, we know how well that works out, too.
I think you have that backwards.
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Free software works more like third position distributivism, as advocated by Hilaire Belloc in The Servile State -- that is to say, there are three remedies to capitalism - socialism, slavery and property. Unchecked capitalism leads to slavery, but also necessitates socialist revolution UNLESS you take the third option - property.
That is to say that the means of production and exchange must be distribut
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That in a free market where Free source is the de facto standard, no customer would consider a product without it. Just as no customer would consider purchasing car with the hood welded shut.
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http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm [marxists.org]
Pull your head out of your math books once in a while and read something. You might learn. I'm not making this stuff up.
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I like to think of Free Software as "communism done right", with real sharing, with real community, with people that are actually willing to help each other, without repressing the outstanding ones, and such. And on the long run FS seems to have less in common with communism that one might think it has in the first place. It has many of its advantages, but less of disadvantages...
And I think I know why it succeeded. The people who sta
Re:He didn't say Ubuntu is unlicensed. (Score:5, Insightful)
But when we're dealing with non-physical property like software, it works, simply because people taking as much as they can doesn't reduce the amount available to others. "To each, according to their needs," really does mean everyone can have as much as they want of what's out there.
I think the correct phrase isn't "communism done right," but rather "Communism the only way it can actually work"
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Re:Why reading the article is important... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. I've used an unlicensed copy of Ubuntu many times. It says right there in the GPL: If you don't want to accept the license, you don't have to in order to use the software. So I didn't.
You could if you agreed to the GPL. If you didn't, then I imagine that the various Linux authors would take issue with your attempt to ignore copyright law.
No, unlicensed means unlicensed and public domain means public domain. Just because public domain software is unlicensed doesn't make all unlicensed software public domain. (i.e. A car stays in a garage. Is everything in a garage a car?) Unlicensed means exactly that: You didn't agree to a license to obtain the software. I don't agree to a license to obtain a book, either, but copyright law is still in full effect.
Mod parent back up (Score:2)
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But calling OSS unlicensed IS dead wrong. It is FULLY licensed and that is what makes it OSS.
Please quote where he said that OSS is unlicensed? Oh you mean he didn't? This is what he actually said:
We've positioned ourselves for what we see as the future of software - unlicensed software
Other than by purposefully misinterpreting his statement, I see nowhere in there where he says any current piece of OSS is unlicensed. Is there some omission that isn't being shown?
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I don't have to accept the GPL in order to use Linux legally. I do have to accept whatever Microsoft's EULA of the day is in order to use Windows legally. GPL software is generally unlicensed for use.
I think that the problem is that lots of people believe that "unlicensed" somehow means that you're running afoul of the law. It's bad PR to call Ubuntu "unlicensed", but that doesn't mean that it's technically inaccurate. License-free would probably be a better term.
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The GPL **IS** a License -- It's right there in the name. Same goes for BSD, Apache, MIT, etc. They are licenses.
The GPL really only applies to distribution. The GPL is not a EULA, and I can install and use software that has been released under the GPL without agreeing to anything or "licensing" anything. From a user perspective, I'm just as free to use the software "unlicensed" as if it were in the public domain. I can't run afoul of the GPL until I try to distribute.
Oh, yeah and IANAL, but why do developers releasing software under GPL insist on printing up the GPL and making you clicking "I agree" before it wi
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Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
Hah! Prove it!
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things that's with Ubuntu is that it's the only group with a real sense of marketing. Granted, it's viral marketing, but if you look at http://ubuntu.com/ [ubuntu.com] versus http://debian.org/ [debian.org] you'll notice that one is quite pretty and modern, and the other looks like it fell out of a wormhole circa 1996. I even tried talking about a site redesign on #debian on freenode once and got flamed by someone saying "why the hell should the look of a website matter?" Perhaps it somewhat matters because when I was a newbie and knew nothing about the merits of distros, I overlooked Debian as being a fairly amateurish distro because, well, its website looked amateurish. Yes, I know better now, but we should acknowledge at least a little that appearances do matter.
Of course, it's not just the website. Ubuntu also has an army of Diggers, and it's overall just a really easy distro to get started with when you know nothing about Linux, because the project has made appealing to that crowd one of its goals.
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Agreed. The Ubuntu website is the amateurish one that breaks the rules. For example, it is fixed width and doesn't flow to fit the screen, and it fails validation [w3.org] (Debian's site passes validation [w3.org] and flows). I also feel it just isn't as functional as the simpler, cleaner Debian site.
However, I am a bit of a minimalist (use IceWM, Emacs (small by today's computing resources), play nethack, etc.), making me less likely to be interested in Ubuntu anyway (besides some other reasons).
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Website design is as much about the audience as anything else-and the Ubuntu site is perfectly geared towards it's audience, as is Debians towards it's- which is why it looks any other F/OSS project page where as Ubuntu's looks like a standard corporate page.
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Then again, I suppose nobody would have used it otherwise
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Ubuntu user; I find that vaguely insulting. Linux in general is missing an easy entry into its world for outsiders. Ubuntu helps with this by bring friendly on the outside; having good support forums and services, but being a full distro under the hood.
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Funny)
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Agreed. The Ubuntu website is the amateurish one that breaks the rules.
Only us nerds care when a website fails validation and only a tiny sliver of nerds - the same ones who run emacs and that keyboard-only window manager and nothing else - will actually just not visit a website because it fails validation. Those people are already running a 250-user netbsd system on their camera phone and are never fucking going to install Ubuntu anyway.
I, on the other hand, have installed Ubuntu, and I try my best to never actually visit their front page. Their website (especially the for
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at the Debian home page in a browser window that is narrowed to allow about 7-10 words per line in the main text, and it looks -- nice. Not coincidentally, the Ubuntu site squeezes about ten words across into the main text.
I'm sitting here on a laptop with a screen that's designed for watching wide screen movies, but it'd be better for me to rotate it 90 degrees if I'm reading text.
The classic linux expert criticism.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm very pleased that many of the linux distros have got their act together to appeal to a wider audience these days.
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Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Like most people, you're confusing two different concepts here: skillful vs. professional. Debian's site is clearly more skillfully done, and wins on technical merit. Ubuntu's site is clearly more professional; people are more likely to pay for a site like that. Debian's site is both technically superior and more amateurish. The very qualities you mention as signs Ubuntu's site is "more amateurish" are common and even to some degree desired in many professional web designs (fixed-width, for example, is required to accurately control precise layout, a common client requirement). If the Debian developers were trying to sell the site design, it'd look more like Ubuntu's, which is to say, more professional, albeit not as good in many ways.
Never confuse "professional" with "better" or "amateur" with "worse". The first terms relate to the compensation for the activity, the second refer to subjective criteria which are usually utterly unrelated to that.
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
I wanted to learn how to package up software and I found the full circle magazine more helpful then Debian's 6000 page document on it, such a useless website.
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These advancements say that looks matter as much as substance. Debian and Ubuntu have substance, it is just that Ubuntu has looks too.
It doesn't excuse the attack that the linux zealot made upon him for his suggestion.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Since Ubuntu seems pretty serious about ushering in the Year of the Linux Desktop, yes, we may be soon seeing millions of clueless Ubuntu users.
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Yes, monoculture is bad, the recent issue with Debian's OpenSSH package proves that point painfully enough. But an Ubuntu monoculture will be short-
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
I myself see no need to switch away from the distro that gives me everything I need and has the most active community. This idea that users will switch to other distros once they see the "choice" is missing the point - 1: users don't want too much choice, and 2: given the choice, users will usually choose either what's familiar to them or what everyone else chooses. This is how Windows achieved and kept popularity! It simply became the standard. Linux needs this.
The other misconception is that this is bad -- it is not. It creates underlying standards and consistency across the board, which will confuse users less and help them adapt to the change faster and easier. It's also a lot easier to support a single distro than a dozen.
So it may not *always* be ubuntu, but it very likely will. I think Ubuntu has reached the tipping point where its momentum will support its growth. More power to it, in my opinion.
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I don't understand why "monoculture is bad" necessarily. It does lead to more possible security breaches, but it also leads to a coherent support network, familiar UI standards across most desktops, and a larger developer and user base with which to improve/test the software.
It's "bad" because it's dangerous. A single change by a single Debian maintainer caused a security vulnerability is a whole lot of installations, including mine. In this case, it wasn't that everybody was using OpenSSH, because OpenSSH wasn't the source of the problem. Redhat/Fedora and Suse both use OpenSSH and were not effected. This diversity contained a security vulnerability to just the Debian family, and not all Linux installs.
This idea that users will switch to other distros once they see the "choice" is missing the point - 1: users don't want too much choice, and 2: given the choice, users will usually choose either what's familiar to them or what everyone else chooses
Users do like choice. Go to any common user's home, and they'll have
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I've been using FOSS software since 1996, and the only 3 Linux distros i like are smoothwall, ubuntu, and knoppix. in 1996 i gave up on slackware (what all the Linux people were talking about then) for something that worked out of the box as a cross platform Internet gateway/file server... Free BSD.
I've never been cured of my desire for simplicity, never, and neither will the masses.
I don't want to fight with my software for 7 hours to get it 'just right' i w
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Alternatively, one may as well realize that there exist different target groups with different attitudes, needs, (and average age, (and knowledge), presumably).
CC.
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The same person who flamed you probably also get annoyed that Ubuntu gets more attention and praise than Debian. Some people just can't make the connection.
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Never get upset about someone responding to your posts because it means that at least someone is hearing you even if they are blind in their mind's eye--and that's a lot of zealots in the land of linux.
I used linux and have used it for the past 3 years. I'd tried it a couple years before for a year then went back to windows for a year. When Ubuntu started gaining popularity I returned
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I like Ubuntu, I use Ubuntu, but one of the reasons I got into Linux was because it didn't have mysterious problems that kept things from working all the time. Ubuntu has re-introduced this into my life and I don't like it
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2) Ubuntu is most certainly an OS. It's a flavor of Linux. Windows XP, Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate are all different flavors of the Windows OS, however, each of them can be correctly called an OS. The fact that it isn't a completely separate OS does not make it any less an OS.
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Gnu/Linux alone may be an OS for geeks and command-line aficionados, but the vast majority of computer users include the desktop and GUI applications for standard tasks as part of
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I understand the concept and differences on what the title, "Operating System" means. As long as an OS is a title, it's understandable. I guess it just has to do with how it's called Ubuntu. Why not Ubuntu Linux?
Because you could replace Linux with the BSD [debian.org] or Solaris [nexenta.org] kernels and still be Ubuntu. You could even replace the GNU userland with BSD or Solaris userland, and it would still be Ubuntu.
The different "flavors" of Windows (lets focus on NT kernel models) all have the word windows in it, NT, XP, 2K, Vista. Though I still see windows as different, because they all don't exactly use the same kernel, they are, i assume, improved versions of the NT kernel.
Those are different versions of the same OS, like different versions of Ubuntu. They use the same userland, just different versions of it. They even mostly use the same desktop and applications, just different versions.
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Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything is easy. Install a new package. Get the source for that package that isn't quite working right. Configuration. Update packages. Upgrade to the new version. It's all trivial, and just works.
And my folks are running it. When i visit I f with things. But when I'm not there, they can still upgrade packages, etc. And they're on dialup, and it still just works
We run suse on the servers at work, and i needed a very recent gcc with fortran and gomp. Ended up building from source, including a half dozen dependencies. On my workstation (ubuntu) "apt-get install gfortran libgomp". done. 5 hours vs 5 minutes. Actually, I think it took several iterations, maybe spent 2 full days installing it on suse.
Great for the power user.
Great for the beginner.
Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:5, Interesting)
Debian should be very proud of Ubuntu. It just works and the biggest part of that in my view is that it got a package management system that really shines above everybody else. If it works because of hard work or technical merits i don't know but i do know it saves me endless of hours in the end.
I think Ubuntu chose the right way when they start at the desktops and then go for the servers. Even my boss runs Ubuntu at home and at work. When he run it at home chances are much greater he wants me to use it at work for our servers. Novell/SUSE must be out of their mind when they drop the desktop and gives it away freely to Microsoft. Why go for the enterprise market where competition already are fierce when you can go for a desktop market and the small company market? You can never take a market top down, it has to start from the bottom.
If Ubuntu do a real push for servers with easier setup of services and more or less key ready solutions they will make a real dent in the Linux server market. All that is needed is some polishing on the configuration procedures of some key components like OpenLDAP, SAMBA, Cups and some Groupware.
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Using --force or --nodeps isn't resolving a problem, it's ignoring and compounding them. I have little modern experience with SuSE but an RPM system using appropriate repositories should never need to be forced, period.
Don't confuse diversity with diffusion (Score:4, Insightful)
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And here i thought ubuntu was slow on a P-3 (slot style) 400Mhz* with 80MB of RAM. it takes a full 3 minutes to log in (after enteting password) but that could easily be resolved by buying some ram... oh and replacing the 2-3 GB hdd.
*= specs from memory, they might be slightly better
here's my (brief) SuSE experience on the 2133 (Score:5, Informative)
The version of SuSE that ships with the HP 2133 has big problems: it's slow because it's burdened with inappropriate packages like Beagle, its wireless connectivity is poor, if you try to install packages, it asks you to insert a non-existent DVD into a non-existet DVD drive, external screen configurations are limited, and there's something wrong with the touch pad driver causing it to "stick". In addition, I found the administrative menus and preference menus to be cluttered and pretty obscure at times.
I used to be a SuSE user. I was going to give SuSE another try with the 2133, but it was such a miserable experience that I just blew it away and installed Ubuntu.
So, now you heard about SuSE on the 2133.
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But, yes, I also think that the connection between Novell and SuSE contr
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Seriously, what is it with ubuntu that everyone feels the need to speak about it? ...
Regular updates, good marketting, and it's just plain fun to say out loud.
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Just my guess.
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I know people are going to disagree (mod away, points to burn) but without Ubuntu, Linux would still be for techies only.
I've used quite a few distros. I love some of the concepts behind DSL and have used it quite a bit, Knoppix rocks, but when it comes down to "Could I give this to some random person to use", I wouldn't do any but Ubuntu.
Part of it is that the Debian package manager puts all the others to shame. The precompiled installs make a huge d
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Of course. When something only happens twice in a decade, it makes news!
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Re:What is it with Ubuntu (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:ZOMG ANOTHER UBANTO *FAP FAP FAP* (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's easy for end users. And that's what should count. One reason Ubuntu is so popular is that they understand this.
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I know how to do it, I just don't want to bother. With Ubuntu, I stick the right CD in the drive, boot up, see that everything works, and click on "install", and I get a predictable installation. I can give a CD to others, and they get the same installation. It's easy. It's good. It's user-friendly.
I understand that Canonical wants to make Linux user-f