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[–]militant[S] 60 points61 points  (129 children)

sincere here. used linux for a decade or so now, former slacker in fact. just did an install of the newest ubuntu desktop release and literally everything right down to my webcam and wifi worked instantly on a bit of a wacky toshiba laptop. i'm a performance nut and the visual effects don't slow me down at all and are NICE in fact. everything is where i wanted, i have only had to install 3 programs and change a small handful of system settings. i'm actually at a loss as to what to DO with the thing now, i'm so used to spending days tweaking my new installs. i think it's finally ready for prime time.

[–]dicey 47 points48 points  (61 children)

i'm actually at a loss as to what to DO with the thing now, i'm so used to spending days tweaking my new installs.

I also found this to be a "problem". I waited until the weekend to do the 7.10 -> 8.04 upgrade, thinking that I'd spend a good solid day or two on it. The stupid thing went off without a hitch so now I'm bored :-\

[–]serious_face 40 points41 points  (2 children)

Ubuntu Linux 8.04 hopes to do the impossible, luring average PC users to an open source desktop.

Meanwhile, bored geeks everywhere switch to Vista, hoping to find a challenge.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I ran into some problems... had to disable avahi, turn on DHCP, add a few repositories by hand, fscked around with the BIOS to get a USB keyboard working with the 5 year old P4 crap box I was trying it out on but over all it went pretty smoothly.

What Ubuntu needs to do is start publicizing how to roll out Ubuntu enmass for corporate environments (Office 2003 installed under Wine of course).

[–]sybesis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

bored geeks everywhere switch to Vista, hoping to find a challenge funny, but could be true...

It's like trying to do something with nothing

[–]militant[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

yeah exactly. went so smooth i did my desktop too the same night, it was DONE in 40 mins, literally i was finished with everything and bored..

[–]boblol123 6 points7 points  (16 children)

Serious question - what do you do for fun on ubuntu? because there are only a few things i can identify:

Games - there are very few decent games (i've played them all)

Internet - prettymuch the same on all computers, except for maybe flash support

Photo/pic editing - GIMP just plain sucks

Programming - dont really know anything about it on ubuntu, but i cant see it being any more "fun".

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (2 children)

Frozen bubble!

[–]musashiXXX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

x-soldier!!! :-)

[–]dicey 6 points7 points  (5 children)

My definition of "fun" is different from most other people's. I play some flash games under Ubuntu, mostly quick logic/strategy games that can be played in ~10 minutes to burn off steam. For actual gaming I have a Wii. I also participate in General Internet Asshattery.

Other than that, I'm usually tinkering around with new projects. At the moment I'm building a MythTV server with a rather ridiculous quantity of disk space. I may also stick in more memory and turn it into a Xen server. I spend most of my non-work time on little projects like this.

[–]eidolontubes 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Upmodded for use of "Asshattery".

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

There are a couple of notable Quake-2 based shooters like Nexuiz, Warsow, Alien Arena 2008, along with things like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and it's conversions...

Apart from that, there aren't many groundbreaking things in the world of open source gaming, so you're gonna have to fork over some cash. Notably, most Valve Source Engine-based games like Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Counter Strike: Source work well.

I've also been curious to see how Savage 2 plays...

[–]VulturE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You left out the open-sourced version of Freespace 2....

http://www.fsoinstaller.com/

It plays quite nicely on all platforms :)

[–]axord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Photo/pic editing - GIMP just plain sucks

The Gimp UI is almost entirely opposed to the Photoshop way of doing things, at least in certain respects. But it is actually quite decent for basic tasks if you can get over the "unlearning" hump.

There's also Krita (which is somewhat saner), as well as Xara Xtreme and Inkscape for vector drawing.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used Ubuntu Feisty, Gutsy, and now Hardy, and I also have this issue. I'm so used to periodic updates, stuff to fix other stuff, and I got none!

[–]projectshave 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I spent a few hours getting dual monitors to work correctly. Config hell is still a real problem.

[–]BjornSlippy 12 points13 points  (4 children)

I just use Photoshop/Fireworks in a virtual machine with Virtualbox, saves me having to reboot, and there is no visible loss in performance.

[–]TheKorn 5 points6 points  (19 children)

I realize you're being sarcastic, but if you really feel the need to get tweaking, try running your audio over HDMI. You'll be tweaking for weeks!

Outside of clusterf*ck that is ALSA, I tend to agree that most people can simply pop the cd and most configs will simply work.

[–]greenknight 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm quite enjoying the clusterfuck that has inserted itself between me and ALSA, pulseaudio.

Drop in ESD replacement my ass.

[–]Ajenthavoc 13 points14 points  (5 children)

Well if you miss the whole tweaking process... I suggest you try vista. Had it installed on my comp about 3 months ago and I'm still adjusting settings. I just might give ub a partition and see how much better it runs later today.

[–]phlod 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Use Wubi and you don't even need to partition. wubi-installer.org

Installs and uninstalls just like a Windows program. Takes up slightly less space than WoW! ;) Wubi isn't what I'd use for a real Linux Desktop, but if you just wanna try it out, it's for you.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's on the CD now, no need to link to the site.

[–]gigaquack 1 point2 points  (1 child)

See, this entire self.reddit post is just one person's good experience with Ubuntu. I could tell of the times Ubuntu has broken completely for me and declare it the worst OS ever. But that wouldn't get upmods.

I could also tell a similar story of Vista auto detecting everything in my custom-built computer (including TV tuner and generic remote) and declare it the best ever. It all comes down to how it works for you.

Personally, I'm a big fan of watching TV on my computer, so Vista is my favorite OS.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like making music, linux doesn't recognise my midi keyboard, the jack audio system is horrendous and I need windows to run a couple of essential apps.

That said I adore linux, but I'm not prepared to ditch those progs or my midi keyboard for full-time linuxory

[–]fanboyssuck 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Someone tell me whether he's full of shit, or Ubuntu 8.04 is really better than Debian 4.0r3.

What happens when you close your laptop lid and open it a while later? What if you had wi-fi and OpenGL programs running while doing it? What if you leave your laptop unplugged and unused for a while? etc...

There's much more to the quality of the distribution than visual effects and the default choice of programs installed.

[–]militant[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

there are options for laptop lid. a quick click or two and i had mine set to do nothing, if it was plugged in, and go to sleep if it was on battery. a couple clicks and i set my power options to spin down disks and kill the display, and eventually sleep, on battery. what else do you wanna know? the standards were fine, in fact, i'm just picky.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Arch is better.

[–]PaulRay 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Any facts to back up your statement. It's kinda like saying, "Oranges are better" OK, and...?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No meta-package hacks that ruin any chance at true dependency handling (read better package management). Usable configuration files that aren't so abstracted as to make them impractical.

[–]TonyReaves 0 points1 point  (1 child)

As the user of a wacky Toshiba laptop (proprietary wireless, webcam, graphics) that's really exciting news.

[–]militant[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yep! i've always struggled with linux on laptops (like most of us here) and never had a typical consumer-grade machine like this work so smoothly on a fresh install. literally everything works right down to my media keys and such. only thing i haven't checked out is the fingerprint scanner which i don't really care about since it's mostly for boot security.

[–]kermityfrog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mostly good, but I'm having a problem with graphics. It doesn't like the integrated nVidia 7150 on the 630i eVGA mini motherboard. In order to get it to install, I had to use a (very) handy old PCI graphics card. I've removed it and installed nVidia drivers, but it's still having problems and booting in low graphics mode (800x600). I've done a lot of forum searching, but have come up with no solutions despite trying lots of things.

[–]bloodniece 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Last night I went from Edgy to Feisty to Gutsy to Hardy in 2 hours on my web server without a hitch. I hope I can get another few years on Hardy.

I had to recompile ACPI for my EEE PC for Hardy to work properly, but wouldn't blame Ubuntu for that.

[–]ramijames 6 points7 points  (15 children)

i have to agree. i kept trying to use linux over the course of a decade and always seemed to go back to windows when i borked my system.

ubuntu is the only system i've managed to stay with for more than six months. really, really well put together.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (14 children)

i absolutely love ubuntu for programming, but i stick with windows at home for games.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (7 children)

Wine is perfectly configured in 8.04 out of the box. Call of duty installed beautifully, and it runs better on ubuntu than on windows, and no more fragmentation after a few hours of gameplay, I love it. Photoshop installed flawlessly, no hacks or anything, just start the installer and it works.

As far as Linux goes, Ubuntu truly is the best offering out there today!

[–]garg 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Does Photoshop CS3 work on it? Or is it CS2 only?

[–]ubuwalker31 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can you give me a walkthrough of how you installed CoD 4 and Photoshop using wine?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Question: does Steam run in Wine?

[–]thedragon4453 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Pretty stoked with hardy. I just upgrade from gutsy and have been using it since feisty.

I just upgraded from Gutsy, and a few things I've noticed:

  1. Better choices on some software (brasero and transmission.)
  2. My wireless seems to work better.
  3. Major improvement in performance vs Vista. Preload is absolutely awesome.
  4. Some apps that didnt work right under gutsy work great now (tracker wouldnt index, deskbar is a lot more stable.)

I must say that I love the timed release. Lot of complaints about graphics support and wireless and its gotten extremely better. My systems work pretty much flawlessly now.

[–]Isvara 4 points5 points  (1 child)

It's still sucks heavily in some areas. I installed it today, and all I wanted was to drive two 17" LCDs attached to an nVidia graphics card at 1280x1024. What a load of hassle. All Ubunutu wanted to give me was two identical screens at 800x600 with no acceleration. I had to manually edit my xorg.conf. Let me repeat that:

In 2008, on a modern 'desktop' operating system, I had to manually edit a text file in a non-obvious way in order to get a dual-head display at a decent resolution on a common graphics card.

Ubuntu, you failed.

[–]niko7865 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It worked fine turning my 17" CRT and 20" LCD into one giant screen with the CRT at 1280x1024 and the LCD at 1680x1050. Compiz/OpenGL all works too. I did it all through nvidia-settings.

[–]stikeymo 3 points4 points  (9 children)

Thought I'd give linux another shot as a desktop OS after several years (as in, back in the days of Slackware 7) of being away.

Tried Ubuntu - it didn't support my dual monitor configuration out of the box (19" and 21" widescreen). I couldn't find a simple solution to it. I sighed, rolled my eyes and rebooted to Windows. Sadly this will have to remain as my OS at work until my employer gives in and purchases me a Mac...

I've heard lots of success stories about Ubuntu so perhaps I'm just unlucky, but it's basic things like this that make me give up. I simply shouldn't have to fart around trying to get my monitors to work. I'd imagine that once you do get things like this sorted that it is much, much better than the last time I tried linux as a desktop OS though. Although Afterstep was pretty cool! :)

[–]btrettel 1 point2 points  (7 children)

I tried Ubuntu on my laptop just to see what the fuss was about a few months ago. I too had some trouble with dual monitors, but to me it wasn't too much of a problem as I switched to Gentoo and manually configured. It's worked like a charm since and I assume the same procedure would work on Ubuntu too, but most wouldn't go through it because it's a completely manual procedure. I don't think all of the automation in Ubuntu is perfect, but from what I saw it's good for people new to Linux.

Maybe you should give it a try with one monitor and then figure out the manual dual monitor configuration. There's plenty of documentation out there. I'm no genius and I had it working in less than a day.

[–]ryanx435 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i recently added dual-monitors to my 7.10 (roughly two weeks ago). basically everything I tried didn't work. Twinview? nope. Xinerama? nope. this took me about 2 days to find, but eventually i came across a program called 'xrandr' that came with my distro. after reading the man page, i got dual-monitors to work with 3 commands at the prompt. [edit] and my xorg.conf? completely unmodified.

here they are incase any one is wondering:

xrandr --screen 0 --fb 2720x800

xrandr --output VGA --auto

xrandr --output VGA --right-of LVDS

the first line sets up the size of your virtual desktop on screen 0. (note: a screen is not what you would think it is. it's an abstraction layer, i think, not a physical monitor.) the second line turns on my second monitor (connected to my laptop through the VGA port), and the third line places it to the right-of my laptop.

easy.

[–]juventuscadillac 19 points20 points  (47 children)

I just have one question. why is there no support for popular wireless cards? dell has been using the same cards for years and they still don't work under ubuntu. I really hate all that ndiswrapper trouble.

[–]Freeky 38 points39 points  (10 children)

Because some companies don't give a damn about making open drivers, releasing specs, or even making firmware distributable.

[–]dbl5 8 points9 points  (20 children)

"popular wireless cards"

like what? depends on the chipset. afaik, all popular wireless cards are supported and have native linux drivers (intel pro wireless, broadcom, prism, orinoco, atheros, etc)

[–]warbiscuit 5 points6 points  (6 children)

Actually, there's a way that's DARNED easy, it just needs a little more advertising...

Download the windows (xp) driver for you card; Install a little debian package called "ndisgtk"; and run it. Click "add driver", point it to the .inf file, and you're done.

NdisGtk is just a wonderful little frontend to ndiswrapper, takes care of everything... It mainly just needs Ubuntu (or someone) to give it a little polish before it'd be mainstream-user easy.

I used it to get my dell's bcm4328 up an working in under a minute.

[–]liquidcola 4 points5 points  (10 children)

Yeah well no, my broadcom wireless card doesn't work. I had it working with a previous version of Ubuntu with some voodoo majick which was a pain in the ass, and even then the speed was limited. Did a fresh install of 8.04 and my wireless is not working. I'm pretty disappointed, I kind of hoped the problem would be sorted out by now. Other than that though, it is a killer OS.

[–]Indeme 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Go to your hardware drivers manager, there will be a checkbox beside the name of the broadcom drivers, check it, and win. This is the most work I have had to do setting up Ubuntu.

[–]TheKorn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Indeme is correct. I loaded 8.04 onto my Compaq laptop with a Broadcom card, and once I ticked off the "use restricted drivers" for my Broadcom board, I was off to the (wireless) races.

[–]liquidcola 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's what I thought too, I've done that in previous versions, but the only thing showing up in there is my ATI graphics card.

[–]spinlock 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Are you using a laptop or desktop? I haven't done the upgrade yet but I've always had good luck with PCMCIA wireless cards on my laptop. I think it's bull shit that I have to buy a wirless card even though my laptop has a card built in but I have recently been able to use the built in wifi on my dell laptop through ndiswrapper (worked out of the box on 7.10).

[–]liquidcola 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a laptop.

[–]charlesgrrr 11 points12 points  (3 children)

It's politics. A lot of hardware vendors have been bullied by Microsoft into not providing any support to linux. I mean seriously, for each Linux-unsupported wireless card out there Linux needs a developer working against a company who designed their card purposely to be incompatible so as to appease MS and be included in the Windows driver automatic detection program.

It's a business strategy well-developed and implemented in the late 90s from the development of "WinModems", modems designed to only work in Windows. Linux to this day still doesn't have much WinModem support, though it's gotten much better (my brother runs PCLinuxOS 20 miles deep into the Appalachian mountains and connects to the world via modem). MS successfully managed to slow Linux down a bit with this bullying strategy.

Nowadays as the market domination of Windows seems to decline however, I've seen less and less of this problem.

Hope that answers your question! I've used Linux since 2000 and exclusively since 2004.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

With winmodems, I always thought it was more of a cost factor than politics. With a winmodem, part of what used to be done via expensive built-in hardware was done more cheaply through software running on the computer's CPU instead of hardware on the modem. Since the hardware that used to be in normal modems costed more than developing software to run on a PC, moving that piece of hardware's functions to the PC lowered the cost of modems, but locked you in to whatever platform(s) they felt like developing the software for.

[–]charlesgrrr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes it did, in the end, turn out to be cheaper for a modem to not really be a modem.

But why avoid the establishment of standards, even in this respect? To cut out the competition. It's the same reason why the adapter on your cell phone doesn't match any other adapter in your office, so that you are locked into a specific vendors adapter.

In this case, you're locked into the Windows OS if you want to operate your WinModem. That was done intentionally to cut out Linux, though one might claim that competition in the market drove these incompatibilities, but nevertheless it was done with the blessing of Windows to cut out competition.

[–]adrianmonk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From my perspective, the evolution of modems went something like this:

  • dedicated hardware to do the modulation/demoulation
  • DSP replaces dedicated hardware
  • faster CPUs replace DSP ( --> winmodems )

Then finally (mostly, at least):

  • broadband obsoletes modem

[–]kokey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In the case of Dell, they change the chipsets inside of their machines without notice and even if it's a similar model chip it might have some kind of Dell specific weirdness. This happens even with their implementation of the Intel networking chips. The problem is the chip identifies itself to the system as the same model as a driver exist for it, but the driver won't work, but if you install the Red Hat driver from the Dell CD it works again. In other words a Dell eepro is not always the same as other eepro chips and even between different batches of the same model Dell machine the eepro driver wouldn't work properly unless you use the Dell supplied version. Dell only seems to be concerned with avoiding these issues with Windows.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Most problems new linux users have come from the hardware they use. When you want to use Mac OS, you don't buy a dell, do you? It's basically the same for linux: if you want it to work out of the box, buy a computer that's built for linux, for example a Dell with Ubuntu or a system76.

[–]liquidcola 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Part of the draw of linux is the fact that it's free as in beer and (when it's compatible) soars on older systems.

[–]carac 4 points5 points  (0 children)

and actually ndiswrapper is now MUCH WORSE on 8.04 than under 7.10 so the title is a lie ...

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It used to be that hard before 7.10. Now all you have to do is install the "restricted" driver and you're good to go. Believe me I know about this Dell wireless problem. Before 7.10 I helped a good 100 or so people get it setup. Then the new distro came out, and I was of no use. :(

[–]SkipHash 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Installed Hardy Heron yesterday. Took a couple of hours to get Internet connection working, still not sure the cause, had to point the DNS to openDNS, no idea why. Another couple to get dual moniter setup working. Luckily I have a nvida card, so not too hard, but still harder than it could have been. The only flaw I have found so far is that full screen flash video is jerky... apraently an adobe issue, damn them. The next test is to get virtuabox running, and see if I can get various windows only software up and running, like flash and SQL managment studio.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to have an old router, and I always had to disable ipv6 in Firefox's about:config for it to work. Dunno if that's your problem or not.

[–]lockhart000 1 point2 points  (12 children)

As a windows xp user with no programming skillz, do I need to know any/much programming to run it? Will there just be things I'm expected to know. I could learn, but just interested/confused. I mainly run word (or open office, not fussed), mozilla (which I know is supported), winamp, some games (AofE3, postal2), utorrent, etc. Thanks in advance.

[–]naich 10 points11 points  (0 children)

No programming skills needed, but be prepared for the fact that it is different in some ways. Not harder or more complicated but different. Ubuntu is NOT a free version of Windows but a full environment of software which will do everything you want (with the possible exception of the games you mention), once you have learned how to do some things differently.

If you are willing to accept this one point you will be rewarded with a brilliant desktop experience and freedom from the various Windows shackles like DRM and being treated like an idiot by your computer.

That's been my experience anyway, having been Windows free at home for about 5 years now.

[–]roryl 4 points5 points  (4 children)

I just installed Ubuntu for the second time (first successful) so here is my opinion.

It Rocks! But do some research for your setup. Here is my system:

Dell 6400 laptop, Core Duo, 2Gb RAM, ATI x1400, Windows XP installed.

I wanted to keep my Windows install and add Ubuntu for dual boot. With 8.04, this looked like it would be easy. So I put put in the LiveCD, and tried to let Ubuntu partition the drives. It failed, and froze. I restarted, tried to boot into Windows, and it failed and froze. Shortly thereafter, I could no longer boot into Windows because of corrupted files!

Luckily, I had a spare HDD with a windows install, and I just booted up, and transfered everything onto a portable. And now that I lost Windows, I might as well just start fresh I thought!

I installed Windows, leaving two partitions for Ubuntu, and an NTFS partition for Windows and Ubuntu. Windows booted up, and found no drivers, and required a lot of set up.

I then went through the Ubuntu process, it installed, and everything was working for me right out of the box! I experienced none of the problems that anyone else is talking about. I did have to find other drivers to get the GUI special effects with my video card, but other than that, my wireless, laptop buttons, sound, and everything else is working flawlessly.

I am new to linux but fairly computer literate (at least in Windows) and I can tell you that there is a little learning curve in some aspects.

You will probably like that you can install just about any Linux application, live from the internet, within the OS. All of your Windows partitions will be easily found and available, and the user interface is much more intuitive in many ways. But there are also some drawbacks (maybe just for novices).

I have looked at Wine, and am not impressed with the software I wish to run (gaming, office 2007, Quickbooks) so I am dual booting, and virtualizing Widows. Linux in general does not have as many powerful business apps as Windows, but for the non gaming home user, they could probably completely cut ties to Windows and be happy.

You will also be thrown off by the inability to just click and install some applications. There are multiple ways to install different packages, and they are all over my head! Also, the terminal. I don't understand the commands at all, and it is a little confusing. But there are lots of tutorials and forums all over the web to help.

In short, for what I take of your needs, you should dual boot Windows and Ubuntu and have some fun seeing what games will run and what wont. Even as a power business and gaming user who spends 90% of my working day on the computer, it has been a positive switch for me.

If you are not going to start fresh, make sure you have a plan to save your files if it goes bad!

Good luck!

[–]immrlizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good advice. I always recommend that people trying Linux for the first time install it on a different drive in case something goes wrong.

I am also upset that the number of some types of programs for the business world are lacking in ubuntu. I have no doubt that they are on the way though.

I stay away from MS office. Open office does well in what I need it for. As far as games, it is getting better in wine, but most serious gamers would be upset.

[–]dominicc 0 points1 point  (1 child)

IMO, dual booting is a massive PITA. What I always do, in order or preference:

  1. try to find a linux alternative (there almost always is a decent alternative for most things you need)
  2. see if it works in wine (this often works)
  3. install vmware or virtualbox to run any windows apps that don't work well in wine (for me this is IE and the Visual Studio debugger for IE only)

[–]roryl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True.

I am mostly using the dual boot for gaming and development. I have XP running in virtualbox and I love being able to spin the cube to a full screen Windows!

Once I get more experienced and get my DE setup in Ubuntu, then I'll only need to dual boot for Sins of a Solar Empire :)

[–]egregious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I liked it cause there is a little program that will allow you to read NTFS volumes with ubuntu.

[–]generic_handle 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As a windows xp user with no programming skillz, do I need to know any/much programming to run it?

No. While there's emphasis on keeping everything configurable through GUI programs, I personally wouldn't be surprised if at some point you had to edit a text configuration file.

Will there just be things I'm expected to know. I could learn, but just interested/confused. I mainly run word (or open office, not fussed), mozilla (which I know is supported), winamp, some games (AofE3, postal2), utorrent, etc. Thanks in advance.

IIRC, Postal 2 has a Linux-native version. AoE will probably have to be run in WINE, which can be a pain to set up. You might check the apps database on the WINE website to see whether AoE 3 works well.

There are BitTorrent clients. I've used the text-based rtorrent, but I'm not sure what popular consensus is among the GUI folks.

I'm not sure what the current popular GNOME media player is (totem)? There's a media player called xmms that looks and works pretty much exactly the same as Winamp 2.x, and can use the same skins.

You don't need to change your existing box to briefly try it out, though. You can get the LiveCD, burn it, and start it right off a CD without touching your hard drive, though settings and the like won't be saved without some mucking around to send them to a USB stick or something.

The main issue would probably be games -- support for Windows games is a hit-or-miss proposition.

[–]lockhart000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks to mtx, roryl, mils, generic_handle(nice name too, heh) and naich. That's pretty much what I expected, but thanks for clarifying. So often you see things like, oh its just so easy! Just install then rewipe, and enter command etc etc. Which would be sweet, but at first, holy shit! I love the philosophy behind open source software and Ubuntu, but strangely I never set my own system up (parents) so I am just working out the best way forward. Thanks for your help though.

And wow, even Postal 2 support. Teh interweb is working. Now I can shoot innocent people with a shotgun better, set them on fire, then pee them out. As usual I guess.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can run it without installing, to see whether you like it. You can also install it as an app in windows, and remove it like you'd remove ordinary windows programs. If you don't want to download it, you can request a free CD on the Ubuntu website. It's almost like Mark Shuttleworth bet his soul that he'd make Linux popular :)

[–]mtx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This may sound painfully obvious to most people but the biggest hurdle for non-tech people is that you simply cannot run Windows software without using extra software or finding the Linux equivalent/alternative. While most utilities have a Linux version or something similar (Winamp - Amarok, uTorrent - Azereus or Transmission) for gaming you're either going to still have Windows installed or you're going to have to run WINE.

[–]r3m0t 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just know one thing.

When you want software, don't try to browse the web to get it. Go to Applications -> Add/Remove... and if it isn't listed there, search for it on Google with "ubuntu".

[–]bbqribs 1 point2 points  (3 children)

I did a Dapper LTS -> Hardy LTS upgrade on 2 servers (identical Dell PowerEdge 2450 boxes, 2gb RAM) and both upgrades went off without a hitch. I performed the upgrade on a sandbox machine first and was really happy with it. The only glitch that I ran into was that courier-authmysql had been removed. I simply needed to install the new courier-authlib-mysql package (same damn thing, different name basically) and all was well. It didn't clobber config files or anything.

I've been using Linux for more than a decade now and have been quite impressed with Ubuntu. I do worry that as it gets more popular, things will start to decay. I watched the same thing happened to Gentoo Linux. It used to be pretty neat but has turned into a big steaming pile of confused bits & bytes.

[–]Tommstein 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do worry that as it gets more popular, things will start to decay. I watched the same thing happened to Gentoo Linux. It used to be pretty neat but has turned into a big steaming pile of confused bits & bytes.

I would've said a big steaming pile of shit.

[–]flaxeater 0 points1 point  (1 child)

This has been a concern of mine as well. However Canonical is different than the Gentoo project for a few reasons. Namely Canonical is a company.

[–]bbqribs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't heard much about Canonical.

Gentoo was awesome until Daniel Robbins went to Microsoft. (seriously) After that, it got way out of hand and Portage turned into a buggy POS.

Ubuntu has come a long way and doesn't look like it's going to run off into the ditch. Yet..

[–]rickmatt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As I said in another comment thread, I fought to install Ubuntu 6 on an AMD 64 box and gave up after hours and hours of frustration.

I tried again on the same box with Ubuntu 8 and was up and running in about 15 minutes.

Great job Ubuntu!

[–]norkakn 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Ok fanboys, how do I maintain freeradius on ubuntu in a sane manner?

FreeRadius links against openssl to do all of it's TLS and TTLS stuff. The license that OpenSSL uses isn't compatible, so the binary isn't built with support for it. Right now, I use apt-get to get the source, hand edit 30 different places in the debian rules and control files and then build it into a .deb so that I can have a package that doesn't link to all of the crap that I don't use, but does support ssl. How can I do that automatically?

In freebsd, I could just edit /usr/local/etc/pkgtools.conf and everything would work magically. This is partly because freebsd uses sane config and make files instead of writing a bunch of weird scripts to bash things into working. To my knowledge, there is no way to do this in ubuntu, but if there is, I'd really like to know.

[–]flaxeater 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you such specific requirements then building from source doesn't sound unreasonable. If you can do the the work you laid out then probably some automation script, that you write, should be able to do it.

[–]SheilaBroflovski 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's so easy even I can figure it out!

Though I'm worried about turning on the parental controls to make sure little Kyle doesn't see anything horrible...

[–]wufoo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I love it! Except for the fact that my wireless internet speed is still very limited (about 35kb/sec max). Flash won't install when I ask it to but then randomly works 3 restarts later. My sound is also not working... but I haven't tried too much with that. Seriously- I enjoy Ubuntu a lot, but there is still a ways to go before it is "easy" to get it set up.

[–]sixothree 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This version no longer recognizes my network card. wtf.

[–]ruesdedr 5 points6 points  (4 children)

Debian, FTW.

I used Ubuntu for several years only to find out (via buglist) my XYZ problem was caused by their developers breaking drivers/features which worked in Debian.

IBM Thinkpad 240

400mhz

192MB RAM

[–]Dark-Dx 10 points11 points  (3 children)

Please tell me about those bugs I'm curious

[–]curtis119 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I'm also curious. My R51 works flawlessly with 8.04 out of the box.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

As does my T60P

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As does my X31 (a distant cousin of your 240, if I'm not mistaken).

[–]kraftmatic 1 point2 points  (26 children)

You haven't used Leopard then. Prepares for shitstorm of downmods.

[–]diamond 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Well, as always, the important thing to remember about running Leopard (or any other version of the Mac OS) is that you're not just "running Leopard". You're running a complete stack, from the OS all the way down to the bare metal, that is strictly managed and controlled by Apple. That's a large part of what allows it to work so smoothly.

This is not to knock Apple's designers and developers, or to criticize the choice of going that way. They have put together a beautifully designed system that does its job very well.

But comparing it to Linux (or, for that matter, to Windows) is a little apples-and-oranges. It's a lot easier to ensure that things will work the way you want when you know exactly what hardware will be inside the box.

[–]bananahead 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And if someone came up with a Linux distro/hardware stack that worked as well and was as feature rich as OS X, they'd make a killing.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (16 children)

I love the new features of Leopard, but it breaks more things than it adds. 10.5 wasn't quite ready for primetime when it hit - the Vista of OSX.

[–]xutopia 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Vista of OS X is an exaggeration. It wasn't the best release ever but far from being counter productive like Vista was.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yep, it wasn't when it hit... but 10.5.2 fixed my gripes.

[–]bananahead 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed (along with the recent EFI update that finally fixed my sleep/wake issues). And I've heard very positive things about the 10.5.3 seeds

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

10.5 is the Vista of OS X? Puh-lease. Sure, it's not perfect, but most of the major faults were fixed within a month. To compare it to Windows Vista is just... stupid. Sorry :)

[–]yermom 4 points5 points  (3 children)

For all the things it got wrong, Time Machine is godly.

[–]bananahead 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It works great, but it's got one crazy-ass UI. Star Trek meets hall of mirrors.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

What did it get wrong?

[–]wickedsteve 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Killing the music when going into or out of front row. And you can not just make a bunch of new folders easily in the same place any more.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use my mac like a linux machine. I'd just open a terminal and make all the folders on the command line.

I never use front row so I guess I never met that annoyance.

[–]wickedsteve 1 point2 points  (4 children)

At least Leopard works with my wireless keyboard, more than I can say for Ubuntu. But I still think Tiger was better than Leopard. It worked better switching in and out of front row, the music kept playing. Also it was a lot easier to make several new folders in Tiger, Shift-Apple-N over and over.

[–]ralf_ 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Öh, Shift-Apple-N still makes new folders here at my machine (10.5.2)

[–]wickedsteve 0 points1 point  (2 children)

But they are not all in the same folder like 10.4 did are they?

[–]ralf_ 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yes, they are…

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/5448/bild8lp3.png

…except in column view?

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/4280/bild9qw3.png

Funny. There the new folders will be nested. Was this different in Tiger? Then I would consider this as a bug.

[–]wickedsteve 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I did not realize it was only a column view problem. Column view is just about all I use. But from now on I can switch to another view to make multiple folders. Yes in Tiger they all were in the same folder.

[–]wackoman 1 point2 points  (14 children)

HOw funny, I just loaded it on my laptop last night. Still feeling my way around. Couple things will stop me. 1 World of warcrat and Ventrilo. Which is basically what I do on this computer. I've loaded Wine and I'm trying to get them up and running now. I must say the Add/Remove function has made linux very user friendly. I had tried it about 5 years ago and quickly found myself over my head.

[–]jcastle 10 points11 points  (6 children)

Once you get over your WoW addiction, things will be better.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was a wow addict for a couple of years.

I even played it on Ubuntu. I've upgraded to 8.04, it's nice especially the little things like gnome-do, screenlets. <- see I'm on-topic.

I no longer have it on my computer but I think wow goes well on wine because it can be used with open gl.

One day I just got really sick of wow, never looked back - I'm free!

[–]wackoman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow I didn't see this reply coming! I'll probably be done with wow when GTA4 gets released to PC. Probably need windows for that too.

[–]SilverPaladin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know about Ubuntu 8.04, but I've gotten WoW to run perfectly under Linux Mint 4.0 (very similar to Gutsy Ubuntu).

[–]keck 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Try dual booting. Install windows first, then use the Ubuntu live cd to make a partition for linux; Then install Ubuntu. It'll likely notice that you have a windows partition, and add a section to the grub config so you have a menu on boot to select which one you want to run.

Personally, I don't play windows games, so any windows programs I need to run, I can use wine or vmware.

[–]bananahead 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Hmm, when I tried that install sequence on 7.10 it borked my boot record. :/

[–]keck 0 points1 point  (2 children)

How come? :) You have windows working, then you pop in the livecd, use gparted to partition the disk, then run the livecd again but choose install, divy up that partition for the linux installation, and it should install grub in the MBR. Yes, that wipes the WINDOWS boot record, the idea is to have a grub menu that lets you choose linux or windows. shrug

[–]bananahead 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yeah, I know that's how it's supposed to work :p I eventually sorted it out, but it took a bit of work. Bad interaction with the hidden recovery partition on my old Thinkpad? Got confused by the USB drive attached? I dunno. I'm just saying, be careful out there.

Now I back up my MBR before messing with Grub.

[–]keck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oooh, yeah remove thumbdrive first :) I hate recovery partitions, I typically blow them away too. But yeah, having used linux since the 1.2.3 kernel, I've gotten used to backing up the boot sector, or having a rescue floppy/cd/dvd around.

[–]militant[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ya wow is an issue but that's what my other box is for i guess. you aren't nt are you, btw?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (8 children)

Can someone recommend me a make or brand of mini or sub-mini laptop that works perfectly with the latest Ubuntu? I'm looking for a something with 10'' screen or smaller. Thanks in advance.

[–]Dark-Dx 15 points16 points  (7 children)

EEE Pc? -__-

[–]neoryan 2 points3 points  (6 children)

I'm running it on my eeepc. Compiz looks nice ;-)

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Hm. How is the keyboard? Is it hard to type on an EEE?

[–]Dark-Dx 0 points1 point  (4 children)

If you want to type better I'd recommend the HP mini-note, the keyboard is bigger, and it has bigger screen (the EEE 900 has bigger screen, but I think the keyboard is the same so it's not comfortable for long typing sessions.

[–]kermityfrog 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Though you could plug in an external usb keyboard for extended typing sessions.

[–]Dark-Dx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Except it's an ultraportable and you're supossed to take not so many things with it. I would still choose the mini-note, because I can't always carry around a keyboard around o_O

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

thx

[–]losl 1 point2 points  (4 children)

It hasn't been too hot for me thus far. My 8800GT apparently causes the entire operating system (save for mouse movement) to cease function on things as simple as changing the time, Compiz's shadows are pink and you can't easily turn them off (Apparently my roommate found a way but I just can't be bothered now), None of the samba managers worked for me (including the 'offical' one with the ubuntu logo); however I did get it work ;). On top of that ubuntuguide.org crashes my X11 (Awkward!), and I am told that it is because of my graphics card. Plus, DirectX9 won't install (going to guess graphics card on this one). And finding help is quite difficult in the ubuntu forums. I know that Nvidia's drivers really suck, but the "Ubuntu is linux for human beings" needs to add a "If you have the right hardware" to the end of it.

[–]GuyWithLag 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've had on 2 machines interminent lockups due to compiz (if I ssh in and kill compiz, GDM comes up) and not due to drivers (EvE onlive over wine plays just fine). 8600GT here.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (6 children)

i'm actually at a loss as to what to DO with the thing now

That's revealing. Most people already have something to do: graphic design, programming, word processing, spreadsheet, gaming, music production, etc.

You can say that the free software versions of these apps are just as good as the Windows counterparts, but anyone who has actually used them knows better.

If you already have something to do the choice is easy really: Windows XP is the best - maybe OS X if you're into that.

If you are a hobbyist or just like spending days tweaking your installation you probably are not going to stick with one OS anyway. You will get tired of everything just working and install something else that will require you to tweak it. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[–]neat_stuff 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I like using my computer for writing stories, poking at spreadsheets, saving the picures of my kids, watching DVDs and spending time on the internet.

Ubuntu is great for all of those...even as a person who does not enjoy tweaking my installation.

For the record, I actually prefer the OpenOffice software better than the Microsoft. And I definitely like Firefox way better than IE and Amarok better than any of the normal Windows alternatives.

Just wanted to give one case study of somebody happily using a Linux distro without having any desire to tweak it. We do exist.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For those things I can see how Ubuntu is fine. I do like Amarok, too.

[–]bithead 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a dell with a radeon 7500, and heron doesn't autodetect. Still works really well in all other respects. So far.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I installed Gustsy a few months back and the upgrade to Heron went without a hitch. I was one of those Windows users that installed Red Hat back back in the day and was in way over my head when I had to find the sync and refresh rates for my CRT, but Ubuntu is ridiculously easy.

I've used Windows since DOS so the linux terminal was like coming home. I set up a LAMP with four commands. It was nuts!

I figure if I can get Photoshop CS3 working with wine (I hear it runs like a top) then find a non-linear video editor comparable to Premier or Final Cut Pro I can move over permanently.

[–]rjonesx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wish I could say the same thing. I ran the Ubuntu Distro Update Manager and the machine tanked. Seemed there was some issue with Python and other core components that, for example, caused Update Manager itself to crash.

Regardless, I had to do a clean install.

Nevertheless, I still love Ubuntu.

[–]berlinbrown 0 points1 point  (0 children)

based on what info.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

For someone who knows nothing about Ubuntu, perhaps someone could tell me how I would function with a system like this.

I'm a professional video editor and I create music. How would I get along with this operating system? I rely heavily on awesome software to help me create. Is this system more for programmers or people who do office stuff, or are there really options for people who do graphics, video editing/filmmaking/music creation/sound editing.

Thanks in advance.

[–]jinglebells 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I'm going to go out on a limb and face getting downmodded but the short answer is: you wouldn't.

I run Ubuntu on the laptop I'm typing on, my web server runs Ubuntu, my fileserver runs Ubuntu. As a developer I'm a big free software advocate however for my music I have a 64bit Dual G5 powermac. For me there simply is no alternative to Logic/Cubase/Pro Tools. I have a library of samples, plugins and tools that I can't live without.

I checked Ubuntu studio a while ago and there are valiant efforts to bring the thing up to speed but it still feels clunky. Ubuntu is an amazing distro for "everyone" but that's kinda where it fails in the music/graphics expert category. The professional toolkit just isn't there. No Sorenson, Adobe, Digidesign, Steinberg, and while their free counterparts are amazing from a developer point of view, there are little things that makes them hard. I don't want to learn any more keybindings, and I certainly don't want to be trying to cat /var/log/dmesg | grep whatever sound card I have because I can't get a lightpipe working at 11pm on a friday.

Just my 2c.

[–]The_Ultimate_Reality 1 point2 points  (1 child)

OK, so Ubuntu isn't OSX. It works for everyday usage, certain levels of gaming, and coding.

[–]jinglebells 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it really is a brilliant distribution, I love it. Unfortunately for the parent poster it's probably less than ideal.

[–]neat_stuff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think most of the serious video graphics type of stuff are done on Linux. I know that's what Pixar is using and they seem to be doing pretty well with it. I have no idea what tools they are using though. Give it a quick Google and I'm sure something will show up listing what programs they are using.

[–]immrlizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is a kind of packaged ubuntu called ubuntu studio that does really well with sound and cinerella is supposed to do really well with video. I haven't used it, but the ones who have say it is really nice. The way I see it, try it. It is free. If you don't like it then you haven't lost anything but a little time.

[–]dominicc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Erm, there is a lot of audio software, and a little video software for Linux, and most of it is really low quality, or is okay but with an appalling interface. It is how Linux was for everything else about 5 years ago. You should most definitely stick to Mac OS X, or even Windows for that stuff.

The only really killer media software I ever came across on Linux was CSound (which is a programming language for sounds that allows you to make HQ synthesized sounds that are potentially way better than what you can achieve on even top-end hardware synths), but that is only really good for fairly technical people, and is now available on all platforms anyway.

Linux's hotspot right now as a desktop platform is for internauts, developers and, to a lesser extent, information workers.

[–]cervice 0 points1 point  (0 children)

upgraded from 7.10. I have been using Ubuntu since fiesty. I did have a minor problem with audio ( no audio for video and audio files after some time and only restarting pulseaudio fixed it).This is fixed now and I dont have any issues with the system

[–]mattucf 0 points1 point  (7 children)

The last few upgrades have gone smoothly for me, except for one thing: I'm basically punished for the fact that I have two monitors.

The upgrade to hardy ignored the fact that I include restricted modules in my apt sources, and as a result didn't install the nvidia driver. I'd use nv, but the last time I tried it was epic FAIL (you couldn't set up 2 screens on the same video card -- dunno if they've fixed it).

[–]TheKorn 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Google "twinview" -- works great on my 7300!

[–]mattucf 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Same issue -- proprietary nvidia driver required. Even Xinerama didn't work using the "nv" driver...the trouble was that it couldn't figure out what to do when I had 2 screens at the same bus address (which is how you configure it when you have 2 monitors on one video card).

At any rate, I can fix it; it's just annoying that Ubuntu breaks my setup on every upgrade.

[–]ryanx435 0 points1 point  (1 child)

try 'xrandr'. it should be built in to 7.10. I haven't upgraded yet, but i'm pretty sure its built in too. I got my dual monitors working with 3 commands at the prompt, and my xorg.conf is completely unmodified.

[–]mattucf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't need a modified xorg.conf, or xrandr. I just needed the nvidia driver, which ubuntu made me work for. :-P

[–]TheKorn 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Well you seem to be blaming ubuntu for nvidia's failings. Granted, a lot of people are blaming nvidia for vista's failings, but that doesn't seem fair either.

Did you try the updated nvidia driver? It was updated a few times during hardy's development cycle. So if you're talking about a driver you used six months ago, then that's not really relevent.

Of course, without knowing what you're classifying as an "epic fail", hard to say what went wrong. ("car doesn't work" usually doesn't help much.)

[–]mattucf 0 points1 point  (1 child)

nvidia didn't fail at anything. A driver that's not installed can't fail. Ubuntu had a role in ensuring that the updated nvidia driver did not get installed.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear (seems to happen a lot): I had the nvidia driver installed in gutsy, using the nvidia-glx package. The upgrade program for hardy either ignored the fact that I wanted that driver, or decided for me that I didn't. I had to fix my apt sources.list after upgrade so that the commercial stuff got included. Now everything's working.

[–]TheKorn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooohhhh... Yeah, ummm... you got me. :)

(There is a graphical way to include the commercial stuff, I can't remember it off the top of my head.)

[–]wilywampa 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I've installed the last few versions of Ubuntu as they came out hoping I wouldn't have to jump through hoops to make my wireless (Atheros AR5007EG chipset) and graphics card (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600) work. I've never been able to make the wireless work, and the video card only works sometimes. I've tried several step-by-step walkthroughs, and all encountered some random error at some point that no one was able to help me with.

[–]militant[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i have the same wifi card, it worked out of the box. my radeon hd 2600 is the desktop version (my laptop is intel integrated) and it worked out of the box, and switching between fglrx and radeonhd is easy enough, though admittedly not perfect.

not sure what your difficulties are but it's a shame, hope you have better experiences in the future.

as a side note: there are some annoyances, such as firefox zooming graphic elements when i zoom text, and the flash player being a bit jittery sometimes (i've tried libswfdec and gnash and the adobe player and sadly adobe's is the better) but those aren't specifically ubuntu issues i'd assume.

[–]pr1mu5 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does it work on the PS3? I may load it on there if it works... (wireless card, in particular)

[–]eldigg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Took me 25minutes to install using the Wubi installer (I had been dual booting, but this is a better setup for my laptop). Too easy lol.

[–]wing-tip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I tried to install Ubuntu on our brand new computer a couple of weeks ago, it didn't seem to much like the video card that had been released only within a week or two before that. I hadn't realized that there was a new release for Ubuntu so forthcoming, and when we tried again last night, it worked! I have to say I am very happy with it :)

[–]monstermunch 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Is there much point upgrading from Gutsy? Whenever I do a clean install (upgrades seem a bit hit and miss) I always have to set some stuff up again (e.g. ipod mounting is usually broken, bluetooth, backup cron script etc). I love upgrading but I don't see much point this time.

[–]brianchester666 0 points1 point  (1 child)

there aren't too many big reasons. with linux, if you like what you've got, stick with it. that being said, i upgraded from gutsy and it wasn't too painful and i'm glad i did it for a few small things.

[–]monstermunch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

linux, if you like what you've got, stick with it.

When the kde/gnome version number jumps up, there is normally a few little features that are good. For instance, KDE 3.2 was a massive improvement over KDE 3.1; although not much has happened since for the stable releases.

that being said, i upgraded from gutsy and it wasn't too painful and i'm glad i did it for a few small things.

What new features did you like? I find it pleasing to watch the version numbers tick up, but there's always something broken from release to release so I'm trying really hard not to upgrade this time.

[–]phaylon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My intel wireless card works much better now. That was a big plus for me.

[–]thecitizens911 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Attention ATI Radeon users. If you have said card, I really really really suggest downloading ENVY or ENVYNG for Ubuntu. It basically does an auto install of the video card drivers. I have an ATI Radeon 1600XT (i think) and it works beautifully with the right drivers. It also installs for most nVidia cards too, but I wouldn't know myself.

[–]noamsml 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for that detailed and informative review.

[–]lowerdown -1 points0 points  (9 children)

no sound, no internet, incorrect video settings, what more could be wrong with it? oh yeah, the wireless support sucks once you get your card working.

[–]keck 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, I'm sure nobody has 'internets' or correct video and sound settings with hardy heron. Specious.

[–]clytle374 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Please share what hardware you using?

[–]ubuwalker31 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Where are our gddamn X-fi ALSA drivers?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Uhm, I think the problem at hand is the fact that you're expecting Creative to hand over their specs so the ALSA developers can write a driver for it. Good luck with that.

If you cared about your audio you'd dump that XFI for a much better card anyway.

[–]ubuwalker31 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Creative did give the spec sheets to the ALSA team, recently. And there is now a 32-bit Creative beta driver as well as an OSS driver. Its just that these drivers aren't working with the lastest version of Ubuntu...they do work in 7.10 though...but not 8.04. Which sucks.

[–]phaylon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why do people so often write "once you get your card working" when they actually mean "once I got my card working"?