
Alex Payne — Good Things: Ubuntu and Android - twampss
http://al3x.net/2010/02/15/ubuntu-android.html
======
tonystubblebine
I switched laptops last November and have been having a Linux just works
experience ever since. Previously I'd been on a System76 pre-installed linux
laptop where I was paying them to make sure it works. This time I just walked
into best buy and walked out with a dell and installed everything myself.

All hardware worked out of the box including wireless and suspend.

I started reading OMG Ubuntu (<http://omgubuntu.co.uk/>) which clued me into
some good productivity tips and also some bling. I like Docky as much as I
ever liked the Mac dock. Ubuntu Go is the Ubuntu equivalent of Quicksilver.

Even stuff I expected to be hard, like my Verizon USB 3G card, was easy. That
in particular has been a moderate pain on other operating systems but was just
a drop down option in the ubuntu networking widget.

For times when I need to be mainstream compatible I run Windows in Virtualbox.
That's how I sync my iphone, play online poker, run Quickbooks, etc. Plus
laptops come with such enormous hard drives, I felt like I could leave myself
a dual boot option in case I wanted to play games.

Overall, I'm much happier having my day-to-day operating system match my
servers. There's just something nice about having a dev environment that's so
close to my production environment.

I wrote a longer version of this here:
[http://www.stubbleblog.com/index.php/2009/11/linux-on-the-
de...](http://www.stubbleblog.com/index.php/2009/11/linux-on-the-desktop/)

------
barnaby
I feel old when I read articles like this because I remember back when Linux
was difficult. I meet new Linux users all the time who almost can't believe
stories from the bad old days.

Anyway, we use Ubuntu at my office, and we're super productive with it. I
would recommend it to everyone.

~~~
rufo
Heh. My "when Linux was bad" story was when I was 14 and trying to bootstrap
mkLinux for PPC on my PowerBook 1400. It had a problem that whenever an
interrupt would happen close to an HD ACCESS, the text {IDE TIMEOUT} would
crawl across the screen until you pressed the debugger interrupt switch, after
which it would continue on. This meant that any form of input while it was
accessing the HD would result in the interrupt switch being hit, or even
transferring data from the CD to the HD would take for-ev-er.

This meant the normally 45-minute install process turned into about two-and-a-
half-hours of babysitting the poor laptop. I also became very conscious of
memory/swap usage early on, so I had to use a rather light window manager (I
think I settled on AfterStep as a decent combination of features and light-
ness). I also learned how to tune X11 color requirements, since only 256-color
mode was supported.

A good way to cut my teeth initially. Later on I got my parents to purchase a
7200/75, which was the cheapest Mac I could find that would run the official
Linux/PPC distribution. That box carried me a hell of a long way - used it as
a print server and as the family NAT router, compiled my own kernels for the
first time, even wound up doing a Linux From Scratch build at some point.

Good times, those.

------
grandalf
Linux has totally arrived. As someone who occasionally gets asked to help fix
friend's computers(as I'm sure many HN'ers do) my latest approach is to just
recommend linux and then just do the install for them. Everything works out of
the box, old computers breathe new life (and speed) and with the addition of a
few proprietary fonts (which come with Adobe Acrobat Reader) the OS looks
BETTER than OSX. I like Kozuka Gothic Pro.

I think that the pretty OSX apps are mostly a myth. The only one I really want
is Skitch and I'm doing OK without it.

~~~
stcredzero
Myth? Keynote alone makes OS X a necessity for me. I can spend 1/3 as long and
come up with something that looks 5 times better than either Powerpoint or
Impress. When Open Office gets Magic Move, let me know.

(Actively uses OSX and Windows. Also long time Linux Debian user.)

~~~
grandalf
Have you tried Google Docs presentations? They have some great looking
templates that I think might be just as simple and beautiful as what you get
with Keynote.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I like S5: <http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/> It's quick, easy, open,
universally accessible, and as customizable as any web page.

~~~
stcredzero
For sheer presentation beauty per unit of user-effort, Keynote still is way
ahead. S5 does have its uses, though.

------
megaduck
I've been using Ubuntu Netbook Remix on a Dell Mini 9 as my primary setup for
over a year now. UNR is dangerously close to being mass-market ready, and it's
certainly ready for developers and power-users. Virtually everything 'just
works', and the Netbook Remix UI is far preferable to Windows or OS X on a
small screen.

The most remarkable thing is that you _never_ have to drop to a command
prompt, unless you want to. All of the linux infrastructure and tools are
there, but it's all been abstracted away with a nice clean GUI. For the first
time in my life, I actually prefer using X over the shell for managing my
machine.

It's also amazing to look at how rapidly Canonical is improving Ubuntu. Every
six months, I get more functionality and new software, with an improved UI and
fewer rough edges. I'm anxiously awaiting 10.04, and I know that 10.10 should
be another big improvement. That kind of predictability is nice.

I jumped ship from Linux to OS X nine years ago, when OS X 10.0 came out. I
hated wrestling with X, battling device drivers, and constantly missing basic
functionality. All those problems are finally solved, and I'm back on board.
'Desktop Linux' may never happen, but 'Mobile Linux' is definitely here, and
it's pretty darned cool.

~~~
ThinkWriteMute
I have a serious problem with the UNR: Why the _fuck_ did they include an
email client? I mean _seriously_.

Worse, removing the e-mail client removes the Gnome-Panel. Genius, guys.

------
grandalf
In my opinion, not having a unified package management system (as Windows and
OSX do not) is a serious usability and security bug.

How many users accidentally install malware b/c they don't know exactly the
proper workflow for installing security updates. Many older users (60+) are
fearful of installing any security update b/c they have heard that that's how
viruses get there.

For OSX there are some alternatives (mac ports and that new git based one)
which look awesome, but it's not the same as having it fully integrated into
the OS and automated security update notification and/or install for all apps.

OSX is not immune to the security bug -- as it gains in popularity people will
begin writing viruses for it and it'll be the same windows nightmare all over
again.

~~~
s3graham
Agreed, apt-get that just works is the "magic sauce" for me. It blows my mind
that there are so many packagers out there doing that work, but it's freakin'
awesome as a user.

~~~
grandalf
Exactly! It is the highly labor intensive nature of this process (and Apple's
greed for money as in the iPhone Store incarnation) that prevents this from
happening in mainstream OSes.

It's really quite a phenomenal achievement and I think it will begin to be
broadly recognized very soon.

------
doronba
That is reasonable, albeit something i regret at times.

I have many friends who develop open source software but resist Linux. I have
been working on Linux desktop for some years, but at times it is irritating to
no end, especially in the realm of design. I often advocate for Linux, but it
is still messy, it is not for everyone.

interface design seems to be a real problem for open source apps, few manage
to get it polished enough, and mostly on web apps, not on the desktop.

I used KDE for years, and switched to Gnome when KDE 4 was too messy to deal
with. now that KDE 4.4 i think ii might give it a try, but from online video i
wasn't too impressed

~~~
ThinkWriteMute
I think the real problem with Linux ui/ux design spawns from the X Server.
It's old and decrepit, levied in aged development standards, and guarded by a
bunch of grognards who fear change.

~~~
vilya
Absolutely untrue. The X server is an orthogonal issue to UI design. The real
problem is that a lot of Linux apps still have GUIs designed by programmers
rather than UI designers.

~~~
sireat
In fact, how many open source apps have dedicated UI designers? Probably
Mozilla stack, but who else?

Even very popular OS apps, such as GIMP, Inkscape, Open Office have
questionable design.

Granted sometimes UI designer can misunderstand user experience in a
particular domain, but programmers are more apt to do so.

Disclaimer: I program and sadly, also design(not by choice, I can't really
design) UIs on Linux.

~~~
doronba
can good open source interface design be achieved? and if so how?

I agree with this, it has nothing to do with X. this has to do with design
choices, and the method in which the consensus is achieved.

My friend Mushon Zer-Aviv is attempting to tackle this issue

[http://www.mushon.com/2009/12/18/shortaudio-my-open-
source-d...](http://www.mushon.com/2009/12/18/shortaudio-my-open-source-
design-slides/)

------
kellishaver
I've loved Linux for a while, but needed to stay in Windows for the Adobe apps
(Illustrator, most notably). I just made the switch to Ubuntu about a month
ago. Now when I need to run Illustrator, I just fire up a VM and boot Windows.
I'm using Virtualbox for the ease of use and its "seamless integration"
feature. The Adobe products are a bit slow reading from/writing to Ubuntu
shares, but the gain in productivity I get from having Linux for everything
else more than makes up for it, and I can dedicate 4G of RAM to the VM so
Illustrator & Photoshop can still run fast side by side without slowing the
primary OS down a bit.

------
Tichy
I really like Android. I never had an iPhone, though, just an iPod I rarely
used. I just could never get into it. Yes, the animations and scrollings are
probably smoother - that's actually what I hate about Apple stuff. I don't
care about fancy animations, I want to get things done. The smooth animations
of Apple things just make me feel cheap, like a marketing whore. Not to say
that Android isn't pretty, but I am guessing iPhone fans would have trouble
adapting.

The Nexus is the first real mobile internet device I own - might be part of
the excitement. But I am actually surprised how well everything works. I was
expecting Android to remain in perpetual beta state, but it seems very usable
to me.

I know I should be more excited about iPhone development, because of the huge
money making opportunities. But I just can't. iPod and MacBook have been
sitting on my desk for a year and I could not really get started. Getting a
Nexus just made click and I feel enthusiastic about coding once again. Ever
since I got it last week, I spent every spare minute on coding for it.
Unfortunately I hate Java, but for the time being I try to see how far I can
get with HTML+Javascript, otherwise, maybe some of the JVM languages can be
made to run.

~~~
barrkel
One thing that's bugging me about Android right now - there's no widely
accepted location standard for storing data on the SD card. Some of the "in
the box" apps put all their data inside the Android directory, but others use
"data", some use the Java-style reversed DNS (com.example.App), others use the
same but with dashes (com-example-App), and others again just dump their guts
into the root directory (espeak-data, amazonmp3) etc.

It all reminds me of DOS days when people would install their apps in subdirs
of the root directory, or even worse, neophytes who installed their apps in
the root directory itself. It really makes me feel like I'm living in the wild
west when I put files on the SD card - the data might be safe today, but what
if some app tomorrow happens to choose the same directory name?

There definitely needs to be more guidance given here. A harder line like,
store app-specific data in Android/data/com.example.YourApp, media of kind x
in <here>, etc. would be very helpful.

For example, it's the blind leading the blind here:

[http://androidforums.com/updates-cupcakes/5930-definitive-
an...](http://androidforums.com/updates-cupcakes/5930-definitive-androids-
folder-structure.html)

And calls for clarification go unanswered:

<http://osdir.com/ml/AndroidDevelopers/2009-08/msg00721.html>

~~~
Tichy
Haven't reached that aspect yet (trying to stay in HTML), but I am surprised.
I thought apps would be shielded from each other, which would imply they could
not mess with each others files. Well, I am curious to learn more about it.

~~~
thwarted
Because of some weird need for backward compatibility here, the sdcard needs
to be dos/vfat formatted so file perms can not be enforced. This makes USB
mounting work on all OSes, but this means many apparently need the "can modify
sdcard contents" perm, which is global for the entire sdcard. I think this is
why apps can not be stored and run from the sdcard currently.

~~~
barrkel
The OS presents a file system API to programs. It isn't necessary for the
characteristics of the underlying file system to be directly reflected in the
view programs see. It would be perfectly possible for the OS to lie to
processes, somewhat like chroot, and present each an idealized and sandboxed
view of the sdcard.

------
jff
Ok, let's leave aside that Ubuntu is basically just Debian with much better
"OMG usability" hype--the biggest difference is that Ubuntu doesn't have as
many packages available by default.

With the increasing acceptance and widespread development/use of Linux, I have
progressively seen it become more and more like Those Other OSes.

Once upon a time, Linux was fast as hell on any hardware. It isn't these days.
Now, we generally run a massive desktop environment (GNOME/KDE) on a massively
bloated display system (X.org), so we can display disgustingly huge programs
(Firefox/Chrome, OpenOffice, even Pidgin is a pig). I run Debian on my T22
laptop (PIII, 512 MB of RAM), with the 9wm window manager, and it is _slow_.

