
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS - jacklight
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
======
etfb
Well, that was fun. The upgrade crashed halfway through. I rebooted in
recovery mode, finished the upgrade using the dpkg repair option, and then
restarted a few times and found that it still wasn't working. Looked like a
video problem, so I checked /etc/X11 and found the xorg.conf files had been
backed up and not replaced. A comment in the last one inspired me to run
nvidia-xconfig and it worked fine. Pretty typical when you use Nvidia drivers,
and still a lot less painful than upgrading Windows XP to 7.

~~~
wnevets
> still a lot less painful than upgrading Windows XP to 7.

how do you figure that?

~~~
lucb1e
Not the OP, but I just happened to upgrade from Linux Mint 15 to 16 yesterday
(which is not officially supported). Also had some trouble that I needed to
solve from the command line (or a live boot), but the upgrade was done in
about 50 minutes, everything included.

98% of all configuration is retained, applications do not need to be
reinstalled, all your files are where they belong, and it's overall very pain-
free if you are tech-savvy enough to do the command line part.

So yes, I would totally rate this as better than upgrading between Windows
versions. Even compatible ones like Vista and 7 required much more
configuration work afterwards and took longer. Less technical skill required
though, but users could just pay someone to do it for them on Linux.

Not sure what it's like to upgrade Mac OS X, I would actually expect the ease
of Windows and compatibility like Linux there. I'm kind of curious now.

------
samolang
The first comment I saw said it was impressive. The second said I should use
Gnome instead of Unity. The third said I should try something called
localepurge for a leaner install. The fourth said KDE was better than Gnome
and Unity. The fifth recommended Xubuntu over Gnome.

This is the sort of fragmentation that makes popular adoption difficult, but
is also what makes Linux awesome.

~~~
ProblemFactory
Most HN readers are developers (who all have unique and specific tastes in
their machine setup), and have enough experience with Linux to find it easy to
install alternative window managers.

For "popular adoption", I'm sure the completely standard Ubuntu install is
just fine.

~~~
jasonkester
I sometimes feel like I'm the only developer who doesn't want to spend all his
free time fiddling around with his operating system.

To me, that's not developing. It's just extra work that's completely
orthagonal to building cool software.

~~~
arjunnarayan
No, there's plenty of us who feel that way: I (and most of the people I work
with) just use OS X on the desktop, and Linux on servers. This way you get the
perfect desktop environment that "just works". The linux boxes never have a
window manager installed in the first place.

~~~
macco
How is OS X more "just works" than a clean Ubuntu install? And both are far
from perfect.

~~~
danoprey
Yeah, I really don't understand why this OSX monopoly on "just works" still
persists. A plain old Ubuntu install just works, lots of Linux distros do, but
if you want the additional customisation, it's there.

~~~
cerberusss
Except when you have some graphics card on dual monitors. Or you want your
laptop to sleep and wake up. Or when you have some funky WLAN card.

~~~
macco
What has this to do with the desktop environment.

------
sandGorgon
I really recommend trying out the Ubuntu Gnome flavor [1] - I really like it
as being more usable than Unity.

Plus [https://extensions.gnome.org/](https://extensions.gnome.org/) is
incredible.

P.S. - [2] this is my personal optimization script for a lean and developer
friendly Gnome Ubuntu 14.04 install. YMMV.

[1]
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGNOME/GetUbuntuGNOME](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGNOME/GetUbuntuGNOME)

[2] [https://gist.github.com/sandys/6030823#file-
lean_install_ubu...](https://gist.github.com/sandys/6030823#file-
lean_install_ubuntu_14_04-sh)

~~~
old-gregg
As a data point for a bystander: I _much_ prefer Unity over Gnome 3. Here's
the quick list of things that prevent me from taking Gnome 3 seriously:

Alt+Tab is completely broken: it gathers windows from all virtual desktops,
ruining the very purpose of virtual desktops. There are plug-ins that help,
but they keep breaking after version updates and they don't function as sleek
as Unity's built-in default window switcher.

Gnome's "workspaces" are not as powerful as traditional virtual desktops. The
biggest problem is that they're dynamic: for example Gnome won't let you have
an empty workspace - it will kill it and re-arrange apps from adjacent
workspaces to fill the space.

Last, but not least, Gnome's way of launching apps gives me nausea: it insists
on animating every pixel on my 30" desktop every time I want to launch an
application.

Finally, Unity is much more responsive and less buggy, at least on my (modest)
hardware: 2 year old i5 with Intel graphics.

~~~
danford
>Alt+Tab is completely broken

This is kind of an opinion. There is no rule book that says it needs to behave
a certain way. I prefer this.

>ruining the very purpose of virtual desktops

I use virtual desktops to separate windows in overview mode so when they're
presented for picking they aren't really small. And also for organization.

>Gnome's "workspaces" are not as powerful as traditional virtual desktops. The
biggest problem is that they're dynamic: for example Gnome won't let you have
an empty workspace - it will kill it and re-arrange apps from adjacent
workspaces to fill the space.

Why would you need an empty workspace (except at the end, which gnome
provides)? Seems to make since to me. It doesn't really "re-arrange apps" it
just moves the work spaces to fill in the empty gap.

>Last, but not least, Gnome's way of launching apps gives me nausea: it
insists on animating every pixel on my 30" desktop every time I want to launch
an application.

Eh.. Animations aren't for everyone. They have not bothered me though, and I
think for most users it provides a better experience than just having things
"happen".

>Finally, Unity is much more responsive and less buggy

I'm running gnome 3.11 on an i5 with intel graphics also, and it seems pretty
snappy, after all, it's just javascript. I have not experienced any bugs
outside of experimental software I installed. To be honest, I have never
experienced a snappier desktop than gnome 3.

~~~
asdfaoeu
> This is kind of an opinion. There is no rule book that says it needs to
> behave a certain way. I prefer this.

In case you wanted more proof of this I think both of these are wrong and it
should be by window not application. Thankfully MATE does this and is
coincidentally available now in Ubuntu 14.04.

~~~
yebyen
Alt+` does this, right next to Alt+Tab, within a single application. So if you
wanted to pick a particular window, and you have five apps with three windows
each open, instead of pressing Alt+Tab ceil~14 times, you press Alt+Tab until
you have the app you want (possibly zero times) then Alt+`, potentially saving
12 or more keypresses.

~~~
andrewaylett
Or, sometimes even better, press Alt-Tab once, then hold Alt and use your
mouse to select which app then which window you want.

------
pan69
I just took XUbuntu for a spin. It's just as great as the 13.10 release. If
you're a GNOME refugee and looking for an excellent desktop then I can't
recommend XUbuntu enough.

~~~
StavrosK
I'm having weird issues with Gnome-Do, sometimes it just won't show up. It
will run, but it won't show up, and killing it and relaunching it doesn't do
anything. I think the hotkey just bugs out sometimes, and I have to relog for
it to work. Weird.

~~~
SEMW
Alternatives: kupfer (in the repositories) or synapse (ppa:synapse-
core/testing ppa has a trusty build). I moved from gnome-do to synapse a while
ago just because it feels faster.

~~~
broodbucket
Sadly, synapse is orphaned, Kupfer hasn't had a commit in over a year and
GNOME-Do is going nowhere since GNOME Shell does the same thing by itself. One
thing that's kept me from more minimal environments than those with their own
launcher is that's there's just no really good standalone launcher.

~~~
SEMW
Synapse may not have an active upstream any more, but, well, the Ubuntu
package is still well-maintained (in the synapse-core/testing ppa), and it
does everything I need it to.

An aversion to orphaned software is clearly good for things at a security
boundary (web browsers, sshd, etc), but is it really an issue for a launcher?
In 3-5 years it may not be good enough, but shrug, if that's the case I'll
have another look around then. It's not like launchers have lock-in.

~~~
noir_lord
This is my attitude as well pretty much.

If synapse ever stops doing what I want I'll probably take a stab at writing
one.

------
josteink
As someone who just installed the beta 2 on my laptop a few days ago, I have
to say I'm impressed.

This thing cold boots on my non-UEFI laptop in 4-5 seconds. That's at the same
level as Windows 8.1, which also impressed me greatly.

Now if they can only get systemd and the "online in 50ms" updates implemented,
this thing will be super-sweet.

~~~
nine_k
BTW I wonder why cold-boot time is so important. All my machines go back from
hibernation pretty fast (in under a second), and I only cold-boot if I update
something major, like the kernel or the hardware itself.

What's the point to shut down your machine, and either lose your session or
wait considerable time while it restores?

~~~
josteink
Cold boot is not really that important _in itself_ , but it's a good measure
of how much needless cruft is being loaded on your system. If it boots almost
instantly, you can be certain you don't have a million unneeded processes
draining your battery life.

If it spends 30 seconds before you get to the login screen on good hardware,
there's no telling how much things are going on and how it will affect your
battery life.

A fast boot process is also telling about good engineering in general, as it
implies more things are decoupled and can be loaded independently, instead of
being queued in a one-by-one sequence.

So in itself, a fast boot is not that important, but when they manage to cut
it in two compared to what I'm used to, that gives me confidence they are
doing the right things in general.

------
Zardoz84
I really recommend trying out the Ubuntu KDE flavour (KUbuntu). I really like
it as being more usable and configurable than Unity and Gnome.

~~~
danford
Eh.. I think it's only more usable if you're coming from and are used to a
traditional desktop like Windows. If you were introducing someone to a
computer for the first time, GNOME 3 is by far the most simple and easiest to
use desktop on the market right now. Yes even more usable than windows 8 for
someone who has never used an OS before.

As for configurability KDE has quite a few more years under it's belt, so it's
not a surprise, but GNOME 3 is all JS and CSS so I would say it's pretty
configurable and the number of extensions is only going to increase. I think
extensions will become much more stable around GNOME 4.0, when they come out
with a full OS [1]

[1][http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTE0ODg](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTE0ODg)

~~~
stesch
The first GUI I used was Intuition (AmigaOS). What would you recommend?

~~~
aruggirello
Unity, definitely. Having window menus appear / disappear right in the top
bar, much like the beloved, glorious Amiga did in the golden days of computing
:) makes it probably the closest you can get - that is, without turning on
your old Amiga or installing AROS :) I don't use Unity though - KDE suits my
taste better. But that's the beauty of Linux, you get to choose whatever
desktop you prefer.

------
NathanOsullivan
I really don't get the intention with the default visual style Ubuntu has
settled on. I'm sure a lot of work has gone into it but it's just not
attractive.

I previously thought it was growing pains and they would eventually land on a
great style that was still "theirs", but at this point it feels like a lost
cause. Personally I've stopped recommending Ubuntu on the desktop because I
already know what the initial reaction to a fresh install is going to be.

~~~
vanderZwan
You give _zero_ arguments for what you consider wrong with the visual style of
Ubuntu. I'm sure there are flaws that graphic designers and other people
trained in the topic can point out, but until you do it's just... yeah, well,
like... your opinion man.

And the lack of a flat UI does not count as an argument - that's just a
fashion trend.

Also, my own anecdotal experience does not match yours. I often get surprised
(as in "wow, that looks nice!") questions of "That's not Windows/OSX? What is
that?" from people when I show something on my laptop.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Interestingly though, it seems perfectly acceptable on here to express
positive feelings about style and esthetics. No one gets downvoted several
points below zero for not providing "arguments" for such opinions. It's simply
accepted as a matter of taste.

~~~
sanswork
When someone is agreeing you already know what they are looking for as they've
expressed it in their agreement. When someone says something is ugly you don't
know what they think is ugly about the design so it doesn't provide any thing
but a comment.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
No, I often don't know what it is that makes people gush about the beauty of
multi faceted things like operating systems, gadgets or APIs.

But be that as it may, I doubt this is what causes the downvoting. I'm pretty
sure a statement like "colors and icons are ugly" would have provoked a
similar reaction.

~~~
DanBC
Saying "X is pretty" is not much use, but it is not mean.

Saying "X is ugly" is not much use and is mean, thus more likely to attract
downvotes.

Saying "I think X is ugly. Here's why {list of subjective reasoning}" may be
useful and is not as mean.

------
gkya
Wouldn't submitting a link to release notes than the desktop download page be
better?

[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TrustyTahr/ReleaseNotes](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TrustyTahr/ReleaseNotes)

------
tatqx
I love how the rounded window corners are now (finally!) properly anti-aliased
[1].

[http://www.webupd8.org/2014/01/unity-7-to-get-new-window-
dec...](http://www.webupd8.org/2014/01/unity-7-to-get-new-window-
decorations.html)

------
crb
Previous discussion on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7604177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7604177)

------
bttf
Ubuntu had been collecting anonymized data and sending it off to Amazon* since
12.10? According to the this article* it is not included in 14.04.

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-
spyware.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.html)

[2] [http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2337185/ubuntu-
to-d...](http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2337185/ubuntu-to-ditch-
amazon-product-suggestions-from-its-search-results)

------
neverminder
I've installed it today with full disk encryption option, but my keyboard
wouldn't work on the password screen... It looks like this bug:
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1309246](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1309246)

------
ing33k
Just upgraded from 12.04 LTS to 14.04 . already liking the locally integrated
menus.

~~~
afhdshufdufdo
I would recommend against this for anyone on an older computer. I had been on
Lubuntu 12.04, then went through phases where I had various versions Xubuntu
and Mint XCFE and ended up back at Lubuntu 12.04 because it is still the
fastest drop-in recent distro.

~~~
talklittle
Ok, but what about Lubuntu 14.04 compared to Lubuntu 12.04?

Your comment is only comparing LXDE with other desktop managers, instead of
comparing different versions of Lubuntu.

EDIT: It occurs to me you may have mistaken "LTS" for the desktop manager name
(LXDE) when you replied. LTS means "Long Term Support".

~~~
afhdshufdufdo
Sorry late on the reply. I didn't mix it up. I was commenting that in my past
recent experience, upgrading resulted in a slower system. I was just warning
others not to do that. I'm not upgrading to 14.04 because I don't want a
longer boot.

------
gd2
Any tips on how to make the update from beta 2 to final easy?

I want to keep all my apps, aliases, .bashrc edits, etc. Thankfully, I don't
do this often enough that I remember the process at 7 am?s

~~~
fiatmoney
You should just be able to sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. The
release has newer packages than the betas & dailys, but they all point at the
same repos.

------
cies
It seems may use this opportunity to recommend an Ubuntu derivative. I'm very
happy with Netrunner-OS[1]. It come with KDE and gets "sane defaults" right.
AdBlocker, YT-downloaders, codecs, etc. -- all pre-installed.

And they also gave it some thought to make sure it looks good out of the box.

All Unity-refuge-seeking, but otherwise Ubuntu (Debian++) lovers should have a
look at it. :)

1: [http://www.netrunner-os.com/](http://www.netrunner-os.com/)

~~~
afhdshufdufdo
#57 today on: [http://distrowatch.com/](http://distrowatch.com/) and
stable/not moving up in popularity. Plenty of good other distros to try? If
you like KDE, maybe Kubuntu 14.04? The problem with random distros is that
unless you are the maintainer, they may not stay up-to-date. How many people
are maintaining it and how up-to-speed are they in the overall community to
stay atop security?

~~~
cies
Coming from Kubuntu; and waaaaay better then that. Differences:

* most sane defaults ever found on a distro * installs load of extra privacy/ convenience plugins in Firefox by default * got all codecs build in from installation

This distro just feels a lot more solid then Kubu ever did to me.

------
rohith_14_04
The first thing you have to do after you install Ubuntu 14.04 is Goto Software
& Updates then choose drop down Download From: Other then on new window click
"Select best server" , You will have a speedier installation of rest of
softwares. I am sure you gonna do this for future releases once you compare
the speed of suggested server (usually country specific)and best server :)

------
chmike
Failed to install here on my 13.10 (French) version because of an error
related to an invalid ASCII code. I'll wait before trying again.

------
fotcorn
Droplets on DigitalOcean are already available with 14.04 LTS. Now I only need
time to upgrade our servers...

------
spindritf
I just upgraded my personal server from 13.10 and it was pretty painless.
Although many third party repos are not yet ready for Trusty.

------
hnriot
nvidia and linux just don't seem to work together. I've been on 13.10 and
looking forward to an upgrade in the hope that it might fix the problem where
compiz freezes up the window manager for minutes on end. Linux with nvidia is
about as unreliable as using windows which is very frustrating.

Anyone know if 14.10 works better with nvidia cards?

~~~
prg318
NVIDIA actually does a great job with their binary blob drivers and they are
much more reliable than the AMD Catalyst drivers for Linux. It sounds like
your problem lies with compiz/ubuntu. Maybe try a different window
manager/distro?

~~~
hnriot
I beg to differ, my experience with the nvidia drivers is quite different to
yours. Whenever they upgrade them its a nightmare and generally results in the
driver crashing the kernel. Letting a video driver bring down the kernel is
inexcusable.

------
donniezazen
I have been using Linux for a solid few years. I stopped using Ubuntu because
I wanted more control and I like new technology. Now I am learning Android
Development. I have less time, patience and require stability. I am thinking
about switching from Fedora 20 to Kubuntu 14.04 for sake of stability.

Will it save me time and headache, it involves in getting things fixed on
cutting-edge Linux and getting them to work, if I switch to Kubuntu?

------
walshemj
so have they put back the key bits of xwindows they removed in a provious LTS
- I was not happy after setting up my small hadoop home lab to find that some
idiot PFY had removed teh fuctionaly that made remote login possible!

------
manish_gill
Meh, after struggling with linux for _years_ , I finally swallowed my pride
and paid a hefty price for a Macbook Air.

Best decision I ever made. OS X hasn't disappointed me yet. I don't have to
worry about driver/sound problems or incompatible libraries every other week.

~~~
taeric
Meh, after using linux for _years_ , I have yet to see all of the trouble that
many folks keep referring to in getting it to work. Different strokes...

~~~
manish_gill
Just take a look at the top post in this thread.

You haven't seen any of those problems, good for you. But the fact is that a
lot of people do see them, which is the reason people give out for Linux being
hard to use. I mean, Ubuntu is supposed to represent Linux for the average
user, and look at the state of Unity, Gnome2/3 divide, Pulseaudio or Alsa? So
on and so fourth...

I used to be one of those guys who made faces at OS X being all expensive and
why would I use that when I can get the same thing to work with Linux. But the
fact of the matter is, it _does_ make a difference. A LOT of difference. I can
still drop into Linux. I don't regret moving away from it one bit.

~~~
taeric
I ended with "different strokes" to mean that I am explicitly _not_
discrediting those that have issues. Just saying that there is also a
population that doesn't have them. I don't know how large we are, but I do
like seeing us represented a bit more. Especially when the other viewpoints
are a lot more polarized.

For the problems, it sounds like I've been ok by avoiding nVidia for these
years. I did the upgrade over the weekend and it went smoothly. I'm even
finding a few things to like about it. (For the most part, I wouldn't even
notice I have upgraded.)

Contrast that with my trying to use the work issued Macbook. I pretty much
hate it. Has a nice screen, though. I could probably get to like the touchpad.

My wife's Windows computer is similar in my not liking it. Even she has
complained about some of the UI choices, lately. Though, she can get what she
wants done and doesn't necessarily see a reason to change.

------
troels
Anyone has a guess of when there'll be an official image on aws?

~~~
jcastro
Cloud images are always published directly as part of the release. You can
find the list here for reference: [http://cloud-
images.ubuntu.com/trusty/current/](http://cloud-
images.ubuntu.com/trusty/current/)

~~~
kosinus
Those are daily builds. Releases are here: [http://cloud-
images.ubuntu.com/releases/14.04/release/](http://cloud-
images.ubuntu.com/releases/14.04/release/)

But I'm actually not sure which is better? I'm guessing dailies are the same
as releases, but with updates already applied? If so, dailies are probably
better.

And then there's and AMI locator: [http://cloud-
images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/](http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/)

------
ecocentrik
Why are people running OS upgrades on live production servers the day after
release? Who does that? It's defiantly not people who care about stability. If
you run into issues HN is probably not the right place to share them...

------
shacharz
Why is the download so slow? Why not add a torrent link?

~~~
leaveyou
Ubuntu is more popular than you would think :). I used torrents to download it
and it went quite fast (huge numbers of seeders). Here you can find torrent
links: reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/239wbp/1404_is_live/

~~~
HNaTTY
I was able to basically saturate my connection downloading the torrent,
10.3mb/s. 10 hours later I'm still at a ratio of 0.038. Kind of surprising how
many folks are seeding.

~~~
leaveyou
Yes, everyone tries to contribute with bandwidth :D. On reddit/ubuntu they
advised us to do it in order to relieve some of the strain on Canonical
servers and it was funny how many people were literally waiting & refreshing
the page for the torrents to be available.

------
pmelendez
I just upgraded on of my servers and it became unresponsive after the reboot
:(

I am able to ping it but every port look like closed. Anyone have had a
similar experience so far?

------
boohoofoodoo
Painless upgrade with no problems.

