

Taking a break from Ubuntu - Seldaek
http://nicam.ch/uncategorized/taking-a-break-from-ubuntu/

======
steverb
I ran Ubuntu for four months while doing some full-time Ruby work and other
than the fact that things are different from what I was used to and I had to
experiment to find the applications that suited my work I never had any
problems with it. It ran well and was generally solid.

I always suspect that the majority of issues when switching OSes really fall
into the "not what I'm used to category".

At least that's the case with me and Apple products. I think that if I had a
real need to use OS-X I would eventually get over it.

~~~
bradleyland
Some of the author's points fall under the "not what I'm used to" category or
aren't Ubuntu's responsibility, but some are just lack of polish.

Lack of polish

* Screen hot-plugging (probably driver related) * Scrolling * Panel juggling for screen switching * Sleep (varies depending on hardware) * Workspace overlap/windows over-size * Backup - depends on whether you think backup is an OS' responsibility

"Not what I'm used to"/Not Ubuntu's responsibility

* No Aperture * Skype is old - Skype's fault * Backup * JDownloader

~~~
steverb
Agreed. In my case I used Ubuntu on a desktop machine (with dual monitors),
totally eliminating all of the author's screen related issues.

Scrolling, IMO, is both a "not what I'm used to" thing and a polish issue. I
just got used to it.

------
riledhel
Although I respect the author's opinion, I use ubuntu everyday for my web
development work and I find it _very_ useful for that. Maybe it didn't fulfill
his expectations, but it's not entirely "unfinished" or "too buggy"; there are
very mature tools for everyday work.

~~~
Seth_Kriticos
I use it at home, work and on my laptop every day too and have no notable
problems.

On the other hand, I spend most of the time in the terminal/vim and browser,
so I may not be that representative here.

------
junkbit
Linux is a way of life, like healthy eating or meditation, and it is not for
everyone.

When a new version of something open-source unfolds it is not because
Christmas is around the corner or some other marketing bullshit; someone has
poured their love into their work to make it a little bit faster, safer and
shinier, and they want to share it with the world in the name of progress

We are playing the long game, like physics and maths before us, open-source
will still be here in 1,000 years long after the name of Microsoft has faded.

Join us, or not, as you will

~~~
code_duck
My mother is pretty happy with Ubuntu. Give her a browser with Flash and some
speakers, and she's all set. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what 'linux' is,
though. She lives the mozilla fox way of life.

~~~
spiffworks
I have a nice experimental result to contribute to this. I installed Ubuntu
alongside my mother's Windows installation on the desktop, and a month later,
found that she hadn't booted into Windows once. All she really needs is a
browser, a pdf and .doc viewer and a media player. Chrome OS would be so
perfect.

------
jamesbritt
I was using WinXP as my main OS until one too many BSOD heartbreaks. I
switched to Ubuntu with KDE3, which I had been using periodically via VMWare.

I had many of the same general annoyances related to "not used to ...". But I
also found new things that were an improvement, such as moving windows with
alt+left-click.

Later on I needed a Mac for development, and got a Mini. (I'd never seriously
considered getting a Mac before because none of their 15" laptops have a
proper screen resolution. I'd become hooked on 1920x1200 w/trackpoint for
getting stuff done.)

Again, some things were slick and new, some things annoying because they were
different, and some things were annoying because they were (as best I can
tell) impossible.

Overall I prefer KDE3 to WinXP (or Vista or Win7) and to OSX. The lack of
proper multiple desktops on Windows and OSX is a real problem. (Spaces just
doesn't cut it; it's more of a kinda sorta sliced-up single desktop than true
multiple work areas.)

And I still prefer Win7 to OSX, except for the poor shell. (Maybe if OSX's
Finder had a proper tree view and let me just type/edit folder paths in an
address bar I'd be happier.)

But obviously there are OSX enthusiasts, so to each their own.

I have to believe that if you can't find anything wrong with your desktop of
choice you're just turning a blind eye.

And 14 days is barely enough time to figure out the pros and cons of an OS and
desktop. (No mention of apt? That alone might make Ubuntu worth it.)

------
jimmyjazz14
I've tried using OS X as my primary desktop machine several times over the
years but always end up back with my old friend desktop Linux (Arch). Its not
as pretty but, for me its home and I like a place that lets me be myself.

~~~
beej71
For me, most of the reason behind that is my super-customized fvwm that
perfectly fits my workflow. Because I've made it for me, no other desktop
environment comes close to what I need.

And fvwm gives me the freedom to do it.

------
spiffworks
I got a new laptop recently, and realized that I didn't have a Maverick cd
lying around. So while I was waiting for the iso to download, I popped in a
Jaunty live cd, then a Lucid live cd. I was pleasantly surprised to discover
the incredible progress that the distro has made over the past few releases. I
feel like Lucid was the release where it really came of age, and everything
started working beautifully. More than anything else, just looking at the
speed at which device support is added(often with no cooperation from the
OEMs) gives you a real feel for the pace of the community's work.

This post is a great example of the great state of Ubuntu- the author has
little more than nits to pick against it. I am incredibly happy with my choice
of OS, and the state of desktop linux.

------
wccrawford
It really does depend on what you use it for. I use OSX at work because I'm
required to, and I tried to use 'OSX' tools like Textmate for a while. They
really didn't fit me well at all and now I use quite a lot of linux-y things
like Vim, and a lot of things that work on every platform (browsers) and a few
things that only work on OSX (Time Machine).

I tried doing the same on Windows and wasn't impressed at all.

I'm still most at home developing on a Linux box, and I use the current
Kubuntu. Yes, every time there's a new one I upgrade, and yes, I get burnt by
something every time. (Usually Japanese input support or audio. Last time it
was video, though.) I still prefer it.

------
pierrefar
Every 6-9 months I do this same exact experiment: install the latest version
of Ubuntu or the current super hyped distro and give it a go for a few days.
The longest I've lasted is 10 days.

Why? I feel the current distros are always in my way of getting things done on
my laptop. There are too many UI inconsistencies, too many hardware drivers
that randomly fail, regularly switching between single and dual screens is
error prone, and finally no clear central UI to customise the OS (dropping
into the command line to edit a config file written in draconian script just
to get a mouse setting to work is just not good).

I last did this in November when I tried Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop (64 and 32 bit)
and the netbook remix. They lasted a total of 6 days.

All this assuming that the OS actually installs: Fedora just hangs on my
laptop. Once I gave it a chance to work through whatever it was hung on by
leaving it on overnight. No luck.

On the other hand, you'd have to pry my Ubuntu servers from my cold dead
hands. I refuse to host on anything else.

~~~
petekalo
What are you using after the 10 days?

~~~
pierrefar
I always go back to some flavour of Windows on my home computer.

At my day jobs I've used OSX extensively too. It works well but I don't like
it as it does some things in a way I don't like - i.e. it's personal
preference for Windows rather than technical.

------
kungfooey
I am a web dev that has been using Ubuntu as my desktop host OS since version
6.06, and I'll be the first to admit that, while 10.10 is a _significant_
improvement, there are still some problems that probably keep it from being
mainstream.

One example: I currently use an ASUS laptop. Every time I get a kernel upgrade
from Ubuntu, it breaks my Nvidia driver so X server will no longer start up
properly. So I have to go into the shell, stop GDM, start the Nvidia driver
install (I keep a local copy just for this), and then restart GDM.

It's just a minor inconvenience for me, but the average user is going to lose
his mind when the computer appears to fail at bootup.

I still use it because I find it to be the most productive environment for my
work - it gets in my way far less than any other OS I've tried. But, yes,
there are a lot of hardware-related problems that still haven't been dealt
with. I suspect there will always be.

~~~
vetinari
Average user would not get into this situation, because average user does not
download driver from nvidia and then does not run scripts from command line.

Average user installs nvidia driver through 'restricted drivers' icon in the
panel. Later, after the kernel upgrades, the driver recompiles itself during
first boot (the user does not see this, the first boot just takes a little
longer).

So yes, these hardware-related problems were dealt with years ago, you just
chose to side-step the solution. (I'm sure unknowingly, but most people who
choose to ignore package manager run into problems later and then blame it on
the distro).

~~~
kungfooey
I never could get the "restricted driver" to work for me (I have on past
laptops, but not this one). It's possible that this has changed with more
recent restricted driver releases.

------
code_duck
I bought a Mac earlier this year and I don't find it suitable for use as my
everyday OS for a variety of reasons. So, as usual, opinions vary.

I've been using one or the other Linux distro every day as my main OS for over
10 years. There's no question that the Linux desktop is polished enough for
use by many people as their every day desktop.

------
bobbywilson0
I always keep a virtual machine with some flavor of linux installed on my
Macbook Pro. I like to see the progress that's been made and just to try
something different for a while.

I am used to linux and have used it pretty extensively, and I enjoy it. What I
find to be my main blockers are related to working with other people who are
using OS X / Windows. I agree that this is mostly the fault of vendors. Skype
and Team Viewer come to mind as applications that support linux but always
keep you a few versions back, thus not having support for some features that
the rest of your team is using on OS X / Windows.

Ultimately I just get tired of messing the little things that bug me with
linux, that I know just work on OS X. It was well said by someone else in the
thread that linux is a lifestyle and I can't agree more with that.

------
cmeiklejohn
I wonder how many people would switch to Linux if Textmate suddenly became
Linux only.

~~~
auxbuss
And for those missing Textmate on Linux there's always redcar
<http://redcareditor.com/>

~~~
docgnome
Or, ya know, emacs, which is nearly a zillion times more customizable and Free
both as in beer and freedom.

~~~
code_duck
Redcar looks to be GPL2, which meets both of those freedom standards.

~~~
docgnome
Doh. I meant compared to TextMate. Sorry, I wasn't clear.

------
nicam
Hi there

Thank you for your comments, I really like feedback to improve the way I'm
writing.

After I read the article again today I noticed that it kinda sounds like I'm
blaming Ubuntu. This is not the case. I'm thankfull for all the dev's spending
their free time to develop open source software.

I regrouped the article a bit to split the Ubuntu and the application part
better. Also I edited the conclusion a bit. The goal was not to rant about
Ubuntu but to show switchers which problems I ran into and to share my
experience.

Thanks for reading

nicam

------
mak120
This post does raise some real issues about ubuntu (namely support for
multiple screens). But its a shame it quickly regresses into the same old "I'm
not used to it and so it is bad" sort of rant. I found it annoying that the
author assumes he somehow spends more time on his PC and uses it in more ways
than any Linux user. Really dents his credibility there.

