state of linux desktop - Xubuntu 8.10

[dZeus]

preface:
I'm interested in the state of Linux in the desktop area; about once a year, I load a distro on one of my old PCs I have lying around and see how much better it has gotten since the last time I tried it. Up to now, I've always given up on it after a few days of tinkering, as either my problems couldn't be fixed or required too much effort to fix.

So, this weekend it was time to test the following distro:
Xubuntu 8.10, as it's supposed to be light-weight compared to the bloated default installs on other distributions. And the pc it's going to be installed on is not high-end in any way:
P3-450, 256MB RAM, SB16, Intel 100Mb NIC, Matrox G400, SCSI HDD, IDE DVDRW.

Experiences:

Installation:
the 'partitioning wizard' part of the Xubuntu installer could use some work, as I needed to enter some stuff that a computer illiterate user would not be able to do (regarding which partition types to create, how to make the proper partition active, where to put the bootloader). Oh, and the timezone selection part of the wizard is really a pain to use.

First Xfce startup experience:
it takes ages... at least twice as long to boot up as Win98 does on the other partition.

And.. no sound! let's see if there's any gui to load the snd-sb16 driver module (or better: auto-detect, as most illiterate people wouldn't know the name of their soundcard). Nope! can't find anything!
So... after adding snd-sb16 to /etc/modules, I now get sound... but only when I use sudo for the programs that have to access the soundcard! wtf is going on here???
Knowing somewhat about linux, my guess was that somehow my user wasn't included in a user group that had audio access. After troubleshooting a bit on the web and IRC, this indeed seems to be the case. So, because Xubuntu didn't detect my soundcard when installing it decided that I never would need audio! tell someone without knowledge about how linux works how to fix that without help...

how to get rid of those horrid Firfox and Thunderbird applications?
Just pressing 'uninstall' from the add/remove programs entry doesn't seem to do the trick, as other packages depend on those two? It tells me to use the synaptic package manager. Ok, so I load up the synaptic package manager. After trying to find out how it works, I can only conclude that it looks like it's primarily designed this way to confuse people. I decide it is too much hassle to find out how it works and to remove the firefox and thunderbird applications. Time to tackle the next problem...

enable AIGLX and compositing:
people keep telling how great linux works on older hardware, as it is not as demanding as Windows Vista and XP (though my experiences about the latter seem to disagree for non-lightweight distros). One of the things that attract me to desktop linux is AIGLX and compositing, like Vista does but also on hw that is of an lower class than 'DX9'. My Millennium G400 is 'DX6 class', so I'm curious just how much lower class gives you a nice compositing experience.
However, I'm told that I need to install an unofficial driver as the default Xorg driver doesn't seem to support AIGLX properly. So I head over to some tuxhome site and download the latest unofficial drivers, install them and reboot the box.
Unfortunately, I get an error saying abouthing about undefined symbol: xf86ScreenIndex in the mga_drv.so. Something with the latest Xorg being incompatible with this unofficial driver. Oh well, seems like I have to wait till its fixed (if it ever will be), or use an older Xorg version (not going to try that this time round).

Mouse thumb buttons not working:
haven't digged into editing xorg.conf yet, but my mouse thumb buttons (Logitech MX400) do not work on a standard install. Haven't yet checked if the multi-media keys of my MS Internet Pro keyboard work.

Conclusion:
Linux (or at least Xubuntu) still needs work before it's a serious alternative to Microsoft Windows (or apple OSX for that matter).

[Haig]

Don't know about Xubuntu but I've been using Kubuntu for a few years & haven't seen the problems you have run into with both an old & a new pc.

Mind you, I haven't upgraded to 8.10, still using 8.04.

[UtwigMU]

dZeus: problem is you always try more exotic distros (I remember Slacwkare on Pundit) and then expect them to conform to expectations of average users.

Try installing openSuse and choose stable KDE 3.5. KDE 4 looks great but it has yet to reach maturity and stability of 3.5.

I installed openSuse 10.3 on a spare drive on my Thinkpad T42p. In installer I did custom partitioning (because I knew what I was doing, proposed setup would work as well) and selected KDE desktop. It found drivers for everything (wireless, sound, both ultranav pointing devices, bluetooth - I could transfer files to my Nokia 6120 Classic...), hibernation and resume worked, all Fn key combos for sleep, wifi on/off, etc... worked. All I needed beyond what distro did was Skype, proprietary codecs (one click install on openSuse wiki), VMware server, Ati drivers and couple of packages from distro repositories that don't install by default.

If you have a webcam, you only need 3 packages which come with distro and supported webcams works in Skype, Yahoo and MSN messenger with Kopete.

It was slightly more difficult than doing XP restore from CDs and way more easy and took a lot less time than it would be to arrive to working desktop (OS, pdf, internet, IM stuff, multimedia players, codecs, archivers, cd burning, office) by installing XP, drivers, software from scratch.

[Marshmallowman]

I went out and bought the Mandriva powerpack subscription.

It come with all the non OSS stuff like, Lin DVD(win dvd for linux), transgaming cedega, proprietry drivers, adobe flash(bleh) etc

Very simple install , and nice mandriva gui config stuff.

Now I don't have to worry about all the extras I used to have to install on top of a base OSS linux.

I also gave a computer to my mother with it installed, seems people who have not used computers(windows in particular) don't have a problem since they don't keep bleeting about how this is not like how windows does it, or how they expect it to work.

[Haig]

For those who have relatives/friends only interested in web apps, theirs Gos which is pretty stable.

[spadnos]

I have to echo (some of) UtwigMU's sentiments. XUbuntu has the same core as "stock" Ubuntu, the main difference is the user interface. Of course, that's what makes a computer easy or hard to use, given that the underlying drivers are the same. I believe the installers are different between the Ubuntu versions as well, so that could have affected device detection and driver setup.

I haven't tried 8.10 yet, but my experiences with 5.10, 6.06, 7.10, and 8.04 have been excellent, and have only gotten better from release to release.

I put together a computer for my wife with 7.10, and she's happy with it. That's saying something because her background is in graphic design, so it has to look good It also works, and doesn't crash, so she's happy.

I have 8.04 on a new (last year anyway) laptop - dual-core CPU, Nv 8600M graphics, HD Audio, FireWire, WiFi ... I have connected to dozens of wireless networks without a hitch (many airports and hotels, friends houses, with various kinds of security). The only things that don't work are (1) the Intel Robson "Turbo Memory" - it was $45 so I figured I'd get it so I could experiment eventually; (2) the fingerprint reader - I think there are drivers but I don't care; and (3) the built-in camera - there's a project to add support for this particular camera, but it's not there yet.

Installing with 256M RAM would be a problem though - we've found that 512 is better, though you can take the extra memory out once the install is done. ("we" being the folks who work on EMC2, which has a realtime Ubuntu-based liveCD available.)

I'd give you some specific instructions on getting things to work, but I don't have an 8.10 machine yet, so I'm not sure what the menu items are called yet

What version of Synaptic gave you so much trouble? The screen I get with Ubuntu has a search button - click that and type "firefox", and you'll see a list of programs that have "firefox" in their names or descriptions (you can also search by title only, which will shorten the list). Right-click on a package name in the list, and you get a context menu of actions (install, reinstall, uninstall, purge...). There's a help window that shows you the meaning of the icons.

I think your conclusion is a bit unfair. You chose a less-popular/less-supported version of Ubuntu, and used it to draw conclusions about the entire Linux world.
- Steve

[Claymonkey]

I put together a computer for my wife with 7.10, and she's happy with it. That's saying something because her background is in graphic design, so it has to look good It also works, and doesn't crash, so she's happy.

Wait she does Graphic Design and is happy with Linux? Seriously? Does she do any graphic work on it or is it just a surf+mail box? Gimp makes my brain hurt and even Gimpshop leaves a foul taste in my mouth. It makes Paint.NET look like high art (I use paint.net since I can have it free on work computer).

I hate to say it but there is not a suite of GD tools for *nix that is the equivalent of Open Office as an MS Office replacement. If I'm wrong on this PLEASE someone let me know.

That said I've finally started to 'get' Linux. I built rebuilt my home server with 8.04 (now 8.10) Ubuntu Server running VMware Server 2 (starting with the beta) and then having my server farm virtualized in that. Since it's GUI free I finally had to get down and dirty and learn the nuances of a command line system that isn't DOS. I've played with it off and on before but this is the first time I've felt comfortable with it. Since doing that going back in and using the GUI with Ubuntu desktop just makes more sense. Besides a certain level of polish that more than anything is what holds people back from switching. How an OS evolves is heavily influenced by the underpinnings and if you don't 'get' that you're likely not going to get the whole experience.

[dZeus]

ok, seems like I've provoked quite a few responses (good!).

As far as my response to some of the points mentioned:

problem is you always try more exotic distros (I remember Slacwkare on Pundit) and then expect them to conform to expectations of average users

but how well it conforms to the expectations of an average user is exactly what I'm interested in! I'm not going to actually use linux on that PC even in case it does live up to what I expect it to do. It's just a testcase to see the state of linux on the desktop and how well it compares to Windows XP (for example).
If Xubuntu is an exotic distro that is not representative of linux on the desktop at all, then I'm open for suggestions. Keep in mind that I only have 256MB RAM, and that Windows XP works perfectly fine with just 256MB RAM (and finds drivers for all components in that PC). And unfortunately I don't have spare RAM that I can add.

I've tried OpenSuse one or two years ago, and I had some issues with it back then that I couldn't resolve. If I recall correctly, the default install is rather bloated. Maybe I should try this one again on a 256MB RAM system?

A lot of linux users keep insisting that Linux runs better (faster, more drivers) on old hardware than Microsoft Windows (XP ?); I also want to see how much truth there is to that statement.

What version of Synaptic gave you so much trouble? The screen I get with Ubuntu has a search button - click that and type "firefox", and you'll see a list of programs that have "firefox" in their names or descriptions (you can also search by title only, which will shorten the list). Right-click on a package name in the list, and you get a context menu of actions (install, reinstall, uninstall, purge...). There's a help window that shows you the meaning of the icons.

The problem is, that I want to uninstall both firefox and thunderbird. The default add/remove programs says that is impossible because other programs depend on the packages installed by firefox and thunderbird, and that I should use Synaptic instead.

The Synaptic manager interface however, didn't provide an easy to determine way how to see the programs which are dependant on Thunderbird and/or Firefox, and how to get rid of them. I didn't look very long at it, but I got the impression that I'd have to click on every single package that shows up when entering the 'firefox' and 'thunderbird' keywords and have to go through several clicks to determine which packages are dependant, more clicks to remove them. i.e. a waste of time just to free up some diskspace.

Is it common practice that linux distros come with applications that share libraries between each other that makes it impossible to easily uninstall an application (as you can do in Windows through add/remove programs)?

[Haig]

Is it common practice that linux distros come with applications that share libraries between each other that makes it impossible to easily uninstall an application (as you can do in Windows through add/remove programs)?

Nope not common at all. With the distros I've used, when I remove an app where its dependencies are being used by other apps, I will see a list of the affected apps and then asked if you want to delete the dependencies in which case, those other apps will also be removed or remove the app but keep its dependencies so that the other apps will not get removed.

[spadnos]

Regarding dependencies, I'm not sure how to find all packages that depend on a particular package. the other way around is easy (what things "this package" depends on).

I believe that the answer to your question is that the package "Ubuntu-desktop" (or similar - not sure what it's called on XUbuntu) depends on Firefox and Thunderbird. Ubuntu-Desktop is a "metapackage" that doesn't provide any files of its own, it only depends on other packages. It lets you get a complete "desktop environment" with a single install, rather than having to install all the themes, applications, utilities, etc. that a good desktop experience require. Removing a package the Ubuntu-desktop depends on will cause Ubuntu-desktop to be removed, but shouldn't cause all the other packages it depends on to be uninstalled. Of course, if there's a long list of things that you would be forced to uninstall, then proceed with caution.

Incidentally, this leads to another way to install the full Ubuntu on a low memory machine (funny that 256M is low memory, huh ). Install Ubuntu Server first, then `apt-get install ubuntu-desktop`. The server install process requires less memory, but you'll end up with basically the same system in the end (I think you may also need to install the generic kernel, since the server kernel has no corresponding restricted driver set).

The way to see dependencies in Synaptic is to right-click and select "properties". You can also set a preference so that Synaptic will show properties in the main window. The properties list is a set of tabs with dependency information, installed file lists (for installed packages), description, and other general info.

- Steve

[TransformX]

Upgraded Ubuntu 7.1 to 8.04 and recently to 8.1
I do everything other than gaming on Ubuntu. That includes retouching photographs on Gimp instead of the usual Photoshop (I'm almost equally good/terrible with both now).
I tried Blender to see whether I can do the silly things I know in 3dsMax and it seems rather nice once I got a little more used to it. If in doubt of Blender's capabilities, check .

I honestly prefer Linux over Windows.
I love Compiz Fusion(3D desktop and animations), I love Emerald (window themes), I love the many different ways I can tinker with how my system will look and behave (colors, icon sets etc). Unlike others I love the terminal and the things I can do with it. If I miss anything, wine usually takes care of running the odd win32 application on my Gnome desktop.

Right now, even with the few annoying bugs I've stumbled over with 8.1, I still think that Ubuntu > WindowsXP. I never gave Vista a fair chance so I won't comment about it.

As for OpenOffice. To be honest, I never needed anything Office97 didn't offer, so all the new features introduced since have little or no use for me. So to all the people I've heard claiming that OpenOffice is no better than Office97, I can say that Office97 was great and that OpenOffice, for my needs is just about everything.

Just for the record, this post was written on my Windows Firefox browser because I'm playing Oblivion

[TransformX]

Is it common practice that linux distros come with applications that share libraries between each other that makes it impossible to easily uninstall an application (as you can do in Windows through add/remove programs)?

Actually, Ubuntu comes with an Add/Remove programs utility that takes care of just about everything other than when installing servers which you must later on configure for your machine (for example - Apache)

[The PIT]

ok, seems like I've provoked quite a few responses (good!).

As far as my response to some of the points mentioned:

but how well it conforms to the expectations of an average user is exactly what I'm interested in! I'm not going to actually use linux on that PC even in case it does live up to what I expect it to do. It's just a testcase to see the state of linux on the desktop and how well it compares to Windows XP (for example).
If Xubuntu is an exotic distro that is not representative of linux on the desktop at all, then I'm open for suggestions. Keep in mind that I only have 256MB RAM, and that Windows XP works perfectly fine with just 256MB RAM (and finds drivers for all components in that PC). And unfortunately I don't have spare RAM that I can add.

I've tried OpenSuse one or two years ago, and I had some issues with it back then that I couldn't resolve. If I recall correctly, the default install is rather bloated. Maybe I should try this one again on a 256MB RAM system?

A lot of linux users keep insisting that Linux runs better (faster, more drivers) on old hardware than Microsoft Windows (XP ?); I also want to see how much truth there is to that statement.



The problem is, that I want to uninstall both firefox and thunderbird. The default add/remove programs says that is impossible because other programs depend on the packages installed by firefox and thunderbird, and that I should use Synaptic instead.

The Synaptic manager interface however, didn't provide an easy to determine way how to see the programs which are dependant on Thunderbird and/or Firefox, and how to get rid of them. I didn't look very long at it, but I got the impression that I'd have to click on every single package that shows up when entering the 'firefox' and 'thunderbird' keywords and have to go through several clicks to determine which packages are dependant, more clicks to remove them. i.e. a waste of time just to free up some diskspace.

Is it common practice that linux distros come with applications that share libraries between each other that makes it impossible to easily uninstall an application (as you can do in Windows through add/remove programs)?

I can't see how you got into that mess. Just search for both packages under synpatic package and mark both for complete removal and bingo both gone.

God knows what you've done there to get that muddled up.

Linux has moved on a great bit but still a long way ready for desktop. Latest Unbuntu is very close but still has some driver support issues. Fancy installing a unsupported wireless card eh?? Down to the command prompt for you and hope the instructions you've got are concise and accurate.

The only recent package I know that has problems and doesn't like being updated is Openoffice. You're best removing that first and then installing.

Ubuntu 8.04 had a strange problem with networking which a lot users reported. When I first installed it fine but after a bit the network just almost crawled to a halt. Disabled ipv6 was the common suggestion which helped a little but overall Ubuntu became useless for surfing. Sadly I don't know which update killed it but one did.

Next I tried Suse 11 which was okay but a lot of fathing around to get multimedia files to play properly. Again not enabled by default.

Back to Ubuntu 8.10 and I was very impressed but the wireless usb stick wouldn't work. No great problem as I didn't need it and couldn't be bothered spending hours at the terminal window to get nowhere.

Driver support is the main thing holding Linux back now. Dunno if ATI drivers are as bad as they used to be but not many use there products for Linux preferring Nvidea which work very well. Creative have gone open source as well so things maybe looking up in that direction as well.