Comments on: One Wild Week with Ubuntu Linux

By: tuxie

tuxie — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:13:47 +0000

mouse acceleration curve is a huge problem!
a mouse should move linear not curved. the whole point of a mouse is precise control . all of that goes to waste with that curve nonsense . there should atleast be an easy way to disable it and set some advanced properties in a linux gui like poling rates and mouse resolution .
mouse smoothing would be a nice options too as long as it works in a linear fashion with out some curve.
gamers need linear mouse movement for linux.

By: Daniel Spiewak

Daniel Spiewak — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:49:51 +0000

My first computer was a Mac (System 7). On it I learned BASIC and such. A few years later, I got my first non-Macintosh computer, an ancient Pentium II running RedHat 7. I stuck with Redhat (and later Fedora) until FC 4, when I switched to Gentoo (this was before Stage 3 was the only option, so I did in fact do a Stage 1 install, bootstrapping everything and configuring the kernel by hand). For reasons I outlined in the article, my laptop acquired around that time (as well as the next laptop I purchased) both run/ran Windows. At the office I had been using Windows XP mainly because I had to. This was my first *serious* exposure to the Windows platform. Now, my primary OS is Vista, but I run Ubuntu Linux within a virtual machine easily 6 hours of the day.

In what sense am I a “Windows user”?

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:58:40 +0000

It’s always fun to read a Windows user trying to use anything non-Windows. They make me laugh.

By: Kim Sullivan

Kim Sullivan — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:45:29 +0000

Matt: Yes, you’re right that linux distros are made great by their users. But not the kind who instead of actually helping just point out some rather obvious facts using a rather sarcastic tone and then imply that someone who wasn’t able to get a trackpad running is either too stupid or too lazy to figure it out

Average users won’t even try to search for fixes, no matter how easily the fixes are found or applied. Ubuntu wants to “just work” which is a good thing, because anything that doesn’t makes it broken to the average user, with no way for them to fix it (short of calling someone who fixes it for them).

I don’t see why my mom should spend any time searching for fixes. Average users are the kind of people who think “the internet” is synonymous with the browser window, and when they close the browser, they’re not in the internet anymore. When I told my uncle he could have problems with the driver for his ISDN modem on Linux, he said that a driver won’t be a problem, because he’s connected via the local telephone company. He also measures disk usage in number of files, and asked me if moving to linux would reduce the number of files on his system.

By: Matt Wintercorn

Matt Wintercorn — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:35:57 +0000

I really dont see how someone with your “obvious” level of computer knowledge can nit-pick at Ubuntu. I’m a software developer for a large company, and I requested to develop on Ubuntu. Let me add: Ubuntu is not 100%. No Linux distro is, but it is much more flexible than Windows any day. Dont even get me started on VIsta…. And the comment about “Linux just doesn’t have what it takes to be a desktop operating system for the average user” is completely false, because what you just wrote says that you’re not an average user. So you cant speak for the average user. Trying to merge an Eclipse workspace form Windows into Ubuntu is just idiotic and not “average”. Your problem with the track pad: either you didnt search enough, or you didn’t want to take the , say 10 mins, to find a solution. What makes all Linux distros so good is the users. Anybody can help improve Linux. If something doesn’t work right, make it work or make it work better. I’d rather work with something that is made with the backing of countless developers rather than say 79,000 employees of Microsoft, most of which aren’t even developers. I’ve only been on Ubuntu for a couple of months and can taste the freedom from the “Evil Empire”. Oh Yeah, Ubuntu is free too!

By: Daniel Spiewak

Daniel Spiewak — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:36:47 +0000

That’s odd, because I installed the ATI restricted driver with no trouble whatsoever. I’m not sure which card I have though – maybe Radeon 9000 or something like that. I do know that with my old laptop, the firegl driver didn’t work right, so I had to always stick with ati or vesa (neither of which are properly accelerated).

As a sidebar to users of recently released ATI cards (I don’t think yours qualifies, Eelco), ATI has actually released the long-promised open-source drivers for their cards. I don’t think they’re in the Ubuntu repositories yet, but you could compile and install them by hand (not too challenging with xserver modules).

By: Eelco Hillenius

Eelco Hillenius — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:43:54 +0000

Because I want to have a Java 6 version handy as well (which doesn’t run on OSX Leopard), I installed Ubuntu’s latest on a spare laptop (Dell Inspiron 9300, ATI radeon mobile 300). All went well, until I decided to install the restriced ATI driver. Got me so much into trouble that I decided to re-install and just stick with the open source driver .

By: Lorenzo

Lorenzo — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 13:14:39 +0000

Hope you’ll think twice before switching to Vista again

Anyway, I’ve always used eclipse under Linux without problems, but of course, linux might require a little startup (which is then more than repaid I guess).

I’m currently using kubuntu, thus KDE using the kde style also for gtk applications, and eclipse looks nicer than with the standard gtk theme

By: Daniel Spiewak

Daniel Spiewak — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:42:39 +0000

Actually, if you lower the font sizes, they become completely unreadable. This I think is the root of one of the biggest problems with (and inhibitors to) desktop Linux.

By: David Carver

David Carver — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:05:33 +0000

The other thing to do with Ubunutu is to go into the Preferences -> Appearance (Gutsy Gibbon), and change the desktop and application font sizes. They come at too high of a resolution…around 11 or 12 points, when they should be around 8 or 9 points. Adjusting the font sizes down to equivalent sizes seen in Windows will give you more screen realestate as well.

So, I would agree it’s not SWT on GTK+ that is the issue, it’s more of the default settings that come with Ubuntu that are the issue.