Windows 8 and Linux

In his column over at Network World, Marco Chiappetta ate some crow over Windows 8.  I wanted to salute Marco for being perfectly honest and telling it like it is, however it is.  Marco built himself a system and tried Windows 8, in spite of his varying opinion of the operating system.

I read the article with interest.  As you probably know, I hate Windows: I'm a linux guy.  I am forced to use Windows 7 at work because no one has come up with a way to administer Windows networks under linux.

Windows 7 felt like a downgrade from XP to me.  Microsoft has become adept at hiding things from their users.  Some would say they're downright fond of it these days.  After trying Office 2010, I would have to agree.

Mr. Chiappetta has some really good things to say about Windows 8, specifically in the performance and lack of bloat categories.  In fact, I was almost tempted to give it a try.

Until I remembered the interface.

Of all the boneheaded moves for which Microsoft is responsible, this one contains the greatest amount of bone:

Hey, let's not only hide every function that is familiar to our entire userbase - let's disguise it behind an interface that is completely worthless on the desktop, not to mention mostly worthless on the tablet!

No, really, I would try Windows 8 in a virtual machine or a second machine (and I hate Windows).  But the interface thing really irks me.  I find the sheer hubris of it awe-inspiring, like Apple putting a different connector on their new phone.

Believe it or not, we in Linux Land have had a similar problem recently.   What you might find interesting is the way the entire issue was handled, both by the programmers and the users.  Something popped up a short while back as an interface for netbooks (remember them?).  This was before tablets became all the rage.  I downloaded a version of Ubuntu optimized for netbooks with this interface.  It lasted a few minutes, after which I replaced it with my normal desktop (XFCE, as in Xubuntu).  I saw absolutely no gain from using the all-in-one glob interface.

Flash forward to the here and now, where Ubuntu comes standard with the Unity interface, which is strikingly similar to what I've seen about Windows 8.  Unity has caused great amounts of disharmony in Linux Land.  My impression is that most don't like it.

Microsoft (and Apple) wish to let you know that if you don't think they know what's better for you than you do, you are cordially invited to perform an anatomically impossible act upon yourself.  On the other hand, in Linux Land, you can continue to use the clunky interface or install a different desktop and set it up to your liking.

I would give Microsoft a lot of points for simply including a function to switch between the normal interface and the new one.  But Microsoft knows best.


Marco - thanks for the input!

Xubuntu 12.04 Installed

Unable to contain my excitement and with the patience of a pregnant gnat, I decided to upgrade a machine (or two) to the latest Ubuntu: 12.04 [Porcine Paraguayan].  Before we go any further, I'm not sure this review is going to help you much unless you're a user of Xubuntu, like me.

Ubuntu comes in a few basic flavors: Ubuntu, the default; Kubuntu, with the KDE desktop; and Xubuntu, with the XFCE desktop.  KDE has a high Bling Factor and uses the most resources.  XFCE is a fairly lightweight, customizable distribution.  Plain old Ubuntu used to come with the Gnome desktop and performed somewhere in the middle.

Unfortunately the folks at Canonical (parent of Ubuntu) had a bit of an aneurysm (or a lot of crack) and replaced Gnome with Unity.  This is the most highly contested feature of Ubuntu.  It is arguably the most highly detested feature of Ubuntu also.  Unity started out as a simple interface for netbooks and progressed (regressed) to the Big Deal about 12.04.  It's the default and you're pretty much stuck with it.  It's very graphical and not very configurable.    Can you guess where I stand on the issue?


Using Xubuntu means I don't have to deal with Unity.  Since I have everything set up as I like it, upgrades don't look significantly different.  I get the nicer features and everything looks pretty much the same as it did before.  But remember, if you install Ubuntu from scratch, you'll get Unity.  If you install Xubuntu, you won't.

You might like Unity.
I don't.

The upgrade was pretty slow, as it is wont to be on the first official day of release.  I broke with tradition and did not install the beta version, which is usually quite stable.  After quite a few hours of downloading I was almost done, when the dog walked over to the laptop, stood on the right key, and canceled the upgrade.  He had no idea why I was screaming but he figured it must have been his fault.  Fortunately the upgrade process will continue more or less from where it was when it was interrupted.  Ubuntu:  now dog-proof.

The first thing I noticed was that the hiding panels hid all of the time, as opposed to the 11.10 and previous panels, which only hid some of the time.  This is a pretty good thing.  Thus far the laptop I upgraded is completely stable.

At work I upgraded a desktop quickly and painlessly, using the Update Manager.  Then I set about installing Xubuntu in parallel with Linux Mint Debian XFCE.  This failed miserably.  Spectacularly.  Repeatedly.  And continuously, until I remembered that I was unable to install Xubuntu on this brand new HP machine in the first place, leading me to try LMDE.  I even wiped LMDE but no luck.  Some web searching turned up others having similar problems, which seem to be related to HP's BIOS and the way it sees hard drives.  I called our HP rep, who has been too busy to find me an answer (for two months).  But this is not the fault of Ubuntu.

Another desktop got fouled up before the installation so I started from scratch, as opposed to an upgrade.  This too failed miserably.  And repeatedly.  The possible cause here was a previously encrypted HOME partition, which Xubuntu fresh install could not see or process, just leaving me hanging out there in Linux Space.

I was beginning to take this personally.

NOTE:  Always make your HOME partition separate.  This way if you need to reinstall, you'll have all of your data ready.

Another try got me a fresh install of Xubuntu 12.04 [Pregnant Peacock].  Then it froze consistently when I accessed the Screensaver control.  Finally I got everything working, probably due to a better video driver.   Do you drink at work?  I did.

After what seemed like twelve hours, I arrived home.  Eager for more grief, I decided to try upgrading my main laptop.  After at least two hours of downloading, I got an error and the entire installation stopped.  The error indicated there was a dependency issue around ncurses and I got past it here.

I am typing this on the aforementioned laptop, which seems to indicate that the upgrade was successful.  If you hear any screaming, it means there was a glitch.

SO WHAT'S NEW?

I have no earthly idea.  To be honest Xubuntu kinda sucks in the documentation department.  There's a menu item called IBus, which I clicked on, to no avail.  I was a little scared, as I try never to touch anything with an `I' in front of it.  As if you didn't know, it's a next-generation input framework.  Got it?

No matter how hard I try, I always seem to wind up with Pidgin and XChat.  I try valiantly to not select them or uninstall them, but like zombies, they come back and they're always there.   Same with the games.  Funny, OSes always come with games but no porn.  Guess which one is much more popular?

There is a menu editor.  Hopefully it's a new and improved menu editor because the last one came up when you clicked on it but was incapable of much else (kinda like Congress).  Apparently you need some sort of advanced physics degree to edit menus in XFCE and my degree expired last year.

Like the last release, the Ubuntu Software Center is front and center.  This is a real shame, as it seems quite slow, bloated, and useless to me.  But if it makes you happy, please use it.  I like Synaptic and sometimes the command line.

There are some important privacy controls I read about in Ubuntu but I have yet to locate them in Xubuntu.  I'll update you as I go along.

So for those of you playing along at home, the score is five total; with three successes, one user error, and one HP error.   I say go for it.


UPDATE-a few days later


I have upgraded or installed Xubuntu on most of my computers and laptops.  I haven't seen any glitches, although most of the installs were hampered by the ncurses issue mentioned above.  Shutdown feels faster, moreso than startup.  Don't forget to add Medibuntu to your repositiories after you upgrade, for all sorts of multimedia goodness.

AND FURTHERMORE.....


Do NOT encrypt your HOME partition.  As a security guy, I loved this option and selected it when presented.  When I went to mount my old HOME partition, I had to decrypt it.  It refused to decrypt.  After hours of research and trying, I now have gigs and gigs of encrypted data that I can't touch and seem to have lost forever.

Unity isn't Linux, Julie

Julie Bort, a writer I enjoy at Network World, just finished up two weeks using linux (Ubuntu, to be specific) and wrote a column.

Committing one's self to a new operating system fully for two weeks (she cheated a little) is a pretty brave endeavor for anyone and I applaud her.   Heaven knows I would not offer to use an operating system I have never touched before for one day, no less two weeks.

Julie's column at the end of the first week made use of the word pain.  Being a helpful linux person, I emailed some suggestions.  In the final column, she mentioned she "LOVED the way readers of these posts offered me suggestions on fixes and new stuff to try. There is so much good natured help on the 'net for anything you want to do in Linux. That's the beauty of it, and what keeps me coming back for more."


I don't think a more eloquent statement about linux has ever been uttered.  You simply don't find this sense of community among users of other operating systems.

Community aside, if you view her list of complaints, they seem to revolve around Unity, the desktop.  Unity is a rather polarizing new desktop which comes standard with Ubuntu these days (unless you download Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or other variants). You are not stuck with Unity; as with most things linux, you can go with what suits you best.  My choice is Xubuntu, which uses the XFCE desktop, a rather fast and lightweight choice.

I am one of those people who doesn't like Unity.  It first arrived in a customized Ubuntu for a netbook and I hated it immediately.  While I suspect it might be helpful for someone who has never touched linux, I simply replaced it with XFCE.

According to Julie's final column, there are apparently quite a few bugs in Unity.  Had she had used a different desktop, these issues would not have made the article, which might scare people away unnecessarily.

Not that there weren't positives expressed...

"I generally appreciated the sophisticated feel of Unity, compared to the "childish" but far more straightforward look of GNOME 2.3x"

On the other hand, this sounds like it came from a Mac user.

Good on ya', Julie, for the fair shot and interesting articles.