Ideas Ubuntu should steal from Windows 7

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/12-ideas-ubuntu-should-steal-from-windows-7-618472?src=rss

by nreece • 17 years ago

14 28 17 years ago

It seems that on a lot of these points they fail to realize that they're exactly the reason Ubuntu outperforms Windows in some of these areas. In regard to backup software, they say, "Yes it's available, but why isn't it there by default?" Perhaps it's because Canonical's stated goal is to fit an entire operating system on a single CD. If they crammed in everyone's favorite feature to the base distribution, that wouldn't happen. People are more concerned with getting up and running with OpenOffice, email, etc... immediately. If I want to backup my data, I'll worry about that once I'm back to being productive. I'm happy to just grab it from the repository.

Also, I outright disagree with some of their observations about ease of use. They say that Windows is actually pretty good at hand-holding when you "troubleshoot" something. Me? I've never once had any success using the "troubleshoot" tools to fix something. I've never once had a problem I couldn't solve by a quick search of Ubuntu's forums/documentation and editing the config files myself.

And I almost laughed when they said Ubuntu should use ideas from Windows UAC... All in all, I really think this article fails to realize the difference between Ubuntu and Windows. I don't think Ubuntu is trying to BE Windows. If anything, they're trying to reaplce it (and I don't even think that's their goal). There's no point in competing with Microsoft if you have the same vision as them. Ubuntu has it's own goal, so does Mac.

zimbabwe4• 17 years ago

Good arguments. Upvoted even though I disagree with many of them.

I've never once had a problem I couldn't solve by a quick search of Ubuntu's forums/documentation and editing the config files myself.

That's a lot harder than what the average computer user wants. When I used Ubuntu, I was terrified of the config files, and I hated forum searching to solve problems. It seemed like such an inelegant solution.

TallGuyShort2• 17 years ago

Yeah that's true, and I definitely think that Ubuntu is trying to move in a more user-friendly direction than traditional Linux mindsets. In any case - what has been your experience with the "troubleshoot" tools in Windows? It's not that I'm arguing the point with you, I really do think they seem easy to use. My only problem, is that it's never actually succeeded in fixing or diagnosing the problem I was having. Am I alone in this?

daleharvey• 17 years ago

"troubleshoot" is an inelegant solution as well, which is one of the reasons I think ubuntu would be better off avoiding it.

the ui should either work, or tell the user why it doesnt work, troubleshoot is a band aid.

InkweaverReview• 17 years ago

I have to say that Ubuntu's forums and documentation aren't worth hardly anything. The forum is overloaded and there are so many new threads that very few of the threads will ever be touched or answered.

The documentation covers the basics, but it rarely helps if there is a problem.

I had a problem with graphics card issues last year and spent a couple weeks of research before finally finding a way to fix the problem myself. The forums and documentation didn't help.

And I found numerous other people asking the same question but not getting any answer. After I found the solution I posted it on their forum threads.

rbanffy4• 17 years ago

I never had a big problem in Windows that I could solve at all. Each time I ran into a snag I had to reach for the manual or call support, it ended in either buying new, compatible hardware or reinstalling the machine.

The "troubleshooting" section in Windows help is every bit as useful as horns on a goldfish.

fsniper2• 17 years ago

The thing is, Linux distros, be it ubuntu or any other are bunch of software written all over the world, having no central design policy or architecture, put together. So making a real working and centrally controllable distro is virtually impossible or challenging. These software all have incostencies in their selves or in combinations. so solving most problems in their domains are the way to go. Because of general unix or linux philosophy of having text file based configurations, editkng these to solve most problems is unavoidable. Even gui software for configurations are generating or editing these files.

But diving and getting lost in windows registry is not elegant either..

For_Iconoclasm• 17 years ago

In my experience, the people on the Ubuntu forums only know how to solve trivial problems. There are tons of searches in Google that result in links to the forums where somebody is asking "Hey, this is my situation, can anybody help me?" only to see a response that is irrelevant or no response at all. I had to dig through the X.org wiki, which isn't terribly good documentation, to figure out how to disable mouse acceleration (after experimenting with where to put the settings).

Regarding the article: many of these points seem really vague or really nit-picky, like the bit about drive encryption.

I also agree with you about Ubuntu not trying to be Windows. I think they want to instill the paradigm if you're going to change a setting, be prepared to do it as a superuser or root ahead of time. Linux security isn't going to change to be more like Windows security.

philwelch• 17 years ago

Typical user behavior is to get productive, never worry about backups, and whine endlessly when their hard drive crashes. Backup software should definitely be bundled. It's a classic opt-in vs opt-out problem--users who have to opt in to install backup software, won't opt in.

alextp• 17 years ago

Yes, true, although I don't feel any free linux backup tool is really up to the usual standards.

Also, automatic backup is a bit annoying for many home users, who do not have the required place to store their data.

th0ma5• 17 years ago

A lot of times when I read these things, the sort of pro-Linux with pro-Microsoft points articles, I can't help but feel it is paid for by Microsoft. It certainly seems like I have been seeing more and more of these kinds of things over the last few months.

rbanffy4• 17 years ago

It seems Microsoft is boosting up their astroturfing groups. Watch out for your karma ;-)

zimbabwe4• 17 years ago

Are there any similar time-blocking options for the Mac? Sounds like a great way to force somebody off the computer.

DougBTX• 17 years ago

Try parental controls in system preferences.

zimbabwe4• 17 years ago

Thanks!

rbanffy4• 17 years ago

Seriously lame. Flagged.

rottencupcakes• 17 years ago

In my opinion, there's one critical thing which is keeping Linux out of the non-nerd workstation market, and that's X11.

The windowing system is slow, yet takes more CPU than Windows. Animations (flash, the progress bar in fullscreen gnome-mplayer) bog down the system on low-end graphics cards (which saturate the market in the consumer desktop/laptop market). Scrolling a window up and down can be enough to lag the system into unusability.

Microsoft invests hundreds of engineers on making the graphics system fast and responsive on any kind of graphics hardware. Linux needs to catch up in this field before they can play with the big boy. Someone needs to do something with X11.

bitwize• 17 years ago

In my opinion, there's one critical thing which is keeping Linux out of the non-nerd workstation market, and that's X11.

In my opinion, that one thing is Unix.

The Unix model is full of philosophical details which are appealing to programmers, but which have been thoroughly discredited in the end user space: the minimization and generalization of APIs, the minimization and generalization of the notion of what a "file" is, the process or task based model of interaction, etc.

An end user OS needs to be document-centric instead of task-centric. It needs to have a spatial file manager, and support for that needs to be built into the filesystem. It needs a UI spec that is set in stone and backed up with usability research. The I/O patterns for a file on disk, the display, mouse, and sound card are all different; to get the most out of each the OS needs to provide for each specifically.

These things are precisely what made the original Macintosh such a revolution: the designers at Apple were willing to completely rethink what an OS is and should do. These days not even Apple is so bold, as its OS is basically a reskinned Unix. (Of course, consumer electronics and not computers are their new primary market and where they focus the most innovation.)

GeneralMaximus• 17 years ago

Right on. I have always felt X was a horrible idea. OS X's Quartz, on the other hand, is a thing of beauty.

Is Google going to use X for the Chrome OS or will they roll their own?

EDIT: spelling.

rms• 17 years ago

I don't know if it's been stated officially, but nerd consensus seems to be that Google will be using something other than X.

Zak3• 17 years ago

I've encouraged a number of people to give Linux a try on the desktop, and I've heard a complaint or two about it being too different, hard to use or missing some feature the complainer liked from another OS. I have never heard slow/unresponsive among the complaints. I've only heard this complaint from people who understood how X works and fundamentally disagreed with the design.

thwarted• 17 years ago

The windowing system is slow, yet takes more CPU than Windows.

Nothing that takes a lot of CPU is going to be faster than something that takes less CPU for the same amount of work, so the "yet" doesn't make much sense.

Animations (flash, the progress bar in fullscreen gnome-mplayer) bog down the system on low-end graphics cards (which saturate the market in the consumer desktop/laptop market).

I have a 10 year old PCI Matrox MGA 2064W Millennium that runs X just fine, all consumer level modern chipsets are more powerful than this ancient piece that I'm still getting use out of. How does the progress bar in full-screen gnome bog down the system? The progress bar only animates during video playback or during dragging, and during that time, the machine is busy seeking, decoding and drawing video, so that's the most likely candidate for system bogginess, not the progress bar in full-screen mode.

Zak3• 17 years ago

I have to disagree on a couple points:

A single media player for audio and video is not desirable. They're separate and almost unrelated functions; the only time they might belong together is syncing to another device. That's not to say Rhythmbox couldn't use some polish.

How, exactly is Gnome's panel crude? I find panel applets far more natural than the system tray for little utilities that aren't part of a larger app, and I really don't care for Apple's dock. Is there some justification for this claim?

rbanffy4• 17 years ago

In my experience, many people don't like Gnome because it doesn't look like the desktop they are used to.

If I went back some 40 years and presented Gnome to IBM mainframe users, they would complain the lettering is not green on black.

But I would love to have the 3278 font available on my boxes.

And no, it's not exactly the one on x3270. They got the 6's and 9's wrong

Zak3• 17 years ago

I've found that reaction doesn't last very long. In fact, configuring any Linux desktop to look extremely similar to Windows[0] leads users to think everything will be extremely similar. They tend to be more upset upon discovering unexpected differences than they are when it's obviously different from the start.

[0] I say Windows here because I've only seen in with Windows users. Users of any other platform are used to the idea of different operating systems.

Ideas Ubuntu should steal from Windows 7

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