Ubuntu 12.04 - the verdict - shall I switch distro?

Having shared a few of my concerns about the way that Ubuntu is changing, and whether I should stick with it or jump ship to another Linux distro (or even to Windows 7), I set into the upgrades on my three machines.  (I won't get into the question of why I have three of them!)

I downloaded the new CD ISO image for the 32 bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 and burned it to disk, then booted from the live disk and created a USB startup 'disk' for the netbook.  I installed a brand new 500GByte hard disk drive on the laptop.  This means that I could roll back to the old (perfectly working) system within minutes or go back to retrieve some critical file that I later need.  You see - I don't trust myself to complete a backup of all my preferences and I didn't want to lose the ability to use the laptop if everything went wrong.  Yes - I have to have a spare HDD 'in stock' but I feel that the cost is worth it!

Here goes!

Installing the system on both the netbook and laptop simultaneously, everything went as well as could be hoped.  Ubuntu installations are a breeze these days - much easier than installing Windows.  Basically everything just works and then there is an hour or so of tedious work to personalise everything to the way I like it, connect to the cloud to synchronise some files, install those favorite packages that are not there by default and get Firefox to synchronise bookmarks and favorites between the machines. 

Now all of that would normally be easy.  I've done it often enough that I have a sort of checklist - one that has gradually got shorter as Ubuntu has improved.  Each time I cross out things that they have fixed.  Even personalising the installation is getting easier if you trust cloud computing to some extent.

But this time I was faced with Ubuntu's new default desktop environment, called Unity.  Some love it, but I and many others absolutely detest it.  I've honestly tried to like it but I just can't.  Not only can I not find things that ought to be there, but I actually believe that those things are not there any longer.  The whole thing seems to me to have been designed for the 'hard of thinking' with horrible big icons (even at their smallest setting) and a strong discouragement to use your desktop as a workspace.  Irritations include:

• It is continuously difficult to find things that you know must be there. e.g. the option to handle Users and Groups - which is actually not there until you install it!
• No top panel or bottom panel, but the (too wide) side panel instead – why can't I choose?
• The side panel is intrusively large, even when setting the buttons to the smallest available (and I find the auto-hide option very irritating).
• Switching workspaces is possible, but not the usual simple alt-ctrl-left and right.  You have to go up and down too because it is in a grid, not just a row and can't seem to change this.  It is not easy to tell which applications are on which space without using the mouse.  This is normally one of the best features of Linux systems, when it works!
• Can't see in the bottom panel (because there isn't one) which applications are open.  You have to blunder round with Alt-tab to try to find what you want, with only tiny clues on the icons on the left panel to tantalise you.
• Power settings have been changed.  Can't set the laptop to suspend when pressing the power button as I would prefer but now have to do it from a menu which takes longer.  Why mess with the basics like this?
• There is now no option for Restart on the shutdown menu, and it doesn't help to say that you don't need one because it is so stable and good - because it isn't quite that good yet and there are times when a restart is the simplest option.  (It makes a restart button after installing updates that it thinks require a restart.  Well, thank you!)

So - after a few days of frustration I decided to ditch Unity on the laptop and go over to the GNOME3 interface.  GNOME 2 was good.  I could find everything and do anything I wanted to.  This new upgrade must be similar mustn't it?

A bit of Googling revealed that the easiest solution is to type in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install gnome-panel

Some things really ARE easier in a terminal than they would be using a graphical interface!  After a restart, not using the restart button because there isn't one (did I mention?), the login screen now gives various options as well as two versions of Unity.

Obviously you would choose Gnome wouldn't you?  Wrong - as you can see on this rather thorough and fair assassination of GNOME3 from Tom's Hardware.    He covers all the things that I find so irritating, and a couple more that I hadn't yet noticed.  He starts with:

No desktop, no taskbar, no Ubuntu, no Mint. Panned by critics, shunned by users, Linus calls it an “unholy mess.” Saying there are a number of things wrong with GNOME 3 is an understatement. But how the hell did it go so sideways?

So, GNOME3 is not popular.  However, the other option at the login screen, 'Gnome Classic (no effects)', brings things almost back to normal.  A few things have moved and it takes a little while to find them, but it is nothing that is beyond the wit of man. 

After 4 weeks I reached a decision.  I can't cope with Unity.  I had continued to run it on the netbook and found myself wanting to throw it at things on a regular basis, so it is now also running Gnome Classic (no effects).  Everything is working on the laptop, and now I have 'upgraded' the desktop machine too.  I have three machines working to my satisfaction, mutually compatible, synchronising nicely through 'the cloud' and Ubuntu has survived for a little longer.

12.04 seems quite fast.  It starts up and shuts down quickly, and the option to suspend the system makes this even better - even on the desktop machine.  The Ubuntu One cloud computing service works pretty well too.  Almost the only thing I would want from it is stability.

However, I should say that Ubuntu is very much 'on notice'.  My acceptance of 12.04 is very much in spite of the direction that Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) seems to want to take the product and I fear that the future is bleak.  The net result is that I took a little time to install a copy of Fedora 16 in parallel to Ubuntu as a dual boot system.  At present it is only on the desktop machine not on the portables.  On the advice of a friend who was visiting from New Zealand last week, I also plan to try out a distro called Mint.  (Mint comes in several flavours, it seems!  The recommended version is a direct fork from Debian, making it a sibling of Ubuntu, but there is another that is based on Ubuntu, making it a daughter.  When I tried that before it was good, but it defeats the object of moving away from Ubuntu doesn't it.)

I know for sure that the Ubuntu community is being fragmented by the changes that have been introduced.  Canonical might claim not to care, but by writing this you can see that at least one long term Ubuntu 'fan' doesn't need much more of a push before he jumps to another ship.

**Sadly Fedora 16 also ships with Gnome3.  I don't want to learn KDE, and xfce is pretty basic.

Ubuntu 12.04 - the questions that divide a community

I have been running several computers on the Ubuntu Linux operating system for 5 years, and although not expert I would at least claim some sort of familiarity with the capabilities of the system, its strengths and weaknesses.  I have written previously in Windoze or Ubuntu (Linux)? that I can do virtually everything on Ubuntu that I could do with Windows, enjoy some features that Windows does not offer, and that the one thing that I would really miss if I had to abandon Windows completely is Microsoft Excel.  (Word is pretty good too, although gradually less so!)

Ubuntu has for a long time had a policy of bringing out a new version every 6 months (which is perhaps a bit too often), but having a Long Term Support (LTS) version once every 2 years.  The LTS version is guaranteed to be supported for an extended period, thus making it a more attractive option for people running large networks where they can achieve a level of stability for their users.  I personally like that stability as an individual user too.  Almost everything continues to work fine, although individual packages might get left behind in the rush for 'progress'. 

This means that my desktop machine has been running 10.04 for over 2 years.  I had a netbook running 10.10 and a laptop on 11.04. (My mother and two of my children also run 11.04.)  I have a policy of never installing the version before an LTS release as they tend to be experimental to the point of frustration.  (No I can't support that claim with evidence!  But I do believe it.  9.10 was a disaster from my point of view!)

Over that 5 years, my familiarity with Linux has improved.  The general compatibility and usability of Ubuntu has also also been transformed.  During that time I have found that some of the features that used to be problematic now 'just work'.  Sound was one of those things that sometimes had to be coaxed into operation - now it works fine.  Laptop wireless networking was another weakness that has been improved beyond measure.

On the whole, Ubuntu installs easily, finds the settings for all your hardware and implements everything without human intervention.

Nevertheless, in the background, Ubuntu has been gradually trying to lose the word 'Linux', and appears to be trying to go away from the accepted conventions of all desktop environments in an attempt to stamp out a look and feel of their own.  In some senses, Ubuntu seems to be gradually changing its appearance to be more like the desktop environment of the Apple Macs, and not all of us regard that as being progress.  But for example, why on earth would they move the icons from the top right of a window to the top left?  Yes you can get a script that moves them back, but they fact that Ubuntu imposes this irritation on us shows that they don't give a sh*t for our opinion! 

Introduction of the utterly horrible new 'Unity' interface was another example of that, and the fact that Ubuntu is one of very few distributions to have packaged the 'GNOME3' 'shell' is takes it a step further.  For many Ubuntu users one of these was an incumberance, but putting both together was an imposition that is certain to drive loyal users away.

It is with these points niggling at my mind that I undertook the process of converting all three machines over to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, released 26th April, while half-wondering whether the time had come to abandon Ubuntu in favour of one of the other well-known Linux distros.  Fedora and Debian both have a good following, and Fedora in particular has excellent community support.  Open Suse was another option that I have considered exploring.

One month and a week into the experiment I have completed the transition.  First I transferred the laptop and netbook over, and only after establishing that all my usual activities (see below**) worked properly on the laptop did I convert the desktop machine.

I will say a bit more about my conclusions in a few days.  (I will add a link here when I publish it.)  Will I stay with Ubuntu or not?  The jury is out.

** Normal activities include web browsing, e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, online messaging, Facebook and Twitter (including bulk uploads of tweets), web site maintenance (including FTP), photography and image manipulation, blogging, downloading podcasts and synchronising them to an MP3 player, Skype, listening to music and watching DVDs and probably more.

Podcasts for everyone

Have you ever listened to a podcast?  Most people seem still to be shying away from learning to enjoy the range of listening or viewing opportunities available to them.  I'm hoping to convince you that it is easy and that you might be missing out on a world of entertaining and informative programming.

Perhaps you have tried your favorite TV station's web based player to watch a TV programme that you have missed?  It is as simple as that to listen to a podcast.  If you don't mind sitting at your computer or using your mobile phone's web app you can often just go to the website of a podcast and listen or watch it there.  There is actually no need to wrestle with new software or learn how to transfer it to your MP3 player (or i-pod if that is your preference - although it definitely isn't mine).  I'll come back to that later.

The only trouble is . . . how to find out what is available out there, and where. 

A year ago I had not taken the plunge into the ocean of podcasts, but now I am surfing the waves and hardly ever listen to the radio.  This is not just my annoyance with the BBC showing through again.  Radio 4 actually does host some interesting, intelligent and informative programmes.  But there are not enough of them, and the overpowering political correctness sometimes forces them to 'teach the controversy' even if there really isn't one to teach.  Most independent podcasts do not feel compelled to follow the same restrictive guidelines and they can take the risk of causing offence without upsetting their directors (or the government).They do not have to present a fully balanced argument, although most of them do.

To be perfectly honest, I can't remember what made me look for the first podcast, let alone which one of my current twenty I found first.  But these days I look forward to day of publication of several independently produced programmes.  Some others are there as gap fillers, and I even listen to one  religious offering about 'Intelligent Design' - and hate it!  My own preference, as you will have noticed from the topics of this blog, is currently for scientific and skeptical subjects, and I am not averse to a regular dose of atheism.  If you are one of my regular readers - yes there are a few of you and I appreciate you all very much - you could enjoy the same.  I think over the next few weeks I might venture to review some of the good (and the bad).  I am just trying to decide how to categorise my comments.

I have deliberately avoided getting into the question of how to download podcasts onto your mobile device.  If you find yourself drawn to this type of media I am sure that you will find a way.  It is of little use to explain that I personally use a programme called 'gpodder' to manage my podcasts and transfer them to my Sony Walkman 16GB MP3 player.  Those of you with Macs will find that it is all intuitive (or at least you will tell us that until your dying day) and those on Windows can probably use media player or something similar.   (I might have mentioned before that I don't use Windows or a Mac at home, but run Ubuntu linux instead.) 

As a taster - try these, in no particular order but all excellent!

Skeptoid 
by Brian Dunning. 
Short accurately researched weekly episodes about the mysteries of the world.  Click the picture for a link to the home page containing recent episodes (or transcripts if you prefer to read instead of listening).

Skeptics Guide to the Universe 
from the New England Skeptical Society. 
Intelligently and entertainingly looking at subjects of interest to skeptics.  I think this embedded code for the following picture will play the latest episode for you, but failing that you will at least find their web site here.  There are two options: the regular weekly hour long programme or the '5 x 5' podcasts which are more like those from Skeptoid.

The Pod Delusion
UK based, (clever name too), taking 'sceptical angles on topical politics and pseudo-science'.  Many interesting reports from interesting reporters and now apparently very high on the list of favorites on i-tunes (not that I know anything about i-tunes).  They also publish special recordings of specific UK events from time to time.  All being well you can listen to the embedded object here or you can visit their web site.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia and Unix time

Its Friday the 13th - an unlucky day according to some.  But of course every day is unlucky for some and my superstition filter is working harder today than most others.  I'm ready to point out the logical fallacies in people's anecdotes about the day - and no doubt they will grumble at me for doing so.

Apparently it is only since the 19th century that this day has been considered particularly unlucky although people were already wary of Fridays in the 14th century.  Every year we have at least one of them, and some years we have three.

Not wishing to fuel world-wide friggatriskaidekaphobia - the fear of Friday the thirteenth - I have chosen one surprising but entirely harmless story for the day.  As regular readers will know, I am an (amateur) user of the Ubuntu operating system, which is a member of the Unix/Linux family. 

'Unix time' reached 1,234,567,890 seconds on Friday, February 13, 2009.

I expect you feel that your life is now enriched!

And one more thing!

Blogger is back in operation again, today Friday 13th!

You might have noticed that there was no post yesterday, for the first time since I started writing on 11th January.  It seems that blogger caused worldwide outrage by going into read-only mode for a couple of days.  Those of us who use it regularly started to feel withdrawal symptoms and today turned out to be a lucky day after all. 

Whatever all the other users say, I think it is a little churlish to complain when the service is (after all) entirely free and extremely reliable.  Where would you get better value for money than this?

Windoze or Ubuntu (Linux)?

I more or less promised last week to talk about why I tend to use Ubuntu Linux these days instead of Windows.

What would I miss about Windows?

1/  Excel
2/  . . . hardly anything else!


However, there is always the option of using it by running a copy of Windows in Oracle's excellent (and still free) VirtualBox environment on Ubuntu.  Windows in a window is a compromise.

What would I miss about Ubuntu?

0/  Security (I think)
1/  General speed and responsiveness
2/  The online community's help with (almost) whatever problem I meet whereas for Windoze it seems more difficult.
3/  LaserJet 1000 printer driver (none available on 64 bit Win7 but no problem in Ubuntu)
4/  Multiple desktops - how you get used to having this facility! 
5/  Easy way to save Youtube videos as they download - grab them from the cache folder.
6/  Ubuntu One synch so easy - if you trust cloud computing.  (And OK - there are other ways to do this on Windows.)
7/  Tomboy notes just work and synch.  I keep little notes to myself and can open them on each of the three machines that I use regularly.  (Cloud computing again though.)
8/  It's free
9/  Its so easy to reinstall in event of a major problem - and did I mention . . . free!
10/  Freedom from Win7's unexplained one minute freeze ups experienced on my laptop
11/  Login window without a visible choice of user names.  (This used to be available in Win XP but seems to have vanished in Win 7 and I regard it to be a security feature, albeit 'soft security')
12/  And finally - OK I admit it - It is not Windows.  My slightly anarchical world view is showing through.)


I would admit that there are still some slightly negative points about using Linux but I can live with these:

1/  Shorter battery life on my laptop - this is the only really annoying factor.
2/  A few niggles about wireless network cards and in some versions the reluctance of the PC to suspend to RAM (sleep) and resume (wake).
3/  Intel/nvidia's Optimus technology - there are no linux drivers if you are unlucky to have that hardware.  You lose the speed and 3D acceleration but just have basic graphics.  I'm quite happy without it as my graphics card is not nvidia and the processor is not Intel.  Nvidia always used to be the Linux users graphic card supplier of choice, for good compatibility.  Clearly their policy has changed.  What a pity.
4/  I suppose if you are a big game player there might be other items too.  

So have I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 yet?  Well - yes on my laptop.  The experience is generally rather positive too.  More on that topic soon.