Ubuntu 7.04

[Frank]

But it won't solve the problem a Joe Sixpack who's bought a piece of hardware at PC World expecting it to work with his shiny new Dell, only to find out that there aren't a Linux drivers for it (for any one of a number of possible reasons).

As strange as it might sound, except for a few things, the hardware support for Linux is excellent. Often much better than for Windows. Nowadays, you only have a problem with that if it's really new. Because those drivers are generally written by supporters, not the HW manufacturers.

Then again, many big HW manufacturers, like HP, Logitech and VIA, have excellent Linux drivers.

I think WiFi and ATi videocards are the biggest problem cases in general. The first is solved, but it takes some time to write those drivers, and the second is solely due to ATi/AMD.

 

[Skrying]

There are many companies that sell Linux tech support. They could hire one of those and bill the amount they ask per customer when you select Linux as the OS. Probably still a lot cheaper than choosing Vista.

Except Linux means informing these people on a huge array of new programs. From word processor, to web browser, to email client, to everything they've known for years. Vista is different, but not that damn different. How about hardware compatibilities? How easy will it be for Billy Bob to get his new Lexmark Cheap-O 2075 to work with Linux? His new digital camera? Teaching the user how to use GIMP to do what other programs on Windows did in one click? What about games? Are you seriously going to suggest wine? Let alone that it has major issues with half my gaming library and those are popular games, what about Deer Hunter 2007? Maybe its because I'm from a small town. But even my experience with consumers in larger cities, this will not work out. I find it so extremely ironic that you would even begin to think this will be easier than Vista.

Vista at the very least works with many of the programs. Programs will recieve patches so they work with Vista. Many items are in familiar places in Vista. There's still MSN, Yahoo, AIM and you don't have to search for a new IM client or even attempt at using GAIM. Oh so much the irony that we can live in when first Vista is not different enough and then its to different, yet Linux the all mighty beam of light in the OS world will be wonderful and solve all our problems..... give me a break.

 

[Frank]

Except Linux means informing these people on a huge array of new programs. From word processor, to web browser, to email client, to everything they've known for years. Vista is different, but not that damn different. How about hardware compatibilities? How easy will it be for Billy Bob to get his new Lexmark Cheap-O 2075 to work with Linux? His new digital camera? Teaching the user how to use GIMP to do what other programs on Windows did in one click? What about games? Are you seriously going to suggest wine? Let alone that it has major issues with half my gaming library and those are popular games, what about Deer Hunter 2007? Maybe its because I'm from a small town. But even my experience with consumers in larger cities, this will not work out. I find it so extremely ironic that you would even begin to think this will be easier than Vista.

Vista at the very least works with many of the programs. Programs will recieve patches so they work with Vista. Many items are in familiar places in Vista. There's still MSN, Yahoo, AIM and you don't have to search for a new IM client or even attempt at using GAIM. Oh so much the irony that we can live in when first Vista is not different enough and then its to different, yet Linux the all mighty beam of light in the OS world will be wonderful and solve all our problems..... give me a break.

Except for games, Linux is pretty much like Windows nowadays. OpenOffice is much easier to get going with than Office 2007, if you're used to any former MS Office. About the same amount of hardware will work. You often have less problems getting it to work under Linux than Windows. You don't even need the CD. Firefox is just the same. MSN etc. as well.

And the KDE desktop is more familiar than the Vista one.

 

[nutball]

I think WiFi and ATi videocards are the biggest problem cases in general.

Any piece of hardware which doesn't have Linux drivers on the CD which accompanies it is a problem. Linux drivers, on the CD, which work, and don't require the user to upgrade their kernel or download stuff from the Internet.

 

[Frank]

Any piece of hardware which doesn't have Linux drivers on the CD which accompanies it is a problem. Linux drivers, on the CD, which work, and don't require the user to upgrade their kernel or download stuff from the Internet.

Automagically downloading and installing stuff from the internet is easier than having to insert the CD and running the setup. And since the first (now old) 2.6 kernel, everything that interfaces is a module. So you never need to upgrade your kernel, unless you want to.

And even then: unlike with Windows, you can upgrade your kernel and still boot your old one if you like (the new one is automatically added to the boot menu and made default), without needing separate partitions to do so.

 

[nutball]

Except for games, Linux is pretty much like Windows nowadays.

It's not like Windows at all. You're looking at this from a techie point-of-view, of someone who knows the difference and knows how to research what the alternatives are for the major Windows products. I know this as well as you do, but that's entirely missing the point.

The point isn't that there's an alternative, the problem is that Windows software that Mr Muppet buys isn't going to work under Linux. He's not going to know, or care, why it doesn't work at a technical level.

Me buy.
It not work.
Me annoyed.

Being told that he's an idiot for not knowing that he shouldn't have bought that software but instead should have Googled around for an alternative to download isn't going to improve his humour.

 

[Skrying]

Except for games, Linux is pretty much like Windows nowadays. OpenOffice is much easier to get going with than Office 2007, if you're used to any former MS Office. About the same amount of hardware will work. You often have less problems getting it to work under Linux than Windows. You don't even need the CD. Firefox is just the same. MSN etc. as well.

And the KDE desktop is more familiar than the Vista one.

That's utter bullshit. No its not, not even close. No one is going to upgrade to Office 2007 unless they were going to upgrade to a new Office in the first place or see the value in its vastly improved interface. They'll stick to 2003 or 2000 or whatever they're using till they don't have to.

I can't say if hardware doesn't work on my personal rig... besides my video card. Which is just out right incompatible, yet worked just fine under 6.10.... may NIC however did not.

KDE is not more familiar than Vista, Vista is not even that different than XP. The start menu is THE SAME besides the menu stays in one area. Control panel is broken down into similar headings as XP's style. Explorer besides the Address bar is essentially the same, the basic principals are the same and takes seconds to learn. I know, I've shown Vista to at least 100 separate people in under two months...

 

[nutball]

Automagically downloading and installing stuff from the internet is easier than having to insert the CD and running the setup. And since the first (now old) 2.6 kernel, everything that interfaces is a module. So you never need to upgrade your kernel, unless you want to.

This absolutely isn't true. All sort of subtle stuff changes between sub-versions of the 2.6 kernel, some developers of drivers can be bothered to back-port, others can't. It's a total lottery.

 

[Frank]

This absolutely isn't true. All sort of subtle stuff changes between sub-versions of the 2.6 kernel, some developers of drivers can be bothered to back-port, others can't. It's a total lottery.

But that's where apt comes in. I love apt. It just works.

 

[Frank]

Btw, I think one of the most important things you should do to make a good functioning Linux release is: take pains to configure the software sources (and keys, if needed) as good as you can. That's the main thing that made Knoppix such a great success and example. And that's something Ubuntu should improve.

 

[Vadi]

I got my Ati card working. The CCC shows AGP speed being zero. Is this "ok"?

 

[Colourless]

Probably means it's running in PCI mode.

 

[Vadi]

Thanks Colourless. :smile:
dmesg | grep agp reports:

[   57.842499] Linux agpgart interface v0.102 (c) Dave Jones
[   57.853500] agpgart: Detected AGP bridge 0
[   57.854986] agpgart: AGP aperture is 32M @ 0xe0000000

In BIOS AGP aperture is set to 256.
Also it should use Ati's AGP I think.
Here's part of my xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Monitor1"
	VendorName	"Generic"
	ModelName	"Flat Panel"
	Option		"DPMS"		"true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Monitor2"
	Option		"VendorName"	"ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option		"ModelName"	"Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option		"DPMS"		"true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"ATI Graphics Adapter1"
	Driver		"fglrx"
	BoardName	"ATI Radeon X800XL"
	Option		"no_accel"		"no"
	Option		"no_dri"		"no"
	Option		"mtrr"			"no"  # disable DRI mtrr mapper, driver has its own code for mtrr
	Option		"MonitorLayout"		"LVDS, AUTO" #"LVDS, NONE" #"AUTO, NONE"
	Option		"IgnoreEDID"		"off"
	Option		"HSync2"		"30.0 - 95.0"
	Option		"VRefresh2"		"50.0 - 160.0"
	Option		"ScreenOverlap"		"0"
	Option		"NoTV"			"yes"
	Option		"TVStandard"		"NTSC-M"
	Option		"TVHSizeAdj"		"0"
	Option		"TVVSizeAdj"		"0"
	Option		"TVHPosAdj"		"0"
	Option		"TVVPosAdj"		"0"
	Option		"TVHStartAdj"		"0"
	Option		"TVColorAdj"		"0"
	Option		"GammaCorrectionI"	"0x00000000"
	Option		"GammaCorrectionII"	"0x00000000"
	Option		"Capabilities"		"0x00000000"
	Option		"VideoOverlay"		"on"
	Option		"OpenGLOverlay"		"off"
	Option		"CenterMode"		"off"
	Option		"PseudoColorVisuals"	"off"
	Option		"Stereo"		"off"
	Option		"StereoSyncEnable"	"1"
	Option		"FSAAEnable"		"no"
	Option		"FSAAScale"		"4"
	Option		"FSAADisableGamma"	"no"
	Option		"FSAACustomizeMSPos"	"no"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosX0"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosY0"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosX1"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosY1"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosX2"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosY2"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosX3"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosY3"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosX4"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosY4"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosX5"		"0.000000"
	Option		"FSAAMSPosY5"		"0.000000"
	Option		"UseFastTLS"		"0"
	Option		"BlockSignalsOnLock"	"on"
	Option		"UseInternalAGPGART"	"yes"
	Option		"ForceGenericCPU"	"no"
	Option		"DesktopSetup"		"horizontal"
	BusID       	"PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "ATI Graphics Adapter2"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
	Screen      1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Screen1"
	#Device		"ATI OSS"
	Device		"ATI Graphics Adapter1"
	Monitor		"Monitor1"
	DefaultDepth	24
	Subsection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1280x1024"
		ViewPort	0 		0
	EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Screen2"
        Device		"ATI Graphics Adapter2"
        Monitor		"Monitor2"
        DefaultDepth	24
        SubSection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Viewport  	0 		0
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     	"Default Layout"
	Screen		"Screen1"			0	0
	InputDevice    	"Generic Keyboard"
	InputDevice    	"Configured Mouse"
	InputDevice    	"stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
	InputDevice    	"cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
	InputDevice    	"eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
	Mode	0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
	Option      	"Composite"	"0"
EndSection