Ubuntu as slick as Win7, Mac OS X
Summary
Topics
So much so, in fact, that I am starting to prefer using my Ubuntu "Jaunty Jackalope" desktop over the similarly slick Windows 7 beta (which I am currently running full-time on one desktop) and Mac OS X Leopard operating systems, which I also use regularly.
I left Windows Vista, XP and even Debian lying bruised and battered by the roadside some time ago.
You won't be able to notice the vast improvement in Ubuntu's desktop experience over the past six months by browsing screenshot galleries of 9.04 or looking at new feature lists. What I'm talking about is that elusive slick and speedy feel you get from applications launching fast, windows moving around without jerkiness and everything simply being where it should be in the user interface.
Launching and using Firefox on Ubuntu 8.10 on my 2GHz Core 2 Duo-based machine with 2GB of RAM, a 7200rpm hard disk and an Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS always seemed to feel like I was going back a few years to a time when web browsers were not considered something you always had open to service web applications like Gmail and Bloglines.
It was the same with Windows Vista.
Now, just like Microsoft has taken the blowtorch to Vista to produce the lightning-quick Windows 7, which so far runs well even on older hardware, Ubuntu has picked up its own game.
I particularly noticed the Ubuntu difference when I put the operating system to the test by simultaneously launching and using multiple applications, listening to music and more while using my spare CPU cycles in the background to encode high-definition video with Mencoder. Ubuntu still felt very fast ... even with traditionally sluggy pieces of software like OpenOffice.org.
It's not just the speed changes, however, that has got me excited about Ubuntu 9.04. It's also the subtle additions to the interface; the logical move of shut down and reboot options to the far right of the menu; the slick new notifications system; the seamless (finally!) integration of the Nvidia accelerated drivers and the cleaned-up options and package install systems.
Want Adobe Flash or other proprietary software like multimedia codecs on Ubuntu? Just search for them in the one location, under their own names. No downloading anything from any websites. No package management or dependencies. No apt-get. Point and click.
I'm not a Linux novice (in fact, I'm a former Linux and FreeBSD systems administrator), and I've been using Linux on the desktop since the late 1990s. I usually run a combination of Ubuntu and Windows on my PC, and the latest Mac OS X on my laptop.
So I'm in a position to notice step changes in user interface behaviour like the one that Ubuntu has brought to the table with 9.04. In short, Ubuntu is now as slick and beautiful as Mac OS X or Windows 7.
As we've noted in earlier articles, Microsoft has also brought its best to the table with Windows 7. However, it's a pity Apple didn't seem to do so with Leopard ... like some reviewers, I felt Steve Job's latest operating system opus added a lot of new features, but also some unfortunate erratic behavior that muddied Mac OS X's position as a user interface leader.
As MacWorld has noted, the new Stacks feature in Leopard's Dock is a "mess" and replaced the formerly utilitarian approach to keeping folders in the Dock with a "snazzy but generally less useful pop-up window".
The new "Spaces" feature in Leopard is nothing new; it provides multiple virtual desktop work spaces which Unix has had for decades; but I found Apple's implementation erratic.
Then too, there was the speed price some users paid in Leopard for all the upgrade, although that could just be the older hardware penalty. On my 1.5GHz G4 laptop with 1280MB of RAM, Leopard runs sluggishly, whereas Tiger runs like a dream. As I don't use any of the new features, the upgrade seemed worthless.
When you consider Microsoft's remarkable rebirth with Windows 7 and the fact that Ubuntu is free, open source and runs on anything, you would have to wonder what sort of rabbit Steve Jobs will have to pull out of his hat with Snow Leopard to keep growing Mac OS X's share. Sure, there are some apps missing on Linux (say, Photoshop). But the same can be said of Mac OS X in certain areas, and VMware and CrossOver solve a lot of problems.
Looking back to the genesis of Ubuntu 9.04 six months ago, I suspect that its subtle but powerful changes are due to the new user interface team that Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth said at the time he would put in place. If so, that team has already earned its pay checks and even more, and we're looking forward to seeing what another six months of development will produce.
In the meantime, kudos to Ubuntu 9.04: you got game.
This article was originally published on ZDNet Australia.
Just In
Ubuntu rocks!!!
If adobe would launch CS4 master suite for Linux I know I would certainly go for it.
Even if they only launched photoshop and dreamweaver to start with, the response would be immense.
I can live without Office (whats a word processor) but I don't want to relearn a web authoring development application, likewise with photoshop.
Get these on board and it will decimate Apple.
I guess Jobs has signed a behind the scenes deal with Adobe....
launched Photoshop for Linux it would not make any sense for me to
stay with Apple. I would have my *nix, and Photoshop, being a
photographer I use daily.
"For CrossOver Linux, I found that it ran Macromedia's Studio MX very well (Not
Studio MX 2004 --- that has compatibility issues) and Photoshop 7.0 very well.
Of course, these work on Wine as well and that's free. And the newest version
of CrossOver I think supports PS CS2 and if PWhipp is right, DW CS3."
The situation DOES cause one to wonder, what is Adobe and Macromedia receiving "under the table" to NOT support Linux? ("29 million estimated users worldwide, and I would suspect a majority of those are programmers based on the nature of the "Linux Geek".
Seems like a potentially large customer base that Adobe isn't
marketing to, plus the added benefit of putting a thumb in the eye of the clueless folks over in MS land.....")
Its not that Linux needs to "get on board". Its that the software industry marketing needs to get "off board" the backscratching syndrome, and simply supply quality software to everyone in honest competition.
"You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" is an age old well known quasi-legal marketing scam that has become a prerequisite to modern corporate business.
Ethics presently have no value.
When I restarted it would log me in but nothing else. Restarted it into recovery mode, ran fsck, and repaired packages, it did some downloading and such, restarted normal and I had the new Ubuntu!! Very Nice! I thought I was going to have to go through an entire re-intall, re-configure, la-la-la, but no! I must admit I was quite happy!
brought its best to the table with Windows 7."
the way it is talked about on ZDNet.
"Ubuntu as slick as Win7, Mac OS X"
I'm a big Linux fan, but this position is difficult to justify.
Supporting info:
Ubuntu slick on newish 2GHz Core Duo (2GB), Leopard
slow on seven year old 1.5GHz G4 (1GB) laptop. Really?
" the logical move of shut down and reboot options to the
far right of the menu; the slick new notifications system;
the seamless (finally!) integration of the Nvidia accelerated
drivers and the cleaned-up options and package install
systems."
All good, but was this all that was required to raise to Mac
OS X?
Time to take a breath and reflect.
I think a lot of people judge the quality of an Operating System based on how closely it matches the "Ideal Microsoft Experience" which seems unfair. UBUNTU has a lot of things that when you learn them are better and lets face it, MS doesn't even match their own ideal. Personally,
I'm testing UBUNTU myself now. It hasn't been easy. I had Java apps that were supposedly cross-platform that didn't work because they were designed in Windows for Windows and Mac only. I've had to relearn everything I know about graphic design apps to use GIMP instead of Photoshop. I miss VBA, Excel, and Access macros; and I don't really have a replacement App in Linux I like yet.
On the other hand. There is the whole flavor thing in Windows I don't have to deal with. Wine on UBUNTU is awsome and it makes a beautiful media station with no security pop-up prompts or anything. (Yeah I said media!! It just makes a lot of the bad things go away and the good things get better without Direct X or Active Script) It is virus proof so I make visiting family use it everytime they come so I don't get weather bug installed when they visit. I do 90% of what I need now and have never crash, or blue screen, or get a warning telling me I'm not genuine enough to update. So I'm sticking with it.
It had some advantages on the Mac too. I could operate much quicker with less effort, securely; OSX always reminded me of navigating through jello, especially for administrative tasks. The system is clean and straight forward, where Mac tries to look new age and trendy to the point of gaudiness. It even setup a little quicker and with Synaptic, added all my software to boot.
Plus, it ran some cool games. I got World of Warcraft, World of Padman, Grid 2, and a couple others.
In order to keep Windows running at peak performance, I was running an antimalware scan nightly, running every aspect of Advanced Windowscare as well as running SmartDefrag at the end and once a month I'd run a full virus scan.
Advanced Windowscare was maintaining my registry, keeping me spyware free, cleaning my cache, tweaking Windows settings and a few other things. It also let me check the registry to be sure it was defragged as well.
With Linux, I turn on my machine, do my work, turn off my machine when I'm done if I'd like. Since I have a desktop, I tend to just leave it running constantly, even at night when I'm sleeping, connected to the internet. That's also not something I'd be comfortable doing with a Windows PC.
In a concerted effort to destroy the environment!
TRiG.
paying for anti-virus, paying for additional software
licenses and then having it infected with viruses,
worms, malware, spyware and trojans.
The Windows facade is cracking and it is costing
businesses money and customers.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39287854,00.htm
BSA offers $1m US 'piracy' bounty
David Meyer ZDNet.co.uk
Published: 04 Jul 2007
Americans willing to report their employers for using counterfeit software will be able to claim up to $1m (?496,181) in rewards, after the Business Software Alliance announced a three-month promotional bounty.
Your payments to Microsoft MUST go toward something! Could that be for the priviledge of having your DOA Microsoft OS's activated, and the WGA and DRM Rootkits installed on all your computers?
additional licenses for the products the previous
poster said he needed, BECAUSE HE DOESN'T NEED
THOSE PRODUCTS or has found free versions of them.
And this was meant for the next level.
As for not needing them, either he's one of the many overly arrogant IT professionals I've seen who don't realize what a minefield the internet is or his network isn't connected in any way, shape or form to the outside world including USB ports or optical drives or the easy ability to add any extra hardware to the mix.
Are all the Windows fanbois planing on switching? If not, how can it gain popularity?
^o^
Whether you want to believe it or not there are somethings that you aren't going to be able to do. The reasons that people claim Vista/Win7 are so much more secure are the same reasons that *nix has BEEN secure. So either all are much more secure or they aren't....which is it?
Of course the biggest issue with Unixen is root kits, right?
To be a worm it just needs a widespread remote vulnerability available on Linux. It probably wouldn't even need to be root-privilege.
Are you saying no such vulnerabilities exist *at all*? Remember, it doesn't have to be kernel code, it could be a utility, an application, a scripting language, or some combination.
Never say never.
NOW Linux comes up with oderless dung (software), so a huge pile of Linux will draw no more flies (worms) than a small pile.
Its the smell (structure) of the dung (software) that draws the flies (worms). NOT the size of the pile. Get it?
The main difference is marketshare, as OS X is discovering--and OS X *is* Unix.
Follow the money.
"Follow the money"? That's what I always say. Apple is not innocent of all questionable practices, but that does not make Microsoft any less guilty. I personally don't like either one, but at least Apple doesn't hound their customers like Microsoft does. They put the TPM chip on their motherboards and their customers are good to go, once they fork over their dough. Not dogged incessantly with Rootkits and malware trying to catch them stealing something and squeeze more money out of them to keep their computers from being disabled (or their capacity diminished, as they say) like Microsoft.
Enjoy your choice. I do mine!
The basic concept of any OS' security is the same, don't let malicious code in, if it gets in, don't let it run, if it runs, don't let it past the user domain.
The basic execution of any OS' security has tended towards being more varied than that.
Linux was built with multiple users in mind. With multiple users comes multiple accounts, meaning on any base Linux installation there are at least 2 accounts by default, one of those being root. The second account (the user account) is limited by default.
Sure, that's how Vista says it's set up but it's closer to sudo done very poorly. Sudo gives the user account temporary root privileges to do certain administrative tasks like installing a program or working with the guts of the OS. Vista takes the opposite approach.
With Vista, what you're really working with is the administrative account with chains on it. It's not a limited account with certain privileges granted, it's an administrative account with certain privileges stripped away temporarily.
The difference between these two takes on the idea may seem similar to some but think about it. With Linux, the privileges aren't there until you grant them. With the Vista and now Windows 7, those privileges are always there, granted or not, you just can't access them.
By the way, OS X didn't discover the difference is marketshare. Users of OS X discovered that they need to read the comments on torrent files.
My home system, for instance, has an admin account (the "chained admin" you mentioned :)) *and* my regular, limited access, user account with UAC, which gives me the equivalent of sudo.
At work we use Active Directory and Group Policies, so security is even more tunable.
Finally, Vista and the NT line in general are very much multi-user systems.
With Linux, sudo means being granted temporary abilities that aren't normally there. It's like letting a surgeon cut you open. You don't normally walk around with a big hole in your chest but you temporarily allow him to create a big hole in your chest.
With Vista, it's like walking around with a big hole in your chest and a patch over it. Sure the patch is fairly sophisticated but it's still not changing the fact that there's still a big hole in your chest.
That's the difference between sudo and "sudo", in other words, the sudo offered by Linux and the version offered by Windows.
I personally believe that virus coders don't go after Windows boxes to get the Windows users, I believe it is just to prove that they can break Windows.
Ubuntu, being supported by the community, isn't likely to get any major worms or viruses any time soon, I didn't say *never*, they will always appear eventually, but nobody really wants to break what they spend so much time building. The secure, stable and relatively "worm-free" standard that is Ubuntu is safe for the reasonably forseeable future. I use it, I love it. Now that I have been able to get it to run WoW, I find I am using Windows less and less.
Windows 7 *IS* polished. Vista, it ain't, people! Once I installed it on a decent box, (QX6600 with 8GB RAM, nVidia 9600GSO, and a 600GB striped HD) it ran like a striped-bootie ape. EVERY bit as slick and speedy as 32-bit XPSP3 on the same hardware, the 64-bit beta was fast, stable, had an AWESOME pre-release driver library, and was quicker-booting to boot... (well put...) I cannot say that I don't think it's a very respectable effort from MS. This being said, the Ubuntu64 is faster, prettier, even MORE stable, SUPPORTED!!! (community supported, true), also an awesome driver library, nearly anything you can do in Windows, you can do in Ubuntu (in most cases, almost as well) and best of all - it's free. When Windows 7 releases, I don't know if I'll be buying it or not. I really dislike the "clown-car paint-job" of XP and 7 out of the box, not to mention the speed hit that the skins cause. Win7 now (apparently) has ways to turn this off... It's going to be even FASTER. This I like.
worm I have heard maybe causing problems, are the socially engineered
worms. What worm is just downloading itself, and installing without me
knowing?
http://www.gamingbits.com/content/view/5641/2/
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.atlus.com
Game publisher Atlus sent a message for any visitors who may have gone to Atlus.com today, April 24th. It wasn't the usual cheery message Atlus fans are accustomed to receiving. The website from Atlus was hacked and could have spread some "malicious software" to today's visitors.
I don't see anything slick about ubuntu. Unless you mean the slick brown poop stain backgrounds they include. I don't see how anyone can stand looking at that all day. The interface is not clean at all, its actually rather kludgey. Ubuntu is no where near as slick looking as Microsoft Windows 7 or Mac OS X.
This was nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig. The internals are still the same, no dvd playback, plays only one sound at a time, and multimedia is a complete joke. Web browsing will only happen if you got to the most basic of html pages, and forget about flash sites because it will only crash your browser. You want new applications? Good luck trying to find them with G and K prefixing the undescribeable names that don't tell you what the application is. The other thing is that linux still doesn't take full advantage of your hardware. They have drivers for outdated hardware, and any new hardware has only the basic support for it. Even then you will need to download the source for the latest kernel that seems to need patches every few days, then compile it, run it, and watch it segfault and kernel panic.
Compare all that hassle to a Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X machine that just works. They both provide a complete out of the box solution for all your computing needs. Support is stellar, applications are plentiful, and the same applications you run in linux you can run them on Windows instead. Really there is no reason to even have linux installed unless you like wasting 10 gigs of harddrive space and days of your time. One blogger on zdnet actually spent an entire week trying to get linux installed!
This article has fluff piece written all over it. No one is excited about linux, that is a hard fact you fanboys need to deal with.
Much, much, MUCH later (if ever).
No rush! There's puh-lenty of time..........
They are a Leviathon, but they do not control destiny with their filthy lucre.
of this debacle of viruses, worms, malware,
will come to an end.
Look at how many MS Ads are on this site and
look at the progress Firefox has made without
the fanfare of a multi-million dollar ad
campaign...
Linux distros are SECURE, flexible and up for
ANY job with Open_Source tools that WORK
without excuses of oh it was an exploit
you got to patch it to cover up for the
other hundreds of security problems that
are in the 'Windows Tsunami' that cost
Companies money and customers.
Bottom line, if you provide a service and
the Windows environment is down, do you
think they care if about excuses?
Besides, until Adobe supports Ubuntu, Mac is the way to go. I am increasingly convinced one gets what one pays for. Especially if the company starts with an "A" and not an "M".
been pathed years ago but MS decided it wasn't worth the cost to them. Now it
has cost the industry billions of dollars. With linux something like this would not
have been left to fester.
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