Comments on: Memo to Canonical and Ubuntu: Stop Chasing Apple Mac OS X

By: Matt (Birmingham, UK)

Matt (Birmingham, UK) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:05:34 +0000

A lot of good points raised here, Hal you are the man! We should really appreciate the hard work from everyone who has anything to do with development etc.

I beleive that as Ubuntu is really aimed at linux newbies through to experienced users their effort would be better spent ironing out problems such as Wi-Fi hardware not working and playback of copyrighted and encrypted media such as commercial dvd’s. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to convince my girlfriend to make the switch if she couldn’t watch the dvd’s she got for christmas. Nor could i get her to read a 200 page book on how to use the system. If it is aimed to attract (mostly) windows users it needs to be intuitive on a novice level, and not require users to open a TERMINAL!!?? It would probably panic me too if I didn’t know what it was.

As already stated, the windows user KNOWS it would work…

By: Slapshot

Slapshot — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:11:53 +0000

One point that everyone seems to miss when comparing osX & Ubuntu is that Apple has 100% control over all of the hardware used by osX. We are comparing apples to oranges here (no pun intended). Ubuntu has to work for a wide variety of hardware components. If Canonical were to build its own laptop / desktop proprietary workstation, I have no doubt that everything in that workstation, wifi, bluetooth, etc. would work flawlessly with it. I am in no way suggesting that Canonical do this as I love having Ubuntu on every computer that I own.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:40:01 +0000

Personally, I think following Apple is a jolly good idea. Not in emulating the OS X GUI though, I think that would be exceptionally silly.

But, OS X is lorded as “UNIX for the rest of us” it’s exceptionally simply to get going, generally things do ‘just work’ and well… they do with Apple hardware (no surprise there). But you can open a terminal and there you go. Full on UNIX. Several of the things OS X does, like the graceful degradation of bling depending on the system specs should be cloned outright IMHO.

So following Apple’s lead in producing an exceptionally easy to use, pretty desktop which can, for the most part, configure itself depending on the hardware present and so on and so forth… is probably the way to go.

After all, how many people do you hear bitching about OS X compared Vista? Probably best to not follow Microsofts lead

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:20:24 +0000

Nasir: I spent last night working on Ubuntu. Today, I’m on Mac OS X for a few hours. I’m thrilled with Ubuntu’s price-performance and easy of use. But the Mac is still a “total” experience that melds hardware and software design into a single, impressive product experience.

By: Nasir

Nasir — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:45:15 +0000

MORE elegant than Mac OS X ?!? Now that is something I’d like to see. I doubt if Ubuntu has the capability to come anywhere close to the elegance of Mac OsX . Design by Dictatorship wins everytime over open touchy feely stuff. Plus X is the underlying system on Mac Os anyway.
They should focus on leapfrogging the current gen and working on the best possible OS for the GRID whichis bound to supercede the internet very soon and will put an end to local storage and local processing capability in favour of shared computing power.

http://islamabadite.blogspot.com

By: John

John — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:20:43 +0000

Branding – Dell puts stickers on their systems. You can also request FREE stickers from System76. I do think it’s a good idea for ubuntu to put a free sticker with every printed CD.

Flavors – Canonical should trim the consumer view of Ubuntu to just Ubuntu. Stop the talk of Edubuntu, kubuntu, xubuntu. On SFD when I was talking to the general public, someone would see a Kubuntu disk or mention kubuntu and it was really confusing for them. If needed make an Ubuntu Lite for netbooks and really old machines. That is far easier to explain over kubuntu or xubuntu. Both of which can be added later through the package manager.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 01:16:58 +0000

If people are worried about names like Kubuntu, Edubuntu etc. Why not just go with Ubuntu KDE, Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu – Education etc.
Would Canonical be better served by making a different installer disc, instead of making several versions have onwe with all varieties on one DVD. That way you can construct your flavours as you install. Add an install step to ask the installer what interface would you like and show a graphical representation of Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment, XFCE or whatever. Even to the point that it is a menu with small thumbnails of each desktop on which you click to show a full size environment for the newbie.
Likewise would you like the educational suite included on you Ubuntu , then simply answer yes to that question.
Another option would be to have a simple quick install with the standard Ubuntu and then give a menu option for creating a customised install.

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:36:49 +0000

Adey: Thanks for posting the insult. Kidding aside, are you an Ubuntu user? How would you like to see Ubuntu evolve?

By: adey

adey — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:34:06 +0000

I think Mark Shuttleworth knows vastly more about the subject than you – as clearly demostrated by your posting.

your article which completely misunderstands what he meant by design and polish.

kthankxbai

By: Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:16:12 +0000

@Lob: Regarding your points about “Designed for Ubuntu” branding… The vast majority of NetBooks (sub-notebooks) hitting the market right now will include the option of having Ubuntu pre-installed. Now, let’s hope Canonical pushes hard to get an Ubuntu logo on ALL of those systems.

By: Hal

Hal — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:06:10 +0000

Man, we have some weird thinking going on here…
Some of the readers think there’s a Linux “organization” in control for Linux (like there’s an Apple or Microsoft organization), that has a corporate agenda, profit plans, product management, a marketing department and budget.
The newbies are complaining that it’s too complex and not “just like XP” – that’s like the line in the film “Shirley Valentine” where some working class clod complains that “Greece would be perfect… if it was just like Italy”.
The problem is, we’re comparing something amazing, that has been created by thousands of independent people and given (as in a GIFT) to the rest of us – with no money changing hands, nor expectation of money, and some of us are still whining “why didn’t they make it just like this unstable thing I paid $140 for and have to patch regularly, because I’m used to it”. We should be canonizing some of these developers for even bothering to create something for others.

We’ve been given what really is a Cadillac operating system by now, and all we can say is “Why isn’t it a Lincoln?”.

I really worry about the Human Race – nobody seems capable of reading a simple manual, or buying any of the incredible books on these operating systems to find out how to use them… and we seem to discount the fact that, unless we just sprang out of the ground fully formed 20 minutes ago, we’ve all grown up using one flavour of Windows or another, and have forgotten all the frustrations and things we had to learn over the years to be as effective (or ineffective) in Windows as we are by now.

As for the various flavours of Ubuntu, does Canonical even create those, or are they derivative works based on Ubuntu for specific markets and created by enthusiasts who see a specific need for a target market and know how to make that happen?

When choosing a distribution, do what you would do if you wanted to buy a home theater system or a lawnmower … do your research, find out what each model/distro can do, find some reviews on the web and choose the one that does what you want. It’s not like you’ve made an unrecoverable error if you need to go to another distro someday – save your data, install the new distro and you’re back online in about an hour. Try that with Vista if you find you really preferred XP!

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:05:22 +0000

I too would like to see “designed for Ubuntu” or similar phrasing on hardware. It might encourage other hardware manufactures to follow suit. The comsumer shouldn’t ahve to jump through hoops to install anything. Also target more cheap pc’s/laptops/netbooks to have Ubuntu installed the way Xandros has, get it out there. Id like to be able to buy an Ubuntu computer in my local Dixons/PC World.

Rob
(Ireland)