Ubuntu 8.04: hard(l)y worth a yawn

everybody is free to think their own way.
linux is just that, free as in beer and as in freedom.

cant talk about "copycatting" you mention, since i have not used windows for the last 20 months, never meet vista and probably will never meet.

Are you criticizing the apps, the GUI or the way the system runs?

Why not take another five minutes to write an article that actually explores the advantages and disadvantages of an open-sourced operating system, the differences between this release and 7.10, and how the thing actually runs.

Randall Kennedy,
You've done articles on Ubuntu and have used both Ubuntu and Vista. In my opinion, adding features to Linux that are similar to Windows is not bad, if these are useful and helpful items.

Is UAC a bad thing if it prevents rogue software from installing itself? Being a Windows user that is recently trying Linux, in the back of my mind I was wondering if Ubuntu sudo (sp?) was doing the same thing as UAC in Vista. Do you know?

PolicyKit: This is another question I had, and have not found an answer to yet. If Windows has Group Policy, is there an equivalent feature in Linux? If Ubuntu can offer a replacement to Group Policy, then that will seriously help businesses to adopt Linux. Or is there already something like Group Policy for Linux out there, or is there something better?

World Clock and Weather: Nice feature. Yes, I missed that too when switching from Vista to Ubuntu. Nice to know it will be there, eventually, in Ubuntu.

Prefetch: Wal-Mart is selling USB drives that are purportedly “optimized� for Windows Vista superfetch. Again, I wondered if Linux had a counterpart for this. It seems that Linux handles swap disk differently than Windows, so I wonder about this feature, but if it improves performance, why would I complain?

Mutliple Audio Sliders: This would be very welcomed in Linux. Is there a mixer that I’ve not seen yet in Linux? Will this new Audio subsystem for Ubuntu give better audio control? Will Linux become the multimedia OS of choice?

Start button/menu icon: Ubuntu doesn’t even have a single “start menu�. But who cares if they switched to an orb or whatever!?! Kubuntu has an icon too.

But overall, remember that if someone comes from Windows and tries Ubuntu, they’ll miss certain features, unless there is an equivalent feature in Ubuntu. And if you think about it, the more similar that a Linux distribution is to Windows, the easier it will be for someone to make the transition to Linux. If there are more similarities, then it will eventually be easier and easier for the less technically inclined audience to make an easy transition from Windows to Linux.

I think Canonical is smart to build in more similarities.

It's so weird that Ubuntu would copy features from Vista...It's not like MS copied to get Vista (aka Mac OS X version me2)

Don't bribe the developers. They'll put an orb there if they want to.

The only good thing I can say about this article is that at least it isn't another, "Why can't Linux be just like Windows?" Beyond that, the title is recursive.

You have every right to be biased -- I am -- but you've come to the point where you're just making a fool of yourself... UAC vs privilege separation: come on, Unix systems have run accounts as unprivileged users for decades, and various implementations (BSD, Mac OS X and several linux distros) have used sudo (allowing super user operations without opening a root account) for years. The icons you seem to have witnessed on some screenshot is just a logical evolution: allowing the same application to run unprivileged, then acquire privileges later whereas in Vista, you have to provide admin credentials from the get-go.

You're right when saying that Group Policies has a 8 years head start. But comparing it to PolicyKit is just a fraud.

About clock/weather applet: it's hardly the first such applet on either platform, and if someone was copied here, it's certainly Mac OS X.

Prefetch: nice idea, and basically a must if you run Vista. Could be a nice addition to some linux setups, though :)

Multiple audio sliders: Vista may have sliders, but its audio layer is a mess: you can google for Mark's Russinovitch blog entry about Vista losing network throughput when playing multimedia ("Vista Multimedia Playback and Network Throughput"). I don't use Vista, except at work, but I'm not sure its independent volume sliders allow you to send any audio stream to any audio device on your network with a click of a mouse, out of the box.

You stress the fact that linux has many of the features in Vista. The point is, it has some of them, and many more. And believe me, I'm not missing the "Cancel or Allow" feature.

Gutsy was named for a reason. It was supposed to be a more radical advance. Hardy is also named for a reason. It's a long term support release, and is thus supposed to be stable and refined. Naturally, putting in a lot of radical advancements could work against that stability. Ubuntu has a major release every six months, which is extremely frequent for any piece of software and pretty unheard of when talking about something as complex as an entire OS. I think it's more than reasonable to expect that some releases will be more radical than others.

Well,, except that the UAC thing, looks to me like what they are including seems to be a gui to control file permissions and groups, which have existed, and actually worked in *nixland long, long, long before Microsoft tried and failed to duplicate that kind of control in Vista. :)

God Bless

Even if Ubuntu ends up becoming an open-source, Linux-based, improved Windows, I'm fairly happy with it. There is still tons of work being done in packaging, the underlying capabilities of the system, and the plumbing that ties it all together which is independent of the standard graphical theme and widget set. The wonderful thing about Ubuntu, which you can't get from Windows and probably never will, is that you can switch out Gnome and all its trappings for KDE, Openbox, Xfce, Enlightenment, or any of a multitude of drop-in replacements or total overhauls.

Ubuntu is all about compatibility and easy-of-use, and so when Microsoft changes their OS, it makes sense for Ubuntu to react.

However, I too hope that they don't go with a little "orb".

Cheers,
Ryan

Randall Kennedy makes some very good points about "me-too-ism". I think that the more UNLIKE Windows Ubuntu Linux remains, the better its credibility as an alternative to Windows. But maybe that's just me.

E makes a good point that the more LIKE Windows Ubuntu Linux becomes, the easier the transition will be for folks like me who learned computing under Windows, and have Windows habits practically in our blood.

Either way, I will not be able to upgrade to Vista on my laptop, so this points out that Linux still uses fewer hardware resources, a major selling point for me. And it's hard to argue with the price difference -- Ubuntu Linux remains FREE.

What's wrong with copying features from Windows?

As long as they are good, useful, improvemts...

Heaven knows, Microsoft is the king of copying features (& stealing technologies).

But it's the natural progression of Open Source to evolve and adopt the Best new ideas... It's a good!

Randall Kennedy, how much are you getting paid by Microsoft for slandering Linux?

Why don't you vent your venom on Windows ME or Visual Basic or other Microsoft ripoffs?

Bruce,

I'm curious: In what way was "Windows ME" a ripoff? I wasn't aware of any comparable DOS-based GUI environments way back in 1999.

Likewise, Visual Basic, which has been around in one form or another since the mid-90's.

Hmmm...I just dont' get the connection. :-|

Wow, the superficiality of this analysis scares me...

1. UAC and PolicyKit do two separate things:
UAC confirms that the user really wants to perform the action he just ordered (on condition he does so from an administrative account).
PolicyKit verifies that the user who gave the command owns the administrator account he is currently using.

at least that is my experience from all the Cancel or Allow dialogs.

aside from that, who said anyone is copying from anyone else? PolicyKit is a natural progression from stuff like gksudo. just because 2 things are similar, doesn't mean they come from the same source.

2. just because MS has a head start doesn't mean they do it well, or that no one can catch up.

3. again, natural progression.

4. this is the only one that is likely to be copied from any MS product. (at least, if I understood it correctly)

5. when it comes to PulseAudio, I wouldn't really know. however, I do know audio on Vista is messed up, since it refuses to easily play on the device(s) of my choice, and I have to restart an app to use an audio device that was plugged in after it started. plugging and unplugging of audio devices seems the only way to switch between them.

Canonical has to convince people to specifically use their product over the competition, and that means they have to create a good product, because people could try it out before buying support contracts and if they don't like it, they won't pay.

MS is already the monolith, so all it has to do is create a marketable product that isn't bad enough for people to switch to another OS.

4. I thought you were talking about something else.

I always thought #4 was obvious, and therefor took it for granted that all OSs do it. it seems odd to me that it's being offered as a new feature, so I'd say that again this is natural progression and not copying.

copying means you don't do the hard part of coming up with your own ideas, but skip to the easy part of implementing them. there is nothing wrong with copying in and of itself, but if only copy and don't invent at all, that indicates you have a problem.

Some notable Ubuntu features:
-Multiple desktops
-3D effects
-Customizable top-to-bottom
-Independent volume control of all apps
-Free Software repositories
-Free office suite, free professional-quality image editor, etc
-Automatic upgrades to all software
-No copyright restrictions. Can be installed on as many computers as you want.
-100% free of charge

Clearly Ubuntu is years behind Windows.

Remember that Windows Vista was announced in 2005 and was released in 2007. There is plenty of prior art out there...

The clock and weather widgets can hardly be claimed as a Microsoft innovation. Two good examples available in Linux are SuperKaramba/Karamba(2003) and gDesklets(2004).

Multiple audio sliders are implemented in Ubuntu with the PulseAudio toolkit. It was previously called PolypAudio(name changed for image reasons) and featured an 0.1 version release in 2004.

Conversely, Microsoft borrows from the open-source world. Two Linux features that have made their way into Vista include 'address space layout randomization', a major security improvement (see Linux PaX around 2001), UAC (based off of the 'sudo' concept of eliminating full administrator users).

Ubuntu as a distribution is trying to increase it's share of desktop users. Features that appeal to the majority of desktop users will figure prominently for inclusion. You have even mentioned your appreciation for some of these features.

I think that there may be better perspectives to approach this issues from.

Randall you seem to be a moron.

I sure hope Mr Balmer is paying you well.

Umm... Microsoft named their entire OS after a feature of Mac OS that Microsoft lifted form Apple - in the early eighties!

Mouses, trash/recycling, desktops - the entire idea of 'windows' was lifted from the original mac.

BTW you could only be testing the first alpha release of 8.04 so all you comments are pointless. You aren't even speaking about an actual stable release.

Randall why don't you just go and enjoy your vista bloat and stop spreading FUD.

@infoworld.com - you should really speak with your HR dept. Cause if you kids paid Randall for this you're either mad or getting ripped off.

BTW sudo is vastly more secure than windows admin users and UAC is just trying to hop on the bandwagon.

You are a sick blogger! go see a doctor ASAP.

You seem misinformed.
1. Microsoft poorly copied these privilege controls from Unix/Linux GUIs.

2. Unix has had ACL support and privilege separation for a _long_ time. Policykit is not Ubuntu specific but is being driven from freedesktop.org and originally developed at Red Hat. Because Ubuntu has a new GUI to extend sudo and ACL control and replace several tools with one, it's ripped off? I guess Mac OSX Authorization Services is a rip off, too.

Note to ill informed writer: This foundations of this are based on POSIX 1003.1. Hmmm, didn't the first Windows NT start with a POSIX compliancy layer to implement this? Wasn't POSIX a subset of Unix functionality? Who copied who?

3. If you use KDE rather than Gnome, it supports just what you want- multiple clocks capable of multiple time zones. Maybe you should have installed Kubuntu if that feature is crucial to you. Of course KDE has supported this for years, so I guess they ripped this from Vista, too.

4. Funny, I have Ubuntu Gutsy and it has prefetch - actually more than one. gdmprefetch and readaheadlist. Get your facts straight.

5. Linux has multiple volume controls through ALSA at the hardware level. When enabled by default, PulseAudio will add volume controls at the application level.