Response to “12 ideas Ubuntu should steal from Windows 7″
I really don’t want to build a reputation as some kind of bulldog guarding the gates of Ubuntu from articles from Digg’s Linux/Unix front page that try to point out Ubuntu’s deficiencies. We’ve already had this one, and I’m reluctant to write the one I’m starting right now.
But I would feel dirty inside if I let the “12 ideas Ubuntu should steal from Windows 7” slide by without a comment.
Before I get started, though, keep in mind that part of my problem is that Ubuntu “should” steal the ideas, and that it should be from “Windows 7.”
- Better boot time: We already have this. Jaunty has an excellent boot time, and if Canonical says that Karmic’s going to have a better one, I wholeheartedly agree with them. Ubuntu should steal this from Windows 7? Why steal what you already have? Ubuntu: 1. Windows: 0.
- Improved suspend and hibernate: Three things: 1) I’m the first to agree that it’s still a problem. 2) It has gotten a lot better with each new release. 3) With a 25-second boot time, the problem is less pressing, but still inexcusable. Ubuntu: 1. Windows: 1.
- The taskbar: I agree that gnome-panel isn’t as pretty* as 7′s taskbar (unless you theme it heavily), but I think the question of functionality is more subjective (it’s dependent on what you need and how much work you’re willing to put into setting things up). And Oxford (the author) even points out that you can get a great experience with Avant (he calls it combined with the panel “the best user interface of all three major OSes”). *That said, if your panel in Ubuntu isn’t both more functional and more attractive than XP’s, you’re doing something wrong. Ubuntu: 1.5. Windows: 1.5
- Kid control: This is another matter of opinion. I’m in the camp that says “Ubuntu should have core functionality such that it will do anything the average user wants, out of the box.” So I think parental controls should be something you add (and they’re in the repositories–Dan’s Guardian is one for censoring the Internet, for example), not something you get. If you disagree, you could get them out of the box with a remix of Ubuntu, like Ubuntu Christian Edition. In conclusion: Something nice? Yes. Something Ubuntu should steal? I don’t think so. Ubuntu: 2.5. Windows: 1.5.
- Help! : I’ve never been completely impressed with Windows’ Help, but I’ll agree that troubleshooting is something it has and Ubuntu doesn’t. There’s a lot to be said for using the Internet (Ubuntu’s online documentation, Ubuntu forums, Google…), but there should definitely be stuff available outside of the cloud. Ubuntu: 2.5. Windows: 2.5.
- Drive encryption: Yeah… Ubuntu: 2.5. Windows: 3.5.
—I really hate it when websites put one article on multiple pages. It’s downright sleazy. </rant>— - Side by side view: …is a Compiz plugin. And has been. Kind of like workspaces, expo, annotation, the cube…Windows just can’t seem to catch up. Ubuntu: 3.5. Windows: 3.5.
- Better sound system: Media–and everything related to it–is my Achilles’ Heel of computing, so I’ll admit openly that I don’t feel qualified to discuss this. Sorry.
- Windows Media Player: Again, I’m not good with media. But in my limited experience, Rhythmbox has always “just worked,” and WMP has had random issues. To quote OA commenter thinkdave: “….have you even used Rhythmbox? I just changed the genre tag for a bunch of songs by right clicking the song and going to properties you know exactly the same way as all other media players. And you think ticking ‘share my music’ in the music sharing plugin is convoluted.” Ubuntu: 4.5. Windows: 3.5.
- That syncing feeling: …isn’t strictly Ubuntu’s fault, but it’s still a weakness. Ubuntu: 4.5. Windows: 4.5.
- Better back-up: Ubuntu has a number of good backup solutions in the repositories, and the choice to include one by default or not is purely a matter of opinion. Ubuntu: 5. Windows: 5.
- User Access Control: (Psst! Mr. Oxford! UAC stands for User Account Control…) And I don’t even want to hear about it. UAC is a poorly executed knockoff of *nix’s super users. UAC should try to learn from sudo/gksu, not the other way around. Why? There’s a consensus that sudo/gksu improve security, and are not intrusive, whereas UAC is marginally better than useless, and is extremely annoying to boot. Just for fun, let’s try doing things without enough privileges.
$ aptitude install thunderbird
...
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13 Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?
Final score: Ubuntu: 6. Windows: 5. On issues that were supposed to play to Windows’ strengths and Ubuntu’s weaknesses. Sigh.
Disclaimer: This is not a comparison of OSes. The numbers really don’t reflect anything significant about Windows–and are a greater indicator of Oxford’s decision-making when deciding what to include in his article.
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//Better sound system: Media–and everything related to it–is my Achilles’ Heel of computing, so I’ll admit openly that I don’t feel qualified to discuss this. Sorry.//
I am a professional musician/composer and can say that the audio services in Linux are a mess…I think ALSA and Jack should be all one needs to handle all and any audio task from mp3s, FLAC listening, to mixing audio from apps, to serious audio studio mastering and compositional work
I’m also writing an article on the subject for createdigitalmusic.com
keep an eye out for it
Regarding number 6(Drive encryption):
Since Ubuntu runs on the Linux kernel, it supports a lot more filesystems than Windows, including many encrypted filesystems, The Ubuntu installer (ubiquity; since 8.10) even has an option to give users a private, encrypted directory in ~/Private
“3) With a 25-second boot time, the problem is less pressing”
Stupid c***, the point of sleep is so that you don’t have to start up apps,when I leave work I hit the macs power button, I come in the next day press the mouse button and in under two seconds the desktop is back up and so is photoshop,itunes,mail,ichat,after effects,safari all ready to use… wheres linux by then? well 23 seconds of boot time left to go and then the start up times of all those equivalent apps
***Censored by admin.
Regarding point 12 I will admit that this can be rather annoying.
It is often the case that I need to edit a configuration file and forget to su or use sudo before doing so. Once I have made all my changes that will make everything function just the way I want I hit save and find out that I don’t have permission to write to the file. Depending on how many changes I made I will either save the file to a temp location and move it using sudo/su or just close the editor open the file again using sudo/su and redo the changes.
Implementing something system wide to detect when a user tries to do something that requires root permission might introduce some bloat but I think functionality to address this issue should be added to the defaul apps that it effects the most, specifically gedit and nano (or whatever is considered the default console text editor).
@ffsfdsfds I never said it wasn’t a problem, just that it was less pressing. There’s definitely a time and a place for suspend and hibernate (and you gave an example), but fast booting makes certain edge cases less important.
@ryanhaigh It would be nice to have an after-the-fact authentication feature… In fact, I’m going to go submit a bug report to Ubuntu’s One Hundred Papercuts program.
@ryanhaigh Update: it was already reported https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/389847
I never was a fan of sudo. It’s just a different way to login as root but not quite. And with sudo all you need is the user account login password. You see, i don’t like that at all.
This is why i don’t use distros with sudo. Especially why i don’t use ubuntu at all, it’s waaay to tied into the sudo via gui to want to even bother activating the root account in ubuntu.
@Timmy
Thanks for having the initiative to do that although I think the issue may be too complex to consider for the papercuts project.
@ ffsfdsfds
You know I’m sick and tired of comparing Linux to Apple. There is no point. Why? Does GNU/Linux control the hardware the kernel is written for? No. So if Apple has a feature in it’s OS that “just works” the reason it works is that the devs have access to the hardware and write the code for that hardware. Whereas the kernel devs haven’t got every concieveable piece of hardware and so cannot write code that “just works” for 100% of PCs. To give them their credit, the kernel devs work magic trying to support the hardware we use in our PCs, so when the Mac OS works flawlessly on the same hardware as Linux supports then start comparing it, otherwise Apple will always have an unfair advantage.
@ryanhaigh Yes, previous discussion on the bug revealed that it was a feature request, not a papercut.
[...] lo que ha hecho el responsable del blog Rannsaich mo Inntin (vaya nombrecito), que uno por uno ha ido descuartizando los argumentos de TechRadar para dar su [...]
[...] lo que ha hecho el responsable del blog Rannsaich mo Inntin (vaya nombrecito), que uno por uno ha ido descuartizando los argumentos de TechRadar para dar su [...]