[Hampshire] Online chat with Mark Shuttleworth
Pertinent to the thread on this list recently, I thought some of you might be interested in what the guy who (currently) bankrolls a lot of the Ubuntu development has to say on the matter. In an open online chat via The Register yesterday:- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/28/mark_shuttleworth_live_chat/ Just thought it might give people some background on things and what direction we're heading. Not trying to stir up the hornets nest, just passing on what the boss says :) Things that rang true for me:- Comment From Nick mr Shuttleworth,regarding your reference on Unity,we can see a slight dislike of experienced and new ubuntu users regarding it's hard to use interface.What are your comments on that matter? Mark Shuttleworth: @Nick, yes, there was a lot of consternation at the change. But we didn't see any way to get from old to perfect new without going through imperfect new, and we felt it was obsolescence if we didn't make the commitment. We had to leave a lot of friends behind, most of them are friends again. Register Gav: what was at stake for UB if that change wasn't made: the embrace of all interfaces, the 2008 reboot, the switch to Unity? was this a make-or-break for Ubuntu? Mark Shuttleworth: It was tough to lead, I can tell you. We had done very well just shipping the best of FLOSS, but it clearly wasn't enough. Back in 2008 we had a very hard time getting anyone to listen on the topic of design, and when we tried to lead, we found industry politics blocked us. So we decided to JFDI, and I'm glad we did. The rest have followed, grumbling. Mark Shuttleworth: Windows 8 is really interesting. Microsoft have realised they need to address all form factors. The Metro work is world class, but the tablet/desktop integration in Win 8 is sucky, in part because they were not willing or able to move the desktop as hard as we were in the shift to Unity. If we had tried to marry Gnome2 and a tablet, you would get Win8 :). So Unity on the desktop was in large part designed to make the tablet / desktop convergence slick. It's been copied by others, but I don't think they understand exactly what they were copying ;) Comment From Big Dave Do you see Linux Mint as a threat and are there any plans to bring Ubuntu closer to Linux Mint with its improved ease-of-use for users? Mark Shuttleworth: @Big Dave, am happy for Mint to be addressing the needs of its users. As a fellow Debian-based distro, we have a lot in common. I think there's a limit to how far you can go if you only appeal to people who are grumpy about change, though, because then you either have to maintain the old, or introduce new change yourself. Mint said they would maintain Gnome2, then stopped. Then said they would offer Gnome Shell Extensions. Then forked Gnome Shell. It's all good and OK, but I think it gets more difficult over time unless you commit to a vision and drive it. And I don't know what that vision is. Cheers, -- Alan Pope Engineering Manager Canonical - Product Strategy +44 (0) 7973 620 164 alan.p...@canonical.com http://ubuntu.com/ -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Online chat with Mark Shuttleworth
Pertinent to the thread on this list recently, I thought some of you might be interested in what the guy who (currently) bankrolls a lot of the Ubuntu development has to say on the matter. In an open online chat via The Register yesterday:- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/28/mark_shuttleworth_live_chat/ Hi, Is there a full transcript of this chat, or did you type all that in by hand? I cant see one on The Register. chris -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Online chat with Mark Shuttleworth
That is certainly interesting, and I totally missed it on the reg. FWIW, I don't doubt Mr Shuttleworth believes wholeheartedly in the direction he's taking Ubuntu, and no question he has the right to do so but. On 04/07/12 10:19, Alan Pope wrote: SNIP Mark Shuttleworth: Windows 8 is really interesting. Microsoft have realised they need to address all form factors. The Metro work is world class, but the tablet/desktop integration in Win 8 is sucky, in part because they were not willing or able to move the desktop as hard as we were in the shift to Unity. If we had tried to marry Gnome2 and a tablet, you would get Win8 :). So Unity on the desktop was in large part designed to make the tablet / desktop convergence slick. It's been copied by others, but I don't think they understand exactly what they were copying ;) This is where I can't follow his lead. To my way of thinking phone, tablet, POS, PVR, desktop and probably others are totally separate use cases which demand *very* different things from the user interfaces. I feel that those disparate uses should have, at most a subtle, arm's length influence over each other. Chris -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Online chat with Mark Shuttleworth
On 04/07/12 11:03, Chris Liddell wrote: This is where I can't follow his lead. To my way of thinking phone, tablet, POS, PVR, desktop and probably others are totally separate use cases which demand *very* different things from the user interfaces. I agree! I don't think you'll see the same unity on tablets/phones as you see on Desktops. Maybe something 'inspired' by the same UI and using the same underlying guts, so developers can 'write once'.. yeah yeah, we've all heard that before I know :) We can hope. I feel that those disparate uses should have, at most a subtle, arm's length influence over each other. True enough, but there's certainly some merit in having commonality in some components for familiarity sake. Similar ways of accessing settings, or sharing content for example. Rather than having to re-learn the way to do it for 3 different devices from the same vendor. It's certainly a challenge! Cheers, -- Alan Pope Engineering Manager Canonical - Product Strategy +44 (0) 7973 620 164 alan.p...@canonical.com http://ubuntu.com/ -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Booting 3 distros.
I have Ubuntu 10.04 and 12.04 on the first hard drive of my desktop machine. I thought I would try Fedora 17 so I installed it on the second hard drive and had it boot from that drives MBR not wanting to risk not being able to boot the other two. I thought Grubs os-prober on the first drive would find Fedora. It does not. Any suggestions on how I can boot Fedora. I tried Super Grub Disk and Plop Boot Manager but they also don't find it. -- Clive -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Booting 3 distros.
On 04/07/12 11:16, Clive Woodfine wrote: I have Ubuntu 10.04 and 12.04 on the first hard drive of my desktop machine. I thought I would try Fedora 17 so I installed it on the second hard drive and had it boot from that drives MBR not wanting to risk not being able to boot the other two. I thought Grubs os-prober on the first drive would find Fedora. It does not. I had a problem where grub2 on Ubuntu woudln't find Centos installed on a separate partition. It turned out that Centos used LVM for its disks, but I hadn't used that on Ubuntu. As soon as I installed the LVM libraries on the Ubuntu (apt-get install liblvm2app, as far as I can remember), grub found Centos. Simon -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] My 2p on the GUI 'Wars'
On 1 July 2012 22:19, Stephen Davies stephen.dav...@ultraconsulting.co.ukwrote: As a professional software developer who has been writing programms since the days of Card Decks, George 3 , SOFOR and paper tape, I find this latest craze on desktops (Gnome 3, Unity Windows 8) rather depressing. (Ignoring the 'touchy feely' of touchscreens that everyone seems to rave ove these days) If they had been around at the birth of GUI/Windowing systems I would have understood them. Now IMHO, this searching and every icon on the desktop idea is frankly so silly, it beggars belief. Just to add some balance to the thread - I recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my cousins laptop. It had Windows 7 on it which for some reason can get out on the network but none of the web browsers get a connection - I suspect a virus is causing problems and this was borne out by a malware scan. I offered to install Ubuntu in a dual-boot fashion. I then installed Chrome and Skype (test call made and works using in-built mic and webcam), locked them both in the left-hand launcher and job done. Suspend and resume also works cleanly. All easy, quick and without fuss (I was thankful that Ubuntu made it easy to create a live USB to install from). All in all pretty damn good just works-ness. Her 10 year old son (separate user account created) also took to it and found his way around (finding apps, changing background and even installing things from the Software Centre himself without problems). I think it is these guys that Canonical are aiming for and this is something Alan Pope was trying to highlight in the other thread. Anyway, now she has a working laptop and is happy (the only slight gripe being lack of Facebook Connect in Skype which Windows Skype has). I was glad that there was available a nice looking modern Linux, easy-to-use distro to come-to-the-rescue of non-techie users (fluffies) like this. I could have installed my own distro-of-choice Debian Squeeze on there and everything would also be fine... but then I'd have to fiddle with installing a back-ported version of iceweasel to get smooth fonts back, and faff around getting users to log-in without a password and a bunch of other things to make it more usable for fluffies. This is stuff that we put up with but many others will not. -- GPG Key fingerprint = B323 477E F6AB 4181 9C65 F637 BC5F 7FCC 9CC9 CC7F “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] My 2p on the GUI 'Wars'
I was glad that there was available a nice looking modern Linux, easy-to-use distro to come-to-the-rescue of non-techie users (fluffies) like this. I could have installed my own distro-of-choice Debian Squeeze on there and everything would also be fine... but then I'd have to fiddle with installing a back-ported version of iceweasel to get smooth fonts back, and faff around getting users to log-in without a password and a bunch of other things to make it more usable for fluffies. This is stuff that we put up with but many others will not. Interesting. Personally use Debian Wheezy (current testing). I have no gripe with iceweasel's fonts, though I may be less piccy than others, standard install, straight out of the repository. Log-in without password is not hard with either GDM or KDM. And to be honest, password-less login isn't something we all want enabled by default. There are many different options. That's important. There are also a lot of software houses (both proprietary and FOSS) who have an idealised view of how the user should be working, without actually appreciating the requirements that have led to the user working the way they do. Yes, a lot of the interface hardware has been around for a long time. And much of it is very poor for interactive display terminals (for lecture controls for instance). However, it is brilliant when it comes to coding, and engineering type jobs. PLEASE can we realise, that just because there is a new way to do something that is not in itself a compelling argument for doing it. It is however, sensible to consider how we might support it, and add that support into the back-end code. Optional front-ends are great, forcing a front-end on users that they don't like will lose you both current and potential users. It has been mentioned that KDE4 was buggy. Yes, the first release was. However, KDE4 looked very much like KDE3 with some nicer artwork, and (in my opinion) a much-improved launcher (which still has a switch to classic option). The back-end improvements were considerable, but the front-end was familiar. That was why people stuck with it (and many didn't move until about 4.2 anyway). Cheers all, Tim B. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Booting 3 distros.
I had a problem where grub2 on Ubuntu woudln't find Centos installed on a separate partition. It turned out that Centos used LVM for its disks, but I hadn't used that on Ubuntu. As soon as I installed the LVM libraries on the Ubuntu (apt-get install liblvm2app, as far as I can remember), grub found Centos. Simon Thanks Simon. I have LVM2 installed though it does not include liblvm2app, in fact that is not listed in Synaptic. If I run the command lvdisplay the boot partition on the 2nd. drive shows up okay. I ought be able to get to Grub on the 2nd. drive with chainloader but have been unsuccessful. -- Clive -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] My 2p on the GUI 'Wars'
Interesting. Personally use Debian Wheezy (current testing). I have no gripe with iceweasel's fonts, though I may be less piccy than others, standard install, straight out of the repository. Log-in without password is not hard with either GDM or KDM. And to be honest, password-less login isn't something we all want enabled by default. Just wanted to clarify: I use Chrome almost exclusively. The Iceweasel thing is to address ugly font rendering system-wide: http://lovingthepenguin.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/squeeze-fonts-firefox-update.html Log-in without password I found a hassle with Debian. I had to edit /*etc/pam.d/gdm3, add the user to nopasswdlogin group and finally delete their password if they had one set. * * * *I don't want it by default but it would be good to make it easy. This is where Ubuntu excels - in making it easier for fluffies (the Ubuntu download and install security updates automatically thing is another good example). * * * *Yes security is important but there are use cases where no password is fine. I wanted passwordless login for the 10 year old in the example above but not the adult user. However I do enable password less logins on my own machines for my wife and daughter.* -- GPG Key fingerprint = B323 477E F6AB 4181 9C65 F637 BC5F 7FCC 9CC9 CC7F “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” - Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Online chat with Mark Shuttleworth
On 04/07/12 10:19, Alan Pope wrote: ( snip _ Mark Shuttleworth: (snip ) We had to leave a lot of friends behind Cutting away at your user-base ? How very wise that is . Mark Shuttleworth: It was tough to lead ( snip ) We had done very well just shipping the best of FLOSS, but it clearly wasn't enough. ( snip ) we found industry politics blocked us ( snip ) So, now we know why Unity -- it's hardware-driven -- greed to capture the i-Pad, similar devices + Android, etc. internet phones. The software house isn't in the driving seat, after all. Follow the money .. Mark Shuttleworth: ( snip) Unity ( snip) was in large part designed to make the tablet / desktop convergence Just as I thought .. Mark Shuttleworth: ( snip ) there's a limit to how far you can go if you only appeal to people who are grumpy about change, though, because then you either have to maintain the old, or introduce new change yourself. Without polling your users. They'll take whatever they're given. Just drive right on ahead, fill up the vacuum behind you, with appeals to sympathy, on account of how tough it was to lead, what with having to inflict all that change, on the unwilling, poor you .. Mint said they would maintain Gnome2, then stopped. Then said they would offer Gnome Shell Extensions. Then forked Gnome Shell. It's all good and OK, but I think it gets more difficult over time unless you commit to a vision and drive it. And I don't know what that vision is. But now we know what /your/ vision is: out with the old, in with the new; at any price. Drag 'em all behind you, willy-nilly. They'll all get used to it ! Cheers, Indeed L -- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] My 2p on the GUI 'Wars'
On Wednesday 04 July 2012 18:14:08 Imran Chaudhry wrote: Log-in without password I found a hassle with Debian. I set this up regularly for my husband, my granddaughter and myself. I have never had a problem. (kdm, kdm-trinity, gdm with LXDE. also Lubuntu, but I don't remember whether it was there by default or I set it.) Lisi -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
