The Ubuntu Complaints Thread

[walfin]

I just upgraded to Precise Pangolin (Kubuntu).

It seems like there is little to no change in the OS since the last version and I don't know what I wasted all that time upgrading for.

The attitude of contributors is getting more ridiculous; there's this bug where you'll get an error in startup (and have to press a key to continue, which is dumb since you can't startup your computer then go make a coffee or something) if the root file system is btrfs and the response of the devs was basically "this is a wishlist item not a bug". WTF.

And I have no real alternative. I don't like Windows or Mac OS and despite its flaws I don't think there's a more user friendly and usable (on a daily basis) linux than Ubuntu.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

You know you want to.

 

[pjoa09]

You know you have to.

 

[walfin]

People still use slackware? (Lol, kidding)

I upgraded the other machine to Precise, and it happily uninstalled my Nvidia and WiFi driver. At least I have wired LAN; what if I didn't?

Their upgrade process just gets suckier and suckier.

At least this time it didn't give me the "unable to complete...your system is now in an unstable state" error.

 

[A22]

Let's start a new OS. I give you the ideas, you do the coding.

 

[Architect]

I was on Linux back in the .97 days, when you had to go to a computer swap meet to get the disks. Not long after Linus started the whole thing, but I gave it up sometime in the early 2000's after realizing that for all it's power I was spending most of my time configuring and getting the system to work, rather than getting work done. I went to the next best commercial UNIX, namely OS X.

Fast forward to today, I decide to see what is going on in the Linux world again and set up a small Atom box with Linux. Fire it up, and it refuses to recognize my native screen resolution. So I'm back in to XConfig mode lines, reading FAQ's, obscure archived discussions ... why did I bother? Gave it up after a few days of trying to get it to work (couldn't).

 

[A22]

^ That's the fun of using Linux

 

[nexion]

I have no complaints for Ubuntu on my laptop. Everything works without a hitch (even though the first time I installed it I accidentally formatted my entire HDD and lost my Windows partition).

On my desktop, everything had worked fine except my wireless adapter was not natively recognized. I read quite a bit on the matter and tried to fix it with ndiswrapper. I had no fucking clue what I was doing and completely deleted it in the same day. I've been using Windows on it ever since, though I think if I went back to it now I might be able to get the internet working. But now I don't even have space on my HDD to make a good sized dedicated partition.

 

[walfin]

I think Ubuntu's been largely fine. I still use it on a daily basis (and am using it now).

It's just that the recent releases (post-Lucid I would say) seem to be less "ready out of the box", and the upgrades always seem to screw something up nowadays.

That said, I might just switch to Mint...

Fast forward to today, I decide to see what is going on in the Linux world again and set up a small Atom box with Linux. Fire it up, and it refuses to recognize my native screen resolution. So I'm back in to XConfig mode lines, reading FAQ's, obscure archived discussions ... why did I bother? Gave it up after a few days of trying to get it to work (couldn't).

Huh? You must've got some exotic hardware.

 

[shrub77]

Fast forward to today, I decide to see what is going on in the Linux world again and set up a small Atom box with Linux. Fire it up, and it refuses to recognize my native screen resolution. So I'm back in to XConfig mode lines, reading FAQ's, obscure archived discussions ... why did I bother? Gave it up after a few days of trying to get it to work (couldn't).

I was trying to get that to work today! I have an Atom netbook which I connected to an external monitor and it refuses to recognize my native res. I used xrandr to add a new line and set the mode to my native res, but it underscans (parallel black bars along the sides), Have you made any progress?

OP you should try Mint 13, but I still think Ubuntu is top due to its large community and support

 

[Stoic Beverage]

Honestly, I'm pretty happy with it.
I first was introduced to it when I first switched to Linux (back in 10.04, I think). I switched away pretty quickly for the charms of Arch, but I just recently came back to check out Precise Pangolin.
Install was quick and painless for me, and while I honestly don't notice all that much difference, it's serving me perfectly well (on my laptop, at least.)
On my main box, it's Slackware, of course.

 

[opheliaesque]

Yeah I have a complaint.

Not to ubuntu, but to OSX, rather. It won't let me instal ubuntu onto USB. I'm blocked by the infernal read-only file system left and right.

Also .FAT format files?

Lame.

 

[nexion]

I had forgotten this thread existed.

A few days ago I ditched Ubuntu on my laptop for Crunchbang. I was going to do this eventually (namely, when my version of Ubuntu stopped being supported in 4.13, because then I would have had to use Unity rather than GNOME, and no thanks), but I decided to do it a little earlier than that.

Crunchbang is a really simple debian based OS that uses the Openbox desktop. And by simple, I really mean simple. The only thing on the desktop be default is the workspace bar and Conky (does stuff like show CPU/RAM usage and key shortcuts). The one menu is accessed by right clicking or Super + Space as Conky says. The nice thing about it is that literally everything is right there on that one menu. It makes GNOME looks bloated by comparison.

I'm glad I chose it over Debian or Mint. It's really cool.

EDIT: Here's a picture:

Spoiler

 

[opheliaesque]

The number of linux distributions is too damn high!

 

[nexion]

The number of linux distributions is too damn high!

Sure, but that's part of what makes it so great.

Of course, that's also part of what makes it broken...

With so many distributions which are all based on different other distributions with different file managers and package managers and desktops, it seems that there is significant fracture within the Linux community. Of course, I think most developers and distributions are generally amiable towards each other, realizing that each distribution represents the developers' ideal visions for what a distribution should look like. Yet, at the same time, because of all this splintering, even though the package repositories are well-managed and centralized, it seems that the OS family itself is fragile and decentralized.

This is one of the only areas in which (for me) proprietary OS's are better than Linux OS's: they maintain stability in their vast library of (albeit decentralized) programs, addons, and plugins by only having a few major distros (assuming you want to call Windows Home/Professional/Ultimate/Server different "distros"). So no matter what version you're running you know whatever you have is going to work as long as you have the necessary framework, whereas, with Linux, you have to worry about different package managers like apt-get, aptitude, pacman, etc. and also about which desktop your distro is running (programs designed for one desktop will not always work for other desktops). I realized this while installing some packages for Crunchbang that I previously used on Ubuntu. Both distros are based on debian (crunchbang actually used to be based on Ubuntu itself), and both use the apt-get package manager, but yet many programs didn't work because Crunchbang doesn't have the GNOME framework that Ubuntu does. Very frustrating indeed...

 

[Architect]

I was trying to get that to work today! I have an Atom netbook which I connected to an external monitor and it refuses to recognize my native res. I used xrandr to add a new line and set the mode to my native res, but it underscans (parallel black bars along the sides), Have you made any progress

No, gave up and am putting up with crappy resolution.

 

[Marcher]

I still have Ubuntu on a disc somewhere and have a custom distro on Suse studio (google it - you can make your own Linux distro online).
I used to use Ubuntu and Kubuntu and switched a lot between the two. However I'm back on good old Windows XP for now though. Windows is just more practical for running programmes and playing games. Linux has programmes for general things but none of the really specialist stuff that you can run on windows.

I have been tempted to install ubuntu alongside xp but think it's too risky. I'll get a new PC soon, I'll probably install Ubuntu or my own distro on this one then.

 

[toastedtruth]

I wish they'd simplify things. Reminded me of this comic.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I have been tempted to install ubuntu alongside xp but think it's too risky. I'll get a new PC soon, I'll probably install Ubuntu or my own distro on this one then.

It's pretty safe to install Ubuntu after Windows, the boot record will be left alone. The best choice though is two separate HDDs, which is what I did.

What kind of PC are you planning on getting?

 

[nexion]

I wish they'd simplify things.

Not saying it wouldn't be nice if this stuff were simpler for the layperson but this is the wrong mindset with which to go into this stuff. If you want simple with a lot of automatic stuff and nice GUIs stick with Windows or Mac OSX or Ubuntu. If you want a highly customizable and configurable machine that does exactly what you want it to and are willing to put forth the effort to make that happen, delve into the wider world of Linux.

For the record: Linux Mint looks much nicer than Ubuntu (at the very least, it does away with Unity and goes for more of a Gnome2 feel despite being based on Ubuntu), but LMDE with XFCE looks pretty nice too.

It's pretty safe to install Ubuntu after Windows, the boot record will be left alone. The best choice though is two separate HDDs, which is what I did.

The MBR will be left alone? You can opt to not install Grub to the MBR but if you don't windows will not be able to boot into the Ubuntu partition without manually adding it to the windows boot list. I have never had any problems with installing Grub or with it detecting/booting my Windows partitions, and if you decide to remove the Linux partition later, rebuilding the MBR through Windows is just a quick bootsect away.

But if you are dual-booting Windows/Linux, then you definitely want to install Windows first.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

The MBR will be left alone? You can opt to not install Grub to the MBR but if you don't windows will not be able to boot into the Ubuntu partition without manually adding it to the windows boot list. I have never had any problems with installing Grub or with it detecting/booting my Windows partitions, and if you decide to remove the Linux partition later, rebuilding the MBR through Windows is just a quick bootsect away.

But if you are dual-booting Windows/Linux, then you definitely want to install Windows first.

Yeah. In reference to Windows tampering with any boot data if you install Ubuntu first as primary. With Windows as primary, you can install Ubuntu(and GRUB) unproblematically, since Ubuntu is not as interfering, and Windows will leave it alone along as it's primary.

 

[walfin]

Use BURG, it's a lot nicer, only without mouse support. And you can change themes at runtime. Unless you use btrfs, in which case for some strange reason it refuses to install.

I used to use XOSL just for the mouse support.

I wiped PulseAudio today. If there was ever a more retarded audio backend... lots of time spent trying to force it to detect the mike properly so I wouldn't keep having intermittent speech on skype, and the best solution was simply to uninstall PulseAudio and use the VLC backend. Quietly weep indeed.

I've been noticing this orange starburst icon with an exclamation mark in the system tray from time to time. When I click it, it says "System error blablabla" but then I click continue and the system actually continues. What kinda nonsense is this?

Crunchbang is a really simple debian based OS that uses the Openbox desktop. And by simple, I really mean simple.

I used to use IceWM and gave up simply because I was using too many KDE apps.

The long startup times were no fun. I'd rather have a bit more bloat and have my apps start quicker.

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

When I installed Ubuntu 12.10 64bit it was trouble from the start. It wouldn't recognize my resolution, ethernet, or speakers. I eventually fixed all the problems but realized that I didn't like Ubuntu because I couldn't get iTunes to sync under wine.

 

[walfin]

For some inexplicable reason all the menus (including context menus) in Firefox are now not working after some stupid update. Or rather, they stop working at random.

Update, my arse.

Maybe this is an attempt to force all of us to switch to rekonq. But I don't like that I can't put the tab bar beside the toolbar. Besides, the plugins are screwy.

I didn't like Ubuntu because I couldn't get iTunes to sync under wine.

GTKPod didn't work?

 

[nexion]

I forget that this thread is about Ubuntu... there are much better distros out there, guys! Debian, Arch, Mint. I mean seriously. (looks like rpm based distros are on a steady decline and I'm not gonna bother with Gentoo).

 

[walfin]

Once in a while, there is a pleasant surprise. DockBarX works again!

Are RPM distros really declining? Last I heard, RHEL was still making money and so was SUSE. At least in the corporate server market.

 

[walfin]

I just upgraded to Raring Ringtail. No complaints this time, it didn't do something stupid like change my menus to English like it did the last time, or give me some weird system error. Only annoyance was that it installed grub (yet again) which I had to purge again, but no biggie. And my mic got miraculously fixed!

I notice that Kubuntu is now not putting the codenames on it's webpages announcing the release. Hm.

 

[walfin]

This is not a complaint too. I upgraded my other machine to Raring and it's running faster now.