Ubuntu releases 12.04 Precise Pangolin LTS Linux

User Comments: 42

1. April 30, 2012 3:46 AM
   

   Archean, TechSpot Paladin, said:

   After many many (I couldn't bother adding few more manys) years I decided to have another go at linux. TBH I am not really disappointed this time around. Getting things to just work is still a hastle especially if someone is not experienced (or rather hardware support is still light years behind windows).

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2. April 30, 2012 5:02 AM
   

   Marnomancer said:

   That's exactly my problem.

   Reply
3. April 30, 2012 5:11 AM
   

   captaincranky, TechSpot Addict, said:

   After many many (I couldn't bother adding few more manys) years I decided to have another go at linux. TBH I am not really disappointed this time around. Getting things to just work is still a hastle especially if someone is not experienced (or rather hardware support is still light years behind windows).

   The last time I tried to do a live run of Ubuntu, (forget the version}, my Gigabyte board loaded it's backup BIOS. So, good luck with that. But sorry, I really don't care to join in the fun though.

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4. April 30, 2012 6:10 AM
   

   Archean, TechSpot Paladin, said:

   I hear you Captain, I am just 'exploring' what all the fuzz is about after so many years. Guess what I am unable to get HD6770M work with it so far, I suspect even IF I get it to work, I can't dynamically switch between IGP or discrete GPU, basically it means I have two problems here ........... so as I said it is still light years behind windows.

   Secondly, when they are aiming to gain consumer market share, they better improve the OS's hardware support + ease of installation/configuration, enabling most things to work right out of the box (if not everything); unfortunately they haven't made much headway in this respect as well.

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5. April 30, 2012 7:40 AM
   

   Siavash said:

   Guess what I am unable to get HD6770M work with it so far, I suspect even IF I get it to work

   Just get the Catalyst driver from AMD website and follow the installation instructions, just a few simple clicks and you are ready to go

   Secondly, when they are aiming to gain consumer market share, they better improve the OS's hardware support

   This isn't their duty and this kind of issues won't be solved until hardware manufacturers share their hardware drivers, they can't just achieve proprietary drivers quality with reverse engineering, etc

   ease of installation/configuration, enabling most things to work right out of the box (if not everything)

   Check out Leeky's Ubuntu Linux installation guides in tutorials section, it's a piece of cake BTW, regards to having most of things working out of the box, you should give Sabayon Linux (and Linux Mint) a try, they come with all of required hardware drivers, audio/video codecs, games, java, flash, utilities and a coffee maker ^^

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6. April 30, 2012 7:48 AM
   ihaveaname said:

   Any idea on battery life increases/decreases? 11.04's been great on my netbook which even Windows 7 Starter has trouble with.

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7. April 30, 2012 7:50 AM
   Morgawr said:

   ....[ ]...windows is for gamers and people who can't figure out what 1+1 actually is (in binary it's 3, don't beleive me.. look it up )

   Well, I looked it up and you're not going to like what I found. There is no "3" in binary math, just zeros and ones. So, that would make "1 + 1, actually 01! ( No ones, and one 2)

   linux is for people who actually wants to have an computer and learn something about it, don't complain on linux os if you don't want to learn something about computers, install windows, play games and shut up..

   You know, it's disturbing to run across posts such as this one. You can't spell, you don't understand binary math, nor the correct tenses of English verbs, yet you think we should, "shut up" because you're working under the delusional impression that what you have to say matters. Guess again.

   Actually, you are both wrong. 1+1 in binary is 10. It is a base 2 system..... (ie the first place has value 2^0, second place is 2^1.... so 1+1 = 1*2^1+0*2^0 =10) There are places where 1+1=0. For example modulus 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_arithmetic) or if '+' is not addition in the normal sense.

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8. April 30, 2012 7:57 AM
   Morgawr said:

   One should note that 10 in binary is simply 2 in base 10.

   All in all this if off topic... most people I know (myself included) use linux because of the amazing amount of high quality opensource applications and libraries. For doing heavy duty math or scientific computing, linux is pretty amazing.

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9. April 30, 2012 8:27 AM
   Guest said:

   the only thing keeping me from installing ubuntu is the fact that I am not a complete dweeb. Move out of your moms basement and get a real life. Unproductive with Windows? Please. Some of us want to play games, not read about them on a crappy safari or opera browser. Everyone knows consoles are for teenagers and sports games only. Linux blows almost as hard as you do

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10. April 30, 2012 8:40 AM
    Guest said:

    It's a pity that every article about 'buntu has to turn into the usual "windows vs linux" fanboy rant?

    I'm a long term Linux user (coming on to 10 years) and I'd just like to make it clear that the 'buntu fanboys and their puerile rants and raves most certainly do not reflect the opinions of every Linux user. Many of these are ex windows users who jumped on the 'buntu bandwagon just to be part of the "leet anti-windoze kewl kids club". buntards tend not to let the facts get in the way of a good rave... but in a few months when something breaks that he can't fix, he'll be ranting at 'buntu forums and then back to windows...

    It's horses for courses - use what you like, most serious Linux users couldn't care less about windows or who uses it, I know I certainly don't.

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11. May 1, 2012 2:59 AM
    

    Archean, TechSpot Paladin, said:

    @Siavash I have done that, but it doesn't seem to do the trick, and having spent many hours, I have given up for the time being as I need to focus on some other important stuff.

    I've also noted that battery life is worse on linux for some odd reasons, and I plan to get to the bottom of it during next week.

    Anyway, my conclusion is, for a 'relatively less knowledgeable' user if someone sets up a linux box for you, it will work just fine, otherwise they should stay with windows without a question.

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12. May 1, 2012 4:36 AM
    Guest said:

    I've also noted that battery life is worse on linux for some odd reasons, and I plan to get to the bottom of it during next week.

    It's a power management issue. If the laptop (I'm assuming it's a laptop?) has an Nvidia or AMD graphics chip, you will need a proprietary driver to get the best power management. The FLOSS drivers are reverse engineered - and in the case of the FLOSS Nvidia driver (nouveau) developed with no support whatsoever from the hardware vendor (when you consider that - nouveau is very good).

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13. May 3, 2012 5:06 AM
    Guest said:

    Really? You would upgrade from XP to 7? Why would you even bother? It's not rocket science to backup your data and format the hard drive. There must be a million posts all over the internet saying that a fresh install is preferable to doing an upgrade. Last time I checked Windows firewall is already setup after a fresh install (inorightlolwut) and is quite adequate protection alongside an antivirus unless you're a complete muppet and click on any files or links that you encounter without a second thought.

    Fresh install or upgrade doesn't matter. You still have to reinstall and configure all your applications. Compare it with an upgrade of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS. It took a few clicks and after an hour and a reboot all my apps and configuration were still there. No hiccups whatsoever. A fresh install is not necessary and so I did not need advice on the internet about how to do that. That's hard to beat imo.

    The default firewall in Windows is inadequate. First thing I do is disable it and configure the advanced firewall. Even with a firewall and antivirus prog you are NOT adequately protected because a default windows user account gives you admin rights which can be easily exploited by malware. I learned that the hard way, believe me.

    It is not only about clicking suspect files, there are myriads of other ways, that your system can get infected. Especially if you visit dodgy PHP based blogs a lot.

    Also all the shouting about "but it's free!!" - if you take a look around, there's almost as much free software for windows these days as there is for Linux.

    That's not the point. In Linux software is centrally accesible from a software center. In Windows you have to search the internet for the right app.

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14. May 3, 2012 5:09 AM
    Guest said:

    Still trying to figure out what I'm going to do when 11.04 goes off support.... Don't really like unity or gnome 3.... may have to switch to xfce. Mint is ok, but it still seems a bit buggy.

    Try LMDE with XFCE. Or vanilla Debian Testing/XFCE. I'm using it for about half a year now as my main system. It's stable and XFCE can be configured so that you can almost not distinguish it from Gnome2.

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15. May 3, 2012 5:25 AM
    Guest said:

    Opening up Synaptic and choosing software is indeed easy. What happens though when the installed software doesn't do what you need it to do, or what you need is not in Synaptic? Poke around trying to find the source code and download it and then finding a compiler and downloading that? And then dealing with all the problems that will invariably come from trying to compile source code? Are you kidding?

    I think I have had to compile one (1) driver in five years time, namely a realtek module for an usb Wifi dongle. It took me half an hour. I searched the forum, found the link in five minutes, clicked on download, extracted the archive, clicked on install.sh and voila, after a minute my wifi dongle was working without even a reboot. What is so hard about that? And in many instances you can just click on a .deb package from a browser and install it with gdebi. What is so hard about that?

    Like I said in my original post, Linux is not Windows and requires a certain level of expertise when you run into problems. I stand by my assertion that having to poke around for hours through forum after forum, for what many times is an overly complex, ridiculously long fix is nuts. The problem with these overly long fixes is that invariably one or several of the instructions don't work. That leads you to poke around in forum after forum trying to find a fix to the fix to the fix, if you get my drift.

    Have you ever had the pleasure of searching hours on forums for another cryptic windows error? Sometimes there's not even a solution, you have to wait for the next service pack.

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16. May 3, 2012 5:42 AM
    Guest said:

    I hear you Captain, I am just 'exploring' what all the fuzz is about after so many years. Guess what I am unable to get HD6770M work with it so far, I suspect even IF I get it to work, I can't dynamically switch between IGP or discrete GPU, basically it means I have two problems here ........... so as I said it is still light years behind windows.

    Secondly, when they are aiming to gain consumer market share, they better improve the OS's hardware support + ease of installation/configuration, enabling most things to work right out of the box (if not everything); unfortunately they haven't made much headway in this respect as well.

    You are barking up the wrong tree. It is not Linux but ATI itself that doesn't produce adequate HD667M drivers for Linux. For comparison: Windows does not make drivers for ATI and nor do the Linux kernel developers (except reverse engineered drivers). ATI should make its drivers compatible but it does not. In that respect one could say you bought an inferior product (like a washing machine with the software missing).

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17. May 3, 2012 5:50 AM
    Guest said:

    I've also noted that battery life is worse on linux for some odd reasons, and I plan to get to the bottom of it during next week.

    Maybe this will help you out: http://www.jupiterapplet.org/

    Anyway, my conclusion is, for a 'relatively less knowledgeable' user if someone sets up a linux box for you, it will work just fine, otherwise they should stay with windows without a question.

    I've seen a lot of "relatively less knowledgeable" windows users hose their system. Being a n00b is platform-agnostic.

    Reply

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