What I like about Ubuntu

I have a new PC, and both my bluetooth dongle and mp3 player no longer work; some problem or other with the USB ports. So I’ve upgraded to Ubuntu. I can no longer recover from standby or hibernate mode without a hard reset (possibly because I’m using the proprietary fglrx drivers for my ATI card rather than the free radeon ones) but that’s a small price to pay.

Skimming through Mark’s subscriptions I saw an article from Debian Package of the Day which looked quite useful for what I’m doing at work. It included the application name, so I quickly dropped to gnome-terminal using Deskbar, typed apt-get install agave, pressed “Y” and voila, there it was in my Applications menus listed under “Graphics”, exactly where I expected it to be. It just doesn’t get much easier than that.

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7 thoughts on “What I like about Ubuntu”

  1. Hi ya Pip. I found your blog via your Flickr. Hope you don’t mind the presumption.

    Anyway, I really, really like Ubuntu. I got a terrible virus/worm in January (I was warned, and disregarded it. Never again.)

    I dual boot now but only because I don’t like any of the linux alternatives to the iPod’s firmware. (Don’t belive the hype. Amarok is good, but it’s no itunes.)

    What I like about Ubuntu is this: It may not work somtimes, but it never works _against_ me.

  2. Hi Gabe, no problem with you being here at all 🙂

    Fortunately for me, I completely despise iTunes, so Amarok is a welcome relief – it probably helps that I don’t own at iPod 😉

    This is my third attempt at switching to Ubuntu (I ran Mandrake in a former life), and it’s so far going better than previously.

  3. As Pip knows, I’m a long term Ubuntu user. I’ve got three boxes I use daily running with it, and I’ve never had any problems with normal hardware (my old Thinkpad gave me a challenge because the PCMCIA network card I have wasn’t supported in the install until 6.06 came along).

    Regarding iPod firmware, Gabe – have you tried Rockbox? I’m a convert, I’ve ditched the Apple iTunesDB altogether now. (I’m with Pip, iTunes is horrid.)

  4. I’m using debian stable and unstable on different machines. Yes this system is never actively working against the user.

    Pip> Yes your problem will be with the Proprietary ATI drivers. Are they easy to install for you?

  5. Yes, they were very easy to install. I’ve since installed the free ones, but Beryl stopped even working, so I’ve gone back to the non-free ones.

    I think the problem is actually Beryl. Using either of the drivers, I can shutdown from within Metacity A-OK. But from Beryl I have to logout, *then* shutdown.

  6. ATI have recently released new drivers which are meant to be better (in past week/two weeks). My friend using Suse says he gets much better frame rates than previously (2000 fps faster?!). If their are updates it might be worth cheching for you.

    Sorry I dont know much about this issue because my ATI card at home is so old it is best supported by the open source driver. IE it doesn’t do much 🙂

  7. Literally seconds after I read your comment the Ubuntu Software Updater told me about new fglrx drivers, so I’ve installed those and hopefully that’s what I needed 🙂

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