Elementary OS Luna released today

[Growled Member]

^ True, different strokes for different folks. That's what I love about Linux. :)

[Max Norris]

I find it awful, myself. Pretty, though. However, it's still Ubuntu underneath so I can do whatever I wanted with it.

Ditto that. Just my opinion, but it feels like a "grandma desktop." Wayyyy too dumbed down for my liking, I guess it depends on what you're looking for of course, I prefer having more options, not less. Definitely has style though, one of the better looking out-of-the-box setups for sure.

[ViperAFK]

Isn't it still based on Ubuntu?

Yeah, ...so? Being based on ubuntu doesn't make something "not a real distro" if that is what you are insinuating. Luna has done a lot more of their own work and code than many other linux distros out there...

[Growled Member]

Yeah, ...so? Being based on ubuntu doesn't make something "not a real distro" if that is what you are insinuating. Luna has done a lot more of their own work and code than many other linux distros out there...

Oh, I have no problem calling them a distro, and I admire what they have done. They seem to be in the same niche with Deepin and Zorin. Some of these small distros are doing some amazing work. 

[ViperAFK]

Apparently not everyone is overwhelmed by it:

 

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/elementary-beta.html

That's a review of the beta from april. Most of the issues have been fixed since then (like the samba shares in the file browser.). I'm pretty sure the printer bug has been fixed too (In may, after that review, the buggy gnome print settings dialogue, which is what is shown in his review, was replaced with system-config-printer in luna, which is what ubuntu uses and it works fine). And the rest was him bitching about the minimize button and a bug with noise not installing codecs (I'm not sure if that one is fixed, I usually install them manually with synaptic beforehand) :p

 

And I've also *never* liked that guy's reviews. He has a tendency to review beta software and treat it as final software and other silly things. Before he updated this review to be a review of the beta, he had actually installed pantheon on top of ubuntu 13.04 or something, which resulted in a bunch of bugs (obviously since pantheon isn't tested on anything but 12.04) and he ranted and raved about how terrible it was.

 

Luna is certainly not perfect, I just hate it when people review beta software and act like its "final". He doesn't even mention the word beta once in that entire review!

 

The only bugs I ran into in the final were: Slingshot menu opening slowly sometimes (and there's a fix committed for this so it should be fixed in an update soon), and a super annoying bug with the indicator menus where they often open too far to the right so part of it goes off screen, and they kind of "jump around" like that sometimes when switching in between them. That bug is actually the reason I'm not using it lol, it really annoys me everytime I see it :(. And unfortunately there's been no progress on the bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/wingpanel/+bug/1007630 (the original bug description makes the bug seem less annoying than it actually is, some of the comments explain the annoying menu positioning issue that it causes). The bug doesn't really effect usability, but I get really OCD about things like that xD.

[Growled Member]

^ It did say Beta in the link. :P

 

And I don't care for his reviews either. 

[sanctified Veteran]

Ditto that. Just my opinion, but it feels like a "grandma desktop." Wayyyy too dumbed down for my liking, I guess it depends on what you're looking for of course, I prefer having more options, not less. Definitely has style though, one of the better looking out-of-the-box setups for sure.

 

How you have less options? What can you do on a Debian desktop that you cant on Elementary?

[Max Norris]

How you have less options? What can you do on a Debian desktop that you cant on Elementary?

That's kinda-sorta apples and oranges, Debian isn't a single desktop but a distribution that carries a multiple desktops in their repository, never mind I don't even use Debian, at least on a desktop end. (A couple servers though.) That said, it's little things. The file manager for example is just missing a ton of functionality versus say Dolphin. The dock is serviceable but also lacks some functionality, etc. It's not a put-down against Elementary, I think it's quite good, it just seems to be geared towards a less-technically oriented mindset.

[AJerman]

How you have less options? What can you do on a Debian desktop that you cant on Elementary?

I was going to say the same. Granted some of their in house apps are a little new and lacking some customization, but for the most part it's just another flavor of Linux. You can do anything you could on any other version of Linux. But as a whole the UI is perhaps a little on the simplistic side. It could use a little more customization, but that will come with time, I'm sure. I for one welcome the simplistic UI. I want to use Linux on my home computer/HTPC, but I don't want to deal with... well, Linux. Unless I want to for some specific reason that is. Mint has been pretty good for me, but this is just enjoyable to use.

That's kinda-sorta apples and oranges, Debian isn't a single desktop but a distribution that carries a multiple desktops in their repository, never mind I don't even use Debian, at least on a desktop end. (A couple servers though.) That said, it's little things. The file manager for example is just missing a ton of functionality versus say Dolphin. The dock is serviceable but also lacks some functionality, etc. It's not a put-down against Elementary, I think it's quite good, it just seems to be geared towards a less-technically oriented mindset.

 

You replied as I was, so I'll just tack this on.

 

Yes, I agree, like I was saying above, that some of their apps are little simplistic. elementary, even by it's name comes off as an attempt to keep simplicity, but I do think it's more of a newness factor. This is a 0.2 version, and the last version really was just a skin. I would like to see some more functionality added to the core first party apps they build.

[guitmz]

you know you can all share those opinions directly with the devs at G+ (they are very active there) and for those who want to, they can help on the code.

 

i do agree pantheon files is simple but hey they built it from nothing so yeah it's quite good for daily use already

[sanctified Veteran]

That's kinda-sorta apples and oranges, Debian isn't a single desktop but a distribution that carries a multiple desktops in their repository, never mind I don't even use Debian, at least on a desktop end. (A couple servers though.) That said, it's little things. The file manager for example is just missing a ton of functionality versus say Dolphin. The dock is serviceable but also lacks some functionality, etc. It's not a put-down against Elementary, I think it's quite good, it just seems to be geared towards a less-technically oriented mindset.

 

What I meant is that this is based on Debian and the principle of every GNU/Linux distro is its modularity. You dont like the filemanager? You can use other. The same with Plank.

 

Linux is just as limited as the user and arguably Debian based distros are as close as we've ever had to universality.

[sanctified Veteran]

Curiously really hardcore Linux users are either using only CLI tools or using WM like Awesome. You cant be more simplistic than that. :p

[Max Norris]

What I meant is that this is based on Debian and the principle of every GNU/Linux distro is its modularity. You dont like the filemanager? You can use other. The same with Plank.

Yes I realize that, I was just talking about the out-of-the-box setup. I'm not going to sing praises about a desktop after "having" to replace a bunch of parts of it, by that standard Windows 8 is the greatest thing ever made. I just personally found the current state of the bundled components to be fairly weak/lightweight/whatever compared to the others. Again, that's just my opinion, for somebody who just wants an easy to use desktop to do their daily stuff, I have no problems recommending it, I'll take Elementary's desktop over GNOME 3 any day for example. At least the layout makes sense, doubly so if you're used to the sort of desktop that uses a dock, etc.

Curiously really hardcore Linux users are either using only CLI tools or using WM like Awesome. You cant be more simplistic than that. :p

Love AwesomeWM, couple of my "misc servers" run it.

[Aletheia]

I tried this on ASUS eee 1000HA (60GB SSD), and wow... it flies - even from a live USB. Very simple. I might have to get rid of Windows 7 and install Luna in this. Very, very impressive.

[Xerxes]

Very nice distro! I like how sleek and minimalist it is. I predominantly mess around with Ubuntu but definitely liking this one too (Y) I currently have an old Athlon XP system running Ubuntu 12.10 but it does run quite slow, might chuck this on it instead! :happy:

[Syanide]

More related to the distro base, but it's been running hot and at full speed (fans usually only start spinning when there are high demand tasks running), and it won't wake up when I close the laptop lid. Kind of ruining otherwise great experience.

[ViperAFK]

More related to the distro base, but it's been running hot and at full speed (fans usually only start spinning when there are high demand tasks running), and it won't wake up when I close the laptop lid. Kind of ruining otherwise great experience.

You could try updating the kernel and xorg. Since 12.04 canonical always has kernel and xorg backports from the latest ubuntu releases in the repos. sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-lts-raring should do it (that should bring in the raring 3.8 kernel and xorg stack).

[Syanide]

You could try updating the kernel and xorg. Since 12.04 canonical always has kernel and xorg backports from the latest ubuntu releases in the repos. sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-lts-raring should do it (that should bring in the raring 3.8 kernel and xorg stack).

 

Thanks, I'm gonna try and see if it works.

[sanctified Veteran]

You could try updating the kernel and xorg. Since 12.04 canonical always has kernel and xorg backports from the latest ubuntu releases in the repos. sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-lts-raring should do it (that should bring in the raring 3.8 kernel and xorg stack).

 

What a drag, for some reason the updated xord is asking me to uninstall wine and kingsoft office among others.

[sanctified Veteran]

You could try updating the kernel and xorg. Since 12.04 canonical always has kernel and xorg backports from the latest ubuntu releases in the repos. sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-lts-raring should do it (that should bring in the raring 3.8 kernel and xorg stack).

 

f*ck, I decided to install it thinking I could install Wine and kingsoft later and now I cant install Wine! :/

[guitmz]

More related to the distro base, but it's been running hot and at full speed (fans usually only start spinning when there are high demand tasks running), and it won't wake up when I close the laptop lid. Kind of ruining otherwise great experience.

weird.. that's not happening here :s

[Syanide]

Nope, still running crazy hot. It's an Asus UX32VD, the Ubuntu community page on Zenbook Prime mentions no such issues.

[TheGhostWalker]

So I found a bug in Midori (a browser specifically made for Elementary OS Luna, as their website says. Or well, their default browser: "Midori is a lightweight, fast, and free web browser. It is also the default browser of the beautiful elementary os" )

 

https://bugs.launchpad.net/midori/+bug/1212327

 

Let's hope it gets fixed soon :).

For the rest, I love it all :p

[ViperAFK]

f*ck, I decided to install it thinking I could install Wine and kingsoft later and now I cant install Wine! :/

I believe you should be able to return to the precise packages with: sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-lts-precise.

 

I think the raring backports were just added to the repos very recently, maybe not all the 32 bit versions of those packages have not been uploaded yet (I remember this exact same problem happened when the quantal backports were first added to the repos, it caused 32 bit apps like steam to not be able to install). I think ubuntu 12.04.3 (which will use these packages by default on the iso) it due for release tomorrow, so maybe the issues will be sorted out by then. If not I'd report a bug on launchpad, because it sounds like there is some deps missing in the precise repos. Either that or those apps have hardcoded deps for certain versions of xorg for some reason, which would be pretty silly.

 

You could try the quantal packages instead: sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-lts-quantal

 

Its also possible to use just the backported kernel, I think its called linux-image-lts-raring or something like that.

[Growled Member]

Curiously really hardcore Linux users are either using only CLI tools or using WM like Awesome. You cant be more simplistic than that. :p

That's more hardcore than I want to be. :D