Rate Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

By +Frank B.,
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+Frank B.
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Posted

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 'Precise Pangolin' has been out for two days. How do you rate the release? Is it the potential Windows/OS X killer, or is it just another Linux distribution?

For me it's a solid 8. It won't replace Windows as my main OS, but all in all it is a solid and fairly user-friendly OS. Unity has definitely improved since I last tried it. (I still prefer KDE or vanilla GNOME 3 though; ymmv.)

What do you think of the Precise Pangolin?

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Syanide
Posted

8 as well. Unity finally started to get out of my way, which is the biggest compliment I can give it. There's still room to improve the interface, but generally I'm really happy with it, it's nice and stable. Wish I could use it as the main OS...

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.Neo
Posted

The operating system looks pretty polished, seems stable and runs fast. I'd give it a solid 7. However, overall the software running on Ubuntu (Linux in general) is a joke and lightyears behind OS X and Windows. I just wouldn't know how to get my work done with it. Software support gets a 3.

All in all I'm giving it an average of a 6 (instead of a 5) because Ubuntu is just fine for basic tasks such as browsing, emailing and media, but it ends pretty much there for me.

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Max Norris
Posted

I'm not a big fan of Ubuntu to begin with, much prefer Arch (and primarily Windows), so I'm biased. Just a few things in general about Ubuntu that'll keep it from ever being a favorite with me, not specific to this particular release. Don't care for the six month release cycle, although offering LTS versions for those that want it is a nice option.. really wish they had a rolling release. Unity in general I absolutely dislike.. I tried to get used to it, but it irritates me every time I use it, typically running KDE 4 nowadays when I'm working with Linux. (Yes I know you can switch DE's, talking out of the box vanilla Ubuntu.)

That said, they seemed to have put on some nice touches and refinement with this version. The HUD is interesting especially. They lost me back at around version 8.x, but if Ubuntu's your thing, it looks like a decent update. Gave it a six though as I think a few other distros do it better.

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Miuku.
Posted
However, the software running on Ubuntu (Linux in general) is overall a joke and lightyears behind OS X and Windows. I just wouldn't know how to get my work done with it. Software support gets a 3.

And that's why you're posting in a forum run on Linux, via routers run by Linux, read your mail from servers running Linux and search the web on software running on Linux.

But hey, it's bad software - right. Let's replace all of it with Windows and OSX :p

Seriously though, KDE has lots of great applications that you don't see on OS X or Windows. Also the window manager is lightyears ahead of anything on Windows and OS X when it comes to configurability and flexibility.

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Max Norris
Posted
And that's why you're posting in a forum run on Linux, via routers run by Linux, read your mail from servers running Linux and search the web on software running on Linux.

He's probably referring to the desktop, not server oriented software. I prefer BSD and Linux based servers myself.. but for the desktop side of things, I 100% completely agree with him. I'm not a big fan of OSX either but would use an OSX based desktop over what's on the Linux desktop 99% of the time. A few programs that are available across the board aside, Linux has a long way to go to catch up in that regard in both what's available and quality.

Seriously though, KDE has lots of great applications that you don't see on OS X or Windows. Also the window manager is lightyears ahead of anything on Windows and OS X when it comes to configurability and flexibility.

I agree there.. KDE does have a lot of interesting features that I wish were available elsewhere.

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.Neo
Posted

And that's why you're posting in a forum run on Linux, via routers run by Linux, read your mail from servers running Linux and search the web on software running on Linux.

But hey, it's bad software - right. Let's replace all of it with Windows and OSX :p

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the desktop applications of Ubuntu, something I was discussing. I also don't consider posting on tech forum to be "work". Before you try to bring up Android let me save you the trouble: It also has nothing to do with desktop Ubuntu.

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SinghKing
Posted

I LOVE it :)

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The Laughing Man
Posted

I dislike the direction they took. Unity killed it for me. Since Ubuntu 11.04, I switched to using other sources such as Linux Mint.( which also works great on PPC )

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insanelyapple
Posted

I can't understand why there's no pop-up window or baloon with question for keeping icon in Launcher after installation - it's a simple way for overload. I know there's option in menu but still, USC should ask user.

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ZakO
Posted

Difficult to rate, the 12.04 beta 1 & 2 worked fine for me, but doing a fresh install of 12.04 final was a PITA. Took about 4 hours of messing with different partition layouts to eventually trick it into detecting the correct partitions and installing without crashing (I've installed linux hundreds of times, never had an issue before). When it eventually did install the "Download updates while installing" option messed up, I went away from the computer, came back about 15 minutes later and it was reading "Downloaded 3420MB of 45MB (100%)" but was still downloading so I had to skip the updates to let the installation complete.

Once installed Ubuntu itself is impressive, all my hardware worked out of the box, it's stable, user-friendly, looks nice, the fonts / font rendering is finally on par with OSX/Windows and Unity is getting better. The only thing I dislike about the experience is a lack of customisation in Unity, zero customisation of the notification system ('by design') is one major issue for me, I ended up having to fork notify-osd to configure it.

The only thing stopping me from running any Linux distribution as my primary desktop OS is, as already mentioned in this thread, there are a lot of OSX/Win desktop applications which simply don't have suitable alternatives (either through poor quality or missing basic features).

Overall I'd probably give it 7/10.

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.Neo
Posted
Seriously though, KDE has lots of great applications that you don't see on OS X or Windows. Also the window manager is lightyears ahead of anything on Windows and OS X when it comes to configurability and flexibility.

Such as?

I just wanted to add: It's clear to me that whole customization fab of 2003-2006 on both OS X and Windows has pretty much come to an end. People, the fast majority anyway, want something that looks good out of the box instead of wasting countless minutes tweaking every aspect of their operating system. As such the endless "configurability and flexibility" options have become largely irrelevant. The Ubuntu team seems to realize that as well; they too are working on something that just looks good from the get-go.

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Max Norris
Posted
I just wanted to add: It's clear to me that whole customization fab of 2003-2006 on both OS X and Windows has pretty much come to an end. People, the fast majority anyway, want something that looks good out of the box instead of wasting countless minutes tweaking every aspect of their operating system. As such the endless "configurability and flexibility" options have become largely irrelevant. The Ubuntu team seems to realize that as well; they too are working on something that just looks good from the get-go.

Just my own opinion of course, but customization is one of the things I do like about Windows and the various DE's in Linux. I'm all for a "it's pretty out of the box experience" and all too, first impressions matter, especially for those that just want to install it and go with minimal fuss.

But some people just don't want their desktop to look exactly like every other desktop that's out there, personally that's fairly boring. Just look over DeviantArt, Gnome Look or KDE Look for example, customization is alive and well.. hasn't ended at all. Some are subjectively bad, but there's a lot of custom themes out there that are actually very good. Wellllllll, except when they try to make one OS look like another.. I see one more OSX Aero or Windows 7 GTK theme I'm going to be ill.

It's not just the looks too but the various components as well; don't like the file manager, program launcher, or other bits? Replace it. Shoot I have one Windows 7 machine running KDE 4 as its desktop, just because. (Not my main.. it's just for giggles.) It's impossible for a developer to please 100% of the people 100% of the time, having the option to replace components or visuals is a nice option for those that want it.

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simplezz
Posted

I rated it a 9. It's pretty damn good. And now that steam and its games catalogue are coming to Linux, I firmly believe GNU/Linux is on the up :)

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xp1ode
Posted

i gave it a 10. There is really nothing to complain about the distro from my end. It seems to get better with every new upgrade. Haven't really found anything that would prompt me to dislike the whole distro.

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Miuku.
Posted
Such as?

Such as the ability to open an application window in exactly the same position, same dimension and in the same screen comes to mind - neither OS X nor Windows handles this gracefully. Ability to resize window decorations and border independent of the theme, ability to customize buttons and their location as I see fit , choose per window fonts, themes, colours - whatever I want.

These may not seem like great things to your average Joe but they are but a small example of the things I'd love to get on OS X right now from Linux.

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still1
Posted

I will give it 7..with only a day of use i came across many bugs. Unity is fairly new so i am expecting more bug fixes on the next release.

overall its nice.

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Syanide
Posted

I dislike the direction they took. Unity killed it for me. Since Ubuntu 11.04, I switched to using other sources such as Linux Mint.( which also works great on PPC )

Why are you rating 12.04 then?

Anywho, Neo's right. The biggest problem with Ubuntu stopped being about Ubuntu itself. The OS is just fine, it's the app support that pretty much kills it, and that's an issue that will be incredibly hard for them to overcome.

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Karl L.
Posted

So far, I'm really liking the extra refinement that Canonical put into this release. The Ubuntu experience is just so smooth now. Also, the HUD is really nice; I love it!

However, I only gave Ubuntu 12.04 a 9 because of a few nit-picks. For example, a somewhat trivial but very annoying change is the removal of aptitude and Synaptic from the default installation. (I believe this one actually happened in Ubuntu 11.10, but its still relevant.) They are both excellent repository management tools that most power users will appreciate. Since I often use Ubuntu from the live disc on various machines, it is somewhat annoying to need to install apt-cache, aptitude, or Synaptic just to search the repository when I forget the name of a package I need to install. Granted, that could say something about my memory -- but we're not going to go there.

Overall, this release of Ubuntu isn't going to make me switch from Debian Squeeze/Wheezy (on my various machines), but I still think that they did an excellent job and it is a step in the right direction. I would definitely recommend it to a new user over Debian (or any other distro, really).

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The Laughing Man
Posted

Why are you rating 12.04 then?

Anywho, Neo's right. The biggest problem with Ubuntu stopped being about Ubuntu itself. The OS is just fine, it's the app support that pretty much kills it, and that's an issue that will be incredibly hard for them to overcome.

I'm rating it because I wanted to give it a second chance, Tried it and did not fancy it. Am I not allowed to be entitled to an opinion?

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mps69
Posted

I'm going to defer my rating for a few days.

I've just done a clean install, from 10.10 to 12.04 and it's been a bit bumpy. I don't think it's much to do with the OS more around the fact that I'm running a PC which is lacking in both power and memory, most notably when I've got the Dash open, there is a bit of a lag, maybe it's time for a new machine. :huh:

Also having dual monitor caused me a bit of a headache, having to tweak the setting to get it just right, even still I'm not 100% happy having the launcher bar in middle, rather than the far left screen.

Another thing is Unity seems to create two panels, one on each screen, but without the abilty to remove the notification from the second one.

The overall experience hasn't been bad, just not as smooth when I installed 10.10. I'm still a fan of Ubuntu, but i really can't see this version being a windows or OSX killer, it's a bit too fiddly for the everyday user, but for me it's does what it says on the tin.

I'm just going to play and tweak some more.

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derkim
Posted

I still have problems with the desktop environments. KDE seems so inconsistent. Many settings so fragmented though it is the same category. Gnome is a little too much basically and unity... no! This is not Ubuntus fault so I don't rate. The system works stable and with ubuntuusers (a German big wiki and community for all *ubuntu systems) say me all what I want to know. Finally I still don't see a replace for Windows in it. Just for a little daily routine maybe. Event don't for music it is interesting for me.

Maybe neutral, 5... not good and not bad. It works. See a special in it? no!

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.Neo
Posted

Such as the ability to open an application window in exactly the same position, same dimension and in the same screen comes to mind - neither OS X nor Windows handles this gracefully. Ability to resize window decorations and border independent of the theme, ability to customize buttons and their location as I see fit , choose per window fonts, themes, colours - whatever I want.

These may not seem like great things to your average Joe but they are but a small example of the things I'd love to get on OS X right now from Linux.

I wanted to know what "great applications" you have running on KDE that don't have equal or better counterparts on OS X and Windows.

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butilikethecookie
Posted

I'd say 8.5

What's up with the right click menu? Last time I saw that was Windows 98SE...They also need to overhaul the icons...They aren't the prettiest thing to look at. Is there a utility to change icons in Ubuntu? Like the default folder icon, Computer, Trash, etc.

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+Frank B.
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Posted

I'd say 8.5

What's up with the right click menu? Last time I saw that was Windows 98SE...They also need to overhaul the icons...They aren't the prettiest thing to look at. Is there a utility to change icons in Ubuntu? Like the default folder icon, Computer, Trash, etc.

There are several icon themes you can install and apply using tools like Ubuntu Tweak. My personal favourite: the Faenza icon theme..

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