Since the beta is here, why not try it out?
My impressions so far follow here.
First off, the upgrade was even more smooth than previous versions. Just like the last few ones, there were no terminal screens involved.
Second, the new broadcast application to interact with social media is nice. I have only a Facebook account to try out, but I suppose any other ones will work just as well.
Third, the new theme shifted the window operations like close, minimize, etc to the left side (at leas in the beta), that's weird. Luckily it was very easy to restore back to how it was before.
All the extra, custom stuff I had still seems to work, so all in all a really good start for this new version of my favorite operating system!
Thanks go out to Wicher Minnaard since he's the one that told me years ago to go ahead and try linux, and more specifically: Ubuntu.
1 comment
Cheers mate!
Thanks for the honorable mention, but the way I remember it you installed it to have me shut up. Only to find out that instead of me making snarky Windows remarks, you now had me making Ubuntu sneers ;-)
I think it's the best consumer desktop operating system out there (well, Fedora and some others can come and play too). And it's time to start judging it on its unique merits, not just its flaws. I never see side-by-side comparisons of Ubuntu vs OSX or Windows mention the Ubuntu package management. One repository, readily searchable, of expert-tested, freely downloadable software, all kept up-to-date automatically, central, open QA so you know where to head if things break or if you have complaints or questions. You don't have to browse the net for software. You don't have to trust the software producer - the experts have already investigated. Installing is one-click. There's only one extra entry in your programs menu (grouped by topic) instead of ten, grouped in a by 'MegaManufacturer2000' menu. The manufacturer name is not as important to you as it is to them, and it's _your_ PC. It's automatically kept up-to-date. Software can easily be removed, without leaving a trace if you want to.
I did not get this on my Mac. Or on Windows.
Over the years I encouraged five of my friends to try Ubuntu, and they've sticked with it. One of the reasons for that is the ease of administering their systems without making a mess over time. No system tray with dozens of applications eating memory and CPU cycles. No Start menu with hundreds of software manufacturer names.
I had some people try Gentoo - my favourite desktop OS - too, but that wasn't as big a success. There's one lone straggler left and the rest have either switched to Ubuntu or downgraded to Windows (sulkingly).
This Ubuntu release adds a lot of what I'd call consumer-market features. Therefore, it wil attract even more consumer-grade users than it did. Some consumers are unreasonable idiots. The main Ubuntu challenge is to cater to these idiots without breaking their expectations and without spoiling it for the non-idiots. That's audacious, but it's coming along nicely.