Ubuntu 10.10 (netbook) recognises flash drives most but not all of the time. Remove a few files from the flash drive and it doesn’t recognise the extra space that should now be there till you plug it out and in a few times.

Wireless drops out regularly – few mins after startup to an hour max. Computer has to be restarted before it will work again.

Ubuntu recognises the partition in my hard drive (that exists because a failed ubuntu install left all but 3 gb of my hard drive stranded without an OS) but won’t let me transfer any files from one partition to the other. Delete files on the large section of the drive and it stubbornly reports 0 bytes free.

Skype works ok-ish but amsn has inexplicably stopped providing webcam support, and it took me about two days to get it to work in the first place.

Banshee won’t hold my music location in it’s memory and has to be told where to look for it on every restart. I assume this is something to do with all my music being stranded on the other side of my hard drive that ubuntu can’t manage.

I’ve got a list of complaints like those that goes on for quite a while.

My usb cd drive should arrive on monday and I can finally get this piece of shit excuse for an OS off my computer. I cannot wait. Never to have to look at that fucking terminal again. XP – all is forgiven……….

First of all, I will say that I heartily endorse the basic premise of this thread – that, ideally, Ubuntu (or any other distro for that matter), should work “out of the box” without a herculean effort to get things to work with it.

My own basic premise about computers and the “mass market” is that they should become an “appliance” Like your toaster, microwave, or whatever; you should be able to turn them on, use them, and turn them off again without having to even think about the internals.

The problem with this premise is that computers are, by definition, incredibly complex pieces of equipment. And, unfortunately, what people expect of their computers represents a very broad spectrum of possible uses. If your microwave was expected to meet such a disparate range of uses, it too would be as error-prone as computers are today.

I divide computer users up into three very broad categories:
Those that want computers to be an appliance.
Those that use the computer as a tool.
Those that use the computer as a “toy”.

The appliance users want exactly that. You turn it on, click on a few icons, it does certain things, and you’re finished with it.

The tool users understand that – as a tool – the computer will have it’s moments. Everyone who has used any tool more complicated than a hammer is used to having to change the bit or blade now and then to fit the task at hand, They understand that, sometimes, the bit or blade just breaks and that’s that. And, occasionally, they pick up a bit or blade that doesn’t fit the chuck or mandrel of their tool and they need to either adapt it some way, or get a different tool for that task.

However, the tool users don’t care if the motor has brushes, is a synchronous AC motor, or is a variable speed DC motor using pulse-width, (duty cycling), as a way to control the motor’s speed. They want to be able to chuck-up the right bit and get to work. In essence they want it to be an appliance, but one that is more powerful and configurable in exchange for increased risk.

The “toy” users are the ones who really want to “get under the hood” as it were – the 21st century equivalent to the ’60′s motor-heads who spent most of their time, and darn near all their pay, tinkering with their car to make it the baddest machine on the strip.

These are the ones who want to experiment with different things, perhaps they do some coding or engage in test cycles. Or they get on blogs like this one and relate how things occurred to them.

Windows – of whatever version – is primarily targeted to the first and second type of users. It’s like a ‘fridge. You can’t adapt it very much without using expensive tools that most people cannot afford or do not know how to use.

Linux, on the other hand, is trying to embrace the entire spectrum of user models ranging from the appliance users to the users that like to tinker with it and get their hands dirty.

And, I believe that this is a good thing. It’s kind-of like brainstorming, it appears chaotic but eventually becomes something really useful.

IMHO, were I Canonical, I would strive to meet these ideals by doing certain things:
1. Make the x.0 releases benchmark releases that focus on long-term stability at the expense of new whiz-bang features.
These releases would be of primary use to those in the first two categories.

2. Make the x.1 releases the more “experimental” releases where new features are introduced, (after, hopefully, enough beta time to make them reasonably usable).

3. Periodically release a “stop-and-catch-our-breath” x.0 release – one which is not about new features at all, but about polishing up the stuff they already have.

I would make similar suggestions about the repository organization. It is frightening to go into a “common” repository and see packages that have warnings that it can, and will, casually destroy your system unless you are used to Category-5 clean-room practices.

For each of the broad categories of repositories, I would divide them up into three sections:
1. Those packages that are virtually harmless – the standard utilities that people – even the appliance users – might need. Word processing, web browsing, e-mail, things like Skype (or an equivalent Open Source app), and so on. If you *REALLY* wanted to bork your box with one of these, you could, but you’d have to really work at it.

2. The packages that are more specific to a particular task and might carry an increased risk of danger – like a buzz-saw carries an increased risk – but if intelligently used won’t hurt you. These would be the more “tool” like packages. Virtually all of the system-administration packages would fall into this category. With these there is a risk, and if the tool is used carelessly, it will hurt you, possibly badly. These tools can bork-up your box rather nastily if you are careless, but you’d have to be pretty damn careless to do it.

3. The very specialized packages that are for a very particular need – or are possibly experimental releases carrying a vastly increased risk if not used very carefully – like a power-driver that uses .22 or .30 caliber loads to fire pins through solid steel or heavy concrete. These packages would be the kind that, if you really don’t know what you’re doing, you shouldn’t be here. These would be potentially powerful tools that, unless used *VERY CAREFULLY* and with a certain amount of forethought, will almost certainly bork your box.

But by the same token, the “appliance” level user should have trouble even finding these. The tool and toy users would have, perhaps, a little less difficulty finding them. And anyone going into that section of the repository would be warned that – unless carefully used – these tools *will* cause harm.

Right now, it is much too easy for an inexperienced user to – not knowing any better – download the .30-0-6 (magnum load) tool by mistake and end up with a box borked beyond any reasonable attempt at repair.

The big issue with Linux, and why it generates so much controversy, is because of what it is, and the very broad spectrum of users that it tries to embrace without fault or favor. Windows can be sharply focused to a particular end. Linux, almost by definition, cannot be.

I’ll make my point: YES, I agree. To the most of it that is. When and where is the petition? I just changed on my oldest machine (approx 4 years) to Ubuntu 10.04. On another newer and much better desktop I already worked with 9.04, upgraded from 8.04. I installed the 8.04 about 6 month’s ago, with a little help of my friends. Worked fine except for Nvdia, can’t we ban them? :(. But alright, it worked, I got curious and after that enthusiastic, especially, in first instance through the huge amount of add-ons, add-ins and plug-ins. But also, in the mean time I got to understand the idea behind the whole “freesource, freeware, free-everything”. I like the thought of that. AND I hate the privacy grabbing guys!! So I upgraded the first machine to ultimately 9.04, somewhere in February this year, with a bunch of problems, but ok “I’m a newby I thought”, don´t even know much about M$XP-iry, so why complain about a bit of work, probably self-instigated, I thought. So happy ever after…….. On my old machine I still worked with XP, but not really satisfactory, everybody seems to forget that, when you’re not a geek (nothing wrong with geeks, they are of great help) things can go wrong in windows too. The way I structure my life and day’s are a bit out of the ordinary, so it would be very convenient when all machines worked on the same OS, for a couple of years, linked and synced (not to mention the Palm’s). Not meaning that I wouldn’t update and play with add-ons etc. anymore, but no upgrading, at least not to 10.10. That I already had in mind!!
And, how did I know. I said before, I ‘m not a computer-wizard, but I’m no, well I wasn’t, a loony or a fool. The lunatic I’m still not, but a fool I am! I never ever should’ve started with this operation, first on the newest machine, thought it worked, then on my older one and now on a notebook, could not stop now anymore. The idea was to link (VPN PPTP) and sync them all, including the agenda of my girlfriend which can come in handy. I wish I never started, I’m busy allmost 2 weeks now, and encountered all there’s in the book (internet that is). I’ll spare you the whole bunch, but I came across this site because I was looking for the sanity check 256 (.ICEauthority). It could not be more appropriate. I need to be checked on that indeed. The others problems had partly to do with old matters, I encountered before, as stated here in this blog as well, in the previous releases. I really know; it ‘s not long ago I installed those. The strange thing is, one can’t solve them in the same way anymore and they interact differently. I’ll mention nvdia again, upgrading is more of a hassle then a clean install, internet slowing down from 40GB up/50 GB down to 5 down and nothing up. Wireless gone. Installing apache2 inflicting with the generic part (while in a box). Twice working fine and then out of the sudden black screens. I’ll put my Live-CD in the save and even have a live version separate in a partition on WD Passport, that stopped communicating as well in 10.04 by the way. And more, much more…..
And still I believe in it, but not for the money, you know what 2 weeks of my time cost, not to mention the sleep-deprivation. I believe in it because of the idea behind it all, but please Mr. Canonical, read some of the stuff on the Net, it’s there not just for fun, you may be proud of your community, but that only works when the base is solid. And it seems to me it’s moving towards directions nobody wants (Well Bill maybe, not to mention Google). When this here all works, then I’ve learned a lot, tanks for that, I’ll even read some more stuff, but for a next upgrade…… no thanks. Stability first please.

One is that the hardware problems I had with Ubuntu 8.04 are still problems in 10.04. I have one computer with 8.04, one with 9.10, and 1 with 10.04.

I realize that this is the hardware manufacturers fault. But I have problems with all 3 computers that run Ubuntu. The problems are bad enough to keep me running XP only on the main computer.

I had hoped that 10.04 would solve some of my problems, but it only created more with Grub2.

The 2nd reason is some of the software I run under XP will not run on Linux – and there is no equivalent. I will continue to use Linux for what I can, but I don’t know if that will mean Ubuntu or some other distribution.