Ubuntu Linux jumped the shark?

[Greg]

... you don't HAVE to update...

In this day and age it's best not to run any OS that isn't being actively supported, at least to the extent of there being someone putting out security patches for it. Which means that sometimes you're just going to wind up upgrading, to something (from something that's dead/orphaned to something that's alive/supported).

[Yogimus]

... you don't HAVE to update...

In this day and age it's best not to run any OS that isn't being actively supported, at least to the extent of there being someone putting out security patches for it. Which means that sometimes you're just going to wind up upgrading, to something (from something that's dead/orphaned to something that's alive/supported).

then you forfeit your right to complain about it, IMHO.

[Greg]

... you don't HAVE to update...

In this day and age it's best not to run any OS that isn't being actively supported, at least to the extent of there being someone putting out security patches for it. Which means that sometimes you're just going to wind up upgrading, to something (from something that's dead/orphaned to something that's alive/supported).

then you forfeit your right to complain about it, IMHO.

You're missing out on what people are actually complaining about. In the computer and software world, you get used to needing to update/upgrade every once in a while. You don't seek it out and you don't enjoy it but it's part of the cost of doing business.

What people are complaining about here is having to search for something else when they would rather not, because their established trusted vendor has become a bunch of fucking loons. Imagine if you favorite bbq joint, that you'd gone to regularly for years, suddenly went macrobiotic.

[Rich]

Upgraded to Mint 13 with Mate yesterday. Minor problems when carving up the hard drive, that seems to be common to Mint and Ubuntu (don't know about Debian) when using this installer. You can avoid them by either erasing the partition to be used before attempting to write over it, or not using the "Someting Else" option in the installer.

I chose Mate due to the age of this laptop, though Cinnimon appeared to run OK when checking out my downloaded DVD's. So far, it's working good, unlike 11 and 12.

[Odahi]

Hmmm- tell me again how much "Windoze sux?" I'm dreading 8, because I have three different machines, two versions of 7, and nary a peep from any of them. I did try Ubuntu a while back, I had a laptop that had gotten really fouled up, and the original XP restore disks had been screwed from the factory. So I ordered another set (it had been running stable for so long the manufacturer no longer sold restore disks) from a third party. No go. Twice. So I tried Ubuntu... It was such a royal pain in the ass that I did a limping Windows install, just enough to get the LAN driver installed, and searched out, downloaded, and burned all my other drivers, installed them, and got it all back up and running. It's been fine the last two years. People love to bash Windows, and for good reason sometimes, but it's no picnic going with the little guy sometimes. My three installations of 7 have been trouble-free. I have it on a two-year-old AMD Phenom2 quad-core, a nice new AMD A8 notebook, and a year-old Atom netbook running "Starter Edition." No complaints, no worries. I've owned every version of Windows since 3.11, and some of them were pretty crappy, but they do have one thing going for them. I can ALWAYS get to where I want to be with them. Yes, I remember IRQ's and all that shit. Don't want to go back there. Yes, the OS came on three floppy disks. It also took me 7 hours to scan my 850MB hard drive for viruses. Yes, I had multiple cars from the late 60's and early 70's. It was nice having one fan belt, and one vacuum line. I do NOT want to go back to points, carburetors, and tune-ups every 10,000 miles.
I'm not an IT guy, nor do I play one on TV. YMMV, and probably will. What the hell do I know.

/ducks for cover

[Greg]

Hmmm- tell me again how much "Windoze sux?" I'm dreading 8, because I have three different machines, two versions of 7, and nary a peep from any of them. I did try Ubuntu a while back, I had a laptop that had gotten really fouled up, and the original XP restore disks had been screwed from the factory. So I ordered another set (it had been running stable for so long the manufacturer no longer sold restore disks) from a third party. No go. Twice. So I tried Ubuntu... It was such a royal pain in the ass that I did a limping Windows install, just enough to get the LAN driver installed, and searched out, downloaded, and burned all my other drivers, installed them, and got it all back up and running. It's been fine the last two years. People love to bash Windows, and for good reason sometimes, but it's no picnic going with the little guy sometimes. My three installations of 7 have been trouble-free. I have it on a two-year-old AMD Phenom2 quad-core, a nice new AMD A8 notebook, and a year-old Atom netbook running "Starter Edition." No complaints, no worries. I've owned every version of Windows since 3.11, and some of them were pretty crappy, but they do have one thing going for them. I can ALWAYS get to where I want to be with them. Yes, I remember IRQ's and all that shit. Don't want to go back there. Yes, the OS came on three floppy disks. It also took me 7 hours to scan my 850MB hard drive for viruses. Yes, I had multiple cars from the late 60's and early 70's. It was nice having one fan belt, and one vacuum line. I do NOT want to go back to points, carburetors, and tune-ups every 10,000 miles.
I'm not an IT guy, nor do I play one on TV. YMMV, and probably will. What the hell do I know.

/ducks for cover

Are you just pulling our chain?

Saying "Windows sucks but I know it so I can get it to do what I want" doesn't tell us anything about you not being able to get Linux to do what you want. Either Linux sucks, or you do. Nah, you just don't know it, so you can't get it to do what you want. No biggie, it happens. Some distributions of Linux try to smooth the learning curve but nothing is perfect, and while Linux has come a *long* way in hardware compatibility that's still not perfect either as the baseline is still Windows.

And yes, I've used nearly every version of Windows since 3.1, though I've been using Unix and Unix-like systems longer. For a number of years my home desktop machine (actually a short series of them) single-booted Windows- 2K, then XP. My wife demanded the ability to run Word and Excel, I liked to play games and since 2K Windows has been good enough (IMO- before that for several years I dual-booted Linux and Win 9x). It was only when I discovered Virtualbox and more or less stopped gaming that I switched my desktop to single-booting Linux, with an XP VM. Hardware virtualization extensions ftw. The dedicated personal server (actually again a short series of them) has been running some iteration of Debian stable for over a decade. Use the right tool for the job.

[Odahi]

I admit that Win 7 has its problems, as have all the versions before it, but I guess I'm used to its problems and I am not overly interested in climbing a new learning curve to get my machine to do less than it does now. It's probably just laziness on my part, but I LIKE just installing a program, and hey presto, it works. Linux, not so much, as this entire post pretty much reinforces. Hey, I'm not an IT guy, and I tend to spend more time playing on my computer than playing with it. I guess I should have kept my (uninformed) opinion to myself, though, and tried to learn something. Sorry if I offended.

[Rich]

It's been my experience with mint that it mostly "just works" without having to go update the driver when installing something new, like a printer or scanner.

You have your comfort zone, and I have mine.

[SoupOrMan]

Ubuntu has not jumped the shark.

I'm still using Windows. Once I adopt some technical doohickey, it jumps the shark.

If I ever switch to a Mac, Steve Wozniak will locate Steve Jobs' remains and spin them to create power.

[Greg]

I admit that Win 7 has its problems, as have all the versions before it, but I guess I'm used to its problems and I am not overly interested in climbing a new learning curve to get my machine to do less than it does now. It's probably just laziness on my part, but I LIKE just installing a program, and hey presto, it works. Linux, not so much, as this entire post pretty much reinforces. Hey, I'm not an IT guy, and I tend to spend more time playing on my computer than playing with it. I guess I should have kept my (uninformed) opinion to myself, though, and tried to learn something. Sorry if I offended.

Offended? Far from it. But when you drop into a thread to tell us that we're all goobers, we might tease you back some.

BTW, one really nice thing about Linux... once you get it set up, you never need to touch it again. Well until your Linux version, like XP, reaches EOL. No need to periodically reinstall just to clear the cruft and the inexplicable bitrot.