Press reaction to Ubuntu 10.04

By , Published April 30, 2010

With every release of Ubuntu the critical eye of the mainstream tech media falls upon Ubuntu. What have they had to say about our new feline overlord? Most  fixate on the new lick of paint Lucid has, making extremely positive noises whilst doing so.

Ubuntu prettier than a Mac

Hugo Rifkind of The Times Online shared his excitement in an article titled €œWhy Ubuntu excites me more than Windows or Macintosh€. It's an article that anyone who felt a pang of giddy excitement over yesterday's Lucid release will really chime with. Choice quote being: €œMy Ubuntu setup is faster than a PC and prettier than a Mac.€

PcMag.com gave it Lucid 4/5 and ExtremeTech.com saw Lucid as €œmaking significant strides toward attracting and keeping a wider audience.€

The Register.com saw Lucid as €œA (free) Mactastic experience€ but went to raise questions about the window button placement and the stability of the UbuntuOne storage service.

BusinessWeek.com reviewed what new features business could enjoy from 10.04, ending on a positive note saying: €œanyone who just wants an easy-to-use, full-featured, secure desktop operating system — Ubuntu 10.04 is the one for you.€

Christopher Dawson of zdnet reviewed Ubuntu 10.04 under the title of €œNever a better time to switch€ and was highly impressed with it.

Patterns emerge

I could continue quoting more but of all of the reviews I’ve spent the last few hours scouring over I've actually yet to hear any major negatives regarding Ubuntu 10.04. No complaints over missing drivers or awful installation experiences, no warnings about whether or not it's worth installing. Sure, a few eyebrows have been raised over the placement of Window buttons and a one or two reviewers have pointed out that UbuntuOne isn't an entirely stable service yet but almost every review is in agreement: Ubuntu 10.04 is the most user-friendly, good looking and well designed Linux distribution ever created.

But hey, we already knew that, right?!

Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

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  • Anonymous

    Niiice. :D

  • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

    So far Lucid is amazing, but here are my main problems with it.
    1. Nvidia and Plymouth sucks (pixelated booting experience)
    2. Compiz doesn’t startup by default. i have to run (compiz –replace) everytime

    Maybe this happened because i’m Upgrading and didn’t do a clean installation. but that brings us to point 3
    3. Upgrading needs to be alot better and easier (The actual upgrade is easy, i’m talking about what happens after the upgrade, from previous data)

    • Anonymous

      You can fix the Plymouth problem following the steps here – http://www.ubunturoot.com/2010/04/how-to-get-plymouth-working-with.html

      Although in step 2 I found two cases of “gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE}” but I just put the line under both and it worked fine. It looks pretty much as good as it did without the proprietry drivers installed.

      • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

        Thanks a lot.

      • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

        After i tried it i ended up with higher resolution Text-Boot. but this is a bug in Plymouth. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plymouth/+bug/526892

      • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

        Well this just killed my System, i fixed it up using my Live CD, but that made me wonder, how would i skip Plymouth and simply boot Lucid in Text Mode? Im totally dumbfounded over something so essential (and probably simple) right now.

        EDIT: For those who care, instead of pressing ESC to enter GRUB its now “Hold down Shift” just shortly before GRUB was usually being issued during boot.

      • Anonymous

        Sorry it didn’t work out properly.. It worked perfectly for me, strange that it wouldn’t for others. Guess I won’t link that tutorial as often to people for now.

        • Anonymous

          it worked for me. strange indeed.

        • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

          your solution fixed the resolution problem. so if there is anyone having pixelated boot, it will be solved.

          but in my case there was consequences, and another problem occurred.

    • Anonymous

      That’s a very complicated thing, no OS can upgrade perfectly 100% of the time. A clean install is the safest and best way.

      • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

        I know and thats why if Ubuntu did it, will be something to brag about :)

    • http://twitter.com/explodingwalrus Carl Draper

      For the compiz bug, try the installing the “compiz fusion icon” that way you can right click it and click reload window manager. Not ideal solution, but easier

      • http://seifsallam.co.cc/ Seif Sallam

        I did a better think, i added command “compiz –replace” to the startup applications, so it triggers when i open

  • http://olympusdigitalpen.blogspot.com/ dr. watson

    I have been used to windows buttons on the right hand side my entire life, that being said a few hours with Ubuntu 10.04 and I was fine with the left hand side placement.

    • Anonymous

      Same here :) Since I installed the Lucid beta I even moved buttons to the left on my netbook’s Karmic install. Heck, every time I’m on another computer I keep on trying to close windows on the left :p

      • http://twitter.com/tudsworthington James T

        You too? I feel slightly less lonely :P

        • Anonymous

          same here :)

        • Anonymous

          same here :)

    • Kyle

      So true, so much so that I saw a win XP machine in a store used as a till or something and I was like. Whoa weird the window controls are on the right. That’s so strange. Took me a min or so to remember that’s the “norm”

      As i’ve blogged in the past. In the past on Windows I have always double clicked the menu button that was on the left to close a window. The was my very first irritation with Ubuntu (Intrepid when I first started out) that double clicking this icon did no more than a single click.

      Lucid’s button arrangement works great for me as now I only have to click the upper most left button once to close a window. This does NOT come from frequent (or any) use of apple macs. Never have, never will. It’s just a usuablity thing to me, always had this “work around” for windows because this is the way I felt windows should be closed, being up there with the rest of the controls etc.

      The anouncement of the windicators just makes the whole thing make sense now. So if we can all stop winging, or stop using this distro or something. What kind of person moans about something that they have no control over and plenty of choice. Isnt that the point of what we’re all here for? Choice.

  • Ubuntard

    Ubuntu, prettier than Mac. C’mon lets not get carried away here.

    • Anonymous

      actually a lot of people are agreeing on this. maybe not 100% prettier, but a pretty close competition given that ubuntu is free.

  • Ubuntard

    Ubuntu, prettier than Mac? C’mon lets not get carried away here.

    • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

      Its a matter of perspective, isnt it..

    • Anonymous

      My Ubuntu is much prettier than a Mac, but the default Ubuntu is not ;) I don’t know why they don’t use Elementary themes instead!

    • Anonymous

      A LOT prettier. Ubuntu has Compiz, while Mac has… well, nothing to compete that.

      • http://rgzblog.blogspot.com rgz

        Indeed elementary not only is much more pretty, it is also more usable in my opinion (less colors => less distraction, less chance of confusion) AND it also fits better with the new “light” philosophy that Mark chose for the rebranding.

        The new default theme is a horrible mess. Black panels with gray title bars with an orangish red button on top of a caramelish beige window with striking light orange icons and a purple wallpaper with red and beige highlights? Have they all gone color blind simultaneously?

        Why not take the free themes from the bisigi project? the bisigi Orange theme already looks like an nice orange mac! Why not use the official theme package “Gnome Colors”? It being an official Gnome theme should be installed by default, it even has a purple icon set to go with the purple wallpaper for gaia’s sake!

        The design team has gone completely mad.

    • Anonymous

      These are opinions not facts. In my opinion Mac is not so pretty, there are many, many GTK+ themes that in my opinion look better.

      One example is Radience Osliner, the theme I’m currently using.

  • Anonymous

    I guess the major problems are getting plymouth to look pretty, compiz to work and general boot problems. Best get typing away at fixes for them ;)

    • Anonymous

      theres a pretty solid fix for plymouth that the musical duck posted like 4 comments below.

      • Anonymous

        Oh mines fine, works great with burg to. But getting articles on those will be great for the site.

  • Navneeth

    I’ve actually yet to hear any major negatives regarding Ubuntu 10.04

    That’s because mainstream media men (and women) don’t post at Ubuntu Forums. ;)

  • http://pctonic.net/ Ashutosh Mishra

    One of my biggest hopes with Lucid was that Canonical would finally do away with the password prompts. I don’t understand why no one ever talks about this, but those prompts are the biggest annoyances that I face in Ubuntu. It’s ridiculous that you’ve to enter your password for practically everything that’s not browsing or consuming media. Everyone slammed the UAC in Vista (which was subsequently toned down in 7), but these prompts are like hundreds time more annoying.

    If you know any method of removing, or at least reducing, the prompts, please do write a post about it. I’m sure a lot of new and seasoned Ubuntu users would be very thankful for that.

    Save that, I’m really impressed with Lucid. The Radiance theme with the crisp Droid Sans font makes the desktop look gorgeous. Everything seems to be snappier and prettier. I did have some issues with Gwibber but that’ll likely be fixed in future updates.

    Please do consider that password thing… :)

    • Anonymous

      The issue I have with the password stuff is that if I enter “sudo su” in one terminal and again in another terminal I have to enter the password a second time. Also if I “sudo su” in a terminal and try to start synaptic I have to enter my password a second time.

      • No name

        Because it’s like second login-in. They’re independent. If you want to use only one sudo su use one terminal with many tasks (google: unix screen). Besides – if you want to do something as a root (which is unusual operation if you don’t count system update) you really don’t want to make it possible for anyone using your computer while being logged in as any user. You can always run in a terminal sudo su -, and then “terminal &” twice (two terminals) plus “synaptic &”.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/R25APX2NWD4262MDEYS2BWWEZU Mikolaj

      If you’re fine with lesser security use a blank password for your keyring(s) that will reduce the number of prompts a bit… you could also run as root. Ubuntu by default tries to hide an option of creating a real root account because it reduces your security (in terms of user rights) to Windows XP level, but then it is much, much easier.

    • Anonymous

      except, unlike the UAC in vista, the password prompts in ubuntu actually help protect you. the UAC has been repeatedly proven to do nothing to protect the computer.

      • http://pctonic.net/ Ashutosh Mishra

        Yeah, but it’s not like ghosts are gonna hunt me down or something if I turn off the passwords. There should at least be an option to turn them off. I’m not really that paranoid about security – it’s a Linux after all, and I’m gonna use my Lucid powered netbook mostly for browsing (with WOT installed and all) and carrying out.

        • Coppertop

          http://maestric.com/doc/unix/ubuntu_sudo_without_password — haven’t tried that, but you might want to check if it works. Just remember that you *have to* use visudo for that.

          Leaving that aside, it’s really not a good idea. First of all, passwords are there to actually protect you. If you know that you don’t have anything worth protecting on the machine you want to use that option on than fine. But saying “It’s Linux after all” is a false assumption. It’s like saying “I don’t need to close that safe, after all, it’s the best safe out there, it ought to be secure!”. Let alone the fact, that the GKSudo and Sudo prompts are also there to prevent yourself from hurting your system by accident…

          Ekhem, actually, you could set a root password and just use your system from Root account, but I hope you’re not taking that as an option, since it would be like using Windows 98…

  • Anonymous

    Pure greatness!!!! I’m so proud of Ubuntu!!!!

  • Anonymous

    My only gripe is with Plymouth. It’s not very consistent, sometimes it appears during boot but most of the time I get a black screen with a cursor blinking and some messages that fade away quickly.

    • Anonymous

      me too. my ‘pure graphical boot’ still has more text then graphics. I think i found a work around to clean it up for my particular hardware though.

      • Anonymous

        Which hardware do you use? My Laptop uses an Intel chipset. It’s a Gateway EC1440u notebook.

        • Anonymous

          nvidia. just keep up on google, a lot of issues are getting sorted through pretty quickly.

  • Kent

    Almost all of the news I’ve heard about 10.04 has been negative regarding this supposed “bug”.

    • Anonymous

      news from ubuntu blogs, or from mainstream tech?

  • Carlf

    Before this release you had to use mac4lin for a Mac look. Now just remove the bottom panel and add the dock of your choice. When the new global menu is out you have a full mac look.

    The following need improved though to beat Mac: Video editor and photo management. Better Ipad Iphone Ipodtouch support in some apps.

    Go back to regular Java since some apps won’t work with openjdk.

    There needs to be a Ubuntu bookstore now.

  • Paul

    Most of the sites who did reviews were oriented to a more technically-inclined audience. Only the Times Online come from the mainstream media.

    I’m still waiting for the BBC News article for Ubuntu 10.04, they had one for 9.10…

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8326264.stm

  • Anonymous

    Woot! That’s awesome. I hope people realize that there are easily accessible preinstalled themes that change the buttons back over. Criminey.

  • http://billishere.deviantart.com Billi

    the biggest beef i’ve got with lucid is that it just doesn’t work with my ati x700pro graphic card. everything is so laggy. :(
    what’s worse…there are no proprietary drivers available that would work with lucid and that card!
    but on my intel everything laptop its super duper fast and fantastic!
    just my luck..

  • http://vasiauvi.blogspot.com VasiaUVI

    I see these topics all the time about ubuntu: “what beautiful it is”, “what nice colors” etc…but I want to hear “it’s with no bugs”, “it’s just works”, etc…
    I’m using Ubuntu since 8.10 version and I can say that at every upgrade I had problems and issues. It’s not just work! It’s a pain in the ass for some of us! I also use Windows and I never had problems with it, it’s just works for me!

    I’ve used OpenSuse that it just worked!
    Now, upgrading to Lucid I have again problems http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1466794……. maybe some of you has some ideas how to resolve this problem!

    Please, don’t misunderstand me! I like Ubuntu, but there are a LOT of thing that doesn’t work.
    Some people just need a working system not a blink-blink system!

    Thanks!

    P.S. I’m struggling for 3 days with this bug on polkitd service and I just can’t make the system work properly !

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/CBUBZJNTMERFMELJULNBJ4VEBA Reinis

      I commented in Your Ubuntuforums thread. Hope that will help.

      • http://vasiauvi.blogspot.com VasiaUVI

        Thanks!
        I’ve saw your comment and I will see how to do!
        Hope that it will be OK!

      • http://vasiauvi.blogspot.com VasiaUVI

        Thanks!
        I’ve saw your comment and I will see how to do!
        Hope that it will be OK!

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/CBUBZJNTMERFMELJULNBJ4VEBA Reinis

      I commented in Your Ubuntuforums thread. Hope that will help.

  • Guest

    Prettier than mac? That is not only just a matter of taste, i think. I’m using OSX since its release in 2001, 9 years are a long time, lots of things have changed yet … the self proclaimed master of GUI’s looks and feels old and stagnant. Remember the strange and inconsistent mix of GUI elements in version 10.3, brushed metal (ROFL) meets plastic? It would be so fine and great if people would stop calling Mac the one and only, it is really annoying. Look, they only sell a GUI, they even dont have a real own OS, NextStep always was and still is a UNIX derivate.

    But, more important, awesome to see Ubuntu in version 10, It’s a great LTS!

    • Steven

      What is Ubuntu? A derivative of Debian, which is derived from free software written by thousands. Your negative commentary on the Mac OS lacks substance.

  • Anonymous

    Makes me wonder if I am actually using the same OS those people are reviewing?
    I was normally a Mint user but caught up in all the excitement and decided to give 10.04 ago and it has turned out to be a major disappointment to me.
    I haven’t had any major problems, just that so many of the harped about features are just not finished or don’t work as they should.
    Plymouth, empathy with non hotmail addresses, gwibber with facebook and ubuntu one is just plain awful and should not have been included in a “final” OS release as far as I’m concerned.

    I know the devs have put a lot of hard work in and there are plus points but from an end user perspective it’s not exactly setting an example for others to follow.

    • http://twitter.com/explodingwalrus Carl Draper

      Don’t like Empathy? try Pidgin. I’ve found UbuntuOne to be more stable on 10.0.4 than on 9.10

  • http://hypemuffin.com Norlick

    I was pleasantly surprised to find that the window buttons are only on the left side when using the new themes. Switching back to Dust put them right back where I wanted them.
    I was expecting, from all the net-rage about it, that the window buttons would need to be gconf’d back or some crap.

  • Niels

    No negative :-(

    They have really done a great job. 9.10 works for me (except wireless) but 10.04 cannot install on hdd or start up with Windows Installer. Only live cd works for me.
    Damn i hate windows :-) now i have no other choice than use windows – so sad.

    Strange it has changed :-S

    The bottom thing does not irretate me. I’ll get use to it. I’ll think that’s the same with any other change..

  • Joseph Schwenker

    How can I change Ubuntu 10.04′s theme to 9.10′s? I REALLY HATE Ubuntu 10.04′s theme. In 9.10, I used Lucidity for my window border, Humanity for my controls, and Humanity for my icon theme. How can I get 9.10′s Humanity theme into Ubuntu 10.04?

    • http://twitter.com/explodingwalrus Carl Draper

      you could go to http://www.gnome-look.org and see if you can find a theme you like

  • http://writeffects.com Zen

    Proud to have installed Ubuntu 10.04 here. I must admit, this one has really very nice visual improvements. I’m more of a KDE/Kubuntu lover for several years now but I’m trying out Ubuntu this year. I still have Kubuntu installed though, still can’t do w/out it.

    What really got me is that I got my ADSL connection to work by just typing in my username & password. I don’t think NetworkManager was able to handle this in the previous version (but I could be wrong). Yep I had to run pppoeconf on Karma. While it’s simple to configure I don’t want to tinker around with the console anymore. Ubuntu branding itself as a desktop to compete against Windows & Mac should have everything as dumb-easy as pushing/clicking buttons. Never should a user be taken to a console even if there is a step by step guide on how to do it, unless the user really wants to go on the console.

    Kudos Ubuntu! =D

    • Gnubie

      Zen,

      that’s not a forward-looking statement. The console is where all the power is. Why do you think MS spent years getting rid of the console, only to bring it back? They found out that you cant do without a console. New users need to be shown around the entire system. The proprietary vendors assume you do not want to explore and wish you dont – tats how they justify 80-20 development. Shoddy is what I say. Every effort must be made in linux to encourage people to grow with the OS, otherwise we’ll be stuck with the same designs year after year. 5 years from now, it would be good if we could get users comfortable with consoles, maybe even programming and advanced system admin – the linux ecosystem cant survive long without user contribution, its up to us to keep learning, testing, discovering and contributing.

  • http://writeffects.com Zen

    Proud to have installed Ubuntu 10.04 here. I must admit, this one has really very nice visual improvements. I’m more of a KDE/Kubuntu lover for several years now but I’m trying out Ubuntu this year. I still have Kubuntu installed though, still can’t do w/out it.

    What really got me is that I got my ADSL connection to work by just typing in my username & password. I don’t think NetworkManager was able to handle this in the previous version (but I could be wrong). Yep I had to run pppoeconf on Karma. While it’s simple to configure I don’t want to tinker around with the console anymore. Ubuntu branding itself as a desktop to compete against Windows & Mac should have everything as dumb-easy as pushing/clicking buttons. Never should a user be taken to a console even if there is a step by step guide on how to do it, unless the user really wants to go on the console.

    Kudos Ubuntu! =D

  • Psypher246

    The button placement thing really doesn’t bother me at all. If canonical has a good reason for it like new features then cool. Got used to it in about 1 day. It’s kinda like switching your Y axis in FPS games. I was always an invert Y (move up to look up, etc) kinda guy till a friend and I was playing an XBOX game together and it got annoying having to switch back and forth as he does not need invert Y. Eventually I gave up (I seemed to be the minority who plays that way) and learned the controller without invert Y. :)

    But what does annoy me is the fact that I have to spend countless hours getting Karmic and Lucid working correctly on the Dell Mini 9, arguably a flagship device for the Dell and Canonical partnership. Since Intrepid things have not gone well and I cannot believe they haven’t fixed these same issues in Lucid. Very very disappointing. Wireless does not work out the box, suspend crashes the PC, FN wireless key does nothing and the disk manager claims my perfect 4GB SSD is failing. Otherwise I must say boot time is AMAZING! But those issue bug me profusely! Now off to bug them :)

  • Psypher246

    The button placement thing really doesn’t bother me at all. If canonical has a good reason for it like new features then cool. Got used to it in about 1 day. It’s kinda like switching your Y axis in FPS games. I was always an invert Y (move up to look up, etc) kinda guy till a friend and I was playing an XBOX game together and it got annoying having to switch back and forth as he does not need invert Y. Eventually I gave up (I seemed to be the minority who plays that way) and learned the controller without invert Y. :)

    But what does annoy me is the fact that I have to spend countless hours getting Karmic and Lucid working correctly on the Dell Mini 9, arguably a flagship device for the Dell and Canonical partnership. Since Intrepid things have not gone well and I cannot believe they haven’t fixed these same issues in Lucid. Very very disappointing. Wireless does not work out the box, suspend crashes the PC, FN wireless key does nothing and the disk manager claims my perfect 4GB SSD is failing. Otherwise I must say boot time is AMAZING! But those issue bug me profusely! Now off to bug them :)

  • Deoxynet

    Really disappointed with Ubuntu 10.04 the first time I booted up the Live CD on my Dell blackbox. In the middle of the boot-up my monitor freezes up. I was able to install it by using the nomodeset option. I thought my problem was over but when i restarted to boot from my hard disk i get the same problem. I shouldnt have upgraded to 10.04 at all.

  • Mcharlton1

    From the time it takes me to start up Windows-just to get it to work, I can log on and off and back on again at least 10 times over with Ubuntu. This OS practically runs circles around Windows. The only issues are that they need better video driver support and they need to do a better job marketing. To be honest, it’s one of the most poorly marketed superior products ever developed.