The forthcoming release of Karmic Koala has gotten a lovely full page article on the BBC tech website, showing the increased traction our mammalian monikered OS is gaining in the “mainstream” press.
It’s a worthy little read over your morning coffee in anticipation of the Karmic in just 2 days time, but try not to spit any out when you spot the odd glaring error…
Full Article: Ubuntu readies the Karmic Koala
“…I struggled to work out how I would organise photos, music and video with this system.”
Th next article comes a few days after the BBC’s “technology correspondent” Rory Cellan-Jones mentioned Ubuntu on a BBC breakfast morning segment regarding the Windows 7 launch.
His description of Ubuntu was a bit naive and ill-informed: –
RCJ: “There’s something called ‘Ubuntu’ which is launched next week. It’s a whole sort of little community of enthusiasts building operating systems for absolutely nothing and trying to persuade us that we don’t need to be in with the big boys but actually most computer users frankly they don’t want to bother with that sort of stuff they want something that’s there…”
BT: “…that everyone else uses..”
RCJ: “Yes”
Canonical sent him over a netbook loaded with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Continuing his naivety he seems to assume this is what all Ubuntu versions looks like – comparing the netbook “sidebar” to Windows 7’s Taskbar and Mac OS X’s dock. Err… ok.
He goes on to predict that Ubuntu will remain a niche product and that Android will bring Linux to the mainstream PC audience. (He’s so good at his job he’s not heard of Chrome OS yet – which is what Google has designed for this task!)
I do somewhat feel sorry for him. He’s obviously somewhat out of his depth as a tech journalist – exemplified by his warnings that flash isn’t installed by default (it’s not on Windows, either) and how he needed to get a Canonical employee to help him install it.
His aptitude somewhat further takes a battering when he proclaims “I struggled to work out how I would organise photos, music and video with this system.”
You’d think the ‘music’ icon under “Sound and Video” and “F-Spot photo manager” under ‘Graphics’ would give it away…
If you want to give your eyes a good workout via plenty of eye-rolling, you can read his full “analysis” over @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html
(I’d stay away from the ‘comments’ section if you want to remain calm due to such amazing insights into Linux such as: –
“Linux has a fanatical anti-Microsoft following, but they can’t actually make their product work any better. Compared to mature consumer operating systems like Windows there are too many shortcomings, too many things that don’t ‘just work.’”