Why still all the attention on Ubuntu???
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| cmost Feb 04, 2012 12:26 PM EDT |
Apparently the tech community finds breaking old habits hard. Why do we continue to see full fledged articles and reviews about even the most minor of changes to the upcoming Ubuntu release? This is still very early alpha software! After years of disappointing, buggy releases rife with controversy and lack of respect for user input, Ubuntu has steadily declined in popularity. Much of its user base has fled to Linux Mint, Debian or other distros. We don't see such articles about early alpha builds of other popular distros like Fedora, OpenSUSE or Mandriva. As far as I'm concerned, Ubuntu is now just another distro and no longer a trend setter or FOSS favorite. Frankly, I'm sure I speak for others when I say we don't really need a front page expose every time a few lines of code changes in alpha release of this rapidly fading star. |
| DrGeoffrey Feb 04, 2012 12:55 PM EDT |
Perhaps Canonical has learned about marketing by watching MS? |
| BernardSwiss Feb 04, 2012 6:39 PM EDT |
Quoting: Perhaps Canonical has learned about marketing by watching MS? Is that the good news? Or the bad news? |
| tracyanne Feb 04, 2012 7:12 PM EDT |
It's a pitty more Linux Distro makers didn't learn the same lesson, from whereever, ot whom ever Cannonical learned it. Linux might by now have a much bigger mindshare, if not install base. |
| gus3 Feb 04, 2012 9:24 PM EDT |
+1 Bernard |
| flufferbeer Feb 06, 2012 12:18 PM EDT |
@drgeoffrey,
I'm thinking that MShuttlebigworth has learned enough about marketing from M$ to get tech-writers 'n bloggers to CONTINUALLY discuss Ubuntu anytime they even THINK about Linux!!! +1 cmost. And my 2c |
| DrGeoffrey Feb 06, 2012 6:49 PM EDT |
@flufferbeer, That's what I had in mind at the time. However, whether that's good or bad news is an interesting question. It may be tiresome to always hear about Ubuntu (instead of <insert favorite distribution here>), but at least its Linux. Personally, I'm much more annoyed by the MS fanbois who have never, ever, used Linux. It's rare indeed to find a Linux fan who isn't forced to deal with Windows on a regular basis. And, for all the screaming MS fanbois, it's difficult when comparing the two groups of users not to conclude that Linux users are inevitably more objective. Some here may disagree with me on that issue. But, we have to live in a MS world. They don't live in a Linux world. At least, not yet. @TA, Good point. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 06, 2012 7:32 PM EDT |
I'd say the worst are those MS fanbois, who have some passing familiarity with RHEL, and therefore pontificate that it (ie. "Linux") in their vast experienced judgement "just isn't ready for the desktop" (And a fair number of these guys even have trouble accepting the fact that Linux makes for an excellent all-round, general-purpose server, let alone desktop OS). Sometimes "desktop" is spelled "masses", "ordinary users", "my mom", "real life", or whatever. Heck, the ones that have actually tried Fedora might have a point (but they usually don't, because they either simply gave up very quickly, when their Windows experience didn't apply, or persevered in quite impressive fashion, without realizing that a significant part of their expertise no longer applied, and was in fact misapplied). |
| number6x Feb 07, 2012 8:34 AM EDT |
@BSwiss: The kind of MS fanbois you are talking about are the ones that boot up a live cd and can't find their "C:" drive, correct? At that point they usually freak out a little that something so core to their computer knowledge is just a made up label and they give up. I've met those guys. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 07, 2012 7:56 PM EDT |
Actually, some of them at least claim to have some significant (?) degree of RHEL admin experience at work, in some sort of mixed environment. They will occasionally even praise "Linux" as pretty good for servers. Yet these same "experts" also trot out the "not ready for the ordinary user" line -- or even for, despite their expertise, their own "ordinary" desktop use. But they still don't seem to understand that RHEL is hardly an ideal, or representative, choice for typical office use or a home desktop. Even when this is pointed out to them. They're too caught up in their own Windows expertise and "the Windows way" of doing things. Even worse are some of the "successful" ones who despite their Windows-centric thinking were still persistent enough to finally cobble together a working system (willing to trade some upfront labour for long-term stability), even though they didn't follow good practice, and haven't really learned certain basics -- so the system naturally collapses at the first update, and they blame "Linux" (even when others are glad to explain where they went wrong) rather than actually improve their understanding. - + - I understand that some helicopter service companies prefer to train their own pilots from scratch (ie. no flight experience whatsoever), rather than train fixed-wing pilots to operate helicopters, because too many pilots with fixed-wing experience can have a hard time letting go of old habits and reflexes -- especially under pressure in stressful situations or emergencies. This sounds reasonable, but I wouldn't think installing and maintaining an operating system is in the same category. |
| Khamul Feb 07, 2012 8:22 PM EDT |
@Bernard: My wife is a helicopter pilot. I've never heard of any helicopter service companies training their own pilots, except for the US military, unless you're talking about just doing crossover ratings. Everyone other than the military (and police, see below) hires already-trained helicopter pilots, people that went to school to learn to be a pilot. What many operators do do, however, is train their new-hire pilots for the aircraft they'll be flying, as you're not allowed to just jump in an aircraft model you've never flown and start flying it; you have to be licensed for that exact make and model of aircraft. So, for instance, if a tour company hires some pilots whose only experience is 1000 hours of teaching students at their flight school, in 2-seat piston engine helicopters, that tour company will generally do the necessary training to get these new guys their crossover for whatever helicopter (usually a large 6-8 passenger turbine helicopter) that company operates. The training necessary for a crossover is very, very minor compared to the training needed to get a commercial license (as well as CFI and CFII licenses which are basically necessary) (perhaps 5 hours compared to hundreds of hours). Companies might shell out for 5 hours of instruction and testing for you, but they're not going to shell out for 400+ hours.* It's not that hard for a fixed-wing pilot to retrain for a helicopter; all the navigation and instrument stuff is basically the same, the difference is in operating the controls, and yes, a lot of training is needed to handle emergencies. When you have an engine failure, you have about 1.1 seconds to slam the collective and maintain rotor rpm to enter an autorotation or you're dead. Student pilots have to practice this maneuver over and over again, with no warning (the instructor will randomly kill the throttle as you're flying along). But these are all things you'll learn as you get a helicopter add-on rating, but that rating takes quite a while, as you're basically doing all the same stuff that someone getting a private and commercial license from scratch would do, so you're looking at a fair number of hours, which is expensive at $220-450 per hour. It's a lot more involved than just getting a crossover rating from one aircraft to a similar kind of aircraft. *There is one exception to this: police departments. Your local police department is more than happy to shell out $100K+ to a civilian flight school to train a cop to be a helicopter pilot, even if it doesn't work out (a significant number of student pilots wash out, because they simply don't have the skill necessary). In fact, police departments *refuse* to hire helicopter pilots to fly their helicopters; they insist on only having *cops* fly helicopters. So if you paid $120k to get trained, and have 3500 hours of experience doing all kinds of stuff, and go apply to the local police department to fly their helicopter, forget it; they won't hire you, because you're not a cop. They'll tell you they want you to enroll in police academy, go through that like all the other cops, then spend 5 years (no lie) walking the streets with the other cops, giving traffic tickets, etc. After that, *then* you can apply for their pilot program. It doesn't matter how experienced you are as a pilot; apparently, they think that their pilots are going to land a multimillion dollar helicopter in the ghetto somewhere and start chasing after a suspect. Moral: any time your local police department cries for more funding, say NO. The military isn't much better. Whereas civilian pilot students learn in small, inexpensive piston helicopters that cost "only" $220-350 per hour to fly (or up to 450 if you're overweight (more than 220 pounds) as you'll need a bigger craft), the military does all its training for new pilots in expensive turbine helicopters costing $600-1000 per hour to operate. As always, when the taxpayer is paying for something, don't bother keeping costs low, just go for the most expensive method you can find of doing something. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 07, 2012 8:50 PM EDT |
Actually, I know that some helicopter companies do in fact operate as I described, (ie. won't train fixed-wing pilots, will train non-pilots (after extensive aptitude evaluation, of course)) as I learned this directly from heli pilots when I was fighting forest-fires. A relative of mine tried to get a job with one of these companies, but he didn't pass their pilot-aptitude tests. And in recent news in my area, a civilian pilot for the police died during a training exercise (probably weather-related). |
| Khamul Feb 07, 2012 10:55 PM EDT |
@Bernard: Which companies? It costs about $120,000 to train a pilot these days; why would any company pay for this, without some kind of guarantee that they're going to get their money out of you? Worse, there's tons of experienced, licensed pilots already out there looking for jobs who can't find them. Why would a company train someone brand new when they can just hire someone who's experienced? That makes no sense. The military can do this because you're enlisted for 4 years, so you can't just quit when a better job offer comes along. Civilian companies can't. There are some police departments that hire civilian pilots, but many or most won't. |
| henke54 Feb 08, 2012 7:59 AM EDT |
huh ?? ... linux ? ... : http://www.ubuntufund.org/who-we-are/ubuntu-centre.html ;-P |
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