Giving up on Ubuntu

<rant>

I'm in a rather frustrated mood right now, but bear with me.

Suffice to say that I've deleted my Ubuntu partitions on both my laptops and used the Windows CDs to reset the MBR and get rid of GRUB. I started exploring Linux five months ago since my new laptop came only with FreeDOS, and I didn't want to buy Vista when Windows 7 is so close to being released. It was a frustrating experience for a longtime Windows user, but I stuck at it, and I managed to whip it up into an OS I could use fairly comfortably even though I had to make compromises here and there. But unfortunately Jaunty has destroyed my perseverance. My USB drives refused to automount, the Update Manager pops up EVERY time I access a package manager (and in Jaunty it was a window instead of an inconspicuous icon in the tray), my Internet connection slowed down to half its speed, Synaptic gobbled up 80-90% CPU, my Altec Lansing were non-functional, video playback was horrendously choppy, and the last straw came when trying to play an AVI file brought the GNOME display manager to its knees, and my panels refused to show properly after a reboot. All these problems were not present in Intrepid.

In all fairness, my hardware setup is AMD/ATI/Broadcom, which I know from experience is not very Linux-friendly. Perhaps I'd have had better luck with an Intel/NVIDIA machine. But it didn't stop me from throwing up my hands in disgust. I'd spent MONTHS wrestling with Intrepid and beating it into shape, and the thought I'd have to do it all over again for Jaunty, which wasn't even a major update, and perhaps yet again six months later for Karmic, made me want to put a hole through the window. I don't mind having to deal with computer problems, in fact I enjoy it every now and then, which was why I stuck through with Intrepid instead of giving it up after the first few days. But Ubuntu has went too far.

I'm back in Vista now, and I know I'll be crucified for this, but it's a relief to get away from Ubuntu. Happily using Chrome instead of Firefox, Office 2007 instead of OOo, and no more having to deal with stepped software updates. Ubuntu had been an enlightening experience, and I'll check back on it from time to time, but from what I've seen of Windows 7, my Linux days may be more or less over.

</rant>

 

Imo you just need to try another distro. I'm using PCLinuxOS. It ime is the easiest & their forums are very helpful & nice to all noobs and geeks alike.

 

If you didn't want updated OS, you have the option of using Hardy which is LTS and supported till 2011. It runs fine as well.

 

Have you tried other linux distros ?

 

I have some experience with Fedora, PCLinuxOS, and Arch, though I still think Intrepid was the best overall distro in terms of out-of-the-box hardware support and default packages. PCLinuxOS was quite good, but try as I might I couldn't get Japanese input working in KDE, which was pretty much a dealbreaker.

I also have much less time now than five months ago, and I need to get things done instead of spending time tinkering with the OS, unfortunately.

 

I think perhaps there are just some hardware combinations that don't or won't do well with Linux for one reason or another. I myself have the AMD/ATI combo and have no issues at all with Ubuntu, either 8.xx or Jaunty. In my few years of distro hopping, I have been frustrated by many of them for various reasons, usually little silly things, but quite often bigger issues. Ubuntu has consistently been the one that works best out of the box with nearly zero issues for me. This has been the case on 2 PCs now.

At any rate, I can understand your frustration. And I'd have to say that if I had the same situation, I'd go with Win too, either XP or Vista or 7, and use what works easiest and best.

But I do think that it's just your particular hardware, as many many people do fine with Ubuntu and have no issues, or nearly none at all. But I don't blame you for moving on, that's probably the wise thing to do.

 

Eice: what about PCLOS Gnome ??
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=54832.0
Not sure about Japanese localisation, but a vveerryy nice implementation of the gnomic desktop.

 

I agree with, Arup. If you spent a lot of time getting things setup and just want a stable platform, then jumping on the bandwagon and upgrading every time a distro comes out, is NOT the way to go. You should have chosen a stable LTS addition like Hardy and stuck with it. You would get all of the security updates but that's all. LTS, stands for LongTerm Support. There is nothing that says you need to upgrade just because you can.

Upgrading every time a new distro comes out is for people a who love to tinker. Not those that want things to work well without a lot of hassle. IOW, your frustration is, to a large extent, the result of your own choices.

 

My experiences with upgrading to newer versions of Windows have been more or less painless over the years.

The only way this could be my own fault is if the upgrade process in Ubuntu is supposed to frustrate users. If you're trying to defend Ubuntu, you're doing a really shitty job of it.

 

While I will pretty much defend Ubuntu as one of the best, I also have to say that I have seen some pretty ridiculous quality control issues from one version to the next in a variety of Linux distros thru the years. I remember running one version of SUSE for some time for example without problems, only to encounter some wild issues in the next release that rendered it unusable for me. This I have seen in many distros. Overall, there is a sometimes serious lack of consistency from version to version that can be very annoying and often a show stopper. But again, I have not encountered this in Ubuntu, and that's one reason why Ubuntu, along with Debian, are my #1 choices for Linux.

 

Well, miracles do happen. But it seems to me that every time MS comes out with a new service pack, the howls of frustration from people with broken systems can be heard throughout the land.

I hope your rant has relieved some of your tension by taking out your frustrations on others. Good luck in the land of Vista. Your rant probably would have been appreciated in the Vista forum. Not so much here.

 

Do you mean upgrading from 2000 to XP to Vista? Or installing on top, or buying another computer and moving your documents over?

 

I'll agree with you on that.

On a side note, I've narrowed down the culprit behind my video problems to the proprietary fglrx drivers. If AMD hasn't improved its open-source drivers when I need to buy a new machine, I'm going back to Intel.

It's not my job to pander to fanboy sensitivities, sorry. If it really hits a nerve in you, then don't read it. The post title was descriptive enough, there was even a rant tag at the beginning. Simple.

I've used every version of Windows from 3.1 to 7. I don't believe in installing over the top, every OS upgrade I've done so far (including from Intrepid to Jaunty) is on a freshly formatted hard drive.

 

You probably missed on a few benefits from upgrading it proper, that is, without installing from scratch. Configurations you have made aren't lost for instance.
And if you need stability over new things, indeed LTS would be a better option. Or Debian Lenny.

But you should use whatever you prefer.

 

The fanboy is the one whom claims "I've never had a problem upgrading Windows."

BTW, the ATI problem was known and documented long before the final release. If you had done even a minimal amount of research before upgrading, you would have known better. As I said, your frustration is your own fault.

 

Problem is, I want both, and I'm used to having things that way in Windows. Which was why I hated Linux' stepped release model (which every major distro is doing). I know new things sometimes aren't stable, but it's not the new features in Jaunty I'm having problems with, it's old things that worked just fine in Intrepid.

I've actually "repented" and put Jaunty back on a 60GB partition, even though I won't use it all that much anymore given my aforementioned problems with it. I don't know, it seems like a pity to throw away five months' worth of knowledge and experience just like that. Meh.

 

I was speaking for myself, not for other people. It's called a fact. Something you're probably not used to dealing with, but you should really at least try.

 

It's not documented where it should be, then.

What you continually try to pin as my "fault" is only exposing things that Ubuntu should've done better. Just give it up. You're falling into the typical fanboy routine of damaging the very things you're trying to defend.

 

If you think about it, in Windows it's the same, you're just installing 3rd party software. If you use LTS, and want a new version of something not available in LTS, install it from their website.
Of course, then you should realize no bugs in said program are attributable to Ubuntu/distroX.

If there is a deb, it's about the same as in Windows with exe installers. If not, it's the developers option/fault, depending on your view.

The world ain't prefect

 

FWIW, I always had best luck installing the ATI drivers from the ATI site. I tried the ones offered by Ubuntu in 8.10 and saw glitches, but as soon as I installed the drivers off the ATI site, it cleared up. Don't know if that would help you any or not.

 

Do you mean this? I thought they were the same as the fglrx driver Ubuntu offered.

If not, would very much appreciate a link. My GPU is a Mobility Radeon HD 3450.

 

You are probably the only one who claims that your update to Windows has been painless, every Windows updates is riddled with nightmare, from Win2K to Vista's nightmare, all have been troublesome and in a big way. Usually with Windows, it needs a SP1 or 2 to come of age and mature.

If you are talking about ATI, Kerodo here has ATI hardware, from CPU, motherboard to video card and he has used the linux drivers from the AMD's site and never faced any issues. Ubuntu repos has much older version than AMD's bleeding edge drivers. I personally use AMD dual GPU 4850 and never face any issues where Open GL performance is required.

 

there is problems with every operating system.
I have had quite a few problems with network manager on ubuntu and fedora.
wireless works great on vista and xp.
since network manager is use din most major distros fedora,debian,ubuntu etc I would expect it to work better and handle wpa and wpa2 encryption with no problems. yet the oldere version of network manager disconnected my wireless card every so often. the next version seemed to be alright. then the next version my wireless didnt even appear.
im gonna try a debian live cd and see what version of network manager that uses. I would assume its an older more reliable tryed and tested version.
someone at college has had the same problems with wireless cards and network manager but wired networking works fine.
most of the problems ive had with windows xp sp2,sp3 and vista sp1 have been due to third party software.
before sp1 vista's own componants crashes quite alot.

ive used windows 95 (dispite what people say i found 95 to be a reliable OS only had to hard reboot because of a damaged cd only twice in 4 years),ME (oh god....),2000,xp,vista and tested 7. ive tryed fedora,ubuntu,opensuse,opensolaris etc.

 

Yep, I just went here:

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

And grabbed the appropirate driver for Linux x64 and installed manually. You'll get a .run file. From a terminal, do "sudo sh ati-driver-installer-xxx" to install it. When it's done, I also do "aticonfig --initial" and then reboot. That's it. Works well for me.

Apparently what Ubuntu offers is different. Those didn't work well for me either.

 

Why should the problem be listed in the Ubuntu release notes when Ubuntu has nothing to do with proprietary drivers? If you use the Ubuntu drivers, then everything works. You just can't access some of the proprietary features of some older ATI cards.

The fault lies with ATI. Not Ubuntu. And if you had been paying the slightest attention when Mrk reviewed 9.04, in this forum, you should have known better than to install 9.04 if you wanted 3d effects with your ATI card. Ubuntu did their job. You failed to do yours.