I just have to post my little Ubuntu rant real quick cos I have just about had it.

First off, when I first installed Ubuntu I kept reading articles of how much better it was compared to Windows. Well, coming from Windows I have not had a very smooth or cooperative experience. I actually have been in tears because my Ubuntu is literally such an bastard sometimes.

I have a list of issues with this OS, and yet I still will not change out Windows. I am determined to tackle this and see what it is so great about what everyone is talking about.

Just now while on Youtube here is a typical day: I open Youtube and the page loads like a broken picture. So all the text is missing HTML and all the links are in single file order on a white background. (I forget what that is called when you get that from a webpage.) Then after a few moments the page loads back to normal, I can't see any of the pictures of the videos in the suggestion windows, none, not even on my playlists or anything! (sounding better than Windows?) After that the video says loading...loading...loading...loading... and never loads, then when I reload the page I get "an error occurred please try again later". This happens over and over until I open the same exact URL in a different tab!

Dont get me started on Google. Any single site I search on Google I get a "page not loading error" every time I have to load Google, wait, open the page, get the error, wait, reload, and then the page works.
Every time.

Out of nowhere my desktop has just been freezing. I signed on the other day to have to manually turn the power button off, and it happen again this morning.

These arent even the original issues. That was- My headphone jack does not turn off the computer speakers, the video camera picks up no sound, I cant even record a video with no sound because the picture is terrible.

Now for the actually Wireless connection. I constantly get this when signing on my computer, "No Wireless Connections Available". Well yes there is Ubuntu! Yes There IS!

Soooo, I never had a single one of these issues with Windows on this same exact computer. Granted it is a netbook, and so what? Its a really nice netbook, and I just dont see how a new computer with no hardware issues, has so much trouble I am so frustrated right now.

Sorry.

I have a new desktop computer ready to go as soon as the new monitor shows up, and I have ants in my pants to try out Linux Mint Debian. I hope it goes alot smoother. There are a ton of reasons I prefer a Linux distro over Windows, and even if this never ended I would probably still just use Linux. But whats the deal? I tried some commands someone gave me on UbuntuForums.org and not only did my Internet get worse, but one day I signed on to my whole desktop in shambles.

I used Ubuntu for several years on a netbook and on a laptop. I would hardly call myself a Ubuntu fan, but that is more a question of how it's implemented. It has always done what I asked it to do.

If you are interested in doing a little testing, I have a couple of suggestions, since it could be that your Ubuntu install is snarfled.

Create a new user in your Ubuntu and log in as that new user, then test the misbehaving items. It could be that some of the configuration files in your home folder are messed up.

Try booting to a live CD of another distro and testing misbehaving items.

Whatever happens, good luck.

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Now your rant is over are you going to ask for help? fF you want help at least give us some details of what version of Ubuntu you are using and the specs of your machine.

As for the video issue have you tried turning off Compiz? I know Compiz used to give my little old Acer laptop a huge headache especially with anything with flash and even Google Earth.

1 members found this post helpful.

Well first of all, I'm not sure by what metric you could consider Ubuntu "much better" than Windows, or Windows "much better" than any other OS for that matter. Which OS works the best for you is a personal preference that involves many variables (what you want to do, what your level of technical expertise is, etc, etc). There is no one OS that is clearly superior to all the others, as there is just too much involved on the individual level. To be brutally honest, if I was forced to pick a overall "best" OS out of everything that is available, it would probably be Mac OS; as it has the power of Unix but with a GUI that even the less technical user finds enjoyable. But that is another topic entirely.

As for your issues, clearly they are not normal behavior for Ubuntu or any other OS, so I'm not sure what the rant here is exactly. It isn't as if your experience is considered the norm under Ubuntu, and you are just now finding out that Ubuntu fans were misleading you. Under normal circumstances, Ubuntu should be perfectly stable.

This line here is really the whole issue entirely though. Netbooks are a notoriously difficult target to support, even more so than laptops. Netbooks often include one-off hardware that requires proprietary firmware or drivers to function; which often times isn't available out of the box in Linux due to licensing issues. The device working perfectly in Windows is both expected and inconsequential; of course it works perfectly in Windows, that is the OS it was designed for and very likely the only OS the necessary drivers were released for. If the manufacturer released their drivers for Linux you wouldn't have a problem, so in the future you might consider buying your hardware from a manufacturer that offers specific Linux support. If it is any consolation, Ubuntu on the desktop should be much much better.

You really shouldn't do this. Don't blindly copy commands from the Internet and run them on your machine unless you know what they do, as that is an excellent way to destroy your computer (as you have already found out apparently).

1 members found this post helpful.

Cool, thank you so much. Yes, I would like some help I am so frustrated. And I havent tried a new username with these issues so thats a good start. I will begin with some testing.

Actually I do have blog here specifically regarding my Ubuntu woes here. (The other two blogs are middle-bottom right.) Also it is Ubuntu 11.10 now, and I need to just back a few things up before trying some reinstillation methods.

Thank you

Nothing wrong with ranting about Ubuntu; it is the target of criticism and butt of a lot of jokes in the Linux community. Many of us have moved on to other distributions after getting our feet wet with Ubuntu.

Your Youtube problem sounds like an ipv6 issue. You can disable this in Firefox by typing "about:config" in the address bar, searching for ipv6, and setting "network.dns.disableIPv6" to "true." If that doesn't solve the problem then you can switch it back to "false." ipv6 is the wave of the future (ipv4 is running out of addresses) and so Ubuntu supports it by default, but ipv6 is going to be a difficult transition--this isn't really Ubuntu's fault that the entire internet is being upheaved.

Also I'd like to point out that Adobe Flash is proprietary, "closed source" software. There is nothing the makers of Ubuntu can do to improve Flash/Adobe performance; you are entirely at Adobe's mercy. Some of us feel that supporting "open source" is important for this, among other reasons. Linux is not perfect, but it gives us absolute freedom to "tweak" our system to taste, and share our ideas with others.

A final thought: Have you ever tried to install a retail copy of Windows from scratch? It is not a "plug and play" experience. Installing any operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac) from scratch you have to expect a few bumps along the way. This is why most people purchase computers with an operating system pre-installed.

1 members found this post helpful.

That is putting it rather mildly.

I have thought that installing any Debian Branch Linux, including Ubuntu, is easier than MS.

One thing that I would recommend is to go to this site;
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Oneiric

And follow their lead in setting up your installation. Pay particular attention to the sources.list. This is a good site with good information that is of great help to many Ubuntu users. Was always on the top of one of my bookmark tabs when I ran Ubuntu.

It may not make everything work but if you give them a try you will be able to ask a better question anyway.

1 members found this post helpful.

Here is another good site for getting started with Ubuntu:
http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/index.php

This totally worked for my unshowing video boxes issue I was having, THANKS!! And thanks to everyone who helped in my thread. This website became my favourite Linux one stop shop!!


Never heard of this one, thanks so much.

Yay! Glad you got it working!

I agree with the suggestion above... normally I would recommend to use official ubuntu.com documentation whenever possible, but I happen to know the author of the psychocats website is a very well-respected moderator on ubuntuforums.

Some of us find the idea of a well-respected moderator of the UFs being a good thing rather hard to understand.

In spite of that, the psychocats.net/ubuntu link is a great one. Put somewhat differently than the official documentation it is easier for some folks to understand and use.

It is also a very well laid out site and easy to navigate.

Psychocats is an excellent resource written by someone who actually tests their methods before they post in their blog. She has the runs on the board as far as knowing what she is doing unlike many others who know jack and still post leaving people with broken systems.
Now now, stop being a sour puss there were/are some decent people there.

I totally sympathize with Pl3th0r4x. I'm primarily an ASP.Net developer Windows developer, but I've always been interested in Linux on the side. Before Ubuntu I tried various other versions of Linux including Mepis, SUSE, Debian, Redhat and a couple others. I think Ubuntu is the most straightforward and I'm sure it's a great OS if you take the time to become an expert at it, but trying to use it with novice level expertise is quite frustrating.

Example - for a couple years I've been running an Ubuntu file server where I had manually created some Samba shares, using online docs and forums to figure out how. Everything worked fine. After I recently upgraded to Unbuntu 11, the shares were no longer accessible from my Win boxes. So I set them up again using the new (at least to me) Samba admin UI. Now I can create and edit files on those shares from my Windows machines, but I can't rename them -- no permission. WTF? This is the kind of little nitpicky thing that makes me wonder why I bother. In my experience Linux has been a matter of doing what the docs say, then searching through forums to find what really works, then repeat a year or two later when things mysteriously stop working. I still want to be a Linux user but it's an ongoing frustration.