The Eclipse Kepler still doesn't seem to work fine with Ubuntu, nor does git (at least installation seems to jam). With Mint, I've used them without any problems.

Is canonical too busy with smart phone business?

It has started to ffeel generally as if Ubuntu is leaving common Linux SW alone and building its own (smart phone oriented) "SW-bundle".

Ubuntu is heading down the commercial road, it's as simple as that.

i'm somewhat baffled to hear that git wouldn't install. that's bad.

but thankfully there's many beautiful and reliable alternatives.

ps: terveisiä espoosta!

Kiitos, kiitos. Samoin.

At least git-gui (or git gui) installation jammed a little after half way (by the progress bar).
And here: http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package...oposed/git-gui
it says:

git-gui is still in the standard repositories, according to this:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?su...ywords=git-gui

I have an e-book titled "Getting Started with Ubuntu 12.04" written by The Ubuntu Manual Team that promises "Ubuntu will always be free of charge, along with its regular enterprise releases and security updates." Perhaps you meant something else by "commercial"?

"Commercial" in this case means a focus on providing an OS that works across form factors: desktop, tablet, phone. Of course that which looks good on a desktop is pretty cramped on a phone, so what is happening is that the desktop is being sacrificed so the phone will work.

But don't worry, at least as long as Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Lubuntu (and maybe soon a MATE version) are available.

Desktops are for producing content, phone/tablets are for consuming it.

providing beta-tester fodder for canonical ltd. and statistics for amazon, and having a software manager that displays ads like a browser without adblock.

ps: quibble: cannon fodder vs. canonical fodder - oooh, bad joke!

When Software Center was in testing it was not Software Center. It was named originally Software Store.

Was a rather noisy rejection of this name by testers and so a number of alternatives were offered. Software Center was the best of the bunch.

The thing was presented as an improved package management tool that would also allow for the sale of proprietary software from a save (Ubuntu) repo. This was downplayed.

Was deployed as a pretty plain application and it worked alright. They then introduced the top panel and it was clear it was simply a tool to direct the user with little experience to packages and products that Canonical wanted to push.

This was also the time that it was announced that Synaptic would not be a default install because it was a tool for experts only.

The trend with Canonical is to remove tools from default install, like aptitude, because they are surplus tools. If there is more than one tool it is confusing to the noob.

While there is some truth to that it is also true that confusion is the foundation for learning. It is also true that without applications being installed by default the noob has little chance of discovering alternative tools.

I mentioned aptitude because it uses a slightly different backend and if you have a problem with apt-get, which will also affect synaptic and software center, you have an alternative front end for dpkg with which to work while fixing the problem with your more familiar package management tools.

This is simply limiting the choices of new Linux users and slowing the learning process so that they can be badgered into the silly idea that Linux is too hard for them unless using Canonical products.

I, as a noob, installed Debian 5 (Lenny) within the first 30 days of my Linux adventure due to reading on the UFs how "hard" it was. Being a grumpy geezer this information needed to be checked to see if it applied to me. It didn't and that sort of information was, from then on, very suspect. This is one reason that Canonical appears to be loosing old users faster than they are currently attracting new users.

Ubuntu is becoming a cult not a distro. As someone that started with Ubuntu this is distressing to me. Their seemingly endless propoganda against all other Linux and then feeling hurt about the reaction to this behavior in the wider Linux community means that the majority of users that stick around for more than a few releases are fanboys with evangelical zeal.

This actually wears thin on most people and doesn't do Linux as a whole much good.

As for becoming more commercial this is obvious to anyone that watches what Canonical is doing with any inteligence at all. They want to get into phones and TVs. There is nothing wrong with this at all. They want to monitize their products. They can't make a very good bid anywhere else, although their cloud deployments for small business seem to be doing very well, so those 2 products make sense from a business viewpoint.

To continue to claim that they have any loyalty to the users of their desktop/laptop users is simply lying. That is what is wrong with the Canonical commercialization.

They are using desktop/laptop users as shills to test a small form facter OS and hyping this as a favor to the users. This is wrong.

They could try honesty but that would be in spirit of treating there users as valued human beings so it is not likely.

I think it is a damned shame.

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LMHO!
next they're going to say that menubars are for experts only.
or plain text editors.

my time with ubuntu was short; i quickly realized development was heading in an opposite direction, compared to my own development with computers.
my last posts on UF were increasingly confusing because people basically want to tinker (=customize) but unity is hiding ("unifying") features... that and infractions. you start to help people, the mods want you to do it in a customer service style - always friendly, helpful, never sarcastic, and always ubuntu-centric. telling someone "Let me google that for you" earns you an infraction.
when they changed the logins to ubuntu one i simply didn't bother anymore.
and like widget wrote, they say it's all for the community, and we're all friendly here... but really they're using those that still want to contribute to the greater good (for free).

that said, this is a trend, ubuntu/canonical are not the only ones and most probably not the first to discover that you can profit from people's willingness to contribute and make it look like it's all free and open and non-profit, but really there's some enterprise somewhere behind 3 firewalls that is holding the reigns and watches the cents and pennies trickle - not much, but globally!!

Selling the very idea of Free and Open Source, of Grassroot Democracy.
Conveniently removing that little bothersome appendix called "responsibility", so we can all really enjoy being free.

i prefer my cynical but honest cave. no strings attached. i'm in control.

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Ondoho: that's what I'm talking about.

I guess the name "software store" reveals the intent.
Maybe the name "software center" will later be changed to "software mall", synaptic will be removed from it and apt will be replaced by something Ubuntu-specific.
After that there is not much advice about Linux in general, that would apply to Ubuntu, and
the free support ends.

Also, they better watch out - what is happening to Windows: They used the Windows market weight to press on Windows phone, and I guess both are suffering: desktop Windows and Windows phone (that's why Androids).

Funny how the bigger distros are company-driven these days...
I guess only Debian is still "commercially independent".

One of the proposed alternative names for the Software Store was Software Bazaar.

Most of us just shrugged, sounded silly. Several testers were frome 3rd world Mediteranian countries and very strongly objected. They have bazaars. This is where you go to by stolen, counterfit goods or illegal drugs and need to watch out for pickpockets and worse sorts of people. That one was dropped quickly.

I, personally, now think they should have gone with it.

As for their phone crap, there is no reason that you couldn't have a Linux distro that would work on a phone, a tablet and a desktop. There is no sense in doing it the idiotic way that MS and Ubuntu are doing it. They are different form factors. They require a some what different approach to the Graphic User Interface.

What works well on a phone is simply not good on a large screen. I know people using large screen TVs for monitors. Win8 or Unity, must be a real joy to use on that sort of device.

You could have the same basic DE and have it work. Would need to be highly and easily configured so that it would work on the diverse form factors.

Existing guis could be used. Xfce, I am an xfce user and therefore should be suspect in this opinion, would work pretty much as is and with the current config tools.

Something based on OB may very well be even better. You can do just about anything with that bugger.

A true Linux phone whould be great. I use an Android. Really don't like it. I have trouble with touch screens. The buggers react when a bare finger is 1/4 inch away from the screen. Using an on screen keyboard this "feature" triggers as many as 6 letters at once.

I am sure a simple file edit in the touch screen config file would fix this. Can I, without rooting and voiding my warrantee do this? No. Can I set up some real security on it? No.

Can I do this with native Linux tools on existing guis for Linux using a touch screen? Yes.

Can Ubuntu be trusted to make such a system? No. Their desktop versions have extremely poor security even compared with some of the respins based on Ubuntu and compared to Linux security in general they are a joke. Security is too hard for the average user so just drop it is their policy or so it appears.

I think this is an insult to their average user and average users in general.

You talk about the insults to the average user from the semi enthusiast point of view. If there is one thing I have learned from my dad and his devotion to Apple... The user doesn't want to be bothered by anything they don't need. Does the average user need to have command line package management? Does the average user ( who is likely coming from MS or Apple ) need anything that isn't point and click?

I'm with you on the learning opportunity but most people simply don't care about that. They just want to look at facebook, email, maybe video chat occasionally and that is about it. My grandparents bought a computer for the sole purpose of solitaire. They don't use it for anything else. Most people don't care about all these things you say they are "insulting their users" by taking out.

I switched to Ubuntu. I like Unity (believe it or not), I turn off the Amazon spyware, and I just don't have the time I used to have to constantly tinker. I just want it to do the few things I need and that is it, and it does them all just fine.

For that I use Mint.

Those are the kind of people who should buy a proprietary OS which functions like an appliance. Free software will probably never work in the same way (until it's spun off as a commercial venture like Android and perhaps in the future Ubuntu - and eventually ceases to be free, or becomes much less free) because the volunteers who produce it are not constrained in the same way that an MS/Apple employee is. An MS/Apple developer could not get away with releasing a version of their OS which only has a command line installer for software - a free software developer can and quite often does. To a typical user of proprietary OS, a GNU/Linux or *BSD system which boots up to a command line with a login prompt is "broken". Acknowledging this and catering to it, is catering to the lowest common denominator and changing the way the OS works for the users who were happy with it in the first place. If you have trouble accepting this, then just look at how windows have dumbed down over the years breaking, removing parts of and crippling the UI for "power users" in order to facilitate "appliance users".

In the free software world there will always be an element of "not happy with command_line_tool_foo? then you are very welcome to write a graphical front end for it". There is no place for certain people with a false sense of entitlement demanding that others provide that for them - free of charge.

I started using GNU/Linux back in '02 or '03 and have had my fair share of frustrations and keyboard throwing moments... but I have always understood that it's free and that I have no real right to complain about a particular piece of software unless I was prepared to actually get off my arse and do something about it.

I like GNU/Linux and *BSD as it is, I don't see the need to change to accommodate a certain type of user who wants everything served up "working" on a plate.

tl;dr - to the people that don't want to be bothered: I don't really want to be bothered about their needs either... I gave up posting on the Debian forums for this very reason and know of many others who did the same. Too many lazy casual users looking for a hand out rather than a hand up.

And therein lies the problem. Companies that want to make money by providing Linux systems requiring as little learning as possible are destroying Linux. These so-called "user-friendly" systems are moving in a direction opposite of the UNIX model. UNIX-based systems are built on the foundation of giving users power over their computers. That makes learning necessary. (Systems for what you call "enthusiasts".) Removing choice, freedom and power from users so people who do not want to learn anything more than point-and-click; then marketing the resulting "user-friendly" system with the intention of attracting Windows users with the idea of a Windows clone that does not cost any money; for the purpose of making money for a company [or in Ubuntu's case, a person (Mark Shuttleworth)] is yielding its inevitable result. The belief that is taking over is that "enthusiasts" learning how to use a different system is an obsolete idea. The philosophy of, "If you do not want to learn how to use the system, do not use it," has been swept under the rug by people like Shuttleworth. The new paradigm is to leach off the work of volunteers and use the fruits of their labour to make money, without giving any recognition to those leached off of. And Comical is not the only offender.

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