The Official Ubuntu Book

Craig Maloney writes "Over the long history of Linux, there have been many different distributions. One of the most famous distributions, love it or hate it, is the Ubuntu distribution. Ubuntu has come quickly from being the new kid on the block with the Warty Warthog release (4.10) to the most recent release Gutsy Gibbon (7.10). In that three year span, Ubuntu has grown from a handful of enthusiasts and developers to a thriving worldwide community. The Official Ubuntu Book is the official book from Canonical, which describes not only the Ubuntu distributions, but also the community from which Ubuntu is derived." Read below for the rest of Craig's review.

The Official Ubuntu Book
author	Benjamin Mako Hill, Jono Bacon, et. al
pages	463
publisher	Prentice Hall
rating	9
reviewer	Craig Maloney
ISBN	0-13-235413-6
summary	An excellent way to get introduced to the Ubuntu distribution and community

The Official Ubuntu Book is comprised of 10 main chapters covering various aspects of the Ubuntu project. The first chapter discusses a bit of the history of the Ubuntu project, as well as the relationship of Canonical to the project. Chapter 2 dives into installing Ubuntu from either the Live CD or the Alternative installation CD. Chapter 3 shows how to use the applications that ship with Ubuntu with some detail. Some of the more in-depth programs get more attention, like The GIMP and Firefox. Also covered are the basics of the GNOME interface, such as adding items to the panels, or logging off of the system. Chapter 4 covers basic system administration (printers, upgrades, file sharing), and package management. Chapter 5 introduces the Ubuntu Server variant, covering RAID, LVM, and more package management techniques. Chapter 6 deals with support issues in a question / answer format, and is a great place for readers to get some of their more common questions answered. Chapter 7 covers the Kubuntu variant of Ubuntu in more depth. Chapter 8 and 9 introduce the Ubuntu Community, and the tools that keep the Ubuntu project running. These chapters alone should be required reading for anyone with more than a passing interest in the Ubuntu project. Lastly, Chapter 10 covers the Edbuntu project, and demonstrates how to set up a LTSP network. The appendices include the Ubuntu related documents, a quick tutorial on the command line, and a great Windows / Ubuntu equivalent section for those who are looking for the best alternatives for certain Windows programs. All-in-all, The Official Ubuntu Book covers the main aspects of the Ubuntu project in a very thorough manner.

Included with the book is the Ubuntu 7.04 release (Feisty Fawn) on DVD. This is a solid release, and was current at the time the book was published. It still has 12 months active support even in light of the recent 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) release, and should give those looking to try Ubuntu an excellent starting point.

The biggest issue facing a book like The Official Ubuntu Book is determining a target audience. Ubuntu appeals to a wide range of people; from the newest newbie to the hardened UNIX aficionado. Making a book that speaks to both is no easy task. Fortunately, The Book does an admirable job of providing enough to keep both parties interested. New Ubuntu users will find lots of information about how to get things accomplished in Ubuntu, while seasoned UNIX user will find enough information to see what th differences are between Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. Both will find a great introduction to participating with the rest of the Ubuntu community in the later chapters of the book. Any user of Ubuntu would be well served in reviewing those chapters fora sense of what opportunities exist, and how best to participate in the community given their talents and skills. True, the chapters describing specific applications lack much depth, but the omission can be forgiven in light of the shear amount of material covered. Just learning how to navigate what is provided on the live CD could fill a tome the size of this book, leaving no room to discuss the more about the community. The Official Ubuntu Book balances between both extremes, and provides plenty of information about both the Ubuntu distribution, and the community.

The success of the Ubuntu project is due in no small part to the people who spend their time participating with other Ubuntu users. Reading the book not only gives a sense of what Ubuntu is about, but also shows how open and inviting these users are. It may not be the best tutorial for the new Linux user, but it is an excellent book for those who want to take the next step and be a part of putting together and supporting a large Linux distribution. The Official Ubuntu Book captures the spirit of the Ubuntu community well, and brings the excitement in a palpable form to the reader. I can recommend this book to new users of Ubuntu with only the caution that they may need to find other resources to learn the many new programs that ship with Ubuntu. However, I can also highly recommend this book to anyone who has even a passing interest in getting involved with the Ubuntu project, both new and experienced. The Official Ubuntu Book, much like the Ubuntu project, is an ambitious undertaking, and similarly we all benefit from their hard work.

You can purchase The Official Ubuntu Book from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

The probem with these types of books is that...

[AltGrendel]

...these things are usually obsolete in, oh say, 6 months or so.

That's Why I Hate Magazines.

[CheeseburgerBrown]

My issues of Newsweek from 1993 are practically useless now.

Re:

[east coast]

Just wait a couple years, it will be the same stories only most of the names will have changed.

Re:

[lavid]

You should have kept the ones from the mid to late eighties, it's the same stories with the same names!

Re:

[Toby_Tyke]

A while back I was listening to a Bill Hicks stand up routine from the early nineties. It was full of jokes about the war in Iraq, George Bush, and how Clinton was going to win the election.

Re:

[duggi]

yeah,but does it cover questions about the christian edition? :)

Re:That's Why I Hate Magazines.

[frankmu]

oh, i don't know. there are some classic "articles" and "short stories" from old Playboy magazines.

Re:

[Mahjub Sa'aden]

The deeply insightful articles over the years about the Rise and Fall of Bush? An era that's come to an end, my friend. Once the was much Bush, now you can glance through the magazine without encountering any.

Oh how the might have fallen. Er... shaved.

Re:

[CaptainZapp]

Well, there's really nothing older then yesterdays newspaper.

Re:

[kaizokuace]

Uh hello! COLLAGE! That or cut out lettering to write creepy letters to your friends!

Re:

[Bastian227]

You could burn them for warmth. That's practical and useful, especially for the winter months.

Re:

[farkus888]

it seems they are outdated by the time they hit the shelfs unless you are running the LTS version of the operating system. The massive resources on the internet are probably more useful and thorough than this book. but my real point is that I feel bad for anyone who buys the book, realizes you can't log in as root, and decides to never use ubuntu again.

Re:

[CSMatt]

Exactly. It makes much more sense to write a book only for the LTS releases.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

"but my real point is that I feel bad for anyone who buys the book, realizes you can't log in as root, and decides to never use ubuntu again."

Yes, going into the User Accounts section and enabling the root account takes hours.

Re:

[ealar dlanvuli]

More to the point, why would you want to login as root?

Sean

May by the standards of....

[Anonymous Coward]

Obsolete in 6 months is not likely, Linux/UNIX is much more stable than that other OS.

Re:

[somersault]

I really hope that was sarcasm.. there are hardly any versions of Windows compared to hundreds of different Linux distros, each with new versions coming out all the time. Stable in terms of less crashes sure, but stable with releases????!?!?!???...

Re:

[Machtyn]

The issue is that a lot of the tools in the *nix universe have been in use since the 80's, a few even longer. Plus, this book gives a basic foundation for a new user or a converting user. I imagine the best use is for someone who has only one computer and is attempting to setup or troubleshoot an issue. I know when I search to solve some problems, I have issues trying to cut through the noise to find a relevant solution.

Re:

[Cal Paterson]

Ubuntu has a 6 month release cycle; the book will be out of date in 6 months (as a best case).

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

...these things are usually obsolete in, oh say, 6 months or so.

Oh, I can think of some [amazon.com] computing [amazon.com] books [amazon.com] which are just as useful today as when first published. Maybe the quality of a technology could be judged by how long its documentation goes without being superseded.

However, any Linux guide will stand the test of time better if it explains matters through command-line tools. Graphical interfaces change too rapidly.

Re:

[TorKlingberg]

True, but that goes for just about any how-to book for any computer program. Which hasn't stopped it from becoming a huge market.

Re:The probem with these types of books is that...

[bcrowell]

Some things change more rapidly than others. I have a student who's trying to get started with Linux on an old machine his family had around. He's asking me questions like, "Where can you learn how to do that command line stuff?" and "What's a window manager?" The answers to those questions aren't going to change in six months.

From my point of view as a relatively experienced Linux user, the usefulness of such a book is probably a lot less. I have a big, long set of notes on Unix that I maintain in a personal wiki, and I doubt that there's very much in the intersection of {things I need to know} & {things I don't have in my notes} & {things that are in this book}. The main thing that's kicking my butt with ubuntu these days is cups and network printing; every time I manage to get it working, it takes a couple of weekends of pulling my hair out, and then it breaks again at the next upgrade. For that, the book is certain to be useless to me because of obsolescence, and also probably because the issue with cups seems to have more to do with poor design and integration into the distro. Another big problem a lot of people are suffering from is difficulties wifi and laptop power management. (Personally, wifi Just Works for me these days, and power management Just Doesn't Work). The book won't help with those issues, because they're fundamentally related to the proprietary nature of the hardware (e.g., hardware manaufacturers not publicly documenting the registers that need to be saved when you put your machine to sleep).

There are also certain categories of specialized, advanced knowledge that won't change anytime soon, but that most people don't need to know. For instance, I have a copy of "The Debian System" by Krafft, and although I can't recommend the book in general, it does have a reasonably intelligible and detailed discussion of the debian packaging system, which for me has turned out to be a lot more helpful than the various online descriptions (which are poorly written, disorganized, incomplete, and never up to date).

One of the big advantages of FreeBSD over Linux, IMO, is that FreeBSD is a single complete operating system, not a kernel that's packaged in a whole bunch of different distros, so you can buy a book on FreeBSD, and it will document the actual system you're using.

Re:

[kavehkh]

that's kicking my butt with ubuntu these days is cups and network printing; every time I manage to get it working, it takes a couple of weekends of pulling my hair out, and then it breaks again at the next upgrade.

You are lucky my nvidida drivers break on Debian Edgy after every restart (which is rare).

Re:

[tzanger]

I don't know about you, but CUPS seems to only work when you are directly connected. I cannot get CUPS<-->CUPS-->printer working at all. If I tell my kubuntu machine to use the CUPS server that is connected directly to the printer, great. If I tell my slackware machine to do the same, it works. But either one trying to use their own CUPS server to talk to a remote CUPS printer... fuggedabowdit. Protocol dumps show that it seems to be sending incorrect data, and the CUPS ipp utility program jus

Re:

[notamisfit]

The only Linux book I've found that approaches the usefulness of the *BSD handbooks would have to be "Linux Administration Handbook" by whoever the hell wrote it. Haven't seen the Ubuntu book yet, and I doubt I'd really be interested, judging by the review.

Re:

[rk]

"The main thing that's kicking my butt with ubuntu these days is cups and network printing; every time I manage to get it working, it takes a couple of weekends of pulling my hair out, and then it breaks again at the next upgrade. For that, the book is certain to be useless to me because of obsolescence, and also probably because the issue with cups seems to have more to do with poor design and integration into the distro."

I think you're closer to the truth regarding distro integration, because my exper

Re:

[ctr2sprt]

All I did was start the CUPS server, logged on to it, told it the printer's IP and model number, and it Just Worked(tm).

I think you and the GP are talking about different classes of printer, here, based on the fact that yours has an IP address. It's the cheapie inkjets that you get for free with a $500 computer that don't work right in Linux.

Pretty much any laser printer is going to Just Work(tm) in Linux, especially if you're sending it PCL or PS to its built-in, lpd-compatible print server over a TCP

Re:

[bcrowell]

I think you and the GP are talking about different classes of printer, [...] It's the cheapie inkjets that you get for free with a $500 computer that don't work right in Linux.

Just to clarify, I'm the GP poster, and I have a laser printer, not an inkjet. What's kicking my butt time after time is network printing, not printing locally. I think part of the problem may be that the cups developers and the Ubuntu developers are on different wavelengths about security. I keep seeing cases where the default in c

Re:

[tzanger]

What's kicking my butt time after time is network printing, not printing locally.

How, praytell, did you get it to work??!! I've got a Slack 12 system with a locally-connected Pixma MP530 (GREAT printer, btw, absolutely stellar). I can print from windows to the CUPS spool just fine. I can print from the Slack server just fine. Neither of my Kubuntu machines can print to it, and neither can my other Slack box. If I tell those Kubuntu or other Slack box that their CUPS server is the Slack box with the

Re:

[bcrowell]

How, praytell, did you get it to work??!!

Here are my notes: http://www.lightandmatter.com/cgi-bin/meki?computer_unix#Debian,CUPS,_printing,_Brother_printer [lightandmatter.com] The answer to your question is that currently, I don't have network printing working. My notes describe how I got it working in Breezy. When I upgraded to Fiesty, it broke, and to fix it I had to bring back my old cups config file. When I upgraded to Gutsy, it broke again, and restoring the old config file didn't help.

Re:

[rk]

The additional irony here is that I'M the one with the cheapie inkjet printer. It's an HP 5800 $50 Fry's special. It is sophisticated enough to have an ethernet adapter, however. Our nice laser printer went belly-up years ago.

Re:

[Frosty Piss]

...these things are usually obsolete in, oh say, 6 months or so.

And the real problem with this is not the short shelf life, it's the price: $23 at Amazon. For that money, I'll make due with Google.

Re:

[Wobble-U]

I've got old fat "Redhat Linux Unleashed" and "Using Linux" books and most of the stuff in them are still fairly relevant, as most of it is about using the console, not the GUI. I still use them occasionally too, as some of the stuff in there is hard to find on the web.

Re:

[betterunixthanunix]

I dunno, the man pages are still pretty interesting...

Re:

[krasicki]

Actually, no. I agree with the reviewer that this is an excellent introduction to Ubuntu and the book holds great social value as well as technical instruction.

What I liked about this book is that any family can purchase it inexpensively, read it (and this is a very readable technical introduction, and come to understand that the Linux world is not some kind of scary place. In fact it is an operating system and family of free applications that celebrate individuality, freedom, and ease of use.

Or it can be

Idea for a promo

[Huntr]

Buy the book, get a free hard drive. [slashdot.org]

Kidding!

Finally - an antisocial way to approach Ubuntu!

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

The success of the Ubuntu project is due in no small part to the people who spend their time participating with other Ubuntu users. Reading the book not only gives a sense of what Ubuntu is about, but also shows how open and inviting these users are.

Finally - this book provides an antisocial way to approach Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Books

[stoolpigeon]

There are so many ubuntu books [amazon.com] available - it's really quite an indication of how popular this distro has become. Though the same measuring stick would show that fedora [amazon.com] has more material out there. It has been around longer though.
 
I work with Red Hat in my job, so I stick with Fedora but I'm seeing more folks around here running Ubuntu on their desktops.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with Red Hat in my job, so I stick with Fedora but I'm seeing more folks around here running Ubuntu on their desktops.

I work w/ Red Hat on my Job, so I stick w/ CentOS :)

Re:

[stoolpigeon]

Yeah - I could go that route - or Oracle's version. But I think Fedora works very nicely as a desktop distro, and I get to play around with newer features that I would never have on my servers. So I have a similar architecture and tools, but on what feels to me, a more desktop friendly setup.

Full text of book

[garbletext]

The official Ubuntu Book, by Mark Shutleworth. Chapter One: RTFM! The End.

Re:

[Devv]

I think you could get in trouble for writing the entire book there without paying someone somewhere. I do indeed believe that you could.

Re:

[garbletext]

In all seriousness, shouldn't this book be LGPL or somehow free?

Re:

[lord_rob the only on]

Damn ! It's been a while a Slashdot comment has not made me laughing like that :-p Thanks mate :-)

community

[rasputin465]

...the community from which Ubuntu is derived.

And by "community" you mean "debian".

Kudos

[AlXtreme]

Just wanted to say kudos to Mako for this book and his work for both Debian and Ubuntu. You're doing a fine job!

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Focus is free software, less on daily use

[beachdog]

Here are two weaknesses and two strengths of this book:

It seems to me the Official Ubuntu book is weak on helping a user figure out what she is going to do with the installed system.

For instancce, how would a new Ubuntu user backup her Windows files to CD ? Like transporting all your email and browser bookmarks from Windows to Ubuntu? Not covered. The focus of this book fades at the boundaries of Ubuntu itself.

Another weakness is, this book talks about Ubuntu but doesn't show a simple task like how to back

One of the most famous distributions???

[sgholt]

Not most famous, it is the most hyped. Redhat, Debian, Slackware and Gentoo could be called famous...sorry Ubuntu doesn't quite fit that title.

Re:I love Ubuntu.

[AmaDaden]

Something new to 7.10 or gusty gibbon is a xorg configuration utility that should be able to help you out.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Does it work when there's no UI because Ubuntu decided to use a refresh rate that's out of range of the monitor?

And, for added fun, does it work when you can't access the console because Ubuntu managed to corrupt the video memory that contains the console font, so trying to fix it via the command-line is a non-starter?

Really, you'd think that in 2007 Linux would be able to use the ability to query monitors about acceptable refresh rates that's existed for the past, oh, 15 years or more. But apparent

Re:

[AmaDaden]

Yeah I've been there. It's why the xorg app in 7.10 makes me happy. Shit like this should not be an issue. I love Linux and all that I can do with it but xorg is still a problem and for no reason that I can see. I remember hearing somewhere that they are planing to include something that prevents this kind of mess in the next release; But I can't remember what it was or where I herd about it. Well anyway...Your gonna need a live CD to at least get a working command line. If it's a 7.10 Ubuntu CD you might b

Re:

[Vorpix]

try installing ubuntu server or the ubuntu alternate intall cd.

with ubuntu server you just get a command line as your finished product. if you want a graphical interface you can install it easily enough "apt-get install xubuntu-desktop"... which if that still gives you problems, you can manually edit xorg.conf. and of course, you can choose a kernel besides server if you so desire.

it's quite easy to use these alternatives, you should give them a try before totally giving up on Ubuntu.

Re:I love Ubuntu.

[miro f]

actually there's also a new "failsafe graphics mode" which is supposed to make sure you always get a gui no matter how much you bork your xorg.conf

dunno how well it works though, I never really had any issues like that...

Re:

[Lord Ender]

Ah, the "Screens and Graphics" tool. It works OK if you have just one monitor. If you have multiple monitors, this thing is sure to give you crashtacular results. The Ubuntu forums are full of dual-head crash questions for 7.10 that have never been answered.

You have been warned.

Re:

[AmaDaden]

Well that's depressing. I was hoping that I could finally stop mucking around in the xorg config file. At least the tool is a start. Is their any Linux distro that has something like that that works right?

Re:

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

I suspect the Ubuntu folks pushed a number of things into 7.10 when normally they would've waited for a bit more stability, but if they didn't do this, then the next LTS (long term support) release 8.04 would not be able to include them. Specifically, I'm talking about Compiz.

My own feeling is that 7.10 hasn't been the most stable Ubuntu release! But I *do* expect 8.04 to be solid.

Re:

[Bambi Dee]

The nvidia-settings tool wrote me a Twinview xorg.conf that wasn't even half the size of the one I'd been lugging around from distro to distro, and it worked; just had to add some single-screen metamodes for fullscreen games...

Re:

[T-Bone-T]

I use nvidia-settings to mess with xorg. My first issue was getting it root access. Once I figured out the configuration file wasn't actually saving I really made headway. I still had to go in and manually rename my screens and monitors but that was about it. I have to remember to not use Screens and Graphics. That is one messed up little program. I even managed to fail so badly with it the fail-safe didn't even work.

Re:

[ketilwaa]

Works fine for me with the same type of card. Only problem was a well known bug that has /etc/usplash.conf to some weird resolution, thus giving me a black screen in stead of usplash. Changing those values to something my monitor accepted fixed that.

Re:

[NullProg]

It just screws up the resolution when I use my GeForce 7600 GT.

Are you sure its Ubuntu? I had the same problem two weeks ago with xUbuntu and a no-name el-cheapo monitor. I cast an incantation and then replaced the monitor with a spare SAMSUNG and now have resolution goodness.

BTW,
You should be posting on the Ubuntu forums http://ubuntuforums.org/ [ubuntuforums.org], not slashdot.

Enjoy,

Re:

[xenocide2]

Well, the book covers:
* the history of Ubuntu
* how the Ubuntu community is structured
* how to contribute to Ubuntu
* How to set up things far outside the ordinary usages "easy to use" would be intended to hit, like LTSP
* and more!

Re:Supposed to be easy to use...

[pak9rabid]

So why does it need a book?

So you have something to do in the restroom?

Re:

[pizzach]

I don't know. I have always found paperback a bit too ruff for my tastes. Plus there is the problem with getting the pages out Once out, they never seem to flush down the toilet right either.

In all seriousness...

[kwabbles]

I can't tell you how many epiphanies I've had while on the can reading an O'Reilly book.

But not in all seriousness...
Someone come up with a punch line for that one.

Re:

[bigbadunix]

Send a copy to Larry Craig, please.

Re:

[jedidiah]

> Remember that Mac that was released that didn't even have a manual? That's what the goal should be.

What? Keeping the users completely in the dark?

Kidding yourself that you'll never need documentation?

Making the system hostile to experts and 3rd party support personel (paid or voluntary)?

Omitting the manual is just hubris.

Re:

[CheeseTroll]

Not to mention the fact that there's a wee bit more functionality in any Linux distribution (or any modern OS, for that matter) than the original Mac. MacPaint, MacDraw, MacWrite - no, you really don't need a manual to futz around with those.

I know, the gpp was meant to be humorous, but I'm in analytical-mode and just can't stop myself!

Re:Supposed to be easy to use...

[famicommie]

Remember that Mac that was released that didn't even have a manual? That's what the goal should be.

I agree whole heartedly. Ubuntu is "GNU/Linux for Human Beings", something I personally translate to mean "accessible to everyone regardless of experience or expertise". At my recommendation, two of my friends have installed Ubuntu and have since begun using it as their primary OS. It's been about nine months so far, and between the two of them I get at most one support call a month. What I don't like about your statement is that it infers that the existence of an official Ubuntu book necessarily means Ubuntu is not accessible to everyone. That is a very silly jump of logic. Ubuntu is pretty easy for almost anyone to pick up and run. This book is for users who don't just want a whizbang Word Processing Internet Browsing Machine but want to learn about some of the underlying dynamics of the system and it's applicable uses. My grandmother is mostly uninterested in enabling filesharing, but I am sure that there are hobbyists out there who would like a reliable guide to set up a LTSP network and put the OS to more complicated uses than sharing pictures of cats with friends. The Mac, like Ubuntu, offers both ease of use and a powerful underlying system. Sure, your grandma might be content with performing simple tasks, but there IS a terminal available for the geeks out there. Simplicity and power are not mutually exclusive.

Re:

[Veinor]

-"Chapter 2 dives into installing Ubuntu from either the Live CD or the Alternative installation CD" Wait, I thought the Live CD *was* the install CD. At least that's one of the two inconsistent explanations they give to newbies.

Both of them are installation. The other is just alternative, hence the name. Not sure on the difference.

Re:

[compro01]

Not sure on the difference.

the alt CD lacks the liveCD's nice GUI installer and provides some advanced installation options that aren't available through the liveCD.

also useful if you can't get the liveCD to work for some reason, usually esoteric graphics hardware.

Re:

[modecx]

Huh, I was wondering that myself. The liveCD wants 384MB RAM to boot. I wanted to put Ubuntu on two of my old computers, so I could give one to a family member. Ubuntu detected the swap drive on the one that had a 2004 installation of Debian and only 256MB RAM, so it booted, eventually. That one is a 400Mhz PII, and worked reasonably once booted. I guess the alt image can work on a machine with 128 MB RAM, and no preexisting swap partition, but I wasn't clear on what was so alternate about it before no

Re:

[jimcooncat]

Use the alternate install CD for low memory systems, too. 256 MB and below, that means you.

Re:

[mackyrae]

There's the live install cd AND the alternate install cd. The alternate install cd uses the ncurses Debian-Installer and offers more advanced options for more advanced users.

Re:

[Kjella]

And I'm guessing a different package selection too, I figure the text installer itself can't eat that much so there's got to be more reasons not to have it as a boot option on the normal CD...

Re:

[mackyrae]

The text installer uses apt to install everything, like Debian-Installer does. The GUI installer pretty much just copies an image to the hard drive then modifies the xorg.conf and a couple settings like language and adds the user.

Re:

[LiquidMind]

Madam (if that even applies), I find your comment hard to believe, mostly because i see your signature as totally paradoxical.
Please either fix your sig or start commenting about other made-up things, such as unicorns or the tooth fairy.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who are tuning in late, UbuntuDupe had a problem installing Ubuntu. But what makes him unique is he still dwells on it more than two years later!

Re:

[UbuntuDupe]

Wrong. I'm not complaining that I had "a problem" installing Ubuntu. I'm complaining that the install failure locked me out of my computer entirely, and that the reason the failure so cascaded was that I followed a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED instruction, and that the forums could not help me unless I had taken precautions that are mentioned nowhere in the install instructions. In other words, pretty pitiful design errors got through.

Furthermore, the reason I continue to talk about this *today* is that each and e

Re:

[chiefloko]

The preface is tailored to Luddites.

Shouldst it not be ' Thou Fool' ?

[tehdaemon]

Wot ye not that human speech doest alter from year to year, and generation to generation? Wherefore then art thou distraught over 'comprised'? Pray then, do not let thine fondness of the past nor desire to linger therein prove a thorn in the side of thine fellow man, nor an hindrance to his future.

T

Re:

[AP31R0N]

It is a given that languages change over time. Your next amazing feat should be pointing out that water is wet. However, this change is more like using the word hot to mean cold. Comprise and compose are opposite sides of a coin. Turning comprise into compose means we lost something. This isn't correcting a flaw, nor is it a hack (y'all for a plural you, to fix what we lost when we abandoned thou). If this merger happens, we have to come up with something else to mean what comprise already covers. Whe

Re:

[tehdaemon]

Comprise and compose are opposite sides of a coin.

Just like flammable and inflammable, right?

When comprise and compose become one word, we have to say "50 states make up the union".

And I have to say 'it will not burn' instead of 'it is inflammable'. No big deal really.

Yes, this is a product of ignorance. And that is one of the prime ways that languages do evolve.

In the end, the word means what the writer/speaker meant - not what some dictionary says, and not necessarily what someone else may have mea

I feel your pain

[The Monster]

I wouldn't object were it not for the fact that this new sense of "comprise" has a meaning in direct opposition to the older sense. That threatens to deprive the word of any meaning other than "Here's one thing, and a group of things that together make up the one thing, but I'm not going to tell you which is which; you can just try to figure it out by context!"

That and I'm of the opinion that people really don't understand the word, but it sounds more intelligent than "compose", so they try to sound smar

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

That a dictionary grudgingly allows a malapropism doesn't make it less wrong, nor less painful to read. In fact, this usage note implies that people who use it the wrong way are less than "careful writers", even if that usage may be increasingly tolerated.

To comprise means to comprehend, to contain, to grasp or hold in the hand. This is evident to anyone with just a little knowledge of Latin or a Romance language. It's a strong visual metaphor that doesn't work the other way round.

Also, for obvious reasons

Re:

[compro01]

i like Slack as a learning tool (first linux distro i ever used), but i grew up using a GUI, and while i can use the command line pretty well, i still like GUI tools for most tasks, but the command line is still the easiest/most efficient way to do many things, and even a GUI app can be very complex . if you tell me that PCB program i learned to use last year doesn't need a manual, I'd say you need a psych exam and the same goes for any other reasonably complex GUI app. GUI does not automatically imply si

Re:

[notamisfit]

If auto-mount isn't a desirable feature, then why did Pat go to so much trouble to get HAL working for Slack 12? Have to agree about Ubuntu, though. I graduated to FreeBSD some time ago, and never really looked back.

Re:

[plasticsquirrel]

If your biggest complaint about Ubuntu is that it mounts CD's for you, then you should really be complaining about every GUI-oriented distribution in the last 10+ years. Slackware is great for learning Linux (6-7 years on my desktop), but Ubuntu is unique in that it gets out of the way of the user. No Slackware /etc files to edit, and no SuSE big clunky icons and huge taskbars to get in your way. And if you think that people wanting a simple, eloquent operating system should go with Windows, then you're pre

Re:

[Fred_A]

A new Ubuntu user which comes to forums and ask questions like "what does -t do in ls command" without even looking for the manual, is what I fear from. An OS should be GUIish, but not to over react with it, a user should know how to disable things running from rc.d (or /etc/init.d), a user should know how to chmod -x stuff, to understand the "/" directory base, and what things belong where.

Because new RH users don't come to forums asking the exact same questions ??

The presence of GUI tools doesn't change anything to the underlying system, you can use one or the other. GUI configuration tools which were there in such friendly systems as SunOS ages ago BTW. Or on pretty much any CDE compliant desktop for that matter (the horror).

Did you ever use anything *but* Linux ?

Re:

[oddfox]

Don't get me wrong, I really like Slackware and used it as my primary distro until migrating to Gentoo, but your complaint being leveled at Ubuntu for being so user-friendly proves a few points. First it proves that Ubuntu is achieving, at least partially, its goal of creating a highly accessible distribution that works notably well for a wide range of users, from newcomers to experienced vets alike. The second thing it proves is that you are absolutely the wrong person to be asking for a distribution recom

Re:

[Skrynesaver]

I agree wholeheartedly that Ubuntu is a great disto for use. If you want to learn more, well have a second machine and stick Slack on it and then when you've got Slack running well for a year try out LFS on this learning box. However if you actually have work to do Ubuntu is an excellent distro that gets the fuck out of your way and is generally fairly intuitive.

I would assume that most of us here are tinkerers by nature and as such want to (know|understand|adapt|break) how our systems work, this is not t

Re:

[oddfox]

I've been thinking about giving LFS another whirl, last time I tried to install it I ran into a roadblock somewhere around the process (Well before I had attained anything near setting up a bootable environment) and I haven't been back since. I really liked the idea of it though and it was quite informative and educational.

Re:

[CrazyLegs]

Damn straight. I'm dog-tired of the attitide that easy == dumb. The success of Ubuntu is owed (in no small way) to a new population of Linux users who have no skill and/or desire to tinker and just need to get stuff done. When my mom/brother/pastor/friend/whatever buys a car, they typically don't expect to have to tune it or install their own dashboard controls to make it easier to use. They just want it to drive them places with minimal mantenance involved. Why should a high-end computing appliance be any

Re:

[tazanator]

well I tech support my mother, 2 brothers, their wives, and kids... Ubuntu has been the saving grace for me from stopping the spy ware and viruses the kids kept getting (*several from 4 to 8 on neopets and 4 teens on my space) to running my mother's email with out a hiccup. I have 8 machines, 3 windows xp, 1 vista, and the other 4 Ubuntu and as soon as i can learn how to get the C&C generals to run on Nix I'll drop another 2 windows boxes over to the nix world. By having all the family on the one dis

Re:

[dyefade]

Please explain why you would not like CDs automounting. If I've just inserted a CD, obviously I'm likely to want to use it, and therefore need it mounted, no?

When auto-mounting is bad

[CustomDesigned]

It also auto-mounts all partitions on USB drives. There are system partitions on my USB drive that I don't want auto-mounted. The drive is relatively permanent despite being connected via USB.

Re:

[rjames13]

I know it sound weird, but I just can't handle Ubuntu, It's so user-friendly it's lame! I mean, why would I want an auto-mount for my cd-rom?!
If I wanted all that I would have used Windows at first place, I mean, If you're a user which came to Linux to look for alternative, Ubuntu is for you, but if you came to look for something better then Windows, the last thing on earth I would suggest is Ubuntu (I'd suggest Slackware, which is my favorite). That's why also I don't there's a need for Ubuntu handbook, I mean, it's all GUIish (jesus!).

I hope I will not get -1 flamebait cause that's what I really thing (plus, my karma now is terrible, and I'm doing my best to fix it, don't make me sad :(, that's really my opinion.).
Happy 10Th Slashdot birthday!

You don't get it do you. There are two types of computer users, those who understand how it works and those who just want it to work. Now since we want FOSS to overtake the world we need either a Distro for both users or separate Distros for each. Ubuntu supplies that separate Distro. It is not a MS Windows clone either. Ubuntu is about making the computer easier to use. MS Windows is about making a profit which somehow matches making the computer easy to use. However MS Windows can only go so far, Ubuntu

Re:

[rjames13]

By the way - I have yet to come across a reason why I wouldn't want to mount a CD-ROM drive at boot. I'm sure there's a good reason out there. Okay, no, I'm not sure there's a _good_ reason, but somebody has probably found at least poor reason - other than sheer lazyness - to not mount CD drive on a machine. (and don't complain about small memory footprints...why would you have a CD-ROM drive connected _and_ not mount it?).

He said automount which means to mount the CD-ROM when it is inserted into the machine at run time, not at boot up.

Re:Good use of english

[fbjon]

Once upon a time, it took three years for a Debian release...

Re:

[Dragonslicer]

How is a three year span quick?

How many years have most operating systems and Linux distributions been around? For that matter, how many years does it usually take Microsoft to release a single new version of Windows?