On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 6:10 PM, Martin Wildam <email address hidden> wrote:

>
> Before diving more into the Ubuntu community I was not aware of those
> "quality" differences. I started using Ubuntu on my workplace with
> 9.04 and it was fully usable and stable, also the 9.10. - 10.10 and
> 11.04 had IMHO the biggest stability problems since I use Ubuntu. Too
> few experience yet for 11.10 but from current impression not yet
> reaching the reliability from 9.04 and 9.10. And of course this does
> not help to fix Bug 1.
>

I agree with you there... I had first used Ubuntu with 9.04, and it was
rock solid stable for me. I had trouble with Karmic and Lucid upgrades, and
I had to do fresh installs, but then they did become rock solid stable.
Maverick I think was the most solid release I saw, but Natty and Oneiric -
not so much; for instance, in Oneiric, nautilus still freezes for me on my
VAIO - everything works well now on the other Vostro V13, ever since the
nautilus-open-terminal bug was fixed.

 I would never turn back to Windows, but: Ubuntu (or other Linux
> distros) cannot be considered as being superior in any circumstance.
> Just to give an example: When I go to customers and connect my
> notebook to a beamer, it happened already several times that I had
> problems (reaching from X hangup when activating the beamer to screen
> resolution messed up). Related to that there are issues using my
> Ubuntu on a laptop with a docking station (and I only use Dell laptops
> with official Linux support). Windows 7 is doing a superior job here
> for example. A bad image for Ubuntu when I do get problems while many
> people are all looking at my desktop. For example, fixing such issues
> would have been more important than introducing a new desktop
> environment (as my experience with Unity regarding this is not any
> better).
>

I am surprised you had projector blues - I regularly connect from
Ubuntu/Arch Linux to projectors, and they work with plug and play in
seconds! - ever since Karmic actually (never really had to do a
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg). The Vaio has an nvidia card, and to connect
it to a projector, or even to a TV using an HDMI cable, all I need to do is
to go to Display Settings and select Twinview, and its on! As for the
Vostro, which has an Intel chip, the last time I tried it - a week ago - I
just plugged the projector in and it was all good to go! All I did was
select whether to mirror screens or have a separate screen for starting a
slideshow presentation. And guess who had trouble connecting that day - Mac
users! - for the lack of an adapter for the projector, which I feel is
unnecessary to require in the first place.


> They could go even further and try to force companies to
> drop Linux by offering cheaper licenses to those manufacturers who do
> only support Windows. - I am very happy that Dell has a lot of Ubuntu
> certified models (still should be more) and I know that you can get
> models with Ubuntu preinstalled even if that is not published on their
> site. A reason why I do recommend Dell to everybody who is asking me
> for a hardware recommendation.
>

My Vostro V13 came with Ubuntu 9.04. I had heard that you can still order
laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed, but the last time I tried to order a
laptop from them on the phone, I was told they were unable to get me one
with Ubuntu. I ended up not getting one (it was to replace the Vostro whose
LCD I had stepped on and broken, and which they wanted to charge almost the
cost of the laptop for fixing it for me even though it was still under
warranty. Angered by this fact, I decided to fix it myself, and it turned
out to be MUCH easier than I had thought - unscrew, put, screw, done!).

The problem is still, I insist, MS monopoly, and vendor lock-in for
drivers, and software lock-in for proprietary stuff - my Fiancee has to use
Windows because she needs a certain software called "Tooth Atlas" - runs on
Windows and Mac, and not so great with Wine. Well, maybe that will change
someday when people realize GNU/Linux is a tour-de-force - after all, it
indeed IS superior! I myself am happy to have expurgated all traces of
Windows from my own laptops!

I think the self-certified hardware phenomenon would be awesome if
implemented; with Macs, you get their machines, but you can still buy OSX
and install it on other machines (whether it works will be a different
issue). With Ubuntu, you would then be able to get their machines with
everything working, and be able to install it on any other machine you wish
with mostly no issues still, because GNU/Linux is that much more awesome!!!

Manjul

-- 
Manjul Apratim