Talk:Ubuntu/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions about Ubuntu. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 5

Gutsy feature list

I removed the Gutsy feature list as it was clearly speculation; notwithstanding that I'm an expert on the subject (as one of the Ubuntu development managers responsible for feature planning) and that I don't want to be accused of WP:NOR, I think I can be relatively safe in removing an unsourced claim.

In particular, without making any comment as to the state of feature planning in each of the referenced areas, the last public statement on composite-by-default was a post by Mark Shuttleworth saying that he was keen to see it but recognised the need to "balance that enthusiasm with the Technical Board's judgement of the stability and maturity of those fundamental layers"; that post did note planned work on unattended installation in Ubiquity, though the exact extent of that work has yet to be cast in stone; and, while Click'N'Run support for Ubuntu 7.04 is due for deployment in the second quarter of 2007 according to the CNR website, that seems most plausible as some kind of update to Ubuntu 7.04 and there's nothing in Canonical's only public announcement on the subject suggesting alignment with Gutsy. Even from an outsider's point of view, the evidence is at best ambiguous.

In general, I would suggest that it is prudent to avoid speculation on features of an unreleased version of an operating system, and certainly wise to avoid presenting them in such a way as to appear to be factual. Slippage of even planned features from software releases is a well-recognised phenomenon, especially in projects that release according to a time-based schedule rather than when the planned feature list is complete; and which features are the most significant in a new version of something as large as an operating system are unlikely to be entirely clear until much closer to the ship date. Colin Watson 21:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. Mahanga^Talk 04:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

Ok. Does u'buntu mean it's pronounced OOboontu or ooBOOntoo? Because the latter is correct, so would it be ubun'tu ?

It's ooBOONtoo, and it's correct. The emphasis mark goes before the emphasised syllable, not after. Regards, [[User:Samsara|I SUCK DICKC)

Well... It isn't an English word in origin... So that probably explains that. --Falcorian ^(talk) 14:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Collective plural - NOT for Ubuntu

Following a confused edit summary from Luxdormiens [1], I just want to state clearly that Ubuntu is a Linux distribution, singular. The name of the company is Canonical. If you're going to persist in the edit war over plural vs. singular, please make sure you restrict it to the noun that it validly applies to. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 12:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I am editing for consistency. I could not care less whether UK English or US English is applied. I do not care for edit wars, or whatever had happened prior to my coming here. To me, as one raised in American English, it is wrong to use plural verb for Canonical as a company, but I changed the article to fit British English because of the pre-existing precedents.

For example, here is the original sentence: "Canonical remain close to Debian's philosophy with Ubuntu and use predominantly free software rather than making the inclusion of proprietary applications part of their business model."

A user changed only to say "Canonical remains close to Debian's philosophy with Ubuntu and use predominantly free software rather than making the inclusion of proprietary applications part of their business model." That is wrong. The user making such an edit was entirely careless, looking no more than two word beyond the mistakes that he or she saw. If the user had read the entire sentence, "use" would have been changed to "uses," thus maintaining consistent and coherent English.

Finally, I re-iterate that I couldn't care less if UK English or American English is used. Consistency is my only concern. If a user changed the entire article, i.e. those pesky verbs, to fit American English, then fine, as long as he or she is consistent. Neither the users that applied American grammar nor even Chris Cunningham aka Thumperward applied their "versions" of English consistently.

Cheers, --Lux 01:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

As one raised on British English, AFAIK there's no difference between US and UK practice in relation to singular/plural. Canonical is one company - singular - no doubt about it. (Unfortunately there is a lot of ignorant colloquial usage that treats an organisation as a 'them' rather than an 'it', especially in bastions of mediocrity such as the BBC, but well-educated people still use the singular.) --Harumphy 09:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It is slightly more complicated than Harumphy suggests. Although a company name is a singular noun, it is often accompanied by a plural verb in British English. But, in this context, the singular verb would normally be considered preferable (according to Fowler's anyway), just like in American English. The plural verb should only really be used when treating the company as a group of individuals, the singular is better when you are treating the company as an entity. Raoul 11:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Bryson gives no normative answer on the issue and agrees that in the UK both are acceptable. However, in a case where both are acceptable and there are editors who strongly favour the plural (such as me; for companies, "well-educated" organisations definitely prefer the singular but universally use the plural for bands, sports teams and often for other collective nouns, and I think this is grossly inconsistent) the use with less objections should be chosen. In addition, those well-meaning editors who keep changing this keep doing so in a piecemeal manner which lowers the article's writing quality.

I've rolled the most recent piecemeal changes back. Given the history of edits in this area I'm open to just changing the whole thing to US English, given that unlike articles on UK bands and so on there doesn't seem to be a particular momentum here amongst Brit editors to keep it this way. Chris Cunningham 13:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Those "piecemeal changes" all took place within about 5 mins and had the effect of ensuring that every reference to Canonical was in the singular, as most people in this discussion appear to prefer. What was wrong with that? --Harumphy 14:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Canonical are not the only company mentioned in the article, for starters. We also have collective nouns like "government" kicking about in the article which also need to be decided upon. And I wouldn't exactly call a majority of around two in a discussion less than a day old a consensus at this stage. Chris Cunningham 19:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

All I'm saying is, get your edit summaries right, otherwise people can get very funny ideas. And it won't be funny then. This article is being changed back and forth too much already, over what is a very minor issue. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 20:57, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

"rv to restore UK English, collective noun requires plural, and Ubuntu is a South-African, British-based distro" You mean this? It was a summary that said "Restoring British English, in which a collective noun requires plural, because Ubuntu is from South Africa (or at least, the concept of Ubuntu was thought up by a person from South Africa), which is former colony of the former British Empire and a current member of the current British Commonwealth, and therefore a country that uses British English." Possibly I am a dunce; I do not see a funny idea that could be derived from this. I'm not sure why you brought up Canonical. I agree that fighting over using plural and singular is a very minor issue and am not clear why you had to bring it up. If there was confusion, a reader would post here.

On the other hand, you did get confused. I understand that preemptive actions save lives. You wanted to make sure readers coming here wouldn't get confused. I admit my errors; I make it my goal to work on not being so confusing in trying to be concise. :-)

For now, as a newbie first encountering this tremulous discord we call "edit wars," I will move myself to the sideline and be content to watch, with beers or lagers in my hand. Cheers, Lux 06:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Too many sections?

How many sections should there be? Which ones should we get rid of? I think the problem is not with the structure of the article, but the fact that the Table of Contents sits in a box on its own with white space around it. Is there any way of getting the text below the box to start to the right of it? That would be better than compromising the structure to fix a shortcoming in the presentation.

I personally believe that there is nothing wrong with the way the page is structured right now. There are a lot of sections, but I hardly think that this page is a true example of "too many sections". Keep it as it is, I say. TeraByte 17:36, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - I forgot to sign the para above when I wrote it yesterday. I also think the page structure is OK. --Harumphy 21:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

{{reflist}} bug???

The references are numbered incorrectly in the list at the end of the page! "31" appears at the bottom of the first column AND at the top of the second column, so that all the references in the second column are mis-numbered. Is this a reflist bug? MOXFYRE (contrib) 17:36, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

... Or maybe a Firefox bug. There's nothing wrong with the HTML generated AFAICT. And it only appears intermittently in Firefox. Strange. MOXFYRE (contrib) 17:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Wubi

I understand that Wubi is an installer as such and not the OS itself, but the word isn't even mentioned in the article, which does surprise me, should it be given a link in a See also section, or a line in one of the sections, and if so - which section, or is it not for inclusion?--Alf ^melmac 20:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I'll see if it's in the "See also" section. If not, I'll add it. Peteturtle 15:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Wubi article is being considered for deletion

Just FYI to anyone interested, the Wubi (Ubuntu) article (which is linked from the Ubuntu article) is currently "being considered for deletion". I think it should be kept (or at least merged into the Ubuntu article). Please vote now while you still can. -- Limulus 20:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

How to donate?

Does anybody know how to give a donation to Ubuntu? Maybe via Paypal? I find it worth to be supported but find no way to give some money to Ubuntu or Canonical. --134.155.99.41 18:05, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

You can donate via this link: http://www.ubuntu.com/community/donations. 165.234.180.57 17:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the link! Maybe we should add this link into the article? --134.155.99.42 08:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia is not a place for pan handling, not to mention Ubuntu and Canonical have plenty of cash. See Mark Shuttleworth --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 08:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There is a link to the Ubuntu site on the article, and the donation page can be found fairly easily from there. 165.234.180.57 15:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

On the mass revertion

I see no reason for an article to lose featured article status when it's so easy to undo any bad edits and go back to the point when it was made a featured article. So, that's what I did. I realize that more updates will be needed to account for changes in the OS. However, remember that once an article reached FA, it should be considered "complete", only being updated when new information arises. Be careful what updates get put back in. Remember, "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that [articles] long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." ColdFusion650 21:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

A mass revert like this mixed with new changes in the text, all in one edit, makes it a bit hard to browse the history (I don't know if submitting changes split into small, logical chunks/commits/edits is also valued outside software projects management, but in some software projects it is almost a rule as important the actual correctness of the changes). Also please note that UMAE is an "Ubuntu Edition" fully hosted and worked on by Ubuntu / Canonical Ltd., rather than a derivative project. Balrog-kun 08:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The article wasn't read for FA when it got it in the first place. I don't see this as being a good idea at all. Chris Cunningham 09:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Use of DMOZ?

I respect the need to keep references on this article to a minimum, but I note that DMOZ has a number of relevant links that could be useful to readers of this article. I have added one or two in the article itself as appropriate but am not wont to revise the entire article simply to include the links. Would it be advisable to simply include a link to DMOZ under "General references" or import most of the links into "External links"? //Alukasz 12:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

If you feel it would add something to the article, add it under external links. Make use of the Template:Dmoz template.-Localzuk^(talk) 12:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks. I have added it. //Alukasz 14:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Typical screenshot not typical

A note on the "A typical session of Ubuntu 7.04" screenshot... it is not typical. Ubuntu doesn't use the control center by default. Don't know if it matters much but it's a bit funny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.224.75.38 (talk • contribs)

I suppose that the screenshot should be shot on a default new installation just as the user would see it upon installation. Unfortunately, I don't have one in front of me or I would shoot it now. It should be easy enough for someone to take -- I'll get to it eventually if nobody else does it first. —mako ๛ 12:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I can do this with a liveCD real quick. --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 16:21, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah...turns out my liveCD is 6.06. I do have a 7.04 somewhere, but it seems to be missing --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 19:44, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Great. Please do. —mako ๛ 14:34, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

What is advantageous about seeing the default wallpaper? Daniel.Cardenas 18:26, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Great, we went back to a boring help screen. :-( Daniel.Cardenas 20:18, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

We need a better screenshot. --Ciao 90 01:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps one with several common application windows open (e.g. Firefox, GIMP, Gaim/Pidgin, OO.o), to showcase the functionality of applications a user might find in a standard install. 165.234.180.57 00:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Common criticisms

Are there any common criticisms related to this OS? I see that most operating systems mentions on Wikipedia generally have two sections pros (features) and cons (criticisms). It makes it easier to compare any two. What do you guys think? 122.162.135.141 23:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The only real thing stopping you is WP:OR. --Falcorian ^(talk) 00:13, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

One could mention the lack of integrated support for certain proprietary drivers, but I think the fault may lie outside of the OS. :) 165.234.180.57 00:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

should the external links be cleared out a bit?

the list seems to be getting a bit big (and commercialized)

What is the extend of Canonical Ltd's influence on it?

This is a question that I think should be clearly answered --Leladax 11:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

They pretty much have complete control as far as I'm aware. They do all the main hosting, they make all the decisions about direction (albeit based on the community demands, sometimes), they own the trademarks etc...-Localzuk^(talk) 12:50, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Very true. It's a benevolent dictatorship, albeit one that happens to be incredibly benevolent. Whatever the case, quality work gets done. 165.234.180.57 00:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Derivative projects

The list of unofficial 'derivative projects' is starting to get a bit long. Can we work on some way of shortening this? Ie. We need some form of notability criteria for it.-Localzuk^(talk) 20:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Well as I've had no response, I'm going to remove the list and include it as a small blurb somewhere else. We don't need a list of them... -Localzuk^(talk) 11:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I would just as soon see the larger ones put into their own articles. 165.234.180.57 15:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge Ubuntu Christian Edition and Ichthux here

In June 2007, an AfD for Ubuntu Christian Edition and Ichthux failed, with the suggestion that they merged into this article. Doing this merge would also imply that Ubuntu Muslim Edition, KubuntuME, and Ubuntu Satanic Editiion are also discussed in this article. The proposal I made at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ubuntu_Christian_Edition was the creation of page Religiously Orientated Linux Distributions. jonathon 23:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Neither of them should merge back in here, as this article is, and should only be, about Ubuntu and its official derivatives. An article about religious linux distributions would, I feel, be problematic - we would end up with trolling beyond what we see on many other articles I believe. Personally, I think that those which are notable enough ( ie. they have multiple external reliable sources discussing them) should have their own page, even if it remains stub status for a while. If they do not have such notability then they should be sent to AFD/DRV (again, if this is the case).-Localzuk^(talk) 11:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

We really shouldn't start talking about other distros in the article if they aren't official, that will become a huge huge mess. Where do we stop, do we merge Linux mint, Ulteo, ANY Ubuntu based distro into it? Do we merge Ubuntu into Debian? A religiously oriented linux distro article would be silly. Just take List of Linux Distros and create a "Religious" subsection in this part. At least that way we already have a fairly good amount of people with it on their watchlist --L^ie! 12:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, per the original group AFD, I have taken the advice of the closing admin and have relisted the 2 you mention there individually for notability reasons. Hopefully people will be able to target their responses better this way.-Localzuk^(talk) 12:07, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

a) I agree that Ubuntu (religous flavour) varients don't belong in this article, except maybe as a "see also" reference;

b)I have no illusions that a page "Religiously Orientated Distributions" would be on semi-protected status pretty miuch from day one. I'd use that as a demonstration of why such a page is needed;

c) A religious subsection on the List of Linux Distributions won't provide enough space to go into the differences between the various Linux (relgious flavour) distros. (The talk page on List_of_Linux_Distributions implies that the current descriptions are too long.)

d) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pseudo_daoist/Religious_Distros is a draft of what a "Religiously Orientated Distrubitions" would cover.jonathon 20:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with that page, as I see it, is that no notability is shown except a single niche (as in specific to only the religion) publication covering a single derivative distro. This isn't 'random pet project linux distro-pedia', we have to maintain notability.-Localzuk^(talk) 22:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If a more clear case for the notability of the concept could be made and the page could be whittled down to a real discussion of the various religious forks and packages for Linux, that would wholly satisfy the issues I brought up on the CE and Icthux pages. Let me know if you need a hand, MrZaius^talk 23:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Jesux was generating hate mail years after it was revelaed to be a hoax. Christian Linux Live CD was criticised the day it was announced, on the grounds that it wasn't necessary. I don't know about the criticism for Ichthux. Ubuntu Christian Edition gets criticised purely on the grounds that it is religiously orientated. Ubuntu Muslim Edition gets torn apart becuase it is disrespectful to Islam. (By muslims no less!). KubuntuME gets similar criticism. Ubuntu Satanic Edition was critized for being offensive to Christians.(Who probably are more offended by the suggested distro to use, than the concept itself.).

The only critics who even come close to technical merits, or lack thereof are the muslims,in pointing out the Ubuntu Muslim Edition neither used the Arabix distro as a base, nor has an Arabic langauge UI. The majority of the criticism is "you can do it wih apt-get" --- until the person making that claim that admits that they have no clue as to how to begin to write a bash script to install the programs that Ubuntu Christian Edition, or Ubuntu Muslim Edition contains.

Ad far as "Notability" goes, that criteria was deemed to be invalid the day that it was deeemed to be more important to have a bio of every officer and most crew members of the USS Entreprise, than a pulp fiction writer from the twenties who influenced the western world and consequently she is "not notable enough to warrent a mention". IOW, find a legitimate reason to critique the article. Notability is illegitimate censorship. jonathon 07:08, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I am against merging the articles. Ubuntu, Ubuntu CE, and all the other Ubuntu versions focus on different needs. Just as Mozilla Firefox has a page and all the derivatives have their page. So Ubuntu and all the derivatives of them should have their own separate pages. There is no shortage of space on Wikipedia, we dont need to cram everything on one super long page. Kilz 14:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Redirect from Ubuntu?

I can see the majority of people going to Ubuntu (Linux distribution) instead of the other options, perhaps we should set up a redirect and than make a disambiguation page. --211.28.215.112 12:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed! MOXFYRE (contrib) 15:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a suggestion that pops up about once every nine or so months. And it usually is defeated because the advocates of Ubuntu (other page) point out that that either numbers should rule (Linux Distribution) or age (Educational Fund), or philosophy (Ideology) should prevail. I'll also point out that the majority of people who use the word Ubuntu are neither computer users, nor native speakers of English. Take a look at the history page of Ubuntu, and then at its Talk page. jonathon 20:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Distrowatch stats are worse than useless

The second most popular distro according to distrowatch is "pclinuxos", which you've probably never heard of, and indeed according to google trends it's several orders of magnitude less popular than ubuntu. I suggest removing the distrowatch reference. Arvindn 08:08, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, it depends. If the comment is meant to imply that ubuntu is the most popular distro in the world because it's the most popular on distrowatch, I would have to agree. However, if all it's saying is "ubuntu is the most popular on distrowatch", then it's correct. It's the same as how you have video game scores in articles from IGN, gamespot, etc. It doesn't mean everyone feels the same way about these games -- it's just showing views from notable sites. GSlicer (t • c) 11:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

On Portal:Free software, Ubuntu is currently the selected article

Just to let you know. The purpose of selecting an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain on the portal for a week or so. The previous selected article was MoinMoin (the wiki system). Gronky 18:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The selection has moved on and is now KHTML (the KDE html rendering engine). Gronky 18:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

PC Club and Linspire?

I removed this from the history and development process (which, IMO, should probably be separate sections):

On 1 June 2007, PC Club followed suit and began sale of their Enpower Essence desktop, which is their first system to include Linux since their controversial temporary inclusion of Linspire (then LindowsOS) in late 2003.

I don't see how that belongs here. It seems to me like it fits better in an actually relevant article such as PC Club, Linspire, or Desktop Linux.
Feel free to revert my edit if there is a connection I missed. M. Kristall 09:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC) Oops, I think I might have misread that. If that means what I think it does now, I think it might need to be clearer (so I don't make that mistake again). Now I'm going to run away. M. Kristall 10:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Fast search in Gutsy Gibbon

There was an ubuntu mailing list posting cited on Digg claiming that Meta Tracker, a fast desktop search engine, would be included in Gutsy Gibbon. I have lately been using swish-e on my Fedora Core 5 laptop at work, and I have found fast searching is incredibly helpful. I have a Python script that calls swish-e to get a list of files, and then greps the search term in each file, with line numbers. Massively helpful for wrestling with a large code base and chasing down obscure variable references or error messages.

-- WillWare 18:49, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Another Pronunciation thing...

I know this is another pronunciation issue, but it's pronounced "ooBOONtoo" not "ooBUHNtoo", so I removed the u'bʊntu IPA pronunciation since it is incorrect; this might make users think that the name can be pronounced like that. If you reply to this, please also leave it in my user talk page, otherwise I don't get any notices of responses. Cheers! Peteturtle 18:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand that this pronunciation is "incorrect" insofar as it differs from the standard South African pronunciation of the word, however I don't think this is particularly important. The point of the encyclopedia article, I think, is descriptive rather than prescriptive. The article should describe the name of the distribution as it is actually used and encountered. Similarly, the article on PostgreSQL describes several common names and pronunciation. I'd like to add back the common American pronunciation of Ubuntu with a note that it is technically incorrect. What do you think? MOXFYRE (contrib) 21:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I think it's a good idea to say it is incorrect while still putting it there. Good idea. Peteturtle 15:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Most Americans are too monolingually challenged to be able to pronounce it correctly. List both with a note that that the one is correct, and the other is an example of American English mangling.jonathon 23:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Really? I've never met an American who pronounced it /u'bʊntu/. It's been /u'buntu/ consistently. Of course, don't rely on that. It's OR. — D. Wo. 23:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

but nonetheless fits on a single CD (?)

ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso is too large to fit on a standard 700MB CD; putting it on CD requires special hard-to-find >700 MB CD and persuading the CD burner to "overburn". 86.129.115.148 18:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The copy of ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso which I downloaded comes to 698 MB which fits on a standard 700MB CD-R quite easily. Maybe the copy you downloaded is corrupted? Manzabar 19:41, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Likewise, I get 697.4 MB. For example, try downloading this: http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/ubuntu-releases/feisty/ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso ... and you'll see that the browser reports a size under 700 MB. MOXFYRE (contrib) 22:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure you didn't try an old 650Mb CD by mistake?-Localzuk^(talk) 16:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)