Why Ubuntu isn't for New Linux Users

[thephotoman]

It seems that his problem is primarily that one must go to the command 
line to install self-downloaded packages.  Of course, with gdebi 
installed, that's not a problem, but IIRC, that's only in Dapper 
Universe.  However, I'd suggest that the devs give it some thought for 
inclusion in Dapper+1.

Also, his shout-out about Automatrix makes me froth at the mouth. 
Honestly, it would have been better if that script had been done right: 
no adding unofficial repositories to anything.  After all, most of the 
stuff provided by Automatrix can be had by adding universe, multiverse, 
and backports, all of which are repositories on the Ubuntu servers, even 
if they aren't supported through Canonical.  Having seen Automatrix 
(looked at it on my test system and broke everything, I tell you), the 
only things it provides that couldn't be done through those repos are 
the w32codecs, Opera, Firefox 1.5, and Thunderbird 1.5, and OOo 2.0.1 
(if I wrote a script like that, it'd use Doko's repos for that, but 
would wget everything there).  The latter two can be installed 
graphically and set as defaults through graphical utilities.

Daniel Robitaille wrote:
> a blog entry about Ubuntu:
> 
> http://linux-blog.org/index.php?/archives/128-Why-Ubuntu-isnt-for-New-Linux-Users.html
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Daniel Robitaille
>