[ubuntu-uk] Where Ubuntu falls short

[doug livesey]

Hi -- just sharing a couple of thoughts, really, as an Ubuntu user of 6
months or so.
The first is, for myself, I *love* using linux, and am very happy I made the
switch to Ubuntu.
That said, I am a programmer, and a geek, and so am getting the most benefit
from the tools that linux users have long taken for granted, from EMACS, to
gcc, to everything being developed for linux as a first, and therefore a
first-class, platform.
So that's great.
However, I have found that Ubuntu has fallen rather short in a couple of
areas that mean that I would not recommend it to an average user (as I have
earlier this year, to mine & their chagrin) who would use it as a 'leisure'
OS.

One is: setup. It's an impossible task to write drivers that will work on
any amount of machines, particularly when the manufacturors of those
machines don't give a fig about you, so I'm not having a do at any of the
amazing developers here, but the issues I had/have with sound cards &
keyboards, and that I've had/have with other machines with sound & wireless
connections, mean that I could not recommend Ubuntu to an 'average' user --
I would *have* to be on-hand and prepared to sacrifice some serious support
time to compliment my recommendation if I did.

Another is video and sound (in general): I find that the quality of playback
for both audio and video (but esp. video) to be significantly lower than on
OSX (on the same machine) and Vista. The screen flickers and has refresh
breaks in the middle of the screen, and on a lower-end machine, jumped
intolerably for the majority of files. I've found some embedded video files
like those embedded from youtube to be of an unwatchable quality in Ubuntu,
with black squares flickering in the middle of the screen. Again, I imagine
the task facing those who write drivers for *all* variants of machine to
use, and am awed -- but this would still bug the average user.

Another is supported proprietary software, which just isn't Ubuntu's fault
(as I don't think the others are, tbh). The biggie being iTunes, which you
need for an iPhone, and everybody & their dog seems to want one of those.
There's no way for an 'average' user to easily get up & running with it in
an emulator or dual-boot or whatever.
Another would be games, I imagine, but I don't really play those.

All of this, like I say, isn't a whinge, it's just some observations. For me
(as a geek), I'm delighted with Ubuntu, and know that I will continue with
it (& maybe other variants of linux) for the forseeable future, as it has an
amazing set of tools & repositories that make my life as a geek much
happier, and I love the free software philosophy. And I could happily
recommend it for office users, too.
But, for me, it still isn't something I'd recommend to the average, leisure
user, unless they really expressed an interest in learning all about it --
even I haven't been able to fully put away OSX for media stuff.
Please bear in mind that Ubuntu is the only variant of linux that I've spent
any real time with, and that my experience of using it as a lesiure OS is
limited to a couple of machines (Asus Aspire & Macbook) -- I've used many
more at work *for* work & have nothing but joy to report.

Anyway, I hope this message is taken in the spirit it is offered -- not as a
flame or whinge, but as some (hopefully) constructive observations on an OS
I've really come to love.
What do others think? Is it something they would recommend to non-geeks as a
swap in for OSX, or Windows?
Cheers,
   Doug.
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