[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu/Linux is still not an OS for the masses - discuss

[Matthew Macdonald-Wallace]

Hi Melv,

On Wed, 2010-10-13 at 15:14 +0100, Melv Bailey wrote:
> No one is addressing my point of the live CD.

I'm wondering if this is because no-one else on this list (and note that
I am referring to the list, not the world in general! ;) ) has
experienced this issue.

I accept that having a LiveCd that does not work on your exact hardware
does not work, however what would be of use to me to help you trouble
shoot this would be to know the following:

1) Have you tried any other Linux Distros
(Redhat/Fedora/Debian/SuSE/Gentoo/Knoppix etc) on this hardware as part
of a LiveCD?

2) Can you provide a complete list of the hardware in the system
including the following:

* RAM
* DiskSpace
* Graphics Card
* Processor
* Network Card(s)
* Wireless Cards (WiFi and Bluetooth)
* Sound Card

If you can get another distro up and running, then let me know and I'll
be happy to provide the relevant commands to provide the above
information.

I do have to say at this point however that my personal experience of
the Live CD since 6.10 has always been positive, I've also had the live
CD running without issue on an Intel-Based Mac with a NVidia Graphics
card (although admittedly I've not tried 10.10, only 9.10 and 10.04) and
having recently handed out nearly 100 live CDs of Ubuntu/Kubuntu at a
software freedom event, I've not have any negative come back, in fact
it's encouraged a number of people who would not have otherwise moved to
Linux to give it a go.

I'm happy to accept that this may be because people couldn't be bothered
to raise the issues with the Linux User Group that were promoting the
CDs, however my experience over the past three years has consistently
been that anyone can install Ubuntu and use it.

> All I wanted was to see Ubuntu 10.10 working on a PC.

And, with the greatest of respect, there are thousands of users out
there everyday who are not technical (French Arondissment Staff, Mexican
Government officals, US State Officials) who run Linux on a daily basis
without issue on PCs that used to run Windows.

My personal advice would be that if 10.10 doesn't work, install 10.04.
10.04 is a Long Term Release and will therefore almost always be more
stable than 10.10.  It's what I'm using at work and at home and I have
no intention of upgrading to 10.10 until I am confident that I can work
without interruption or issues.

Apologies for the long post... :)

Kind regards,

Matt
-- 
Matthew Macdonald-Wallace
matthew at truthisfreedom.org.uk
http://www.threedrunkensysadsonthe.net/