<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD><META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=Windows-874"><TITLE></TITLE></HEAD> <BODY>  <TABLE width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign="top"> <DIV align="left"> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Not sure wether a 'usibility' study is really possible using a beta release of a distribution that is months old against a very mature release. What you say is in fact fairly encoraging. </font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Although due to standardisation it is a lot easier to get a distribution working on Mac I suspect since the number of mac users is smaller, the platform more expensive and the fact that it already has a mature *nix initialy most of the activity will be on x86.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">What I would be interested to know is wether there is anything about ubuntu you prefer to OS X.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">It would be cool it you could put some of this stuff into bugzilla.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">regards,</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Ben</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">>>> Karsten Fischer <kfischer@bfki.net> 09/28/04 02:23pm >>></font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Caveats in UBUNTU (or, more precise, UBUNU & Gnome & Debian)</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">First off all, UBUNTU seems pretty stable and easy to use. Compliments </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">to the developers.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Still, comparing the Desktop-Usability of UBUNTU with the only other </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Desktop-Unix (OS X)available, Ubuntu stays at the second place. </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Granted, UBUNTU runs on three different platforms: the x86-Family, </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">AMD64 and PowerPC (up to G5); whereas OS X runs only on the PowerPC. </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Nevertheless, it is after all possible to produce a Unix-based System, </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">which is easy to use, needs barely knowledge of computers to set it up </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">or to maintain it. With this example in mind, Ubuntu should strive to </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">reach a similar goal.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">The current problems seem to be mostly GNOME-related, with only a few – </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">but extremly annoying – bugs in the underlying system. I tried to sort </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">them into the following categories: Platform-specific, </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Desktop-Specific, OS-Specific.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Now, let the list begin:</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Platform: PowerPC (iBook G3, summer 2003, 800 Mhz G3, 640 MB RAM)</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">OS-Specific: While running on Battery-Power, Ubuntu seems to drain the </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">battery almost twice as fast as OS X; CPU is running at 400 Mhz – as it </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">would in OS X, but this doesn't seem to have any dramatic influence on </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">battery-usage. Way to go there...</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">OS-Specific: the modem is neither detected nor is any software </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">installed (using the Desktop-install) for the use of it. Very </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">interesting, since nearly any Mac produced in the last three to four </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">years seems to have a modem. Internet via Modem as well as Fax should </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">be installed as default I think.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Desktop-Specific: My Digital camera (a no-name brand which identifies </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">itself as USB-Mass storage) seems to be detected, I even get a dialog </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">which states that there seem to be pictures on it and if I would like </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">to copy them to the computer – great. Unfortunately, in the next window </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">I am asked to select my camera, since there seems to be no camera </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">connected to my computer. Regardless which camera I choose, I couldn't </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">import any pictures of it.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Desktop-Specific: The Keyboard doesn't work as anticipated. After a </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">long, long time of fiddling with it I came up with a work-around: every </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">time I log in, I open a terminal and issue the following command </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">'xmodmap -e *keycode 64=Mode_switch“', after which I can use the </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Option-Key to generate things like the '@'-smybol using the </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Apple-default Option-l. This seems to be a minor bug, but pretty </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">annoying – and is probably fixed in the latest builds. By the way: it </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">seems that the default buttons for closing a window (which seems to be </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">– in most cases – the same as closing the application) is something </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">strange and should set to the default Command-W and Command-Q</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Platform: any</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Desktop-Specific: Documentation. This is a simple topic: there is </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">almost none of it. When I pressed the Help-Button, loacted conveniently </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">in the Menubar (called 'Panel' here, which may be more appropriate </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">since every app seems to have its own Menu sticking at the top of their </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">window) I get an awful lot of documentation, but in fact hardly </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">anything usable. Especially since I selected German as my default </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">language – but the Help System is always English. What I expected – and </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">probably most users of Ubuntu – would be an introduction to the OS, </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">perhaps a chapter *Differences to Windows & OS X“, several guides like </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">*How to connect to the Internet, Printing, Faxing & Scanning, How to </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">set up your local Network“ and so on. And I would prefer a native </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Helpsystem.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Unsure: I greatly appreciate OpenOffice, but there seems no way to get </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">Spellchecking to work.</font></div> <div> </div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">______________________________________________________________________</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.</font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">For more information please visit <a href="http://www.messagelabs.com/email">http://www.messagelabs.com/email</a> </font></div> <div><font face="Arial" size="2">______________________________________________________________________</font></div> <BR> ______________________________________________________________________<BR> This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential. 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