Mark Shuttleworth Addresses Ubuntu Privacy Issues 279
sfcrazy writes "Mark Shuttleworth has for the first time talked about the privacy issues in Ubuntu Dash after being criticized by EFF and FSF. He mentioned some changes in the way use can 'disable' the search results. However the company has showed that under no circumstances they will disable the online search by default as demanded by EFF and FSF. Shuttleworth was simply spinning the wheel moving things around to give an impression that something has been done where as the core problem remains — Dash sends keystrokes by default and legally every user agrees to send such keystrokes to PRODUCT.canonical.com server to be shared with partners like Facebook."
hello hosts file (Score:5, Insightful)
127.0.0.1 product.canonical.com
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Are you sure you got the right host?
$ ping product.canonical.com
ping: unknown host product.canonical.com
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To wit, 10++ things AdBlock can't do, hosts can:
Hell of a thing to quote,
I do use a HOSTS file and appreciate your trying to learn others as well.
So add to your post this warning for HostsXpert - that being; don't use it.
HostsXpert is a Windows HOSTS file editor, add. remove, play with your HOSTS file
But it will render your HOSTS file useless, while looking quite normal.
I've written the author years ago, I've posted to www.majorgeeks.com who still host HostsXpert
nothing has changed. HostsXpert version 4.4 should be removed from the Internet as it's malwa
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127.0.0.1 facebook.com
becomes
127.0.0.1 facebook.com
Never shows up correctly (but you get a hint of how hard it is to find)
First line is separated by a space, the second a tab.
Re:hello hosts file (Score:5, Interesting)
I would argue that once a distribution has gone "dark" in the manner that Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical have, measures like these are a moot point... Yes, you can block their servers. Now. If they decide to write a daemon that watches the host file for alterations and automatically restores it to a protected backup, what then? You find a way around it of course. Then they come up with more protection, you come up with more ways around said protection...and nobody wins.
The alternative is to use something else. I have a favourite distribution but I'm not going to hawk it here as an alternative because I'm not a shill :P I do suggest this though, in all seriousness -- instead of measures like these, try another distribution. Any one that you like! And be sure to let Canonical know you switched -because- they forced you into taking measures like altering your host file just to feel secure from THEIR OWN SPYWARE!
Linux distro's survive upon word of mouth and goodwill from the community -- if you take away that second part, the first part tends to dry up rather quickly too. Don't fight with your own OS to protect your security, just use one that doesn't force you into it in the first place, no matter what that might be!
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"Yes, you can block their servers."
sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash
Then click no.
No more dash, back to good old bash, which has worked just fine for just about everybody for a long time.
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I would argue that once a distribution has gone "dark" in the manner that Ubuntu and its parent company Canonical have, measures like these are a moot point... Yes, you can block their servers. Now. If they decide to write a daemon that watches the host file for alterations and automatically restores it to a protected backup, what then?
I'd be willing to grant they are only shady, not really dark, until they actually do put in measures (beyonf having opt-out instead of opt-in) which make it hard to disable this. That is an important distinction. Now by default they make people do it "their way", but that's always how it is, there's always default for everything except dialogs which force making a choice before "Next->" button becomes enabled. Doing it this way with spy feature is bad, but it's still a far cry from stopping people from c
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this is ridiculous. we need to give the guy some credit. he has invested millions of his own money into this distribution and so far it's been like a sink in his wallet. he's not going to keep pouring cash in until he's broke. ubuntu has to start making money at some point.
If people don't like the online searches by default, they should file a bug. If a lot of people join, it'll have to be addressed. This is a stage in ubuntu's development, not a reason to abandon ship.
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Isn't it productsearch.ubuntu.com ?
Re:hello hosts file (Score:5, Informative)
order hosts,bind
OT re Arch and HOSTS (Score:2)
How do you do that in Arch, now that the hosts file has been eliminated by the bloody, I mean, bleeding edge ...of change ...for the sake of change?
Is this something I don't know about? I used Arch on my laptops for some 4 years or so, until as recently as last week(*), and /etc/hosts worked just fine.
* [digression] I enjoyed the ride with Arch for a long time, having migrated from Slackware. Years ago, it was the similarity to Slackware (i.e. simplicity) in combination with a more feature-laden package manager that attracted me to Arch, but now a lot of that simplicity has evaporated in favour of all sorts of trendy doodads. I sort of got used to th
This is how shuttleworth kills ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
All that will happen is people will move to fedora or mint or countless other Linux distros.
Mark, if you want to make some money try selling something worthwhile. Games would be one idea, hell get steam to give you a cut if you make installation of steam optional during OS install. Selling users data is a bad idea.
Re:This is how shuttleworth kills ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is how shuttleworth kills ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with that is that all your keystrokes go to a single Canonical controlled server and it's the server which then forwards the data to whoever it wants.
Today you sign up for Amazon getting the search queries but without any changes to your machine tomorrow they go to Facebook as well, and then the day after they all get stored by Canonical as a way of providing historical context to the searches you've made (just so they can better server your queries... nothing creepy about it).
Sure they say you are agreeing to Amazon get the search queries in all the big font agreements people are signing now but I bet the licence lets them send the data to whoever they chose to.
Shuttleworth shills ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)
Mark Shuttleworth has devolved. He's decided to accept the definition of User as something other than Owner. He's raised the port cullis and thrown open the doors for third parties to hunt User metadata, revealing his allegiance, defaulting to a state of non-concern for the least among us.
I'm sure it's convenient for him to imagine he's still engaged in promoting Linux, but at what cost?
How much did he get for his soul? How much did he get for everyone else's?
Re:Shuttleworth shills ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if you can call the person who owns the company that makes Ubuntu a 'shill'...
Re:Shuttleworth shills ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the root of the problem, it's a company, not a community that's behind Ubuntu now, and companies need money to survive. I wouldn't be suprised if there was an Ubuntu Pro & Ubuntu Enterprise released soon that have licensing fees associated with them as "custom solutions for businesses". *shrug* if they bring at least some currently windows-only application vendors to Linux, the other distros will benefit also.
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I'm sure it's convenient for him to imagine he's still engaged in promoting Linux, but at what cost?
How much did he get for his soul? How much did he get for everyone else's?
Doesn't matter.. went to space..
Re:This is how shuttleworth kills ubuntu (Score:4, Informative)
I recently moved from Fedora to Ubuntu because I'm trying to do more dev work and -all- the development tools and library releases these days seem to be more Ubuntu-friendly.
I was more Fedora-friendly because I came from a RedHat admin background, but I kept running into more and more projects/games/libraries that interpreted "LInux support" to mean Ubuntu, so I gave in. Since then it's actually worked out pretty well, although I still prefer yum to apt-get...
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Try Kubuntu. You might like it.
Re:This is how shuttleworth kills ubuntu (Score:4, Funny)
Donkey Kong was by far a better game.
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Just installed Mint here, and I have to say I am really enjoying KDE over the default Ubuntu environment.
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You mean kill open source? (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish I was trolling, but up to now I've been a huge proponent of OSS: the fact that the source code is available for review makes it relatively secure. For the common user Open Source's flagship products are Libre Office, Firefox, and Ubuntu. Now I find out Ubuntu wants to sneak in ads and sell user data and I have to wonder, if they do this what other product is also doing it or plans to?
Please, open source developers, do it for free or charge for it upfront, but don't sneak in hidden "features." It goes
Re:You mean kill open source? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't judge entire community by the actions of one person.
Ubuntu is not all of open source.
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.
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I'm giving up on mint, too.
on my previous mint box, for some damned reason, each time I type on open angle bracket (tags) it puts 2 of them in. damned if I can find out why. no, its not a bouncy keyboard, as I first thought.
current mint on my 4yr old laptop (t6600 cpu) causes firefox to go cpu-bound and the desktop freezes at least once a day. what the hell?? lots of slowness and I can't see any obvious reason for it.
ubuntu is now on the dark side, and mint is a piece of shit, these days. what should I
Amazing. (Score:3, Insightful)
It amazes me that when somebody does something as a business that it infuriates people especially when they get something for free. Yes, Ubuntu is taking free software, wrapping it as a supportable bundle and distributing it. So now they've hooked into the information sharing arrangement. It's easy enough to disable as well and the hosts file solution is also there. I wonder if just charging $10 a download / dvd would make more sense then adding another keylogging data collector out there. Frankly Facebook is the worst and the network of data collectors it's partnered with is becoming more and more troublesome.
Re:Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, what is the most popular Linux distro out there? I would argue that the changes that Ubuntu have brought (or packaging as it were) has made it much more palatable for novices to adopt; It's not all for techs out there to use Linux. Fedora right now has its set of detractors as well, so what's left? If you want to put an easy wrapper on it, Android is the most popular Linux distro out there right now. I will now receive a bombarding of shots because everybody says Android isn't Linux, but we do hav
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I have nothing concrete to go by, but according to Distrowatch's Page Hit Ranking, Linux Mint by a margin.
But that's probably among people who install OSes and not necessarily commercial use.
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It amazes me that when somebody does something as a business that it infuriates people especially when they get something for free.
It amazes me when some people seem to think that free products or services are somehow above criticism. It's as simple as this: if it isn't changed, people who care enough about it won't use it or will stop using it. There is nothing wrong with either of those.
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I wonder if just charging $10 a download / dvd would make more sense then adding another keylogging data collector out there.
YES! Enough of this ad-supported bull shit. Enough of this it's Open Source so it should be free, but not really free because we gotta eat so we'll sneak in some underhanded revenue stream bull shit. If you want to make money sell your product at a fair price. Make it Open Source, which means that people can compile their own version for free if they want, Sell the Binaries.
I'd gladly pay $10, $20, $30 to download a good binary version that saves me time. I'd gladly pay $10-30 for a good product.
Re:Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Then what the hell are you doing using the web?
Re:Amazing. (Score:4, Insightful)
It amazes me that when somebody does something as a business that it infuriates people especially when they get something for free.
Shuttleworth picked the wrong crowd to spring this on. I don't think "Free" means what you think it means here or else you would understand.
Re:Amazing. (Score:5, Interesting)
It amazes me that when somebody does something as a business that it infuriates people especially when they get something for free. Yes, Ubuntu is taking free software, wrapping it as a supportable bundle and distributing it. So now they've hooked into the information sharing arrangement. It's easy enough to disable as well and the hosts file solution is also there. I wonder if just charging $10 a download / dvd would make more sense then adding another keylogging data collector out there. Frankly Facebook is the worst and the network of data collectors it's partnered with is becoming more and more troublesome.
I donated 40 EUR, while downloading Ubuntu image many mohths ago. Do I get to complain now, since I didn't get it for free? Hell, I'd probably be willing to pay them reasonable yearly 'support' fee in order to help them make some money - it would be worth it.
I won't be donating them anything ever again, nor will I be using it, since I simply don't trust Ubuntu anymore and never will. For all I know, they might re-enable things that I disabled without even asking me, when applying updates. They seem to think that everything is a fair game.
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It amazes me that when somebody does something as a business that it infuriates people especially when they get something for free
It amazes me when people are treated like criminals or animals and they don't become infuriated, or even react.
It's easy enough to disable as well and the hosts file solution is also there.
Sure, you can disable it. But it would be better to not ship spyware. It's spyware because they don't give you sufficient notice. Sure, WE know all about it, but the general public doesn't.
I wonder if just charging $10 a download / dvd would make more sense then adding another keylogging data collector out there
Well no, no it wouldn't. They'd go under. Redhat already has the paid Linux thing sewn up.
Frankly Facebook is the worst and the network of data collectors it's partnered with is becoming more and more troublesome.
That has what to do with this?
Re:Amazing. (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot ... is much more annoying, since to disable ads you have to download AdBlock.
Or just get positive Karma and check the "disable advertisements" options :)
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It's only present if you have high enough karma. Not that it's that hard to achieve.
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I prefer noscript. It is weird seeing that checkbox up there when I see no ads anyways.
Re:Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. You can disable it. And you don't even have to fiddle around with apt or anything, it's an option present in their own GUI. Slashdot, Google and the whole rest of the internet is much more annoying, since to disable ads you have to download AdBlock. Canonical is giving you a choice. "Here, use our ad-supported OS. You don't want ads? Ok, then, just use the damn thing entirely free anyway!" I fail to see how that can be anything other than completely ethical.
Except they aren't offering that choice, they where sneaky and underhanded. As other have said, it's spyware. Ubuntu did a great job for a while, but first it was Unity and now this. They're treating their users like we don't have a choice. I do and won't be installing Ubuntu again.
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I get the point readily enough. Auto web search got disabled on upgrade. Dash sending searches in under-handed spyware fashion is indeed despicable, whether it can be disabled or no, without asking or telling.
Except that, for the nonce, I flat out don't care. The only things I've searched via Dash have been some of the configuration utilities that either came with the install or ones I've added that I either didn't make a short-cut for, didn't show up in the menu (classicmenu-ind
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> Slashdot, Google and the whole rest of the internet is much more annoying, since to disable ads you have to download AdBlock.
Eh? Try blocking at the hostname-ip-lookup level.
i.e.
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt [mvps.org]
Why aren't you blocking ads at the router level?
e.g.
http://lifehacker.com/5060053/set-up-universal-ad-blocking-through-your-router [lifehacker.com]
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you know what else is easier? using one of the hundreds of distros that dont shit on its users
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The one caveat is that Mark said the disabling is only for that single session of the Dash: "We will make a very bold, clear way for you to turn on and off network queries across ALL scopes for any given session in the dash."
What it should have is a permanent setting in Privacy settings.
The End of Ubuntu? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say that pretty much ends the usefulness of the Ubuntu line. Anyone who thinks that sending all my keystrokes to their server - which they can in turn sell off to third parties - is, in my not so humble opinion, bat fucking crazy.
You should not have to edit hosts files or anything else to make a product usable, because that product should not be spying on you from install forward. I do believe my personal response to Mark is a big "FUCK OFF AND DIE". End of story. End of Ubuntu.
Re:The End of Ubuntu? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say that pretty much ends the usefulness of the Ubuntu line. Anyone who thinks that sending all my keystrokes to their server - which they can in turn sell off to third parties - is, in my not so humble opinion, bat fucking crazy.
Yeah, I've defended a lot of their questionable behavior, but this is utterly indefensible. This is spyware by definition. I hope they get their peepees smacked. Nice to know my last ISO download was a waste of time, as I won't be using it. I guess I'm headed for Mint...
+
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I went Mint, never missed Ubuntu for a second.
Why are Mint users so eager to preach their choice so much? I don't see it with other distributions.
Re:The End of Ubuntu? (Score:5, Informative)
> Anyone who thinks that sending all my keystrokes to their server...
Well. Not ALL keystrokes. Just Unity Dash searches. Doesn't Android's integrated search bar do something like this too? Not that it makes it OK of course.
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> Anyone who thinks that sending all my keystrokes to their server...
Well. Not ALL keystrokes. Just Unity Dash searches. Doesn't Android's integrated search bar do something like this too? Not that it makes it OK of course.
I don't think so. Android's search bar does the same "instant search" thing that google.com does, so it sends each keystroke to Google for predictive search. And Google, of course, keeps track of what you search for (unless you opt out) to help target ads. However, Google doesn't send your data to anyone else.
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not on these products and it's possible that I'm wrong. I don't think I am, though.)
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I don't quite grasp the concept of switching distro based on default DE, when alternative is just one apt-get away (at least kubuntu, xubuntu and lubuntu variants). Though I sure am glad I ditched Unity as soon as it had finished installation, due to the issue of TFA, so I guess I share your sentiment a bit anyway. As it is, I'll keep using Ubuntu (without Unity) as long as it is the most convenient and widely supported distro for getting software packages outside official repositories.
Keystroke logging by default? (Score:5, Insightful)
I replaced Ubuntu with Mint when I was first confronted by Unity because I couldn't abide the new UI.
Sounds like that was the least of the reasons to go...
I was thinking that it's been a while and that I should have another look at how Unity has evolved, but not if they are reduced to doing this to stay in business.
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Let's really think about this though.
Remember what the significant difference between Ubuntu and Mint was?
Mint installed some popular proprietary closed-source software by default; Something that Ubuntu refused to do.
This meant that you could play MP3s out of the box, without having to type "sudo apt-get blah blah blah...". You didn't have to go on a quest for Flash, SUN Java JDK, and lots of other pretty cool stuff, that Ubuntu turned up it's nose at "because it wasn't open source".
But then this?
Backroom p
I don't see a problem with it. (Score:2)
Canonical can have a good poke about in /home/gordonjcp if they think it'll help. Why?
Because I'm getting bombarded with advertising *anyway*.
If the adverts are going to be there then they may as well be for stuff I actually want, rather than constantly advertising pharmacies that will discreetly ship to the US without requiring a prescription (why would you want to buy drugs over the internet, never mind without a prescription?). If advertising stuff that I want to buy helps a company that I'd like to su
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Sucks to live in a country with third-world healthcare then, doesn't it? I don't really want to hear about their problems.
built into the kernel?! (Score:4, Insightful)
> We will aim to enforce this at the kernel level, hence
> the CC to Jamie S who leads our security team.
WTF? Why is that needed? To keep jr devs from accidentally re-enabling it? Or, in fine /. conspiratorial tradition, is the keylogging built into the kernel?!
Fuck ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the problem with "success" of open projects as they grow they require more and more money to continue to reinforce their expansion and it only snowballs downhill from there. Before you know it your out there selling your soul and your users data to the highest bidder. You can still reap profit on support alone but you can't expect it to support an organization of any size with fat paychecks for all doing this. There aint any shortage of corporate customers happily willing to purchase yearly support subscriptions whether they actually need it or use it.
Distributions put together by people who give a shit don't have this problem. The cost of packaging in time and effort is such a minsicule effort and mostly a solved problem contrasted with the effort required to produce operating system and software bundled with it.
What if bash maintainers decided they need more money too and decided to ship your keystrokes off to facebook as well? What if the maintainers of every one of the thousands of packages that go into a modern distribution followed suite? Spying by default is indefensible.
Why is it that everything that goes big or is good (Score:2)
Gets turned into a marketing opportunity?
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Two obvious reasons:
1. A lot of people think that the value of things is measured in dollars, and so if a project doesn't make money it's not worth doing.
2. There's basically nobody on the planet who wouldn't like having more money.
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2. There's basically nobody on the planet who wouldn't like having more money.
so, you are suggesting we use linux that comes from an alien race or life form, instead?
they tend to suck at the terrestrial languages, though; so don't expect their spell-check to be worth a damn.
and if they spy on us, who cares! again, they don't know our languages.
Short term versus long term impact (Score:2)
Ubuntu might write off people who oppose this change as a small minority of geeks, and the vast majority of people won't care.
Which is true in the short term. Unfortunately as history has proved repeatedly, the "vast majority of people" go to a geek for advice. That might be a family member, a trusted friend or some geek writing something online. They might not understand what the issue is, but over time they will hear the geek background noise about what Ubuntu is doing. In the Medium to Long term, Ubuntu
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The problem here is that geeks are the primary audience for ANY Linux distribution - even Ubuntu. The minority users for Linux are the non-geeks.
They can't approach PR stuff from the same angle as Microsoft or Apple. If they piss of the geeks they have pissed off the majority of their userbase. Personally, I'm done with Ubuntu, the same way I'm done with Gnome. Luckily there are still distros (Mint) and desktop environments (XFCE) that still "get it" and listen to the users.
My personal observation (Score:5, Insightful)
Using Ubuntu these days goes against why I used Linux to start with.
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I agree, but I also think Canonical need to start making a profit or else there really will be no Ubuntu in the future.
It's just a shame that they have to go about making money in this way.
At the moment I'm still on 10.04, and I feel like Mario on a disappearing platform with canonical or gnome 3 waiting to catch me at the bottom. Needing to make a run and jump to MATE and Mint.
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Mint with MATE looks promising, but it was still a bit buggy last time I tried it. Cinnamon is nicer, and more polished, but I like the snappiness of G2. CentOS is still going to have to find somewhere to go after G2, and I really miss apt-get on it. I guess I should try debian.
Oh, n00buntu... (Score:3)
I talked to Hak5's Darren recently and he's moving away from Ubuntu, and I did 4 years ago to Arch for my single user machines and Debian for my servers. I haven't looked back since. Most other distros are much more in line with the open standards and software that Linux is all about than Shuttlebuntu. Give some other distros a try, and you may find one that just blows your mind...like Archlinux, Debian, Mint, or whatever else.
if you haven't paid for it (Score:2)
"if you have are not paying for it, you are not the customer - you are the product being sold". (source unknown)
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Ubuntu Server affected? (Score:2)
Hopefully this is limited to systems with GUI's installed and not headless servers.
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it's just the unified shit search...
Nice job of framing the debate (Score:3)
Such a shame (Score:2, Insightful)
I've long felt that Ubuntu was the only really "complete" distro for the desktop. Other ones come close, but they tend to have one major issue or another for regular users. Ubuntu had the least, by far. Sucks.
First Unity, now this. They both suck. I mean, they
Time to go elsewhere (Score:2)
I've used Linux since I could get RedHat on Floppies. I personally like BSD based systems, but for my family who play more games, I typically have used Ubuntu. I work as a senior systems admin, and I make the purchasing and installation decisions at the company where I work.
I don't like the idea of spyware coming as a default solution on my kid's laptop. Or my aunt's, or my wife's, or my grandmother's, or my friends'. I don't like the idea of recommending Ubuntu on any system at the Linux User's Group i
This is where I draw the line (Score:2)
I'm probably one of the few people who actually doesn't find Unity so bad and don't get all the hate that it seems to have here on Slashdot. I use 12.04 on my primary machine and Unity works well enough for me: it's not revolutionary, but it's no better and no worse than the Gnome 2 user experience that came before it. However, these types of shenanigans is where I draw the line. While Ubuntu did a lot of good work in their time, I don't think I'll ever upgrade to Quantal or any of their future versions unl
Linux (still) needs a user level firewall (Score:2)
I've been saying for years (to little effect) that desktop Linux is desperately missing a decent firewall which gives the *USER* a choice as to whether any process/program can communicate with the network.
Zone alarm used to be a must have for any Windows box because it would not only block incoming connections but it would prompt the user whenever *anything* tried to get out to the internet. No exceptions. Nothing left the machine without you, the all important user, giving it the go ahead (I actually tes
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DrakeFirewall: http://doc.mandriva.com/en/2010/Mastering-Manual/Mastering-Manual.html/tinyfirewall.html [mandriva.com]
It is available in Mageia as well.
Pop-up notifications, default blocking all, port scan detection, etc.
Been around for years.
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Cheers for the effort. However drakfirewall looks like a Mandriva specific bit of software.
So not much use for Ubuntu really (no package of that name in the repositories etc. etc.)
Still I'll have a look at it as if it does actually give the user control then this is *exactly* what is need for Ubuntu/other desktop Linux oses.
If it does look to do the job I'll try rasiing another feature request to port it to Ubunut. And no doubt it will get ignored like the other times I've tried.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent is flamebaiting a bit, but I agree. There are no lack of Debian-based distros which don't come with the increasingly concerning baggage that Ubuntu is being bundled with. I retired my last Ubuntu machine about eight months ago and am Debian-only now.
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This. Ubuntu has jumped the shark so long ago. It lost what made it special. Why is anyone still using it?
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Anyone caught posting the above will be beaten severely with their own keyboard.
<-- This. Please don't propagate this "please don't propagate this 'this' meme anymore" anymore.
Yeah .... just in my experience. (Score:3, Insightful)
I use a couple of different Linux distros currently, many more in the past and also *BSD now.
What Ubuntu does that no one has done was make it easy for the user. The way Ubuntu does things is a Windows killer - if it weren't for the pre-installation of Windows on every fucking thing that's not Apple or handheld.
See, unlike everyother distro, when you install something on Ubuntu, it'll work (sample: everything I've installed) - and I mean using the distro's software manager - even Windows can't make that cl
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See, unlike everyother distro, when you install something on Ubuntu, it'll work (sample: everything I've installed) - and I mean using the distro's software manager - even Windows can't make that claim. Calibre for example. Updating Calibre on XP involves uninstalling and installing again; otherwise if you don't do the uninstall f the old version, when you run it, you get the old version. Ubuntu just upgrades with no hassles.
Then that means Calibre's installer is broken. That has nothing to do with the OS.
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Five year support on LTS is a killer feature.
If you want to use .deb packages and would like up-to-date packaegs for software like libreoffice and firefox then Ubuntu is the way to go.
Drop 12.04 on the machine, and you have a system that will be easy to keep updated till 2017. With the option of upgrading on 2014 if it looks good. There are a lot of PPAs out there to keep many poplular LTS software applications up to date.
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Five year support on LTS is a killer feature.
Not really. Debian releases hang around seemingly forever. But...
If you want to use .deb packages and would like up-to-date packaegs for software like libreoffice and firefox then Ubuntu is the way to go.
It is difficult to find up-to-date software for actual Debian. That's the only real shortcoming IMO...
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I have to agree. For the most part I've always liked Ubuntu, but even after moving to Xubuntu after the Unity nonsense I still didn't like the direction they were/are going in. Moved to Linux Mint XFCE and haven't looked back.
And honestly, I don't even mind that Gnome and Unity have been the abysmal disasters that they are either. XFCE works great for the most part. I do run mutter instead of xfwm because it has a better compositor, but thats pretty seamless and works great.
Xubuntu (Score:4, Informative)
Re:We should get paid for our data. (Score:5, Informative)
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Is anyone aware of similar issues with Mint?
Yes. It converts you into a mindless drone who must recommend Mint in every turn when Ubuntu is mentioned.
Side effects include chanting the line "I switched to Mint and have never looked back."