Ubuntu is amazing!

[teeitup]

can i use this ubuntu distro as a NAT and samba server
while it's being used as a home PC

Sure.
However it doesn't include these in the initial install. You can add and configure them later.

[ions]

I installed Ubuntu for my neighbour after she came to me for the Nth time with an XP box that just stops responding. I told her she could continue dealing with that all the time or move to Linux and not worry about that sort of crap. Plus I was really getting tired of playing with that XP box.

Other than a couple problems, like no support of MSN Web chat in Linux, the machine has been working fine for them. I ssh into it once in a while and make sure everything is working fine and have been quite impressed. The Ubuntu people set Gnome up well enough that it convinced me to move to Gnome from ob3. It's very peppy and easy to use!

Perfect Newb distro and not bad for more advanced users either really. When you consider that Ubuntu is still very young it's an impressive distro and has a bright future.

I'm working on a few more converts for Ubuntu now.

[darth_tradd]

Considering this is young distro, they've delivered a quality product. I'm kind of a RPM guy, so I had Fedora Core 2 installed in my laptop. It worked fine, but I had to write a script to get my USB flash memory working and to get some modules to get my webcam set up.

With Ubuntu, both devices worked perfectly, without needing any further adjustments.

I'm really impressed with this distro. If they keep doing like this, i'ts going to become a major player on the desktop.

[ehawk]

Originally posted by ions

Other than a couple problems, like no support of MSN Web chat in Linux, the machine has been working fine for them. I ssh into it once in a while and make sure everything is working fine and have been quite impressed. The Ubuntu people set Gnome up well enough that it convinced me to move to Gnome from ob3. It's very peppy and easy to use!

Gaim doesn't handle MSN chat? I don't recall....

[infiniphunk]

Other than a couple problems, like no support of MSN Web chat in Linux

but even that's not really a problem; just show your friend how to connect to messenger through GAIM, which is installed by default with Ubuntu.

[mhacleth]

Well, I tried it and was quite impressed by the ease of installation.

It is a perfect recommendation for people switching over to Linux from Winbloze.

Having been reared in Gentoo and now, Slackware, I don't think I'd switch over. right, JohnT?

my Congratulations to Ubuntu for this excellent start!

Mhac

[dr_te_z]

Installed it recently. 1st impressions:
- no go on my XP/VMware config. My VMware is too old. Other people reported simular problems. Too bad.

- installed it on my multi-boot P200 to replace W98 . It comes with GRUB. GRUB sees my (lilo-based) debian and slackware, but misses my OS/2 and freeBSD partitions. Accepted anyway, solve that later.

- from another linux I try to ssh into ubuntu. it does not accept. the keywords "ssh" and "sshd" on their documentation site come with zero hits.

- I miss gkrellm. when I "apt cache search gkrellm" I get zero hits. Can I use my good-old debian apt-urls? If so, which ones: woody/sarge/cid?

- Just like debian ubuntu cannot auto-config my X. My PCI-based S3 card is too old or too exentric.... During manual config "I see the light". xf86config created a new "/etc/X11/XF86Config" but X uses the unchanged "XF86Config-4". Moving that one away solves the problem. Quick quick boot my old debian, perhaps there the same problem...

- From the GDM screen I choose to reboot. From that moment GRUB gives errors on all OS-es. That was yersterdayevening late. Machine is dead now....Gives me something to do. I'll keep you informed.

But what I saw I liked. Very nice setup. Very up-to-date (kernel/gnome).

[mrBen]

Originally posted by dr_te_z
Installed it recently. 1st impressions:
- no go on my XP/VMware config. My VMware is too old. Other people reported simular problems. Too bad.

- installed it on my multi-boot P200 to replace W98 . It comes with GRUB. GRUB sees my (lilo-based) debian and slackware, but misses my OS/2 and freeBSD partitions. Accepted anyway, solve that later.

- from another linux I try to ssh into ubuntu. it does not accept. the keywords "ssh" and "sshd" on their documentation site come with zero hits.

Ubuntu installs the ssh client, but not the server, by default. It sees itself as a desktop distro, and so doesn't install many services.

- I miss gkrellm. when I "apt cache search gkrellm" I get zero hits. Can I use my good-old debian apt-urls? If so, which ones: woody/sarge/cid?

You want to add some of the 'Universe' options. See the Wiki/FAQ.

- Just like debian ubuntu cannot auto-config my X. My PCI-based S3 card is too old or too exentric.... During manual config "I see the light". xf86config created a new "/etc/X11/XF86Config" but X uses the unchanged "XF86Config-4". Moving that one away solves the problem. Quick quick boot my old debian, perhaps there the same problem...

Your card probably is either too old or too eccentric, unfortunately. I've not had any X problems when I've installed Ubuntu.

- From the GDM screen I choose to reboot. From that moment GRUB gives errors on all OS-es. That was yersterdayevening late. Machine is dead now....Gives me something to do. I'll keep you informed.

But what I saw I liked. Very nice setup. Very up-to-date (kernel/gnome).

Out of curiousity, were you using a pre-release, or the latest, final release version? I had GRUB issue on the pre-release, but I believe they have been resolved in the final release.

[Sgood1971]

Has anyone ever recieved the CD's from their site they were shipping for free? I ordered 10, which was the default, but have not gotten them. I have been dying to try this, but with the &^%# bandwidth limitations they put on my satellite connection, I have to pick and choose very wisely what I download.

[mengle]

Granted I only tried out Ubuntu for a couple of days, so definitely take my comments with a grain of salt.

Here are my beefs with it:

1) Appraently it's package pool is not that of Debian so it has limited packages that one can install. IMO it's too bad they had to do this instead of helping continue develop the debian pool, they are building their own. I'm sure they have their own reason for it but I think it's too bad.

2) I think I've realized I really don't like GNOME. Personal preference so let's move on.

3) Using sudo was driving me insane. I think there are some good aplications for sudo but I would have given anything to have my root back.

4) Fairly unstable packages. I had a lot of program crashes. More than any other distro I've used. I would guess that it stems from Ubuntu using version frm the Debian unstable pool. Granted it's more up to date but it started to feel a bit like windows (minus the blue screen of death, of course).

5) They offer free CD's. I ordered mine well over a month ago. Still haven't seen them. Has anyone? I think it's great they offered this service but they need to actually send them out in a reasonable amount of time.

I realize that Ubuntu is very simple to install and has great hardware detection but there are plenty of other distros that do that. So I can't really see what's going for it at this point. We'll see where Ubunut heads though.

[teeitup]

3) Using sudo was driving me insane. I think there are some good aplications for sudo but I would have given anything to have my root back.

I agree it got old. For a single command like mount no big deal. If you need to do more than that you can sudo su and become root. Then you won't need to use sudo for every command.

[mengle]

D'oh! Now if feel stupid but at least I learned something.

[rbrimhall]

Originally posted by mengle

1) Appraently it's package pool is not that of Debian so it has limited packages that one can install. IMO it's too bad they had to do this instead of helping continue develop the debian pool, they are building their own. I'm sure they have their own reason for it but I think it's too bad.

I think this was intentional for a reason. AFAIK mixing debian versions (sarge and unstable) is bad form so it would make sense that mixing Ubuntu with debian would be frowned upon. Have you tried installing some stuff on MEPIS (GNOME?) and seen how difficult it is even though MEPIS is "debian compatiable"?

The developers maintain they're own packages but whatever bugs they squash are sent upstream to Debian proper for submission and either admission or rejection.

I don't see the problem here... and debian packages "work" they're just not supported

3) Using sudo was driving me insane. I think there are some good aplications for sudo but I would have given anything to have my root back.

Hasn't bothered me very much at all...

4) Fairly unstable packages. I had a lot of program crashes. More than any other distro I've used. I would guess that it stems from Ubuntu using version frm the Debian unstable pool. Granted it's more up to date but it started to feel a bit like windows (minus the blue screen of death, of course).

Yep, some of the packages are a little "warty" but no show stoppers here. I haven't had an included program crash though some of the unsupported ones from universe do crash for sure

5) They offer free CD's. I ordered mine well over a month ago. Still haven't seen them. Has anyone? I think it's great they offered this service but they need to actually send them out in a reasonable amount of time.

They were supposed to start shipping the first of November AFAIK. Expect them "any day now"

I realize that Ubuntu is very simple to install and has great hardware detection but there are plenty of other distros that do that. So I can't really see what's going for it at this point. We'll see where Ubunut heads though.

Well, it's a nice Debian-based distro that is GNOME centric rather then KDE or IceWM centric. It has actual Debian and GNOME developers working on it as well. It "just works" (for me at any rate.)

Whew!

[Ehwaz001]

I just wanted to add this in the thread about the amazing Ubuntu distro: OSNews has a review of Ubuntu, after using it for +- 6 weeks, so if anyone is interested, you can read the review right over here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=8754
(alas, no screenshots...)

[jefjj01]

>>Fairly unstable packages. I had a lot of program >>crashes.

>>I think I've realized I really don't like GNOME. >>Personal preference so let's move on.


Thats too bad...I have yet to have one crash. In fact Ubuntu has been the most crash-free distro as of yet. I never turn off my PC either.

I do notice a trend in that people who prefer KDE seem to have very little positive to say about a GNOME distribution. I guess that is stating the obvious but after reading that last review I would be very reluctent to try Ubuntu. Luckily I installed Ubuntu early on and found out first hand how rock solid and stable and amazing the distro is!!

p.s. I'm a recent GNOME convert too