Ubuntu is fast on its way to becoming a peoples OS. I have always wondered what is it that makes people embrace Ubuntu over other Linux distributions. After some pondering, it struck me that the USP (Unique Selling Point) of Ubuntu is its user friendliness. Ubuntu is a distribution targeted at the non-techie crowd - those that want to get their job done and not spend time tinkering with the OS. And consequently, the developers at Ubuntu have bundled simple easy to use GUI front end tools to achieve common system administration tasks. Here I have put together 10 things in Ubuntu that make a new user's life that much simple. I used Ubuntu 5.10 to aid my observation.
Network Tools
This is a graphical front end for all the frequently used network tools like ping, traceroute, netstat, finger and whois. Accessed through 'Applications -> System Tools -> Network Tools' , It is designed with the new user in mind and is quite intuitive to use. In fact all the user has to do is type in the IP address of the machine to ping to and press a button and lo, it displays the result in a user friendly format.
Fig: Network Tools GUIUbuntu Device Database Submission Tool
This is another tool I found unique to Ubuntu. Consider this scenario, you have a machine whose sound card is not detected properly by Ubuntu. By using this tool, you can send a report to the developers of Ubuntu giving details of your sound card (like the chipset used) and be assured that in the next release, they will have support for your hardware. But if everything is working properly, then also this tool is useful because it will automatically detect all the hardware and send a report back to the developers for storing in their database. Access it through 'Applications -> System Tools -> Ubuntu Device Database'.
Fig: Device Database Submission ToolGParted - The Partitioning tool in Ubuntu
This is a GUI based partitioning tool that comes bundled in Ubuntu. Using gparted, you can easily create, resize and format partitions on your hard disk. And if you want to find the make of your hard disk, it is just a mouse click away in this utility (Applications -> System Tools -> GParted). Just click Menu 'View --> Hard disk Information' to see the size, the model, the device name (eg: /dev/hda) of your hard disk and number of heads, sectors and cylinders on it. By clicking the menu 'Partition --> Convert to', you can create a wide variety of file systems including NTFS on your partition. GParted is the closest you can get to user friendliness as far as a partitioning tool is concerned.
Fig: GParted - the partitioning softwareAdd Applications
One grouse that all users switching to Linux had was the difficulty in installing and uninstalling applications when compared to windows. This is done away with the Add Applications tool in Ubuntu. It is a Gnome front end to the popular command line tool Apt-Get. You want to know how easy it is in installing applications ? I had downloaded a Kubuntu CD image and had burned it on to a CD. To merge it in Ubuntu, all I had to do was click the Menu 'Settings --> Repositories' and press the "Add CD" button. Then I could install all the KDE packages from the CD with the click of a button. And if you are online, you don't even have to add the CD to your repository list. The program will automatically pull the necessary packages from the internet and install it on your machine resolving all dependencies.
Fig: Add/Remove applications DialogDevice Manager
This is the HAL Device manager. HAL stands for Hardware Abstraction Layer. This utility accessed through 'System --> Administration --> Device Manager', gives you more information about the various parts of your PC like the type of processor used, memory, sound card chipset, mouse and the likes. Even though you can get all the data by browsing the /proc directory, neophytes will find it comforting to have these details a few mouse clicks away.
Fig: Device ManagerServices Settings
This is a very intuitive and simple GUI tool which helps a user take control over which services are started at bootup time. In a default installation of Linux, a lot of daemons are started up during bootup which significantly increases the time that the system takes to fully load a desktop. For example, if you are using a stand alone desktop PC, you can do away with services like NFS, PCMCIA (which is needed only in laptops), Cupsd (if you do not have a printer) and so on; which will make your machine more responsive. You can use the service settings GUI to start or stop all the services.
Fig: Services Settings DialogCreating Users & Groups
It is a snap in creating users and groups in Ubuntu using the users and groups dialog. You can even control a user's rights like access to certain devices like cdroms, floppy, internet connection, modem and so on from the User Privileges tab of the User Account Editor. Do you suspect your son is viewing X rated movie CDs on your computer when you are not around ? You just uncheck the option "Use CD-ROM devices" in the user privileges of your son's account and you can rest assured.
Fig: Set per user rights to devicesTroubleshooting is just a chat room away
Ubuntu comes with XChat IRC client installed by default. When I faced a doubt regarding a particular feature, I fired up the chat client (XChat) and logged into the Ubuntu IRC server (Which is the first server in the servers list). And within a few minutes, I was able to get my doubts clarified from the #ubuntu chat room.
Network Setting dialog
This GUI helps users to easily setup the ethernet and modem connections. You can activate and deactivate the devices with the click of a button. Further more, this front end lets you set the hostname and domain name for your computer.
Fig: Setup your ethernet card and modemManage your sessions with ease
If you select the Sessions tool from 'System --> Preferences --> Sessions', you can enable any program to start automatically when you login to your account. For example, I use Tomboy - a popular note taking application to jot down notes. When not in use, it resides in my system tray. I have set this application to start each time I log in to my account by including it in the sessions box.
Fig: Managing your sessionsBy bringing out such nice GUI frontends to ease the user experience, Ubuntu is doing its mite in promulgating the Linux OS aiding its wider acceptance among the masses. After having used it for close to a month, I can say with certainty that Ubuntu is a distribution which is a worthy entry into the Linux desktop market.
32 comments:
User-friendliness does not necessarily mean that it is only for neophytes.
Great article! FYI, I linked to it from DebCentral too.
I have to agree with Saketh that Ubuntu is really suitable for all Linux Users.... Rate this article and Ubuntu @ ReviewLinux.Com
It may have intuitive menu's that stir a new user's interest...but getting mp3's to play, movies to play, and java to work make this a NOT so new user friendly distro. Until that happens, those that want a true new user oriented distro where they don't have to configure or install things via console will stick with MEPIS and PCLinuxOS. Ubuntu isn't up where these two distros are.
Another reason I just thought of that Ubuntu still has a ways to go...updates. Here's how to update from 5.04 to 5.10:
* Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file.
* Make a backup, then replace all instances of "hoary" with "breezy".
* To retrieve the updated package lists, run: apt-get update
* To download all of the packages, run apt-get -d dist-upgrade
* To install the downloaded packages, run apt-get dist-upgrade
* To cleanup, run: apt-get clean
And here's how to do it in MEPIS and PCLinuxOS:
* select smart upgrade in synaptic and mark all then hit apply.
Ubuntu New user friendly? It's getting there.
It's a pain to configure Ubuntu for multimedia use. The names of the packages are so weird that it's almost impossible to find java, flash, win32codecs, libdvd-stuff. It would be nice with Acrobat Reader 7 also because the other pdf-readers does not read most of the pdf-documents found on the net. Skype was a little bit problematic to install also.
It's nice to see that thet are developing these config tools but do we need this many different distro-tools to do the same config-task.
I think I will be an Ubuntu-user in the future but for now I'll stick with www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos
Eh?
www.distrowatch.com
Ubuntu Linux - 2643
MEPIS - 980
I guess the large difference means that MEPIS really is the most user friendly distro out there!
Oh wait, it doesn't. Maybe if they got their anti-GPL act together the MEPIS distro would be more of a contender.
May I ask what the difference would be between a RedHat or SuSe system? Many of those tools are provided in the Gnome package, not especially because it is from Ubuntu.
I have used Ubuntu since Warty, and it's my favorite distro for everyday desktop oriented tasks, but I do not agree with the premise of the article. Most of the tools that you mention are _GNOME_ centric and other tools are contributed by the Ubuntu team.
What really makes Ubuntu unique among Linux distros is the hardware recognition, easy install and the availability of new and stable packages that are easily installed via APT.
Let's not forget the friendly community and overall commitment from the team.
I agree with others in saying that Ubuntu is not perfect, but it is great. The upgrades are a little rough around the edges but new installs are perfect. With the exception of the multimedia related config you have to perform. Many people complain about this, but they need to understand the simple reasons why these binaries can't be included.
Oh one more thing.. There was a box on my front porch this morning and I was confused about what it could be (post 9-11 you know) until I saw the upside down Canonical sticker and guess what...... 100 free Ubuntu CDs to pass out to friends.
Nice article. Well written... I got here from a link on digg.com. Get ready for some traffic from my fellow Diggers.
I like Ubuntu but something annoyed the hell out of me, not because I might be an average Joe but just the geek factor of it. Just try to change the resolution of your display. Surprise.. you'll have to edit xorg.conf by hand. Now that's "linux for human beings" ??
Some things will never change...
Emil, on the install of ubuntu, after the restart, Xconfig allows u to choose which resolutions your montior supports, and it writes it to the xorg, then just goto System - Administration - Screen Resolution and choose from the drop down :P.
if u arent there at the install, xconfig just guesses the settings after a few mins of inactivity.
I for one are still reletively new to linux, but out of the distros i use, i would only recccomend ubuntu, i use it all the time now.
About service settings:
Basicily true, but this application is not doing what you wrote. It' s to basic. You wil have to use BUM instead. (sudo apt-get install bum)
Ubuntu is is a neophyte's distro since no other distro has felt the need to wrap all their command line tools around fancy GUIs. It's all good that more windows and mac users needn't break their heads trying to convert to linux, but in the end, the basic problem with GUIs still remains: you get only so much control over the application. Shit happens, whether it's windows or linux; however linux gives you a chance to fix it. When you wrap your configuration utility with a funky GUI, you lose control over your OS.
Experienced linux users and system administrators use the tried and tested configuration utilities (such as /sbin/service for service management, sfdisk for partitions etc). But I agree that Ubuntu's made things a lot simpler for new linux users. And the point of this rant?... well, all I'm saying is that the GUI's all pretty, but as users get experience with linux, they'll find ubuntu restrictive
it's been dugg
Emil, to change resolution, Goto Systen -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution.
Thank you so much for this, had heard about ubuntu but your article gave me the inspiration to try it out. Am formatting my hard drive as we speak
Some people have pointed out that some of the above utilities I have written are gnome centric and can be accessed in other linux distributions.
True. But then a distribution is just a collection of programs which are made to work around a linux kernel. So what is available in one distro can be theoretically made available in another. But again some linux distributions like slackware chose not to bundle these tools by opting for KDE.
In Ubuntu, the 10 things listed in my post (even if some of them are related to gnome ) are really a boon for the newbies who come from a windows environment.
anonymous said...
"...well, all I'm saying is that the GUI's all pretty, but as users get experience with linux, they'll find ubuntu restrictive"
Yes everybody finds GUIs restrictive once they become adept in a particular platform. My personal experience is also to stick to the commandline in doing something. And you can do every thing in Ubuntu in the command line too. It is only done a bit differently than in other linux distributions.
As far as distributions like Mepis are concerned, I have nothing personal against them. I am sure they are excellent distributions in their own right. But as one anonymous comment pointed out earlier, they don't hand out free CDs like ubuntu does and to get more features, you ultimately have to shell out some money which I don't think the new converts to linux are willing to do.
Assuming I am generally the person for whom this article is written (no programming skills but not afraid to invest time and mental energy into learning a bit), I would say that Ubuntu has made the transition from Windows quite easy. Once I understood the legal reasons they have not included certain multimedia codecs I didn't mind having to install them myself. The partitioning tool in the OS is nice but it would have been nicer while installing the OS. The install help was of no use defining what a LVM is or does (and thanks to Wilma I still don't have internet at home to look up the answer quickly). The Ubuntu site's wiki helped me fix my screen resolution issues which could be solved only by editing the xorg.conf file. Here's the thing though: for someone like me, editing a system file and having success gives me a sense of accomplishment and a willingness to further investigate issues and solve problems on my own. Thus far, I've found it the rewarding adventure that all of my research indicated it would be.
In fact, Ubuntu has rather crappy hardware recognition, since they use rather old kernels. They will not release updates to the installer neither, so unless you have old hardware, you're doomed.
Also, their kernel config for the installer isn't the best around, quite the opposite.
I always wonder about these Linux puff articles -- what motivates the writers to pimp OSs that any experienced person knows will be nosebleeds for 90%+ of the novices trying to do a real, complete migration from XP?
Linux never has been, nor will it ever be, an effortless turn-key OS for all-purpose desktop (let alone laptop!). Ubuntu is an improvement, but it's still Linux -- which, if you consider the costs of replacing unsupported hardware and your time struggling with setup at about two cents an hour, is the most lavishly expensive OS ever devised.
I've been screwing around with Ubuntu 5.04 for about five months, all but living on the official support forum, which provides -- at best! -- solutions for only about a quarter of the hardware and software problems I've encountered, and there are tons of them.
When 5.10 was released, the forum exploded with bug reports from those who had upgraded from 5.04 and found they had major-to-fatal problems.
I've tried to install 5.10 on my new laptop, but the VIA video is not supported, nor is the RaLink wireless, nor WPA authentication...etc., etc., etc.
If you want to spend the rest of your life talking with geeks (and in the process learn that OS advocacy is best understood as a psychiatric symptom above all else) and trying out an infinite number of kludges, you can get a lot of these problems worked out (more or less), but what you normally wind up doing is succumbing to what I call "Linux disfunction drift," eliminating tasks that you used to do in Windows because your Linux distro won't do them, or support the hardware you needed to do them.
Can someone tell me how to get the fonts to look as good as they do under Fedora? The fonts under Ubuntu always look a little funny to me. The fonts under Fedora look pretty good to me. The posted screenshots have fonts that look good, I am guessing it is something in the xorg.conf file.
I just started with Ubuntu, having tried Mandrake/Mandriva for a few months before and being a lifelong Windows user.
I really like using Ubuntu more than Mandriva mostly because it makes sense to me and seems more like a Win type environment.
Really tho, does it matter what distro I am using, as long as I am trying? There are somethings that I still need windows for (pcAnywhere because I'm cheap and configuring VNC is beyond the grasp of my users), a Windows only Point-Of-Sale system and to have Windows for reference to support my users. Otherwise, I think Ubuntu might just become my almost everyday OS.
Or I could just turn off my Windows XP work machine and go home to my Mac...
By using this tool, you can send a report to the developers of Ubuntu giving details of your sound card (like the chipset used) and be assured that in the next release, they will have support for your hardware.
wow, there's fawning and then there's downright delusional.
For someone wishing to add codecs, mp3 playback, flash, java, and encrypted DVD playback. Take a look at the following thread at the Ubuntu Forum:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=66563
If you don't want to do it manually, this may help you.
Obviously there are people posting here trying to trash talk Ubuntu in order to get people to try other distributions. There are also a lot of people posting here that have no idea what they are talking about. I guess this article has it's audience down.
So, it's for the non-techie crowd, and proof is in ping and disk partitioning? These are concepts completely unknown to non-techie users. Still a long way to go....
ubuntu is gnome-based, therefore useless. now Kubuntu could be the next best thing....
"Can someone tell me how to get the fonts to look as good as they do under Fedora?"
sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
--> Choose "Autohinter" (and enable subpixel rendering if you have a LCD monitor).
i'll tell you why ubuntu is so popular - it's because a lot of linux pros and advanced users dig it, and are pimping it. not because it's some noob-friendly version of linux.
why? because it's really just debian, and has a few very useful packages added in (which debian stripped out, due to license issues), and it gets updated regularly.
most pro or savvy linux users use debian for three main reasons:
1) the apt package manager and it's associated utilities .if you've used both an RPM and a .deb/apt based distro, there's a 99% chance you stuck with .deb/apt, just due to the package selection, and ease of install, due to apt sorting out and taking care of dependancies for you.
2) no greedy for-profit company has it's mits all over debian. unlike most computer users, savvy or professional linux users tend to use linux at work. now that redhat and suse (being publicly traded companies, and having to turn a profit to appease their shareholders) are pumping out 'professional' or 'server' distributions, and charging -fantastic- amounts of money for license fees, most people using linux at work are now looking for alternatives. why pay redhat or suse a ton of cash for what is more or less free community developed software? debian is the one distro that is not encumbered by some company trying to make a buck off it. ubuntu, though they -are- trying to make a buck, do it exclusively through offering support. not some up-front license bullshit. and they publicly state right on their main page (and have backed it up with legal documentation) that they will -NEVER- charge for a copy of their distro. and they will never fork off all the good stuff into some specific 'pro' or 'advanced' version, and charge for it.
3) ubuntu regularly releases updates. anyone who's dealt with debian knows that it's release cycle is measured in years. ubuntu plans to test/release updates to their debian-based distro at least every 6 months, and offer support for years afterwards.
all the user friendliness (which is all pretty much tacked into most other distros anyway) is just icing on the cake.
anyway, that's why you're seeing a lot about ubuntu nowadays. not because all the noobs are suddenly entranced with it, but because everyone in the know is using it, and is promoting it.
The installed tool listed might be part of the attraction of Ubuntu, but it isn't why people are switching to it. I think there are really only 3 reasons:
1. Totally free distro, no strings attached.
2. Community support is friendly and abundant.
3. Hardware support is phenomenal, especially for laptops. This is a killer for most distro's out there.
There are many other distro's that have wizards but that doesn't make them winners.k
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