ubuntu: constructive criticism (3)

As I mentioned in an earlier post about the vpn setup: There is no support for location profiles. Connecting to a vpn is essentially switching locations, and switching locations might require things like proxies to be re-configured. (IBM/Lenovo's windows utilities do this very well: changing wifi, vpn, proxies, default printers, homepages and so on)

Major bummer.

ubuntu: constructive criticism (2)

Another one I was thinking of recently:

There is no user friendly method of browsing apps for ubuntu. There's synaptic, sure, but you should know what you are looking for. There is no friendly information. Too many packages.

I don't want 'packages'. Packages are installation units, and there's too many of'm that really don't make sense to me. I want an iTunes-like browsing interface, with a pretty layout, a large application icon in the upper left corner, a nice description on the right, and a bunch of screenshots below.

Disclaimer: I use apt-get anyway, but my friends don't. Yep, I'm the only linux user in my circle of friends. How sad.

ubuntu: constructive criticism

The wifi connect is still slower than windows', although 9.04 has improved.

I think I'll make a habit of criticising ubuntu under the title "ubuntu: constructive criticism". I read a blog post recently (forgot where) that was definately right: linux lovers are not sufficiently critical of linux.

So I will try to point out some negative user experiences as I bump into them.

Ubuntu 9.04 on a usb stick

Update: I should point out that in order to boot from the usb stick, you have to remember to trigger the bios boot menu (which on most laptops I have handled is done by pressing F12).

I am about halfway into my 2-week holidays. I left my laptop at home because it is big and bulky: it does not qualify as a 'portable' to me (so I essentially do not have one). I'm left with my wife's laptop, which I would prefer to mess with as little as possible.

Enter Ubuntu 9.04 on a usb stick (I'm using x86_64). Simply a clean install, no special procedures, no fancy tricks. 1 partition, no swap, and make sure that grub is on the usb stick's MBR (click the advanced button at the right time).

Now, I have not seen 9.04 boot from a regular hd yet, but I can tell you that from this usb stick it boots pretty damn fast. User log on takes about 2 to 3 seconds and everything is there and loaded. I'm so satisfied with it. I get the occasional freeze during normal use, but it is rare and hence not terribly intrusive. It is, after all, still a usb stick and not a proper SSD, so in that respect, the user experience is excellent.

So after several days, I had the unfortunate need to boot back into windows vista. It was painful. Excessively painful. Honestly, I ended up staring at the screen for so long, while it just endlessly kept on loading crap. The worst part was the realisation that I simply forgot how much it used to bug me before.

Anyway, ain't going there again anytime soon.

vpn fiddling

I managed to get my work vpn set up on ubuntu. It turned out to be not so hard, thanks to vpnc. I used the information from my company's windows vpn client config files as instructed here. Even better, I found and installed network-manager-vpnc, so i don't even need to touch the commandline anymore. Sweet!

The only real annoyance is now that I need the company proxy to surf the web, and as such, switching between vpn and no vpn really sucks since the proxy settings do not adapt automatically.

System Update discontinued by Lenovo

Lenovo discontinued its system update feature. Personally, I think this is a bad idea. They are clearly completing a move into the value segment. I'm not sure if I will be buying any thinkpads in the future, since, well, there is increasingly less that distinguishes them from the rest of the pack.