To be fair Unity on 14.04 LTS is really nice. Believe me I hated it before and had intended to stick with i3. All the annoyances have gone. I love the title bar hack.

Anyone on any of the *buntu family 14.10 incarnation? I made the mistake of upgrading and am now finding that copying files to/from an external hard drive causes the file manager (different on each DE) to crash a lot and even causes the whole system to freeze up. Bloody annoying as it didn't happen with 14.04.

Im running it, not had any problems.
i upgreaded just because i can and feel the need to
If youre after stability, you should stay with 14.04

14.10 is just basicaly a base prep release for the releases next year, thats when you will start to see changes.

Not much happening on the Linux front

Have resisted the urge to distro hop for sometime now

Just having a look if anythings about i can play with if bored of tv over xmas, seems not.
Only
New https://getfedora.org/

And Ubuntu is showing its plans for next year
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/11/u...e-vivid-vervet

Would goto Gnome, except the apps dont seem to keep up with the releases and break easily.

Could be worth a play,
https://ubuntu-mate.org/
Getting great reviews, just looks a bit dated still.

Ubuntu Gnome is still playing catch up
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/12/u...s-default-apps

I am happy with mint, using Mint KDE on the laptop, so I will change that as I do nto think much of it, I will got for the cinnamon desktop, like I got on my tower.

I put Zorin 9 on an old xp desktop (AMD processor and 2GB Ram) a few days ago, was it a bad choice ??. It was very slow, XP seemed 2 or 3 times quicker doing everything on that machine.

I tried Zorin 9 and quickly dumped it. It was slower and less robust than 6.2 and the new colour themes are real eye busters. Chromium and Evolution are all but unusable. Also it doesn't play nice with nvidia graphics on installation, unlike 6.2. All the quirks and workarounds I'd learned to cope with in 6.2 have changed to new quirks in version 9.

Switched to Mint 17 Cinnamon (which also doesn't like nvidia) but good grief the update site for Mint is so slow!

If it's older equipment then I'd suggest trying out distributions such as Linux Lite, LXLE, Xubuntu and even Zorin Lite and see how they do.


To be fair, plenty of Linux distributions are getting updates and there are the occasional new ones too.

My concern is a different one. According to the likes of netmarketshare.com, Linux is actually reducing in terms of overall operating system market share and that ought to be a cause for concern. This is despite the transition away from Windows XP and the 'mare that is Win 8/8.1. I'd like to know whether this is a real, objective phenomenon or if Linux-based PCs and laptops are being undercounted and, if so, is there a better way to measure how many Linux computers are actually in use?

Finally, and for cheery Linux entertainment over the festive period, I recommend this channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/LinuxSpatry/videos

I have stopped the distro hopping (for now ) and am using Lubuntu 14.10 eagerly awaiting LXQt to reach stable release.

The Linux world seems just as busy as ever. The main difference for me is I'm no longer distro hopping and haven't for some time now. Updated my Mint Cinnamon 17 to 17.1, and all is really bloody good thanks. No desire to swap around and mess up a gorgeous OS that does everything I need.

last week put linux on a old packard bell easynote 1.6ghz 512mb ram it struggled with xp now great for browsing etc with antix on it.

seriously wondering why i never really tried linux before only ever tried the odd live cd before for 10 mins

My post was misread, written badly

I meant quite on this thread so though i would see what people are up to.
The biggy for Linux will be when or if Ubuntu ever gets released as a smartphone next year.
The publicly will help Linux.
Personally i think it will flop.
But as they say.. No such thing as bad publicity.
They should. Be concentrating on standardising the desktop so a newcomers to Linux wouldn't be as swamped with info, choices.
A standard installer a standard software ctr a standard updater.
And start hassling NVIDIA and ATI to get aboard with more conviction.

Apparently the first Ubuntu smartphone is expected around February so that will be exciting

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/12/b...-this-february

Has anyone seen this interesting looking project?

http://distrohunt.org/

Their mission statement

...which is:

Distro Hunt's goal is to provide a directory for developers of Linux, GNU/Linux, BSD, GNU/Hurd and other distributions who wish to promote their projects without having to pay fees or endure idle times on a waiting list to get noticed. One of the "4 freedoms" is to be able to openly distribute your free software. To that end, we would like to give all developers a fair chance at getting their work recognized. There are a lot of talented individuals creating projects to benefit the community and in the spirit of good will, we are offering a FREE listing service where everyone can gain exposure. More page views on your project website means more people using your software and more people giving you their support. This is a WIN WIN for everyone! We offer the community an even playing field without bias.

Having read that, I wish this new initiative well and Spatry & Co. get a thumbs up from me for doing this.

Intresting read
http://www.datamation.com/open-sourc...declining.html

Ive often wondered about the list on
http://distrowatch.com/

and agree with the line of thought of this taken from above link

....Except for the branding wallpaper and themes, it is usually easier these days to tell at a glance what desktop you are logged in to than which distribution you are using. Because of the almost universal tendency towards graphical package installation, you cannot even tell easily what package management system you are using, let alone the distribution.....

When you break it down, its mostly the smaller ones not introducing anything majorly different to the ..Bigger well know releases...
They will find it hard to survive.
Love or hate Canonical they have made it easier for other distros to survive, even Kal-EI beloved Mint relies on them still.

Ps nice to see you stuck with Linux Kal, not heard from a few regulars for a while, thats why bumped the thread.
Pps nice to read we all seem to have calmed down on the distro hopping i was a guilty as others for that

There are a number of Linux distributions, e.g. Void, Black Lab, etc. that just don't feature on Distrowatch (a falling out?) for one reason or another and I don't think that's helpful for potential Linux users because they might be missing out on some good and useful distributions.

I'd agree we should all be grateful to Debian/Ubuntu because their base has given rise to so many other distributions of one sort or another. That said, quite a few of them will turn out to be ephemeral* so it's good that there are commercial backers out there, such as Canonical, Red Hat and Blue Systems to help ensure that desktop distributions available long term.

*I always wondered about the fate of the promising Pear Linux which as discontinued for reasons unknown.

For what it's worth, I don't distro hop but I do try out distributions and if one works well then it stays and I make a donation. I've already linuxified my laptop and now I need to find a distribution that will dual boot with Windows on my main PC and eventually take over from Windows. That's one of my tasks for 2015.

Some good points made in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pOxlazS3zs

If you cant find anything to watch on xmas tv

Couple of articles on how Canonical are looking to transform the mobile market with Ubuntu mobile.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/01/u...scopes-details

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/01/a...s-ubuntu-phone

I do love the idea of an app free existence and hope they can gain traction in the market when the Ubuntu phones are eventually released.

Tried out the Kubuntu 15.04 alpha 2 ISO yesterday. KDE 5.2 is really nice and it seems a massive improvement over KDE 4 (which i never got on with).

I really hope that the KDE folks can keep Plasma 5 going in the current direction. KDE 1/2/3 were my desktops of choice back in the day before i switched to OS X.

If they keep going the way they have been KDE might even tempt me away from Cinnamon by the time Kubuntu 16.04 rolls around.

I've always found KDE pretty bloated and have never really gotten on with Dolphin as it couldn't hold a candle to Nautilus or Thunar.

I love KDE to be honest and always feel like the others fall short in comparison. Looking forward very much to Kubuntu 15.04 and finally getting to try out a (hopefully) stable KDE Plasma 5.

KDE is my UI of choice, though dolphin is poor with it's handling of data, samba shares i have to click refresh in windows it autoupdates changes and with extra information like image/audio metadata windows will fetch the info live whereas KDE uses indexing which is still terrible.

but looking forward to Plasma5.

After spending most of last year using Unity. At xmas i discovered..

https://ubuntu-mate.org/

scroll to 55mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96qyn4xEWrQ
Im with Matt on this one.

Its still in dev and not a official spin of Ubuntu yet, but have heard its going to be in release 15.04.

Been running it, and recently upgraded to 15.04
https://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-vivid-alpha2/

KDE is a bit bloaty for me, Gnome add ons keep breaking and cant keep up with releases, cinnamion has just to much choice. So looks like Mate is going to be my choice for 2015.

Ps . If you have time, the whole video is worth a watch.
Last edited by 1saintly : 27-01-2015 at 22:31

KDE looks nice, but I find it wants a lot from memory and CPU, i still prefer Cinnamon, Mate is ok mind you.

I have gone back to Mint Cinnamon on the laptop, ok it is dual booting at the moment as windows 10 is also on it.

Unity I hated from the start, saying that I am not that fond of ubuntu anyway, mainly because of Canonical. But i must admit the idea of a Linux phone is interesting and one I may look at when my Nexus 4 decides to pack in.