Ubuntu 16.04 Makes Ubuntu Exciting Again

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For those Ubuntu users/followers out there read on then follow the link:

Ubuntu hasn’t had the best reputation among Linux users over the past few years–with some even going so far as to call it “boring”. If you’ve been hesitant to try it out, then hold on to your seats–Ubuntu 16.04 “Xenial Xerus” is not only an exciting release, but one that has the potential to be a game changer for the Linux ecosystem.

http://www.howtogeek.com/251647/ubuntu-16.04-makes-ubuntu-exciting-again/

Think I might upgrade my ole favourite 14.04

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Hello Tas - If your machine uses AMD's Radeon graphics, don't be too quick to jump. One drawback in Ubuntu 16.04 is that support for AMD's proprietary fglrx drivers has been dropped, leaving users with no choice but to use the open-source radeon drivers. More on this here: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/03/ubuntu-drops-amd-catalyst-fglrx-driver-16-04

Here's a benchmark comparison of Ubuntu 16.04 using radeon drivers vs. Ubuntu 14.04 using fglrx drivers from the Phoronix website: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu-1604-amd&num=1

Putting that one issue aside, here's a good summary of all the new features and improvements in Ubuntu 16.04: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/04/ubuntu-16-04-download-new-features

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Thanks Derek891 for the heads up and your URL links make interesting reading particularly as both my day to day PC's both use AMD Radeon Graphic cards.

My existing stand-a-lone Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (on loan to a UNI student with a broken laptop) uses a NVIDIA GeForce GT440 graphics card and this Version runs like a dream. It's a almost 6 year old MB & box, Intel core 2 quad 2.8GHz, 4.0GB of DDR2, resulting in Ver 14.04 LTS flying from DVD

At this point in time I have only tested Ver. 16.06 LTS from DVD (USB created but not tested) with not so good results as it seems to take forever to load up from DVD.

Once loaded seems to run OK but I have only worked it for some 30 minutes so far.

The PC I'm testing it on is only a 12 month old build, mid range Gigabyte MB, i5 Quad Core 3.5GHz CPU, 8.0GB of DDR3 RAM and a Sapphire AMD Radeon R7240. So I'm expecting it to operate much faster however I may be living in dreamland.

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I don't know when I'm gonna learn.

I tried this release of ubuntu on my dell laptop. (Inspiron 13 7000 2 in 1) Laptop is pretty nice with a core i7, 8gb ram, 256gb ssd.

Anyway as soon as the system booted the fans were running constantly and the computer felt much warmer than it ever did in windows. I'm guessing poor fan/power management. Battery life was about half of what it should have been.

On top of that I couldn't install chrome from the website using the .deb file because the new program installer is broken. Looked it up tons of people have that issue. I'm pretty much done with linux( i say this every time) but windows is worth $100 or whatever it costs because it just works most of the time.

If I was truly looking to get rid of windows I would probably move over to a chromebook or an iPad. I have my eye on this chromebook:

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/05/01/hp-chromebook-13-core-m/

Just not sure I'm willing to drop $600 on it. It has a 4k screen though which would be awesome for browsing/watching videos. On the other hand I could just buy a nice 4k monitor for that I guess. :)

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I've tried Linux Lite and Zorin Linux distros. They act much like windows, keep stuff in much the "same places", and run well here on old win xp computer.

There are also the Puppy variations which run in RAM. There is even one fellow over at the Puppy Linux forums who runs his main computer without a hard drive. Boots Puppy into RAM, then saves anything he needs to on a USB storage. Stick or HDD, I don't remember.

I am just making preparations for when this hardware fails. Win 10 is not for me, so I'll need to be prepared.

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Login123 what don't you like about windows 10? Just curious.

I just reinstalled windows 10 from scratch on my laptop. Within about an hour I already had it installed, it even installed all the proprietary dell drivers on its own. The system is already back to the way it was. (admittedly the only software I install is office, chrome, and Spotify now a days)

Windows 10 was a little buggy at first but its been solid for a while now. My only gripe is the auto update thing but there are ways around that when necessary.

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Several things, actually, but I realize it is just me.

Tilting at windmills, maybe. Paranoid, maybe. Just plain OLD, maybe. :)

At the very least I qualify as a late adopter, still running win xp.

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I don’t like microsoft’s high handed method for pushing win 10.

  • Upgrade KBs will bypass your HOSTS and firewall settings.

  • The same update KBs get refreshed and re-sent even after you hide them.

  • win 7 and 8 were supposed to allow the owner to control updates. Now they don’t.

  • Early on win 10 hammered lots of drivers & apps, I have no reason to believe it will not do that again.

  • In some instances win 10 downloaded big files in preparation for the upgrade. Users said they didn’t give permission. I know, I know, they should be more aware, but tell that to my 90 year old granny or my 15 year old granddaughter (just examples, I actually have neither).

  • Popups. For years I have been conditioned to react to those, they usually meant trouble, now users are being conditioned to ignore them.

  • You know how to handle those popups, so do I, but granny & granddaughter have no clue. Microsoft knows or should know that. I think they are banking on it.

Its true, there are ways to stop the upgrade system.

  • But they aren’t easy, and the end user shouldn’t have to do the work of deploying them.

  • Consider: microsoft could have just as easily sent a popup saying something like “win 10 is available for free, click here to find out about it. This message will show once a month until the offer expires” and let that be that.

  • But instead, coders outside of microsoft had to develop upgrade stoppers.

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Official spokesmen for microsoft don’t speak candidly. An example, in an interview with Mary Jo Foley and paul thurrott, Chris Capossela sort of let the cat out of the bag when he said that the more win 10 users they get on board, the more developers would be interested in making things for the windows phone. It was a long interview and he did a good job, but it was pretty much impossible to disguise microsoft’s multiple agendas.

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I have no reason to think that this upgrade initiative is benign, don’t know what the OS is sending home, don’t want to investigate enough to find out. Apparently win 10 sends out lots of user data. Also don’t know for sure that microsoft will be able to protect my data. Remember when their source code was stolen?

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Win 10 is no buggier or less secure than any other Linux or windows OS but no better either, and it seems that the older, more widely tried OSs are easier to control. Generally, microsoft OSs seem to be getting less flexible and more opaque with each release.

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Last but most important, win 10 has nothing to offer that I don’t have on win xp. I skipped ME and vista, but bought a win 7 computer because it had a nifty movie and slide show maker, and some friends needed help with that. Those are great softwares but I already have all that stuff here on win xp. Also office software, security software, etc., pretty much everything I want.

On the other hand, if win 10 is really "the last" windows version, and microsoft does a good job of maintaining security and privacy, I'll sign up. After they do all that.

Otherwise I’ll stay with win xp till this box quits, then win 7, then Linux from there on.

Now I should say that all the above is just my opinion, has nothing to do with the Piriform team, and I am just a single, reasonably well informed curmudgeonly user.

If this rant is in any way offensive to the makers of the fine software CCleaner, just delete it, no taken offense here.

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Well written login123.

If Win10 is the last version Microsoft will definitely lose some people. I have no desire to ever own a computer with Win10 on it. I'm frustrated with that OS enough having to help my mother with her Dell laptop that has Win10 on it. I almost think she works for Microsoft because of what she told me. She stated she got it so I'd have to use it and help her with it, and so I'd eventually like it and want it. I told her at my age swaying my opinion in such a manner will never work.

The only time I ever use it is to update CCleaner Portable (which Win10 doesn't remove like the installed version), SpywareBlaster, and the MVPS.org HOSTS File - the rest of the stuff I put on it auto-updates.

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. . . She stated she got it so I'd have to use it and help her with it, and so I'd eventually like it and want it. I told her at my age swaying my opinion in such a manner will never work.

Thanks for the kind words Andavari.

However, as far as the quote above, I have to give 3 to 5 odds in favor of your mom. :lol: :lol:

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She wants all the newest ("not the greatest") digital gadgets - not me however as I'm content using the gear I have until it goes poof and quits working forever.

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To be honest I'm not super concerned with privacy anymore. I use chrome, google mail, drive, ect. I use facebook, instagram, ect. Plus every website I've ever used has been hacked at one point or another. I keep my passwords as random as possible but there doesn't really seem to be much users can do if they use the internet when it comes to privacy.

My concern with people saying they are giving up windows is where do they plan to go. Honestly most people probably won't move to anything else that looks anything like windows. I'm a high school teacher, I see kids all day long that can barely use computers, but they can use android/ios better than I can. They know all the ins and outs. Ask them to reformat a hard drive or troubleshoot a driver issue on a pc and they wont have a clue what to do. This is concerning to me because there are just things you cant do effectively right now on these mobile devices.

I don't think linux is a viable alternative. I've never gotten a linux distro to just work. In the old days it was always video/sound drivers. Now that intel has pretty much taken over the laptop/desktop market you don't have as much issue with those. But laptop drivers are still a problem on every machine I've ever tried. I currently have a dell, but I also have a pretty high end asus that I tried ubuntu on last year and it was a total mess as well. I've had better success on desktops but even then things like suspend/resume will often not work or the computer will randomly download a kernal update that messes something up.

I hate the auto updates on windows 10 but since the first service pack windows 10 has been rock solid. I just reinstalled on my laptop and it is working great after auto downloading all the drivers. Only thing I had to download manually were a few dell utilties to control keyboard lighting/mouse pad. This computer shipped with windows 8 and it could not do that.

I get the hate for windows 8, but not really 10. It is basically windows 7 but with a less outdated interface. I dont think I've ever opened up the windows store or any of the mobile apps built into it. The great thing is your not really forced to use them, just unpin them from the start menu and ignore them.

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First, congratulations on being a teacher. Imho it's the most important profession in the world today, especially at the elementary and high school levels. It aint easy. Keep the faith. :)

Your position on win 10 is very reasonable, and very responsible.

I guess its just two ways of looking at the same situation.

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Thanks, I love my job.

To change the discussion a bit, the one linux distro I'm intrigued by is SteamOS. Its a gaming centered distro made by valve the makers of Steam. Its supposed to be a free OS to run steam games. I wish it was functional because it would make it easy to build gaming capable PCs without investing in windows. (which would put the prices of these PCs around the same as say an xbox or playstation). The problem is that the graphics drivers on linux are considerably slower than on windows. On top of that most games do not support linux and the ones who do don't perform as well on windows. Just kind of a mess all around.