I am seriously considering switching from Ubuntu. You may have read my earlier worries about the SABDFL (Mark Shuttleworth) who up until recently, I considered a pretty "good" sort of guy.
However, Ubuntu 10.04, with its switched Max, Min, Close buttons - and the "discussion" following the insertion of this new idea in what is after all a LTS version of Ubuntu, made me consider my use. I have been an active Ubuntu user - posting the results of my installs, helping others via Launchpad and promoting Ubuntu and variants in various places - even in the face of abuse from certain Linux zealots who see Ubuntu as pandering to the masses...
But, with what seems to be a growing "forced" commercialism in Ubuntu - and the rushing out of half finished releases - even what are supposed to be LTS releases - I am getting pretty despondant.
Is there really any excuse for a LTS release which has a fairly big bug with certain USB devices failing to unmount without posting a message which many would find scary to say the least? Worse still, the bug was closed - despite several people reporting it - with the classic line "Can you check with the latest dev release....". Sorry, but most users do not touch the dev versions of upcoming releases and frankly, a LTS release should work or be sorted if bugs are discovered.
Very unhappy at the moment with the way things are heading. And before anyone starts bleating about the difficulties of releasing bug free software - yes, I know, but the idea is to respond to users, not tell them to install a dev version - with its obvious risks - to check if the problem is fixed. Yes, I could do that and fix any issues I get (hopefully!), but a six month user won't be able to understand half of the issues, never mind think up a fix.
And yes, I was involved in developing/fixing a distro for several years, so I have a vague idea what I am doing.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Fibre in Cornwall
According to the news today, we here in the sticks (i.e "rural" areas") will be getting fibre broadband - with speeds up to something pretty impressive. BT, who are rolling this out - with funding from the EU covering the cost, naturally! - claim "90% of people in Cornwall will get speeds of blah blah".
Right, now being Mr Cynical and all that, I can imagine that the 90% are those who live in the big towns - Launceston, Bodmin, St Austell, Newquay, Truro, Falmouth, Camborne and Redruth, St Ives perhaps and of course Penzance.
Now I suspect that covers the "90%" very nicely - and very conveniently - for BT. Of course, many residents in those areas are already able to get speeds ranging from 4Mb to 20+Mb, depending on their distance from the exchange etc.
The rest of us - who live in the real "rural" locations and are already left waaay behind in the digital divide which is the UK - won't be seeing any increase I suspect.
I have 512kb - and that is all I can get. I would happily pay for 20Mb if I could get it, but here there is not even a glimmer on the horizon for 1Mb, never mind the speeds that fibre might provide.
When I look at my daughters - who live outside Cornwall whilst at Uni - and they get 20Mb+ speeds for the price I pay for my 512kb connection, plus they get TV and telephone thrown in to the deal - it really makes me annoyed.
Unlike many of the people who can get these fast speeds, I actually could provide a business need for it. I download a lot of Linux stuff for development and research - and many people with fast speeds simply visit their FB accounts, send a few emails or watch vids on YouTube.
The BBC - who brought this to my attention today - don't seem to have any "post your comments on this story" thing for this - so I am ranting here instead.
I wrote to the Minister responsible when the new Coalition Government too over, commenting about the awful speeds here and volunteering myself to trial any of the ideas they have to get faster interwebs around the UK - but just got a basic reply back.
Well, I still stand by my offer to trial any of these ideas to get a vaguely acceptable internet speed.
Apparently, the average speed is between 4 and 8Mb in the UK - well, Mr Govt Person, I am getting 1/8th of the lower end of the scale. Hell, even the EU says that 2Mb is a minimum speed - but unless BT replace my entire line - which trundles merrily across field gateways, ploughed fields etc etc - I can't see me getting that.
And yes - I realise that there are people worse off who get slower speeds or even no broadband at all! My rant is for all of us!
Right, now being Mr Cynical and all that, I can imagine that the 90% are those who live in the big towns - Launceston, Bodmin, St Austell, Newquay, Truro, Falmouth, Camborne and Redruth, St Ives perhaps and of course Penzance.
Now I suspect that covers the "90%" very nicely - and very conveniently - for BT. Of course, many residents in those areas are already able to get speeds ranging from 4Mb to 20+Mb, depending on their distance from the exchange etc.
The rest of us - who live in the real "rural" locations and are already left waaay behind in the digital divide which is the UK - won't be seeing any increase I suspect.
I have 512kb - and that is all I can get. I would happily pay for 20Mb if I could get it, but here there is not even a glimmer on the horizon for 1Mb, never mind the speeds that fibre might provide.
When I look at my daughters - who live outside Cornwall whilst at Uni - and they get 20Mb+ speeds for the price I pay for my 512kb connection, plus they get TV and telephone thrown in to the deal - it really makes me annoyed.
Unlike many of the people who can get these fast speeds, I actually could provide a business need for it. I download a lot of Linux stuff for development and research - and many people with fast speeds simply visit their FB accounts, send a few emails or watch vids on YouTube.
The BBC - who brought this to my attention today - don't seem to have any "post your comments on this story" thing for this - so I am ranting here instead.
I wrote to the Minister responsible when the new Coalition Government too over, commenting about the awful speeds here and volunteering myself to trial any of the ideas they have to get faster interwebs around the UK - but just got a basic reply back.
Well, I still stand by my offer to trial any of these ideas to get a vaguely acceptable internet speed.
Apparently, the average speed is between 4 and 8Mb in the UK - well, Mr Govt Person, I am getting 1/8th of the lower end of the scale. Hell, even the EU says that 2Mb is a minimum speed - but unless BT replace my entire line - which trundles merrily across field gateways, ploughed fields etc etc - I can't see me getting that.
And yes - I realise that there are people worse off who get slower speeds or even no broadband at all! My rant is for all of us!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wireless
Wireless in Linux is one of my pet hates. On my laptop (which doesn't have built in wireless) I have a choice of two external wireless connections - one a PCMCIA card, the other a USB wireless dongle. Both are pretty poor when it comes to remaining connected. Likewise, my EeePC 701 with Ubuntu installed is much less reliable when it comes to the wireless (Atheros) than the bog-standard Xandros cutesey interface.
I am currently trying to discover exactly why the wireless support in Ubuntu is so poor when it comes to my specific devices and I think I am slowly making inroads. Nothing certain as yet, but I have a few little ideas which seem to have improved my issues with the main laptop - fingers crossed!
Tonight, I am using a different laptop - this is a Lenovo machine and the wireless seems to be working fine with the live Ubuntu 10.04 disk. Which seems to suggest it is certain modules rather than a generic "wireless" issue....
But the problem of poor wireless connectivity is a very common problem on Launchpad - so the problem affects a lot of Linux users. It is a shame, because wireless is a very popular method of network connecting, yet Linux still struggles when it comes to many of the popular chipsets.
I am currently trying to discover exactly why the wireless support in Ubuntu is so poor when it comes to my specific devices and I think I am slowly making inroads. Nothing certain as yet, but I have a few little ideas which seem to have improved my issues with the main laptop - fingers crossed!
Tonight, I am using a different laptop - this is a Lenovo machine and the wireless seems to be working fine with the live Ubuntu 10.04 disk. Which seems to suggest it is certain modules rather than a generic "wireless" issue....
But the problem of poor wireless connectivity is a very common problem on Launchpad - so the problem affects a lot of Linux users. It is a shame, because wireless is a very popular method of network connecting, yet Linux still struggles when it comes to many of the popular chipsets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)