Welp, that was an interesting exercise in holy crap. After installing Ubuntu 9.04 (netbook remix) on my Acer Aspire One netbook, things looked great; I switched the system over to the full Gnome desktop UI — the remix has a simple launcher as its default — and everything just ran slick and stable … until I rebooted, and the system menu bars were gone.
That’s a bit of a problem, since pretty much everything you need to load and run the Gnome GUI resides in those panels.
Oops.
Googling about on my Mac I came across a thread in the Ubuntu support forums that got me pointed in the right direction. It began a year ago. Seems I wasn’t the only one who had this problem. (I’m post #15 there.)
Most of the procedures suggested for fixing the issue didn’t work for me. I couldn’t get a window activated to accept my keystrokes. I was finally able to correct the problem, but what I actually enjoyed about it was:
(1) I wasn’t the only one who had this problem, and the Ubuntu support forums were a hell of a good source of information; and
(2) I was able to get the problem fixed with essentially no effort, panic or profanity. That’s never been possible with Windows when something goes wrong*, and Ubuntu Jaunty is such a vast improvement over what I remember of Red Hat that I’m genuinely impressed at how well Linux in general has progressed. It was a hell of a lot easier than, say, editing an XF86.config file by hand to match your display card and monitor dot clock.
So, basically, I’m still having a good time. I fixed a broken component in my OS without having to reinstall anything; that’s always a satisfying thing to be able to do.
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* On Mac, these kinds of things just don’t happen at all.
by SDC
15 Aug 2009 at 20:17
Aw c’mon now, editing the XF86.config files was fun! Not that I’d want to do it today, either, but the general ‘I’m not being dragged along by MS to do things their way’ feeling was part of the big kick of Linux back in the day.
The thing is it did ruin my ever being able to be a Win admin of any kind. The whole ‘don’t fix, just re-install’ mentality skeeves me.
by Warren
15 Aug 2009 at 20:56
That’s true. Getting under the hood and figuring out what was wrong, and why, and what to do to fix it was satisfying. I’m certain the reason I was able to handle Ubuntu’s recalcitrance today is rooted in that experience.
As for Windows admin — yeah, I don’t think I could ever do that either. Far too many ways for things to go wrong, far too many bizarre “security” measures where there don’t need to be any, far too little security where it’s actually necessary.
If it were more modular you wouldn’t have to do a total reinstall. That’s one of the major problems with the monolithic mentality at MS, I think. And as for the command line — it was always never quite powerful enough, you know?
by Guy Mac
15 Aug 2009 at 21:11
I wonder if you would share the opinion that Linux software [package] management (well I should say Debian/Ubuntu Linux package management) beats anything on the other OS’s.
by Warren
15 Aug 2009 at 21:58
Oh my yes. Windows doesn’t tell you anything about anything, and OSX, while it goes into a bit more detail about installed programs — particularly updates — is really only useful on the application (GUI) level.* The Darwin back end is more or less locked off for the typical user.
It is easier to customize on OSX than on Windows, by far, but in terms of overall package management, Lin has the others beaten.
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* OSX apps are actually folders with a .app extension. You can right-click and select “Show package contents” to get at all the config files, binaries, localizations, etc. It’s a clever way to handle it, I think, but weird to get used to in terms of programming.