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Open Source


Five More Essential Ubuntu Features

  • Written by Christopher Tozzi
  • February 2, 2010

A few weeks ago, I wrote about five features that make Ubuntu so much more enjoyable to use than certain less-Free operating systems. The comments on that post got me thinking about several other great features that I didn’t mention. So to give those their due, here’s a second list of five things Ubuntu does that I couldn’t live without.

Of course, I should preface this post, as I did the previous one, with the caveat that Ubuntu is far from perfect, and Windows far from useless. They’re both good at certain things. But Ubuntu wins hands-down on some counts, namely those below (among others).

Less cluttered system tray

This is my system tray on Ubuntu:

Ubuntu system tray

It’s neat and compact, and only shows information I care about. I wish I could get rid of the ugly and minimally useful DropBox icon, but life’s not perfect, especially when proprietary software like DropBox is involved (if only UbuntuOne worked properly so I could leave DropBox’s ugliness behind, I’d be well pleased…although UbuntuOne is equally proprietary).

In comparison, here’s a system tray on Windows XP:

Windows System Tray

This gives me a huge headache, and has the potential to give my CPU a huge heart attack.

Admittedly, the system tray in Vista and Windows 7 may be a bit less aesthetically grotesque. Nonetheless, these operating systems still suffer from the obsession of every application with injecting an ugly and useless icon into the system tray in order to provide a minimally functional interface for a superfluous system process or application. Stuff like this drives me mad whenever I have to use Windows.

Unified interface

A lot of the clutter in the Windows system tray, of course, results from the tendency of Windows applications to be redundant. Instead of having one utility for managing wireless connections, Windows systems often have several, because each hardware vendor feels a need to provide its own. Similarly, rather than allowing display properties to be managed from one centralized location, you have to have different ones for different video cards. The list goes on.

On Ubuntu, the utilities for managing hardware and software settings are all accessible from the same place, and are all more or less consistent in their interfaces. Moreover, they tend to remain the same across Ubuntu releases and hardware configurations.  Unless you use Windows regularly, it’s easy to forget how great this all is.

Centralized updates

A commenter writing under the name Bobxnc aptly pointed out in my previous post on great Ubuntu features that Ubuntu allows all installed software to be updated in one click. This is hugely convenient, not to mention much more efficient and safer.

A lot of Windows applications don’t have any mechanism for updating themselves. And some of those that do, like iTunes, interpret “updating” as “sneakily installing additional applications that no one asked for.” I love not having to think about such nonsense while using Ubuntu.

Better window management

One of the Windows 7 features that Microsoft has its fanboys high on is Aero Snap, which brings to Windows a tiny fraction of the window-management functionality that Compiz has offered on Ubuntu for years. And even before Compiz, Ubuntu’s window managers provided features that Windows still lacks, like virtual desktops and the ability to snap windows into place.

Better community

Last but not least, Ubuntu beats Windows many times over when it comes to having an engaging, knowledgeable, friendly community.

Windows doesn’t have an organic community as much as it has a business model. Sure, there are some people who have been tricked into believing using Windows is a transcendental experience, but for most people, it’s just a product. There’s no soul to the community besides a cold financial one.

In many respects, Ubuntu is also just a product–after all, like Windows, it’s owned by a for-profit corporation. But more than Windows, Ubuntu possesses an embedded social element that makes the community inseparable from the code. Using Windows just doesn’t feel the same and never will, no matter how much cash Microsoft throws at social networking in the hopes of making its customers feel like more than petty consumers.

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13 comments

  1. Avatar cryptozoologist February 2, 2010 @ 2:23 pm
    Reply

    some comments about this fine article and its predecessor:

    i am an ubuntu user at home, but i am compelled to use windows at work. i really like dropbox too, but i do not have an issue with icon. i would prefer to use ubuntuone but dropbox is cross platform so my windows xp box at work ses the same folder as my karmic boxes at home. before i leave the topic, if you use dropbox, check out the tips and tricks here:
    http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks

    as far as the drivers situation goes, i recall a few years back that pundits were lamenting that the lack of linux drivers was keeping linux from being ready for prime time. that situation has reversed itself 180 degrees. there are linux drivers for loads and loads of hardware that was shipped with windows 9x or xp drivers by the manufacturer that will never get drivers for vista/win7 but in linux-land, even if the driver model is changed, the old drivers are still available as source code so some enterprising coder can (and usually does) have a peek at the old driver and base a new one on it.

    much of what i like about linux and ubuntu in particular (at least compared to suse or redhat say) is its non-commercial nature. in windows, applications almost always place a desktop icon and a quick launch icon, and often a system tray icon primarily to put the name of their company in your face. (yo! adobe, i’m talking to you!) there may not be any compelling need to place an icon in the system tray, but as long as you see it, someone in the marketing department is happy.

    for multiple desktops in windows (xp), i use an add on from microsoft called MSVDM for microsoft virtual desktop manager. it is not nearly as well integrated as the same feature i have been using in unixland since the first time i sat down at an x-terminal in college, but it helps lots. ironically the app that gives me the most difficulties under MSVDM is the gimp. sigh.

    my peeves about windows:
    to be fair, i have not used vista or 7 much so some of this may have been addressed.

    notepad. it is 2010 and notepad still can’t handle unix style text files? if ms was even a tiny bit interested in interoperability this can be fixed with the next patch cycle with short notice but it aint, so they aren’t.

    media. in windows 9x days if one right clicked on a .avi file and got its properties the os would tell you all about the file including what codec it had been encoded with. one could then take this information and get the required codec. nowadays windows calls the mothership and if the required codec does not have the proper business relationship with microsoft then you are out of luck, at least if you are a normal user. microsoft uses this trick to lock users into their proprietary technology so that for the rest of your life, if you want to watch your movies or listen to your music, then the manufacturer of the device you use to play it back on will have to have paid a tithe to microsoft.

    os crippling. windows comes in several flavors all of which except the most expensive one are crippled in some way. have a gander at this chart:
    http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx
    my favorite is the ‘domain join’ feature in windows ultimate where if you find yourself already locked in to the microsoft paradigm, you have to pay extra.

    reboots. i hate it when my workstation bugs me every few minutes to reboot because of some update. i have been in more than one presentation where the presenter has had to repeatedly dismiss the request to reboot just to get through their presentation. hey microsoft, no matter how cool you make it, no matter how many bells and whistles get shoehorned into powerpoint, your customers cannot deliver successful presentations if the underlying os is sabotaging your users.

    i tell folks who are having problems with windows “you ought to get your money back on that sub-standard operating system microsoft sold you”

    peace be with U
    cryptozoologist

  2. Avatar Johannes February 2, 2010 @ 5:28 pm
    Reply

    Well, I’m a Linux fanboy, nevertheless I love Aero Snap. Simple, well designed, just works. Perfect for bigger monitors.
    Configuring Compiz to do the same is a pain, and the end result is not so good as in Windows.

  3. Avatar ken February 2, 2010 @ 7:12 pm
    Reply

    Here is my observation. I love ubuntu and I am trying real hard to work around it’s shortcomings. But, until ubuntu ( and other linux distros ) adopt some coding to allow itunes, and some other programs to run on their platform, we aren’t going to see as many people coming over. It is a strange thing that Apple is unix-based and yet their program isn’t designed for linux.
    This sounds like a disgruntled linux user.Quite the contrary. I work on peoples’ computers all the time and they need linux, but are tied to hardware (like players) that don’t allow me to help them come over. My two cents. If shuttleworth wants to “wow” us, he will have to find the way to bridge the two worlds of unix and non-unix.

  4. Avatar snkiz February 2, 2010 @ 9:29 pm
    Reply

    Ken:
    Its not the distros fault that iTunes and the like don’t run in linux. All the code, dev tools, API are there to use, for free. Apple and others don’t want you to use their stuff on Linux, they can’t control it then.

  5. Avatar Jef Spaleta February 2, 2010 @ 9:55 pm
    Reply

    snkiz:
    It will be very interesting to see if Google’s Android and WebOS initiatives help break down the barrier for itunes support for “linux” generally. I’m not sure Ubuntu’s growing popularity alone as an alternative desktop demographic is going to be enough. But I think Google’s offerings will have a significant pre-installed market footprint large enough that can’t easily be ignored for something like retail media services.

  6. Avatar Daniel Añez Scott February 2, 2010 @ 10:25 pm
    Reply

    I disagree with feature number 1. Although ubuntu/linux generally uses less tray icons than windows, when you have several icons in gnome-panel’s notification area you have to stick with your cluttered panel. In contrast, it’s fairly easy to right click windows’ notification area to access the preferences and hide the icons you don’t want (Kde 4.x.x can do it too). It something i missed when i switched to ubuntu.

  7. Avatar snkiz February 2, 2010 @ 11:32 pm
    Reply

    http://www.tech-no-media.com/2010/02/death-of-flash-has-been-greatly.html

    I don’t think so Jef, Apple isn’t interested in compatibility. Just control. The point is companies will only give up that control when they are focred to or they can make money on it. Tell Mr. jobbs he can sell iTunes on linux for 49.95 and I bet we’d see a release next week.

  8. Avatar ken February 2, 2010 @ 11:39 pm
    Reply

    One thing I have always loved about the linux community is the open-mindedness that I find. I always find people willing to share tips and insights that make linux great. I know it isn’t the distro’s fault that itunes and wmp won’t play ball with us, but I trust that some people with a lot more knowledge than me will find a way to make zunes and ipods work. I have a friend that wishes so bad he didn’t have a zune. He loves linux and his zune. I told him to sell the zune and get a linux compatible player. There are a good number of them out there. Call it a workaround.

  9. Avatar snkiz February 3, 2010 @ 12:16 am
    Reply

    Exactly ken vote with your wallet its the only thing corporate America will listen to. Oh last I read ipods work in Linux… at least until the next “update” Then again I saw a thread in forums again today, maybe it has been updated recently.

  10. Avatar ricegf February 3, 2010 @ 11:03 am
    Reply

    I’m always amazed when someone posts that the Linux community is somehow dismissive of new users. I’ve had the exact opposite experience over the past decade.

    In 1999, in fact, I first reformatted a second disk in my daughter’s old desktop and installed Red Hat 6. She used it for a while, then drifted back to Windows 98 because of the games. Windows refused to reclaim the Linux disk (of course), so I posted for help to a Windows forum. Crickets. I posted for help to a Linux forum (remember – I’m asking how to LEAVE Linux for Windows!) – and promptly received two detailed replies on how to use the Linux install disk to reformat the Linux disk to FAT so that Windows could find it.

    I’ve been sold on Linux community ever since.

    Now we have two Ubuntu desktops, two Ubuntu netbooks, a Maemo phone, an Android phone – and one lonely Windows XP desktop with fear in its eyes…

  11. Avatar Jon February 3, 2010 @ 2:38 pm
    Reply

    I would suggest that it’s not the linux distros’ responsibility to make things like iTunes work on their platform. I think companies like Canonical should work hard getting the vendors to release versions that work in Linux. But there must be some sort of incentive (growing user-base) otherwise it’s not worth it to vendors like apple. The user-base is growing and as distros like Ubuntu mature, the user-base should increase. Kind of a chicken and egg thing, isn’t it?

  12. Avatar Marco February 11, 2010 @ 7:19 pm
    Reply

    Sorry but on some things you are wrong,
    First I am using Ubuntun on a T41P Thinkpad, fromt 7.04 on till now.
    Did you ever had the idea of using the minimize function on XP?
    Then did you ever tried to hold in nautilus shift and mark files in a directory with more than 400files, after the 10file you will get 100% CPU on Karmic…well this basic functionality works in Windows Explorer
    Did you ever tried to use fullsized Flash in Firefox un Ubuntu,,,,,it lags, well this works flawless in Windows.
    Oh yeah scrolling on a lot of pages is choppy on karmic with firefox but works well in WIndows.
    Right now maybe Ubuntu is better if you have a full powerde new hardware but on old Hardware Windows runs much more faster. So far seems to me that the Ubuntu offers a ton of fancy stuff but the things that would matter dont work as they should!

    And still I am using Ubuntu but if you write such nonsense please write the right stuff.
    And please dont cry now about graphics drivers and proprietary software. A normal user want to use certain things and he want them to work flawlessly and he doesnt care whats the reason why it does trouble

  13. Avatar Isaac March 8, 2010 @ 11:49 pm
    Reply

    I generally like your articles, but points one and two are reaching a bit as people can adjust what shows up in the system tray. My Ubuntu and Windows both have just a few icons in the system tray. The unified interface doesn’t completely hold water either as there are dozens of programs and ways to change things and one program may break the functionality of another. Point 3 on the other hand is brilliant, updates in Ubuntu are easy, no muss, no fuss.

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