LINUX Unplugged - Episode 36: Beware of Underdog | LUP 36

Episode Date: April 15, 2014

Are boutique distributions a bag of hurt for new users? We love a good underdog, but sometimes our excitement gets the best of us and we recommend something that’s not appropriate for a switcher to land on.Plus some quick thoughts on the beating open source is taking as fallout from the Heartbleed bug.

This is Linux Unplugged, Episode weekly Linux talk show that's stuck between two studios. My name is Chris. My name is Matt. Hey, Matt. stuck between two studios. My name is Chris. My name is Matt. Hey, Matt.

So this week, I'm recording Linux Unplugged somewhere I've never, ever recorded it before. So it's a little weird. Everything's going to be a little different. I'm actually in the regular studio that... Hi. See, I'm right here. If you're watching the video version, I'm in the regular studio that we do Linux Action Show. I'm usually not in the studio.

But this week, we're beginning the transition to our new studio. So please forgive, pardon the dust, as the old saying goes. Because, Matt, this week, I still want to try to have a great conversation about something that's sort of been brewing over the last few episodes. Last week, we had Chase on, and he talked about what kind of has been his blockers to switching to Linux. And one of the things he talked about is way too much choice and how that was really a big part of the problem. And I want to

sort of just float the idea, playing devil's advocate, if you will, that maybe suggesting the underdog distro to folks is doing them a disservice and hurting Linux adoption. And I want to talk about that. And then if we have some time after that, I want to discuss here we are, Tuesday, and it is still, open source is getting a beating over this Heartbleed bug, and everybody is condemning open source,

the model for open source software, your buddy, Paul Thrott, took the web and said that this proves that the all eyes are on the source code philosophy is bogus, and that open source security is not any better. And it's just, you know, people are piling on.

So if we have time, yeah, I know I've been harping on this one, but I want to talk about it a little bit, if we get through the underdog distro discussion. Okay. That's all first. So it should be a pretty good show this week. And, you know, the other thing is, too, while we're talking about this underdog situation,

it's kind of in the shadow of Ubuntu 14.04's release, which comes out between now and Linux Action Show on Sunday. And 14.04 is getting a lot of praise right now. And it's the epitome of the big dog desktop distro. When we talk about underdogs, Ubuntu's on the absolute opposite end of that spectrum. And so this conversation's happening with all of this, with their release on Sunday, and then we're going to have that review. It's just kind of a, it's a very interesting time, so I hope folks stick with us for that.

But I wanted to give a quick, like, you know, just update about GNOME 3.12. GNOME 3.12 hit the Arch repo stable since Linux Action Show on Sunday. And I've got my main machine upgraded to GNOME 3.12 hit the Arch repo stable since Linux Action Show on Sunday. And I've got my main machine upgraded to GNOME 3.12 now. And I wanted to pass along a little helper I found. If you're having troubles with GNOME Terminal after upgrading to GNOME 3.12 on Arch, I have a link in the show notes. It's a pretty quick fix.

I didn't have any issues. It runs really good. GNOME 3.12 runs really great. I'm really happy with this release. And one of the things that I've joked about and I'm actually serious is I started

using GNOME 3.10 in anticipation of GNOME 3.12. I was like, I'm going to spend the GNOME 3.10 release I'm going to spend that time just totally learning GNOME and then I'll be ready. My body will be ready when GNOME 3.12 lands. I think that worked out. I think that's pretty much where I'm just like totally learning Gnome, and then I'll be ready. My body will be ready when Gnome 3.12 lands. And I think that worked out.

I think that's pretty much where I'm at. But I'm really happy with it. And so at the same time, a new Cinnamon release came out this week. And I'm thinking, well, it's worth checking out. What I'm really interested in is how is Cinnamon handling these new client-side decorations that the new GNOME apps, you know, like G-Edit and Roller and a lot of these, Nautilus, a lot of these apps are, and in some

cases, you know, Cinnamon Desktop has their own replacements, Nemo for example, to replace Nautilus, but there's inevitably on a Cinnamon Desktop now you're going to run a GTK app that has these client-side decorations, these new toolbars that Nomaps have. And I'm really curious how that works,

because I know they did some kind of support in the new version of Cinnamon to support client-side decorations, but I'm not really hip on how it actually works. I haven't tried it yet myself. And then on the other side of all that, I should grab the person's name, because I don't know if it's the same guy or if it's a couple of people, but they have

been awesome at submitting the KDE Design Group's Monday updates to our subreddit. They're just on it. Euro Topman, is that you? Are you out there, Euro Topman? I don't know if you're the guy that's been doing all of them, but I want to thank you because it's really been helping me keep in touch

with what the KDE Design Group is up to. Remember, we had their lead designer on last couple weeks ago. Oh, yes. And he unveiled their kind of the prototype. This is a mock-up. I don't know, not a mock-up because there's actual code out there you can get. But this is an early design iteration. It's very flat, Matt.

I don't know if you had a chance to look at the new KDE design shots, but some people in our subreddit are calling it very Metro-looking. Oh, really? No, I haven't you had a chance to look at the new KDE design shots, but some people in our subreddit are calling it very Metro-looking. Oh, really? No, I haven't actually had a chance to look at them yet. I think they're very nice. As somebody who's enjoying GNOME 3.12 right now, I think these actually look pretty great. I'll put a link to this in the show notes,

but it's a brand new theme that they're working on. It's not going to replace any other themes. It's just going to be an option. I think it's the cleanest looking KDE theme I've ever seen. I don't know. What say you, chat room? I'm curious what you guys think. It's a very interesting time right now for all of this stuff

because we've got the latest version of Unity launches on the 17th. KDE's working away at this new design and on their new version of KDE and GNOME 3.12. It's a crazy time, man. It's a crazy time to be doing a show. I wanted to get to some feedback from last week's episode. We got a lot of good stuff. We had

Chase on, if you guys didn't catch last week's episode. He was talking about his challenges switching to Linux. Some of these touch on that. Some of these touch on a few of the other aspects that we got to in last week's episode. So we'll start with this. Our first one comes in from Kerry, and he says, Hi, Chris and Matt. I've been listening to LAS and Coderadio and TechSnap from the beginning. I just started listening to Linux Unplugged. On the subject of Windows users coming to Linux, I wanted to give the perspective of someone who recently newly came to Windows. The only time I've encountered Windows

was using a Windows 95 box for gaming when I was young enough not to remember using Windows and just for Word documents at school. Otherwise, I've been using KDE and OS X and now mainly Ubuntu. It was only a couple of years ago that I received a laptop that an office was throwing out that I actually used Windows for the first time and I ran into many roadblocks that I've seen other Windows users run into that they just brush off and don't care about.

And he has a couple of examples here. The file manager. It's difficult to navigate. What's the difference between pictures and my pictures? I have no idea why no one else knows either. Very true. Yeah, very true. Navigating the settings menu is difficult.

When an app crashes, Windows will try to resolve the problem for several minutes. Sometimes the problem-resolving Windows will start to freeze up as well. When this first happened to me, it was really upsetting and I asked around what to do if this happens. told me yeah it happens when you just wait for it to wait it out

he says it's insanity all the apps are awful if they aren't installing malware or a tool bar then they use ads or annoying pop ups I use Microsoft recommended PDF reader and I still use sneaky tactics to make me to make the experience awful for me there are so many more things but these are just the ones the kind of problems that I never

have to deal with when I'm using Linux or OS 10. And these problems should be pointed out to any Linux newbie of the things they won't have to deal with anymore. Gnome 3.12 was light years ahead of windows when it comes to ease of use. And I didn't realize that until I started using windows. P.S. When Linux Unplugged was launched,

I couldn't find an iTunes, so I didn't listen to it. But after a while, I stumbled upon the feed again. You should remind the audience that the feed does now actually exist. Well, a point well taken, Cary. How funny is that to get it from that perspective? That's a fascinating perspective because it kind of proves that it's all in the eyes of the beholder.

Yeah, yeah. I find it funny, too, because I feel the same way. When I now use Windows, it feels very frustrating to me. And I think people that are switching have never really experienced that phenomenon. So if you're coming from Windows to something, you've never done that before. So you don't realize how much that familiarity plays into what you perceive to be usable. And I think until you've switched around and hopped a few distros and desktops, then you start to realize it.

Right. No, I definitely agree with that. I think it's something that really kind of makes us think twice about stuff. It certainly makes us rethink what we've been reading in the media. Kenny writes in, he says, Hi Matt and Chris and Chase. I was a little surprised the discussion regarding switchers to Linux went so long before someone mentioned Linux distros are built around software centers or repositories. This is the first thing that I explain to potential new users of Linux, and it's easy to do. It's critical to starting them off in the straight and narrow and is a straightforward advantage.

What? You don't want to have to go racking around the internet and shoot off to PC World and spend a fortune on new software? Nope! When I tried Linux for the first time circa 2008, it was because I couldn't afford a Windows upgrade from Windows ME. What had kept me from doing it earlier was not that there was too much choice or confusion,

but that I thought I completely borked my precious computer during the installation of Windows. Microsoft likes to impress you that you need to be an expert or crazy to actually want to install your own OS. The first time around, I got stuck between I didn't know what home and swap partitions were. But after some Googling, I was able to sort that out. So here's my advice for Chase. You can only do so much reading or research on a subject before you just

have to try it. Pick one of the larger distributions. Go with the default desktop and settings. And during installation, ensure you create a separate root or home and swap partitions check on the official distros website as to which proprietary drivers or codecs you might want to add and how to install them and you're off anyhow Chase good luck with the move and I'm sure it won't be long before you're feeling right at home great shows always

I'm really looking forward to the how to show I think his point about sometimes you just gotta jump in is exactly right and that takes a kind of adventurous person yeah I would tend to agree with that because I think you can only sometimes you just got to jump in is exactly right. And that takes a kind of adventurous person. Yeah, I would tend to agree with that because I think you can only read about it so much, as they pointed out. I think you definitely have to kind of, you know, stop running your face against the wall and walk around and actually try some stuff. Now, that's why Chromebooks, I think, are doing so well because you don't have to really – there's not – your choice is what kind of screen you want, what kind of keyboard you want, the battery life you want, and then then you just buy it and i think that's why it's super appealing to a lot of xp switchers and they don't and then linux becomes an implementation detail which you know if you

remember what linus said in his recent q a that's perfectly fine with him that's how he likes it he doesn't care at all and that's why i think it's funny you know there are certain people certain microsoft pundits out there that like to boast about how it's Linux, you know users will never care about Linux and they never have cared about Linux and you're silly to think otherwise. What Paul is forgetting is that that's exactly how it should be. That's

what we expect. Linux is the implementation detail. Now it is a massive detail that we spend our lives here thinking about but it is to the user it is but a detail detail that we spend our lives here thinking about, but it is, to the user, it is but a detail. And that's how it should be, and that's how Linus thinks it should be too. And we've heard him say it. So that's why I'm warming up to the idea of Chromebooks,

which I was initially pretty cold on, and I don't judge anybody who thinks that's the machine they should be running. Just like I think Chase got hung up on choice. I think the Chromebook solves that problem, but I think as a community, we can help solve that. And that's what I want to talk about in the second half of the show today is kind of that hang-up

and exactly what our last email just sort of touched on is pick one of the big ones to start with at least. And so often I see in the community advice in the other direction given. Before we talk about that and before we get to the rest of our feedback, I want to thank our first sponsor this week, and that is Ting.com. Go over to linux.ting.com.

Now, what is Ting? Ting is mobile that makes sense. It's my mobile service provider, and it's Matt's mobile service provider. And I got to tell you, what I love about it, and I think what Matt probably loves about it too, is you only pay for what you use. And if you're a work-at-home kind of guy, or if you're in an office that has Wi-Fi you can jump onto, this is such a value. Because you can use your phone when you need to make that actual call,

but 90% of my data usage is on the Wi-Fi. So why would I pay into some massive plan that I might need four gigabytes one month out of the year, maybe three months out of the year, maybe more or less? So every single month I pay into that large plan in the off chance that I might need that, whereas with Ting it's like, okay, I'm just going to pay for it when I actually need it, and otherwise I get full advantage of being on Wi-Fi when I'm on Wi-Fi, and I just pay for the usage and there's zero stress. When I'm out on the road, when I'm setting Wi-Fi, and I just pay for the usage, and there's zero stress. When I'm out on the road, when I'm setting up the new studio,

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is go to linux.ting.com. That registers your interest. That thanks them for supporting this show because they see that you came there because we sent you there. So linux.ting.com. And then check out their blog. And tell me you didn't wish your mobile carrier was as transparent and awesome as this. Ting is constantly updating their blog with behind-the-scenes interviews that are real and legitimate. They have app comparisons that are really great apps.

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So Quickie writes in, that's a great name, and he says, you guys were talking about the terminal versus the GUI last week and some of you were floating the crazy arse idea that the terminal might actually be better for new users in the GUI because you can give them the commands over the phone. He says, hey Chris and Matt, time zones suck, I wish I could have joined you live. About the terminal might actually be better for new users in the GUI because you can give them the commands over the phone. He says, hey, Chris and Matt, time zones suck.

I wish I could have joined you live. About the terminal versus GUI topic, yeah, it's a personal choice, really, but nothing is better than the other. I developed GUI applications for Linux, but they aren't as powerful as the terminal since text gives you a lot of advantages, like almost infinite permutations and the ability to compose features together.

About the tech support part, though, it's harder to explain where to click, but I don't think that is something that makes the GUI inferior to the command line. It just points out bad design decisions of the GUI. Try to explain to someone to change the default application for the document type on a Windows and elementary OS. In Windows Control Panel, you go to the Control Panel, then you go somewhere, and you right-click on that file,

and you go to Open With, and you go somewhere and you right click on that file and you go to open with and you select he gets lost and maybe you can eventually get them depending on their version of Windows to check the default application. But in a more well designed operating system like elementary OS it's simple as pie. You go to applications, system settings, defaults and then you just select the application. It's right there.

I think UI dictates the usability of the GUI not command line versus GUI. Interesting point. And I agree, too, that we got some other people that are like, yeah, see, when you try to read somebody a command over the phone, you never know if they're typing it in right, and they don't always read back the return right to you.

True, true. Each their own, Matt. Okay, before we get to our Valve update, Kyle wrote in, and he says there was a big point that we missed in last week's episode, and I kind of agree with him. We were talking about how Linux is, especially right now in 2014, really better suited for geeks, for technical people that want to switch away from Windows, for various reasons, and there's a lot of them.

And it's not just XP going away. There's a lot of reasons why technical users who have been Windows enthusiasts for years might want to move over to the Linux platform. And we were trying to discuss the best way for that to happen. He says, the point that you missed, and though I enjoyed your conversation with Chase in the last show, is since I think it dealt with a topic that all of us want to promote Linux, we struggle with this. However, I think that you missed out on the biggest and most obvious point that you should have considered. I think that despite your claims to the contrary, that you remain stuck on the topic of the mythical first-time PC user or the grandma and grandpa user who have no technical knowledge. If you truly believe that technical users are most likely to switch to Linux, you should recommend experimenting

with Linux in a VM. The immediate objection to this idea will be that VMs are too complicated for new users. However, complexity of using Linux on a VM. The immediate objection to this idea will be that VMs are too complicated for new users. However, complexity of using Linux on a VM is mostly handled in the host OS, where the technical user is already comfortable with the GUI and the software,

not in the guest, where they're out of their element. What is the biggest advantage with experimenting in a VM? Snapshots are external to the guest OS. They can be restored from the GUI and the user will, and that is what the user is comfortable with. This is a set of

training wheels or water wings that a new user who wants to go nuts with an experiment needs. Want to remove Ubuntu desktop and try to install Zubuntu? No problem! Once you run into problems just restore your last snapshot. Feel like maybe you want to try another distro but worry you might lose your work you've put in so far?

No problem! Just create a new VM. You yourself have often used VMs in the past to demo distros, so why wouldn't a technical user? This was the method I used to get into Arch Linux. My first two attempts at installing the OS were a total catastrophe. But eventually, with some determination and a few snapshot rollbacks, I started to feel at home with it. And now, I've installed a number of real computers. For most of my distro hopping needs, I still use VMs.

And if a user like Chase really wants to maximize benefits, they get out of their hardware. Well, they can do that once they get used to the basics of Linux. Best, Kyle. What do you think, Matt, for technical users? Is trying it out in a VM first a viable idea? Well, I think if you have the resources that

will support it, I think that's fine. But I think that's a pretty iffy situation for most people. Yeah, I think Chase could. I think he has pretty good PCs. Oh yeah, Chase could do it. But I mean for Joe average, just someone who maybe is not a Windows Power user. That might not be such a great idea.

I do agree with Kyle in the sense that I am surprised when we're talking about tech users that the VM doesn't come up more, because that is his point where the management of the VM, like the snapshotting, all of that is done in the native OS that they're familiar with, so they are comfortable with

pushing those boundaries. That actually makes a lot of sense to me. So when I think about it that way, I kind of feel bad on me for saying, hey, if you're a technical user, like Chase, for example, when we start how to Linux is going to make that switch. And I've been racking my brain,

I think the best way to get him to use Linux is to make him run it to do a lot of things, right? Say, hey, Chase, when you're doing your regular day-to-day stuff, do it in this machine. Don't default back to your Windows box or your Mac box. And I was trying to think, like, well, what am I going to do? Am I going to, like, rent him a laptop? Am I going to set up a PC at his house?

And then, like, I read this and I was like, yeah, he could just run a full-screen VM. I know he's got a machine nice enough to do it. That would make sense. I mean, I think in his case that definitely matches for sure. Yeah, all right, Matt. Well, before we get into the main discussion in our show this week, I do want

to have a little Valve update. We've got to talk about this because the Valve news hasn't been making it in the big show as much, but I try to keep up to date in Linux Unplugged, and we've got a release date on that Valve controller. Now, you don't have to have a Steam box to use the Valve controller. I know you've been doing

some Let's Play videos, Matt. I have. You've been looking at use the Valve controller. I know you've been doing some Let's Play videos, Matt. I have. You've been looking at controllers. I don't know if you've seen the latest version of the Valve controller, but it looks much more like a regular controller with regular buttons. It still has those Areola controllers. I don't know what else to call them. Those are still pretty cool.

Those are still there. And I guess it's October or November is when the Steam controller is going to be available. Right now they're saying over 500 compatible games. Wow. I would think anything that really supports a controller. So there you go. If you want to get yourself a Steam Controller, you'll be able to preorder it soon. I'm going to get one.

I'm going to get one. Are you? Oh, well, I've got to, right? I've got to talk about it on the show. And I play with the controller quite a bit anyways. I'm already playing with the 360 controller and I'm not going to lie, it feels dirty every time I plug it into my bonobo.

I feel like I'm committing some sort of crime or something. I don't know. I think I'm going to get one. I'm looking forward to it as a matter of fact. The more I think about it, I'm just a little worried it's not going to work as great. Because the thing is, the dirty little secret, actually it's not that dirty of a secret, the Xbox 360 controller works outrageously well under Linux. You just plug it in, it works out of the box

on every game that I've tried. Valve even just recently updated the kernel support for the controller, so it's even better. The Xbox 360 has turned into the perfect Linux game controller. And on top of that, it's not a bad controller to begin with. It's one of my more preferred controllers anyways. I've never tried the One, so I don't know. But the 360 controller, well, I guess

I have tried the One. It seemed the same to me. So I don't know. As ridiculous as it sounds, I think on my Linux box, Valve's biggest competition is Microsoft's 360 controller. I feel dirty. I feel... Alright, well, before we get into our main topic this week,

I want to thank our second sponsor, and that is DigitalOcean. You guys, if you've been listening to the show a little bit, you know how much I love DigitalOcean,

but if you're new to the show, let me tell you a little bit about them. DigitalOcean is growing and exploding, and they are probably both concisely put, consider them to be

simple cloud hosting, dedicated to offering the most intuitive and easy way to spin up a cloud server. And if you just think about, like, if you need to spin up a system, like, I was just having a little pre-show chat about a new server I needed, and it's like, oh, yeah, that would work great

as a digital ocean instance. And here's the great part. Users can create a cloud server in 55 seconds. However, in our subreddit right now, the record is 43 seconds. And then I got an email today, this morning, saying, Hey man, my record, if you listen to episode 26 of Unplugged, my record is 40 seconds. So we've got people competing right now.

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awesome. I love your SSD drives. I love them! And I love your tier one bandwidth. Tell you what, Matt, if you were like wanting to refresh some server hosting skills or like, you know, you wanted to do like a little MP3 stream or something like that for yourself or maybe a known cloud instance or a Minecraft server, or if you're like Michael Dominic on Coder Radio, he uses DigitalOcean to host the backend infrastructure for the apps that he sells to clients. And some of the biggest sites on the web use DigitalOcean to host the backend infrastructure for the apps that he sells to clients.

And some of the biggest sites on the web use DigitalOcean. So the scalability is so awesome. And what we talk about all the time, we've talked about it on this show specifically, is the technologies that are doing this are the technologies that we are watching in front of our very eyes evolve, like Docker, like KVM. And all of this stuff is coming together, SystemD. It's all coming together to work as a platform for DigitalOcean to make a whole new generation of servers that are available to folks at unbelievable value. And that's

what's so exciting because we're actually seeing the realization of the stuff we've been talking about in DigitalOcean. And they're blowing up. They're hiring right now. You can go over to their website. You can get a job. They just got a great round of funding. They have an awesome video series on TechCrunch that goes into their office and kind of gives you a little bit of behind the scenes about their culture. They're a really cool company, and I'm really happy to have them on here. So go over to DigitalOcean.com and use that promo code unpluggedapril to thank them. And check it out for yourself and see what's so cool about having your own SSD-powered droplet. Okay, Matt.

So I want to talk about the underdog a little bit. And I really don't mean to. I don't want this show to be ranty. And I don't want to get anybody offended that works really hard on their distribution. That's not my goal here. So here's what I kind of. I want to give you the background on this, and then we'll go from there. So recent discussions that we've had on Linux Unplugged, I think pretty much prompted by the demise of XP,

have really made me think about getting more people to switch to Linux and really the scope of the problems that we have there. And so many of those problems are really outside our ability to control. They're OEM or they're distribution channel problems or whatever it is. They're really just as regular, at the end of the day, regular Linux users, they're outside our scope.

So I've been trying to think more of what's actually legitimately in our scope to solve. And a lot of times that comes down to community, support infrastructure, helping onboard people who are already maybe interested in making the switch and maybe trying to find ways to outreach to people who haven't made the choice yet. And I think some of this is honestly in the shadow. Some of this discussion we're going to have about underdog distros is legitimately in the shadow of the 14.04 release, which we're talking about soon. And so I've been running Ubuntu again, and I'm once again on a distribution

where when you run it, you can genuinely feel that it is the wider used platform. Like it's unquestionable that the most people running Linux on the web are on Ubuntu because so much that you find on the web is just automatically tailored for Ubuntu. And that really comes through when you're using it. It's got me thinking about this a lot more.

And so I think what I want to kind of pitch to you into the Mumble room is, are we doing a disservice to new users when we recommend these boutique distros, which I think are great for experienced users, but essentially you're sending them down a path where they become part of a niche of a niche, because Linux is already a niche desktop environment, and then you send them onto a distro that is a niche of that already small slice of pie. So the support community is automatically out of the gate smaller. Even if it's really sharp where it's sharp, it's smaller.

And the other thing that, it's one of these unpredictable things that you can't account for, but it always smacks new users right in that face, is that random, poorly crafted Google search, you know, where they're just they're less likely to get results for their own distro. Like, I don't know if it was in the pre-show, I think, or I know it was in the post-show

I think of last week's Linux Unplugged, but Chase decided, after using 14.04 for the whole episode, to try to install Steam. So he went to Google. He didn't even think about going to the package manager because that's a totally new concept to him. He went to Google, and he searched for Steam installation, and he got a link for Fedora.

Right? And he started downloading an RPM. He was off on a completely wrong course because the title of the article was Install Steam on Linux. And you've got to think about when these guys are searching for this stuff, if you have them off on some boutique small distro, and

I have a lot of respect for some of these smaller distros that we've had on the show and talked to, but that right there is setting them up for some level of failure. Then you have to ask, what's the long-term viability of any really small team? There is a good shot it'll work out, but it's always questionable. Larger distros like, you know, Ubuntu or OpenSUSE or Fedora,

even if their corporate backers or their community pulled out completely, that code would still go on. There would be a fork in the open source community that would maintain that for at least some point in time. But with these smaller distributions, sometimes when they shut down, they shut down. And, you know, Matt, I know you've seen that. You've watched that happen. And we've seen these smaller guys

where they just kind of go away. Well, I also think that, you know, it's a little bit like I was saying previously, that I feel that if you're starting someone out for the first time, they should be starting out with an Ubuntu base, whether that's Ubuntu with Unity or whether it's one of the other desktop environments.

But I think by sticking to that, that actually provides you with enough flexibility to try some new stuff, but you're pretty well grounded in not ending up in an experimental land, which is where most people end up with boutique distros. Later on, you can try out the boutique distros. Well, let me ask Crash Bandicoot, because I believe he recently switched somebody new to Linux, and he chose Corolla 19 or Corolla 20. Is that right, Crash? Yeah, that's right.

It's a friend of mine who, he's one of my housemates, and so I put him on that because I figured, you know, every time he needs anything done, he just comes to me and says, Oh, I need this done, that done. Oh, okay. So you have the proximity advantage. Yeah. So that's why I ended up actually switching him to Intergos just because there was a few things going wrong with Fedora.

It was just running slow and stuff. So you moved him to Integros? Yeah, because like I said, I have SSH access to his machine. So updates and stuff i just do every week or so i just do it but um i actually have another friend who he came to me and he said oh you know i've been looking at harry's computer and it's really cool because you know gnome shell and all the rest of it and he wanted to give it a try and so i pointed him towards ubuntu and he's had no problems with that at all. Like he just installed it.

He used the GNOME shell remix because he wanted GNOME. And he just installed it and he's been loving it. Like he's had no issues at all. Whereas the other, the guy that I'm sort of managing his system, if he was by himself, I'd probably have pointed him towards Ubuntu as well for that exact reason that you mentioned with, you know, if he Googles how to do something, he's going to get a guide for Ubuntu. He might get a guide

for Arch or whatever else, but he's definitely going to get a guide for Ubuntu that works. Now, Crossroads, you were going to say that we should maybe consider custom tailing it for each user. That doesn't sound very scalable to me, to be honest with you. Also, um... Sorry you. Also, sorry.

Go ahead, Riley. Well, I was going to say there is an issue with Ubuntu, even still, though, because a lot of the time you'll find outdated PPAs and you'll find info, but it'll be retaining like 804 or something. It's way off. So you've got to be careful what you're searching for, too. Well, that's very true. But it's also easier for Ubuntu anyway, because

most of the time, the stuff will be updated. Like, the forum, if you go to Google or something, a lot of the times the forum doesn't show up anymore, and it's Ask Ubuntu now. So that's an improvement. That was a conscious decision, actually. We had George Castro gave a great talk at one of our developer summits,

and it was all about going through the wiki and deleting pages because we're doing a disservice to our users and our friends when we leave some wacky how-to from 804 detailing how to use endiswrapper, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We should get rid of that page because it's no longer needed and point people at Ask Ubuntu well I guess

so here's what happens people for whatever reason and I don't know if I consider myself in this camp or not I'm undecided but people for whatever reason sometimes hesitate in recommending Ubuntu we just saw this New York Times article that we covered in the Linux Action Show, and the author of the New York Times article,

the number one distro at the top of his list was Bodai Linux. And it was also the one he had the most praise. I think Ubuntu was three on the list after Mint. And so Mint is the one you hear, like, thrown around the most often, is an alternative to Ubuntu. I want to... So I think if you guys are buying... It sounds like you guys are all kind of buying

off on this philosophy that if it's a random new user who you're not holding his hand or her hand and installing that Linux for them and then by proxy also being their support, then Ubuntu is a good choice. Alright, so if we accept that, yeah, okay, so if we accept that,

do we also accept that about Mint? Yes, but slightly different. So I would argue why is it any different, okay, so if we accept that, do we also accept that about Mint? Yes, but slightly different. So I would argue, why is it any different? So for me, then you get into the question, well, but Cinnamon and Mate are, again, onto an island of their own. They're not something that's super common. They're not something that you know what the long-term prospects are, although they look good. And you don't know if they've been as banged on as the rest of the desktops that have maybe a larger user base because they're on more distributions or they just

have more users. So what is the difference between recommending a boutique distribution and recommending a boutique desktop? Well, they're not boutique. Great and long-term support. But there's also not boutique. Mint's not boutique. I mean, it's become just as popular

as Ubuntu, but it benefits with having Ubuntu support. I don't buy that. I mean, it's become just as popular as Ubuntu, but it benefits with having Ubuntu support. I don't buy that. I don't buy that for a minute. I'm not talking about... I mean, I think it's a great distribution. I don't buy that it has nearly the install base that Ubuntu does. It doesn't. I'm talking about...

You're talking about the consideration of... As far as popularity goes, Mint has as much popularity popularity but out but outside of linux community it's it's much lower and outside of servers it's basically you know there's nothing but when you look into it like just usability wise people are going to suggest mint purely for the fact that cinnamon is very user friendly to windows people yeah whereas ubuntu is like completely different paradigm right right so there's there's there's reason why mint is picked because instead

of ubuntu not because ubuntu is bad i mean the people who bash ubuntu i think are a little crazy but when you have um the the paradigm of the usability such drastically different there are some people who would be turned off by that. When you give them Cinnamon, they look at it like, oh, okay, it's kind of like Windows. So that has a benefit there. Yeah, I don't know, though. I mean, look, we just heard Crash Benedict's anecdote

about somebody wanting to switch because of GNOME, and this has never been a problem for the Mac since time of inception. It has never... Mac OS X has never gotten a single switcher because it looks like Windows. And I don't know if that's a requirement. I think it just has to work and make sense. Also, you're forgetting too, the whole

desktop thing is Unity is going to be having some pretty big changes in 13.10 and well, not 13.10, but 14.10 and so on and so on. I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah.

And Synonymous consistently remains the same. I mean, since it's been... Paradigm-wise, yeah. Yeah, it's had a very casual evolution, so it keeps people feeling safe. They just add some user-friendly settings into it, and that's very good for new users. You could argue that Unity has not changed that much usability, though. Right.

And Unity won't change that much in 14.04. It's an LTS, remember, five-year support. So you put your user on... Yeah, I know. And I'm saying you don't need to. You don't have to upgrade. There's no one with a gun to your head saying you have to upgrade. You can just stay on 14.04.

And also, that is precisely what Windows XP users would be looking for, right? Because they've been using the same operating system for going on 13 years now. Yeah, and that's what they want to replace. Yeah, that's what they want to swap out, and that's the paradigm they're familiar with. That's how they think of it. They just want their security updates and just keep on rolling. And the only place where I see where Mint has an argument is that the desktops it provides offer a familiar user environment that a Windows switcher would be comfortable with, whereas Ubuntu is different enough to require them to think.

Well, the issue is the XP users are typically people who have never thought of updating. They're afraid to update. They don't want to change anything. So those people going to Ubuntu, that paradigm switch might be too much. The only reason I would suggest people from Windows, it would be Windows XP users to

Cinnamon would be very friendly to them. But if you did somebody who's just a regular user who has a computer that can handle it, they don't necessarily care at all. So, Ick, you wanted to make a point that maybe just offering folks what they already have isn't that appealing?

I don't think so. I think when people want to switch, they want to switch to something that might be a little bit different than what they're used to. I mean, you know, Windows is Windows. Mac is Mac. Let's let Linux be Linux. They want their hassle to feel like it was worth it. Yes.

They're going to want it to not necessarily feel familiar, but to get to know something that feels a little bit different so that they... It doesn't have to always be about familiarity. My biggest pet peeves is when I see us trying to

copy what Microsoft or Apple has already done. And, you know, we need to brand our own brand. But we have too many brands to brand. That's the problem. But I think Crossroads has a good point in the sense that if you have – we're going to be the people telling people to switch. So we could just give them an example of what they could look like. And I think the best option to get people to switch would not be, here's what you should use. And not even give them distros. Just don't even mention the distros.

Just get like a grid of, or here's like a slideshow of here's what you could get. Here's what Gnome looks like. Here's what Unity looks like. And just let's say, which one do you like the best? And then focus on the distro after that. That's a great idea. Is that me? Go ahead. You said your sister switched because of Unity?

Yeah, actually. When I was actually first getting into Linux, I was running Ubuntu off a USB stick. She saw it and she was like, oh, that looks awesome. Can I have it? I set her up with a USB stick. And she saw it and she's like, oh, that looks awesome. Can I have it?

And so I set her up with Dualboot. She actually only uses Windows for Netflix. But... And she uses it all the time. She loves it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't doubt it. That's just funny to me. So Matt, I want to ask you something. So we've just had a very rational, reasonable conversation

about different desktop options about why cinnamon makes sense about why unity makes sense why ubuntu makes sense these are all very logical so why is it you still hear so many people recommending some off-the-wall distribution like i mean i don't mean to label bodai is off the wall but you know in the grand scheme of like support when you're searching the, you're not going to get a lot of Bodai results. Why are we seeing this, Matt, when Ubuntu seems, or Mint maybe, seems like a pretty practical choice?

Well, I think it depends on who's doing the recommendation. There's usually two separate groups that do the recommendations for distribution. The Linux users themselves, which they either love or hate Ubuntu. There's not a lot of in-between. So you have that person with their vested interest. The second group of people is

generally the folks that are doing articles. Speaking to someone that writes articles, if you're not writing about Ubuntu, you're not writing. Because no one's going to hire you. That's just reality. I hate to be the one to break that to everyone, but welcome to reality, kids. That's what people want.

Open source and Ubuntu. It just seems so monotone. Now, unless it's enterprise stuff, then you can use Linux. But otherwise, it's Ubuntu or open source. That shows you what the interest of the reader is. Yeah, it really is. And quite frankly, that's what ranks. I mean, that's what people are searching

for. And why that is is debatable, but the point is that's certainly what's going on. So I think you have those two groups of people that generally you have to uh work with it doesn't necessarily mean that doesn't necessarily mean that uh those other distros shouldn't be suggested i mean if the computer is good yeah if the computer is old enough i mean ubuntu might not be a solution purely because unity needs a decent hardware i feel like the elephant in the room here, and Heaven's Revenge is like thinking like I don't read the chat room or something, I think the elephant in the room here is

it's SUSE, right? I mean, like, where does OpenSUSE fit in? Is it something that is for the enthusiasts? Is it something that is for these new switchers? They've got their evergreen release now? I'm very surprised that there's been no OpenSE representation at all here at the moment.

It's only for the Windows. It's all representing Ubuntu right now. Well, except for the shirt I'm wearing. Well, no, it's just as big or even bigger than Canonical in terms of corporate power. They also have a one-click install. It's for the Windows power use. And their distro, when it comes to major release upgrades, have never screwed up like a Ubuntu upgrade, as for me.

Yeah, and they have a good presence in enterprise, and they have a lot of partnerships there. So there's a lot of folks who would be using it in an IT setting that might want to use it on their desktop. They could be a great Windows candidate switcher. Here's the reality, and I've had a lot of OpenSUSE experience over the years, and I have never not had at least one major groundbreaking issue with every single solitary installation I've ever had.

Like you use this on their own software? Always, always, always something breaks. It just happens. Now that doesn't mean it happens for everybody. I'm just saying from my own experience. So when I'm going to then experience that and then recommend it to somebody, it's kind of like, it's really pretty.

I like it. I love what they do with a lot of their features and stuff. But at the end of the day, it's an RPM distro. I'm sorry. I love what they do with a lot of their features and stuff, but at the end of the day, it's an RPM distro. I'm sorry. I just can't do it. I agree with you, Matt. I agree. Yeah, the only issue I've ever had with it is the build service failing every once in a while.

That's a different thing, though. I've had OpenSUSE break more often than Arch. I don't know how it's back. Seriously. I'm willing to work at it, but my god. I remember just basic sound Arch. I don't know how it's back. Seriously. Seriously. Yeah. I've actually had... I mean, I'm willing to work at it, but my God, it's like I remember just basic sound issues.

I was finally like, screw this. I'm done. I've had a few things where OpenSUSE is great, but there are certain aspects that it kind of falls behind because they push

a lot of interesting ideas and they're innovative and they're... I mean, some of them are awesome. Like the SUSE Studio is awesome. The Build Service is awesome. I like YAST. I have no problem with that at all. Some of the things, they have a lot

of awesome ideas, but they have some fundamental issues that they just don't address. I've never been able to solve, ever. You haven't been able to solve. That's based on individual user experience that doesn't mean that everyone around you is also having that that experience as well

so i think everybody's mileage is going to vary i definitely give you all the benefit of the doubt that you are as capable as i am well that's very gentlemanly of you sir but also you can simply right click that menu and get a nice XP looking menu. It doesn't have to be the Lancelot paneling menu. It can be XP-ish. Yeah, but it's still KDE, though. KDE is a pretty big barrier.

You kind of lose people if you don't know what you're doing. I tried showing that to people, and they're just like, why the hell would I use that? You know, whatever the hell they call that. Oh, activities. Activities, yeah. It's a cool idea if you're really geeky. It's awesome.

Yeah, but I've tried it. If anyone else has actually ever been outside, it's not. So I'm like, no. I've seen people use workspaces when I just kind of introduced them, and then they're like, oh, that's awesome, and they'll jump to it. But I think it goes back to the whole – there's so many options and so many things that we just kind of have to say, here's what the easiest thing to do if we can't talk to them. And that might be Ubuntu. And then they even turned off workspaces by default, I'm pretty sure, in 14.4. Yep. So there's certain things that if – like Ubuntu might be just a – we should – if you can't help them out, you can't find out what it might fit them perfectly, like a YouTube video, it could be Ubuntu.

That might be the best option because you've got the upgradability, you've got the ease of use. You've got the Google juice. Well, Crossroads wants to disagree with you. Crossroads, what do you think? Do you think the software at OpenSUSE.org and KD and Yast, specifically maybe Yast, do you think that's the advantage for the Windows switcher? and Katie and Yast, specifically maybe Yast, do you think that's the advantage for the Windows switcher? Well, I mean, yeah.

Yast is much like the Windows control panel. And software.openstance.org appeals to the Windows users being used to searching it on the web and then being able to install it just like a.exe file. But I would argue that a lot of people would ignore the control panel completely. Like an average user would just never touch the control panel. But I think what I've been trying to get to and what I've been trying to wrap my brain around on this whole discussion is I think Ubuntu has had a pretty bumpy road in terms of PR and community perception. And so my question was, as I'm looking at the 14.04 release, right, I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, how relevant is Ubuntu's role today in the general Linux desktop

and in those people coming to Linux? And to me, what I'm hearing from you guys is that it is just as relevant today as it was the day 1204 was released. Oh yeah, if not more so. I really feel that way. And even though I might personally... Right, exactly. Even though I

personally am really glad I'm on Arch today, because I have GNOME 3.12 and that makes me a happy boy, I can't help but acknowledge the still significant role that Ubuntu plays in its piece. Maybe you could still argue that it's

for the desktop user the most significant role. I think another thing, like I just went to the, I mean I know this is just Reddit, but I went to the Linux subreddit. It's got a list of the most popular distributions in it. And I opened the subreddits related to each specific distribution. I just grabbed some.

And if you look at the numbers, Debian has 7,000 readers. Fedora is 4,000. Seuss is 1,000. Elementary is two. And Mint is five. Five. And then Ubuntu is, sorry, Mint is 5. And then Ubuntu is 45,000.

Yeah. And that definitely makes a big difference when you can go anywhere and you don't even have to be in a Linux-related context. Like you could be on some forum, like I was on HALOCP the other day on their forum, and somebody had said something about, oh, you know, I was trying to do this or that or whatever in Linux, and it didn't work. And some other guy posted, oh, you should try apt-get da-da-da-da,

and that worked for him because of the fact that they were both on Ubuntu. Yeah. I mean, of course, it's not necessarily a good thing that people think Ubuntu is Linux, as we know. Right. But the fact of the matter is that people do. And so if they're on a completely different forum, they can be on a forum about cars or something and mention they're on Linux, the other person who responds to them is likely

also going to be running Ubuntu. And they might even assume that they're running Ubuntu. Look at that, the top of the Ubuntu subreddit. Windows XP refugees start here, right? I mean, that's exactly the kind of landing pad I've been talking about. I mean, the subreddit for Ubuntu actually has more users than Linux, doesn't it?

Well, the Linux subreddit itself. No, no. No, it has 100, yeah. No, the Linux subreddit is much more popular. Ubuntu subreddit is actually pretty friendly. I mean, even if they disagree with you, they're not all ripping on you. Yeah. I think what's interesting is, so our emailer, and I agree, is does that make Ubuntu the

ultimate distro that shames all others? No, but it makes it a hell of a damn good choice for switchers, and people just need to get over themselves, stop rooting for the underdog in all cases, run the underdog yourself, let them run Ubuntu for a while, let them get used to the terms, let them get used to the command line if they need to, let them get used to the ecosystem, and then let them expand out.

It doesn't diminish the other distributions, it just means that perhaps those aren't the best landing spots when they're switching. Does anybody disagree with that? I would say that it's good. It's probably the best landing spot for someone you can't help. But if it's somebody who you can't help, it might not be because you can put them out to – if there's an issue, they would come to you anyway. And, for example, like Bodhi or Bodhi, I don't know.

Bodhi, or Bodhi, I don't know. Bodhi? Yeah, that would be a good gesture for someone who has a low resource hardware because then they don't have to worry about the, you know. Overhead of Unity. Yeah, the overhead. But there's also something with Ubuntu and stuff. Ubuntu that have actual other desktops that are still Ubuntu-based. And really? You put Ubuntu on it, it'll run on ProDi.

Well, Bodhi's Ubuntu-based. And really? You put Ubuntu on it, it'll run on Pro. Well, Bodhi's Ubuntu-based. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, technically, Bodhi's, I think it was like, there's like three different levels. It was based on something else, which was also based on Ubuntu. So technically, yeah. All right.

So what would be the advantage between that and Sail, like some of the other desktop options for Ubuntu? Enlightenment, I suppose? I think it's Enlightenment. Enlightenment. Okay, that's good. Yeah, I mean, it's fun. Enlightenment, I suppose? I think it's just Enlightenment. Enlightenment, I don't think there is an official flavor for Enlightenment. Enlightenment runs pretty great on... That was the point of the article, was that Enlightenment runs pretty good on lower-end hardware.

Which you're going to have from an XP switcher. Yeah, exactly. But you have Enlightenment and LXDE and stuff like that, but I think Enlightenment doesn't actually have an official flavor, so Bodhi's the only one that I know of that is officially... Their main focus is Enlightenment So I'm on board with Crossroads. I think people get a new machine and they want to just love the hell out of it.

What do you think, Crossroads? Is it the eye candy? Is it the more advanced features? What is it that's going to make people switch? Crossroads. It's Gnome 3 KDE, Gnome 3 KDE and Unity are pretty. And that's at least for kids my age, is what is going to drive them towards Linux.

It is what, when they see my computer, and I'm running GNOME 3 right now, they're like, whoa, that looks so cool. How can I do that? How can you do that with your computer? And it's things like, I mean, XFCE is great, and it's customizable, and I love it, but it's not what's going to push people to Linux.

Yeah, yeah, and then, of course, you course, it's like the point you've been making is that for different folks, some people will want the slower stuff or the more resource-friendly. Okay, I want to put this topic to bed. I feel like we've kind of reached a consensus and I feel like I've kind of reached a good understanding. We don't have a lot of time left in the show, so I'm just going to point people over to the show notes.

And it's probably good because I've probably talked about it too much recently, but, you know, this Heartbleed vulnerability has just been getting so much coverage, and it seems like the coverage is now sort of pivoted from discussing the technical details and how disastrous it is to playing a little bit of the blame game, and you're seeing a lot of articles crop up on the web right now. playing a little bit of the blame game, and you're seeing a lot of articles crop up on the web right now. Articles that kind of cast open source and the open source development model in a bad light.

We talked a little bit about some of that on Sunday. Like here's one on ZDNet from Larry Seltzer. He says, Open source does not provide any meaningful inherent security benefit for OpenSSL, and it may actually discourage some important testing techniques. Also, panhandling is not a good business model for important software like OpenSSL. And of course, he's framing it in a very adversarial way, and he's painting it in the most light possible. And you're seeing a lot of these crop up. I've got a collection of them in the show notes. And I wanted to say, I guess what my point was in all of this,

and I won't lean on this too much because I know we've talked about this before, but I think people need to focus on with this whole Heartbleed thing is that while maybe open source is getting dragged through the mud on this, we should maybe be focusing on the whole turnaround for the patch time,

like how rapidly the response was, and the fact that we now have the ability to audit for these kinds of things in the future. And maybe they'll pop up, maybe they won't, right? But now we can look. Well, I got two words for everyone, especially the guy that wrote that article. It's called Blaster

Worm. And it's called DMVs, hospitals, police stations, pretty much any civic entity. It was like literally the apocalypse when it happened. A month later, everybody was fine. Microsoft's great. We love Microsoft.

Right, right. So if these same idiots that are writing this crap can forgive a company that allowed something – and keep in mind, when that happened, the patch was available. It was – I mean that's how pathetic this was. So things happen, but I think blaming licensing over it is just silly. I mean, that's how pathetic this was. So, you know, things happen, but I think blaming licensing over it is just silly. I really do. Yeah, and I'll run. We'll leave it at this,

because I've got to go do some work on the studio. So we can't talk about it too much, and I've probably over-talked it anyways. It stayed its welcome, but if you would like to read some of those articles and think about it yourself, I'll have links in the show notes. Look, we'd love to hear from you. A huge portion of this show runs on your feedback and your involvement.

And if you can't join us live over at jblive.tv Tuesdays on 2 p.m. Pacific, and we also would love to hear from you if you can't join us live. Just go over to the Jupyter Broadcasting page, click the contact link, choose Linux Unplugged from the drop-down, and send in your email. And also visit us, linuxactionshow.reddit.com. Matt, get your Ubuntu 14.04 ready. Our review on Sunday. I'll see you then. Sounds good. See you then.

All right, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Linux Unplugged. See you right back here next Tuesday. Thank you.