X-ing out Xubuntu
Jul. 14th, 2010 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoI'm on the point of doing that, wiping the partition and putting Debian on instead.
My early reaction to Ubuntu, several years back, turns out to still be valid. Yes, they've created an incredibly polished looking setup that still has Linux at the center. However, they have done it at great cost. Many of the evils (as I perceive them) of Microsoft Windows are now present in Ubuntu. Worse, like RedHat, they have moved configuration files around, removed the configuration utilities, and made it much more difficult to customize the environment or maintain it. It's rather like buying a new car with a lock on the engine hood for which the dealer retains the key. You have to rely on them to do your maintenance because you can't do anything yourself. They have moved things around, removed the labels, and dumbed down the documentation so you can't figure out what they did, or why, or in some cases, fix what they broke.
I discovered today that I can't get Ubuntu to open an XDMCP connection to another machine. This is a capability that I use extensively at work. It is very easy to set up in Slackware, Wolvix, or Debian. A single command opens a complete desktop environment on a remote machine, and lets me swap between that and my own local desktop with hotkeys. Ubuntu appears to have been crippled so that it cannot do this, nor can it permit a remote x-server to connect to its own desktop. These concepts seem to be too difficult for general users, so they are completely ignored in the documentation.
By meddling with configuration files that undoubtedly I am not supposed to touch, I got to where the remote x-server can open the Ubuntu desktop. But I've been completely unable to do the reverse operation, which I require of my workstation on a daily basis. The only advice I find, repeatedly, is to use ssh and tunnel individual apps through that. Not good enough, and especially not for my work with Alphas and VAX environments, not to mention the headless servers at the library. While I can do a lot with a Linux server through just the command line, Windows is not so amenable to that. I use VNC with some Windows-based environments, but I'm also working to replace all of those with Linux instead. XDMCP is the most straightforward way of managing that.
I guess the Ubuntu distributions are dumbed down too much for me to use.
My early reaction to Ubuntu, several years back, turns out to still be valid. Yes, they've created an incredibly polished looking setup that still has Linux at the center. However, they have done it at great cost. Many of the evils (as I perceive them) of Microsoft Windows are now present in Ubuntu. Worse, like RedHat, they have moved configuration files around, removed the configuration utilities, and made it much more difficult to customize the environment or maintain it. It's rather like buying a new car with a lock on the engine hood for which the dealer retains the key. You have to rely on them to do your maintenance because you can't do anything yourself. They have moved things around, removed the labels, and dumbed down the documentation so you can't figure out what they did, or why, or in some cases, fix what they broke.
I discovered today that I can't get Ubuntu to open an XDMCP connection to another machine. This is a capability that I use extensively at work. It is very easy to set up in Slackware, Wolvix, or Debian. A single command opens a complete desktop environment on a remote machine, and lets me swap between that and my own local desktop with hotkeys. Ubuntu appears to have been crippled so that it cannot do this, nor can it permit a remote x-server to connect to its own desktop. These concepts seem to be too difficult for general users, so they are completely ignored in the documentation.
By meddling with configuration files that undoubtedly I am not supposed to touch, I got to where the remote x-server can open the Ubuntu desktop. But I've been completely unable to do the reverse operation, which I require of my workstation on a daily basis. The only advice I find, repeatedly, is to use ssh and tunnel individual apps through that. Not good enough, and especially not for my work with Alphas and VAX environments, not to mention the headless servers at the library. While I can do a lot with a Linux server through just the command line, Windows is not so amenable to that. I use VNC with some Windows-based environments, but I'm also working to replace all of those with Linux instead. XDMCP is the most straightforward way of managing that.
I guess the Ubuntu distributions are dumbed down too much for me to use.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 12:04 pm (UTC)I've heard the same complaint from more than one source of late. Ubuntu seems to have taken one step too many in that direction...
no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 02:58 pm (UTC)I'm about to give up and switch to standard Debian. Not quite as shiny, but leaves all the options open.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 03:43 pm (UTC)They refuse to support the driver for the Broadcom NIC. Fortunately, I finally managed to stomp most of Ubuntu's glitches... I think.