People seem to have quite high expectations of Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy), and to be honest, I don’t think they’ll be disappointed. Gutsy seems to be shaping up to be the best Ubuntu release ever, and it’s due for release next Thursday (18 October).There’s one particular aspect of Gutsy that I think is more important than most, and that is that it allows you to choose your level of freedom. I’d even go as far to say that this is an historic Linux distribution release, because of that.
1. Restricted manager
While not new in Gutsy, it does have a good deal of improvements. Restricted manager educates the user about proprietary drivers, firmware and other software that is required to make their hardware work. In the screenshot below, Restricted Manager warns me that my laptop requires non-free drivers if I’d like to use my modem. I haven’t had a use for a dial-up modem in years, so I just leave it disabled.
2. Firefox integration for downloading flash plugins
This is a much-needed improvement, users often complain about installing flash plugins. Now, it’s easier to install both free and non-free implementations of flash. When you access a site that requires a flash plugin, and you don’t yet have it installed, Firefox will display a prompt where you can either install the proprietary Adobe Flash plugin, or the bleeding edge technology preview version of the GNU Gnash plugin.
The required packages are then installed using Ubuntu’s own package management system, as opposed to Firefox’s plugin system- excellent!
3. Add/remove software
As the Restricted Manager, this is not new in Gutsy either, but I thought this fits in nicely with the other features. The Ubuntu add/remove program makes it easy for users to distinguish whether they’re installing proprietary or free software, and which of that is officially supported in Ubuntu. It wasn’t always like that, so I’m very glad to see that the Ubuntu team has managed to make and keep it simple for the users.
4. Gobuntu
Last, but most certainly not least, is Gobuntu. Originally there was going to be an Ubuntu build that was going to be called Gnubuntu, which contains 100% free software, and no proprietary firmware or drivers at all. Richard Stallman objected to the name, and it then became Ubuntu Libre, and was finally released as Gnewsense.
In Gutsy, the original idea behind Gnewsense is taken further. Gobuntu, the latest addition to the Ubuntu family, will not only ship with no restricted drivers by default, but it will also ship with no non-free images or artwork (that’s the ultimate ideal, at least). I’m not 100% sure whether this has actually been achieved for Gutsy yet, looking at the gobuntu-desktop metapackage, it seems that it still uses Firefox instead of Iceweasel. I think that the Hardy release of Gobuntu will be much more pure. If you have the time/energy resources, please join the gobuntu-devel mailing list and contribute to this project!
Conclusion
Whether you want to do the right thing and use free software wherever possible, or whether you need to install additional proprietary software that you require to do your work or have some fun, Ubuntu 7.10 makes it easier for you to choose. Kudos to the Ubuntu team and management for doing such a great job. I don’t think there’s any other distribution that currently makes it this easy to stick with 100% pure free software AND that makes it so easy to optionally install proprietary software.
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October 14th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Why not swfdec? It’s more advanced than Gnash and developer seems more motivated to deliver.
October 14th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Gnash is quite advanced, it plays some things that swfdec can’t yet (like MySpace or Lulu.com videos). Gnash is also an official GNU project, it’s backed by Rob Savoye, who employes a few full-time developers.
I’m interested in why you say the swfdec guys seem more motivated to deliver. I’ve met Rob Savoye and I keep an eye on #gnash on irc.freenode.net, and to me they certainly seem very active and enthusiastic.
I know there’s also a lot of commercial interest in Gnash, not sure if that’s the same for swfdec.
October 14th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
RMS objected to the name Gnubuntu? What on Earth for??!? He’s the man with an unreasonable obsession with getting people to call Linux GNU/Linux. I would think he would be happy to have a GNUbuntu distro that holds to his ideals of “Free” software.
October 14th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Hmm. Perhaps some people DO need schooling on how to spell Jonathan, but then perhaps you should look for some tuition on when to use apostrophes. (Quiet word … “Ubuntu LET’S you choose” isn’t one of them)
October 14th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Wolfger: Yes, I was surprised at it too. I would actually suspect him to have liked it. I quite like Gobuntu too, for what it’s worth.
Dave: Well spotted. I usually use my apostrophes (shew, I nearly said apastrophe’s) right. My English is terrible, and I apologise, I’m working on it! (fixed the title too)
October 14th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Letting the user choose which flash plugin to install is a nice thing. But I see a few improvements that could be made.
1. The plugin selector does not seem to have the educational feature of Restricted manager. To a naive user Gnash and Adobe are just words. It should tell the user that Gnash is the free choice and also that the Adobe option for the time being is likely to work better.
2. How about making it easy to switch between flash plugins? This should not require uninstallation but could be achieved either using the alternatives system or on the user level. (Just having it in the Firefox settings seems most logical, actually.) This would be needed for a) the user who does not care so much about freedom, but installed Gnash by accident and now finds that many sites do not work and b) the freedom loving user who want to use Gnash by default but wants the option to switch to Adobe when needed.
(And, not specifically related to flash:)
3. How about a Gvrms application that shows you all non-free software that is installed (not just drivers), lists free alternatives where available and for each non-free package gives the user the option to switch to a free alternative or remove the non-free package?
These would be ideas for Hardy…
October 15th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
[...] Ubuntu 7.10 let you choose your level of freedomThe author has pointed out 4 of the major changes of Ubuntu 7.10, which let users to choose their level of freedom on Restricted Manager, Gnash Flash Player, Add/Remove Programs and Gobuntu [...]
October 15th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Ubuntu 7.10 let?s YOU choose your level of freedom…
[...]"There?s one particular aspect of Gutsy that I think is more important than most, and that is that it allows you to choose your level of freedom. I?d even go as far to say that this is an historic Linux distribution release, because of that.&…
October 15th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
[...] my post from yesterday got digged, and as a result, it made my hosting server very busy, which caused my [...]
October 16th, 2007 at 5:19 am
Here’s a comment from Mark Shuttleworth’s “Gobuntu is… go!” blog entry (found here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/130) from a certain brian that, I think, frames FSF’s rationale on why it doesn’t approve of the Gnubuntu name: “… The FSF thought that this would cause confusion by implying that every version of GNU/Linux isn’t GNU. Since Ubuntu is already GNU they didn’t want a separate version named GNUbuntu.” Also (from here: http://www.ubuntux.org/gnubuntu-a-completely-free-ubuntu), RMS approved of the original GNUbuntu project only that he wasn’t sure if the name would live up to it’s purpose of freedom and GNU’s role in highlighting it (as outlined above).
October 16th, 2007 at 5:54 am
> RMS objected to the name Gnubuntu? What on Earth for??!?
Probably because it’s not a GNU project. The same reason Microsoft wouldn’t want it called “Windobuntu”.
> He’s the man with an unreasonable obsession with getting people to call Linux GNU/Linux.
He’s not asking anybody to call Linux GNU/Linux. He’s asking people to refer to operating systems based on the GNU operating system which use Linux as the kernel as “GNU/Linux”. He’s happy for the people who produce Linux to call it whatever they want so long as people don’t confuse Linux with operating systems which _include_ Linux.
October 16th, 2007 at 7:51 am
“I don’t think there’s any other distribution that currently makes it this easy to stick with 100% pure free software AND that makes it so easy to optionally install proprietary software.”
Hmm.
http://www.mandriva.com/en/download.html . Download Mandriva Linux 2008 Free. Install. You have a 100% pure free software distribution.
Download Mandriva Linux 2008 One. Install. You have a distro with NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, Intel wireless firmware, plus less commonly used non-free drivers and firmware. Also Flash and Java.
There’s also a public non-free repository you can use to add non-free software to Free, at your discretion.
It’s worth really looking into what other distros offer before declaring Ubuntu the greatest everything. I believe it’s pretty similar on OpenSUSE 10.3 too, which is also out already.
Adam Williamson
Mandriva
October 16th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Adam, does Mandriva also ship with a restricted manager, and does it also give you a choice between Adobe Flash and Gnash? If it does, then kudos to Mandriva, I can’t recall ever seeing it in Mandriva though, neither in OpenSUSE (haven’t tried the enterprised SUSE yet, but I can’t imagine that it’s much different)
October 16th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I actually appreciate the restricted drivers manager a lot because my laptop has Broadcom for wifi. Setting it up was painful especially since I couldn’t seem to get into our office network (which uses WPA). But now, I seem to have no troubles, after installing Gutsy beta and installing the driver from the Restricted Drivers manager.
November 5th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
[...] read more | digg story [...]
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:48 pm
[...] is this new (improved) Restricted Drivers feature that informs me that VMware drivers will not be [...]
December 29th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Be informed that Adobe Flash not working on Ubuntu 64bit.