Any Ubuntu One users out there?

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:46 am

It's a beta storage box of free 2gb online which you can use between ubuntu users. It's pretty limited. But meh it's something. So I was wondering if someone was using. It's in beta.

THere is a 10 gb upgrade for 10$ a month. WHich makes me suspicious of Canonical the owner company for using the Ubuntu Trademark which as far as I remember is under the GNU licensing to make a proprietary product.

Granted there are other such 'products' such as dells computers and other computers that come pre-packaged these days with ubuntu on them but I never thought about that in this light until now.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:56 am

Free/open source software means that you should be ably to modify any software actually running on your machine because you can edit the source code and recompile it. It does not mean it can't be sold. It does not mean you get to see the source code of web apps.

This app does not even run on your computer and it actually costs money to keep those servers running. Why would it be free? Mind you, I have no clue whether this is a reliable service - but I would be much more suspicious if it was a free service.

Absentminded_Wizard · Wed Jul 08, 2009 11:00 am

A Cynic wrote:WHich makes me suspicious of Canonical the owner company for using the Ubuntu Trademark which as far as I remember is under the GNU licensing to make a proprietary product.

Not quite. They have an extensive list of permitted usage of the trademarks but reserve the right to get after you for usage they don't like.

Ubuntu itself is under a GNU license, as is all the official documentation, but not the name or logo.

Edit: Attributed quote to the right poster this time

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:52 pm

Murtak wrote: This app does not even run on your computer and it actually costs money to keep those servers running. Why would it be free? Mind you, I have no clue whether this is a reliable service - but I would be much more suspicious if it was a free service.

If you would be suspicious if it was a free service, then you seem to go against one of creeds free & open-source. Zombie-Torvalds will want your brains now!

There are dozens of free storage boxes that are about 2gig at least in size. Mozy, dropbox are a few to name some.

UbuntuOne is just something I wanted to experiment with seeing that I seemed to have completely switched over to Ubuntu rather than still keeping on to my XP on one of my hard drives. I don't have a legal copy of the system so I'll just stick with Ubuntu until I see how 7 or the recently announced google chrome OS which is supposed to be OS-lite (netbooks primarily but works on pcs too) works.

A_W: thank you for correcting me. It seems I was wrong. Looking at more documentation, it seems more set towards being a proprietary software with the base usage being free.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:17 pm

Netbooks are PCs. Just not with so much power you'd want to waste your time running Vista. They run OSX just fine, I might note.

-Crissa

PS: Macs are PCs, too, but not exactly in the same way Netbooks are...

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:31 am

Crissa: I think I've had at least two discussions about Apples with you. So I'll just smile and say Macs are for pansies. I don't know how you will take it. ^_^

I know somewhere that Netbooks are PCs. But, I still remember them as the early Linux bases. so me doth forgets. Bah Vista.

--

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:54 am

There are no Linux-only hardware platforms anymore, alas. Linux geeks just happen to like cheap computers; they've always supported the bottom level Windows, be it CE or XP.

-Crissa

PS: If by 'pansies' you mean someone who likes to get their work done on the most reliable platform, with the most reliable retail OS, with the highest resale value.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 8:07 am

You know, even the smallest netbooks have more power than high-end computers had 5 years ago. I guess those were not PCs either?

That said, does anyone know whether any lightweight distros that work out of the box on an OLPC? At most I need a browser (no need for flash), a pdf viewer and a way to edit .odf files (though .rtf or the likes will do in a pinch).

Absentminded_Wizard · Thu Jul 09, 2009 11:51 am

A_Cynic wrote: A_W: thank you for correcting me. It seems I was wrong. Looking at more documentation, it seems more set towards being a proprietary software with the base usage being free.

As far as I know, the user still has the ability to modify the source code, and other people can make their own Ubuntu derivatives, subject to a Canonical veto on derivatives that use any Ubuntu-related name. For example: Linux Mint and MoonOS.

Now, I guess you can argue that it's "open-source" rather than "free software" if you're one of those people who uses IceWeasel instead of Firefox.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:00 pm

Murtak wrote:You know, even the smallest netbooks have more power than high-end computers had 5 years ago. I guess those were not PCs either?

That said, does anyone know whether any lightweight distros that work out of the box on an OLPC? At most I need a browser (no need for flash), a pdf viewer and a way to edit .odf files (though .rtf or the likes will do in a pinch).

I seem to have given people the wrong impression that I don't like netbooks or I denigrate them. No, it isn't anything like that. My usage of my computer while casual is still a resource hog.

My question for the OLPC is that are you expecting to run both the installed OLPC distro and the lightweight distro? Or just this lightweight distro?

If the latter -- THen, I would suggest -- the OLPC - xo1 forum seems to show problems with this.

but -- this is a good list for the OLPC apparently.

You might want to upgrade your external flash card a bit. If you plan on installing Ubuntu or 7 on there. But shit. I doubt you do.

Also, you can try experimenting with this heah list

The test is biased in a way in a way because he tests it in VMware so you don't get the full experience and he keeps harping about sound which isn't one of the strong suits of vmware on a livecd boot.

WHEE - zoom in on the pdf to get the Downlow on more lite distros. (hey, that rhymes...horribly.
~

Well... that's all I got.

I'll see if I can dig up some more latter. So how does the OLPC perform. I actually haven't seen one yet. I'm dying to see one in person.

Edit: PS: V. T. Hortensis gets a high retail and resale value? I always heard that they wither and die in summer heat.

Actually I never got the expression Pansy, to be honest. They are quite hardy biennial plants. They can go through the coldest winters at times.

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:03 pm

If you want to preserve the existing system, there's a Fedora 10 Live SD card for the OLPC here. If you're willing to wipe the current system, anything that will fit on the drive and doesn't need much memory should work. The processor is x86 compatible.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:07 pm

It has a very weird BIOS, which many distros have issues with. Puppy Linux doesn't run for example

And the base sugar is nice for what it does, but too damn slow for my tastes.

Edit: that link looks nice though, if only to save me some hassle. I'm going to have to see whether they ship to Germany.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 10:09 pm

I'm partial to Gobo, but it's not as much of a 'just works' distro as some others.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:16 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote:I'm partial to Gobo, but it's not as much of a 'just works' distro as some others.

hmm... compiler based by the looks of it.

I remember my days of gentoo. that's an interesting setup for a light distro. I mean it's going to run beautifully but still interesting.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:55 am

A_Cynic wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:I'm partial to Gobo, but it's not as much of a 'just works' distro as some others.
hmm... compiler based by the looks of it.

I remember my days of gentoo. that's an interesting setup for a light distro. I mean it's going to run beautifully but still interesting.

Pretty much every GNAA/Linux distribution uses compilers, so I'm not sure that's a meaningful descriptor; Gobo is about as compiler based as Ubuntu (in that you could install almost everything as a binary or compile from source as you like). You might call Gobo 'modularity based' or 'compatibility based'. All programs are installed entirely in their own folders in /Programs, which makes keeping track of things easy even without a package manager (which it has).

You're less likely to have (for example) your laptop's wireless card working immediately after you install Gobo than Ubuntu, mainly because there are fewer people working on it.