Ubuntu Needs to Respond Faster.
Ubuntu, as we all know is a great operating system. Its built on the solid foundations of Debian, it has a vibrant and helpful community and a multimillionaire astronaut as a sugar daddy. Things are good.
Ubuntu aims to be ‘the’ definitive Linux distribution for ‘the rest of us’. A distribution which doesn’t require you to have a computer science degree to get it up and running, a distribution for the average Joe.
Unfortunately however it isn’t quite ready yet…
Anyone who has installed an Ubuntu desktop system recently, can’t have failed to realise that Flash is broken, and it’s broken quite badly.
You see for licencing reasons, the nonfree flashplayer Ubuntu package doesn’t actually contain the Flash program itself. Instead, it simply downloads Flash from Adobe and installs it for you. After the nonfree flashplayer package has downloaded Flash, it makes sure that the md5 checksum works out properly to ensure you’re installing Flash rather than a virus or some dodgy malware.
Very sensible.
The problem is, that Adobe has released a new version of flashplayer, so when the Ubuntu nonfree flashplayer package downloads it, the md5 checksum doesn’t match and uh oh, it won’t install.
This is pretty bad, but the major, really unforgivable problem is that flashplayer has been broken for weeks now. Why is this? I’m a Gutsy user, and I notice that a replacement package has been made available, brought to the attention of the devs, but it still hasn’t found its way into the repo’s. Worryingly, this doesn’t just effect Gutsy. It effects all production releases of Ubuntu.
I’ve read comments at both Launchpad, and on the Ubuntu Forums, and there doesn’t seem to be any general sense of direction. I guess our strength is also our weakness. Too many cooks do indeed spoil the broth, and with no clear person in charge, there seems to be an endless cycle of discussion required in order to get anything done.
I do take on board the difficulties of sorting this out, but also, would suggest that the ‘powers that be’ recall Mr Average Joe (remember, the guy who Ubuntu is aimed at ?).
I’m sorry, and with the greatest of respect, when Joe points his browser at YouTube.com, gets prompted to install Flash, told that it’s installed but still finds YouTube.com isn’t working, he’s going to crack open his Windows recovery disk and walk away.
I really think that if Ubuntu wants to become mainstream, we can’t let things like this happen.
On a slightly more positive note however, I’d like to extend my hearty thanks to all of the Ubuntu contributers, developers, community and my fellow Ubunteros for all of the hard work that they have put into Ubuntu over the past year. Merry Christmas folks, and lets hope that this new year and Hardy bring us closer to fixing bug 1.
Happy Christmas
Chris
xxx
This entry was posted on Monday, December 24th, 2007 at 1:26 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 24th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I’ve heard other people having the same problem. Strange enough, but I’ve also upgraded the flashplugin-nonfree and it worked, am I the only one lucky?
December 24th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Look Firefox 64 will not load a plugin unless it works with nswrapper (Netscape Plugin).
I am a SuSE user so I changed Firefox 64 to Firefox 32 which then about:plugins shows all the plugins.
Firefox 64 was installed on Kubuntu 7.10 AMD64. Probably the trouble will disappear if architecture is changed and Firefox, java are installed as 32 bit this problem goes away.
December 24th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Hi Nick & Embedded.
Thursday I was installing a Gutsy desktop and came across the problem, Friday a laptop with Gutsy, same problem, and today thought I’d test it on a Dapper server (which happened to have a GUI on it, - don’t ask!) and got the same problem.
Each time I downloaded and installed a proposed .deb file from elsewhere. What worried me was that a new user probably wouldn’t bother and would give up.
December 25th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I’ve downloaded the new flash plugin directly from Adobe, extracted the flash plugin, and moved it to the proper location.
Although an improvement in stability, it is still broken for me. It will occasionally locking up the browser or drive the cpu usage to 100% causing a stuttering video.
December 26th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Maybe it is just me but I have Ubuntu running on four different computers at home. All very old eMachine boxes with no problems - flash or otherwise - and I am just an average user.
December 26th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
1. You pay for Windows, part of that money goes toward cross licensing costs so things like Flash can be distributed with Windows.
2. Mr. Average Joe may well return to windows until he learns he will have to replace much of his hardware for Vista.
3. Mr. Joe has likely already crossed the line where he is likely to give up so easily. He is adventurous enough to take the major step of installing a new OS and it looks like he is savvy enough to reinstall Windows.
So lets put an end to this crap. Yes we’ll lose some users, but in the end we will be better off.
The team could likely address this problem a little better, but for now lets not be so fast to call things “unforgivable.”
December 26th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Hi Fr33d0m - I disagree.
Cast an eye over the Ubuntu website. You see tag lines like ‘Ubuntu Just Works!’ and software which you can ‘install at the click of a button’. If we’re not providing that with the most commonly used software then we’re lying. Then our ethos is just media hype. That’s the problem.
If we let politics dictate the way in which we deliver our service then we lose. Game over.
Losing users is never good.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:45 am
The thing that annoys me the most is that the package itself is successfully installed even though the flash installation failed. If you do not watch the dpkg output, you will never know something went wrong until you try to view flash content. It would be a very good idea to raise an error that prevents the package from installing when this goes wrong.
Oh, and debian appears to be more responsive to this:
http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=flashplugin-nonfree&searchon=names&suite=all§ion=all
Everything from etch(stable) to sid(unstable) has the updated package(9.0.115.0.1) already.
Ubuntu, on the other hand:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=flashplugin-nonfree&searchon=names&subword=1&version=all&release=all
Most of the versions have 9.0.48.0.0. Only hardy have 9.0.115.0.1.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Ubuntu does just work. Sure there is a temporary problem with flash. The OS itself still “Just Works.” Review the published record of Vista issues and compare that with Ubuntu Gutsy. And last I checked Flash is not used in the install procedure.
Flash is not the ethos, nor is “Just Works” really though I guess it comes close enough to part of the ethos–a small part. The real issue here is that Ubuntu’s ethos works against us in the case of commercially licensed products like Flash.
I suppose that is the politics you refer to above. Lets get something straight here. Freedom is about politics and not about politics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software). Debating this in this forum is a waste of time because it is more thoroughly debated in so many other places. I’m also not the right one to have that debate with. I’d just say that understanding Open Source software in general, Ubuntu more specifically, is not so easily done as to so blithely consign it to politics. Such a thing misleads more than it enlightens.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Fr33d0m, I’d just like to point out this isn’t a forum. This is my personal blog…
The ability for you to respond to an article is provided to give you a chance to tell me what you think - if you want to. There are links in the article to places where people can discuss this more fully.
To be honest, I think you’re missing the point. I’m an Ubuntu advocate, but part of helping Ubuntu become better is recognising where problems occur, and critiquing the product too.
Thanks
Chris.
December 29th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Chris,
I know well that this is YOUR blog. I also know well the difference between a forum and a blog thank you very much. I’m not sure what your point here is. If you are a little upset because I check back in occasionally to see that what I right is coherent, well I call that being responsible for clarity.
I don’t believe I’ve missed the point at all. Perhaps you’ve missed the point that I was making. At the end of my first comment I said:
The team could likely address this problem a little better, but for now lets not be so fast to call things unforgivable.”
My comments are not so much about what you said but how you said it. I am not complaining here as much as I am pointing out that Ubuntu’s future is not so easily discounted because a few users may not be content waiting for Flash to be fixed. That in the end there are other things that will bring those users back to stay.
It can be somewhat easy to see counter arguments as full of anger. These are not. I believe they were both respectful and addressed specific issues germane to the original post. If you see that differently, then I apologize.
December 29th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Sorry for the addendum but in rereading my second comment I can see you may have keyed on my using the word “forum.” Trust that I was using the word forum generically to refer to a place where ideas are exchanged.
December 29th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I don’t think anything I’ve written here is full of anger. To be honest, I just don’t care enough about the ‘argument’ to get angry about it.
Thanks for your comments though. They provide an interesting counter argument to my discussion. I hope people enjoy reading both sides of the debate and choose their own position. I don’t see however how this debate is going anywhere from here forward. Please don’t be irate.
Cheers
Chris
December 30th, 2007 at 5:41 am
“Ubuntu, as we all know is a great operating system.”
“Flash has released a new version of flashplayer”
Adobe released a new version of the Flash player.
Ubuntu is not an operating system.
December 30th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
@ The Chosen One:
Canonical seem to think that Ubuntu is an Operating System… From the http://www.ubuntu.com website, front page… “Ubuntu is a community developed, linux-based operating system”.
Oh, and sorry about the Adobe typo. It has been fixed now. Any time you’d like to post a link back to your own blog I’d be more than happy to proof read it for you in return for the good work you’re doing here mate
Cheers
Chris