Ubuntu is an excellent, free linux based operating system.
A viable alternative to Windows that doesn't cost a penny.
However, due to its linux heritage, many are wary of it being complex and difficult to use.
Huge strides have been made over the years to present a simple, user friendly interface to placate those concerns.
As of the most recent version, 13.04, I can confirm that for average use, Ubuntu is as easy, if not easier to use than Windows 8.
It comes with a built in App Store, as is fashionable these days....for finding and downloading new applications. Comes standard with the Firefox web browser and an office suite with requisite word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, etc...
Everything you need to get to work or play out of the box.
All is not peaches and cream though (as the topic title hints). Some of the complexity users fear does crop up now and then. Often requiring a dive to the command line to execute convoluted commands to repair and troubleshoot.
I had been using the opensource OS without much issue all the way through 12.04
However, after attempting to update three of my Ubuntu machines (A desktop and two laptops) to 13.04, I ran into all sorts of trouble.
Nothing short of a nightmare.
The updates gave endless errors. Never completed without incident via the graphical user interface.
After many command line antics to force the updates to complete (by disabling PPAs and selecting only Canonical repositories) I was finally greeted with the new 13.04 OS.
Only to find that upon login, the dashboard was gone. Just a blank screen with no icons or anything.
Again, via command line antics....I was able to create a new user and voila....all was well in the world.
This was on my desktop, which serves as our Home Theatre PC (HTPC)
The fun did not end on the laptops.
After the updates, they refused to boot. A black screen with a blinking cursur at the top left was as far as Ubuntu would go. No bluescreen. No cursive error message. Nothing.
Just a blinking cursur.
After a lot of research, the solution appeared to be setting a boot modifier command, namely "nomodeset" using the Linux boot loader called Grub.
That worked and all appeared right in the world again. Or so I thought. Turns out, nomodeset is the linux equivalent to "VGA mode".
You get very basic graphics performance and low resolutions.
So playing videos became a slideshow affair as was navigating around the GUI.
WTF happened (frustration began setting in at this stage, you could probably tell)
Apparently, the latest proprietary AMD Catalyst driver version 12.9 cannot be used with Ubuntu 12.10 and up if you have older AMD graphics cards. Particularly the AMD Radeon HD 2xxx-4xxx series.
My laptop had one of those.
Drivers for these cards are now available in a separate branch called legacy series. Unfortunately these legacy drivers (version 12.6) have not been updated to work with Ubuntu 12.10 and up. Ubuntu 12.10 and greater comes with xorg 1.13 while these drivers have support for older xorg 1.12.
So if you want to install these drivers in Ubuntu 12.10, you have to downgrade to xorg 1.12
Yes, more command line action.
After many hours typing in text commands Ubuntu 13.04 finally booted with fast graphics in place.
All was right in the world. Or so I thought.
Now while everything was quick and responsive with the accelerated ATI legacy drivers, the graphics became corrupted and once again, the dashboard and icons went missing.
Adding a new user via command line (which was the simple workaround the last time) did not fix the problem.
As a last draw, I am going to try an old version of Ubuntu, before all the shenanigans began.
A crying shame for an OS that has otherwise been "old faithful" these past few years.
Though many online claim the fault lies at the hands of ATI for not providing good driver support, at the end of the day, the end users and tech support folks like myself are the ones stuck with a hosed Ubuntu operating system.
More could be done to say....warn users with old ATI graphics cards that updating to the newer version of Ubuntu would FUBAR your system, cost you grey hairs and hours of your life that you will never get back.
XBMC Ubuntu (which is a great HTPC variant of the operating system designed to automatically run XBMC media center software after start up) have a glaring warning about the change on their website. Highlighted below. This sort of information should be integrated into the update / upgrade process.
No matter where the blame falls ultimately, it was a harrowing experience that leaves a veteran PC user like myself a bit jaded.
