Ubuntu's Killer Flaw in an Otherwise Perfect Distribution

I am a proud Linux user. Fed up with the trials and tribulations of using Windows and all of the extra headaches that come along with it, I began to make the switch. The distribution I went with was Ubuntu, the quintessential "newbie's" Linux - a version of Linux so easy to learn even your grandmother could learn to use it. Yes, Ubuntu lives up to the hype when it comes to being very user friendly. Every aspect of the distribution has been customized to make it that way. The development community went to great pains to make sure it was the most user friendly of all the Linux distributions currently available, and in just a few short years its risen to become almost a household name. Back in the day when someone talked about Linux you automatically thought Redhat, Mandrake, and Slackware. Today, the Ubuntu name is synonymous with Linux. Mention Linux on the street, and many (not all) will likely automatically reply with "Ubuntu". Version 10.04 is the most recent release, and its nearly perfect. Looking more like Mac OS X, minus the Dock which you can add later, and sporting several improvements and new features this version is a huge leap head for the distribution. The Ubuntu One cloud storage service and Ubuntu Music Store incorporated into the iTunes-like Rythmbox Music Player are huge new additions among many other changes.

As great as it is, Ubuntu has a serious flaw which has prompted me to make a very difficult decision. That is, to switch to a different distribution altogether. This one has been a problem since version 7.10 and despite several bug reports and filed complaints its never been addressed. This is a problem which doesn't effect everyone but for those it does effect it can be an insurmountable one. Especially if those users are like me and they're still relatively new to Linux. On top of that I'm visually impaired, so this problem is made even worse because of my bad vision.

So what kind of problem is so bad that I am forced to switch to a completely different Linux distribution to fix it? The issues has to do with screen resolution and how Ubuntu detects graphics hardware. My computer is a custom built AMD Athlon XP system that runs at 1.2GHz, which is well within the system requirements for the distro, has 1GB of PC2700 RAM, a 160GB IDE hard drive, a Sound Blaster Live 24-bit internal sound card, and an 8x AGP Nvidia Geforce FX 5600 graphics card. All of this is old hardware, which Ubuntu will run on without a problem. It will even use the Nvidia card without problem. Getting the hardware to work isn't the issue.

Prior to version 7.10, the app on the System > Preferences menu had a tab in it that let you manually select what make and model monitor that you are using. By default, using the frame buffer, Ubuntu supports a maximum resolution of 800x600 using my hardware and the dual-mode Sun Microsystems 21" CRT that I got off Craigslist.com some time ago. The monitor driver that X.org, the graphical frontend of Linux, selected was always "Default Monitor". Users like myself were able to manually change this so we could get larger resolutions like 1024x786. The reason why this is important is because at 800x600 the screen is huge. Everything is BIG, and sometimes windows are too big to fit on the entire screen and you can't resize them to see the rest of what is there. At 1024x786 you reduce this problem greatly.

Version 7.04 was also one of the first versions of Ubuntu to use an OpenGL 3D accelerated desktop (via Compiz Fusion) that makes the accelerated desktops of Windows Vista and Windows 7 both pale in comparison. Among the many features of this accelerated desktop was the Enhanced Desktop Zoom and Color Inversion. Anyone who used Mac OS X for some time will know about these features. You can zoom into anywhere on the desktop and the view will pan with your mouse. The color inversion was also helpful for reading text. Being visually impaired these features are absolutely essential, and having a 1024x786 display is required for me to make it all usable. But, with version 7.10 all the way to the current version 10.04 there has been a problem which has impaired my ability to use Ubuntu properly.

The ability to select your monitor as taken out, and instead it was left up to X.org to automatically detect what kind of monitor you had. So, when you install Ubuntu it supports a maximum resolution of 800x600 without the Nvidia drivers installed. Once you install the Nvidia drives the maximum supported resolution drops to an utterly useless 640x480. Previous, I've been using the settings for my monitor copied from xorg.conf configuration text file from Ubuntu 7.04 to fix this. However, doing this breaks some things. For one, the login screen doesn't display correctly. You don't see the whole thing, and sometimes it doesn't pan with the mouse so you cannot access the additional options other than the user login portion. It also breaks the ability of the Nvidia X Server Configuration tool (on Windows this is the Nvidia Control Panel) to make changes permanent - ie; write changes to the xorg.conf file which X.org often uses to save video settings. Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 changed how they used the xorg.conf files and so using the copy & pasted settings for my monitor had the effect of again breaking things.

During all of this I submitted bug reports and talked about it on the Ubuntu Support and Sounder groups, which are official Ubuntu affiliated mailing lists. This was some time ago, and in all that time nothing was done. Some talk about the issue was posted on the bug report, but no indication was made that anything was being done to address the problem. Lacking the ability to adjust the monitor driver from within X.org basically made it impossible for me to really use the features I need due to my disability. Ubuntu 10.04 gave me some hope. The HAL, Hardware Abstraction Layer, was being replaced with a new tool-set called DeviceKit. It was my hope that Ubuntu would then properly detect my monitor so I could use the accelerated desktop and its special features. I was only partially right. Version 10.04 has the newest Linux kernel that has the Nouveau 2D Nvidia graphics drivers. These are open-source drivers not written by Nvidia but a third party development community. With just those drivers working Ubuntu 10.04 supported a maximum resolution of 1024x786 with my graphics card and monitor. However, these were just the 2D accelerated drivers that don't support glx, the OpenGL drivers that Ubuntu needs for its 3D accelerated desktop. So, I used the tool in Ubuntu to install the Nvidia 3D drives, and boom my resolution was reduced to 640x480 again and I had no way of changing my monitor settings. I tried copying & pasting my monitor settings in the xorg.conf file like before and X.org refused to start. I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall.

Its sad that one tiny flaw is forcing me to abandon Ubuntu. At least until this problem is finally addressed. I intend to evangelize this problem on the official Ubuntu Accessibility mailing list so people know this is a big problem, and that I'm not the only one having it. Until this is fixed or I am somehow able to get a new monitor that Ubuntu will play nice with, I won't be able to use Ubuntu. Recently I've delved into a distribution I haven't played with in a long time. Mandriva. Back in the day it was Mandrake, a Redhat based distribution that many newcomers to Linux often tried because it was made for beginners and was user friendly. The rise of Ubuntu has taken it out of the spotlight, and the company behind Mandriva has fallen on hard times prompting them to seek a buyer. Otherwise, it is a great distribution, though its not as shiny and polished as Ubuntu. Still it has some user friendly refinements that even Ubuntu hasn't adopted yet. My sights are set on trying SimplyMEPIS, a Debian based distribution (like Ubuntu) that is known to be almost as polished as Ubuntu is when it comes to being user-friendly.

Switching away from Ubuntu though has taught me some things. Its taught me just how far ahead of the curve Ubuntu really is in comparison to other distributions, It really is that far ahead of everyone else, but there are areas in which it could be better. Otherwise, as is, Ubuntu is definitely ready for the average mom & pop computer user. My hope is the company behind Ubuntu, a UK firm called Canonical, will finally fix the screen resolution issue I've talked about. They really need to fix it and doing is in their own best interest.

Everything Has a Beginning

This is my beginning, my first actual Blog. For a while now I've been thinking about setting one of these up. Figuring out what I'm wanting to say has been the hardest part. I'm known mostly for my anime fan fiction at FanFiction.net, and I have quite a following. Anime is something that I am passionate about. Its a truly unique art form representing a country that has a very unique culture and history. Indeed, anime has had an indelible impact on the United States and the rest of the world.

Anime isn't the only thing that I'm about though. While its my main passion, I'm also about a lot of other things. Things like gaming, technology, science, movies, spirituality, politics, and more. So, this is where I will express all my unique thoughts on many different subjects. Not everyone will agree with me, and I will undoubtedly offend some with my views. But, that's alright, because if we dismiss and hide from dissenting views how can we grow as a people. The world would be a very boring place if everyone had the same spiritual beliefs, had the same opinions, had the same views on morality, or liked the same movies. Luckily, we're all different and in our diversity we are strong.

On that note, let me say that there likely won't be a dull moment here. My views are varied and sometimes wild, and I'm not afraid to break beyond the mainstream. Just remember that we'll all different in our own special way and only through learning about one another can we learn to get along.

So it begins.