Memory Hierarchy

Some notes on ubuntu-5.10 on an amd64 box. Ubuntu claims to be a "Linux for Human Beings" but these human beings better know some trivia:

• radeon vs ati - ubuntu chose to set X driver as ati but it should've been radeon. needless to say you must edit xorg.conf. i'll bet we will have to edit xorg.conf by hand until 2038.
  
• don't bother with 64-bit install: you'd still need to create chroot or something for 32-bit environment. annoying.
  
• you have to learn debian package management system --- yeah, ubuntu has a gui for that but it doesn't find things like gcc or libraries.
• ubuntu nags you about updates that lists new kernel versions, the latest sudo, this and that libraries - why bother ordinary human beings about the latest sudo or other gibberish like libmysqlclient14?
• lots of licensing issues force you to download & install flash and java by hand.
• dvd barely works after installing libdvdcss or some such; there are many players available but they all have crappy ui and none plays region coded dvd (vlc on mac could do it fine but not on ubuntu).
  
• system monitor is dumb (even when zip chews cpu, it shows 0% in the ps widget while showing maxed out graph).
• gnome desktop -- at least it's not KDE, otherwise just same old boring.
• In the middle of scp Ubuntu takes out the route in use from kernel ip route table! It turns out traceroute is not even installed.

If you're not a normal human being, you'd need some nasty bits like gcc that is not installed by default

• for gcc and the ilk: sudo apt-get install build-essential.
• groff is half-installed only with man macros.

Mac has none of the first set of problems and has a complete groff and makes users install gcc from its cd-rom. Once Mac for x86 for non-Apple gear comes out, I'll probably switch and forget ubuntu.