Ubuntu 11.10 sucks

The mouse pointer in Ubuntu cannot be modified without intense scrutiny and effort.

I cannot control the interface or even launch programs in the normal way when controlling a machine through VNC.

The Unity interface is ridiculous at this point.

The more I read about people having similar problems the more it comes to me that half my problems are due to an upgrade rather than a full fresh install. I've had this trouble before. I should have learned my lesson.

There is a new distro in town. Well not so much new as I'm finally willing to try it. It is called Linux Mint. My biggest gripe about Linux is the lack of usability for normal users. Mint is supposed to handle this. The more I read about it, the better I like it. I don't care if it uses a three year old release of Gnome as long as it works.

I tried Linux Mint. That is, I tried to install it. I tried to install it on 5 different boxes, all with the same result. The install crashed. This is two different images of the install disk and 5 different machines including two virtual machines. The install crashed in 5 different places, different on each machine. This does not instill confidence for the OS.

A new rule for Ubuntu may be in order. Ubuntu is a pretty good OS as long as you A) Don't messe with the interface settings and B) Do full installs instead of upgrading. This is a sad statement. This is a bad thing for the OS.

This shows a lack of testing. What I'm sure happens is that someone installes version A on a box freash. Then they upgrade it to what will become version B. If the machine does not catch fire, they declare victory and go make a sandwich. This doesn't help when people have their own settings and programs installed. Nothing from this line of thought is valid. "We can't test for everything." Especially, when they are not getting paid for the most part.

The same thing happens in Windows. When you upgraded from Vista to Windows 7, you found that all the problems continued. The only difference was some features went away and some new one's showed up. If you didn't do a fresh install, the problems stuck around. That is because you are the problem. You installed the shit software. You changed things to a combination that no one else had tried. The upgrade tries to keep the system as much the same as possible.