So games are the clearly the first scapegoat. What next?

I usually condemn bashing a community, but the Ubuntu community is pretty much my only exception. $10 says there was probably an upstream fix, or quite possibly the bug stemmed from the way Ubuntu implemented NetworkManager - because they are known for having a bad implementation of NM just like they're known for their HORRID implementation of PulseAudio (not that even a good implementation of PA is particularly good).

Half the problem with Ubuntu is a whole is that the community are merely "fans", not the heart and soul of the project ala Debian, Arch and even Fedora despite being largely made up of RH employees. Community input and steering are almost non-existent. If the community was properly integrated then the community could have quick turn-around on fixing problems. At the moment, the only reasonable way to get fixes in is to go to the upstream projects and *hope* Ubuntu pulls down your code in a reasonable time-frame (if at all) - because working with upstream is a foreign concept in the Ubuntu work-flow. The cabal of Ubuntu devs short-cut sanity and apply patches downstream. The concept of working with upstream is so foreign in-fact that the use of PPAs is common place.. This behaviour is completely broken because it is not user friendly, it is not friendly to the wider open source community, it is not good for security and it is possibly leading users down the road of having data that or practices that are incompatible with any other fork of the software.

BTW, did you even try WICD as an alternative to NetworkManager? It would work around any NM specific problems and provide a far cleaner solution. In short you probably provided the classing "poor hackjob solution" I was referring to.

You should probably find the outdated and inaccurate documentation/forum post on how to install a spell checker. Have fun.

Ubuntu has a terrible support community and the packages are usually full of silly bugs that no other distro has. I know this sounds like Troll bait... But the reasoning behind my statement is that they consistently suggest the most bizarre fixes for even common problems. If there is a "root of the problem" they will never attack that, but rather suggest outlandish (and nearly always incorrect) fixes for all the child problems instead. This is not productive or enjoyable. Ubuntu refuses to cooperate with upstream projects - they'd rather ignore them and cry when things don't work.

If you like Ubuntu, try Debian or some sort of direct Debian derivative instead. Unlike what many people like to say, Ubuntu is *not* Debian.

You mentioned that you like the look of Arch Linux - great distribution and excellent community. Unfortunately your skills are not up to the level that *mainline* Arch requires, but this does not prevent you from using a friendlier derivative. I suggest Cinnarch as the best friendly derivative because unlike Manjaro or Chakra it uses the main Arch repos instead trying to mix (well actually, that's not completely true, but for the purpose of the argument it is) and become broken as a result.

Another really good choice is Fedora - great distribution and excellent community. There are a lot of RPM haters but the truth is that anybody who has used a *modern* RPM based system knows that common arguments thrown up by crotchety old neck-beards and rabid Ubuntu fanbois are moot. There are a lot of haters of the new installer and not without reason - but keep in mind that most of that hate is purely hype. Of course there is going to be problems with the first iteration of any software.

ownCloud News is in alpha, but it is not a third party app - so it's pretty good quality. https://github.com/owncloud/apps/tree/master/news and the main guys blog (screenshots): http://algorithmsforthekitchen.com/blog/

Hopefully there is a public instance running ownCloud News for those people who don't run their own ownCloud instance. Most instances will probably enable ownCloud News when it comes out of alpha (very soon I think).

@Tchaikovsky dont even know what the drop is. #yomommasofat

Beethoven got dat fully sik bass. #yolo

This Steam for Linux is working on multiple distributions that are far more removed from Ubuntu than Debian - this has been the case for months now. I have it right here on Fedora, and I know it's available for Arch Linux too. The license for Steam has even been altered to make it easier for it to be repackaged and even hosted in distribution repositories.

For those interested in knowing what Codec2 is, there's a video from Linux Conference Australia 2012 which gives a pretty good (and gentle) overview.
http://mirror.linux.org.au/linux.conf.au/2012/Codec_2_Open_Source_Speech_Coding_at_2400_bits_and_Below.ogv

They're not selling well when compared to iPhones or many Android phones.

However the product is actually quite good (try it, prove me wrong) but the problem is that people aren't willing to give it a shot.
Hopefully the new Nokia Lumia 620 helps crack the mid/low end markets - I doubt quality-wise it will have many competitors in the price bracket. If they went with Android they'd probably be king of the hill right now.

I'm thinking that Nokia will die if they don't downsize, but if they do downsize they have a chance of rebuilding.

OP is correct. A good hard dose of truth! Though, personally, I think the Ouya has a chance of giving the casual low-fi game sector (where Nintendo is currently king) a big shake up. Just don't pretend that it is even close to a solution for serious gaming. Maybe in 3+ years when mobile graphics are stepped up a couple of notches.

I have no tangible proof, but generally PSUs that have an 80+ certification are generally much better quality than those that aren't. The peace of mind knowing that your PSU is likely to out-last the rest of your components is definitely worth it. Sometimes having your computer fail costs real world money (or equatable in-game money).

If this ends up supporting Adobe Creative Suite better than Wine, then that will be a huge win as it is a very common "why I can't use Linux" excuse.
How good is Apple's documentation compared to Microsofts? This is important for a clean-room implementation.

If it has a keyboard and mouse as first class citizens (or at least a mouse!) count me in, else forget about it.

Bandaid, meet solution.

This kids, is what we call a Bandaid Solution - its the type of solution that doesn't really fix anything and allows the problem to fester underneath. It is generally the only type of solution that Ubuntu community knows. Don't believe me? 9/10 posts on the forums suggest a dirty hack or the blood sacrifice of a goat (on a full moon) to "fix" a problem.

These idiots are the posterboys of Linux and hell, somehow even the posterboys of FOSS? Whoever is picking these posterboys needs to be dragged into the street and shot.

I think the real solution here is to re-align Open Source/Free Software community to one of the dozen other distributions which are much more suitable. Let Canonical hawk their crappy wares over in the corner.

You're pretty much right. Except for the part about the touchscreen device users who prefer Metro over Android and iOS. Anybody who has used WP7 and WP8 knows that the interface is freakin excellent. Hands down winner... I love it on a phone - I HATE it on a desktop.