Wikipedia:Peer review/Ubuntu/archive2

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Ubuntu

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for October 2008.

I've listed this article for peer review because it changed greatly since its last Featured Article review, and I think its an article worth of FA and close to the perfect article.

Thanks, Fixman^{Praise me} 22:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Wronkiew[edit]

"By keeping Ubuntu free and open Canonical is able to leverage the talents of outside developers willing to contribute rather than having to do all development within the company itself." Needs a comma after "open".
"Kubuntu and Xubuntu are official subprojects of the Ubuntu project, aiming to bring the KDE and Xfce desktop environments, respectively, to the Ubuntu core (by default Ubuntu uses GNOME for its desktop environment)." There are several problems with this sentence. One is that it is too long. Another is that, since it is the start of a paragraph, it does not adequately introduce the subjects Kubuntu and Xubuntu. Perhaps an additional sentence is needed, before this one, that explains that the paragraph will be talking about subprojects of Ubuntu. It would also be helpful to briefly explain why Ubuntu has subprojects.
"The next version will be 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and is currently in beta and is scheduled for release on 30th October 2008." The odd list form makes this difficult to read. "30th October" is not an accepted date form according to MoS.
"Ubuntu's first release was on October 20, 2004, as a temporary fork of the Debian project. This was done so that a new version of Ubuntu could be released every six months, resulting in a more frequently updated system." I could find no mention of a "fork" in the referenced source for this first sentence. This paragraph should start with an explanation of why Ubuntu was developed, then explain the release strategy, and then the date of the first release.
The Ubuntu Wiki is not a reliable source. Citing it is about as useful as citing a Wikipedia article.
"In contrast with previous general-purpose forks of Debian — such as MEPIS, Xandros, Linspire, Progeny and Libranet, many of which relied on proprietary and closed source add-ons as part of their business model — Ubuntu has stayed closer to Debian's philosophy and uses free (libre) software most of the time." This sentence is too long and complicated. "Most of the time" is not specific enough. Either explain under what conditions they use non-free software, or say that they prefer free software and leave it at that.
"The font is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and use with logos derived from the Ubuntu logo is encouraged." Encouraged by whom?
The article assumes that the reader has some familiarity with Debian. Many concepts such as packages, binary compatibility, and project forks need to be properly introduced. It needs to be explained what "Sarge" refers to.
"Ubuntu 8.04, released on April 24, 2008, is the current Long Term Support (LTS) release." Avoid statements that will look silly after Ubuntu X is released.
"Dell and System76 customers are able to choose between 30-day, three-month, and yearly Ubuntu support plans through Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company." The relationship between Ubuntu and Canonical has been established well enough at this point.
"Selected Dell machines running Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04 have proprietary, legal DVD playback capabilities using LinDVD." Abuse of commas. Also, there's a stray period after this sentence.
"Ubuntu focuses on usability, including the widespread use of the sudo tool for administrative tasks." That's an odd example to use to demonstrate "usability". This needs to be qualified by saying that Ubuntu focuses on usability compared to other Linux systems.
"The Ubiquity installer allows installing Ubuntu to the hard disk from within the Live CD environment without the need for restarting the computer prior to installation." Incorrect grammar. This is missing a word somewhere.
"Beginning with 5.04, UTF-8 became the default character encoding." Most people reading this are not going to understand what character encodings have to do with internationalization.
Either space out em dashes or don't, but usage should be consistent.
"Users can download the installation CD .ISO image, or even request CDs free of charge (with free shipping) from http://www.ubuntu.com/." Some readers might find the term "users" odd. The term ISO is overly technical for this section. External links should be moved out to the appropriate section.
The paragraph on Wubi needs to be rewritten. Start by introducing the term Wubi. Stay clear of technical details like "virtual loop device" and just explain why you would want to use it. It isn't clear from reading this if UNetbootin is used in conjunction with or instead of Wubi.
The remastering section could be expanded somewhat.
Merge the first two paragraphs of "Alternate installation".
Briefly explain what a server is on first use of the term.
Maybe move all discussion of USB installations into the Live USB section.
I didn't understand the backports paragraph at all.
"Third party software certified with Ubuntu should work well in Ubuntu." I think most people will understand what certification is without needing to read this.
"The package ubuntu-restricted-extras additionally contains software that may be legally restricted, including support for MP3 and DVD playback, Microsoft TrueType core fonts, Sun's Java runtime environment, Adobe's Flash Player plugin, many common audio/video codecs, and unrar, an unarchiver for .rar files." That is not an effective description of unrar.
"Ultamatix (based on the old Automatix) can also install many popular software that may be difficult to install in other ways." This sentence assumes that the reader understands what Automatix is. Also, the term Ultamatix is not properly introduced.
"Releases are timed to be approximately one month after GNOME releases, which are in turn about one month after releases of X.org." Replace with "Ubuntu release schedules are based on those of its major components. This is generally a month after GNOME, which is in turn released a month after the X.org graphics system." Also, X.org could use a wikilink.
Readers should be able to tell what section names are talking about after reading only the lead section. "ShipIt" needs to be explained in the lead, moved to a different section, or renamed.
Information about CD shipping should be consolidated into one section, instead of being split up between the "Live CD" and "ShipIt" sections.
"Other variants and earlier versions are available for Internet download, but not via ShipIt." This is redundant.
"Of the official variants, Kubuntu and Edubuntu are also available free of charge via mail order through Ubuntu's ShipIt service" This is a duplicate sentence. Also it is missing a period.
"These Ubuntu variants simply install a set of packages different from the original Ubuntu, but since they draw additional packages and updates from the same repositories as Ubuntu, all of the same software is available for each of them." Missing a comma after "but".
"These different versions correspond to development efforts run by largely separate groups of people who try to bring different functionalities to the distribution; increased stability and/or usability for differing end-user needs implemented through various default program configurations and user interface customizations." Improper use of the semicolon. Either replace it with a comma, or make the part after the semi into a full sentence.
"Some server releases also support the SPARC architecture in addition to Intel x86 and AMD64." Redundant, replace with "Some server releases add support for the SPARC architecture."
"Computers that do not meet the minimum recommended system requirements are suggested to try Xubuntu, based on Xfce, which requires roughly half of the RAM and disk space." The relationship between Xubuntu and Xfce was already established earlier in the article.
"Ubuntu has been the most viewed Linux distribution on Distrowatch.com three years running: 2005, 2006, 2007 and is currently the most viewed for 2008." Add a "for" before "three years". Also, most readers will not understand the significance of Distrowatch.com views. Really, the article would be better without this whole paragraph.
"Specifically, Ars Technica felt that Transmission (a BitTorrent client) was too simple for BitTorrent power users, that the default search system Tracker was inferior to Beagle and that the PulseAudio configuration that shipped was buggy (a view shared by Pulseaudio creator Lennart Poettering, who states, "Ubuntu didn't exactly do a stellar job [adopting PulseAudio]. They didn't do their homework")." This sentence is too long. In particular, break the quote out to a new sentence.
Eliminate "See also" links that are already wikilinked in the article.
The "Notes" section is messed up for me. Note "b" follows "a" without a line break.
Web citations need publisher names. Generally, every source citation should name at least one responsible person or entity.
The emphasis on wikis and blogs in the citations list will be a problem at FAC.
It's not clear to me why some citations are in the "Citations" section and some are in "References".
"The Official Ubuntu Book" needs a better citation.

I've tried to complete all but the following, which I havn't had a chance to get to:

The Ubuntu Wiki is not a reliable source. Citing it is about as useful as citing a Wikipedia article.
The article assumes that the reader has some familiarity with Debian. Many concepts such as packages, binary compatibility, and project forks need to be properly introduced. It needs to be explained what "Sarge" refers to.
"Ubuntu 8.04, released on April 24, 2008, is the current Long Term Support (LTS) release." Avoid statements that will look silly after Ubuntu X is released.
Either space out em dashes or don't, but usage should be consistent.
"Users can download the installation CD .ISO image, or even request CDs free of charge (with free shipping) from http://www.ubuntu.com/." Some readers might find the term "users" odd. The term ISO is overly technical for this section. External links should be moved out to the appropriate section.
"Releases are timed to be approximately one month after GNOME releases, which are in turn about one month after releases of X.org." Replace with "Ubuntu release schedules are based on those of its major components. This is generally a month after GNOME, which is in turn released a month after the X.org graphics system." Also, X.org could use a wikilink.
Eliminate "See also" links that are already wikilinked in the article.
The "Notes" section is messed up for me. Note "b" follows "a" without a line break.
Web citations need publisher names. Generally, every source citation should name at least one responsible person or entity.
The emphasis on wikis and blogs in the citations list will be a problem at FAC.
It's not clear to me why some citations are in the "Citations" section and some are in "References".
"The Official Ubuntu Book" needs a better citation.

ff m 12:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]