Using Unbuntu Christian Edition – a Review
tompossin November 15th, 2006
The last time I saw this distribution discussed it degenerated quickly into a flame war that had nothing to do with the merits of the distribution. Recently I saw that there was an update to the distribution. I had a bit of time so I thought I would take it for a spin and see what it was actually like. While this review is brief I hope to cover the major features that differentiate this distribution from Ubuntu its parent distribution and rate its overall usefulness.
Getting Started:
First Impressions:
My first attempt at booting into this live CD edition of Ubuntu ended in a hung machine. This was disappointing. However, when I tried again with the safe video mode it booted perfectly. Since this probably had more to do with my old twitchy test hardware than the distro I give them a pass on this one.
On with the install:
Upon booting up I was taken to a nice looking albeit brownish (not a big fan of brown) desktop. The desktop contained a single icon named Install. So a gave it a click.
The first series of screens are very familiar keyboard, time, and user account screens followed by a pretty straight forward partitioner. I chose the defaults and let it do its thing to see what a vanilla install produces. It promptly erased my hard disk and installed the basic desktop package and asked me if I wanted to reboot.
All in all very quick a painless.
Whats in the Basic install:
The out of the box menu selections included just the basics which is something that I really like. The last choice on the menu under system was automatix which simplified the installation of common free and non-free software like adobe acrobat, mp3 codecs, gnucash, Java and many other common addons. I had never used automatix before and I have to say, as simple as synaptic is, automatix is even easier. I loved it.
While I am on the subject of non-free things I would make one request of the Ubuntu CE people.
Find a way to provide dvd playback codecs legally.
Linspire for example, has purchased the required licenses and although it means that you have to pay for the software with the non-free codecs, I think it is a more responsible position to fight for change from than from the position of taking it, using it, then demanding it be free. I wish things worked differently in this world but this is the reality of the law right now. I would like to see legitimate alternatives provided for those that want these abilities legally. At this point a Christian is left with the choice (stated in big red letters when you open Automatix) of either breaking the law or not watching DVDs. This is not a very attractive set of choices for a Christian. I hope that the Ubuntu CE people and others in the Linux community figure out a way to resolve this issue. While I think we all would like to see sanity brought into the area of codecs, patents, copyright, and fair use I would prefer to fight that fight from the moral high ground.
What’s special about Ubuntu CE:
Once you have the software you wish to use installed and up to date it’s time to look at the things that make this distribution different from a standard installation of Ubuntu.
Parental Controls:
This is probably the main feature that sets this version of Ubuntu apart from all the others that I have tried. The Parental Controls panel is really just a front end for Dansguardian. Although it is not as refined as it could be, compared to installing and configuring these packages from scratch, this is like a miracle. Without doing anything, it is set to filter web content at the strictest level and this is probably the setting that a Christian parent (who I assume is the target audience) would want. And if not, adjusting and even disabling the filter is relatively easy in the new control panel.
I said relatively. This kind of front end makes it possible for non-technical people to filter content on their computer and this is highly desirable especially in the Christian community. However, this control panel is still very raw and in need of a lot of polish both functionally and cosmetically. And until that polishing is accomplished I think there should be a big obvious button somewhere for returning all the settings back to the default setup. I am guessing it would not be too hard to get things fairly well fouled up with the current interface and leave the user unable to get back where he or she started.
As far as how well the filtering worked it was basically what I expected. You will still be searching the images pages on Google and other places at your own risk. But this software will not let you search Google with Google’s own filtering turned off. This product is no substitute for parental supervision and a healthy dialog between parents and children. On the up side though it did block the majority of inappropriate material and provided a very useful log of blocked sites to help parents understand what their kids are doing on the Internet. Furthermore, sites and filtering rules can be easily added or subtracted from the parental control panel. This protection coupled with healthy parental supervision will help parents keep an eye on what their kids are doing on the Internet. Armed with this knowledge parents should be able to dialog with their child about their behavior on the Internet and take appropriate action.
Overall I would give this filtering setup a C+ to B- but all filtering solutions that I have used have similar weaknesses and I would rate none of them much higher than this. Compared to the unfiltered Internet it is a huge improvement and given the current state of Internet content, a necessary inconvenience for anyone with a family online in my opinion.
Ubuntu Christian Edition Installer:
It could be argued that this is really an unnecessary feature however for those new to Ubuntu and Linux I think it is a great way to get people started installing Bible study and educational software and even a complete alternative desktop. Ichthux Desktop (Ichthys is the little fish symbol) is basically Kubuntu CE for those that prefer a KDE environment.
Overall I found this installer to be simple and logically organized for home users to install and remove common software easily. For those that prefer more control it is still Ubuntu and all the tools Ubuntu has, Ubuntu CE has as well.
Overall Impressions:
I have to be honest and say that I expected a lot of cheesy artwork and campy Christian doodads. I am very pleased with the focus on usability and tools for Mom and Pop type users. I have been a fan of Ubuntu and Kubuntu from the beginning but the small helper programs added by this package coupled with the easy install and simple un-cluttered menus give this version of Ubuntu a lot to crow about.
In fact I hope that the core Ubuntu team looks at some of these ideas and incorporates them into Ubuntu. I think there are some good proof of concept ideas here for making the Linux desktop more accessible to the non-technical audience. While at the same time not reducing its power for those that are more savvy.
Bottom line assessment:
When asked by the readers of this site, this is the distribution that I will recommend hands down for anyone wanting a desktop replacement for their computer.
You can download a copy for yourself here.
My Ratings:
Install : 9
Would have been a 10 except for the failed first attempt at handling my video setup.
Usability : 9
Stills needs polish on the parental control panel but I think it was the easiest overall for setup, installation, and updating of any distro I have used so far. The clean menus and selection of apps gave a strong first impression of an environment that is clean, clear, and easy to use.
Apps : 8
Big plus for the idea of a parental control panel but it still needs polish. The other negative is that it is built on Dapper which means that it uses OOo 2.02 which is noticeably weaker than 2.04 in speed and PDF features and other small idiosyncrasies. My not so secret wish is that major apps like OOo would update independently of the distribution especially for a distribution that is going to be supported as long as Dapper is slated to be.
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Good review. I appreciate the effort you made to evaluate it solely on its technical merits, without descending into the flamewar territory.
“At this point a Christian is left with the choice (stated in big red letters when you open Automatix) of either breaking the law or not watching DVDs.”
I believe this only applies if you live in the USA ~ 300 million people out of world’s 6500 million approx 5% affected by this.
Perhaps there are other countries?
I agree with the poster above that it is an informative review. Concerning the filtering it is a difficult question – do you give non skilled people the opportunity to use it (when there are proxy server, firewall and filtering software all working together) or do you leave it to system admins to put on servers?
I guess I could have been more clear and said Christians in the USA. But I think having as many users as USA represents is a big enough problem to warrant consideration.
My point was basically I would prefer to argue these issues in the US from the position of a user in compliance with current laws, rather than civil disobedience.
As for filtering I have been (am) involved with filtering on an organizational level and as a consultant for individual users. I have learned there is no one size fits all solution for this. Outsourced filtering services or even organization wide solutions tend to be too rigid to please a lot of people. The good filters tend to be a little overzealous and if the individual has no way to quickly whitelist or blacklist sites filtering can be very frustrating.
Ultimately I liked this approach because it puts control back in the users hands while at the same time providing reasonable filtering and logging services.
{:> Tom