I Love Ubuntu
I am curious by nature, and I’m always looking to see whether there’s something better over the horizon. I installed Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron the day after it was released, and I was impressed. But I knew there were other fine Linux distros out there, like Fedora 9, OpenSUSE, Arch, and others.
Recently I’ve tried a few of these on my laptop, but I invariably return to Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
Why? Here:
- It just works. You put the CD in, run the installer, and, after answering a few questions, you get a nice, working Linux system that supports your hardware and is ready to go. No extra configuration, no tweaking of the UI (do you hear me, Foresight?), the drivers are loaded, and everything’s happy.
- The default install is excellent. In the installer, you don’t pick packages to install. Instead, you get a default installation, which includes Firefox, Evolution (which I actually could do without), the OpenOffice core, Gnome, and common Gnome apps. That’s fine with me. Then, once the system is installed, I can pick the packages I want—Vim, Emacs, Eclipse, Thunderbird, and so on.
- The package repositories are vast and up-to-date. Want to install Orpie without building it from source? It’s available on a few other systems, but I’ve found that only Ubuntu has version 1.5.0 in the repos. If I want it, chances are high that it’s already in Ubuntu’s repos. Want to install Emacs 23, which uses Xft font rendering? Install the emacs-snapshot package.
- It’s not paranoid about “non-free” software. Some Linux users might call this a bad thing, but when I need an MP3 codec, I really don’t want to have to jump through hoops to get it. Yes, Ubuntu will warn you when you’re about to install these, but they’re in the repos, and you can just get them. Same with Sun’s JDK. For most purposes, I really don’t care whether it’s “free-as-in-speech” or not.
Those are the four main reasons I like Ubuntu. At this point in the world of Linux distros, if Linux is ever to make any substantial gains into the desktop market, it will be Ubuntu that does it.
You return to Ubuntu because you’re a lemming. You want to be a part of the cool, hip distro. How do I know this? Because it’s no more functional than any other distro. Most of the great things you think are cool about Ubuntu are just Gnome. Any Gnome distro out there would do it for you. Don’t believe me? Try Fedora. Try OpenSuse. Try Mandriva.
Give them an HONEST assessment. You’ll find like most do that Ubuntu is average at the most with a really nice community.
Most new users I show Mandriva/OpenSuse have to pick their jaws up off the floor. With Ubuntu, they look confused.
All of your points fit Debian exactly. MEPIS would work for you. Debian proper would work for you. Those points you deem so necessary for Ubuntu to be THE distro for you are points it shares with almost all of Linux now. Sorry man, I call BS on this one.
devnet
August 21, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Well I have tried other distros over the years but always came back to Ubuntu. For the same reasons you listed, it just works, on my laptop everything out of the box works (wifi, media buttons, hibernate, etc.) I really loving Ubuntu and am glad of they work the community does.
Mohan
August 21, 2008 at 8:03 pm
If default repositories in Ubuntu are vast and up to date, then what you think about openSUSE repositories like Packman, Banshee, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Mono, Wine or other up to date optimized repos at least for past 2 openSUSE releases… IMO that is what i call long term support.
reptilian
August 22, 2008 at 12:12 am
I’m with devnet on this one.
Those 4 reasons you gave sums up every major distro. Have you actually tried the latest Mandriva? What aout Deb or Fedora, SUSE? They are all hassle free. Seems like just another bit of Canonical marketing to me.
drakshug
August 22, 2008 at 3:29 am