Why Ubuntu?

[Seneche]

I have been noticing that most of the problems Linux related here are based on an Ubuntu version. So my question is, why does everyone choose Ubuntu? I do not want to start a distro war here (because we all know Opensuse would win ), but what gives people? You see all these issues with Ubuntu and still like it   ? so anyways, just wondering, what is it that other Linux's can't do that makes you like Ubuntu, because it's certainly not the most robust distro by any means.

[bilbous]

It is geared towards new users moreso than others, has an active community and will mail you install cds for free. It uses Gnome so I do not like it, of course suse is in bed with MS and used reiser fs by default so I don't use it either. I'm not really married to any flavor, other than KDE but some java app or freebsd just trashed my mandriva so I am stuck with Fedora atm.

That is of course more than you asked for, maybe I'll try and get my Slack going again....

[Xordan]

There's always Kubuntu (which I prefer myself) if you don't like gnome.

But yeah, Ubuntu is favoured by most newbies to linux and I'd recommend it for newbies too People generally have problems because they're new and aren't really aware of the graphics issues that linux can have, mainly in configuration.. I think that if newbies picked any other distro, we'd see a large amount of problems based on that other distro.

[Nukm]

well, im using ubuntu now for one year and did not have any specific ubuntu issue that couldnt be easily solved until now with planeshift...

i am just using it because it was the first linux distro i tried and it was good to work with from the beginning.
maybe it is because i dont understand enough of what is going on under the hood, but why should i use another distro? never had any probs with ubuntu and right now i dont see anything that i could do with another distro that i cant do with ubuntu.

[Seneche]

Well I suppose that sums it up, but I still had more problems with it than anything,.

[bilbous]

I really dislike the sudo philosophy of ubuntu, I have had it installed before. As I have stated before the first thing I do is sudo passwd root and change my root password to something a million other ubuntu users do not have. This allows me to login to a shell as root to do my business and there was an issue a couple versions back where the root password was visible in plain text in the file system which was a security issue. I just do not like having the developers know my root password and me not knowing it. Possibly paranoia on my part but easy enough to fix.

[monktbd]

I really dislike the sudo philosophy of ubuntu, I have had it installed before. As I have stated before the first thing I do is sudo passwd root and change my root password to something a million other ubuntu users do not have. This allows me to login to a shell as root to do my business and there was an issue a couple versions back where the root password was visible in plain text in the file system which was a security issue. I just do not like having the developers know my root password and me not knowing it. Possibly paranoia on my part but easy enough to fix.

uhm...

sudo -s

gives you a root shell as well....

the visible password bug was really quite a shock but got fixed pretty fast back then. more annoying was the crash of the xserver for a dapper update that got fixed fast as well but was inacceptable for new linux users.
why should the developers know your root password though? if you did not set one for the root account there simply is none.

as for distributions:
ubuntu or mandriva for me (got chased by mandriva who decided to put a beta version of the xserver in the final product of the 2006 and being pretty outdated for the 2005).
i still think that mandriva is better for new users although you find easier help for ubuntu if you have a question.
also i prefer deb to rpm.

and to the original posters question: clearly all the problems with ubuntu and planeshift are posted because it is used most often and also most often by new linux users, as was stated above. i have no problems besides the sound disappearing sometimes which does not really disturb me.

[miadon]

Seeing so much "Ubuntu Porn" everywhere is driving me nuts 8| I really dislike Ubuntu.

[evil scotsman]

I don't think the problems are so much with Ubuntu, as with the present state of the Linux client, and it's probably the fact that Ubuntu has a large user base at present, especially with new users, and lets face it, Linux isn't the most user-friendly OS for running anything as demanding on the user as Planeshift.

Many problems are related to drivers, and as a long time Linux user, I know that drivers can be difficult to get running, anyone who has tried to upgrade or update a kernel driver will tell you that it can descend into dependency hell pretty damn fast, to say nothing of requiring the kernel source, matching compiler and tools, and sometimes a broken kernel is all you end up with.

So unless someone knows of a distro that has the latest drivers, is easy to update/upgrade, comes with full kernel sources, is in active and has a good user support community behind it, i'll be sticking with my own personal favourite, it's not Ubuntu, or any of it's other flavours, it's slackware based, and it's not really new user friendly, but i'm used to it...... Now all I have to do is install an Nvidia driver based on an older kernel version that I don't have distro kernelsource for...........

 

[Seneche]

I use Opensuse 10.2. It's not to user friendly to new users, and it does not include the latest kernel unless you update, but community is great, an I love it. So I think that the problems are with Ubuntu, because Opensuse works fine. And this was a general Linux question, having nothing to do with planeshift, so drivers, etc don't matter.

[monktbd]

I use Opensuse 10.2. It's not to user friendly to new users, and it does not include the latest kernel unless you update, but community is great, an I love it. So I think that the problems are with Ubuntu, because Opensuse works fine. And this was a general Linux question, having nothing to do with planeshift, so drivers, etc don't matter.

i really doubt it is that much distribution based, i still use dapper and have no problems besides the sound but there it can either be my hardware with two sound cards in use in combination with an already old alsa system.
i think the problems are bound to specific hardware and distribution/kernel version/graphics driver version. a general "does not work well with [insert distribution here]" is just wrong in my eyes. i have seen too many things on linux working for one person and not for the other within the same distribution version to blame a distribution entirely.

to deepen the original question why i chose ubuntu: back then when dapper came out it was arguably the most complete distribution out there with an easy installation and gnome. it came with long term support and i didnt feel like changing my distribution version every 6 months or every year to be fine with (security) updates. also the ubuntu community is big enough to provide backports for quite a few applications. compiling some that do not exist myself was rarely a problem. i have an old computer so my hardware is well supported by older kernels making a kernel upgrade to a newer version unnecessary. by no means i think that ubuntu is the best distribution around for everyone and i am glad that so many distributions exist and a lot are even very good ones. the real enemy sits in redmond .

[z44sms]

Why Ubuntu?

I tried Debian, RedHat(Fedora), and Sun(SUSE). 

First:  Debian 4 / 10

It's got over 4 dvd's and not one GOOD thing comes on by default. I mean ZERO. It's gives you like the worst possible tools in the LINUX community on KDE / Gnome and ZERO plug-ins installed.  For god sakes it's 2007 and it's just coming out with a graphical install process this year.  You only can download it with some PEER-TO-PEER software basically sit around for 4 days to collect your ISO.  Worst out of the box setup I seen since slackware in 1996. The only redeeming qualities are it's community is huge, software archive is massive, and it's pretty much the only true Linux outlet for open source left. 

Second: Fedora 8 / 10

You got a good packaging system RPM one of the first. Nice overall install it's kinda a big pain to go into MULTI-VERSE (MP3,WMV, ect) your DVDs don't even play by default. You got to go in an add alot of software also FEDORA is still part of Redhat. Who knows maybe RedHat will just shut it down one day.   Takes 1 DVD or 3 CDs.

Third: SuSE 7 / 10

You pretty much the exact same thing as FEDORA only different is I don't like its interface as well but it has
better system utilities for admin. 1 DVD or 3 CDs.

Lastly: Ubuntu/Kubuntu 9  / 10

You got a SINGLE CD I don't have to wait >2 days to collect my downloaded ISO.  I can boot off the CD and use a LIVE version right away with the POPULAR TOOLS.  The whole point of Ubuntu is to give YOU (DESKTOP) tools that doesn't happen with Debian.  You got the most popular tools based on stats. Already nstalled on KDE or GNOME.  You can install the thing with only 5 questions.  You can open up the package viewer view by popular tools that were not installed but you need like a backup program / Anti-virus extra, on click then hit apply.  You click it and it's done.  Also the issues above with MULTIVERSE / non-free, Ubuntu's setup puts in the websites / FTPs to access the multi-verse or non-free in for you automatically so you don't spend all day in setting up the box.  The amount of waisted time I spent looking for non-free sites for playing my codecs is huge and setting up repositories that I hope don't have mal-ware is another issue.   Only downsides are Ubuntu tried to make the desktop too safe with SUDO everywhere.  However, you can just go into add users and put root's password in and enable root and your done.  Also their manual partitions setup at first install could use some work. But overall it's the best Open Source Linux distributions I have seen lately.   

[Xordan]

and Sun(SUSE).

Novell, not Sun Sun makes Solaris.

You got to go in an add alot of software also FEDORA is still part of Redhat. Who knows maybe RedHat will just shut it down one day.

What's wrong with RedHat?

[bilbous]

Well Rathead is American and they are the source of all evil to some people. I added the Freshrpms repository and have had no trouble playing anything. But Fedora is a distinct entity from RedHat, it was spun off a couple years ago.

Novell is in bed with Microsoft, that is an issue for some people, I really did not like their defaulting to reiserfs but now that its copyright holder is in jail for killing his wife Suse should be going back to extfs.

I personally like Mandriva  but my drive it was on is in the process of pulling a "mission impossible"(this message will self-destruct...) so I am going to have to re-install it when I get a new drive. Most of the distributions do not enable the (possibly) illegal software repositories but it is generally pretty simple to do for yourself once you know where to look. The distro forums usually have links.

I like to have several distributions set up but it can be a pain setting the boot loader, as usually they only look to see if windows is there and do not recognize other linuxes. They often offer to update another distribution to theirs but will not add it to grub if you leave it as is. I suppose that is not too surprising.

Anyways trying to keep several distributions updated is sheer madness.

[Cyl]

Well I can just speak for myself, but I started off with Gentoo right away, and had a VERY hard time figuring things out...