Ubuntu becoming -too- mainstream?

[fuscia]

I remember a time when I would only listen to indie/alt rock music; anything remotely popular I would trash right away, other genres would have to be connected with indie/alt in some way before I would touch it.

Then my former guitar teacher thought it would be fun play the riff in some Justin Timberlake as a duet. I was all "Haha, Justin Timberlake - you've got to be kidding me", but when he played the riff afterwards, I could suddenly hear it wasn't half as bad as I'd thought it would sound; actually, it sounded really good.

Not to say I'm a Justin Timberlake fan now or anything, but this serves to illustrate a point: everyone needs to find their own niche(s) in some way, it's only natural and it's a good/healthy thing to do, but as long as you're excluding everything else you miss out on, well, everything else. In my opinion, it's just another maturity process you need to go through.

These days I listen to all sort of different music based on the merits of the songs and artists.

you're lucky to have learned this lesson. so many people feel a need to think that what they like is also 'the best'. it makes about as much sense as saying "i like candy, therefore, it is nutritionally sound."

edit: you know what? it's not even what they like. it's what they think will make them look cool. people who like what they like don't care what others think about their tastes.

[henriquemaia]

[...]people who like what they like don't care what others think about their tastes.

Couldn't agree more. The relation between us and our taste does not include "others".

[missmoondog]

without reading all of the post's, i figured this would be about the goofed up updates lately, and thinking it was becoming so popular that they quit testing as thoroughly just to rush stuff out to the masses!

[Brunellus]

without reading all of the post's, i figured this would be about the goofed up updates lately, and thinking it was becoming so popular that they quit testing as thoroughly just to rush stuff out to the masses!

if that's what you thought, you are obviously not cool enough to sit at the cool kids' table with the OP.

[Rhubarb]

Interesting thread.
Was just thinking that the more popular Ubuntu is, the more distro junkies (myself included) it will create.
Which will just encourage people to try out some other Linux distro. Personally I would like to try out suse and the new look fedora and ....... the list goes on.
Ultimately people will realise that there are other OS's out there to suit their needs.

[KhaaL]

ubuntu is not mainstream enough. if it was, we'd have more game and software publishers that support linux platform. I have been on and off linux since RH 6.0, but the elitism in linux people really made me sick. The one and ONLY reason i continued with ubuntu is because of the helpful people on these forums (who obviously does not suffer from having too much helium in their heads syndrome, a la the average 1337 linux user).

Even after i installed ubuntu, i kept swearing at it for not being more user friendly and for giving me headache for tasks done with one click in windows. But now that I have everything tailored to my taste I'm running ubuntu as my main OS. would someone call me a nublet for running ubuntu, I'd just smirk and ignore them. my choice of OS isn't affected by peoples illusions.

(PS: Buzzygirl, you avatar rocks!)

[xhaan]

I have been on and off linux since RH 6.0, but the elitism in linux people really made me sick. The one and ONLY reason i continued with ubuntu is because of the helpful people on these forums (who obviously does not suffer from having too much helium in their heads syndrome, a la the average 1337 linux user).

[HAARP]

ubuntu is not mainstream enough. if it was, we'd have more game and software publishers that support linux platform.

Linux has to be more popular, not Ubuntu in particular.

I kinda get where you're coming from: You want to use something that doesn't have to live up to the hype that surrounds it, something that has the freedom to be radical. Not hard or obscured but fresh, nimble and unencumbered by expectations.
Its important to understand that eventually a project will mature and if its great the mainstream will want in too.

I would suggest however, that you install something like vmware and start trying out different OS.

One that may suit you is Nexenta, basically ubuntu running on the opensolaris kernel. Its still in the alpha stage(v5) and I think it would give you that sense of being in the underground while not being completely lost.

And don't feel bad for expressing an opinion that others disagree with. Its these opinions that stir debate, and through such debate we learn about ourselves, others, issues, and where we stand on such issues.

Finally someone who understands! Does Nexenta support i386 binaries? Because I need that .