Why does Ubuntu have a reputation for hype?

[koenn]

Um, er - I do not think that Ford made the best automobiles there were. Still, he made automobiles the next best to household items. I bet many people were asking each other particulars about their 'Fords' even when they were visibly not Fords.

Lessons to learn?

Hm wait ... as there are those who for whom linux = ubuntu, you're saying that "Ford" has / had become a synonym for automobile ?
Where ? When ?

[popch]

And I bet the people who had cars that were not fords loathed it. Think about it, people who still care about coke vs. pepsi will correct you if you say you want a coke. I suppose no one really flips out and says "I want a puffs, not a kleenex", but honestly, who is passionate about their tissues. We still have people who insist that "linux" is the kernel and "GNU/Linux" is an operating system. Imagine how much worse it would become if "Ubuntu" became household slang for "linux".

(shudder). Do you mean like 'Hoover' for vacuum cleaner?

[igknighted]

I was unimpressed by Fedora, except that it did a great job with desktop effects. I think that with a good knowledge of Yum, the world of RPM, and a few other things, Fedora could make a great system. But for the effort, I'd rather customize a Debian or Arch GNOME creation.

I actually found that desktop effects were sort of a pain... but I had issues with a bug in the nvidia driver (100.14 I think), so once I downgraded to the 96XX driver it was fine.

I digress, the point is (and your opinion of Fedora backs this up) people care about their distro. Ubuntu users care about Ubuntu, but users of other distros do as well. They don't want to be Ubuntu, so to see the association everywhere is, well, mildly irritating to offensive at times.

[aysiu]

I don't really see what the big deal is. Your Puffs/Kleenex example is spot on. Sometimes a particular brand (for better or worse) becomes a substitute for the actual type of product. Xerox. Coke (and, yes, in some parts of the US all fizzy drinks, sodas, pops, or soft drinks are referred to as Coke).

Even iPod. I walk around with an ugly-*** Sandisk MP3 player, and people often refer to it as an iPod. It's clearly not an iPod, but people equate iPod with anything that's small and plays digital audio files through a headphone.

PC now refers almost exclusively to Windows PCs. Otherwise, people wouldn't say "Mac vs. PC"; they'd say "Mac vs. Windows PC."

Ubuntu is becoming, to many people, a stand-in for desktop Linux, and that's how it's going. I know that phenomenon is upsetting to some people, but that's what's happening. At least it'd get rid of the perception that there are hundreds of distributions for a new user to pick from--how on earth could one narrow it down?

[igknighted]

(shudder). Do you mean like 'Hoover' for vacuum cleaner?

Vaccuums, Tissues... these things no one really cares about. And I am not entirely condoning it, although it does bother me a bit. But regardless of whether or not you think it is trivial, many many people care.

[original_jamingrit]

I think it's not anything to worry about too much, there are already different versions of Ubuntu, It's not much of a jump for people to realize there are different distributions of Linux as well. As nice as it is, Ubuntu will never be the be and and end all of Linux.

Maybe Ubuntu will become popular enough overshadow some other distros, but it won't be the reason that any of them fade into obscurity. If anything Ubuntu will make people familiar enough with Linux and FOSS that they'll say "huh, now that I've downloaded and installed the Ubuntu CD, I see that there are some other versions of Linux out there I might be interested in trying out."

Does that sound reasonable, or am I being too optimistic?

[DoctorMO]

so to the linux=ubuntu school of thought trivializes something that matters to me.

Now you know how annoyed Stallman is that people call gnu, linux. And your not even a programmer for red hat. You should have said "so to the gnu=ubuntu school of thought" but already you're using distorted names.

As for development... Ubuntu develops quite a bit, they may not be developing the next best zen server widget; but ubuntu is developing something which has been neglected in the free software world for too long: __Integration__ It may be the preserve of sys admins and elite programmers to trivialise integration work, but ultimately ubuntu owes it's fame to taking existing projects and making them all work together well; sometimes it does this with patches, fixes or just organising people; other times it develops those little extra tools, widgets or gui features.

My point is that ubuntu's fame is no freak accident, Ubuntu went after a specific market space that was well placed to give it a lot of hype: Home desktop users. it also has generated a lot of hype by delivering something many people have been asking for: a viable alternative to windows and sometimes mac osx.

[popch]

Hm wait ... as there are those who for whom linux = ubuntu, you're saying that "Ford" has / had become a synonym for automobile ?
Where ? When ?

It did not, to my knowledge, with Ford. See other posts in this thread for brands becoming the generic names for the product kind.

[koenn]

OK, I must have missed something there.

[23meg]

As for development... Ubuntu develops quite a bit, they may not be developing the next best zen server widget; but ubuntu is developing something which has been neglected in the free software world for too long: __Integration__ It may be the preserve of sys admins and elite programmers to trivialise integration work, but ultimately ubuntu owes it's fame to taking existing projects and making them all work together well; sometimes it does this with patches, fixes or just organising people; other times it develops those little extra tools, widgets or gui features.

As well as developing a distributed version control system from scratch, and providing Launchpad.