Ubuntu's popularity

[kdetech]

Why do you think *buntu's together are the most popular linux distros. I'm sure its not because of ease of use or looks as others have that too (sometimes better). Does it have to do with free cd's or canonical's influence?

[kdetech]

Guess no one's concerned!!!!!!!!:frown:](*,)](*,)](*,)

[GeneralZod]

Guess no one's concerned!!!!!!!!:frown:](*,)](*,)](*,)

You're bumping your thread in frustration after just 27 minutes?

[littlemog]

i've seen shorter fuses... :P

why the inquiry? if it works, it works... popularity is just a side issue.

[kdetech]

Guess you aren't considered about how to make it more popular!
Like Mozzila did with firefox

[mikebeecham]

'Concerned' is a bit of a strong term to use??

I would imagine that, on the basis that Ubuntu is shipped with notebooks and laptops now, that popularity is not so much an issue.

Besides that...if you want to make Ubuntu more popular, then I'm sure the officials teams could do with your help to make it better.

Apart from that, just evangelising the good name of Ubuntu will make it more popular!

[ECPCLINUX]

Well for me personally,I choose Ubuntu for a combination of reasons. I did my homework (before installing any distro) and did searches on Linux, Ubuntu kept coming up in almost all searches. I figured for a "forever Noobee" such as myself it was a +. Next I visit a few Forums and Ubuntu crowd just seem very helpful and seem to respond fast (when I looked at new post and kept track of them) + friendly. There were also a lot of professional reviews on line for Ubuntu which did help me choose Ubuntu as well. As for the free CD I received the 6.06 but I never got to use it since my system back then did not work at all with it. For a while I installed several Linux Distros here and there and I liked SUSE but it was way too big and the installation felt long and tedious plus no sound, MEPIS was alright but I could never figure out how to make my sound work neither. Last but not least I used Xandros 3.02 OCE installed for a little while as a dual boot and I figured out how to make my Creative 5.1 sound card work. The sound card issue was posted as FAQ at the Xandros site. Once Ubuntu 6.10 came out I decided to give it another try and it went well. I liked I could learn to do what I personally needed to do fast and easy with Ubuntu. Also, back then I had a notorious "Lexmark" Printer which for the life of me I could not make it work on any distro. I found help on the Lexmark printer at the Ubuntu Forums and made it work. Took me 3 month to make that Printer work. Once I got that last wrinkle out I really was hooked on Ubuntu. So I kept Ubutnu from that moment on. I've also tried for a few days Fedora, PCLinux, Freespire which were very nice but by then I was much more used to Ubuntu. I still use Puppy Linux for testing computers, is more a tool for me. I also use a usb pen which I get from here: hhttp://www.pendrivelinux.com/. The only serious issue I've had recently in Ubuntu, since the Lexmark, has been Pulse Audio. Pulse Audio in itself works well, is just that I use Skype as my long distance provider and Skype does not work with Pulse Audio. I read recently in the Skype forum that it does now (support Pulse Audio), But I still can't get it to work. By now I have more than one computer at home so I just use Win for my long distance calls. If I could get Skype to work well in Ubuntu, I would just keep one system with Win for games and scanning with my newer Brother Printer. Hope I did not bore u with this book,lol

[armandh]

Improve it and the popularity will come.

after several trys with 90's Linux through 06 my IT brother inlaw suggested Knoppix. WOW linux that had working network.
then he suggested Ubuntu. Super Wow Linux with sound and network.
since 7.04 I have watched linux get better and easier.
even my wife prefers 8.04 to vista on her laptop.

things that make ubuntu easy and better [IMHO]

www.medibuntu.org ALL the dvd and codex in 5 easy pieces. copy/paste/done

Adobe flash Ubuntu drop down option. click/done

popup access to BCM, video, etc. binary drivers.
use at one's own risk but they seem to work well. click/restart/wireless!!!!

[Bigtime_Scrub]

Improve it and the popularity will come.

after several trys with 90's Linux through 06 my IT brother inlaw suggested Knoppix. WOW linux that had working network.
then he suggested Ubuntu. Super Wow Linux with sound and network.
since 7.04 I have watched linux get better and easier.
even my wife prefers 8.04 to vista on her laptop.

things that make ubuntu easy and better [IMHO]

www.medibuntu.org ALL the dvd and codex in 5 easy paste.

Adobe flash Ubuntu drop down option. click/done

easy access to BCM, video, etc. binary drivers.
use at one's own risk but they seem to work well.

There are other distros that include these things. Mint and PCLinuxOS come to mind first. Dream Linux as well. But the question is why Ubuntu?

I think it has to do with Canonical marketing. Many people see Ubuntu as synonymous with Linux even though in the whole Linux world Ubuntu is just one distro in hundreds.

[SuperSonic4]

Guess you aren't considered about how to make it more popular!
Like Mozzila did with firefox

No, part of me does not want it to become more popular and if it does then only by it's merit. Ubuntu and it's derivatives may becomes more popular but since there is no need for money there is no reason for other distros to leave

I think ubuntu is the most popular distro (on the desktop) because GNU/Linux in general is largely seen as CLI still and by extension unintuitive and hard to handle (both are stupid reasons but then people are stupid). Ubuntu took the large repos of debian and adapted them and made a live CD.
From there word of mouth has made it grow more quickly

Personally I would like to see more improvements in Kubuntu and for that to be the main arm of *buntu, KDE itself is a brilliant DE and surpasses GNOME for flexibility IMO.



www.medibuntu.org ALL the dvd and codex in 5 easy paste.


pacman -S codecs - All the codecs in one short line of command. There are easier ways to get codecs than medibuntu

[Neheb]

I would guess it's a mix of relatively easy to learn for windows users and that it (at least mostly) works straight out of the box.

For me the reason I started with ubuntu was simply that it was what my linux using friend was using, so it was natural.

[munky99999]

Why do you think *buntu's together are the most popular linux distros. I'm sure its not because of ease of use or looks as others have that too (sometimes better). Does it have to do with free cd's or canonical's influence?

Ubuntu's popularity stems from the option of being easy; while all the possibilities of being as difficult as any other distro.

IF you run gentoo... you have to compile everything yourself. Well for the most inane boring packages... it's so much better to have debs.

Then you have the factor of being released every 6 months. Which is nice.

After all it comes down to... you are usually left with the final choices.

suse-fedora/Redhat
vs
ubuntu-debian
vs
gentoo-slackware

some others are tossed in there also.

Why not gentoo? Well ubuntu is far easier to install what you are installing anyway.

Why not the fedora or suse? Well typically users arent businesses. So somewhat different sets of applications.