Unbuntu = n00b Linux?

[SDREnate]

I have a friend who has been using Linux for 4 or 5 years. He's used a few different distros, but he has never used Ubuntu. He currently used Gentoo. I'd consider him very knowledgeable, if not an expert in Linux. He has helped me greatly in making the switch from Windows to Linux.

Now, when I was looking for a distro to use, I chose Ubuntu on my own. My friend recommended Fedora Core or even Gentoo. Every time I talk to him about the progress I've been making using Ubuntu, he always says, "Keep it up, you'll be ready for Gentoo in no time." At this point I'll usually say that I'm pretty happy with Ubuntu, especially with the upcoming release of Dapper.
He'll then make some comment about how Ubuntu sucks or isn't as good as Gentoo.

I've noticed that there sometimes seems to be an attitude among long-time Linux users that Ubuntu is for newbies or is less powerful than other distros. I've heard this is true, but I'm still new to Linux, and Ubuntu is the only distro I've used. I know that Gentoo is very difficult for someone new to Linux to install since it must be compiled from source. Is Ubuntu really that bad? I love it, mostly because of the community, and its user-friendliness. Any thoughts?

[alphaomega]

I think you have answered your own question.

You can wear adidas and get hassled by nike wearing folks, but nikes hurt your feet or don't fit right. You could be a meat eater in a crowd of vegetarians who preach to you. You can still get up early on Saturday's to watch cartoons while all your friends watch the news and tell you that you are un-iformed. Do you really care as long as your happy?

[Stormy Eyes]

I love it, mostly because of the community, and its user-friendliness. Any thoughts?

I've used Linux since 1999. I use Ubuntu now, and before Ubuntu I used Gentoo. Any questions?

[PapaWiskas]

Stormys cat uses Ubuntu as well, so that should settle it right there.

But seriously, I have tried Mandrake, RedHat, and now Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu...and I love all three and cant wait for the new releases of each so that I can finally decide on which one to use.

As a previous Windows user, my advice to you is thank your friend whenever he helps you out, but continue to use what you feel is comfortable. He should be happy you are using a variant of linux anyway, which I am sure he is.

[groggyboy]

Ubuntu is for newbies or is less powerful than other distros.

I've actually heard the opposite, that Ubuntu is just as powerful under the hood, just as fully featured as any other distro.

Don't be fooled into thinking that a user-friendly interface somehow means this is a newbie distro. I'll go out on a limb here, but I'd say Linspire/Freespire is much more of a newbie distro than Ubuntu.

As for Gentoo, check out this website comparing Gentoo to Rice-burners (http://funroll-loops.org/) (those bling-bling cars that are more fluff than substance). It speaks for itself.

groggyboy

[IYY]

I tried Gentoo, and I can't really say it's more "pro" than Ubuntu. It's slightly harder to install initially because automatic hardware detection is not as good (not sure exactly how this makes it better). Then, it's just as easy to maintain. Gentoo users are so proud that they install everything from source, but typing "emerge fluxbox" and "apt-get fluxbox" is the same thing, except that the first takes a few hours on an older machine, and the second takes less than a minute (compile vs. download and copy).

[PatrickMay16]

I've used Linux since 1999. I use Ubuntu now, and before Ubuntu I used Gentoo. Any questions?
Mr Stormy Eyes, I would like to ask you, why did you switch to Ubuntu from Gentoo? Why do you prefer Ubuntu? Also, it'd be interesting to hear your opinions on Ubuntu and Gentoo, and their advantages and disadvantages over each other.

[NeghVar]

To each his own. Part of the advantage of Linux is your not forced into one distro or another. If you can do everything you need/want to do on your computer using Ubuntu I'd say stick with it.

I run a Duron 1.3 here, some of my friends laugh at me because its so old and underpowered. I just look right back at them and tell them I use a word processor, instant messenger client and a web browser... I don't need an Athlon FX-60 with 4 gigs of ram and 512meg of graphics combined with SLI.

If you want to try out other distros then go for it, but if all your looking for is covered with Ubuntu in a way you can use then use Ubuntu. People that try to force their own distro on someone else are just foolish and obviously don't understand one of Linux's best features.

[Harold P]

It's just personal preference, really.

[Kilz]

If ease of use, ease of install, and great community are only for newbies. I hope I stay one forever. :mrgreen:

[Randomskk]

I installed Gentoo on a test server, recently. After the install stopped several times because the gentoo mirror timed out, I finally got a good run where it didn't time out.
Once installed, doing anything on the system took an AGE - 4 hours to get PHP and Apache, let alone MySQL etc - and even then it was no more feature-full than Ubuntu.
Any speed difference at all was not noticable, and so it really comes down to the same thing, just spending five times the time to get to it.

[teet]

I too have a friend that sounds much like yours...he's been using linux for a number of years now.

He likes to make fun of me because I use ubuntu...I like to make fun of him because he spends hours and hours compiling things :P In the end, it's just a difference in philosophies. He likes to compile all his software...that way everything is optimized for his system and he has complete control over all of it. I, on the other hand, would rather take the 5% hit in performance (if that) and just download precompiled packages. I have a "It's good enough" mentality.

The only time my friend really ever used ubuntu was when his main harddrive crashed and he needed something quick. I gave him my ubuntu cd...within a couple of hours he had a fully functioning gnome desktop. Even though he was complaining how stupid it was that so much stuff wasn't installed by default (like gcc and make) he did have to admit that it was much faster to install ubuntu.

-teet

[mostwanted]

That Gentoo is somehow "optimised for your system" is a myth. A compiler is a compiler, doesn't matter if a developer compiles the program or a user compiles the program, it's still the same program, produces the same output (unless you use a 686-specific compiler vs. a 383-specific compiler, then you'll gain a 0.000001 something speed advantage). The only real advantage to using Gentoo is the compiler flags which can let you compile a program with special options, but they are just that - special options - and if they were so attributing to performance they probably wouldn't be special options, would they? (you can also compile from source in Ubuntu btw, so if you really need to mess with cflags the option is also there in Ubuntu)

[zachtib]

In my opinion, Gentoo is for ricers :P
in all seriousness, I have used gentoo in the past, and everyone should give it a try mainly for the learning experience (just don't do it on your primary computer, as the install can take a few days)
i would say that distros like gentoo and arch likely offer a performance increase over ubuntu, but i like ubuntus "It just works" functionality. I use linux 100%, and i want to be able to do something with my computer, not just tinker

[tseliot]

Gentoo is much more customisable (I have used it, as well as I have tried many other distros) but that doesn't mean it's better or that it works better. It can be faster but it's a pain to mantain (yes, I'm referring to compilation times and fixing several problems)

Newbies (usually) don't like that level of customisation on a distro. However some experts want to keep everything under their control, some others don't.

I'm not an expert but I don't think the results of that level of tweaking are worth the effort (on the desktop).

BUT this is only my opinion.

[Kimm]

Only advantage over Ubuntu that Gentoo has (that I can see), is that it usualy always have the latest packages in portage.
But this can also be fixed... if you want the latest GTK in Ubuntu... get the source, compile it.

Yesterday I upgraded my GTK2 on Dapper (a whooping 0.0.1 upgrade ;P), I did this by "hacking" the sources found in the repos (in other words: replacing them). Now I have gtk 2.8.18 as packages adapted for Dapper, pretty much without any big hassle (also optimised for i686... I think I notice a difference when XFCE starts up (mainly the panel), but it might be a placebo efffect)

Note:
if you want to do this, make sure you delete any patches, these might corrupt the program.

[vidak]

I use linux since about 2000/2001 (I don't remember when I started messing with it :) )
I tried first SuSE, and loved it for years... Then it was harder to download it (is it still free?), switched to debian - and I was fallen in love with it... I could forget the dependence problems of rpm with the deb-packages... Then I bought a new machine, and realised that I cannot use my wifi-card and the 3Dacceleration in the video card... Since it was a new install, I just gave kubuntu a try... And it recognized everything during install... :D
I think that (k|ed|x)?ubuntu is as powerful as debian, can be configured through editing the files in /etc, BUT it can be done in another way too... Can you imagine, how much work is to find some option in a file, about you have no idea what/where it is... and you probably want to modify that file only once in a year...
and (k|ed|x)?ubuntu has a very good online wiki-based documentation, not mentioning this forum... :)
so, after all I don't agree with the title...

[prizrak]

Gentoo users are pretty bad in general they, for the most part, seem to think that Gentoo is end all of distros and is the most hardcore thing since the original kernel. The irony in all of this is the fact that Gentoo was meant to be as out of your way and as simple to run as possible.
Tell him that if he's so hardcore that he knocks Ubuntu to try Slackware or Debian see if he'll be able to run that.

[RavenOfOdin]

I personally don't care what the heck anyone says.

[hostilepenguin]

Tell him that if he's so hardcore that he knocks Ubuntu to try Slackware or Debian see if he'll be able to run that.

Exactly.

I've run SuSE, Fedora, Slackware, Debian, and Ubuntu in my time as a linux user. Ubuntu is no less powerful then any of those distros and I'm not really sure what any argument that it is less powerful could be based upon.

Because Ubuntu installs with X enabled by default? I guess that is newbie friendly in a sense, but I don't see how being newbie friendly makes Ubuntu less powerful of a distro. Odd.

So yeah, just ignore this silly person. It's a safe bet they don't really know what they're talking about.

[polo_step]

I'm not an expert but I don't think the results of that level of tweaking are worth the effort (on the desktop).
I have to admit that one of the lasting (if illusory) attractions Linux still bears for me is the ideal of having a "perfect" setup with no bloat, no unoptimzed functions, perfect hardware integration, all inapplicable code off my HD, cleanly accomplished visuals, maximized use of resources, etc., etc., etc...

The problem is that I'd have to find some compulsive geek to do it all for me (for free, too), because there's absolutely no way I'd ever waste that much of my irrecoverable time for something with as little tangible payoff.

[trivialpackets]

What I find humorous the most about these claims is to figure out exactly where Ubuntu is in the scheme of things. (SOME) Gentoo/Slackware/LFS users say it's a good distro for new users, but if they want "real" linux, to go with Gentoo...Then if you go into a forum like PCLinux or Linspire, and they say that Ubuntu is not for new users as you have to.....(insert shriek here) use the command line for some configurations. I have been with Ubuntu for a while now, and find that it makes sense. Things work as they should. While Ubuntu does not come with everything that these other GUI only distros do, I consider these forums to be a part of the Ubuntu distribution. If you were to jump into Ubuntu with nothing but a disk, some of the things you would need would be difficult to figure, but just about anything you need to do can be done with some help on this forum. The distribution, the wiki, and all, the entire thing is one of the best user experiences I've ever had with a computer.

[polo_step]

The [Ubuntu] distribution, the wiki, and all, the entire thing is one of the best user experiences I've ever had with a computer.
I will say that when I'm building or servicing computers and I need a quick boot-up/run/burnin, of the current eight or nine up-to-date live Linux CDs I keep handy for this, Ubuntu consistently works most often, most fully and on more different rigs.

That's something, and it's of practical value.

[chadk]

I've also used or tried to use Gentoo, Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake... I use Ubuntu because everything worked when I installed it and I'm not a linux guru at all. I can barely manage but Ubuntu WORKED and still works. -- Just because it's easy doesn't make it any less of a linux box then Gentoo or whatever else. Yah, I could've gotten Gentoo to recognize my video card, Red Hat to run X right, Mandrake to actually install but Ubuntu is the one that did it all, first time, right out of the box.

Don't let Linux snobs get you down. Ubuntu is really cool and no *** kissing intended, the community is very knowledgable and quick to help. I'm using Dapper now and I see a post about this or that problem and guess what happens the next day? An update to fix it. ROCK ON.

-- well, you know you're asking on the Ubuntu forums as well. We're mostly fans. If you ask the same question at Gentoo's site.. hmm I bet they'd say we're crazy. ;)