Why Ubuntu became successfull so quickly?

[Michael]

If I had the power I would have written a long article here but to make it short I think it is due to several reasons:

1. Debian with APT is the most solid binary package managment system in the linux world, very simple and very powerful - updates and upgrades are the most powerful aspect in linux, in my opinion, and that is why Debian is so popular.
2. Ubuntu does what Debian does not and that is being up-to-date and current!. Debian is very well known for it's rock solid stability, that is why it some times outdated comparing to other popular (and less popular) distrobutions in the scene. Ubuntu brings just that to users (e.g. latest kernel and GNOME packages). Of course you can do that in Debian, but some people prefer it out-of-the-box in addition to the ability to stay always up-to-date.
3. Adding to 2 - release cycles. The last Debian official "stable" release happened... whoa... long time ago. Ubuntu promise a 6month release cycle which is, I guess, became the current standard (following Mandrake and Fedora I guess).
4. Auto configuration - at least from my expirience. Ubuntu got my refresh rates and enabled mouse wheel scrolling right after installation. Debian does not do that.

Of course Ubuntu got some glitches here and there, which is expected due to it's non-final state and 'right-from-the-oven' packages. I guess these will be fixed in time..

In one sentence: For me Ubuntu is everything that I always wanted from my Debian.

p.s. nothing in this thread is to diss Debian, on the contrary.

5. I love GNOME, but that's really irrelevant... :P

[normnmiles]

Another reason is that it's getting a lot of good press early. Favorable reviews bring hype and popularity.

[AndersAA]

I've actually been looking for a distro like it for a long time.

Using debian's apt, because I like it, it's simple and works.
More up to date than debian.
And using synaptic per default (that is not requiring some console use that no newbie is gonna figure out to get it working).

And as a bonus it has an install program that offers other than default filesystems, I'm tired of distro's using for example only ext3, which my experience has been horrible with.


//edit oh yeah, and one thing I forgot, when I installed the test version it didn't have bootsplash. A fairly easy thing to add. I liked that, immediatly told me that the developers actually worked on stuff that matters instead of first impressions ;)

[Auryn]

I've only had it installed for the last few days, but this distro has certainly impressed me. I've used a few distros over the years, from Corel to Redhat/Fedora to Mandrake to LFS and even two of the BSDs, Free and Net. For the past year or so I have settled on Debian (testing) after being highly impressed by it's package management capabilities, but there were still little quirks that bothered me. One big example is that I use GNOME as my primary desktop, so I didn't like the added baggage of KDE whenever you select a 'desktop installation' in Debian.

Ubuntu seems very sleek because they have picked a single desktop environment and have stuck with it. The default GNOME configuration is great, it seems like the folks really knew what they were doing and everything has been set up as it should be. I can finally (cleanly) configure my system using graphical tools that are available, and don't have to even touch the command line. I still do anyway since that is how I like to work, but this is about the first 'vanilla' GNOME environment that I have seen looks like it would be easily worked by a complete Linux newbie right from the default installation.

Oh yeah, and sudo for everything root-related is a nice touch. A good way of saving the user from that inevitable mistyped command.

My two cents...

[RAV TUX]

If I had the power I would have written a long article here but to make it short I think it is due to several reasons:

1. Debian with APT is the most solid binary package managment system in the linux world, very simple and very powerful - updates and upgrades are the most powerful aspect in linux, in my opinion, and that is why Debian is so popular.
2. Ubuntu does what Debian does not and that is being up-to-date and current!. Debian is very well known for it's rock solid stability, that is why it some times outdated comparing to other popular (and less popular) distrobutions in the scene. Ubuntu brings just that to users (e.g. latest kernel and GNOME packages). Of course you can do that in Debian, but some people prefer it out-of-the-box in addition to the ability to stay always up-to-date.
3. Adding to 2 - release cycles. The last Debian official "stable" release happened... whoa... long time ago. Ubuntu promise a 6month release cycle which is, I guess, became the current standard (following Mandrake and Fedora I guess).
4. Auto configuration - at least from my expirience. Ubuntu got my refresh rates and enabled mouse wheel scrolling right after installation. Debian does not do that.

Of course Ubuntu got some glitches here and there, which is expected due to it's non-final state and 'right-from-the-oven' packages. I guess these will be fixed in time..

In one sentence: For me Ubuntu is everything that I always wanted from my Debian.

p.s. nothing in this thread is to diss Debian, on the contrary.

5. I love GNOME, but that's really irrelevant... :P

Michael, these are all good points that still hold true today. I wonder; are you still using Ubuntu?

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/8528/thcatfromaliciainwonderkd2.gif

[icechen1]

you forgot the shipit,where you ca get free disk

[steveneddy]

I had just "discovered" Ubuntu around that time myself.

I was looking for something different and found reliability, stability and safe surfing and e-mail.

[karellen]

free shipit + mark shuttleworth

[Cheese Sandwich]

- Price
- Catchy, memorable name
- Positive buzz
- Good grades re usability & compatibility ("It just works" is a good thing to hear for windows users who are curious to try something new).
- Neat globalist-world-community-software-for-the-people theme.
- $ & promotion by a philanthropist with deep pockets

[Erunno]

Very good marketing and the will to compromise the ideals of Free Software where necessary to reach a broader audience (no judgement here).

[DoctorMO]

the will to compromise the ideals of Free Software where necessary to reach a broader audience (no judgement here).

I would say that the understanding that the free software ideals is what makes ubuntu strong is very important. they only compromise those ideals when it's absolutely required and with regret. If you forget free software you are in danger of loosing your freedoms, please think more than one step ahead about what that means.

[information_entropy]

1. Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.
2. Extreme disenchantment with the existing dominate alternative.
3. Brilliant business plan by Mark Shuttleworth that took advantage of 1 and 2
4. Brilliant product placement and marketing by Mark Shuttleworth
5. SABDFL Mark Shuttleworth
6. Did I mention Mark Shuttleworth
7. See number 6;)