Why Ubuntu is the best

[elwis]

Oh you didn't know?

Well, it is for sure a TERRIFIC distro. It's got some glitches, of course (like the ipv6 thing and so on) but that doesn't matter at all. And it doesn't because of this forum.

I've been using different Linuxes the past 7 years, and have tried a lot of them for sure. Some I've thrown away after less then a day, others I've kept to play with. Since I've tried that many, I've also been a member of a lot of boards and communities, but none of them have been like this one, I've never met so many helpful people that has the ability to write such great, informative answers. And this activity, I mean, how old ARE this distro?? One could believe it's been around for decades.

What I'm trying to say is, that a lot of the distro's I quickly threw away might have been superior to Ubuntu, but I never found out because the lack of info and the ways to get through those first steps when trying to correct this little errors. Well, in Ubuntu it took a few days on this forum and the workstations are glowing.. :)

I'm just running through a university course in Gothenburg called "OpenSource Free software". We've had a lot of discussions about what makes projects succesful, and I'll say the community that backs it. A technical superior piece of software is nothing without the community, and the ubuntu-people are definietly some of the best!

cheers to you all warthogs!

[jdodson]

those are the reasons why i use ubuntu now. its seriously the best linux desktop distro i have ever used, hands down. the community needs a special cheer as well as they helped me get things rockin, and still do.

if the next version of ubuntu is better than the first, we should all be in gnu/linux heaven. :mrgreen:

[oddabe19]

it Just Is!!!!! 8)

[FLeiXiuS]

My reasons for loving Ubuntu...

1.) Very Small
2.) Gnome 2.8
3.) Requires almost little hassle
4.) Very beautifull
5.) Just plane easy to use..

There you have it lol. Ubuntu is just an amazing piece of linux.

[Jspired]

Really nice review. Thanks for posting.

[costoa]

IMO no one distro is "best". Thankfully we many to choose from.

With that said Ubuntu is incredible and the best desktop distro I've used. I started with (AIX in the '88 but for GNU/Linux) Redhat 6, then Debian, Slackware, then back to RH until they killed off RH Linux (and my paid connection to RHN). I ran Gentoo after that and really liked it. It's a hard core tweaker's distro and great if you have the time to play with it.

Along came Ubuntu. Debian packages, fantastic installer and a desktop menu arrangement that makes sense! Oh, and almost everything worked without messing around (the nvidia stuff took a whole ten minutes). It's a very "polished" distro.

If I was building a specialized server or a large group of specialized workstations (like for a call center) I might still use Gentoo. Clearly though Ubuntu belongs on the lion's share of the boxes.

I oversee all the IT concerns for a small company with two offices (one in the US the other in Canada) of about ten desktops and a server in each. We also have three smaller offices (CA, NY and France) with two or three desktops each. Right now everything is XP and Win 2k Server and it's a mess. My goal is to move everyone over to GNU/Linux next year. The one app that had us stuck running MS is going away. XP will follow replaced by Ubuntu.

Before I was looking at building a meta-distro off of Gentoo but using Ubuntu is a much better solution, both in time spent and quality of finished product.

Ubuntu is amazing. It's the only distro I've used that works as well for someone new to GNU/Linux as it does for an experienced user. It's the first distro that I've seen that my parents could use. =)

At work we have a few thousand extra CDRs (old company logo, boss bought it for a project that never happened) and said I could have them. I figure I'll burn off a few hundred copies of Ubuntu and give them out. Maybe the local LUG could do an Ubuntu "Installfest".

IMO one can not really appreciate Ubuntu unless they use it. Then they're hooked. =)

[myklgrant]

It is just so polished. I didn't realize until now what crap I was having to put up with on my old distro. Beautiful to look at. Just works. What more could one ask for. In fact I find it slightly embarrassing that such a remarkable "product" is FREE! All I can say is WOW.
Michael

[elwis]

I oversee all the IT concerns for a small company with two offices (one in the US the other in Canada) of about ten desktops and a server in each. We also have three smaller offices (CA, NY and France) with two or three desktops each. Right now everything is XP and Win 2k Server and it's a mess. My goal is to move everyone over to GNU/Linux next year.

That's really nice! I hop it's working, it would be really intersting to hear about it later on. In my work as a software developer I have a lot of companies as customers (800 or so) and I know one here and there are looking at mixed environments to start with.

They are afraid though, that they will run into bumps. It would be great to have more docements on the web with experiences from things like this. "what did I have to twesak", "what made me give up" etc etc.
I know that the only wiestionmark for me and some fellow developers are all the different VPN clients we will have to be able to run. I know nothing about that.

And back to my subject. It's isn't the technical things that makes a Distro "the best". It's a matter of taste, but the community is the real strength. When SUN launched there JDS, it was a great distro, no bugs that I could find at all. BUT, then there were no community either. And no free Support from SUN. (Some volunteers have changed that now and started a community by themselves).
Of course, SUN didn't know how these things work, buy the product and by our support. The problem is, in a community like this, i get better and faster support then anyone I ever paid for...

[wallijonn]

Linux history: Unix, Ultrix, BSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, RH, Fedora, SUSE, Gentoo, Vidalinux, Slackware, Debian (2 & 3), Prodigy, Mandrake, Bit-Defender, Immunix, IPCop.

Why I chose Ubuntu:

I like Red Hat 9 - until they stopped supporting it. Fedora just didn't work right with my ATI card on one system and refused to work on my other system with an nVidia card and 3Com NIC.

I love / wanted Ximian Evolution. I do not like Thunderbird (no export function).

I wanted FireFox. I do not like Mozilla.

I got tired of Gentoo's compile times.

I did not like Konqueror.

I did not like having KDE upgrade problems.

I got tired of KDE crashes.

I do not like having to strip KDE of KDEOffice and Abiword. The new OpenOffice with the colourful icons breaks the monotony of Mac SE-like black-and-white flat icons.

I wanted an easier way to add themes.

I wanted an easier way to install apps. (SPM is a godsend)

I wanted a 2.6 kernel.

I wanted GNOME2.8 as I didn't like the look of 2.6.

I wanted a distro that worked with ATI video cards right out of the box.

I wanted a distro that didn't tempt me to install "Everything" when first building.

I do not like LILO.

I can put a Home folder on my taskbar, along with weather.

The Application / Computer menues are logically placed.

It is a real GNOME instead of GNOME running on a KDE base (like SUSE).

I never liked Red Hat's implementation of "KDE" - it tended to confuse the OS.

I no longer like cluttered desktops.

I do miss Red Hat's GUI configuration and preferences utilities, though. And a multi-coloured Grub bootup menu.

To sum up:
kernel 2.6
GNOME 2.8
GRUB
SPM
Native ATI video card support.
OpenOffice
FireFox
Ximian Evolution 2.0

.

[jwenting]

To sum up the sentiments for Ubuntu as opposed to just about any other distro:

1) it just works
2) no clutter. No need to uninstall a thousand editors and a hundred spreadsheets which you never use anyway :)
3) friendly community without (mostly) the religious zeal seen so often in Linuxland which makes the entire platform look ridiculously childish.

[jwb]

First- I am using Ubuntu and I *really* like it. Really, really. Got that out of the way.

In 2001, when I started with Linux, I used Mandrake 7.1. Then on to 7.2, 8, 8.1. Somewhere along the way, I was convinced that SUSE was better. So off to SUSE I went.

And back to Mandrake. By Mandrake 9.1 (if I recall correctly), there were things irritating me about Mandrake. So I tried Red hat 8 after reading all the hoopla. I tried it, liked it, used it for a while, but went back to the next version of Mandrake.

Then to Red Hat 9.

And back to Mandrake.

Then, last fall, I went to Fedora. Liked it. Stuck with it. Same with Fedora 2.

Then I found Ubuntu. I liked it, and dumped Fedora.

Ok, now that I've bored you with the history, here's the point.

Each time I changed, it was not a spur of the moment thing. Something came along in the distro that I was using that made me say "I think I can find better". Sometimes I didn't (SUSE), sometimes I did (Fedora, Ubuntu.)

What it made me realize is that every distro will fill somebody's needs, then, at some point, they either get fed up with some changes, or see something newer and shinier.

So the tough part isn't making a great distro (OK, it *is* tough- stick with me), the really tough part is keeping it great. Which is hard to do, with so many factors. Changes upstream in the GUI. Scaling the repositories with a growing user base. Walking the line between the early adopters and meeting the needs of "regular" users.

Anyway.....

I like Ubuntu.

But Linux users are the most fickle people I know when it comes to distros. That's the beauty of choice. Makes us "distro junkies". :-)

Anyway- back to the topic.

I like Ubuntu because right now, it fits every need I've got, very nicely. It's simple, fast and reliable. I hope Ubuntu keeps it that way- simple, fast, reliable.