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Pobega
January 7th, 2007, 07:23 PM
Well, my friends have been bothering me about using Ubuntu in general. They keep telling me to switch to Gentoo (Which I might, if it supported my hardware, but it doesn't!) or Debian (Which has crap support), but I don't understand why.

In my experience the community here is extremely mature and helpful, and 95% of the time solves everyone's problems. And if it comes down to it, the Ubuntu devs will step in and help.

Security wise, sudo seems much more secure than su in most occurances, but this is coming from someone who isn't a Linux genius so I might be wrong. And I know other distros can do it, but Ubuntu is smart enough to have it by default!

People call the Ubuntu developers retarded for no reason, which I don't understand.

Ubuntu is the only distro that has supported my hardware 100% without any external drivers (With the exception of the 915resolution package, but that is just a preference).

I'm just wondering if anyone else has run into people like this, and how do you handle it?

aysiu
January 7th, 2007, 07:28 PM
I think you should just say, "Thanks. I already know about Gentoo, but Ubuntu seems to work fine for me now. I may give it a try if Ubuntu ever fails me."

In answer to your question, I think there are several reasons people dislike Ubuntu. Some people who consider themselves "elite" think Ubuntu and distros like it dumb down Linux too much. They like to think people need to be computer geniuses in order to use Linux. Other people dislike Ubuntu because it's so talked about. It gets a lot of attention in the media. If you want to see evidence of this, look in the Linux section of Digg some time. Just about every day there's a new posting about Ubuntu and then some person whining "Why does Ubuntu have to show up here every day?!"

Over Christmas break, my wife and I met up with an old high school friend of mine and that friend's boyfriend. When I mentioned I use Ubuntu, the boyfriend responded, "Yes, Ubuntu--a South African word meaning can't install Debian." I laughed and said, "That's so true. I tried installing Debian, and I was like, 'This is too much trouble.'"

Don't let it get to you. Live and let live.

ComplexNumber
January 7th, 2007, 07:33 PM
People call the Ubuntu developers retarded for no reason, which I don't understand.well, unless they give a reason for it, its just hot air.


i think the main reasons for choosing gentoo is to have ultimate control of their desktop and operating syatem. this also a happens to be one of the reasons to use linux. so maybe when they criticise ubuntu, its more an attack on distros that have a pre-made package management system such as rpm and deb.
gentoo is mainly for the purist. note that there really isn't much of a speed advantage with gentoo over others.


I'm just wondering if anyone else has run into people like this, and how do you handle it? listen to what they say to see if they have any good points.

Rackerz
January 7th, 2007, 07:35 PM
The 'hardcore' Linux users think Ubuntu is too easy. There still about 5 years behind and think Linux is for tech savvy people and well, it's just not anymore.

teaker1s
January 7th, 2007, 07:39 PM
people who dispise anyone that want's linux usable without devoting all your time to it-ask people who dislike ubuntu about their social life-be they don't get out much and are sad.

It's like why people buy honda,mercedes,vw etc it's personal choice.

that said any system that you don't understand and you mess with will go pear shaped.

for me ubuntu forums and good documentation say it all, I tried redhat and found that basic questions remained unanswered as people saw them as beneath them-a real good product endorsement](*,)

Lord Illidan
January 7th, 2007, 07:40 PM
Well, my friends have been bothering me about using Ubuntu in general. They keep telling me to switch to Gentoo (Which I might, if it supported my hardware, but it doesn't!) or Debian (Which has crap support), but I don't understand why.

In my experience the community here is extremely mature and helpful, and 95% of the time solves everyone's problems. And if it comes down to it, the Ubuntu devs will step in and help.

Security wise, sudo seems much more secure than su in most occurances, but this is coming from someone who isn't a Linux genius so I might be wrong. And I know other distros can do it, but Ubuntu is smart enough to have it by default!

People call the Ubuntu developers retarded for no reason, which I don't understand.

Ubuntu is the only distro that has supported my hardware 100% without any external drivers (With the exception of the 915resolution package, but that is just a preference).

I'm just wondering if anyone else has run into people like this, and how do you handle it?

You have to learn that even among the linux community, there are fanboys almost worst than the mac ones.

I like Ubuntu. Probably, I am "leet" enough to install Gentoo as well, and with all the information available on the net, I could attempt installing Linux from Scratch.

However, I don't want to. Ubuntu serves me well enough. It is convenient. The community is awesome, and I like these forums a lot. It also supports my hardware. And in the end, it is still linux.

I agree, it is easy to use. But, hell, I'd rather use an easy distro that I can repair myself than use a harder distro that when I break it, I need to spend days figuring it out, or in the case of Gentoo, reinstalling and recompiling the whole thing again.

Retarded Ubuntu developers? Yeah, that's why we have been the top distro on distrowatch for about 2 years now.

Lord Illidan
January 7th, 2007, 07:41 PM
The 'hardcore' Linux users think Ubuntu is too easy. There still about 5 years behind and think Linux is for tech savvy people and well, it's just not anymore.

Everyone should use what he/she likes. If they like a challenge, more power to them. If I want convenience, so be it.

insane_alien
January 7th, 2007, 07:50 PM
i installed gentoo once(successfully) and it was alright. shaved a few milliseconds off some functions i suppose but it was barely noticeable. it also took ages to emerge everything and such. i also never came across something gentoo could do that ubuntu couldn't.

ubuntu has been good to me.

if its good to you then just say 'well, i'm happy with my system the way it is. if i ever become unhappy for whatever reason then i'll change'

StarsAndBars14
January 7th, 2007, 07:55 PM
or Debian (Which has crap support),

I've never had problems with Debian hardware OR tech support -- even when installing on a Mac.



I'm just wondering if anyone else has run into people like this, and how do you handle it?

I've run into Ubuntu people who call everyone else retarded, and I don't understand that either.

Its just an issue of personal preference.

AndyCooll
January 7th, 2007, 07:55 PM
Invariably those at the top of any tree (football, Linux distro, whatever) are there to be shot at and most likely to attract comment (positive and negative). And currently Ubuntu is the flavour of the month.

:cool:

Lord Illidan
January 7th, 2007, 07:59 PM
Invariably those at the top of any tree (football, Linux distro, whatever) are there to be shot at and most likely to attract comment (positive and negative). And currently Ubuntu is the flavour of the month.

:cool:

Flavour of the year, more like.

I respect all distros, cos they are all Linux.

AndyCooll
January 7th, 2007, 08:02 PM
Flavour of the year, more like.

I respect all distros, cos they are all Linux.

Me too. I was simply pointing out that Ubuntu is currently the distro flavour of the moment, and hence likely to attract plenty of comments.

:cool:

K.Mandla
January 7th, 2007, 08:07 PM
Why do people dislike Ubuntu?
They don't like brown. :lol:

Pobega
January 7th, 2007, 08:12 PM
(14:04:44) ###: I'm yet to see any kernel sources package for Ubuntu
(14:04:58) ###: and you don't have any kernel sources by default other than some Linux headers
(14:05:58) Mike Pobega: Uhh, so?
(14:06:21) ###: That's no good
(14:06:21) ###: What if there's a new kernel?
(14:06:29) ###: What if you need to compile support for something into your kernel?
(14:06:48) Mike Pobega: True, true.
(14:06:56) Mike Pobega: Well, the kernels have to be somewhere, probably just in a weird directory.
(14:07:09) ###: Your kernel is in /boot
(14:07:14) ###: But you have no source for it
(14:07:19) ###: Which is quite laughable
(14:07:32) ###: You have to get it from the ubuntu source obviously
(14:07:37) ###: or something
(14:07:40) Mike Pobega: It's open source, there has to be source.
(14:07:42) ###: which is probably unstable
(14:08:16) ###: There is source, but chances of a common Ubuntu user managing to recompile their kernel without screwing up their system is slim

Chat log. I think he may have me on this one, unless Ubuntu does something differently with their kernels from other distros (Like I originally stated).

qalimas
January 7th, 2007, 08:19 PM
sudo aptitude install linux-headers

/usr/src/linux-headers-(-2.6.17-10-generic/)

I wasn't aware that there were more sources for the kernel other than those "basic headers"? Everything I've ever compiled that needed the kernel sources did fine with those...

az
January 7th, 2007, 08:21 PM
Chat log. I think he may have me on this one, unless Ubuntu does something differently with their kernels from other distros (Like I originally stated).

The kernel source is available with everything else. Sure a lot of other distros include in on their install cds. Ubuntu only needs one cd for a complete install.

sudo apt-get build-dep linux-image-generic
apt-get source linux-image-generic

(Use linux-image-386 instead of generic for Dapper)

And if you just want to compile an extra module, you *only* want the headers anyway. Unless you want to wate your time.

IYY
January 7th, 2007, 08:34 PM
Well, my friends have been bothering me about using Ubuntu in general. They keep telling me to switch to Gentoo (Which I might, if it supported my hardware, but it doesn't!) or Debian (Which has crap support), but I don't understand why.

The only benefit of Gentoo is a slight increase in speed. However, that comes at the cost of having to compile every single part of your system -- it's not difficult at all, but it takes a lot of time (and the time is not spent thinking or learning, it's just the computer doing the actual compilation). When I want to get a program, I want to do "sudo apt-get install" and have it ready to use in twenty seconds, not twenty minutes.

Debian is pretty much Ubuntu minus the community and some hardware compatibility. I don't really see why they'd consider it to be superior.


In my experience the community here is extremely mature and helpful, and 95% of the time solves everyone's problems. And if it comes down to it, the Ubuntu devs will step in and help.

That's true; the community alone is enough of a reason to use Ubuntu.


Security wise, sudo seems much more secure than su in most occurances, but this is coming from someone who isn't a Linux genius so I might be wrong. And I know other distros can do it, but Ubuntu is smart enough to have it by default!

If you want a truly bulletproof system, you should be using FreeBSD or OpenBSD. As far as Linux distributions go, Ubuntu is a fairly secure one.


People call the Ubuntu developers retarded for no reason, which I don't understand.

Calling someone retarded is a sign of immaturity and elitism. I highly doubt that your friends are Linux experts. What exactly do your friends know about the developers of Ubuntu? For that matter, what do they know about Ubuntu itself? Do they find it to be buggier than other distributions? Chances are they've never even used it.

Remember that even Google uses Ubuntu as their desktop Linux.


Chat log. I think he may have me on this one, unless Ubuntu does something differently with their kernels from other distros (Like I originally stated).

Ubuntu users often recompile their kernels, with no problems at all. After reading this, I am fairly certain that your friends know very little about Linux.

Tomosaur
January 7th, 2007, 08:51 PM
I've never personally met anyone who dislikes Ubuntu. Some have been frustrated when they couldn't get it working, but they've seen it flying and they really want it. Others just don't want to try it out because they have no reason to switch from Windows. I've seen a lot of anti-Ubuntu sentiment on the net though. For the most part, I think it's just snobbery. The linux 'elite' can't stand the idea of popularity, and the fact that post install tweaking is normally unnecessary with Ubuntu drives them mad.

There's also the very valid viewpoint that Ubuntu isn't as great as the evangelists like to make out, which irritates lots of people regardless of their experience with linux. Don't get me wrong, I think Ubuntu is fantastic, but I can see why people think like that. Speaking as someone who has to play around a lot with computers, Ubuntu makes my life a little more difficult because it's 'not really' Debian. This may change if Ubuntu becomes the standard Debian-based distro, but this palaver of making stuff Ubuntu-specific goes against the grain. Getting things to work which weren't specifically written for Ubuntu can be difficult. Particularly wireless related stuff - they way Ubuntu works is NOT how most other linux distributions work, and as such, documentation is often innaccurate because it refers to stuff which either isn't present in Ubuntu, or is slightly different. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The 'Ubuntu way' may well turn out to be better than the current standard - but at this point in time, Ubuntu is still only one of many distributions, and it does cause problems by being a little different.

riven0
January 7th, 2007, 08:57 PM
Tomosaur, I like to think of it as Ubuntu being unique. I enjoy using a different disto. :mrgreen:

Having said that, though, I agree; Ubuntu gets a lot of flak because of jealousy. Other distro's have been trying to rise in popularity and fame forever, then this new kid comes along - Ubuntu - and steals all the limelight. Who wouldn't be upset? :lol:

EDIT: After setting up Arch the other day, I suddenly grew a whole new appreciate for Ubuntu.

Arisna
January 7th, 2007, 09:12 PM
I used to use Gentoo. It worked fairly well, but my installation got old and crufty, I grew disappointed with Portage, etc. I was sad and had no life, just like someone mentioned earlier. Well, I'm using Kubuntu now, and I'm still sad and have no life, but at least my computer works a little more nicely. :-|

arvster
January 7th, 2007, 09:27 PM
EDIT: After setting up Arch the other day, I suddenly grew a whole new appreciate for Ubuntu.
Arch does have quite a different philosophy and target audience. I just set it up on my machine instead of Ubuntu yesterday. Took me one evening, but once it is set up, I don' t see myself doing more than I did on Ubuntu. True, I don' t see a person with no previous experience doing it smoothly (hell, I remember how painful it was setting up X11 on Slackware when I didn' t even know any bash commands).

Returning to the topic, I don' t see why people should dislike Ubuntu. It is a nice distro, has good initial setup and all the good things that Debian has. Though it, apart from Xubuntu, may not be for every computer (because Gnome lagged so much on 256Mb of RAM was the exact reason why I changed to Arch). IMO suggesting Gentoo to someone instead of Ubuntu also is pointless- especially if they are satisfied with what they have. Gentoo also is aiming for something different.

About Ubuntu being different- I don' t really see that many differences from other distros. It uses the same software as everybody else. It may be a bit more polished, but with a bit of work exact same results can be reached on other distros. Sure, the community is really great and helpful (IMO this is the greatest bonus that it has), but I can' t say that other distros lack friendly people around them. Even installing Arch yesterday I went to their forums and wiki, an they also have enthusiastic and good people there that help to solve problems. Ubuntu certainly has it's place in the Linux world and is good for everyone, not only complete beginners. Not everyone wants to compile every single package they get or customize every config file. The fact that you have choice and can do both is one of the strengths of Linux.

Lord Illidan
January 7th, 2007, 09:35 PM
Arch does have quite a different philosophy and target audience. I just set it up on my machine instead of Ubuntu yesterday. Took me one evening, but once it is set up, I don' t see myself doing more than I did on Ubuntu. True, I don' t see a person with no previous experience doing it smoothly (hell, I remember how painful it was setting up X11 on Slackware when I didn' t even know any bash commands).

Returning to the topic, I don' t see why people should dislike Ubuntu. It is a nice distro, has good initial setup and all the good things that Debian has. Though it, apart from Xubuntu, may not be for every computer (because Gnome lagged so much on 256Mb of RAM was the exact reason why I changed to Arch). IMO suggesting Gentoo to someone instead of Ubuntu also is pointless- especially if they are satisfied with what they have. Gentoo also is aiming for something different.

About Ubuntu being different- I don' t really see that many differences from other distros. It uses the same software as everybody else. It may be a bit more polished, but with a bit of work exact same results can be reached on other distros. Sure, the community is really great and helpful (IMO this is the greatest bonus that it has), but I can' t say that other distros lack friendly people around them. Even installing Arch yesterday I went to their forums and wiki, an they also have enthusiastic and good people there that help to solve problems. Ubuntu certainly has it's place in the Linux world and is good for everyone, not only complete beginners. Not everyone wants to compile every single package they get or customize every config file. The fact that you have choice and can do both is one of the strengths of Linux.

That's great. The more helpful people there are around, the better. But I've seen pretty rude responses from some forums, like the openSUSE ones. And, in many cases, 1 rude response, like

"Dude, RTFM", or "you n00b, stop whining and use google" can turn off a newcomer for good, never to return.

Lord Illidan
January 7th, 2007, 09:39 PM
(14:04:44) ###: I'm yet to see any kernel sources package for Ubuntu
(14:04:5:cool: ###: and you don't have any kernel sources by default other than some Linux headers
(14:05:5:cool: Mike Pobega: Uhh, so?
(14:06:21) ###: That's no good
(14:06:21) ###: What if there's a new kernel?
(14:06:29) ###: What if you need to compile support for something into your kernel?
(14:06:4:cool: Mike Pobega: True, true.
(14:06:56) Mike Pobega: Well, the kernels have to be somewhere, probably just in a weird directory.
(14:07:09) ###: Your kernel is in /boot
(14:07:14) ###: But you have no source for it
(14:07:19) ###: Which is quite laughable
(14:07:32) ###: You have to get it from the ubuntu source obviously
(14:07:37) ###: or something
(14:07:40) Mike Pobega: It's open source, there has to be source.
(14:07:42) ###: which is probably unstable
(14:08:16) ###: There is source, but chances of a common Ubuntu user managing to recompile their kernel without screwing up their system is slim

There is source, as someone mentioned in this thread.

However, I agree that on average, an Ubuntu user might not know how to recompile his/her kernel, because the average Ubuntu user, imho, has just jumped the bandwagon from Windows to Linux, and is still looking for assistance to do common tasks.

However, I have no doubt that with help they can manage a kernel recompilation successfully. I did my first kernel recompilation with help from the Zenwalk forums, though I did break a few things, but I think that it was because Zenwalk was still in the early days back then.

patrick295767
January 7th, 2007, 10:02 PM
Well, my friends have been bothering me about using Ubuntu in general. They keep telling me to switch to Gentoo (Which I might, if it supported my hardware, but it doesn't!) or Debian (Which has crap support), but I don't understand why.

In my experience the community here is extremely mature and helpful, and 95% of the time solves everyone's problems. And if it comes down to it, the Ubuntu devs will step in and help.

Security wise, sudo seems much more secure than su in most occurances, but this is coming from someone who isn't a Linux genius so I might be wrong. And I know other distros can do it, but Ubuntu is smart enough to have it by default!

People call the Ubuntu developers retarded for no reason, which I don't understand.

Ubuntu is the only distro that has supported my hardware 100% without any external drivers (With the exception of the 915resolution package, but that is just a preference).

I'm just wondering if anyone else has run into people like this, and how do you handle it?


My experience is In my signature :-)

riven0
January 7th, 2007, 10:21 PM
Arch does have quite a different philosophy and target audience. I just set it up on my machine instead of Ubuntu yesterday. Took me one evening, but once it is set up, I don' t see myself doing more than I did on Ubuntu.


Oh, Arch is easy to install and setup. It's trying to get the kernel to stop panicking after doing pacman -Syu that's the problem. None of the fixes are working for me so far, so I'm still working on it.... just gotta remember not to restart the comp. :)

K.Mandla
January 7th, 2007, 11:09 PM
Oh, Arch is easy to install and setup. It's trying to get the kernel to stop panicking after doing pacman -Syu that's the problem. None of the fixes are working for me so far, so I'm still working on it.... just gotta remember not to restart the comp. :)
Look here. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1638147&postcount=44

Mine was at /kernel26.img though, not /boot/kernel26.img. Now you can reboot! :D

picpak
January 7th, 2007, 11:13 PM
Over Christmas break, my wife and I met up with an old high school friend of mine and that friend's boyfriend. When I mentioned I use Ubuntu, the boyfriend responded, "Yes, Ubuntu--a South African word meaning can't install Debian." I laughed and said, "That's so true. I tried installing Debian, and I was like, 'This is too much trouble.'"

I think it's awesome that you can mention Ubuntu in normal conversation and they know what you're talking about. (Unless of course, they're already Linux-savvy, nevermind then.)

Nowadays you can say you use Limewire, have a blog, etc. and people know what you're talking about. You couldn't do that 5 years ago. 5 years from now we'll be doing it with Ubuntu.

justin whitaker
January 7th, 2007, 11:28 PM
People hate Ubuntu for many reasons:

1. The technocrats, as noted, want you to compile things yourself, and view anything less as somehow beneath them. I've gone through those days, and being able to go from install to usage withing 30 minutes is far more important to me than spending days compiling from scratch. If you want to do that, more power to ya, but don't make my choice for me.

2. There are those that dislike successes. Face it, Ubuntu is something of a latecomer to the Linux party, side stepping alot of the pitfalls of the past, and moving the community and the Linux desktop forward. If you have been learning the ins and outs of Fedora, Mandriva, SuSE, or Gentoo for the past 3-5 years, you have alot of investment in a distro: it must kill people that their favorite flavor isn't universally loved, or is the top distro in Distrowatch's rankings.

3. There are the FSF fringe that think anything proprietary is bad, while Ubuntu's philosophy is just to make everything work. That's why gNewSense can pop up out of nowhere because some gets their panties in a twist because Cannonical says "if ATI and Nvidia drivers are what it takes to grow, then we will do it."

4. Some people are not technocrats, but like being different. Anything like Free/Linspire, PC-BSD, or Ubuntu, which tries to make using alternative OS's easy to use are a threat to their "badge of honor."

tbroderick
January 7th, 2007, 11:47 PM
In answer to your question, I think there are several reasons people dislike Ubuntu. Some people who consider themselves "elite" think Ubuntu and distros like it dumb down Linux too much. They like to think people need to be computer geniuses in order to use Linux. Other people dislike Ubuntu because it's so talked about. It gets a lot of attention in the media. If you want to see evidence of this, look in the Linux section of Digg some time. Just about every day there's a new posting about Ubuntu and then some person whining "Why does Ubuntu have to show up here every day?!"


Or maybe people just like distro X better than Ubuntu. I dislike how Debian/Ubuntu based distros split headers from packages. It really annoys me when getting an error because I don't have xxx-dev installed. I dislike the use of sudo by default. I don't Digg, nor do I think GNU/Linux is only for geniuses.

Artemis3
January 7th, 2007, 11:53 PM
Hardware support in linux is not really much different, things either work or not. The main differnce lies in autodetecting them, which new users enjoy if the autodetection works.

Some distros simply don't autodetect anything, and assume you did your homework learning what you have and what modules / config files you need, but you can end having it working pretty much the same as any other distro that succesfully autodetected things.

Of course learning to do more by hand lets you more chance for tweaks and optimizations; you will discover you don't need all things other "easier" distros use and reduce bloat and improve efficiency and security.

The "source" based distros like gentoo even let you squeeze a little more, by using options tailored for your specific cpu. Very useful in older or newer machines, since most distros tend to compile for p2 when you might have a p1 or a p4...

If you really want to try gentoo, but can't follow the minimal install cd instructions; there is an italian bridge that comes with precompiled binaries and does more autodetection: Sabayon Linux (http://www.sabayonlinux.org/). You can install from the livedvd and have it the gentoo way, or wait for the next sabayon binary release and use their updater instead.

You can of course try other binary distros (most are) and learn about the different packages schemes. The one used in Debian is the easiest. But gentoo, is also trying to mimic freebsd ports, which does resolves dependencies and compiles what it needs first.

Oh yes, don't forget to try the *bsds. Freebsd or pcbsd which aims for desktop users. You can have many partitions and many OSes, try many :)

Why would i dislike ubuntu? Perhaps reading my other posts you can this find out...

aysiu
January 7th, 2007, 11:55 PM
Or maybe people just like distro X better than Ubuntu. I like Ubuntu better than distro X, but I don't actively dislike distro X. I don't berate people for using distro X or tell them distro X's developers are retarded. If you feel the need to actively bash a distro, it's not simply a matter of preferring another distro. Sorry.

manmower
January 8th, 2007, 12:11 AM
Well, if you're really interested, I can give you my utterly subjective reasons why Ubuntu didn't work for me:

Packages like "ubuntu-desktop", "kubuntu-desktop", "xubuntu-desktop" made me feel trapped as opposed to free. Ubuntu made too many choices for me instead of offering them. Upgrading was problematic, in fact the recommended way of dealing with it seems to be reinstalling with each release. Having to reinstall your OS every six months is unacceptable to me. Also, an undeniable fact is Ubuntu is slow compared to some other distros. And under the surface it is anything but easy. I'm a bit of a tinkerer, so I prefer something that lends itself to tinkering. You can go ahead and call me a snob if you want, I know for a fact I'm just a newb with different expectations.

tbroderick
January 8th, 2007, 12:17 AM
I like Ubuntu better than distro X, but I don't actively dislike distro X. I don't berate people for using distro X or tell them distro X's developers are retarded. If you feel the need to actively bash a distro, it's not simply a matter of preferring another distro. Sorry.

Who's bashing Ubuntu? No one here called Ubuntu developers retarded. All we have is a little hearsay of "people". I certainly have never heard of anyone calling Ubuntu developers retarded. If they did, I would speak up.I do think it's ok to not like Ubuntu. And disliking Ubuntu doesn't make you elitist or jealous of Ubuntu success or the amount of stories on Digg.

aysiu
January 8th, 2007, 12:20 AM
Who's bashing Ubuntu? No one here called Ubuntu developers retarded. All we have is a little hearsay of "people". I certainly have never heard of anyone calling Ubuntu developers retarded. If they did, I would speak up.I do think it's ok to not like Ubuntu. And disliking Ubuntu doesn't make you elitist or jealous of Ubuntu success or the amount of stories on Digg.
I think you should read the first post in this thread:
People call the Ubuntu developers retarded for no reason, which I don't understand. The original post-er was recounting a feeling of hostility toward Ubuntu. It's not "hearsay." Things do occur in real life. Not everything is on the internet. And half of what is on the internet is mindless trolling just to get people worked up.

I never said disliking Ubuntu makes you elitist of jealous of Ubuntu's success. I was offering two theories to account for a lot of the hostiility toward Ubuntu. Just because A leads to C and B leads to C doesn't mean C has to come from A or B.

It sounds as if you just want to argue. You're not really trying to understand my original point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man


Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted. ==> That's you. You're pretending I said, "Anyone who doesn't love Ubuntu or finds any fault with Ubuntu is either jealous of Ubuntu's success or an elitist," and then arguing with that. If you want to argue with that point, be my guest, but stop pretending that's what I said.

You may also be thinking of the word dislike in a different way from the way I'm thinking about it. Based on the first post in this thread, I'm taking it to mean more than a personal dislike or a preference for something else. The kind of dislike the OP is talking about is almost like a proactive hatred for than a personal dislike for. I could think of about twenty reasons someone might prefer another distro or personally dislike Ubuntu (none of which has to do with elitism or jealousy), but personal dislike didn't really seem to be what this thread was about.

lyceum
January 8th, 2007, 12:35 AM
I tried to use Gentoo when I first got into Linux. I didn't really know what i was doing and I had no clue what portage was. I wanted Gentoo because I thought that if it was as powerful as they said it would run Window's programs (n00b mistake #1). I could never get it to work. I would spend hours trying and I didn't want to go to the forums as I read that they would beat the poo out of me for asking dumb questions. Now that I know what I am doing I picked up a magazine with a Gentoo disk and still could not get it to work.

When ever I hear people saying they don't like Ubuntu or they are leaving I don't say anything, unless they have a problem I can help fix. I am happy here and I still check out other distros. I think Ubuntu makes a good desktop that a new user or a power user could use. That is they way I like my distro. An OS that someone can grow with. If someone else like something better, let them move on. Can the average user here upgrade the kernel? I am sure that if that is what the average person here wants to do they will learn how. Why does the average user need to know how to do that? If we are trying to get FOSS out to the common man, trust me, my Dad, sister, wife, friends (the list goes on and on) really don't care. They just want a desktop that works. Just my 2 cents.

josys36
January 8th, 2007, 12:45 AM
Yes these wars have been going on for a long time, and will most likely be going on for years. I perfer Ubuntu for several reasons.

One reason is this community. Not once have I been turned away for support with quotes like "Dude RTFM!" I hate when that type of thing happens. When I did and do need help with the few things, folks are always there to help.

The second reason is that Ubuntu was a clean easy one cd install. I hated when I had to install Mandrake or RedHat and had over 9 CDs to install. So what if I have to install a few items over the web. That is what makes software like Automatix a lifesaver.

Ubuntu is the first linux flavor I have installed that I did not give up on. In almost one year my ThinkPad is still running Ubuntu as it's primary OS, and I don't see that changing for a long time.

Is there room for growth or improvement? Of course! There isn't an OS in the world that could not be improved upon. Heck, you can say the same about just about any piece of software!

I would just tell your friends that you run what you like to run. I myself might even try Gentoo later on if I have time. Not to switch to Gentoo, but to see what all the fuss is about. One of the freedoms we have running Linux is that we can run the flavor that we want to run. I think Ubuntu is better, but that is just my opinion.

Just don't let these folks get you down!

Jason

tbroderick
January 8th, 2007, 12:52 AM
You may also be thinking of the word dislike in a different way from the way I'm thinking about it. Based on the first post in this thread, I'm taking it to mean more than a personal dislike or a preference for something else. The kind of dislike the OP is talking about is almost like a proactive hatred for than a personal dislike for. I could think of about twenty reasons someone might prefer another distro or personally dislike Ubuntu (none of which has to do with elitism or jealousy), but personal dislike didn't really seem to be what this thread was about.

That must be it. I guess I didn't know you were implicitly talking about proactive hatred instead of personal dislike.

Pobega
January 8th, 2007, 01:12 AM
Thanks for the replies, I think I'm just going to ignore what my friends say and keep using Ubuntu. It works for me and supports my hardware out of the box, I'd rather have a working desktop then waste a week installing Gentoo (Just to use the same desktop environment, and have the same feeling minus XMMS)

454redhawk
January 8th, 2007, 01:16 AM
Why do people dislike Ubuntu?

GNOME

riven0
January 8th, 2007, 01:37 AM
Look here. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1638147&postcount=44

Mine was at /kernel26.img though, not /boot/kernel26.img. Now you can reboot! :D

*sniffle* Thanks, but still no go. :cry: I'm back in recovery mode. Gonna try searching the ubuntuforums for more fixes... I'm going to get this thing working, even if I break down my comp in the process.:mad:

zendiagrams
January 8th, 2007, 04:04 AM
Some people just don’t want all the work involved in having a good OS, or one that might fit their moral/ideological direction better.

I work 50-60 hours a week with various UNIX like operating systems in server environments. When I come home, I want to have free time and fun, the last thing I want to do is spend hours and hours having to fix or configure a computer.

Choosing a good OS, such as Linux is a great thing, but having an easy to use distribution that works right “out of the box” is even better for someone like me, who would rather spend time with his family and play then have to do what he does at work all day.

It’s one thing to justify the work, for various customization and performance issues, that is if you have the time, need or desire to do it. It’s another thing to flaunt your geek “penis”. It’s like the motor heads who think their custom modified V8 sports car is better then everyone else car; people have different needs, desires, and goals.

manmower
January 8th, 2007, 06:31 AM
*sniffle* Thanks, but still no go. :cry: I'm back in recovery mode. Gonna try searching the ubuntuforums for more fixes... I'm going to get this thing working, even if I break down my comp in the process.:mad:

Have you seen this?
http://www.archlinux.org/news/276/

The earlymodules=piix workaround fixed all my troubles with 2.6.19

ago
January 8th, 2007, 11:46 AM
Well, my friends have been bothering me about using Ubuntu in general. They keep telling me to switch to Gentoo (Which I might, if it supported my hardware, but it doesn't!) or Debian (Which has crap support), but I don't understand why.

I was on Gentoo years ago, and then Debian. But I have been using Ubuntu since Warty. I explained my story and my reasoning here: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=252940

spockrock
January 8th, 2007, 01:19 PM
ummm...I dunno some people feel that a linux distro that works is n00bish I guess. The only think I don't like is people saying its for n00bs it clearly isn't. Just because it works does not mean its for n00bs.


I think I would like to consider my self a computer power user, and I love debian, and I love ubuntu, but why I use ubuntu is because well I dont have to spend a ton of time installing and configuring the operating system.

hoagie
January 8th, 2007, 01:55 PM
Most people that already use GNU/Linux have the idea that ubuntu is a copy of debian and that it's mainlly for dumb persons, that you won't learn how to use the terminal because it's too friendly to the end user and all that, which I don't believe.
Other people think that Ubuntu and Linux in general is only a terminal operating system only used for servers...
Don't bother everyone uses what suites him/her best, just let it go.

SunnyRabbiera
January 8th, 2007, 02:13 PM
GNOME

Gnome does seem to be disliked by a lot of folks, a good deal of them like KDE or even XFCE.
But to me Gnome isnt that bad once you get used to it, there are some things in gnome gont like but overall I like it.

_simon_
January 8th, 2007, 02:16 PM
I was told to try Gentoo by a Windows user who had never used Linux just because they had heard it was the best. I have tried Gentoo but it doesn't do anythig Ubuntu doesn't do so I saw no need to make the move.

It seems to be mainly Digg users who dislike Ubuntu from what I can see, they don't like the fact that sometimes there are loads of Ubuntu articles, blogs and various threads being Dugg. They see it as a "look at me" attitude. I just think it shows how large a following Ubuntu has.

null0
January 8th, 2007, 02:28 PM
When I mentioned I use Ubuntu, the boyfriend responded, "Yes, Ubuntu--a South African word meaning can't install Debian."
hahaha your friend really made me laugh. :biggrin:

EdThaSlayer
January 8th, 2007, 03:28 PM
They dislike Ubuntu because it works too well compared to their own operating systems. 8)

grinby
January 8th, 2007, 03:28 PM
One reason that people express frustration with Ubuntu (to actively dislike it seems silly) is that its popularity is out of proportion with its quality. That's not to say it's not a great distro -- it absolutely is. But the beauty of linux at this point is that there are a lot of great distros around, and the quality/usability differences separating them are pretty small. When you look at popularity polls and surveys that try to measure such things, Ubuntu carries a huge market share relative to any other distro. But when you actively compare it to other distros, Ubuntu is not as frequently the clear winner. It's always in the race, but it doesn't always win.
I think, too, that the comparison with Arch and Gentoo in this thread is a little over the top. I love Arch, but it doesn't aim to be anyone's first distro. Compare Ubuntu to Zenwalk, Dreamlinux, Blag, elive, Vector, Mepis (I know, more Ubuntu), PCLinxuOS, or whatever, and tell me that Ubuntu is the obvious, prohibitive choice for first distro. Anyone choosing it as their first distro will be well served, but that doesn't explain in itself why so many do.
And it does help explain why so many who have chosen other distros feel somewhat slighted when Ubuntu's hugely successful publicity machine overwhelms their distro of choice.
What it doesn't explain, of course, is why they sometimes express their frustration as anger at Ubuntu.

Dragonbite
January 8th, 2007, 04:40 PM
Because it's popular? Because it's getting much more press than distro xyz? It's like a High School Popularity contest complete with all of the immature in-fighting!

I was anti-Ubuntu for no real reason except I kept hearing people saying how great it was (and I wasn't a part of it I guess ... jealousy). I got a new CPU and was trying to decide what to put on it when I stumbled across ShipIT sending Ubuntu (5.10) CDs and figured I'd give it a try. I was using Gentoo before and wanted something easy to set-up and maintain.

It's worked great, and I'm using it now (Edubuntu Dapper). Between the hardware detection, smart collection of starting programs and great community I forsee using it for some time!

In one forum I ran across some Kanotix (http://kanotix.com/) and touting it with lots of "it is perfect" and "you won't go elsewhere" and "nobody can beat this one" type postings and it was just annoying because there is no "perfect" distro.

I also worked with a guy describing some of the Linux snobs who think anything other than Roll-Your-Own-Linux is inferior and you should just pack your bags and go back to Windows. The co-worker asked them when was the last time they kissed a girl and they walked off.


I don't see, though, the same jealousy and zealotness when you are comparing server-oriented distros (RHEL, SLED, etc.) and that could be in part because the users are possibly more enlightened to "there is no one perfect distro".

teejay17
January 9th, 2007, 12:44 AM
And they might end up changing their mind, in the end. Something will go awry with their distro, and they'll be "forced" to use Ubuntu and end up liking it.
The best thing to do to those friends who make fun of your choice is to just let them be. Sometimes the arguments that ensue can actually do more harm to the Ubuntu name; think of the way you might perceive Gentoo after some heated debate—the same can happen at the other end, toward Ubuntu.

steve.horsley
January 9th, 2007, 01:31 AM
They do say that there's nobody as zealous as a convert. And, I am pleased to say, there seem to be a steady flow of converts from windows, presumably to all distros. So maybe it's the enthusiasm of those who have "seen the light" with their chosen distro.

null0
January 9th, 2007, 12:19 PM
dragonbyte preety much said it all

Because it's popular?
When something good rises from nothing, a lot of people will like it.
When a lot of people like something, there will always be a lot of people disliking it, most of the times for simple denial. They like their distro and can't stand the idea of a better one rising from nothing. And when we're talking about something that not everyone can use, the ones who used it for years can't stand the idea of just any joe beeing able to use it successfuly with so little effort. Usually ellitist people, they don't even give it a try, just follow a simple logic:

It's Mainstream -> It's Bad -> Let's Bash!

So they just bash and bash and sometimes they're right... sometimes they're not.
The classical exemple is 'ASM vs C' . There are still people in this world who say that every single program should be written in ASM for the sake of performance. It's just plain denial :<

Ubuntu is arguably the best distro around, and any joe can use it. Came from nothing, and won. A lot of people can't stand that [-( .

Ubuntu Came, Saw and Conquered. Long live Ubuntu =D>

teejay17
January 9th, 2007, 12:44 PM
Amen.

manmower
January 9th, 2007, 07:05 PM
dragonbyte preety much said it all

When something good rises from nothing, a lot of people will like it.
When a lot of people like something, there will always be a lot of people disliking it, most of the times for simple denial. They like their distro and can't stand the idea of a better one rising from nothing. And when we're talking about something that not everyone can use, the ones who used it for years can't stand the idea of just any joe beeing able to use it successfuly with so little effort. Usually ellitist people, they don't even give it a try, just follow a simple logic:

It's Mainstream -> It's Bad -> Let's Bash!

So they just bash and bash and sometimes they're right... sometimes they're not.
The classical exemple is 'ASM vs C' . There are still people in this world who say that every single program should be written in ASM for the sake of performance. It's just plain denial :<

Ubuntu is arguably the best distro around, and any joe can use it. Came from nothing, and won. A lot of people can't stand that [-( .

Ubuntu Came, Saw and Conquered. Long live Ubuntu =D>

While you're busy making absurd generalizations and patting yourself on the back, you might want to read my reply earlier in the thread. I think I gave some valid reasons why I dislike Ubuntu, without resorting to bashing. You are the one being elitist, insinuating that Ubuntu is the best for everyone and those who don't use it do so out of spite (?).

aysiu
January 9th, 2007, 07:10 PM
While I agree there are many people who bash Ubuntu simply because they perceive it as "too mainstream" or whatever, Ubuntu is not, technically speaking, "the best distro around" ... yet. Maybe it might be very soon--Feisty or Feisty +1. Maybe it'll never be--depending on what your needs are.

For the typical ex-Windows user who wants Flash, MP3 playback, Java, and a bunch of other popular codecs and plugins, Ubuntu won't be "the best distro around." That person's much better off with PCLinuxOS, Mepis, Linspire, or Blag.

I happen to like Ubuntu because of the friendliness/helpfulness of the community and the great documentation. I don't use Ubuntu for its technical merits; though, I applaud the rate at which it improves every six months.

macogw
January 10th, 2007, 12:22 AM
Most people that already use GNU/Linux have the idea that ubuntu is a copy of debian and that it's mainlly for dumb persons, that you won't learn how to use the terminal because it's too friendly to the end user and all that, which I don't believe.
Other people think that Ubuntu and Linux in general is only a terminal operating system only used for servers...
Don't bother everyone uses what suites him/her best, just let it go.
I was in the second camp, then I tried DSL, just to see. When I realised it didn't look like DOS, I figured I'd go with Mandriva. A FreeBSD user told me to use Ubuntu instead (I think because apt works a bit better than RH Package Management), so I did. RAV TUX is making me try Sabayon now. I figure if I don't have to spend 3 days compiling to get Gentoo...alright fine.

As to the first part...I definitely learned quite a few bash commands. I mean, I could probably do fine for text editing (vim) and web browsing (lynx) without the GUI. I've used a terminal IRC client before and thanks to DSL, an IM client, but I forget what the commands for those are.

Lord Illidan
January 10th, 2007, 12:29 AM
While I agree there are many people who bash Ubuntu simply because they perceive it as "too mainstream" or whatever, Ubuntu is not, technically speaking, "the best distro around" ... yet. Maybe it might be very soon--Feisty or Feisty +1. Maybe it'll never be--depending on what your needs are.

For the typical ex-Windows user who wants Flash, MP3 playback, Java, and a bunch of other popular codecs and plugins, Ubuntu won't be "the best distro around." That person's much better off with PCLinuxOS, Mepis, Linspire, or Blag.

I happen to like Ubuntu because of the friendliness/helpfulness of the community and the great documentation. I don't use Ubuntu for its technical merits; though, I applaud the rate at which it improves every six months.

For some people it is the best distro around. I've shopped around and tried various distros, sometimes almost settling on one. But there was always something which didn't work right, which on Ubuntu could easily be fixed. And the community is great, the flash, mp3 playback, etc, are all documented in the wiki, so it's easy to get, apt-get rules...what else could I need?

teejay17
January 10th, 2007, 02:29 AM
And some people want to make it the best distro around. I think Ubuntu has a lot going for it in this regard; people want to participate in it. After all, it's something pretty darn positive to believe in, and something to look forward to.

tbroderick
January 10th, 2007, 03:58 AM
When something good rises from nothing, a lot of people will like it.

Ubuntu didn't rise from nothing. It rose from Debian and the GNU/Linux community.

steven8
January 10th, 2007, 04:52 AM
Until this thread, I had no idea people hated Ubuntu. What's with all the hate stuff, anyway? Quit it with hate. I do not hate windows. It hurts me badly to see how Microsoft and other big companies like them stomp on people and use their dollars to manipulate governments, etc. to get what they want. I don't think Ubuntu does that. Does anyone here think they do?

Syr0
January 10th, 2007, 06:44 AM
They're just jealous XD

I think what makes Ubuntu clearly superior to any other distrobution is it's ease of use. Ubuntu hasn't strayed from the GNU GPL, it's not less 'pure' because it's easier to use..?

I tried Mandriva and Redhat. I'm never using those distrobutions ever again. There was no-one to help me at all! I killed the same computer with all my acquired data on it about seven times from the complete lack of support I was offered on those distrobutions.

My first thought: How can you *NOT* like Ubuntu?

macogw
January 10th, 2007, 06:50 AM
They're just jealous XD

I think what makes Ubuntu clearly superior to any other distrobution is it's ease of use. Ubuntu hasn't strayed from the GNU GPL, it's not less 'pure' because it's easier to use..?
Uh, not really. All those binary wireless drivers that are in there by default to make it easy to use are in a very grey part of the GPL. If Ubuntu is a derivative work of GNU/Linux, and it includes non-Free stuff like binary drivers, then it violates the GPL because you can't get the sources for those drivers. Whether it is breaking the rules or not depends on which way you bend the word "derivative."

riven0
January 10th, 2007, 07:04 AM
They're just jealous XD

Exactly! Fame will make you an enemy of everyone.

The thing is, users of other distro's probably can't understand why they haven't risen to the fame that Ubuntu has. The users obviously think their distro is the best or they wouldn't be using it. I'm not saying Ubuntu is better than the other distro's, (whatever floats your boat is my idea), but obviously Ubuntu is doing something the other distro's don't, and people just can't get what it is. It would frustrate anyone.

tbroderick
January 10th, 2007, 09:05 AM
The thing is, users of other distro's probably can't understand why they haven't risen to the fame that Ubuntu has.

It's called marketing.

compwiz18
January 10th, 2007, 09:16 AM
My general principle is that I like to turn the computer on and have it work. I don't really want to compile everything from source and recompile my kernel everyday - I have better uses for my computer (*cough*games*cough*). This is why I use Ubuntu - it has most of the software I normally use, and I can turn it on and it works (with the exception of that stupid hard drive check every 30 boots - really annoying when you have 3 ext partitions). People just laugh when you tell them how great Ubuntu is, then fire up your laptop and xorg crashes...

So far, XP on this laptop has never crashed on me. Not once - don't flame me, it is a fact. Ubuntu, on the other hand, seems to have a problem with the amd64 version of dnsmasq, which causes random hard locks requiring a poweroff to solve (took a while to figure that one out - the logs were not useful at all)

Vista, on the other hand, has refused to turn off more then once, and is just slowww in general (can anyone say "Aero"?)

Anyway, that would be my take on things.

Disclaimer: I have never used Gentoo, although I tried - too much work to install, so I gave up, figuring that if I had to read 10 pages of manuals JUST to use the GTK installer I wasn't gonna do so well when I actually got it installed.

tbroderick
January 10th, 2007, 09:38 AM
My general principle is that I like to turn the computer on and have it work. I don't really want to compile everything from source and recompile my kernel everyday

You don't have to compile your kernel everyday in Gentoo. And Gentoo did have some binaries last time I used it. Or if you don't like compiling, you could always use one of the many other binary distro's besides Ubuntu.


Disclaimer: I have never used Gentoo, although I tried - too much work to install, so I gave up, figuring that if I had to read 10 pages of manuals JUST to use the GTK installer I wasn't gonna do so well when I actually got it installed.

Maybe you should try it out then . The Gentoo docs are as good or better as Ubuntu. I've never used the GTK installer, but doing a stage3 install is fairly straight forward. If you run across any problems, just fire up irssi (included on the CD) and go to #gentoo. Maybe you should give Sabayon a try. It will set you up nicely with a Gentoo install.

compwiz18
January 10th, 2007, 09:40 AM
You don't have to compile your kernel everyday in Gentoo. And Gentoo did have some binaries last time I used it. Or if you don't like compiling, you could always use one of the many other binary distro's besides Ubuntu.



Maybe you should try it out then . The Gentoo docs are as good or better as Ubuntu. I've never used the GTK installer, but doing a stage3 install is fairly straight forward. If you run across any problems, just fire up irssi (included on the CD) and go to #gentoo. Maybe you should give Sabayon a try. It will set you up nicely with a Gentoo install.
I'm just curious: from what I read about Gentoo, it sounds like you compile all the software you install, correct? If so, does this take a long time to do?

sorry, somewhere I read that you have to recompile the kernel whenever you install something...

tbroderick
January 10th, 2007, 10:03 AM
I'm just curious: from what I read about Gentoo, it sounds like you compile all the software you install, correct? If so, does this take a long time to do?

sorry, somewhere I read that you have to recompile the kernel whenever you install something...

You compile software you want to use. But, they also provide some binaries too, like for Firefox.You only recompile your kernel when there is a new version out you want to install or you want to add/remove a module from the kernel.

Edit;
The initial install of Gentoo can take awhile. That's why I'd recommend Sabayon if you want to try Gentoo but don't want to wait.

manmower
January 10th, 2007, 10:10 AM
I'm just curious: from what I read about Gentoo, it sounds like you compile all the software you install, correct? If so, does this take a long time to do?

Depends on your hardware. I'd rather use one of the fast binary distros, because at the end of the day I don't really need the flexibility of the USE flags 99% of the time, but I suppose on a recent machine the compile times would be quite bearable for anything other than the very biggest apps.

chinocracy
January 10th, 2007, 10:37 AM
Perhaps some Linux purists or elitists see Ubuntu as a sellout to the point-and-click world that Windows dominates, discounting the benefits that an easy-to-use Linux distro can give not just to the user, but to the reputation of Linux as well. Point and click is for Windows and not for Linux, they might say, like a sort of chauvinism. If these elitists continue to believe this, they'll keep Linux for only themselves and not let it realize its potential. An easy-to-use Linux is a good goal and Ubuntu achieves this well.

null0
January 10th, 2007, 12:48 PM
While you're busy making absurd generalizations and patting yourself on the back, you might want to read my reply earlier in the thread. I think I gave some valid reasons why I dislike Ubuntu, without resorting to bashing. You are the one being elitist, insinuating that Ubuntu is the best for everyone and those who don't use it do so out of spite (?).It wasn't about you since you didn't even bash ubuntu, just made some comments, so don't take it so personal. And I don't know where you read me saying Ubuntu was the best for everyone, and hell, i surely didn't say anything about the people who don't use it. Just said its arguably the best. A lot of people consider it the best, and a lot of people disagree, both with valid reasons.
I was talking about those who are discomfortable with linux breaking out to the mainstream cause they're afraid their unmatched skills not beeing so unmatched anymore. those who go "oh noes, my gf installed and is using linux by herself! Anyone can do it now, I'm not special anymore!" ](*,) :lol:

manmower
January 10th, 2007, 01:51 PM
First about the "absurd generalizations" part of my post.

When a lot of people like something, there will always be a lot of people disliking it, most of the times for simple denial.Applying your logic: Proprietary software = popular and widespread. So, most of the people who dislike it are simply in denial.

If we're going to talk semantics, I said your post insinuated Ubuntu somehow being the solution for everyone, e.g. the following (emphasis mine):

They like their distro and can't stand the idea of a better one rising from nothing.

Usually ellitist people, they don't even give it a try, just follow a simple logic:

It's Mainstream -> It's Bad -> Let's Bash!...insinuating that if they did give it a try they would see the light and no longer be "in denial".

Came from nothing, and won.

Ubuntu Came, Saw and Conquered.

Also, as a final point about some other replies in this thread, a lot of the posters seem to have this weird idea that every (user of an) other distro even cares about popularity or widespread use in the first place. Do you think Ultima cares if VW sells more cars than them?

null0
January 10th, 2007, 04:06 PM
why do you insist in putting words in my mouth? i didn't attack you, and you're reacting like i'm throwing rocks at you.
I'm not insinuating anything, i'm talking straightforward. If they tryed it, they could like it or not, present their reasons, like you did, and their opinion would have value. but when someone talks about something he doesn't know, never even looked at, his opinion is worth less then crap. And a lot of jackasses don't bother to try it cause of its famous ease of usage, they're just too l33t for it. Well back luck for them, it's their loss, i don't give a damn. That's ALL i meant, no hidden insinuations.
Don't take me as an ubuntu purist, nor even a linux purist. I love operating systems. Tryed all flavors of bsd and linux i could get my hands on, solaris, and use windows almost as much as ubuntu. i said that vinividivici crap in a light mood, refering to the way ubuntu quickly raised in the popularity charts when it first came out, and quickly dethroned shity overbloated distros like mandriva. it wasn't a roman empire war declaration.
So please cool down and stop assuming things, i didn't mean to touch any nerve.

yanqui
January 10th, 2007, 04:25 PM
Retarded developers? Geez, I thought the whole point of any computer program was to make it usable.

My objective in learning linux is to be able to provide my employer and my friends an alternative to Redmond's ever-increasing price tags. I'm not going to be able to do that with something that needs babysitting all the time.

Think about that--babysitting--even our kids mature to the point where they don't need babysitting all the time. If a 14 year old can't survive without constant supervision, that's NOT an indication that the parent is superior to all other parents. It's either a disability in the 14-year-old or a lack of maturity in the PARENT.

If Ubuntu takes an operating system to a new point in maturity, that indicates a maturity in the parents, that is, the developers, and a system that is ready for that step in maturity.

dac10
January 10th, 2007, 04:35 PM
hi, ive only just got Ubuntu installed just today and am trying to get set up, but its not easy. i think the main reason people might not like Ubuntu is thats its a bit more tech savvy than the initial introduction suggests.

i am currently studying computer science at A-level and got places for future study at university, however im still lost as to getting Ubuntu fully operational. ive heard great things about Linux and is the main reason why ive decided to switch from XP, if i werent as interested in computers id have walked away before now im afraid. but i will stick it out and hopefully get it sorted.

ps. im forced to use my xp partition to post atm lol.

BLTicklemonster
January 10th, 2007, 05:21 PM
Bah, your Gentoo buddy apparently thinks everyone who owns a house ought to build it from scratch with a truckload of toothpicks, a sledge hammer and a glue gun.

I guess troglodytes think automatic weapons are for sissies, that everyone ought to chip thier own flint...

I could go on all day with this stuff!

Just look at your watch and tell him that it's the 21st century, and to get with the program.

manmower
January 10th, 2007, 05:22 PM
So please cool down and stop assuming things, i didn't mean to touch any nerve.

OK, sure. No worries.

stalker145
January 10th, 2007, 06:51 PM
Personally, I feel that, as posted earlier, one of the problems stems from a frustration on the part of the 'purists' in seeing a distribution that they've worked so hard on be relegated to the back burners. I would not go so far as to call it jealousy, by it could possibly be close. I think that I, too, would feel a bit put out if something that I had labored on for so long and had gotten set up just the way I wanted it was almost identically usable to something that someone else was able to set up in a matter of a short hour.

Another possible explanation could be an unconscious fear on the part of some people that Ubuntu may be leaning in the direction of Microsoft. We have a single company that is putting out a quality product with technical support available (Canonical). This same comany's product is now becoming available preinstalled on computers. The user base is expanding rapidly (my assumption from the DistroWatch rankings).

Either of these arguments may or may not be reasonable. I'm simply brainstorming here for a possible explanation for the unreasonable dislikes that some people have for the choices of others.

majoridiot
January 10th, 2007, 10:48 PM
I'm simply brainstorming here for a possible explanation for the unreasonable dislikes that some people have for the choices of others.

um... because it's human nature to be unreasonable about anything you disagree with? ;)

i think the ubuntu bashers mostly fall into the following categories:

purists that think everything should be self-compiled and config'd to the nth degree
bash-anything-not-my-distro types
once bitten by a bad install, immediately jumped ship to another distro
natural-born agitators
people who secretly love it but are, for some odd reason, embarassed to say "ubuntu" in public.

just my two cents... :D

teejay17
January 11th, 2007, 12:45 AM
um... because it's human nature to be unreasonable about anything you disagree with? ;)

i think the ubuntu bashers mostly fall into the following categories:

purists that think everything should be self-compiled and config'd to the nth degree
bash-anything-not-my-distro types
once bitten by a bad install, immediately jumped ship to another distro
natural-born agitators
people who secretly love it but are, for some odd reason, embarassed to say "ubuntu" in public.

just my two cents... :D
Also, because Ubuntu gives them the choice to be Ubuntu bashers. I know this might sound unnecessarily cyclical and even oxymoronic, but it's true: without Ubuntu, certain people would not be able to choose defending their own preferences. The topic might not have even occurred.

macogw
January 11th, 2007, 03:00 AM
Depends on your hardware. I'd rather use one of the fast binary distros, because at the end of the day I don't really need the flexibility of the USE flags 99% of the time, but I suppose on a recent machine the compile times would be quite bearable for anything other than the very biggest apps.
MOTU people told me OOo takes over 12 hours to compile on a fast machine

macogw
January 11th, 2007, 03:18 AM
hi, ive only just got Ubuntu installed just today and am trying to get set up, but its not easy. i think the main reason people might not like Ubuntu is thats its a bit more tech savvy than the initial introduction suggests.

Compared to many other distros it's VERY easy though. People who've been using harder distros for years think if you use Ubuntu you're a wuss the way I think if you use Dreamweaver instead of coding your own HTML you're a wuss. It's a matter of expectations. I expect a decent web designer to know how to code HTML. Маny senior Linux-users expect other Linux-users to be able to compile from source, survive with X-killed running totally CLI, and know how to configure everything by hand. When they see a distro making it possible for people to get around without knowing that stuff, they get ticked because they feel that the sanctity of Linux is being harmed because it's supposed to be really geeky and all. Linux has a reputation as being for geeks only, and if you use it, you get a lot of geek points. Ubuntu makes a lot of time-consuming tasks easier and has GUIs for a lot of the stuff other distros force you to do in the CLI. The way they see it, Ubuntu means Linux isn't really worth a lot of geek points and they're losing geek-cred. Now, if they're devs or kernel hackers, they aren't losing geek points at all, but the regular users feel threatened because their geekdom is at stake. That's why they're going into distro-wars. "Oh, well I'm a REAL Linux-user. I use Gentoo/Debian/whatever-distro, not that dumbed-down Ubuntu crap!" They don't like that more normal people are using Linux thanks to Ubuntu (or Xandros or Freespire or any other easy-configuration distro) because they want to stay elitists and be able to make people "ooh" and "aah" about how they use that really-hard-to-use super-geeky Linux thing.

As for my Dreamweaver-use-is-wussy...if you're going to make a site, HTML is simple enough, and the average site uses about 15 different tags over and over. There's no excuse not to be able to figure out 15 tags when 1/5 of them are <b> <i> <u>

And yeah, lots of generalizations. I know that not all people who've been using Linux for years hate Ubuntu, but it seems that it's them more than new people. People who had trouble with a few distros, got sick of it, and tried Ubuntu and didn't have trouble like it. People who went straight to Ubuntu with no trouble like it. People who couldn't get it set up call it inferior to Windows. People who spent years amassing knowledge about Linux and see it all going to waste with Ubuntu because they don't need to know that stuff are upset because we're getting easy. I had no problem switching, they probably did, and they see it as initiation. Other long-time-Linux-users see it and go "wow, wish that existed when I started" but they're not so vocal.

simonn
January 11th, 2007, 03:44 AM
My first distro was Core Linux and then Linux From Scratch. I jumped in at the deep end basically because I wanted to learn how linux worked.

When I started using LFS as my main OS I soon got pissed off spending most of my time upgrading/patching it rather than programming and actually adding some value to the OSS communty. Moving to Fedora which has yum was a breath of fresh air. Moving to Ubuntu which has apt-get AND well organised repositories was like a breath of fresh air on top of a mountain miles from any kind of civilisation - I can now get on with using the computer and only building from source if I have a specific need.

The thing which gets me about Gentoo users is that they think they are l33t, but really all they are doing is using a different package manager. The fact that Portage mostly builds from source is neither here nor there (really, it is not!). Most Gentoo users are doing no guts work. It is like getting a kit car built for you as you stand there watching, adding a couple of go faster stripes then claiming you are more l33t than someone who went out and bought a standard car.

Do not get me wrong, working through LFS or Gentoo, and understanding it, will no doubt increase your knowledge of linux. However, which is the better distro or not is a different topic.

I have never seen any like for like performance stats that indicate source distros are any faster or more efficient than non-source distros.

Also, do not underestimate the advantage with regards to testing you get by using the same binaries as everyone else, like Ubuntu.

amp_man
January 11th, 2007, 06:21 AM
I haven't read through this entire thread, so this may have already been said, but I think it's mostly people jealous of the financial support from canonical. I don't think ubuntu would be what it is today without their support, and although I don't know exactly where the money goes, I can imagine servers to handle the kind of traffic ubuntu generates are pretty darn expensive.

I've actually been using Gentoo for about 6 months on my fileserver (please, don't hate me!), and I decided to install Sabayon on another rig, a dual p3. I was completely and utterly appalled by the number of ubuntu-haters on the sabayon forums, it's one of the reasons I gave up on the distro. Another of the reasons being that they used the testing/unstable branch of Gentoo, which meant if you wanted something for software other than what was on the install disc, you pray for divine intervention, emerge --sync and emerge -uD world was a guaranteed fresh install.

I've been using linux for about 6 years now, and as my main OS for about 2 years, and I still think ubuntu is by far one of the best desktop distros, its simplicity and logical package management give it an A in my book. I've used Gentoo, debian, redhat, fedora, suse, and mandrake (although not mandriva yet), and none of them have come as close to perfection as ubuntu (not to say ubuntu is entirely perfect...).

edit: and btw, I have no intention of claiming "l33t-ness" because I run gentoo. I run gentoo on my fileserver because it (yes, portage, not me) builds the packages from scratch with only exactly the features I need...so in other words, I don't get all the accessibility crap or internationalization stuff that I simply don't need as a non-impaired english-speaking American. My fileserver doesn't even have sound, and the packages are built to account for that, and not bother building/running sound daemons that I have no use for.Not to mention that the packages are built optimized for my CPU, and not for the lowest common denominator, which is usually i486. It's about performance, not about l33t skillz. Those kind of people are also usually the ones who drive around in Civics with a Flowmaster underneath and nothing under the hood, or SUVs with 22" spinners and not a drop of mud. That is, if they're even old enough to drive.

kd7swh
January 11th, 2007, 06:42 AM
Most people have little personal gripes. Most of the people who don't like Ubuntu either think the GUI needs improved or that it is too sugar-coated. The artwork is a major complaint that I hear all of the time.

Everyone has a preference. Some people just want to use Windows or Mac OS X and don't want to spend the time learning linux. (Despite Ubuntu's attempt to be user friendly.) When a distro is born some people are just not going to like it. We can't make everyone happy, all we can do is try and that is how Ubuntu became the most popular distro. :)

chinocracy
January 11th, 2007, 10:52 AM
Another observation could be, why have a Linux vs. Linux competition (a heated one, that is)? There shouldn't be any. There are points of comparison, but what's better, good, bad or worse is really a subjective thing at the very end of it.

null0
January 11th, 2007, 12:05 PM
People who spent years amassing knowledge about Linux and see it all going to waste with Ubuntu because they don't need to know that stuff are upset because we're getting easy. I had no problem switching, they probably did, and they see it as initiation. Other long-time-Linux-users see it and go "wow, wish that existed when I started" but they're not so vocal.the way i see it, after years of studying linux it's really confortable to be able to install a fully working linux without the need of applying all those years of knowledge.
The hard way is worth for the sake of learning or performance. If you have plenty resources and just want a working linux desktop, and you know how to do it the hard way, why should you have problems with using the easy way? If you don't have much left to learn from a linux instalation process anyway and you can still tweak the hell out of it, why bother so much about how it gets to the harddrive?
And btw, all those people thinking they're l33t only cause they were able to install a fully documented gentoo system, should try to install a 1970's UNIX/BSD referring exclusively to the documentation available back then. That would burst their bubble.

GSMD
January 13th, 2007, 10:24 AM
I dislike Ubuntu bcuz of those HUGE GTK interface elements.

shining
January 13th, 2007, 02:27 PM
I haven't read through this entire thread, so this may have already been said, but I think it's mostly people jealous of the financial support from canonical. I don't think ubuntu would be what it is today without their support, and although I don't know exactly where the money goes, I can imagine servers to handle the kind of traffic ubuntu generates are pretty darn expensive.

I've actually been using Gentoo for about 6 months on my fileserver (please, don't hate me!), and I decided to install Sabayon on another rig, a dual p3. I was completely and utterly appalled by the number of ubuntu-haters on the sabayon forums, it's one of the reasons I gave up on the distro. Another of the reasons being that they used the testing/unstable branch of Gentoo, which meant if you wanted something for software other than what was on the install disc, you pray for divine intervention, emerge --sync and emerge -uD world was a guaranteed fresh install.

I've been using linux for about 6 years now, and as my main OS for about 2 years, and I still think ubuntu is by far one of the best desktop distros, its simplicity and logical package management give it an A in my book. I've used Gentoo, debian, redhat, fedora, suse, and mandrake (although not mandriva yet), and none of them have come as close to perfection as ubuntu (not to say ubuntu is entirely perfect...).

edit: and btw, I have no intention of claiming "l33t-ness" because I run gentoo. I run gentoo on my fileserver because it (yes, portage, not me) builds the packages from scratch with only exactly the features I need...so in other words, I don't get all the accessibility crap or internationalization stuff that I simply don't need as a non-impaired english-speaking American. My fileserver doesn't even have sound, and the packages are built to account for that, and not bother building/running sound daemons that I have no use for.Not to mention that the packages are built optimized for my CPU, and not for the lowest common denominator, which is usually i486. It's about performance, not about l33t skillz. Those kind of people are also usually the ones who drive around in Civics with a Flowmaster underneath and nothing under the hood, or SUVs with 22" spinners and not a drop of mud. That is, if they're even old enough to drive.

What would be interesting is if you could benchmark your file server using gentoo, then reinstall an other distrib and benchmark it there, and then decide if it was worth consuming all that CPU power or not, and the corresponding delay between the time you started installing and the time the server was operational.

teejay17
January 13th, 2007, 03:55 PM
I've actually been using Gentoo for about 6 months on my fileserver (please, don't hate me!), and I decided to install Sabayon on another rig, a dual p3. I was completely and utterly appalled by the number of ubuntu-haters on the sabayon forums, it's one of the reasons I gave up on the distro.And that's really too bad. If Linux is truly going to succeed as something people will turn to (insert reason here), users need to stop bashing and flaming other Linux users just because of personal preferences, quirks, or whatever.

drfalkor
January 13th, 2007, 03:59 PM
To easy ? or, it is a stable distro so when you have a stable distro you got nothing to do.. only click around the desktop. Is like having a car without gas ( no 'killer-apps') :)

leona
January 19th, 2007, 01:53 PM
Ubuntu is most certainly not a stable Distro IMHO, I'm constantly having to search this forum to find fixes to really annoying and stupid things that just shouldn't break, I don't know how many countless hours I have wasted trying to get this OS in some sort of working state. Its finicky fussy, irritating, unpredictable and dam right frustrating, I'd take a Stable Distro over one with so called 'killer apps' any day, just something that when I press the power button I know what's going to happen, not spend the evening searching for a fix for the latest problem. Honestly I don't think I'm managed to power up Yet, without a problem occurring.

I am really starting to Hate this distro, Linux for humans? I think not, its still Linux for geeks. Bring back Suse all is forgiven!

Oh and before you accuse me of just being an old whinge bag, you'll see from my posts that I do go searching for fixes, I do spend time researching them, and fixing a few things myself, my point is "I shouldn't have to!". If I wanted to spend my life fixing Linux I'd install Slack, or Gento or something like that.

There that's better, got that off my chest.

darrenm
January 19th, 2007, 02:50 PM
Ubuntu is most certainly not a stable Distro IMHO, I'm constantly having to search this forum to find fixes to really annoying and stupid things that just shouldn't break, I don't know how many countless hours I have wasted trying to get this OS in some sort of working state. Its finicky fussy, irritating, unpredictable and dam right frustrating, I'd take a Stable Distro over one with so called 'killer apps' any day, just something that when I press the power button I know what's going to happen, not spend the evening searching for a fix for the latest problem. Honestly I don't think I'm managed to power up Yet, without a problem occurring.

I am really starting to Hate this distro, Linux for humans? I think not, its still Linux for geeks. Bring back Suse all is forgiven!

Oh and before you accuse me of just being an old whinge bag, you'll see from my posts that I do go searching for fixes, I do spend time researching them, and fixing a few things myself, my point is "I shouldn't have to!". If I wanted to spend my life fixing Linux I'd install Slack, or Gento or something like that.

There that's better, got that off my chest.

Cheerio.

LookTJ
January 19th, 2007, 02:55 PM
Ubuntu is most certainly not a stable Distro IMHO, I'm constantly having to search this forum to find fixes to really annoying and stupid things that just shouldn't break, I don't know how many countless hours I have wasted trying to get this OS in some sort of working state. Its finicky fussy, irritating, unpredictable and dam right frustrating, I'd take a Stable Distro over one with so called 'killer apps' any day, just something that when I press the power button I know what's going to happen, not spend the evening searching for a fix for the latest problem. Honestly I don't think I'm managed to power up Yet, without a problem occurring.

I am really starting to Hate this distro, Linux for humans? I think not, its still Linux for geeks. Bring back Suse all is forgiven!

Oh and before you accuse me of just being an old whinge bag, you'll see from my posts that I do go searching for fixes, I do spend time researching them, and fixing a few things myself, my point is "I shouldn't have to!". If I wanted to spend my life fixing Linux I'd install Slack, or Gento or something like that.

There that's better, got that off my chest.If you use Edgy, then you'll most likely to have many problems depending on the configuration of xorg and your hardware support

Dapper probably the most stable Ubuntu version yet.

leona
January 19th, 2007, 03:22 PM
If you use Edgy, then you'll most likely to have many problems depending on the configuration of xorg and your hardware support

Dapper probably the most stable Ubuntu version yet.

Cripes! what where the other Versions like than?! Yep I'm on 6.06 LTS, not going anywhere near Edgy.

compwiz18
January 20th, 2007, 01:02 AM
I haven't ever had any stablity issues, except with dnsmasq (on amd64, causes random freeze ups) - otherwise very stable as long as I don't run around compiling my own kernel...

mkoyle
January 20th, 2007, 02:01 AM
I have no experience with Gentoo. I have installed Debian quite a few times on slightly older systems and the only things is that you have to know what software and xserver to install or you end up with a base server. That really isn't a problem for someone with experience, but is not very useful to a noob user.

My brother's complaint about Ubuntu is that it tries to do too much automatically (i.e. it imitates Windows), but honestly they really aren't quite to that extreme, yet. The things I can handle manually I turn off (like turning off update-notifier). It is a lot easier to install Ubuntu and fix what I don't like here than to install Debian and have to figure out the defaults I had in Ubuntu and miss when I run another distribution. It is nice that we are willing to work with proprietary stuff here, too... it is a nice goal to get rid of the proprietary stuff completely, but it really isn't immediately possible and most people aren't willing to spend the money (or the time) they would need to to find only linux-supported hardware.

So, here we are. Attending law school, I am not too likely to have arguments with anyone about what distro to use, anyway, lol ;)

--Matthew

Enverex
January 20th, 2007, 02:13 AM
The problem with Gentoo is you're expected to be able to edit anything from scratch but without giving you an idea what or how, the massive compile times and the general attitude to people in their IRC/Forums/Bugzilla, I think the last issue was something that was a big issue for me.

Oh, another myth incase no-one already debunked it. Distro's don't "support" different hardware, that's up to the kernel which is Linux itself. So "Gentoo doesn't support my hardware!" or any other distro isn't really valid and shouldn't hold anyone back.

Daveski
January 20th, 2007, 02:37 AM
Cripes! what where the other Versions like than?! Yep I'm on 6.06 LTS, not going anywhere near Edgy.

I am surprised, I guess I have been lucky so far in that all the installs of 6.06 I have seen have been stable. Out of curiosity, what has been causing you the most stability problems? I know that people have used things like proprietory drivers (nVidia, ATI etc.) which sometimes break Ubuntu when updates to the core OS are installed. Others have been told that installing add-ons which are still under major development is the cause of their stabilty problems.

manmower
January 20th, 2007, 02:43 AM
Oh, another myth incase no-one already debunked it. Distro's don't "support" different hardware, that's up to the kernel which is Linux itself. So "Gentoo doesn't support my hardware!" or any other distro isn't really valid and shouldn't hold anyone back.

Yeah that type of comment does get tiring sometimes. Another one of my favourites in this regard is: "Distro X has a better KDE than distro Y". "Distro I has a better Gnome than distro J".

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?

Choad
January 20th, 2007, 02:45 AM
I think you should just say, "Thanks. I already know about Gentoo, but Ubuntu seems to work fine for me now. I may give it a try if Ubuntu ever fails me."

In answer to your question, I think there are several reasons people dislike Ubuntu. Some people who consider themselves "elite" think Ubuntu and distros like it dumb down Linux too much. They like to think people need to be computer geniuses in order to use Linux. Other people dislike Ubuntu because it's so talked about. It gets a lot of attention in the media. If you want to see evidence of this, look in the Linux section of Digg some time. Just about every day there's a new posting about Ubuntu and then some person whining "Why does Ubuntu have to show up here every day?!"

Over Christmas break, my wife and I met up with an old high school friend of mine and that friend's boyfriend. When I mentioned I use Ubuntu, the boyfriend responded, "Yes, Ubuntu--a South African word meaning can't install Debian." I laughed and said, "That's so true. I tried installing Debian, and I was like, 'This is too much trouble.'"

Don't let it get to you. Live and let live.
legendary quote!

Severa
January 20th, 2007, 03:25 AM
I guess it's cause I'm new (I just wiped WinXP off my hard drive the week of Christmas and installed Ubuntu, my VERY FIRST foray into Linux) but I LOVE Ubuntu.

Why? It WORKS on my system (Athlon 2600+, 512MB RAM, 80 GB HD, GeForce FX 5900 XT at start, I've since upgraded to 1GB cause we had an extra memory stick)

I started out with Ubuntu Edgy. Out of the box it WORKED. Sweet. Piddled around with it a while. Got bored. Tried Mepis. HATED working with KDE. Switched back to Ubuntu and GNOME.

Got brave the other night and installed Feisty. Today I installed Beryl.

I'm having a friggin BLAST with Linux. I was one of those goofy Windows geeks that HATED when they did away with DOS in subsequent OSes, so I guess Linux (and Ubuntu) and I are a good fit. :biggrin:

BLTicklemonster
January 20th, 2007, 03:30 AM
Yeah that type of comment does get tiring sometimes. Another one of my favourites in this regard is: "Distro X has a better KDE than distro Y". "Distro I has a better Gnome than distro J".

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?

Quebec Sierra Lima!

Kateikyoushi
January 20th, 2007, 03:48 AM
Things do not work the same way as they do in another OS. They are lazy to learn new things, not that the majority's other OS knowledge is that high. I guess they just want a free windows without it's flaws but not willing to do anything for it.

jdhore
January 20th, 2007, 05:29 AM
ok, let me just say first off that i use Ubuntu Edgy and i use Debian Etch.

Now, onto the debate part...i sort of dislike Ubuntu...for the simple fact that most of the stuff that Made Linux Linux is no longer in Ubuntu, stuff like the i386 Kernel, INIT, gcc and build-essential. In my opinion, this stuff is part of what makes Linux and pulling it out of Ubuntu means it's not Linux...Really, there are only 3 reasons i use Ubuntu, 1, Stuff just works...i didn't have to spend 4 hours trying to get my Prism wifi card running in Ubuntu like i did with Etch and 2. the community...there's the great Ubuntu wiki and these great forums and there's no support like this for Ubuntu and 3. Ubuntu is getting more people into Linux because it's so easy now...which now that i think about it may be a bad thing...too many script kiddies and people who want to be like "look at me, i'm so 1337, i run Linux!" using Ubuntu cuz it's so easy. Also, if a lot of people switch, virus writers will start to focus on writing spyware and virii for Linux and it may be just as insecure as Windows if it gains mass adoption...i also don't like Ubuntu because it's so heavy...all this stuff come on the OS on a default install...and half of it is just taking up space (for me at least)...wow...that was a long rant...comment on that, b*tches...lol

deanjm1963
January 20th, 2007, 05:38 AM
Gentoo = Become a linux expert over night by watching hours of continuous scrolling of programs compiling 8-)

Debian = Great distro but a few hours of getting those repos ... "just right" ... not to mention the nvidia drivers 8-)

Ubuntu = I will install Debian tomorrow but I'm using it TODAY 8-)

My 2 cents worth... they're all very good distros, each dependent on experience and requirements, no matter how easy the distro is it still takes some time, every distro has its own quirks. A case of trial and error..

depele
January 20th, 2007, 12:01 PM
I tried gentoo first, but it is just to much work for the same result as kubuntu.

==> thats why I am using kubuntu the moment.

thing gentoo is fine for servers.

grtz...

Enverex
January 20th, 2007, 12:51 PM
Things do not work the same way as they do in another OS. They are lazy to learn new things, not that the majority's other OS knowledge is that high. I guess they just want a free windows without it's flaws but not willing to do anything for it.

Quoted for truth, that seems to be exactly how it is a lot of the time when people are complaining.

tageiru
January 20th, 2007, 03:37 PM
ok, let me just say first off that i use Ubuntu Edgy and i use Debian Etch.

Now, onto the debate part...i sort of dislike Ubuntu...for the simple fact that most of the stuff that Made Linux Linux is no longer in Ubuntu, stuff like the i386 Kernel, INIT, gcc and build-essential.

All of which are a part of Ubuntu, so what are you talking about?

jdhore
January 20th, 2007, 07:41 PM
All of which are a part of Ubuntu, so what are you talking about?

Init was pulled in Edgy and above and replaced with System V or whatever, the normal i386 kernel was replaced with the generic kernel and the build-essential packages are not included in Ubuntu on a default install

WetWired
January 20th, 2007, 08:02 PM
Linux is linux. It doesn't matter how you dress it up, or how easy or hard it is to use, it's still Linux. I've installed and used so many different linux distro's, in search of the perfect one, it's mind boggling. Thus far, Ubuntu has had the best hardware support, best community, and best overall ease of use out of all that I've tried. I could attempt to list them all, but suffice to say, the list is extensive. The ONLY distro on the planet, that I've found, that even compares to Ubuntu in ease of use, funtionality, and community is Vector Linux.

Even then, 3 nights ago, I installed Vector again. As soon as I got to the desktop. I wasn't online. I refuse to spend every waking moment trying to fix something that should work anyway. Ubuntu. I popped the disk in. Went through the installed flawlessly, and when I got to the desktop, everything worked. No driver issues, no unsupported hardware issues, nothing. It just works.

The people who dislike "easy" linux distro's are trying to convince you that you're not as smart as they are because you don't have to know every single terminal command or diagnostic procedure in order to make your distro work. I've been through this time and time again. Back when I used Mandrake 7, people would constantly ask me "why would you want to use something like that". I said, well, while you're over there fixing your internet connection, or installing driver after driver after driver, or recompiling your kernel to add or exclude this module, or trying to make this work, or make that work, I'll be over here, on my "lesser" distro, USING IT.

There's a reason Ubuntu is so popular. There's a reason everyone uses it. And to say the "tech savvy, uber user" people don't use it, is a lie. Ubuntu just works, and it works well. It's easy, yes, but if you wanted to make it difficult, it can be just as difficult as any other. Linux is linux, and linux is about choice. You chose wisely.

Enverex
January 20th, 2007, 08:10 PM
Init was pulled in Edgy and above and replaced with System V or whatever, the normal i386 kernel was replaced with the generic kernel and the build-essential packages are not included in Ubuntu on a default install

System V Init is just a different version of Init, much like there is also Init-NG and other types. Nothing wrong with replacing a crippled and slow one with a better one.

The "generic" kernel supports more than the i386 kernel did and I don't see what the issue with this is.

zubrug
January 20th, 2007, 08:52 PM
I have found that most of the negativity is a result is the fact that this community quickly step's on threads that become abrasive. The mod's do there part but the actual community hicks (I am one, I love just browse through the threads reading for hour's) simply squash anything that is considered offensive.
We all say thing's that we wish we had not at times, some just have a phobia about the word "sorry" I. (maybe a liberal/conservative thing)
Have you used google and searched their user name in linux, you might find a pattern.

leona
January 21st, 2007, 12:19 AM
I am surprised, I guess I have been lucky so far in that all the installs of 6.06 I have seen have been stable. Out of curiosity, what has been causing you the most stability problems? I know that people have used things like proprietory drivers (nVidia, ATI etc.) which sometimes break Ubuntu when updates to the core OS are installed. Others have been told that installing add-ons which are still under major development is the cause of their stabilty problems.

Hi Daveski, sorry been away.
Its a succession of small, irritating problems, the first was I couldn't get the network to 'mount' (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=268247) in fstab, had to resort to a workaround start up script
Lost my wifi setup (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=305016) after a router change.
I've then lost my desktop (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=323666) (caused by a Nautilus falling over after an update).
Problems with Vmplaye (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=315493)r, apparent broken script.
I can't print from my 32 bit Firefox browser, thats really annoying.
Java Chat (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=222325) rooms wouldn't work
I can't get USB devices to work (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=333425), still unresolved.

So not 1 thing, just a lot of small annoying problems, of which I've had to spend time searching, researching, diagnosing and attempting to fix, I am by no means a Linux expert and I do struggle with the command line, there is a whole load of log files to wade through and it helps if you know what your looking for, or understand them, I can do the basics but that's it.

It just knocks my confidence with the product, each time I load up its a different problem, something that worked one day (USB) suddenly and for no reason, will not work the next.

I need stability in my life! Before the men in white coats come after me.

I do have to say that on the whole the community here is first rate! Very helpful and (mostly) friendly, only criticism I would have is, don't assume 'I' know what I'm doing with the command line! ;)

My wish would be that instead of stuffing in the next 'killer app' that the developers spent a little more time making the system more robust and 'idiot' (me) proof.

tageiru
January 21st, 2007, 01:55 AM
Init was pulled in Edgy and above and replaced with System V or whatever,

They are both based on System V, and it is an init daemon.


the normal i386 kernel was replaced with the generic kernel

...and what do you think the -generic kernel is?


and the build-essential packages are not included in Ubuntu on a default install

build-essential should be installed by default in edgy.

mdsmith
January 21st, 2007, 04:51 AM
I can't say that I dislike Ubuntu. I have been using Linux since Mandrake 8.2. Always dual boot with Win98. I tried installin Slackware (could get the monitor to work). Vector Linux had the same problem. Vector installs the best boot loader of any I've tried. When Mdk 10.0 came out it, I could not get the monitor to work so stayed with 9.2 and got a copy of Breezy. It took forever to install and I had to search quite a bit to get my dialup to work. Other than the amount of time to get the KDE apps I wanted it did a good job. When I installed 6.06 everything worked except I couldn't get the printer to work with Glabels. No problem I had kept 5.10 on the other partition. I When I installed 6.10 The internet config tool did not have the connect button. That's when I accquired the Mandriva 2007 DVD (15.00 from Linux central). The best install since Mdk 9.1, a little slower but I was online within 40 minutes. I will be trying the next Ubuntu when it is released, but I will be dual booting with Mandriva. Ubuntu has the best forum I have visited. It would be nice if the distro was more friendly to the folks who use a single computer and are limited to dialup. Don

rayclev
January 21st, 2007, 05:29 AM
I have used Suse since 9.0 and was very satisfied with it. Before that I used Red Hat, but when I got this laptop Red Hat wouldn't install. That's when I changed to Suse. Recently my IP, Verizon Yahoo, installed their Fiber Optic system, FiOS, and i could not configure Suse 10.1 or Fedora Core 6.0 to use my Adapter, even after I purchased a Belkin G Adapter. I had received a copy of Ubuntu 6.10 with Linux Magazine Pro, so I installed it and it took no configuring at all. Every thing worked right off the first boot. Of course I installed the wrong keyboard layout, but that was easily fixed. So I guess I am an Ubuntu fan until some body breaks something else. It is deceptively simple. When I look into things it has a lot more to it than meets the eye at first glance.
Cheers. rayclev

riven0
January 21st, 2007, 06:57 AM
The people who dislike "easy" linux distro's are trying to convince you that you're not as smart as they are because you don't have to know every single terminal command or diagnostic procedure in order to make your distro work. I've been through this time and time again. Back when I used Mandrake 7, people would constantly ask me "why would you want to use something like that". I said, well, while you're over there fixing your internet connection, or installing driver after driver after driver, or recompiling your kernel to add or exclude this module, or trying to make this work, or make that work, I'll be over here, on my "lesser" distro, USING IT.

There's a reason Ubuntu is so popular. There's a reason everyone uses it. And to say the "tech savvy, uber user" people don't use it, is a lie. Ubuntu just works, and it works well. It's easy, yes, but if you wanted to make it difficult, it can be just as difficult as any other. Linux is linux, and linux is about choice. You chose wisely.

I think WetWired just about called it on this one. Most non-Ubuntu users seem to think that it's not Linux if you don't have to manually configure the entire OS, all the while, failing to realize that deep down, it's still Linux no matter which way you install it!

Elitism is what it is is. God forbid that anyone makes Linux easy to use for the common n00b!

argie
January 21st, 2007, 09:12 AM
It would be nice if the distro was more friendly to the folks who use a single computer and are limited to dialup. Don

There are some people who sell DVD snapshots of whole repositories. Perhaps that will be of help.

runningwithscissors
January 21st, 2007, 09:22 AM
I think WetWired just about called it on this one. Most non-Ubuntu users seem to think that it's not Linux if you don't have to manually configure the entire OS, all the while, failing to realize that deep down, it's still Linux no matter which way you install it!

Elitism is what it is is. God forbid that anyone makes Linux easy to use for the common n00b!
Actually no. There are elitist idiots, yes, but a lot of people dislike Ubuntu due to the cheesy marketing (remember the pictures of multi-ethnic groups of people), the obnoxious slogan, "Linux for Human Beings", the strange distro-factory that it has put into motion (Kubuntu/Xubuntu, <your prefix here>buntu) just by changing your window manager or desktop theme, and the odd perception that it is "easier to use" compared to other distros (it is basically Debian unstable with some changes, the major ones among which weren't implemented until very recent releases).

SZF2001
January 21st, 2007, 09:41 AM
A lot of people don't like the idea of iTunes not working on Linux/Ubuntu, even though there is Amarok and gtkpod... But if it's not iTunes, then they don't want it or take it.

I'm serious. I've had people go, "Holy crap Ubuntu is awesome!" after they try it. Then install it, get Windows back, and tell me to go to hell - since there was no way to have iTunes working.

People, I swear. :rolleyes:

tbroderick
January 21st, 2007, 09:46 AM
A lot of people don't like the idea of iTunes not working on Linux/Ubuntu, even though there is Amarok and gtkpod... But if it's not iTunes, then they don't want it or take it.


Believe it or not, but some people actually like to purchase music off of itunes instead of buying cd's.

SZF2001
January 21st, 2007, 09:56 AM
No way. ](*,)

ushaba
January 21st, 2007, 02:13 PM
the fact that many ubuntu users are concerned with it overtaking windows and actually think this is possible is probably cause for alarm to many. at the end of the day, it's just another distro, which has as i can tell three fundamental things about it that are nice: 1) debian package management and huge repositories, 2) one cd install, and 3) amazing community. i'm not really satisfied with ubuntu itself, though i'm pretty sure i wouldn't be satisfied with any distro. however, at the end of the day, these forums are the best i've found for any distro, and i'm willing to tolerate ubuntu's quirks for that reason.

i think that ubuntu is not the best distro around. i spent a lot of time trying out different things before, including mandrake 10.1(or maybe 9), fedora core 3, debian, elive, ubuntu breezy, etc. in the initial days i was discovering that mandrake was a pain mainly because of support, and that programs would arbitrarily crash at startup all the time. after i came to ubuntu, i found plenty of new problems. it promises to be linux for human beings and all, but i think that it's pretty much on a par with a lot of other distributions. i'm guessing the hatred that people feel is indeed in part the reaction to the inflated expectations people have for ubuntu initially.

the second reason is more political, and related to debian, i guess.the HATRED is not a result of the popularity at present so much as the EXPECTED popularity it seems, since the speculation among debian users is that canonical ignores the foundation on which ubuntu is based. i must say that as someone who plans to be using ubuntu for quite a while in the future (due to the excellent community =) ) this is somewhat worrisome. if the two could "just get along" then i think a lot of the hatred that we hear about on digg and slashdot would evaporate. i don't use debian, and probably won't, but i can kind of uninterest people being embittered that the progeny is outstripping the parent.

Daveski
January 21st, 2007, 08:52 PM
So not 1 thing, just a lot of small annoying problems, of which I've had to spend time searching, researching, diagnosing and attempting to fix, I am by no means a Linux expert and I do struggle with the command line, there is a whole load of log files to wade through and it helps if you know what your looking for, or understand them, I can do the basics but that's it.

Wow, you do seems to have rooted out a number of problems. I noticed you said on one of your posts that if you had to reinstall you would go back to 32bit. Do you think you have had more problems running the 64bit version than if you ran the 32bit one? I only ask because I do not have any experience of 64bit.


It just knocks my confidence with the product, each time I load up its a different problem, something that worked one day (USB) suddenly and for no reason, will not work the next.

I sympathise, although I don't think you should call Ubuntu a product - that does make it sound like something you purchase. On the bright side, I'll bet you have learned more about Linux and Ubuntu than most do in a short period of time :-)


My wish would be that instead of stuffing in the next 'killer app' that the developers spent a little more time making the system more robust and 'idiot' (me) proof.

I hope that in addition to adding killer apps, the development of Ubuntu includes making the system more stable on more and more hardware, and making the interface easier to use. Sadly in my experience there is no such thing as idiot-proof - just idiot-resistent!

I hope that your experiences have not scared you away from Ubuntu or Linux in general, and you may have highlighted specific problems which will be sorted out in the fullness of time. If you think you have found a bug in the Ubuntu distribution, you should report that bug officially. I'm sure the developers do read some of these forums, but I expect that an officially filed bug will get more attention.

MrHorus
January 23rd, 2007, 09:56 AM
build-essential should be installed by default in edgy.

IMO build-essential should not be installed be default on ANY distribution as it's a security risk.

If a cracker breaks into your system then they have access to whatever you have installed and only that.

If you do them the favour of installing a compiler and a development environment then they will now have the ability to compile and install any sort of malware that they see fit.

I haev a small personal server on the web that I *DO* have a build environment as I do compile code on it but on a production server that gets updated automatically from offsite repositories, there is no need for one really.

runningwithscissors
January 23rd, 2007, 10:53 AM
IMO build-essential should not be installed be default on ANY distribution as it's a security risk.

If a cracker breaks into your system then they have access to whatever you have installed and only that.

If you do them the favour of installing a compiler and a development environment then they will now have the ability to compile and install any sort of malware that they see fit.

I haev a small personal server on the web that I *DO* have a build environment as I do compile code on it but on a production server that gets updated automatically from offsite repositories, there is no need for one really.
Hahahahahahahhahhah.

*wiping tears from my eyes*

renzokuken
January 23rd, 2007, 11:42 AM
Personally I never understand why people complain about "free stuff".

At the end of the day, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo are all free, developed by some very devoted people in their spare time and distributed at no cost to us, but often to them (servers, bandwidth etc).

If someone gives me a free can of Coke in the street, im not gonna throw it back in their face screaming how Pepsi is clearly better and i refuse to soil my lips with this Pepsi wannabe. It's a free can of Coke, drink that s**t up and be grateful.

darrenm
January 23rd, 2007, 12:25 PM
IMO build-essential should not be installed be default on ANY distribution as it's a security risk.

If a cracker breaks into your system then they have access to whatever you have installed and only that.

If you do them the favour of installing a compiler and a development environment then they will now have the ability to compile and install any sort of malware that they see fit.

I haev a small personal server on the web that I *DO* have a build environment as I do compile code on it but on a production server that gets updated automatically from offsite repositories, there is no need for one really.

If someone has a shell on your system then not having GCC won't hold them up for long...

teejay17
January 23rd, 2007, 01:07 PM
Personally I never understand why people complain about "free stuff".

At the end of the day, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo are all free, developed by some very devoted people in their spare time and distributed at no cost to us, but often to them (servers, bandwidth etc).

If someone gives me a free can of Coke in the street, im not gonna throw it back in their face screaming how Pepsi is clearly better and i refuse to soil my lips with this Pepsi wannabe. It's a free can of Coke, drink that s**t up and be grateful.
Good point. I like the free cola analogy. However, maybe these individuals it as a difference between free cola and free beer. :guitar: