Why do you Ubuntu?

[SonicSteve]

OK sorry for the not so clever play on words in the thread title but....
There are countless versions of Linux, why did you choose Ubuntu? I'll share my reasons to get things started.

1. It was at the top of Distrowatch.com last year when I decided to tinker with Linux
2. It was easy to setup, and it worked very well and continues to.
3. This forum
a. I did some research, other distributions have forums like this but get this. Ubuntu has over 230,000 members, other popular distributions have 16,000, 8,000.
b. Often they have numbers like 10 online, or 60 online.
c. One forum says the most ever online was in the 500's.
d. We currently as I type this have more people viewing the main support categories (1100) than they have ever had online at the same time.

What are your reasons, are they technical, logical, what?

Edit;
Gentoo has over 100,000 members. So far it's the closest

[Brainfart]

1) Wanted something quick and easy
2) Figured I should see if this popular distro is as good as people say
3) Boredom :p

[SonicSteve]

1) Wanted something quick and easy
2) Figured I should see if this popular distro is as good as people say
3) Boredom :p

So aside from boredom,
How are 1 and 2 working out for you?

[SonicSteve]

BTW I like your name, I came up with a new name for Brainfart.
Since it's really a thinking fart, you could call it a Thart. Thinking Fart.

[dad311]

Ive tried several distro in the past 8-10 years, never using the same one for more than a year or two. Ubuntu seems to be my all time favorite because of the ease of use. Also between the Ubuntu community and documentation, most issues are resolved quickly.

Simply put, I spend more time using the OS than troubleshooting it! Linux has came a long way in the past 2 years and Ubuntu is certainly on the leading front.

[~LoKe]

ShipIt.

[Brainfart]

So aside from boredom,
How are 1 and 2 working out for you?
It was definitely quick and easy, and so far it's been pretty decent. I've not tried anything fancy yet, but it's nice so far. One of these months I'll have to try my parents out on it...

[Pikestaff]

I'd heard more good things about "the Ubuntu family" than I had for any other distro, and I'd also heard that it's a good distro for Linux beginners, of which I am one. Oh, and it was completely 100% free!

[Mike_Longbow]

Because of its easy to use/learn orientation...
And, of course, Ubuntu Forums ;)

[Zuuswa]

1. The live CD worked to rescue my data on my broken windows machine. (Knoppix and some other live cds I tried wouldnt boot on my laptop)
2. The forums are spectacular. Most of my troubleshooting gets solved within minutes of searching the forums. When I used linux years ago it was lucky if I could solve a simple problem within the week.

[Solicitous]

Well I only have one reason. I purchased about a month ago a new laptop and with all the positive comments I heard about Ubuntu, I thought I would give it a go. I must say, I am very impressed with Ubuntu (I've been a Linux user for the last 8-9 years, so I've tried a few).

[xpod]

After using Windows for a few months last year i became curious as to what the odd folks used instead of Windows....the odd 10 % that is:)

This is what i found):P

[hizaguchi]

1. I got a faster computer, so Ubuntu is almost as fast as Arch without all the configuration.
2. Great 64-bit repos.
3. Apt
4. Easy to find how-tos for just about anything.
5. Hasn't sold its soul to Microsoft, yet.

[geek_Man]

I didn't actaully do any research. I typed "Linux" into Wikipedia and it showed me a bunch distros and I though Ubuntu looked the coolest, so I chose that one. It's turned out do be quite stable, has a great forum, it's very "exstensible" if you will, and it's fun.

[lyceum]

When I decided to learn about Linux I found OSdir.com and went to every site they had on their “screen shots” page. I would burn a disk (if I got it to download right) and put it on my old laptop. If there was a problem loading, or I messed things up somehow or anything that I thought re-doing the hard drive would fix I put Kubuntu on it. Kubuntu was quick and easy and seemed to fix whatever problem the other OS would make.

I was doing this while I was trying to figure out how to get Gentoo on my machine. I never figured it out and it took forever to tell me it wasn't working. Finally my wife got sick of the constant changes and told me to pick one. She tried to put Gentoo on the laptop for a week and it would not take. I finally woke up and realized that if I kept going back to Kubuntu, that was the disrto I should go with. However, I quickly learned that I hated the KDE desktop. My now my wife was sick of the whole thing and put MS back on the laptop. So I started using the Ubuntu 6.06 live CD (It had just been released). I quickly fell in love with the Gnome desktop, but hated the brown. My old laptop broke down, so I could not put Ubuntu on my main PC as I had to have MS for school. So, I went out and bought a new laptop and put Ubuntu on it. I still check out other distros from time to time, but the only ones I have found that I like are all based on Ubuntu.

There is the long answer, the quick answer, because it works. I really can't think of any other reasons :)

[Niko38752]

After having been using mandrake for a while, I changed computers from the old laptop into another piece of junk. I used mandrake on that until my glorious SB AWE64 stopped working for some reason. I even tried a full reinstall but it continued being silent. Just to check whether it was broken, I tried it on another comp and it worked. So, I deduced mandrake (version 10.0, btw) was to blame and decided to try installing Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog which I had laying around but never got around to trying.

Much to my surprise, it installed nicely and worked like a charm. I also got the sound card to work without too much hassle. Ever since, I've sticked to ubuntu.

[SunnyRabbiera]

1: dapper mainly, ubuntu dapper really blew me away
2: things are quite easy and smooth
3: I like synaptic
4: currently its the distro that is on top, and there is a reason for it. But I have my eye out for the others... PClinux is looking really good right now.

[Sepp1]

I chose Ubuntu, because of the large community, and because it was more or less a complete package, with Gnome, Firefox, and Openoffice. The other distroes that i thought of getting was Debian, and SUSE. Today, im REALLY glad i didn´t choose SUSE, because of the whole M$ - Novell thing.

[palmerthegeek]

1) Having been a MS supporter during the early days I've found that MS has completely lost touch from its user base. Of all the Linux distros, Ubuntu is definitely about "the user".

2) Ubuntu is really the only Plug and go, linux distro

3) More secure then anything (outside Mac, which would be nice, just can afford)

4) Won't be buying, installing, configuring any Vista, therefore, I need an OS!

Happy days,

[SonicSteve]

Sorry for the silence. You'll find that between 11pm and 10am I do very little posting simply because of time. I sleep and then drive a bus from 7-9am, hence 10am.
I'm glad to see people responding to this. Being relatively new to Linux (6months or so) I have only gazed across screenshots of other Linux versions. Some I instantly dismiss, others look interesting.

One big factor for me when I look now is the support forum of the distribution in question. I was really surprised to see how some of the other versions have forums that seem like ghost towns.

Truthfully at this point I have absolutely no reason look at other versions. Ubuntu does more than what I need it to do. Since it is under heavy developement why look to replace a faithful steed?

I may one day have to get a copy of Vista, only so I can support people who use it. I won't be buying Office 2k7. I could muster up the $200 or so that it would be. Why though? Open Office will be replacing it for me. I just gave my brother in law a PC. I had to give him windows because he lives in a rural area where High speed isn't possible, I only had winmodems and I couldn't get them to work in Ubuntu. I did however give him Open Office.

[SonicSteve]

I chose Ubuntu, because of the large community, and because it was more or less a complete package, with Gnome, Firefox, and Openoffice. The other distroes that i thought of getting was Debian, and SUSE. Today, im REALLY glad i didn´t choose SUSE, because of the whole M$ - Novell thing.

Are these other versions of Linux as good as ubuntu, better or simply different?

I personally think Microsoft did this so they can legally look at the coding of Suse, and either use it, or try to prove that it breaks copyrights.

[SonicSteve]

1: dapper mainly, ubuntu dapper really blew me away
2: things are quite easy and smooth
3: I like synaptic
4: currently its the distro that is on top, and there is a reason for it. But I have my eye out for the others... PClinux is looking really good right now.

I like synaptic also. The ease of installing software is incredible. I really need to think about donating a few $$ to some of them.

[Motoxrdude]

1. Never used or heard of linux
2. Failed at arch "lol"
3. Highly recommended by friends, so i just gave it a shot.

[harley_frog]

I came to Ubuntu and Kubuntu by way of MEPIS, which I came by way of Debian. I love Debian for its social contract, wide platform support, and package manager; not so good for a desktop environment for the average home user. MEPIS filled that spot very well. When Warren switched over to the Ubuntu repositories, I was skeptical. Then I tried MEPIS 6.0 and was very impressed. Now, I'm giving K/Ubuntu a serious look. Personally, I prefer KDE over Gnome for the good and feel aspect (Gnome makes me think of XP's Fisher-Price look :-& ), even though Gnome's weather applet is better.

Currently, I'm running MEPIS 6.0 with the Ubuntu repositories at home, trying out Kubuntu at work on a spare computer, and have the CDs for Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu, just for kicks. Once I build my dream computer (sometime between next week and next century), it will be running some version of Ubuntu.

[Sunflower1970]

1. Ease of use, and set up. I was originally looking for something that was user-friendly. In fact, when looking for some distro, I typed in google something like "user friendly linux" Ubuntu kept popping up
2. The forum is a huge bonus. I didn't find it until a week or two into using Ubuntu. :)
3. I don't ever plan on installing or using Vista. (and Macs are out of my price range)

[SonicSteve]

2. The forum is a huge bonus. I didn't find it until a week or two into using Ubuntu. :)
3. I don't ever plan on installing or using Vista. (and Macs are out of my price range)

I think I was the same way. I burned the ISO of Breezy Badger. Ran it on a test system with a bad sound chip. Everything worked brilliantly even the sound chip. A little while later (6 months) I discovered the forum and I was a little reluctant to join but I did. I was having trouble accessing a 2nd drive. I didn't understand the mount procedure or that it was even neccessary. I would say that 80% of my troubles get solved through the forum. I have learned probably as much through the forum as I have from all other sources.

[RandomJoe]

I'm a long-time (10+ years!) Slackware user - cut my teeth with it, had little dalliances a couple of times - Red Hat around 6.0 then Mandrake - but always went back. Still like it for most applications.

But I was *sick* and *tired* of having to track down a dozen different packages just to try out some random desktop app. Most server stuff wasn't bad, although there is still some of that, but desktop stuff was hideous. That was largely why I tried Mandrake a few different times, but the software I wanted to play with invariably wasn't (easily/readily) available in the package manager, at which point I might as well be using Slack.

I knew Debian was known for HUGE software repositories, but - ironically - never was able to get it installed and running! So I tried Ubuntu. And so far I have found just one major package that isn't in the standard/universe/multiverse archive. Everything else has been there, ready to go! :) I liked that so much that Ubuntu became my desktop OS of choice - very easy to get things going the way I want.

But I still prefer Slack for servers, firewalls, and other more hard-core tasks... ;)

[FuturePilot]

Actually I just kind of stumbled across it. But I got a few recommendations for it from other people.

[seijuro]

1) A friend suggested it to me as a way to get my wife interested in linux as it is the easiest distro he has used thus far. (2 years ago)

2) After a quick play with the live cd my wife agreed to try it out. (a point I had been trying to get her to for 5 years.)

3) After getting everything set up for my wife all her bugging me to fix her computer suddenly came to a halt. And she actually started tweaking and maintaining things herself.

4) The complete awesomeness that is the ubuntu community.

[maxamillion]

I actually Xubuntu ;) and I do so because I was already using Xfce4 on debian and (X)ubuntu just makes desktop linux a little easier.... and I'm lazy these days so easy is a bug win for me.

[Edit]: I can't believe I almost forgot to mention the community, the (X)ubuntu community is the most friendly of linux communities I have found to date and that's a good measure of what keeps me around. :D

[ButteBlues]

Personally, I prefer KDE over Gnome for the good and feel aspect (Gnome makes me think of XP's Fisher-Price look :-& ), even though Gnome's weather applet is better.

I really don't see where you're coming from on this one. :confused:

[Fascination]

For a few years I had been Slackware only, but I had been asked to build a computer for someone with linux but they wanted an easy to use distro. At the time, Ubuntu was starting to make a name for itself as being just that so I gave it a whirl and was quite happy with the results.
I still have a slacker box running, but my laptop uses Ubuntu as does my gf's box, and as a distro I have yet to find a fault. :)

[SonicSteve]

I really don't see where you're coming from on this one. :confused:

I have to say that Fisher Price has never come to mind. I like the desktop environment better than Windows now.

[SonicSteve]

For a few years I had been Slackware only, but I had been asked to build a computer for someone with linux but they wanted an easy to use distro. At the time, Ubuntu was starting to make a name for itself as being just that so I gave it a whirl and was quite happy with the results.
I still have a slacker box running, but my laptop uses Ubuntu as does my gf's box, and as a distro I have yet to find a fault. :)

It seems that a few experienced Linux users have come sort of accidentally. These are great comments, they tell me that Ubuntu has the stuff that long time Linux users are looking for. I've been wondering how Ubuntu rates in the Linux community at large and this gives at least a snap shot.