Why I like Ubuntu - DISCUSS!!!

[oddabe19]

For a long time, I SWORE by the Redhat corporation.... then Fedora came out... So i made the official switch to Debian, for my desktop and gentoo for my servers, and have been happy ever since. Then Ubuntu came out. Now, here's why I like Ubutnu.

1. It... just... worked. Since I don't have a laptop, it just worked on my desktop system, everything.
2. The DEVELOPERS want to help and answer your questions. Daniels posts in the forums and answers countless questions in #ubuntu (me :hearts: developers that care). You're not left to fend for yourself. There's nothing better then the people that develop WRITE your software (or at least package it) answering your questions. You don't see the developers of Windows... or redhat... or... most other distros doing that... do you?
3. Easy install, quick install, in under 20 minutes, I had a fully working debian gnome system. It didn't take 2 hrs like fedora does, or 2 days like gentoo does, 20 minutes... that's it.
4. Gnome 2.8.... 'nough said.
5. Hoary devopment, even though warty is new enough, hoary is just great.
6. xorg in hoary (finally a debian distro with it... not including gnoppix, since that's a livecd, essentially)
7. Free shipped cd's, I ordered forty, so I can pass them out on campus and maybe show people that linux isn't as scary as they might think (and maybe give the IT department a clue that yes, there is something other then 2k3 server.)
8. It's LINUX
9. It's debian
10. It's... just... way... freaking... cool.


What are your ideas? Why do YOU like Ubuntu?

[jdodson]

i like ubuntu for the reasons you mentioned. i swore by redhat and then fedora, however i always felt like there could be a 'better way.' i heard about ubuntu on slashdot and decided to give it a try. i really dug on the ubuntu philosophy and art on the mainpage. i installed the CD on a slow comp and thought it was the coolest thing. i installed it on my main comp and was in heaven.

rock on ubuntu.

[HiddenWolf]

Small, to the piont, does what it is supposed to, and polished.

Great community to top it off.

[TravisNewman]

I can sum all of your answers up into one, the one that I tell everyone:

It does everything I want it to, the way I want it to, and it does it fast and reliably.

[adbak]

1. The community -- this is number one for a reason.
2. The 2 panels -- neat idea that I hadn't thought of, now when I look back at Fedora, or any distro for that matter, I see how clunky their bars are.
3. The clean desktop. I guess I was used to Windows and thought that icons on the desktop was the only way to go.
4. Freedom. Freedom from licenses, freedom of choice, freedom from spyware, freedom from viruses, and it's free! Even the CDs are free!
5. One CD. My first Linux love was Fedora. It came with 4 freaking CDs. Didn't seem like too many at the time, but looking back it's way too much. I just need the basics. Anything else after that I am plenty capable of downloading myself, thankyouverymuch.
6. Apt-get.
7. It's a Debian-based distro.
8. It's Linux.
9. It can pull of brown VERY well.
10. Quick, frequent releases

[HiddenWolf]

Debian without the hasstle. It's like a dream come true, to be honest. :-)

[HungSquirrel]

Debian without the hasstle. It's like a dream come true, to be honest. :-)
Exactly.

Ubuntu is like Debian, only much more polished and easy to install and configure for nearly any user with nearly any native language using nearly any hardware on three different processor architectures. All this, on one CD? Where do I sign?

[TravisNewman]

Another great thing :) You don't have to sign! It feels like with Windows you have to sign your rights away to an extent, with the massive activation protection.

[jwb]

I can sum all of your answers up into one, the one that I tell everyone:

It does everything I want it to, the way I want it to, and it does it fast and reliably.

Same here. Good answer. I'm not into the philosophy and all that stuff. It's nice, but..... hey- I'm lazy. Gimme something that works, it's small and fast and light, and I don't have to worry about it.

[TravisNewman]

Same here. Good answer. I'm not into the philosophy and all that stuff. It's nice, but..... hey- I'm lazy. Gimme something that works, it's small and fast and light, and I don't have to worry about it.
Thanks for reminding me of the philosophy. i forgot about that when I was giving my reasons ;) Yeah, the philosophy is actually a big part for me.

[KiwiNZ]

After trying many Distros over the years Ubuntu just works so well.
It renders screen fonts better than any Distro I have come across.
Hardware support is also a big plus.

[TravisNewman]

After trying many Distros over the years Ubuntu just works so well.
It renders screen fonts better than any Distro I have come across.
Hardware support is also a big plus.
That's one thing Fedora has over all the others that I've seen. The font rendering was great! I don't know what the difference is, but they did it very well.

Come to think of it, Ubuntu is very close.

Except for KDE, for some reason those fonts are just nasty. The default fonts are twice as big as they should be, and even when you shrink them they still look bad. I don't know if that's because of the lack of KDE support or if its just that KDE always comes that way.

[KiwiNZ]

I was very disappointed with Fedora Core3 , especially the fonts .

[zorba64]

She is slender. She is fast. She is lightweight. She is complete. She detected all my hardware. She has apt. She doesn't have rpm. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/eusa_dance.gif

[KiwiNZ]

She is slender. She is fast. She is lightweight. She is complete. She detected all my hardware. She has apt. She doesn't have rpm. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/eusa_dance.gif

Well said

[HungSquirrel]

That's one thing Fedora has over all the others that I've seen. The font rendering was great! I don't know what the difference is, but they did it very well.

Come to think of it, Ubuntu is very close.

Except for KDE, for some reason those fonts are just nasty. The default fonts are twice as big as they should be, and even when you shrink them they still look bad. I don't know if that's because of the lack of KDE support or if its just that KDE always comes that way.
Probably because Ubuntu's default dpi is 96. Looks great in Gnome, looks fat and cumbersome in KDE.

[TravisNewman]

I was very disappointed with Fedora Core3 , especially the fonts .
I stopped using Fedora after FC1, so things could have gotten worse :)

[HiddenWolf]

I stopped using Fedora after FC1, so things could have gotten worse :)
I doubt it. If it got worse after FC1, well, I'd feel sorry for the poor sheep using that distro then.

[TravisNewman]

I doubt it. If it got worse after FC1, well, I'd feel sorry for the poor sheep using that distro then.
Poor sheep? It's not THAT bad of a distribution ;)

[zenwhen]

It is Debian with Gnome 2.8 on one disk. It has many useful tools, yet very little bloat installed by default. It has the best automatic hardware detection of any stock distro.

How could a right-minded person not love it?

[piedamaro]

Poor sheep? It's not THAT bad of a distribution ;)
I'm coming from fedora3 (after years using redhat and fedora), I'd say that fedora3 is much better than the previous release actually (project utopia, gnome-2.8, system-tools to name a few).
However I prefer ubuntu's way of doing things a lot: everything is polished and easy, I' ve just upgraded to hoary only changing _a word_ in sources.list, and now I have cutting edge software without a single problem. It's just a dream if you use fedora. Not to mention that apt + dpkg is way fast than apt+rpm (or worse yum).

It seems that everything is done in order to avoid headaches for the final user, and this is great considering this is the first ubuntu's release. :wink:

[jdodson]

Poor sheep? It's not THAT bad of a distribution ;)

ya i agree, fedora is a good distro as its what i cut my teeth on, though mandrake might be better(then again even that is argueable as mandrake is pretty unstable, or at least it was for me, plus they push you to buy a subscription, the number ONE reason i dumped it).

[HiddenWolf]

For me, Fedora is like running Windows. Totally not fun.

Same goes for SuSe and Mandrake. :-)

[dataw0lf]

For me, Fedora is like running Windows. Totally not fun.

Same goes for SuSe and Mandrake. :-)
I agree, but I've been using Fedora Core at work and it's pretty decent so far. I'm still not a huge Red
Hat fan, and until I started riding the Ubuntu wave, I really only considered Debian, Slackware, and Gentoo 'serious' distributions. Archlinux has some good points, as well.
The way I think of Ubuntu is as a 'technologically savvy' Debian, which suits me perfectly. Just don't expect me to put it on one of my servers ;)
dataw0lf

[Sensebend]

The community, there is something to be said about a community that is all about assisting others for the good of it's userbase and humanity as a whole. This has to be the friendliest support community of any distribution.

[arctic]

i currently have both fedora 3 and ubuntu on one of my workstations and although fedora 3 looks good and behaves okay, it is a lot more buggy than ubuntu. ubuntu is rock stable and it is a wonderful way of getting a debian-distro-workstation. a big plus is (as in fc3) that it uses gnome as default.
as i need a very reliable system for my everyday work, what is better than using debian-based-stuff which is known to almost never break?

another plus for ubuntu is the policy of shipping cds to those who can't download/afford them. i have broadband but think of e.g. someone in indonesia or kenia, where you do not have broadband for peanuts. this policy is a great move!

[davewarner]

i currently have both fedora 3 and ubuntu on one of my workstations and although fedora 3 looks good and behaves okay, it is a lot more buggy than ubuntu. ubuntu is rock stable and it is a wonderful way of getting a debian-distro-workstation. a big plus is (as in fc3) that it uses gnome as default.
as i need a very reliable system for my everyday work, what is better than using debian-based-stuff which is known to almost never break?

another plus for ubuntu is the policy of shipping cds to those who can't download/afford them. i have broadband but think of e.g. someone in indonesia or kenia, where you do not have broadband for peanuts. this policy is a great move!
Excellent point! The free CD policy made a big impression on me. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the shipments by country.

[davewarner]

I am so impressed by this product - both in its philosophy, and its execution. I'm using it as my personal o/s and also for several servers that I have installed recently - one in a doctor's office and one in a church. Simple, fast and updateable. Using it in conjunction with the apachefriends.org distro of LAMP, I can get a server up and running in no time.

[kingnubian]

Ubuntu just works!

It allows someone to be productive right out of the box.

Friendly and very helpfull community

I'm hooked
:-P

[zenwhen]

Ubuntu just works!
...

Friendly and very helpfull community

...
:-P

These forums are one of the main reasons I stuck with Ubntu, along with Gnome 2.8.

I really enjoy reading the new threads and helping out anywhere I can.

[spartas]

Ubuntu is my first linux distribution. I know, I should be flogged for succombing to the service of the (disturbingly) mighty MS empire. So, I take the plunge and install ubuntu on my laptop (my only system) about 3 months ago at a university linux install-fest.

So, I was given a breif overview of the different distros (I knew nothing about linux then), when someone was going over the idea of a built-in package manager (apt-get) I just said, I want that. He was of course talking about debian, I had no clue, and by the end of the night, I had ubuntu. GDM wouldn't load properly, neither would my sound, my thumb buttons on my MS mouse were useless, my wireless card was flaky, and the "enhanced" keys on my dell laptop were just below the meaningfulness of lint (yeah, the stuff that ends up in the lint trap in your clothes dryer). Anyway, after tweaking my system a bit, and learning in the process, I realized I was booting less and less into XP. After solving some of the problems, mainly the wireless card problem (the only thing I actually need to work), I attempted to fix other problems. I was tired of booting into a blackbox session because the Gnome splash screen would just freeze on my system (no icons at the bottom of it, and no HD activity). What to do? run apt-get install dist-upgrade of course.

After that it got to the point where I went days, and even a week without using XP. I solved my thumb buttons problem (thanks to this forum), I smoothed my fonts (again thanks to this forum), I mounted my windows partition (need I say it again?), and I am in pure happiness world; kinda like the seemingly endless dreamworld we all daydream about right before someone catches us daydreaming; right at the peak of it's intensity.

Ubuntu saved my life; I have seen the light and walked toward it.

[[xploit]]

Why? It's Gnome, it's Debian. Why not? :-P

What really got me? Your HOW-TO thread. When I saw how the ubuntu community worked, I had to be a part of it. And once I installed it... what can I say? It rocks!

[poofyhairguy]

Well, I've tried:

Fedora (2,3)
SuSe (9.2)
Mandrake (10, 10.1)
Libranet 2.8
Debian Sid

But each had their problems. For example, fedora doesn't have enough RPMs out there (same problem with SUSE). Mandrake has plenty, but it is unstable to me and I don't like to pay to get the RPMs (plus Mandrake looks childish).

Since packages are my main problem, I tried Debian sid (or unstable). It runs fine, but its very hard to set up and the menus are a mess. To help with the hard part of debian, I tried libranet, but that distro is too far behind the times.

So, I gave Linux its last chance with Ubuntu. And we have a winner!

ubuntu:
-has the 14000 packages that after seeing debian I knew I couldn't live without.
-installs easy (set itself up better than any other, not even fedora gave me my top refresh rate on first boot!)
-did I mention the many packages?
-looks clean
-has only theme I like more than Bluecurve
-has organized menus (you don't take that for granted after using pure debian)
-has a much better community than pure debian (or mandrake, or suse)
-impresses my GF (next release I will upgrade her laptop from Fedora 3 to ubuntu)

Overall, as far as I can tell, ubuntu has only a few problems
-no easy way to install mplayer (mulitverse one won't work for me, and I hate compiling stuff)
-potential that it could shift away from debian just enough so that I lose the universe compatibility (meaning one would go from 14000 packages to just 4000)
-lack of good looking grub
- no boot-splash

[arctic]

-potential that it could shift away from debian just enough so that I lose the universe compatibility (meaning one would go from 14000 packages to just 4000)
-lack of good looking grub
- no boot-splash

grub and splash screen will be solved in hoary, as far as i know.
the shift away from debian could happen in the future (which would be a sad thing indeed) but i think that this is rather unlikely, as there are many debian-coders involved in ubuntu and these coders want to make sure that their packages work in debian, too.

i am optimistic. :)

[poofyhairguy]

grub and splash screen will be solved in hoary, as far as i know.

Does that mean I'll automatically get it since I use Hoary on my sources.list?


the shift away from debian could happen in the future (which would be a sad thing indeed) but i think that this is rather unlikely, as there are many debian-coders involved in ubuntu and these coders want to make sure that their packages work in debian, too.

i am optimistic. :)

me to. ubuntu makes linux fun again.

[Rui Pais]

I use fUbuntu.
I fall in love to linux with RedHat (everybody will always had a special feeling for his/her fist girl/boyfriend...) I used Fedora from 1 to 2 :)
... but ...
Fedora is slow! this is a terrible thing that cames from RH... And they stop support my ADSL modem. I compile dozens of kernels just to make the thing work. I make it.. but what a useless work!.
So whats nice around?
I tried debian. Woody... I'm not a retro taste guy. Go to Sarge... problems... Go to Sid... that boy brake a lot of toys... back to Sarge... more problems...
I tried gentoo. Ugly, violet, two-choices system. You don't install nothing... or take an hollyday for just installing a few things.Btw, I don't feel it quicker then sarge.
I look at Ubuntu (screenshots)... Ugly, brown, boring flat and brown everywhere... BUT, WAIT! Can I believe my eyes? I read it several times!
A stable Sid, with Gnome 2.8, with 6 months release cycles (debian uses 2 decades or 2 centuries?) and only in 1 CD.
I became a praying man during installation... and then, there it was. Ubuntu. The so much need it principle. Humanity for other. The so much need it stable Linux distro. At last!
Don't like brown... this is simple even to a Winny user. Linux is all about flexibility. First I use my debian looks, then I made my personal human theme.
Why fUbuntu. I like nice grub splashs. Since I had a single boot partitions for ALL my linuxs I just boot from that, a fedora 3 grub with a splash of my own.
I'm happy. Ubuntu is amazing. Linux is just... GREAT!!

By the way: Human rights imply human respect... for all. Circle of friends was childish and seems to show a humanity to close to fashion people style.
But the November Calendar are just boring pornographic. If December came with the guy naked do you install it and show to your friend or your emploees? :oops:

I forgot a must; unlike gentoo, ubuntu seems to be a lot faster then plain sid!!