Ubuntu vs All Major Distros

[joplass]

At distrowatch.com why are all other major distros pointing down (declining) and Ubuntu keeps pointing up? Fedora 4 just came out but is pointing down. I am not trying to be sarcastic, I am simply curious. Even Kubuntu is looking better than other distros based on kde.
I will appreciate technical comments more than anything else.

[Lord Illidan]

True..well, it is either because loads of Ubuntu users are looking at Distrowatch to see if Ubuntu is still first on the list, and are unwittingly keeping it there, or because it is so flaming good. I'd say both of them apply!!

[BWF89]

The Ubuntu developers get paid right?

Because if they don't it's a pretty serious blow to the world of Open Source when people who get paid to matain a distro (Novell, RedHat, Mandriva) can't compete with people who do things for free.

[Lord Illidan]

The Ubuntu developers get paid right?

Because if they don't it's a pretty serious blow to the world of Open Source when people who get paid to matain a distro (Novell, RedHat, Mandriva) can't compete with people who do things for free.

Excuse me? I would say it is great that the volunteering spirit in the Linux community was so good that it beat commercial systems!

I am not sure that they get paid, but they deserve payment.

[poofyhairguy]

At distrowatch.com why are all other major distros pointing down (declining) and Ubuntu keeps pointing up?

Because distrowatch is a poor indicator of the popularity of Linux distros. The methods of getting data suck.


I will appreciate technical comments more than anything else.

Um....you are asking why Ubuntu is better in the Ubuntu forum. Do you want impartialness? Thats like asking a Ford salesman how good Fords are!

There are many benefits of Ubuntu (big repository of software, clean desktop, good community), but you don't know what Linux you like best till you try a few.

I hope this thread doesn't turn into a flamefest. Scratch that actually. If it DOES turn into a flame fest I'll close it faster than you can say "burn to ISO."

(not point at you, but others)

[az]

The Ubuntu developers get paid right?

Because if they don't it's a pretty serious blow to the world of Open Source when people who get paid to matain a distro (Novell, RedHat, Mandriva) can't compete with people who do things for free.

The Ubuntu core packages are maintained by Canonical and Canonical employees are paid.

Novell Desktop Linux is aimed at the corporate workstation and does much better than Ubuntu in that martket. RedHat does pretty well, and Fedora is perceived as a testing grounds for RedHat, (Slightly like Debian to Ubuntu). I could never get mandrake to install on a machine so I cannot comment. It runs slow, I think.

And most of the packages are made for free. Debian developers take the source and turn them into packages which they then maintain. Ubuntu just takes those packages and maintains them. Not much of what is in Ubuntu is made from scratch.

That is the nature of linux distributions.

[macgyver2]

Ubuntu is new. It's popular...some (well, a lot) of that popularity is because it's a good, solid distro. Yet some of the popularity is probably just because it's something new, something different to try out and to break through the "tedium" of the other big distros out there.

I started using Gentoo a couple months before 1.0 and I remember the same thing happening then. Gentoo skyrocketed in popularity, on Distrowatch (and other places). Now it's still up there (but probably one of the distros that are "dropping").

So, I think it's great that Ubuntu is doing so well, but like poofyhairguy said, Distrowatch isn't the best measure of true popularity anyway, so don't get too bummed if the trend stops or reverses or if another distro comes along and does the same thing at some point. What I would like to see more of, though, is lists of organizations/businesses that start adopting Ubuntu compared to other distros (anyone know of any such lists?)

[Takis]

No versus! Bad wording! We of the Ubuntu community are open-minded about other distros, even if ours is better. :-\"

But like poofyhairguy said, Distrowatch is inaccurate. It's like a politician in a country with 20 million voters relying on a poll of 1000 to tell him/her which way the election will go.

To be honest, I think a lot of people go for Ubuntu because they want something Debian-based (due to the reputation of Debian) but don't want the hassle of getting Debian in its entirety to work. I know that's what got me here.

[WirelessMike]

Takis:
No versus! Bad wording!

Agreed. Linux distros are compared on stong points or niches. Some are geared for the programmer or developer, some for the server admin, some for the average user, some for the modder and yet others for the hardware tester.

I think it's impossible to say with any authority that one distro is simply better than another. One of the most popular comparisons here is Ubuntu and Fedora. Apt-get alone, along with the great variety of apps available on multiple repositories swings me to Ubuntu. However-- There are a few in my circle who prefer Fedora because of the vast amount of apps available to download and install in rpm format.

Some who are very familiar with Linux will choose a distro based upon appearance, since any distro will serve this kind of person well.

The explanation, I believe, lies with the biggest market-- Microsoft's target-- the average to novice user. Before Ubuntu, only Mandrake really addressed this market, though not so well as to get so many people to take the plunge. Red Hat was pretty good at this, too, though the novice was still dissatisfied. Linspire came the closest to addressing this market, but anyone seriously considering Linux knows it's BIGGEST attraction as an alternative to the mainstream is price. Even the novice knows it's supposed to be free.

Enter Ubuntu-- A distro that will install on some of the OLDEST hardware (thanks to its mother, Debian) with only one cd for installation, a simple installer, an attractive default gui interface and a method of installing new apps so easy, it can be honestly said to be easier than the MS exe. Throw in an overactive support forum and voila-- A true distro for the masses.

In short, the strengths include ease of install, ease of use, it's absolutely free and so is the support, apps galore which are incredibly easy to install, and best of all, no one has to do it alone. What other distro caters to that largest market quite so well?

Let's not forget that die-hards love it for alot of the same reasons. Make the simple stuff work so we can concentrate on REAL challenges to make Linux better. It actually makes a pretty good server, too.

[lrnzcpmn]

I could never get mandrake to install on a machine so I cannot comment. It runs slow, I think.

I did run mandriva for more then a year (from 10.0 to the LE2005), it's slower but not that much. It's a good distro -very stable- but it has (easy)urpmi and that's a VERY annoying tool to install software.

[joplass]

I hope this thread doesn't turn into a flamefest. Scratch that actually. If it DOES turn into a flame fest I'll close it faster than you can say "burn to ISO."

(not point at you, but others)

I hope not that is the reason why I asked for technical comparison. I was not looking for a bashing of some kind towards other distros. As a matter of fact, besides having Ubuntu on two machines I also have Mandriva 2005 LE on a server.

I will say that the thing I learn is that distrowatch does not get a pool of most Linux users before coming up with that ranking.

[aysiu]

Before Ubuntu, only Mandrake really addressed this market, though not so well as to get so many people to take the plunge. Red Hat was pretty good at this, too, though the novice was still dissatisfied. Xandros? SuSE?



Linspire came the closest to addressing this market, but anyone seriously considering Linux knows it's BIGGEST attraction as an alternative to the mainstream is price. Even the novice knows it's supposed to be free. While that is a very big attraction (possibly the biggest--possibly), a close competitor would be security. The first time I tried Linux was right after my computer was swamped with spyware/adware. Sure, if I'd had to pay for Linux, I would have been less inclined to use it, but Linspire has its own niche appeal. Though, some would argue, Linspire's default-as-root approach doesn't offer much security.



In short, the strengths include ease of install, ease of use, it's absolutely free and so is the support, apps galore which are incredibly easy to install, and best of all, no one has to do it alone. What other distro caters to that largest market quite so well? Actually, I'd argue that Mepis does a much better job catering to that market. If I'd had just Ubuntu, I probably wouldn't be using Linux or Ubuntu today. Ubuntu frustrated me at first. Like a lot of users here, I wanted to have my partitions automounted. I didn't want to deal with the command-line to edit my sources.list. I didn't want to have to download numlockx to get my numlock to turn on by default. I didn't want to have to sudo everything to change configuration files (in Mepis and Knoppix, there's a launcher specifically for browsing as root within a user session).

That said, once I got comfortable with Mepis, I realized a few things that made me change over to Ubuntu:

1. Mepis' future seems a bit shaky. It's a one-man show, for the most part, and if Warren leaves... who knows what'll happen?

2. Everything in Mepis is ugly--the Grub splash/the boot splash, etc. Sure, I can configure a few things, change some icons, etc., but it isn't worth it--and Ubuntu's grub is a lot easier to add a splashimage to, for some reason.

3. Mepis is slow. Sure, I know some of that is KDE, but even Kubuntu runs faster than Mepis. I hate seeing that bouncing icon every time I try to launch an app--it bounces and bounces and bounces... in Gnome/Ubuntu, apps seem to launch almost immediately.

4. After I was introduced to the Ubuntu Guide (http://www.ubuntuguide.org), suddenly, the command-line didn't seem so intimidating. I've grown to love sudo. I've also set up my own launcher for gksudo nautilus, which is essentially a "browse as root" for Ubuntu.

5. Gnome themes install more consistently than KDE themes.

6. The community here is much friendlier and more helpful than the Mepis community. Mepis tries, but they often leave users feeling alone with their unsolved problems.

I'm not trying to harp on Mepis. I love it. In fact, if you go back through some of my posts on this forum, I've often recommended Mepis to people who complain about the command-line or how difficult Linux is to set up. I do think, though, that after a while you do want to set things up yourself, configure things yourself. I don't know if I'll ever move to Gentoo or Slackware, but Ubuntu right now seems the right mix of do-it-yourself and have-it-easy.

[poofyhairguy]

Actually, I'd argue that Mepis does a much better job catering to that market. If I'd had just Ubuntu, I probably wouldn't be using Linux or Ubuntu today. Ubuntu frustrated me at first. Like a lot of users here, I wanted to have my partitions automounted. I didn't want to deal with the command-line to edit my sources.list. I didn't want to have to download numlockx to get my numlock to turn on by default. I didn't want to have to sudo everything to change configuration files (in Mepis and Knoppix, there's a launcher specifically for browsing as root within a user session).


Mepis does do a lot of nice things out of the box. You are correct to say its easier than Ubuntu (partially because he ignores the legal problems- the advantage of a one man show).

If would be a good complement to Ubuntu if he would fork his own deb repo, Ubuntu style. apt-get dist-upgrade will demolish a Mepis box.