How many use Ubuntu rather than Tweak it?

[R_U_Q_R_U]

I was wondering how many folks install Ubuntu and use it do work or use other applications rather than tweaking, messing up and reinstalling. I know folks often do both, but some lean to one or the other.

[joep]

I'm always braking something it's the only way I learn. :)

[y6FgBn)~v]

I do both, but no option for that one.

[LaRoza]

If you ask what I use Ubuntu for, you are asking what I use my computer for.

I:

* Programming
* Office type work
* Web browsing
* Learning
* Storing information
* all other computer uses

[Circus-Killer]

whoops, double post

[Circus-Killer]

I do both, but no option for that one.

+1

[Shin_Gouki2501]

nice thread and thats imo THE big diffrence, soem user just dont want to "waste" tons of time to get simple thigns to work like printer and such they wont to work WITH the system not ON the system ^^

[AndyCooll]

I do both, but no option for that one.
+1 for this as well.

:cool:

[Rinzwind]

My laptop gets the newest release, gets tweaked in a weekend or so and after that I mainly used it to watch movies, listen to music, play Gewled and KQ. :D
My home computer mainly does torrents downloaden so that needs no tweaking :P

[stalker145]

I do both, but no option for that one.


+1


+1 for this as well.

:cool:

+1

I'm with these folks. Most of my time is spent working, surfing, or listening/watching. I do tinker, tweak, and break on occasion... much less than I used to :(

[aninaiian]

I also tend to tweak and use Ubuntu.

I tend to tweak my desktop a little after the install, and then it gets used as a family computer for whatever.

My laptop is constantly being tweaked for multiple reasons ranging from wanting to try out apps to wanting to learn more about Linux. It is almost always using an unstable distro of some sort. Despite it always being in a constant state of flux, I use it as my main computer on which I do pretty much everything.

[FredB]

Both for me. Ubuntu is a great distro for me. Stable enough to experiment some things (like using developments builds of firefox and thunderbird every single day), testing cvs version of gnash, using OpenOffice.org, listening to music, and many other things.

[Happy_Man]

I do both, but no option for that one.
Same here.

[Xbehave]

i used to do both but broke it too much so now i only tweek when i really, need to be working on it!like now lol

[kexodusc]

I use my Ubuntu installation to do work, ie word processing and spreadsheets, some presentations. ...I use it for web surfing, e-mail and IM purposes. I use it to share files on my home network with my Mac and Windows computers. Basic average joe computer user I'd think. I'm NOT a linux expert by any means, everything I've learned I learned here on the Ubuntu documentation site or here on the forums from other users (and the links provided therein).

That said, I do everything on my computer that I ever did with Windows, except I find things work better, and are easier to fix when they don't. I can re-install ubuntu in under 2 hours, maybe even 1 hour? And surf the web while I do it. Cant' do that on Windows yet.

I don't know about other Windows users, but I never got that discouraged switching to Ubuntu and other Linux distros because I was always tinkering in Windows and having things go bad then, too. I tinkered because things never seemed to work perfectly in Windows either. I'd like to meet the Windows users who never have any problems ever. Some proprietary software seemed incredibly bloated and slow, sometimes didn't work or conflicted. I had driver issues. And Microsoft's WGA actually locked my machine because it thought I was using a pirated copy of Windows after a hard drive replacement. It wasn't like it was all peaches and roses and problems only occur in Ubuntu.

It was hard at first to stop thinking like a Windows user when trying to configure my machine, but I overall things work better, certainly a bit faster.

[maduranga]

I do all my computing tasks on ubuntu.

openoffice
movies
music (listening and creating)
web, mail
etc.

And, yes of cause. I like tweak ubuntu and watch how cute it is. It makes my working environment interesting and different.

[ericartman]

both. thats why I love Linux/Ubuntu I use it everyday and if something comes up I need I can tweak it and not worry about it breaking so easy.

Cart

[Siph0n]

I just use Ubuntu... I search for how to get something to work, and once I get it working, I don't touch it :)

[Malta paul]

Both +1 to ericartman

[Balazs_noob]

i do everything with Ubuntu :)

programming
movies
music
web
IM
etc.

[jaybombalous]

love ubuntu, I am now a fanatic! :)

I like to break things, its in my nature. At least now I can install and tweak in less then one hour, thats a full customization.

Command line is the best, not only does it sprint along like a cheetah on drugs, but it teaches u to type with less typo's.

...and I finally did the ultimate tweak, compiled my own kernel! :popcorn:

[wthanna]

This poll needs more options and as a result will not give a clear picture of what most of us here "do" with our computers.

Other than the need for QuickBooks Premier Accountants Edition, which I use at work, that runs only on Windows at the moment.. I use Ubuntu for everything else, including:

Company File Server - several (serves Windows machines files better than Windows itself in most cases)
Mail Server - 2 at the moment running Citadel
Web Server - LAMP (Apache2) hosting multiple domains
FTP Server
SSH Server
Personal Laptops -including an Old Dell Inspiron 8100 (runs better than much newer machines with Vista)
Several Desktops - either Dual Boot, in a Virtual Machine (vmware server) or Ubuntu only.

The typical desktop stuff in OpenOffice, Firefox, etc.,
A game or two from time to time (much less time for that these days)

Now for the "breakage" part.. obviously if I use Ubuntu for this many things, yes I break things from time to time.. often "on purpose", experimenting.. usually when I want to try something I think will break the installation pretty badly, I will try it in a virtual machine (after backing up the virtual machine), then if it breaks, I simply restore the virtual machine, and within minutes things are back to normal.

So basically, I use Ubuntu for anything and everything I can think of, and it is usually happy to do it without much trouble.

MY NAME IS TODD.... AND I'M AN UBUNTU-HOLIC :)

[koleoptero]

I do both too, so that makes 5 of us. :KS

[daynah]

I intend to just use it. :) I like that we're about half and half, that's the direction I'd like to see Ubuntu go.

[K.Mandla]

Add me to the breakers. Although I do use it too. But I'd rather be breaking it. :twisted:

[lisc998]

My kids use it for they're home work. They done have root (as far as I know) and don't even want to tweak. It's all Firefox and OpenOffice for them. Same with my wife.

I use Ubuntu for working from home - or I did before I upgraded to Gutsy :(

[-grubby]

I do both, but no option for that one.

+1

[Oceola]

Kstars for astronomy - nice to be able to look up in the night sky and have a form of planisphere which is reasonably accurate.
Open Office for the spread sheet and writing capability.
Gedit for utility stuff but also for some transcription of ancient documents.
Evince and XPDF for reading and printing PDF files and some image copying for any number of interests including the above.
Astronomical almanac - self explanatory
Astrolog for the alternative view of the heavens and some Horary moments.
Just loaded Qcad so I can design a spring activated Orrery and make it out of brass, copper and stainless steel.
glunar clock because I'm too lazy to get off my can and look out the window some nights and other nights it's too cloudy to find it.

The list goes on and I would be hard pressed to say what I don't use at any given time.

[FuturePilot]

I do both, but no option for that one.

Yes. I also do both. I do use Ubuntu for productivity stuff, but when I feel like it and have some time, I like to see what kind of stuff I can do. :D

[Incense]

Since I school again, it occured to me that I need a system that is stable, and is not going to brake or change on me. For this reason I run a year old Dapper on my desktop, and SUSE on my notebook. When I run the latest Ubuntu, I just play around too much with it, and don't get anything done. Plus it's hard to write code when you hosed your install. Thank the gods for the live disk though!

[bobbocanfly]

My Ubuntu box is a little workhorse. Its 5 years old, runs a LAMP server and a file server. I also use it for everyday internet browsing, email, just everyday stuff.I also use it for Python & C/++ development.

Compared to my new Core 2 Duo Windows box which struggles to run CS:S and Apache at the same time, its amazing.

[dataw0lf]

I stopped trying to break Linux years and years ago. Now I just use it for work (both at home and the office proper). Desktop problems don't interest me much, I just want it to work. I hack on kernel modules every now and then on a specific machine, but I use Debian for that.

[Gremlinzzz]

Gremlinzzz tweak everything i use to tweak windows 95 and when xp arrived i used the viper guide to tweak that.its just new and inproved when ya tweak or broke.:lolflag:

[aysiu]

I'd say the first full two years of using Ubuntu I spent a lot of time tweaking it. It was partly for fun, but partly to help other people solve their problems ("Let me try that out on my machine and see if it breaks, too...").

These days, though, I'm tired of tweaking, so I just use Ubuntu to get "work" done (not work for my job, but "work" for home--website management, photo management, music management, web browsing, email, etc.).

[Dark Hornet]

--I would have to say I use my Ubuntu box for everything (except a few games). In addition to the normal web surfing, work, and playtime...I also spend time learning. The difference with Ubuntu, is its actually a pleasure to "get under the hood".

[indigoshift]

Ubuntu is the primary OS in my house. We still use our Windows machines for playing video games, but both my wife and my son use Ubuntu most of the time.

It's nice to come home from a long day working tech support and know that you don't have to do any more tech support once you walk in the door, because everyone in the house is using an OS that isn't crap. :D

[zyg0t3]

I find Ubuntu annoyingly easy to play with. So much so that it can distract me from actually working. Perhaps i should just reinstall VISTA!! :)

[some_random_noob]

I used to tweak, but it's not really worth it IMO. Now I just use Ubuntu for word processing/web/email. If it ain't broke then don't fix it.

[ahaslam]

I tweak so that I can work & play harder. The same reason why I overclock ;)

[DrumScum]

I can re-install ubuntu in under 2 hours, maybe even 1 hour? And surf the web while I do it. Cant' do that on Windows yet.

There's so much stuff you can do on Linux that you can't do on Windows (yet).

I was just burning some data on a DVD for a friend in a tty with cdrecord, and he was really amazed that I could switch back to my KDE session and continue with listening to some tunes in Amarok and playing Armagetron, while at the same time having Firefox and Thunderbird running. "I can't do that on my computer" were his exact words :lolflag:

[Paul820]

I use mine for learning, programming, blender, gimp and the usual stuff you use a computer for. The only tweaking i do is change the theme and icons and that's it.

[D-EJ915]

tweaking is the part of *nix which is fun! Of course using the system is great, but having it truly customized is the best =3

generally I use the computer to go online, listen to music, edit images and program.

[Tundro Walker]

You should alter your poll titles to be

work & play
tweaking / testing
don't use itI use Ubuntu at home, but what I do at home I don't really consider "work" ... surf the net, do some budgeting on a spreadhseet, a little programming, some mp3 organization, some gaming. It hardly qualifies as "work".

Any tweaking I've done has simply been to get something to work, or to trim off extra features / apps I don't use, because most everything else has just worked.

It's odd, but I'm actually kinda depressed, because MS Windows used to keep me so busy. It was like a high maintenance girlfriend that I knew always had something for me to do. If I was bored, I knew I could always rely on Windows to need some defragging, or cleaning up the registry, or wiping out garbage files & programs that collect dust, or surf the net to see if there's more tweaks to make it operate faster / better.

Linux/Ubuntu has mostly taken that away from. :( LOL!

[eternalperson]

I spend a lot of time tweaking Ubunrtu, for example, in Gutsy the Human emblems were too small, so I had to edit the 'index.theme' file to get them to there correct size.

[Shin_Gouki2501]

like i said before i think that this is an very important design issue which should be considered by the devs:
There are MANY ( if not the most) people who simple want to actually use UBUNTU and so don'T ( or just absolutly minimal) want to soent time in "customizing" seetings jsut to get things "work".
But meh im a voice in the wind as this 150 count poll in a 500.000+ fourms shows...
who cares