Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
There is s certain amount of jealousy regarding Ubuntu's success, but I think one factor for the negativeness stems from things changing. People don't like change unless it benefits *them* and when there is change there is a lot of passion welling up.
One factor in Unity is timing ...
Unity came at a time when Gnome was changing things around with Gnome-shell (or Gnome 3). Some people may have felt they were getting the rug pulled out from under them because when Unity was rolled out, Gnome was switching to Gnome 3 and not doing any further development on Gnome 2. There was no "safe harbor", rather you either jumped one way, or the other and so people wanted to take out their anger, and directed it to whoever they could! Since Ubuntu was so popular, it had a large number of vocal people stating their unhappiness at the only target they know; Ubuntu/Unity.
At around the same time, there was what seemed like a series of spats (words..) between the Gnome project developers and Ubuntu/Canonical developers. Ubuntu pointed out how the Gnome project seemed to blatantly ignore Ubuntu's contributions while Gnome-shell looked eerily like the early versions of Unity. Naturally, people took "sides" and so everybody on the Gnome-side joined with the people complaining about Unity and started this whole Ubuntu-hate-fest.
Unity, and Gnome shell, has grown up since then. I still don't find either of them perfect but I do prefer Unity over Gnome shell today (check in with me tomorrow, I could change my opinion ;) ) Other distros have tried to build Unity for their distribution but that hasn't gone very far and I think it has to do with incompatible libraries with Gnome or GTK making it "Gnome OR Unity". Since other distros have an established Gnome community they naturally will choose to stick with Gnome.
This gives people the feeling that Unity is Ubuntu-only, and is "closed" because only Ubuntu/Canonical has a say in its development.
Another thing was the "shopping lens". The shopping lens would not only search your local system, but search Amazon! This alone can questions ones privacy before taking into mind that this lens contacts Amazon through a Canonical server! Yes, this can be turned off but what it says is that Ubuntu is more interested in trying to make money than it is to provide a free (freedom) distro.
Not all people have forgotten when Ubuntu included Banshee as the default music player. The Banshee Project had a deal with Amazon music to provide an easy means to shop for music in Amazon, and Amazon would give the Banshee project a small amount from each sale. When Ubuntu included it as default, it muscled in and collected a portion of those revenues for themselves.
On top of that, things like Ubuntu's preference to "go it alone" with its own windows manager (Wayland? Mir? I don't remember) and make changes seemingly on its own gives people who don't know how to get involved, a feeling of it getting more and more closed. I'm sure somebody sees their mobile work to be another indicator of Ubuntu's movement to closed-source.
In the beginning, I think it was all about jealousy. Now that Ubuntu is doing more and more "on their own" it looks like Ubuntu is trying to become less and less "free" for the sake of making money. Arguments show up about Ubuntu not giving back to the community or passing changes upstream. I don't now if this is true or not or, as was the case with Gnome, the upstream was just ignoring their contributions.
Some of Ubuntu's moves have been brilliant, even if I don't agree with them initially or agree with their roll-out method, but I am nervous about their moves lately.
Disclaimer: This entire post is based on my readings online of blogs, posts and articles over the past 10 years of using Ubuntu. Some aspects, such as the technical pieces, could very well be incorrect and anybody should feel free to respectfully correct my view.
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
back when i installed my first linux distro the most common answer to any question was RTFM. There are still a great number of linux snobs out there. I compare my computer
to my shop. In my shop i have a myraid of tools. 10 or so hammers , wrenches for every occassion, hundreds of different drill bits for different uses, several saws etc etc. all
have their own uses and purposes. Operating systems are the same. each has its own use and purpose. Use the tool that is what you need for the job at hand.
As life moves and changes the tool you need may change as well. I have tools in my bo that i made many years ago for a specific job. today i dont even remember what that job was. But if ever called upon to do it again i have the tool.
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
One of the things that you have to understand about Linux is that all of its forms attract a wide variety of different people. Some people, militants like the Richard Stahlmans of the world, go so far as to criticize Debian itself for simply allowing for the possibility of nonfree software being easily distributed. Never mind what Ubuntu does with a platform for PAID apps.
I respect these people, though I would rather take shortcuts with nonfree software to get a usable system. Many of these people have spent years working for free on software and systems I consider vital to my computing needs though, so I'm happy to let them have their corner.
Then you get the Arch Linux/Slackware types. The types that are genuinely correct that their distro is "superior" in the sense that custom building your system software or even going so far as compiling all your programs for yourself is going to make for a faster, leaner, and more efficient system. These platforms also demand a relatively high degree of expertise with both the Linux environment and various command line software programs that you'll need to use in order to create a usable system. That's fine for them and they are correct in that you will know (or learn) a lot more about Linux from building an Arch system then you will from installing Ubuntu.
In the end though, I find Ubuntu a perfectly reasonable compromise between ease of installation and level of use. Xubuntu may not run more efficient on my machine than a hand-built Arch environment but it is still faster and more efficient than a Windows or OS X machine and that is enough for me.
GNU/Linux is home to lots of different perspectives and opinions. It isn't one size fits all and probably the only guarantee we will ever have is that we won't be able to agree on what Linux should be.
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
@ Dragonbite: Well, two things you should be aware of... the amazon shopping lens was not put in to be a money maker for ubuntu/canonical but rather to provide some financial support for ubuntu's development...and the option is given to turn it off, of course...
Regarding Unity...when Gnome was changing to shell, canonical tried to work with them but the gnome team wanted things done only their way it would seem so it became necessary for Canonical to develop it's own version of gnome shell, which is UNITY and in my opinion, the better version of the two...so i am very thankful they did go their own way...i think it benefits ubuntu users in the long run...
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
A lot of people have fixed ideas about how Linux is supposed to be done, how decisions are supposed to be reached, how user interests should or should not be considered. That often amounts to a belief that Linux should attract users only by converting them to FOSS ideology, and making users learn how to use the software that developers prefer to create, rather than creating software that users prefer to use. Canonical and Ubuntu, obviously, have other ideas.
People usually think what they like is the One True Way the entire universe should adopt.
And, within Linux and FOSS at large, there has always been a thread that seems to think that *they* get to define the rules and make the judgements. This is egotistical nonsense, of course. Cult-ism, if you will. Adhering to the rules of the cult takes precedence over everything.
Shuttleworth isn't Stallman. (Thankfully.)
[Unity: Pretty much every interface you can think of is available for Ubuntu, and the major ones are "official". Unity is the one that happens to be the default. There will always be a default interface, and some people will always think it is terrible and will, therefore, rant about it. C'est la vie.]
["Spyware": It isn't. Like every Unix/Linux for decades, Ubuntu has file search: Open Nautilus and search. Open a terminal and use find or locate. It also, optionally, records file transactions, etc., so it can show those to the user. Don't want it? Turn it off. There's a different search mechanism in the Dash that -- optionally -- combines local searches with an Internet search. This is handled via the Lenses. Amazon is added by default to all Lenses. So, until and unless you turn that off, Amazon is sent your IP address and a piece of your search query. The outgoing packets are encrypted and, as of 13.10, the return packets are encrypted. All of this can be easily disabled. (There is a possibility that somone sniffing packets could determine the contents of your *local* searches if they are relayed out to the net. Remember, though, that sniffing packets has been around for years. *Every* packet that leaves your system and *every* packet that comes back to -- no matter what software you happen to use -- has your IP address embedded in it. The guy at your favorite coffeeshop who takes care of its wifi router could sniff and record everything going in and out of that router.)]
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
There are adolescent minds in every community (4chan seems to have more than its fair share, so I hear). Please don't make sweeping statements about "arch/slackware users" or "linux geeks" on the basis of those kinds of people.
I use (or have used) Arch, Debian, many Debian derivatives, Suse, TinyCore, Puppy, slitaz, every major flavor of Ubuntu, and more. When Debian or Arch will get me closer to what I need on a computer, I use them. When *buntu gets me closer to what i need, I use it. It isn't about some emotional inadequancy or irrational hatred of Ubuntu when I choose Arch or Debian.
There are plenty of grounds upon which reasonable people can dislike Ubuntu and prefer another distro or OS. Negative opinions are not automatically "hate".
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
craig10x
@ Dragonbite: Well, two things you should be aware of... the amazon shopping lens was not put in to be a money maker for ubuntu/canonical but rather to provide some financial support for ubuntu's development...and the option is given to turn it off, of course...
Regarding Unity...when Gnome was changing to shell, canonical tried to work with them but the gnome team wanted things done only their way it would seem so it became necessary for Canonical to develop it's own version of gnome shell, which is UNITY and in my opinion, the better version of the two...so i am very thankful they did go their own way...i think it benefits ubuntu users in the long run...
Whatever the destination of the money is cited for isn't a factor. That my local searches are being sent out and passed to Amazon through a 3rd party for the purpose of serving up related shopping items is. Not only can this be annoying, it bring up privacy concerns whether or not I can "turn it off".
Do we have to turn off advertizing on every electronic gadget we buy (or just Kindles)? Does turning off the shopping lens in Ubuntu turn off the search query being passed up to the server, or just the display of search results? These are the kind of questions that are breeding mistrust with Ubuntu. So far, at least, I haven't heard anybody comparing this to the NSA spying.
I agree, Unity is more comfortable for me than Gnome shell but, like Ubuntu One, it currently is not available to people outside of Ubuntu (proper). Even if the source code is open, people running Fedora and others cannot accurately contribute unless they give up the freedom of choosing their distribution because Ubuntu has gone "on their own" with certain components.
People who contribute to Gnome could run any number of distributions, same with KDE, Xfce and LXDE.
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
Privacy concerns is a non-issue as i understand those searches are sent through canonical first and in an invisible manner...in other words, neither canonical nor amazon can see where they are coming from, therefore your "privacy" is maintained...at least that is the way i understand it from what i read about it...also, while ubuntu itself as a distro available to the general public will always be free, the part that Shuttleworth hopes to be the money maker for him are stuff like ubuntu tablets, computers, phones, tv's, etc...not things like the amazon lens...
When i go to the linux mint forums, i get hit with all kinds of target ads (revenue of which is used for development in the same manner as the amazon lens) and no one over there complains about it...
Also, even within the ubuntu realm, one has the option of using one of the other buntu's if they do not like the unity desktop...kubuntu, xubuntu, lubuntu...you can also install gnome fallback, or even mint's cinnamon...or even cairo dock session too...so, one has complete freedom even with the ubuntu range...personally, i love using unity and wouldn't consider anything else at this point, really...
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
Quote:
Within Linux and FOSS at large, there has always been a thread that seems to think that *they* get to define the rules and make the judgements. This is egotistical nonsense, of course. Cult-ism, if you will. Adhering to the rules of the cult takes precedence over everything.
Well Put !
In regaurds to Unity lenses, If I were truely trying to avoid any information medium approching prppretary or mainstream I could not even turn on a radio not to mention veiw most web sites.
Re: Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Frogs Hair
Well Put !
In regaurds to Unity lenses, If I were truely trying to avoid any information medium approching prppretary or mainstream I could not even turn on a radio not to mention veiw most web sites.
That wasn't the complaint at all, it was that local data was being sent out to third parties by default. If someone searched their computer for [their name]'s horrible obscene tentacle porn, third parties were being sent that information by default.