Why does everyone hate Ubuntu?

[ArgentWarrior]

I've talked to plenty of Linux users on the internet (mostly on 4chan) and they all have one thing in common. They all despise Ubuntu and the Unity DE, even going so far as to say it's not a "true" Linux distro. I happen to like it. Is there any specific issues people have with it that I don't know about?

[bapoumba]

Moved to Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat.

[tfrue]

It's just like the console wars, or PC wars, or even the Halo, Call of Duty, and Battlefield wars. Ubuntu is a valid OS and should be considered just as good as any other distro, but then again, it depends on who you're talking with.

Just keep in mind that some Linux Distro's will do things better than other Distro's.

[ajgreeny]

Many Linux users seem to think that because Ubuntu has become so successful, particularly when you consider all the other *ubuntu family OSs in with Ubuntu , and of course, it is a product of a commercial company, Canonical, that it has more or less sold out to the devil of outright commercialism.

It is similar to the feelings that were common when Suse Linux "sold-out", as some called it, to Novell some years ago, but of course, that spurred on the development of OpenSuse, a community distro, just like Ubuntu.

Don't listen to what others think about Ubuntu and Unity; use it if you like it, use something else if you don't. It's as simple as that.

[arsenic23]

4chan hates everything; they are not a good benchmark.
That said I'm not a fan of unity myself. Mostly because *I* have alway felt that being modular was a hallmark of good linux software. Unity is very tightly integrated with itself, because some people like that kind of thing, and so you can't mix and match it's parts as easily as you can with, say, xfce. KDE is like this to a lesser extent, or it was last time I looked at it, which is why I've never been a fan of it either.

[Dragonbite]

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.

[Toliot]

In my opinion(that's all it is), ubuntu is the easiest transition OS from windows,
when I first made the switch and even some other times, I had a tough time getting everything to work, or even the boot loader to work properly(bare in mind that a windows user probably wouldn't know anything about this stuff anyways but I was probably 12 or 13 at the time). That being said people might associate it's efficacy to not being how linux is ? With such a great community it's hard to have problems for long because people will for sure help you out, which for some other linux communities doesn't work always like this.

Whether or not you like ubuntu or not, if you are in the process of moving away from paid OS's like windows or mac I think your doing something good for yourself (albeit tricky at first).

[grahammechanical]

I do not hate Ubuntu or Unity. And I am the only person who matters, in my opinion.

If you think about it, what these people call a "true" Linux distribution is actually a copy of an old Microsoft designed user interface. If Ubuntu was not using Unity it would be using Gnome 3 Shell. And that looks nothing like those so called "true" Linux distributions.

Haters hate. That is the truth about people. Don't be concerned. Those people are damaging themselves with this unhealthy emotion.

Regards.

[nunecas123]

I think these are the problems:
- Most of the Linux geeks say Ubuntu is for noobs and simplicity is abundant. They do not like it.
- It has become a commercial product, rather than an open-source and free distribution.
- Unity became the alternative for Ubuntu. Most of the people do not like change - look at those people who still use Windows XP with no need(unfortunately, some have to use it due to compatibility issues).

They seem not to be valid, and I agree with that. Ubuntu is not that bad - it's not as open-source as it was before, but it still is, right?
Some distributions are, in some aspects, better than others. We just have to consider those aspects and choose what's best for us. People should not whine about it - they are not obliged to use it.

[SeijiSensei]

4chan =/= "everyone"