Posted by: jonreagan | September 24, 2007

Ouch.

Has anyone noticed the negative press about Ubuntu recently?

There really has been some good reviews of Ubuntu, as well as editorials, but in the past week or so there seems to have been a mini-explosion of anti-Ubuntu articles.

They seem to be coming from two groups of people:

1) the Windows supporters

and

2) the Linux elitists

It seems as if the Windows fans want to make Ubuntu sound like a pathetic excuse for an operating system, and the Linux fans want to make it as if Ubuntu is too dumbed down, and Linux should just stay Linux (the geeky kind) and not go mainstream.

The benefit of these articles is that it shows Ubuntu is really getting the attention of others, especially Windows writers. This goes to show now that Ubuntu has been gaining popularity, some supporters of the competition are getting nervous, and saw the opportunity to try to hurt Ubuntu’s PR.

These attempts to discredit Ubuntu have been laughable at best.

The Linux elitists are really just jealous because their particular distribution is not #1, which may sound silly since Ubuntu is a Linux distribution as well, but it happens.

Ah the fun!

Posted in FUD, Linux Elitists, Ubuntu, Windows Fanboys

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Responses

I’m not a windows fan and I am not jealous at all. But I don’t like Ubuntu. Is there something wrong with this? Is Ubuntu the only Linux distribution?
Personally I never wrote anything about Ubuntu neither good nor bad. But when I see articles like this it makes me sick.
People like you are trying to convince that Ubuntu is something great and cool. But from technical point of view Ubuntu worth nothing. It’s just a compilation of Debian experimental branch with some additional tools and apps. Every time new Ubuntu is shipped they just take Debian experimental and compile it from scratch.
Is this something great?
Look at RedHat. Their Linux products are leaders on the market. Novell Linux will be used by Peugeot-Citroen corporation and German universities.
Ubuntu is on the market for years. Has it had any market success? I mean that it is still is not profitable.
And this is real measure of quality and success.
But not the number of posts like “Ubuntu is great” or “how to create new spreadsheet in Ubuntu”.
As I’ve said it worth nothing.

By: Serhiy on September 25, 2007
at 7:00 am

But RedHat and SuSE didn’t have a great adoption rate as Ubuntu did. Yes, Debian was a superior distribution but people were scared to touch it because of its geekyness, Ubuntu brought Debian to the masses which is good.

I have long used RedHat, and recently Fedora. There are lot of issues to address before it is ready for use in the desktop. Ubuntu generic kernels run well on most systems (the speedstep and other patches). Ubuntu has addressed wireless issues quite well and third party software like automatix2 make the system usable very easily. The more the users, you feel comfortable as there are how-tos and patches which are easier to get. If ever Linux would like to be contender for the desktop, Ubuntu is guiding light.

About negative publicity, all distros get negative publicity. Not a single OS has ever got positive publicity all the time.

By: Intel9096 on September 25, 2007
at 7:36 am

i am KDE fan, so i’ll talk about Kubuntu than about Ubuntu.
as for me, i am using SUSE since version 8.2. why? because it was the first distro, who could work with all my hardware on good level. not RedHat, not Mandrake, not about 15 other distros i tryed. and i wanted linux, because i liked their “philosophy”.
and as for me, Kubuntu is not a REAL distro. it is great for great software repositories and support forums. but it has no extended control center like YaST or MandrakeControlCenter. so, i cant setup my home router, make my old monitor work on 110Hz instead of 75 in Kubuntu, select one of my two sound cards and so on. so, it’s just not ready for every-day desktop usage (i am not linux geek and dont want to work with /etc ), it looks more like demo version of distro, for people who want to see what Linux is.

By: Paranoid on September 25, 2007
at 8:12 am

to Intel9096

> … make the system usable very easily
Can you setup 2 monitors in your Ubuntu using a gui tool?
Can you make your old monitor work on desired frequency?
There are other questions.
I totally agree with Paranoid. Have you ever seen what is SuSe’s YaST or Mandrake Control Center. Ubuntu can’t do even the half of what these distros can do. Ubuntu will be really usable when it will have at least same possibilities.

>But RedHat and SuSE didn’t have a great adoption rate as Ubuntu did.
Adoption where? Do you know many organizations which use Ubuntu for production environments? I know really many which use RedHat. Real adoption means that distribution can be used in production environment.

By: Serhiy on September 25, 2007
at 8:43 am

I personally liked ubuntu and have installed a few releases, but i find myself abandoning it every time after a few months/weeks…
For some odd reasons several settings break due to automatic updates… sound, nautilus crashes, etc. I know that a lot can be found in the extensive community, but hey, why should a working system be a victim of updates (which somehow have not been tested a lot)
But with every new release, i have a test run to see if stability instead of novelty was the main goal of the new release….

I agree with paranoid: ubuntu is a nice demo

In the mean time, i’ve been running debian etch (stable! as in really stable) without a hitch for the past 3 months.

By: de on September 25, 2007
at 10:12 am

Thanks for the comments guys!

I will answer the posts in order… to the best of my ability:

@ sehiy:

Ubuntu is not the only Linux distribution, but it has become successful with new users, which both Novell and Red Hat have failed to do. (RH and NOVL have both been on the market for over a decade, while Ubuntu is a mere 4 years old!)

The Ubuntu project builds off of Debian, which is basically Debian + improvements. Ubuntu also has a six-month release cycle, which gives users updated applications and feature faster. Ubuntu is also free, unlike RH and NOVL’s products.

People like myself are trying to push Linux into the mainstream. With Ubuntu’s success comes other distributions’ success as well.

“…Ubuntu is worth nothing.” Should I even say anything?

Ubuntu is worth quite a bit, not only because of what it offers, but as well as it really is THE only hope for Linux acceptance at this time. Obviously, I can understand if you are a fan of another distribution you would like it more that Ubuntu. Linux provides choice. New users are choosing Ubuntu. LoCo teams (what I’m a part of) are bringing it to the mass market. That is important.

@ intel9096:

The community is really what sets Ubuntu apart. The forums are a great place to get support, and even relatively fast, usually within 5 min. to an hour. The more people, as you said, added more howto’s on known problems, so now new users have a place to go and get the info they need.

Your right about the press! I was just interested in the fact that there were quite a few coming out at once… there’s always one or two now and then for every system.

@ Paranoid: I have used all major distros with KDE (OpenSuSE, Mandriva, Kubuntu, etc.) and I must agree, Kubuntu is not up to par with the other systems. Really, Ubuntu’s main goal of for GNOME on the destop at this point, so the KDE is left a little lacking. MAny of the features that have made Ubuntu easier to use have not fully made it to Kubuntu yet, but hopefully at least some of those issues will be solved soon with Gutsy, and then Hardy. With Mandriva(my KDE desktop of choice) I was blown away by the available features. Compiz/Beryl may be nice, but Metisse takes the cake.

@ serhiy: As I have said before in this reply, success is not all about business contracts. While that may be the case for once side of the business, the success where Ubuntu and Linux become household names is equally important. Unless the distribution is aimed only at business, then you really need home users before businesses take notice.

@ de: Debian is a really nice distribution and stable like it’s nobody’s business.

I like Ubuntu for its updated applications, but like in your case, there is occasional breakage, which just is not good.

By: Jon Reagan on September 25, 2007
at 5:12 pm

I have been running Kubuntu 6.06 LTS Dapper for about a year now, and I have found it solid and reliable. It talks to my ADSL router, I can access other machines on the home network, it has all the functionality I need. I don’t use WiFi, 3D desktops, laptops, games, or multiple monitors, but Kubuntu does recognise my camera and USB stick.
I do have a couple of gripes - some admin things I have tried to do demand a non-existent root password, and the DVD drive does not always auto-mount properly (command line does it), and sometimes baulks at ejecting (command line again works). Doubtless these problems are fixable, but I can’t be bothered, I’m shifting to Debian Etch anyway.
I have over the years run Fedora Core 4 and Suse 10.1, while experimenting with an old Kubuntu, Vector, CentOS, and now Debian. None of them have been perfect, but then neither was my old 98SE, and my wife’s XP, which I have to maintain, is far from impressive.
If you want something really solid, go for Debian, CentOS, or Mepis. If you want the latest gizmos, the current Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE etc will supply them, but at the cost of some instability.
On the question of communities, I formed a very positive impression of the SUSE and CentOS online communities, and the Debian community looks to at least match them, I’ll find out as I go.

By: aegoss on September 26, 2007
at 12:12 am

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