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Not bad article on The Sins of Ubuntu

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40hz:
From the good folks over at OSNews, a quick rundown of some sticky points when it comes to Ubuntu and Canonical's current modus operandi.



The Sins of Ubuntu
posted by Howard Fosdick on Mon 30th May 2011 22:04 UTC


IconCanonical Ltd., the company behind Ubuntu Linux, estimates that the product has over 12 million users worldwide. And why not? Ubuntu is free and it runs more than ten thousand applications. It has a vibrant user community, websites covering everything you might ever need to know, good tutorials, a paid support option, and more. Yet I often hear friends and co-workers casually criticize Ubuntu. Perhaps this the price of success. Or is it? In this article I'll analyze common criticisms and try to sort fact from fiction.

I should mention that I'm a big Ubuntu fan and have used it for five years. Even so, it pains me to see the obvious ways it could improve. As I'll explain, I believe Canonical's business model holds Ubuntu back from fulfilling its potential.


Why It Matters

One obvious response to anyone who criticizes Ubuntu is to say to them: why don't you just run another operating system? There are so many competing Linux and BSD distros out there.

True. But there is a larger issue here. Ubuntu's great popularity means that it represents Linux to many people. It's the distro vendors pre-install. It's the distro the mainstream media always review. It's the one distro everybody's tried. It's been ranked #1 in DistroWatch's yearly popularity ratings for the past six years (1).

Fair or not, Ubuntu reflects on the Linux community as a whole. How well Ubuntu meets criticisms matters even to Linux users who don't use it.

So what are common Ubuntu criticisms? Here are those I often hear...
--- End quote ---

Full article can be found here.

Nothing hyper earth-shattering. Just some very good observations - even though I think Howard Fosdick could have gone a bit further and maybe not pulled his punches quite as much as he does. But I suppose you can always get the professional penguin bashers out there to provide some 'snark' if you feel a sudden craving for vitriol. So maybe a more rational (and less hostile) tone makes for a nice change of pace after all...

Worth a read IMO.  :Thmbsup:

Deozaan:
Nice article. Thanks!

zridling:
Saw this article last week and 40hz pulled its essence. I've long been critical of Ubuntu, one, because I don't think it's where newbies should start when coming to Linux. As the author states, if they have a bad experience with Ubuntu, they tend to conclude that other distros must be worse! Two, the Ubuntu community lulls into thinking "this is as good as Linux gets." Nothing could be further. Although I've enjoyed openSUSE for years, Fedora runs circles around Ubuntu year after year. And if you want to stay in the Debian family, Mint fixes some of the worst annoyances that Ubuntu ignores. Speaking of that, and this is my biggest peeve: Canonical is all too happy to ignore the same problems ("issues") version after version after version. Makes you want to ask: "What the hell are you people doing over there!"

Finally, Canonical head Mark Shuttleworth wrote a lot of checks in the past five years his company and millions couldn't cash. It's not that Ubuntu failed per se, it's that Ubuntu never measured up to the standard it set for itself.

zridling:
Here's Adam Overa's in-depth review of Ubuntu 11.04, including the inefficiencies of the Unity desktop environment:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ubuntu-11.04-natty-narwhal,2943.html

40hz:
I personally think Canonical's current focus is on partnering with someone to produce a tablet with Ubuntu's name one it. That's their single biggest chance to make some serous money, hence their new online store and blind infatuation with the Unity front end they're trying to shove down the Ubuntu community's throat. (I don't consider Unity a true desktop widows manager.)

People who don't learn from Apple's mistaken vision are doomed to copy it.  :P

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