As amazing as it might sound, there are people who don’t like Ubuntu — and that doesn’t mean Windows fans. That means other Linux users, and some of them are quite vociferous. Read on.
As amazing as it might sound, there are people who don’t like Ubuntu — and that doesn’t mean Windows fans. That means other Linux users, and some of them are quite vociferous. Read on.
I used to use Ubuntu full time, until I discovered how well Debian Etch runs on my machine – it seems less CPU hungry than Ubuntu, as well as some other issues.
I used to share the resentment many ex-Debian Ubuntu users have – that is, that Debian is too hard to install, that it doesn’t auto-detect USB drives, and so on. I think this is certainly the case with Sarge, which is, as someone said recently ‘stale, not stable’. But Etch was a surprise.
I’m trying to shy away from the ‘Ubuntu is dumbed down’ argument. Instead, I’ve realised that there are two very different Linux communities:
1) Those that want to learn about the inner workings of Linux, typically (but not always) use more challenging distros, and typically (but not always) find simplified distros ‘dumbed down’.
2) Those that just want to use their computers, but don’t want to use Windows, and care significantly less about the inner workings of Linux.
I think Ubuntu is a wonderful distro for that second community, and it’s still configurable enough for the first community if there’s a desire to learn more. It’s not like it’s closed source.
Ultimately I think people turn on their computers wanting to achieve different things. I wish people would spend less time ‘not liking’ distros, and just finding something that works for them.
It’s a similar argument with the old Gnome vs KDE flames. Linus said as criticism of Gnome ‘if you want your GUI to be stupid or simple, only stupid people will use it’ (or something like that). I used to agree, and maybe it’s true, but does it matter?
If less tech-savvy people want to use Ubuntu, I see no reason for tech-savvy people to get antsy about it. It has nothing to do with them. People choose the best application to get their job done – it should be the same with distros.
Sorry for the rant 😀
frenchninja
I could agree with you if I didn’t have all sorts of issues with Ubuntu and if I didn’t find it horribly buggy, which is not the case with the latest Debian testing, except in the first few months after a release.
Ultimately, is a buggy distro that good for your “second community”? I wouldn’t think so.