Is ubuntu giving Linux a bad name?

[arinlares]

Ubuntu is giving Linux a bit of a bad name for one reason: It refuses to deliver on it's promises of stability and working "out of the box". The one thing that pushed me away from Ubuntu (even the Ubuntu-derived distro I had at the time), was when they had a critical bug that rendered Ubuntu unuseable on the eeepc 900 (I have a 1000HA, so my hardware's pretty close), that prevented it from booting, and shipped it anyway, on top of random, loud bits of noise in my audio chipset's output. If this is the height of the Linux experience, then I wouldn't be using it, because should X fail, your system is done (it takes the keyboard with it, as I have learned from several occasions). It took me installing Arch to finally solve the problem, as there wasn't a solution in the Ubuntu forum.

This article is a perfect illustration of the perception of Ubuntu as Linux, and outdated to boot (ATI's free drivers are pretty sweet, at least on my brother's laptop with Arch). The idea that the most popular is also the best is one myth that was swiftly debunked even after I installed Fedora on my netbook (for being "bleeding edge," it is so much better, as are Debian's Sid and Testing, and much more fun). I wish Fedora, or even Debian were the poster-child for Linux, as they actually work best, and don't allow over-the-top assumptions of stability and power.

[Rubberman]

Well, that's one thing about Linux. If one distribution is not working for you, try another! Can't do that with Windows or OSX... You can also cross-compile a kernel for the system you want on another machine. I build ARM kernels on my x86_64 CentOS 5.5 system all the time, and the OS on the ARM embedded hardware is Debian Etch - very different from my CentOS.

[rokytnji]

Ubuntu runs OK on my dual core Desktop Pc's. AntiX runs great on my 2 small EEEPC SSD drives on my 900 and also on my 701SD.

Like rubberman says. "Semper Gumbi" (always flexible)

The only thing I see giving Ubuntu a bad name is Windows Power Users. Guess I am to dumb to know better. But my gear works OK.

[MASONTX]

Is Ubuntu giving linux a bad name? NO! Quite the opposite. As a relative newbie (2 1/2 years), I came to linux on Ubuntu 8.04, and loved it. It was the other versions of linux, the ones you had to do your own compiling on, or only use the command line, that had scared me off from linux before that. Ubuntu ushered me into the linux world, and while I have never done any compiling, and use the command line only very infrequently, I have tried 20 or 30 other distro's. There are a lot of linux flavors I like, but I keep coming back to Ubuntu, except on older hardware that wont run modern ubuntu, on them I run Mint LXDE or Ubuntu 8.04 with the LXDE desktop. I guess I'm just an Ubuntu fanboy.

[Rubberman]

Ubuntu runs OK on my dual core Desktop Pc's. AntiX runs great on my 2 small EEEPC SSD drives on my 900 and also on my 701SD.

Like rubberman says. "Semper Gumbi" (always flexible)

The only thing I see giving Ubuntu a bad name is Windows Power Users. Guess I am to dumb to know better. But my gear works OK.

Hey Roky, do you mind if I appropriate "Semper Gumbi" to add to my sig?

[rcgreen]

I use Ubuntu on all my computers, except for experimental
systems. I did have one scare recently when one of my machines
wouldn't boot after a power outage. It turned out that the
CMOS battery was dead and the clock had reset to 1980 or
whatever. I didn't know that you can't get a desktop if
the clock is off more than a small amount. Luckily, there was a
warning and it allowed me to get into the clock setting program,
otherwise I'd have been angry. Maybe it's gnome that's to blame.
There are a lot of small apps that your desktop depends on.

[Rubberman]

Last weekend I pulled the hard drive out of my lawyer's laptop to scan it for viruses - it's an HP tablet - and saw the CMOS battery just sitting there next to the HD. At least it's easy to get to. And yes, he was infected (runs Win7). Although he has Norton 360 on it, and it was fully engaged, it seems its default configuration is to NOT look at pre-installed system files such as those ending in .sys, .dll, .avi, etc... Naturally, the virus was hiding in hiberfil.sys! So, whenever he would wake up from hibernation, he was reinfected... Doh!

[rokytnji]

Hey Roky, do you mind if I appropriate "Semper Gumbi" to add to my sig?

Naw. Sure don't bro.

[asifnaz]

My answer is NO . If I was given an OS other than Ubuntu I would never use Linux at all . It came with an option to dual-boot with xp so I decided to give it a try .

But now I wonder why 90% of Computer users to even know that Linux even "EXISTS"

soryy for my Engrish lol