Of course a savvy Debian user like you would think Ubuntu sucks. Ubuntu is, without question, so much more heavy and bloated and slow compared to Debian. I have installed both Ubuntu and Debian on 3 different desktops plus a laptop. On every system, Debian ran faster and used fewer resources than Ubuntu. This has been true with all versions of Debian since Sarge, and all versions of Ubuntu since Dapper. I agree that Ubuntu gets in your way and hides many things from the user; and this can be frustrating at times. Since I have learned how to use Slackware, this "Ubuntu way" of doing things has irritated me more and more.
Also, Phoronix has documented that Ubuntu has been getting slower and more bloated with every new version:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...nch_2008&num=1
Since that article was written I believe Ubuntu has become even more bloated.

However ...
You must remember that "hardcore Debian user(s)" like you are not the target market for Ubuntu. Ubuntu has (very successfully imo) brought many people from the Microsoft proprietary, controlling, and restrictive side of computing over to the free and open side of the linux FOSS world. I am one of those people. I was introduced to linux through Ubuntu. I now mostly use Slackware, but I still appreciate Ubuntu for what it is.
Please tak a moment to cinsider this:
The Ubuntu forums now have (incredibly!!) over one million registered members! That is one million people who were at least curious enough about linux to check out Ubuntu and register at the Ubuntu forums.
That, most definitely, does not suck.

1 members found this post helpful.

One point I didn't see made, is that Ubuntu gives back basically nothing to upstream. When it comes to Linux kernel development most of it comes from Debian, Red Hat/Fedora(CentOS does not), and SuSE camps (when it comes to distro's at least). Ubuntu until recently (correct me if I'm wrong) gave nothing back to Debian. When I say 'give back' I mean as in bug reports or patches.

To me, this is exactly why 'Ubuntu does suck', and why it isn't good for the Linux community as a whole. Yes, Ubuntu has brought tons of people to Linux, and has put it in the spotlight unlike any other distro has before, and that has led to vendors really paying attention to the Linux community. But is this really good for Linux in the long run?

Full disclosure: My distro of choice (slackware) provides little to nothing to upstream, but come on, it's one guy.

A guy by the name of Greg Kroah-Hartman has a few good speeches on this topic.

Edit: I started on Linux with Debian Sarge.

Here is one of them:
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online...acks-Canonical
BTW, GK-H's book "Linux Kernel in a Nutshell" is an excellent guide to compiling the linux kernel:
http://www.kroah.com/lkn/
I purchased a hard copy even though you can read it free online. I wanted to support his work on this.
For what it is worth, Mark Shuttleworth has at least been talking about more collaboration and sharing between Ubuntu and Debian and the broader linux community:
http://lwn.net/Articles/345353/

It's probably foolish to "lock horns" with a senior member who is a linux person, when I'm not really either. However, ...

Several things you've said just aren't right. I'm part of a group of sysadmins spanning several departments in a large university who have pretty well settled on ubuntu. We run firewalls, filtering bridges, authentication servers, etc. all on Ubuntu (the current 8.04 LTS Server release). Everything we do is command line. My own background is predominantly Solaris. I run a fair number of departmental servers that are Solaris 9 and 10 on Sun SPARC hardware. However, since I'm the backup administrator, I'm now installing and configuring Amanda on ubuntu servers. Aside from learning some differences in file system organization and default directories, I've had no trouble. The person who built the machines added me as an administrative user, and I build from source.

I think it is pretty routine on any server environment that you have to know root and/or be assigned privileges. If you didn't install the machine, you aren't going to have those unless the person who installed it gives them to you. I have one person who is routinely pissed off at me, because we don't give out root on the Solaris servers. I control what others can do through sudo. There is only one other admin who has root on the Solaris servers.

I also ended up configuring IP aliasing from the command line so that my Amanda backup server could work with the ubuntu servers on the private network. It was not a big deal. I just had to ask one of our more experienced ubuntu admins, since I knew how to do it on Solaris, but on on ubuntu. Oh, and I didn't reboot to get the new network up and working.

I get people complaining at me that the Solaris servers don't follow "standards" (by which they mean they way all the Linux distros have settled on), until I point out to them that AIX, HP/UX, and Solaris are all different on those "standards", and the various major Linux distros are also different among themselves. Plus things are moving forward. There are quite a few things that I do on Solaris 10 that didn't even exist 5 years ago.

My take is that Ubuntu does not suck.

No, not suck, precisely. It isn't my favourite, and so easily they could have got a lot closer (the sud/sudo thing and a KDE that doesn't seem like an afterthought).

I find Gnome irritating after a while, so if we are only discussing the Gnome version, then that would not be particularly close, for me.

Up to a point, that's true: In use, rather than the admin aspect, they can be pretty similar, but again there's that Gnome aspect - presumably you'd have written Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu and Enlubuntu or something, if you had meant us to take the other GUIs into account - comparing a gnome ubuntu against, say, an Enlightenment Gentoo throws up a few more differences (and I even find the 'Kubuntu' naming a bit daft...just increase the amount of stuff that you have to explain to newbies...thanks for that).

...and the number of times that they screw up your system while doing what should be routine updates (seethe!), although, to be frank, I can't say I have experience of a distro that doesn't get this wrong occasionally...but Ubuntu is the one that got it wrong predictably (although they did keep you on your toes by occasionally including extra problems or different problems from the one that you had learnt to expect, which was nice).

I would say that you are right, and there is an element of the 'tyranny of small differences' taking place here.

Well, now we know more about your mates... I do think that Ubuntu has a bit if a 'with training wheels' feel about it, but, if that is what you want, fair enough.

Since all distros are using the same basic kernel and in large part the same gnu/foss programs, then by default they can't be "that different." But then again windows xp isn't "that different" from windows 7 from a user's standpoint. The little differences are the ones that are going to be the most obvious (default DE, package manager, default administrative tools) so really it's just about preference.

Ubuntu works great. I really like Ubuntu and run it on 2 machines that I don't use a lot, but just need to work (and need to be quickly rebuildable in case of catastrophic failure) and might need some particular piece of software to work at a whim. It is an awesome replacement for the average computer user to M$.

I REALLY LOVE slackware. I run it on two more machines that I use the most, and for when I want to experiment, or play. It is faster and doesn't do things for me. I like that.

But those are not the type of differences which this thread was talking about, but ultimately they are the difference between "like and love."

I'm sure there are distro's that do suck in the way that this thread means ........and suck badly at that. But they aren't going to be the ones that are on the top 10 or 20 at distrowatch as was mentioned above.

Tell you something. I am a hardcore Debian/KDE user. I am now running Squeeze/KDE4 on one of my desktop machines. I can hardly imagine that there is a distro which is currently more bloated, bug ridden and syrupy than Debian Testing. Testing used to be very stable. I hope you compare Ubuntu with the former Lenny/KDE3.

Those are two true things. I am not the target market for Ubuntu and there seems to be a relationship between suck factor and popularity. Windows has 1 billion registrations?

jlinkels

Wait. I thought I have replied to a post regarding Ubuntu desktop. In a previous discussion I have been told that Ubuntu Server is quite different, and indeed has a respectful command line. From that thread on (I can't find it quickly right now) I said I would refrain from any comments to Ubuntu server until I familiarized myself enough with US until I could make proper judgement. So, my remarks are solely directed to UD. If you say US is a fine product I withold any comments because I am not in a position to make judgements.

That was not what I meant. When installing Ubuntu, the installer asks: "What is your name?""Please enter your password". Now this user becomes the user with root permissions. There is no trivial way to create a real, normal root account which works in both the command line and the GUI. I have been told by people far more experienced than I am that I should not try and change this policy because it is pretty deep embedded in Ubuntu. Now in our company most machines have the same root password. However most people who ever install an Ubuntu machine including myself, everytime run into the trap that "my name" should be entered as root, and not as jlinkels or so. So we end up with company machines where other sysadmins have to find the original installer, and ask his personal password. So the options are either to re-install Ubuntu with the correct user name or ask the original installer to assist.
It is obvious that someone must have certain permissions to do administrative tasks on a machine, but in that case he should use the root password.

There are huge differences between distro's. For a mortal like me it is impossible to configure the network on FC or a derived distro. Debian uses runlevels in a way that make a FC user completely confused. But all those distros do not create a strange pass-around for the root password, or insist that you configure the network thru a GUI. For a Debian derived version it is quite strange when /etc/network/interfaces is ignored.

If you are talking about Ubuntu Server and I am talking about Ubuntu Desktop we are talking about two different products, so ignore my comments.

jlinkels

The OP said nothing of desktop. The first reference to desktop is offhand in post #6 of this thread and then again in post #16 by tommcd, and then you later replied to tommcd. Given the thousands of threads on these forums, you can't really expect people commenting on this thread to have read things you may have said in some other thread unconnected to this one.

As far as the su vs sudo approach is concerned, I don't really find it that big a deal. My Mac OS X desktops are the same. But, I can open a terminal session and do what I need to do with sudo. If I really just can't bear repeated use of sudo, I could do a `sudo /bin/bash` or something like that. Then I have a root prompt. I don't allow that on my Solaris servers, though.

DUH!

My point was not that you should have read my other thread so you'd understand I was not talking about Ubuntu server.

My point was that if the discussion drift towards Ubuntu Server I withold myself from comments.

It is nice if you can recognize when someone else respects your point of view and tells you that he is not able to comment.

jlinkels

point taken.

And, I have no experience with ubuntu desktop.

My assumption was that the underlying structure would be the same, with the GUI elements laid over that. My points of reference would be Solaris and Mac OS X.

In Solaris I have 5 different levels of install to choose from. If I want GUI, I go up to the 3rd level and it adds all that stuff. If I'm on a server with no graphics card it's no use to me, so I'm more likely to start with a minimal networked install (level 2) and add what I need. The underlying elements are always the same, and it all comes off the same install CD.

In Mac OS X, I have never used the server version. But, on my desktop installs, I've done extensive work from the terminal with CLI. It uses the same sudo rather than su approach that ubuntu uses, and some of the control structures bear some resemblence to the direction that Solaris 10 has gone. For example, launchd on Mac OS X and SMF on Solaris 10.

So, since it's all ubuntu that we were talking about, I assumed that the different levels of ubuntu would be the same underneath with different elements laid over, and that even if the GUI tried to hide the CLI, it would still be there with the same functionality if someone knew enough and poked at it a bit.

If someone who knows both server and desktop ubuntu reasonably well could drop in and comment on these points, we could all learn something.

There is a reason for this.
The Ubuntu devs take the Debian kernel and packages (which are already patched by the Debian devs) and then they they apply their Ubuntu specific patches. So if something goes wrong, you don't know if:
1. it is a problem with the upstream kernel or packages.
2. a problem with the Debian-specific patches.
3. a problem with the Ubuntu-specific patches.
4. some combination of all of the above.

This is when you begin to appreciate Slackware and the KISS principle. Slackware uses plain vanilla kernel, xorg, packages, etc.
So if something is broken or problematic, you know it is a problem with the upstream kernel or package.
Also, because Slackware is plain vanilla, it is usually easier to compile your own kernel or packages to solve problems like this.

This is an unfair comparison though. Microsoft forces (in typical controlling, restrictive, closed source fashion) Windows users to register their "license" to run Windows on the one and only computer that the user purchased that license of Windows for.

Canonical (in the free as in freedom fashion) does not force anyone to register anything about their use of Ubuntu. The over 1,000,000 members of the Ubuntu forums are people who freely chose to register there.

Worse than that, because of Microsoft's monopolistic practices, even people who run some version of Linux with no intention of running Windows have often paid for a Windows license in the process of buying a computer.

We were on the verge of seeing Microsoft broken up when the Bush administration came into power and their justice department dropped the case that had been many years in the making.

Yup, I am one of them. My laptop had Vista installed on it when I bought it. I used Vista for about 1 hour, just to see what it was like (very slow on my laptop), then I wiped the hard drive clean and put a few linux distros on it.
I try not to think about how much I paid for that 1 hour with Vista.
Although I have not tried this, I have read that some manufacturers will (reluctantly, after contacting their support / service dept) refund the Windows fee if you remove Windows from the computer do not activate the Windows license.