Well I've been keeping my eye on Ubuntu and I thought about installing it, but I decided to stick with Debian because it works and I know how it works. I want to hear all the details from those who have actually used it for a reasonable amount of time (2 weeks). What disadvantages does Ubuntu have? What do you like? What do you dislike? How does it compare to other distros you've tried? And since Ubuntu is Debian based, especially how does it compare to Debian?


I look forward to reading what Ubuntu users have to say here.

I got the stable version of debian and it wouldn't detect my monitor and other hardware (because the stable debian uses a 2.2 kernal) so i got ubuntu. It doesn't come with many programs and it runs gnome. I prefer kde better so I decided to get debian unstable. It worked fine and had lots of programs included and can run kde gnome and many other windows-managers. They do have Kubuntu now but Ill stick with debian. If you want to see it order it now and try it, its free. Overall Ubuntu is just a lite debian distro but it's free (shipping and all) and it comes with a live cd.

Well...now that you so kindly asked, sure I'll tell you how great Ubuntu is!
I admit I tried installing Debian a while ago (I think it was Woody?) and it was pretty nightmarish.

Ubuntu has the easiest non-graphical install I've seen so far. The good thing for all the Debian people out there is that if you didn't already know this, Ubuntu is based on Debian and they share a lot of things in common, but mainly the apt packaging tool. Having tried RPM and Debian based distro's Ubuntu is by far my favorite...I personally think it's better for total newbies than other favorites like Fedora and Mandrake. I think the best of all is it's actually free!

Unlike Mandrake, Ubuntu has all of it's packages available for download so you don't have to pay to join some stupid club, as well as restricted packages such as nvidia and ati drivers which are both are big time hassle for newbies.

Also, one final thought to my ramble is that Ubuntu will ship as many copies of its wonderful OS to your door as you want it to! http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org What more could you want? Well, possibly KDE but you can get that too!

Ive been using ubuntu for a few months now and I can hosestly say I dont think I've had one problem! There isnt really anything about it that annoys me and everything is really well integrated.
I switched from mandrake, i liked it but was getting a bit tired waiting for gnome 2.8. So i changed to ubutnu and havned gone back
Now sure how it compares to debian but seen as its based on debian i doubt its lacking anything that debian has. Def give it a try, I can't wait for the official release of 5.10

I've had Ubuntu on a spare box with an 800MHz Duron cpu, 512MB PC100, and onboard everything. It was extremely easy to install but Debian is too if you're using Sarge so I didn't see much difference in the install. I've had it going for 3 or 4 weeks now with no problems. I haven't installed much new software, no KDE, and nothing's broken yet.
In my opinion, it's good for a beginner. I'd rather start with Ubuntu than Mandrake or Fedora if I had it to do all over again but, like stated above, it's like a lite Debian so I won't switch over to it from my Sid machines. That said, it's staying on the spare box for me to play with.
Seems like it has a cool support community. Plus I really like the brown look. I've got the Walnut theme on firefox which complements it nicely.

I ve been useing Ubunt for almost 6 month. And I must say its pretty good distro. No no I s a best distro I ve ever tasted.

Likes:

I like that all of my hardware was detected imidietly after I installed Ubuntu even dialup modem which didnt work even in windows XP
I like that I have only one aplication used for one job i.e. FF for intenet Rhythmbox for listening the music etc.
I like that none of installed programs crashed (when I was useing GNOME)
I like GNOME very much
I like brown color of desktop
I like www.tuxme.com where you can find two articles where author goes through installation and tweaking the sistem
I like www.ubuntuforums.org. Those guys realy helped me when something wrong hapened
I like Ubuntu for real
I like synaptic
I like what names where where given to version of Ubuntu Warty Hoary. Hoary is my favorite beacause it has FF 1.0 inscudet
I really like that it is only around 14 days till next relese 5.04

Dislikes

I dont like that I dont have codecs for divx or mp3 playing installed. I know that they are avalible in repositoriums. But I would be realy happy if they were included

I dont like rhythmbox. I dont know why. Long time I was Win user and there I was useing Winamp. So my choice for music player is XMMS
I dont like XMMS. Beacause of all the bugs included
I hate when Xine crashes
I hate beacause GUI mplayer must be compiled and do NOT come in repositoriums
I dislike tha t OOo 2.0 pre are not included in Ubuntu 5.04 prewiev edition

So you see that all of my dislikes goes to software that are not part of offical ditribution but can be acessed in synaptic. Last dislike is not problem for one who has dsl connection. But for me with dial-up and 0.5 KB/s download can take avile to download

Ubuntu rox

You have to check www.ubuntuguide.org. Its THE BEST GUIDE FOR STARTERS or does ones who are allredy good in linux. Here you can find everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.

I am now runing Ubuntu mini ram installation with ICEWM for WM beacause I have only 128 MB RAM and FF startes to freeze when I had Gnome installed. The other choice, other then gnome, is XFCE. You can find tutorial hovv to install xfce on Ubuntu linux at TUXME in articles section.

Godspeed ubuntu

My Likes:

Primarily, I'm sticking with Ubuntu because it installed and connected all my hardware succesfully.

I tried Fedora, Mandrake, and Suse (all latest versions) they all had problems either installing or detecting hardware.

My hardware is slightly exotic because I'm on an ASUS A8V Deluxe mobo with an AMD 64 3200+ (939 socket).

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My gripes:

I've installed several packages through the Synaptic package manager and many apps are not showing up in the menu system. I'm using Ubuntu for basic productivity, Internet, and entertainment. But I'd also like to use it for my Music production stuff. But those are the packages that are not installing completely.

I'd like to see a 'Music Production' sub-menu with all entries (like Jack utilities, Hydrogen, etc.) in there.

Also, when I installed jackd, it did not configure to start up automatically.

many apps are not showing up

try to write update-menus in terminal

Hmm good for newbies? How "n00b" are you talking about? My mother wants me to install Linux on her machine and if she were to ever touch a command line......well let's just not imagine that scenario. It took her about 4 years to learn how to use e-mail properly. If it's something that I can easily setup, configure, and then let her go, then that would be great. And especially since there's synaptic, upgrading should be a snap even for her. Yeah Mandrake was my first "n00b" distro and it got pretty frustrating at points *shudders at the words dependency hell*.

I'm completely new to Linux and installed Ubuntu Hoary 5.04 about 2 weeks ago. Outside of a problem getting my system to dual-boot (which was my fault) I haven't had many problems with it.

The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't recognize my onboard sound chip. I have been in the Ubuntu IRC support channel, though, and actually chatted with somebody who handles the Alsa development and was informed that my issue has been escalated upstream. I think that's pretty damn cool. Aside from the fact that I currently have no sound, which I hope to be rectified shortly due to the fact that I just purchased a Soundblaster Live card, I really can't complain. I have to agree that compiling mplayer stinks, especially since I didn't know how to do it, but that IRC support rocks! Go in there, ask how to do something and you get immediate support with people telling you what exactly to do. I compiled the latest version of gnomebaker this way and I never compiled something in my life. Tres cool.

The only distro I really have to compare it to is Suse which I tried to use prior to installing Ubuntu and, in terms of user-friendliness, I can't say that there is even a comparison. Ubuntu, for a complete noob like me, has been very easy to use, install, and update. I didn't like Yast, and really can't complain about the Suse installer, but everything just seems a lot easier in Ubuntu. The apt-get feature is SO easy for the most part, outside of packages not listed in the universe. I would highly recommend Ubuntu for somebody that is just getting into Linux like myself. It's made the switch from Windows extremely enjoyable, to the point where I haven't even used XP (which is on the same hard drive-different partition) in about 2 weeks!

Oh, one other thing...I think the fact that you can order FREE pressed CDs that are shipped to you FREE of charge is beyond words. Now THAT'S awesome!

Ubuntu IS noob distribution. Your have to be used to use FF and THunderbird or Evolution an OOo and thats it. If she dont like the walpaper. Check tuxme for some great tweaked systems.

So brother tell your mother to use Ubuntu

I'm a newb to linux, so the fact that it detects all of my hardware is great. Love apt-get, and have tried rpm versions. Very low learning curve, very stable for me.

I dislike that it does not come with a program to rip my cds to ogg. Plus, and I know Ubuntu users will hate me for this, but I DONT LIKE THE COLOR SCHEME. It was the first thing I changed. Otherwise, its a perfect distro for a newb like me.

What about Sound Juicer

How well does it handle SMB browsing & networking, is it fast? Anyone have any trouble with that?

What is SMB