Published at LXer:

For an increasing number of people, Ubuntuis GNU/Linux. Yet, looking at the pre-releases of Gutsy Gibbon, Ubuntu 7.10, I found myself becoming disturbed by the degree to which this popularity has translated into uncritical acceptance.

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A lot (most?) computer users want a "user-friendly" system. Ubuntu might, in some cases, stimulate their interest in GNU/Linux so that they try other distros. Good luck to Ubuntu, if it helps to whittle away the M$ monopoly.

There is nothing wrong with a desktop system being user-friendly. It may be bad for a server OS, but not a desktop OS.

The only serious concern with Ubuntu is its simplified method of being able to play non-free codecs as opposed to being able to easily convert all non-free media to open standard codecs. I would really appreciate a GUI for doing that instead of having to write my own bash script that uses mplayer to do it. And I still can't figure out how to convert video to ogg theora.

Another criticism is that it makes installing non-free drivers and software easy. But unless the complaining people are helping with the development of 100% free, suitable replacements then they shouldn't complain about that.

The article seems a bit misleading about Ubuntu's security feature. Also, if the user prefers using difficult distros, that is fine, but there is no need to lament the fact that most ordinary users have no desire to browse the web with netcat and wget, or configure X server with vi while blindfolded or whatever.

Even so, the dominance of Ubuntu is far more desirable than the dominance of systems such OS X or Windows Vista.