i think the gnome 2.10 and marketing have been major point to ubuntu fame. few months to get it on top at distrowatch.com.

Personally, i have seen but i don't see any point for me using it, as i already have sarge installed. I am used to debian and don't see any reason for me to use a derivative like mepis, knoppix,etc. at all... at least for now. if i was to setup quickly a new desktop at work i might give ubuntu a chance. The distro i use doesn't really matter, what i consider is the package management and the available repositories and ways to get software installed.

Lot's of people says debian is outdated. I run woody for one year but as soon as i got used to it, i moved to sarge, tried unstable, went back to sarge...woody is mostly used for servers not for desktops... when there are new packages, i just apt-get. i won't have to download sarge when it is released, apt-get is already setup for that and it will go the same for the after-sarge.

On freeBSD most of the time i cvsup to upgrade, if my machine was fast enough i wouldn't bother downloading a new iso.

Its really simple. Ubuntu is easy, good for newbies and it JUST WORKS.

Alof of people view linux as some weird hacker creation, which it kinda is, but that has a big mental block for people. While I love KDE, Gnome is just non threatening. Ubuntu, while lacking some of the things that advanced or even semi-advanced linux users want, it has MASS MARKET APPEAL.

Its not special for anything other than that really, it is a vanilla distro, but its approachable.

I've got several friends who have come over to the linux camp from windows because of Ubuntu. So its not really what is special about the technology of ubuntu, but what the social and psychological effect of an easy to grasp linux system.

"Ubuntu is like weed, its a gateway distro"

Nothing, it won't even install on my machine, nor will it let me partition my sata drives or install grub not into my boot record. Even DOS works better

what are the specs of the computer that you are trying to run it on?

if its a 64 bit comp, you'll need the 64 bit distro of Ubuntu

I found it after trying out various "for desktop" distos like mandy, suse, fc, etc. For the most part I liked what I saw. Although Ubuntu is gnome-centric, KDE is easy acquired. I really likes SuSE although it was a bit sluggish on a system with 256 megs of ram. I was looking for the most bang for my buck. Not having to upgrade hardware to run a distro at a reasonable rate in KDE/Gnome.
I used it for a few weeks and enjoyed every moment once I updated my apt.source lists, and read a few how-to's on the Ubuntu site forums. Since then I went back to Slackware as my main destop OS and as always fbsd on my local home server. Something about xfce on slack, just so snappy.

Definatly give Ubuntu a try. More and more distrobutions are allowing for more production time and less configuration time. I know that many users use Linux for just that reason, to play with, but its also great to have a distro that you can use to actually get work done, Ubuntu is one of them. Actually they all are, but you get the point.

I've been testing Ubuntu the past days, since I got a free copy of it, and I must say, it's pretty good. However, I fail to see why it go so popular. There are other distros out there that has a much more polished desktop with great configuration tools as Sun JDS and others, also debian based, as Libranet, which has a nice administration tool, thus easier to use. Ubuntu does not provide any of these, but it's quite popular. It's without a doubt, a great distro, but so is vanilla Debian...

Please, don't get me wrong, I liked Ubuntu a lot, but... might I say... overrated?. You're damn right it is

Q: How To Get the X Window System to Work

A: The answers to this question can, and do, fill entire books. If the installation program wasn't able to configure the X server correctly, Linux will most likely try to start the X display, fail, and drop back into text-only terminal mode.
=======================================================
Linux hackers may recognize this quote from tldp.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ/x-windows.html#get-x-window-system-work

The reason that Ubuntu, MEPHIS, UserLinux and other Debian GNU/Linux distros are gaining popularity is that most people (including me) don't want to study the history of X in order to get a window manager up and running. I actually bought the X books and they are collecting dust on my shelf since I loaded Ubuntu.

In the past, I purchased Red Hat 9 and attempted to install it on my RHN certified Dell 350 server. The CD would not even boot. Neither Dell nor Red Hat wanted to help me with that problem (so much for "support"). I copied the CD to a HD and installed, but shouldn't have had to do that. Ubuntu just loaded up.

At about the same time I built a server with all RH supported hardware and of course RH loaded fine on it. After my divorce with RH when they end-of-lifed my RH9 investment and my RHN account didn't work (by design) on Fedora, I went searchin for a better distro to avoid getting stuck again.

I started with Gentoo because I really like Python. Unfortunately none of the three video boards I had laying around would run X under Gentoo. These weren't old boards either. Perhaps I just didn't try hard enough.

Then I moved on to Debian. Many hours (days, weekends) later, I got an X system up and running, sort of. That was after forking out another $150 for yet another video board, and even then the resolution and refresh was poor. I think that Debian is the best base distro on the planet, but it simply requires more work than most people are willing to invest. With much reluctance, I was back shopping for a distro.

I found Ubuntu. It loaded without a hitch on my custom build (former RH box). It loaded without a hitch on the RH-certified Dell 350 that wouldn't boot the RH distro CD. It has loaded without a hitch on every box I've put it on so far. While RH, SUsE, Mandrake, etc. and others may also load without a hitch, I don't have to pay a fee just to get Ubuntu up and running.

The value of a distro is determined largely by what you want to do with it. If you want to tweak and twiddle, then there are LOADS of distros to choose from. If you want to get up and running (including a graphical desktop and OpenOffice) out of the box on most hardware and don't want a closed solution (Sun) or to have to bring your checkbook (RH, SuSE, Mandrake, etc.) then then list gets short quickly and unfortunately will probably never--by design--include straight Debian.

For those of you that are really interested in how all of this distro packaging stuff really works, go read up on UserLinux and the discussions that are posted between the Debian, Ubuntu and UserLinux folks.

Cheers,

we shouldent have to "study" the history of X in order for a noob to use linux thats like saying i need to study the history of a pencil in order to use it

Don't be an idiot, that's the worst analogy I've ever heard. The point is that Ubuntu is very accessible with your hardware and it boots into a usable interface immediately, without having to teach yourself volumes. The whole philosophy of OSS is the more users, the more contributors, the better. Don't be an elitist. If you want a ridiculously complex distro, use Slackware. Otherwise, quit being a prick.

rolf i think you need some pamprin for your pms because you shouldent go so hard on what i posted .. it wasent even ment to offend anyone..so calm down

how is he being an elitist? you dont have to know very much about X in order to use it, even in slackware or gentoo. however, most distros do boot into a usable UI, and most of them do a much better job of it than ubuntu does.

The free cd's work GREAT as scarecrows to keep birds and rabbits out of the garden. Just as well as AOL cd's.

The live cd is handy to use as a base to run LFS scripts or install gentoo. Not knoppix or sysrestoreCD handy, but a little handy.

People who use ubuntu give Debian users something to laugh at.

The overall sluggishness is probably great for folks with repetitive stress injuries to the hands and wrists.

Ubuntu is the WindowsME of the linux world.

[/flameon]

Some of the folks maintaining Debian are working on Ubuntu, and the developers at Debian take the project seriously. Rather than laugh and make fun of people who are trying to accomplish something, I usually try to help them. I do however laugh at technowenies that take all this too seriously, and and since I'm sometimes guilty of falling into the trap (like now), I laugh at myself also.

- - - - - http://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros#ubuntu


Slackware was the first Linux distro I installed, back in the early '90s, on a multi-boot box along with DOS, OS/2, and a couple flavors of WinDoze. Seems like a good distro for elitists now. I think I might still have a copy of Xenix around here somewhere if you want something really retro. My TI/99 was also cool, but the string functions were a little weak, so I reluctantly upgraded platforms.

If you like Slackware, you'll love this browser:

http://www.dgate.org/~brg/bvtelnet80/

Cheers!

i'm not sure what's so great about ubuntu.
at first i thought it was pretty decent - most things worked right away, the synaptic package manager is pretty slick, etc.
now... i'm starting to dislike it more and more. there are all sorts of things i'd like to try and tweak on my system but when i go to edit a corresponding file i usually find it blank if i can find it at all (xorg.conf for example). also, setting up my box as a router was damn near impossible.
however, i'm writing this and i'm remembering my slack days... a few nice features of ubuntu include the fact that i didn't have to search the net for nvidia drivers, audigy drivers, or edit code in the command line just to get my scroll wheel working. the thing is i rather enjoy that sort of stuff when i can find out how to make it work.
ubuntu, slackware, fedora, etc... who cares? can you make it suit your needs?

i can't... so i eagerly await the arrival of Studio to Go

well, there are things that are good and not so good about Ubuntu, for you as someone who has used Slackware, ubuntu may not be the best choice. Its really alinux newbie distro, and slack generally isn't a newbie distro of choice. So maybe your difficulty in finding it useful is because you are trying to use it for things that its not really meant to be used for.

You have to use the right tool for the job