Ask Slashdot: Are We Witnessing the Decline of Ubuntu? 631
jammag writes "'When the history of free software is written, I am increasingly convinced that this last year will be noted as the start of the decline of Ubuntu,' opines Linux pundit Bruce Byfield. After great initial success, Ubuntu and Canonical began to isolate themselves from the mainstream of the free software community. Canonical, he says, has tried to control the open source community, and the company has floundered in many of its initiatives. Really, the mighty Ubuntu, in decline?"
Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
They're making incredibly unpopular design changes without giving people any real option to do things their own way and driving their own userbase away. Unity and other ass backwardsness pissed me off SO MUCH that I learned to use Arch Linux just to get away from it.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Ubuntu to arch seems a drastic step (still it is possible and productive). To those who don't like it I suggest to pick among the dozen ubuntu derivatives you find at distrowatch so you can keep using your ubuntu knowledge. Mint comes to mind. Or fall back to debian.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly, some of my friends that used Ubuntu highly recommend Mint. But I think I'm switching back to Debian with MATE, let's see.
Funny thing is Canonical announced they were going to accept donations more or less at the same time they made the switch to Unity. At first I thought "great, I'll be able to easily show my support", but then I learned about the crap Unity was (and still is). After a year of using Unity I can safely say that it pisses me off (like when accidentally launching an application with meta+number) without bringing any advantage for my use case. The Dash is a joke... gnome-do were much better at it, even if I had to install the mono crap.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
s/-do were/-do was/
And just for clarification, I've been using Unity for only around a year because I waited as long as I could before I had to upgrade libraries and stuff. The upgrade to Gnome/gtk 3 broke all my gedit plugins, and I didn't have time to adapt them. Recently I decided to try Pluma (MATE's version of gedit), and it was a piece of cake to make plugins work.
So I can't thank you enough, MATE crew, you guys are awesome!
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Unity is an interesting idea, but Shutteworth is marching off a cliff with it. Mint takes the best bits and makes them better-- with rational UI choices-- for desktop users.
Ubuntu servers are still pretty lean and mean and understandable, however. Rip the Unity UI stuff away, and there's lots of stable Debian underneath and lots of great work.
Ubuntu One is a rational idea, too, as Shuttleworth wanted to bring the best of the Apple and Microsoft ecosystems, but didn't read his target audience very well, then mandated privacy invasions in terms of search. Add Unity's UI ideological fork to the sense that Ubuntu becomes a lot like Google, FB, and others that ignore outcries of commercial ad revenue rage at the sacrifice of privacy issues, and Shuttleworth takes Ubuntu rogue, IMHO.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
What I've never understood though is why one would want to use Ubuntu over straight-up debian on servers (or Fedora over RH/CentOS). I do understand you get newer package versions, but outside of the touchy-feely eye-candy desktop stuff, the difference isn't that wide, and frankly debian stable is stable in every meaning of the word.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
Straight-up Debian is nice, and it's stable, and it's sometimes painful to watch it evolve. Ubuntu's payload has all the stuff I need. I can strip it and make it light, then foist it up as a bunch of VMs and feed the instances through puppet or whatever, then tear them down easily.
With Deb or the RH/Fedora/CentOS/Oracle payloads, you have to take great pains to strip them down; Ubuntu is just easier. When I'm constructing payloads, it's easier to just strip junk out of Ubuntu, rather than build Deb up. I'm sooooo tired of either the kitchen sink of payloads, or the other side, which is the barest of bones, no upholstery at all, and maybe missing the steering wheel.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Debian was my first and only distro until Ubuntu hit approximately 6.04. It was then that I felt Ubuntu offered a smooth enough experience to justify the "bloat" (funny how perspectives change) that came with the switch.
Having used mostly Ubuntu on my servers for the past seven years, there has been the odd time that I needed to squeeze Linux onto a small flash, and it was Debian to the rescue. Debian is great, but when you're used to Ubuntu it does feel unfamiliar in the way it handles some things.
A second thing that has me still preferring Ubuntu on servers is the quicker uptake of new features. SSD TRIM is a big one, as I started migrating all of my systems to SSD in 2008, and TRIM required the newest kernels. Yeah, I could have compiled my own kernels in Debian, but as any Debian user knows, updates are a different world when you step outside the Garden of Eden that is apt-get. Ubuntu made getting such new features a piece of cake and in a timely manner.
And lastly, there are advantages to being mainstream. There are tonnes of cool products being developed for Linux these days, and generally speaking, Ubuntu and RedHat/CentOS are the first distros to get support. Steam is one example. LTSP is another project that you're going to get way better developer support on if you're running Ubuntu. A counter example is VoIP software, including FreeSwitch and a bazillion Asterisk distros, which tend to be much better documented on CentOS.
Re: (Score:3)
as any Debian user knows, updates are a different world when you step outside the Garden of Eden that is apt-get
This can be true, but I've found kernel updates are the exception. There's a robust, packaging-aware system surrounding kernels built from source that will rebuild all your modules, redo your initrd, fw downlods, etc, and repos for bleeding edge kernels.
Why Ubuntu over debian, Fedora over RH? (Score:3)
Leaving aside the case for servers, for me the answer is the same for both. As a clueless (selectively, by choice) user, I just want my computer to work. When I build a new one, I just want to tick a box at installation to fully encrypt every attached drive.
In Ubuntu and Fedora, you just check the box. Uninstall the installer in Mint, intall the latest version, and you can do th
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
HOLY SHIT.
Mystery solved. I've been dealing with that weird crap forever without realizing what keys I accidentally hit.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
Been running Xubuntu (XFCE4 desktop instead of Unity) even since Unity was shoved down my throat.
I wonder what sick joke it was naming it Unity, given that it was rather obvious that it would cause diversion.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it sorta has unified all of us who hate it....
unity (Score:3)
While I like xubuntu, wouldn't it have been easier just to download a new window manager? It is pretty seamless. Ubuntu was the easiest thing to get running on my old macbook pro, but I didn't like unity. It took less than minute to switch to my preference, which I will not state, as it is even less popular than unity. But if you want ice or enlightenment or windowmaker or kde, or classic gnome, they are all immediate options with just a few clicks. That said, I still wish I could get fedora running,
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
Ubuntu to arch seems a drastic step...
His preference is probably Gentoo but it's still compiling.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Funny)
I do not fear the prompt
This definitely needs to go into a "quote of the day" collection :)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
I work at the command line all the time. I run Debian Sid on almost all of my computers. I really tried to give Arch a shot, but damned if it didn't break on every other update. Yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to read the release notes, so it's "my fault". Whatever, I can "apt-get upgrade" Sid any time, no matter how long I've left the computer, and it works.
Here's an example. A the top of the news items on archlinux.org, we see:
Why can't the package manager do that for me? Sure it's easy enough to do, but I'm lazy. This could easily be automated, and I don't have time to manually do things that could easily be automated. That's what computers are supposed to do for us.
I really wanted to like Arch. I ran it on my laptop for a year and a half. But I've gone back to Sid, it just works.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Interesting)
Upon upgrading to procps-ng-3.3.8-3, you will be prompted to move any changes you made to /etc/sysctl.conf under /etc/sysctl.d. The easiest way to do this is to run:
pacman -Syu /etc/sysctl.conf.pacsave /etc/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf
mv
If you never customized /etc/sysctl.conf, you have nothing to do.
Or perhaps the Arch devs who couldn't add a diff, and conditional copy in a few lines of script that would have taken less time to write than the instructions for doing it manually are the ones who are too stupid to use a package manager safely. WTF is packaging even for if not this? AC, as moronic as ever.
Re: (Score:3)
Fedora -- stable?! BWAHAHAHA
Fedora has never billed itself as stable, quite the opposite in fact, they are notable for introducing bleeding edge features that might bork your box. Install Fedora to production - let alone mission critical - systems at your peril.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
3.2.0-4 is the name Debian uses for their branch of the kernel. It is not the kernel version. Type uname -v and it will give you the actual version that it is based on. My Debian machine runs 3.2.0-4 but the actual kernel version which it is based on is 3.2.46.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
They're making incredibly unpopular design changes without giving people any real option to do things their own way and driving their own userbase away. Unity and other ass backwardsness pissed me off SO MUCH that I learned to use Arch Linux just to get away from it.
Its the "we're going our own way" decisions - like Mir instead of Wayland, etc. This leaves you thinking - If I keep with Ubuntu I will be out on a limb, forced to use Unity, etc.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
They're making incredibly unpopular design changes without giving people any real option to do things their own way and driving their own userbase away. Unity and other ass backwardsness pissed me off SO MUCH that I learned to use Arch Linux just to get away from it.
Its the "we're going our own way" decisions - like Mir instead of Wayland, etc. This leaves you thinking - If I keep with Ubuntu I will be out on a limb, forced to use Unity, etc.
How is anyone forced to use Unity in Ubuntu? There's still Kubuntu, lubuntu etc. And even with straight Ubuntu, you can still install whatever desktop you want, and select it at login.
I personally don't mind Unity, I can pretty much work with whatever desktop is installed by default, as I use the apps and not the shell. So long as I can switch easily between apps, who cares.
And I guess most none-technical people just don't care either way. If it works, it works.
Re: (Score:3)
Its the "we're going our own way" decisions - like Mir instead of Wayland, etc. This leaves you thinking - If I keep with Ubuntu I will be out on a limb, forced to use Unity, etc.
How is anyone forced to use Unity in Ubuntu? There's still Kubuntu, lubuntu etc. And even with straight Ubuntu, you can still install whatever desktop you want, and select it at login.
Will be forced once X is replaced by Mir. You will have to laod the whole of Wayland (or X as a legacy) to be able to run other desktops then - which means that it will be very different from the straight Ubuntu. There are already questions in the kubuntu [kde.org] forum and about gnome ubuntu [askubuntu.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody is forced to use Unity *yet*, but the alternatives are clearly treated as second class citizens that do not get the same level of attention to detail or integration, and makes for a substandard experience that's increasingly a throwback to the days where Linux on the desktop was *only* for geeks. With Mir on the horizon, and with many developers targeting Ubuntu specifically rather than Linux in general, that situation threatens to get worse, as we could conceivably have a large pool of software with
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
*Everything* is second class citizen on linux, already. You never know if you're running the "one true platform", be it distro, package management, init system, desktop. Should you run a .rpm or .deb distro? (with debian being the white knight according to a lot of the dorks). Is YAST the solution to all problems? Is systemd the true solution, or a lock-in like the one you describe? Is Xfce great, or second class? What about KDE? KDE is the epitome of big dependencies (installing one KDE app will pull in "h
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
How is anyone forced to use Unity in Ubuntu? There's still Kubuntu, lubuntu etc. And even with straight Ubuntu, you can still install whatever desktop you want, and select it at login.
And I guess most none-technical people just don't care either way. If it works, it works.
The thing is, the users aren't just SysAdmins or idiots. There are people who have used computers for ages, but have chosen not to learn to code or compile themselves. The computer-savvyness of youth means this group is growing fast. Ubuntu has turned its back on this group.
I used the Gnome Ubuntu earlier and it was fine. Then came Unity. I tried to use the built-in KDE/Gnome, but they were buggy and slightly broken - no point to a distro if it doesn't work with itself.
Oh well, tried Unity instead. The main interface element (dock) has NO configuration options. Nothing. Basically: I'm supposed to either be their slave or install a working interface myself. No thanks. Too bad Ubuntu still appears to have a superior update system: I don't feel like going to Mint's "good until you have to hack your upgrade". I had enough of that with the earlier Ubuntus.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
That is truly not normal. I use Ubuntu with KDE4 and it always boots to desktop...in fact I just checked and seems the alternative KDE "modes" aren't even installed automatically anymore, seems you need to tell the package manager to install them.
Perhaps you got involved in a nasty bug, but I used every release since KDE4 existed and never got that strange behavior. Anyway, it sure is fixed now, you can't boot to notebook/tablet interfaces without explicitly asking for them.
(Then again I use nvidia drivers,
Re: (Score:3)
KDE installed on ubuntu is quite nice, and is definitely not a second class citizen. I still have all of the easy GUI config tools, and I have the desktop that I prefer. So Right On, Brother! After all, it's Linux. If you don't like the desktop, it's trivial to install another one.
It depends on the user. (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess that rather depends on the user. The people posting to Slashdot are savvy enough to vote with their feet, whether it's to another 'buntu, or another distro. But Slashdotters aren't your typical Ubuntu users.
Ubuntu built its rep in no small part as the Linux that you didn't need to know Linux to use. A lot of the
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're making incredibly unpopular design changes without giving people any real option to do things their own way and driving their own userbase away. Unity and other ass backwardsness pissed me off SO MUCH that I learned to use Arch Linux just to get away from it.
Its the "we're going our own way" decisions - like Mir instead of Wayland, etc. This leaves you thinking - If I keep with Ubuntu I will be out on a limb, forced to use Unity, etc.
The problem is that if people really wanted stuff rammed down their throats willy-nilly, they'd be running Windows 8. Linux is an operating system that people choose, so restricting choices goes against the nature of the demographic.
Re: (Score:3)
They're making incredibly unpopular design changes without giving people any real option to do things their own way and driving their own userbase away. Unity and other ass backwardsness pissed me off SO MUCH that I learned to use Arch Linux just to get away from it.
Its the "we're going our own way" decisions - like Mir instead of Wayland, etc. This leaves you thinking - If I keep with Ubuntu I will be out on a limb, forced to use Unity, etc.
The problem is that if people really wanted stuff rammed down their throats willy-nilly, they'd be running Windows 8. Linux is an operating system that people choose, so restricting choices goes against the nature of the demographic.
You could be right - but canonical's bet is that there are a lot of people who just want something free and easy to use. My feeling is that most of these will try it then go back to Windows because its "easier".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On way to state it is that they started as the friendly libre desktop and then at some point decided to become the "cheaper macintoch".
It's not just the design, they, or rather Mark, gave a full u-turn to the entire philosophy of the project. Sould we go back in time, you'd find that the project was full of idealism. Ubuntu was a philantropic project, free CDs were shiped, at Canonical's expense, to those willing to help others become free.
The promise was that together, as a comunity, we could overcome the
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
dying desktop. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok the desktop isn't going to die, but it is becoming more of a workstation than a personal computer.
That said, Windows, OS X, and Desktop based Linux distro's are going to take a hit.
All the big players are trying to make their OS more tablet like. However the desktop is becoming more niche in its use, so they really should focus their UI on what people need for desktops now aday.
Programming, Number crunching, CAD... Less sexy, but a move away from happy friendly OS for grandma to a serious work OS with work productivity in mind is important. I am not saying we should go back to all the old ways. There is a lot of new design work that needs to be done. But it is needs to be more business centric and less home centered.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
This! Unity and their unwillingness to listen to their user base drove me away. I used to be a huge Ubuntu fan and have it on a lot of the machines at work and at home. No more. It's not like their aren't other distros out there that will listen to the users.
Re: Yes. (Score:3)
Ubuntu is simply following the Google approach: create an open platform through which you can sell your services. Just like if you don't like Google apps you can use CyanogenMod, if you don't like unity or the software center or Mir, don't use them. Ubuntu is open source... You have the freedom to do what you want. We should be praisin
I agree (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I agree (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with most people who say "is now non-standard in the *nix way of things" is that they generally have only used one *nix –generic linux.
What they don't realise is that the locations that they think are standard in all *nixes are actually very mutable, and many unixes put things in entirely different places. What they really mean is "is now not what I'm used to on linux".
Only time will tell... (Score:4, Insightful)
If Ubuntu declines, then the question is to what?
We see a lot of ubuntu users going to arch linux for example, but these are the people who started out ubuntu just a few years ago.
Distribution diversity is a good thing.
But we still wouldn't recommend newcomers anything else.
Grtz,
Jasper Internet
Re:Only time will tell... (Score:4, Interesting)
If Ubuntu declines, then the question is to what?
Right now, Id say... Android.
I've signed up for a broadband service which is bundled with a sports TV channel. I can access that TV channel via the web or using a native app for Android and iOS. When I try using Firefox (on Windows 8 Pro 64) it just will not work. I try IE. Not compatible with that browser, tells me to try a different one.
I tap the Android app and... It just works. Now let's think of what can I do to have that same channel on a larger TV screen. Since I don't have a smart TV box (only free to air channels), I can use that old media centre PC I've been trying to set up for 2 years. Pay £100 for Windows and then get that kind of experience? nah. Pay £100 for Apple TV? Looks great at the shop but will not touch my local media collection. Install Ubuntu? OK, but during a recent upgrade the wifi stopped working with no explanation. Maybe I can get Android x86 and hope for the best, or I can get a cheap £50 android box and just get it over with.
Re:Only time will tell... (Score:5, Funny)
If Ubuntu declines, then the question is to what?
Amiga OS?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's hard to predict.
Well, I'm not so sure about that. I predicted it [imagicity.com] back in 2011. Money quote:
Re:Only time will tell... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft promotes software patenting.
Microsoft embraces and extends open standards to break them - allows importing of data but only crappy exporting.
Now, I do agree that Ubuntu made some less popular decisions to make money.
While I don't like it either, they are easily apt-get removed.
Ubuntu also does their software development in OpenSource fashion.
I think some of the ubuntu-bashing is unjustified and unconstructive.
Ubuntu has a certain amount of critical mass which is very interesting and which leads to a better quality experience than for example with Fedora.
While I don't agree with all the 'dumbing down', it still allows power user to dive as deep as they want into the system and into the code. And I like the fact that it's not required for novice users.
Re:Only time will tell... (Score:5, Insightful)
What turned me off Linux based OSes 10-12 years ago was the amount of text file hacking that was required to get a usable system.
Thank god for modern concepts like ,,Registry'' and non human-readable binary file formats. Yay:)
Re: (Score:3)
If you prefer, s/text file//.
I remember well my first Linux system. LILO on a floppy disk, which I had to modify by hand because my hardware wasn't detected properly. Once I booted into the shell, I had to start X, which would crash, but then I could start it again and it'd work fine.
A decade ago, Linux was indeed a pretty shaky option for desktop use. In contrast, Windows XP was pretty straightforward to install and it worked well quickly - no hacking required.
That's exactly what Canonical's done well with
Re: (Score:3)
I believe - just like Linus Torvalds - that there is something terrible wrong with the UI designers in Linux.
The kernel has learned from the very beginning that it needs to be stable to userspace, yet the UI designers try to make users change their behaviour with every major release of their crap.
Yesterday I heared that GNOME wants to drop the middle-mouse paste.
Who the fuck they think they are for messing with our user experience. It's just rude.
And that's also one of the major
Re: (Score:3)
Funny, we see Ubuntu as Canonical's variant of Windows(tm). For people who, for whatever reasons (stupid or legitimate), don't /want/ to get a clue about their machines.
If you think that Unity or Mir stop you from learning anything about Linux then you're doing it wrong.
Hopefully (Score:4, Insightful)
Between unity, privacy concerns, moving away from intercompatability with a new package manager, having a PAY STORE as the default app manager, and attempting to establish a walled garden with a new package manager I hope they fall hard. Or at the very least I hope they get back to their roots.
Re:Hopefully (Score:4, Insightful)
What's wrong with having a "pay store" as the app manager? It's better than having one place for paid apps, and one for free. All mobile devices use this method, and it works great. You can install the vast majority of your apps and libraries in one place, updates are all handled by one system rather than several.. it's one of the few things that they're actually doing right.
Why does it even matter what the package manager is, as long as it's still using .debs?
Re: (Score:3)
What's wrong with having a "pay store" as the app manager?
There would be nothing wrong, if you got a checkbox for "only free"
I don't want to be advertised to by my package manager. That is wasteful and unnecessary.
Linux Mint anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
Ubuntu got popular because the ordinary people who cannot figure out how a command line works could use it. It looked quite a bit like Windows, which was a good thing. A task bar at the bottom, and a menu with a lot of functionality. Unity is too different, and made it slower too. So, many people seem to switch to Linux Mint.
I mean, even the close/minimize/maximize buttons had to be switched around to the top left... WHY?
If I want unnecessary bling-bling and a lack of functionality, I'll get a Windows computer. If I want to be a hipster, I'll get an Apple. I use Linux because I like simplicity and functionality. As soon as Ubuntu stopped delivering that, I switched to Mint.
Re:Linux Mint anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu got popular because the ordinary people who cannot figure out how a command line works could use it.
Hardly. It got popular because it was debian based and didn't require knowledge of every part of the system to get it up running acceptably - you installed it and most stuff worked without hours of research and hair-pulling.
Re: (Score:3)
It got popular because it was debian based and didn't require knowledge of every part of the system to get it up running acceptably
How come Debian didn't get popular, then?
Re: (Score:3)
They didn't put as much effort into "it just works" with mostly the latest and greatest as Ubuntu did. Debian's got more amazing amounts of "stuff" than people were prepared to deal with- and the good stuff was oftentimes in "Sid" which meant you weren't as stable as Ubuntu USED to be.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Linux Mint anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu got popular because the ordinary people who cannot figure out how a command line works could use it. It looked quite a bit like Windows, which was a good thing. A task bar at the bottom, and a menu with a lot of functionality. Unity is too different, and made it slower too. So, many people seem to switch to Linux Mint.
I mean, even the close/minimize/maximize buttons had to be switched around to the top left... WHY?
Having the task bar at the side makes perfect sense on modern aspect ratio displays. Todays laptops are very genererous in width, but not so generous in height, so wasting height with a taskbar doesn't make sense if it can live on the side. When working in Windows, I move the taskbar to the side, which makes an enormous difference in usable screen on small laptops.
Putting the window decorations on the left just moves them closer to the left taskbar. Left? Right? Arbitrary really.
Re: (Score:3)
Except it's more useful to me if it's at the bottom. If it takes up too much space, make it resizable, like the Dock in OS X.
Re: (Score:3)
Ubuntu got popular because the ordinary people who cannot figure out how a command line works could use it.
Linux was and is still predominantly used by people who can use a command line, but Ubuntu won a following with those who don't want to. I came from Debian which was a nice, solid base but very few cared about the desktop. That was something which just happened to run on top of the rock solid server they were building. Hell, when I switched Debian still didn't have a boot screen, it was text scrolling past because who cares on a server? But it was 2007 and it looked a DOS boot from the 1980s, I'm not going
Re: (Score:3)
It also won a following from people who *can* use a command line but didn't necessarily spend every spare hour outside of work inside of one trying to get the GPU drivers to work or *insert common hardware name here*.
So no, no thank you to Linux Mint.
Ubuntu works and I like being able to load applications using Super + Search on the Dash or whatever it's called.
Which was the only feature I liked on Win7.
Re: (Score:3)
The ideal OS is one where 90% of the functionality is easily usable by 100% of the user base. There's nothing wrong with power users having to do a little work to get that extra 10%.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is not all people opinions are equal. The opinion of the people who don't know what any of that 'scrolling text' means is far less useful in the area of computing than that of those who do know what it means and consider it useful diagnostic information. Pandering to nitwits who think its important to have a shiny boot time display with a spinning logo does not a better platform make.
Diagnostic information is fine, if you're trying to diagnose something but 99.9% of the time I'm not and then I'd rather have a nice spinning logo and have the boot log appear on error or if it freezes hard then as a boot option on the next boot. But I guess that's "pandering to nitwits", so after 3.5 years of dealing with asshats like you I finally had enough verbal abuse and insults so I returned to Windows. You're the kind of person who makes me advice people stay away from Linux with a ten foot pole. Wo
Re: (Score:2)
Ubuntu was the first distribution I used on a regular basis (back in the Gnome 2 days), because the large number of beginner-friendly tutorials and support forums made it easier to get started.
When Canonical and Gnome both began to screw up the system (Gnome 3 and Unity on the horizon) I moved on to greener pastures. Since I've developed a personal preference for Debian-based systems after years of exposure to different systems on desktops and servers, Mint with Xfce was the obvious choice for little ol' me
Time to move (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu is still one of the most convenient ways to install and use GNU/Linux. I'm using it daily for everything. The point is that Ubuntu is great despite Shuttleworth's and Canonical's stupid ideas and decisions. It's great because of the community and forums. For example, my girlfriend uses Ubuntu, and when there is a problem I (who else?) have to fix it. Right now, I just take a quick look at the Ubuntu forums and helpdesk, and it's done. I don't want to imagine what would happen if she used Gentoo. :O
Regarding the Desktop/GUI: The desktop is not a reason to switch away from Ubuntu. People who give a fuck can install another window/desktop manager, for example I give a fuck and use XFCE.
With a tear in my eye, I have to concur.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been a Ubuntu user and staunch defender ever since the hoary hedgehog release (2005), but slowly lost my appetite. It must have been the Unity straw that broke my camel's back,and oh yes Mint 14 (with Mate) was such a relief.. but then Mint 15 dissappointingly needed some touch-ups to make it behave...
So I'm still searching. What should my next Linux release be, I ask you?
A viewpoint from a lame long held Windows lover. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea what all of you are going on about, I LOVE Unity, why? Because its not Windows 7/8 and its closer to XP, but its Linux!
This is the first time in 13 years of trying out Linux Desktop variants whereby I can actually feel in control of my system and feel like its my friend, instead of my "RTFM" enemy.
I have no idea what all of you are going on about, I LOVE Unity, why? Because its not Windows 7 and its closer to XP, but its Linux!
This is the first time in 13 years of trying out Linux Desktop variants whereby I can actually feel in control of my system and feel like its my friend, instead of my "RTFM" enemy.
Yes, I am aware of the myriad of problems involving proprietary drivers not being open and running proprietary code, Yes I realise that Ubuntu steps on the toes of the FSF movement. But you know what? I don't care. I've finally kicked the Windows habit and I'm loving it because this is the longest time that I have been off Windows, ever.
I say well done with the Unity interface and well done with the "It just works" functionality of installing/uninstalling apps, and if I dont want to bother sudo'ing in terminal I can choose to use USC.
To top it off, it runs Steam, what the hell happened? Why did everyone abandon it? Please dont.
Yes, I am aware of the myriad of problems involving proprietary drivers, Yes I realise that Ubuntu steps on the toes of the FSF movement. But you know what? I don't care. I've finally kicked the Windows habit and I'm loving it because this is the longest time that I have been off Windows, ever.
I say well done with the Unity interface and well done with the "It just works" functionality of installing/uninstalling apps, and if I dont want to bother sudo'ing in terminal I can choose to use USC.
To top it off, it runs Steam, what the hell happened? Why did everyone abandon it? Please dont.
To use a car analogy, Ubuntu is the Camry or Celica of the car world now, and if I want to change the oil filter I finally can because its right up on the front of the engine and easily acessible.
Re:A viewpoint from a lame long held Windows lover (Score:4, Interesting)
Distributions rise and fall in popularity (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong premise (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
No, I would say the premise was that it has to satisfy some group of people, which it increasingly does not.
Re:Wrong premise (Score:4, Interesting)
The core of Ubuntu users are more typically ex-Windows users trying linux for the first time.
I keep reading this here. Perhaps it's true that first-time Linux users initially try Ubuntu, but there seems to be the notion on /. that once you've learned Ubuntu you "move on" to a more "hardcore" distro. But why should you? If Ubuntu works for you, then why move to something "harder"? If you're using Ubuntu for work or home surfing then there's no productivity gain by switching distros. The only reasons I can think for doing so are ideological, or because you want to explore and learn more about Linux. In terms of actually doing work: there's no point and messing around with difficult distros just sucks up time.
Personally, I moved from XP to SuSE back in 2001 or so because I wanted more flexibility, a CLI that works, etc. The only reason I switched to Ubuntu was because I got fed up trying to install new versions of software on SuSE. I don't know if it's got better, but back then I wasted a lot of time searching websites to find the right RPMs to resolve version conflicts. That's all gone with Ubuntu. So my reason for switching distros was purely productivity related. Other than that, SuSE was just as beginner friendly as Ubuntu was back then.
Yes. (Score:2)
I switched to CrunchBang. Its less annoying than the Unity interface (i have no use for its features, they just get in the way and frustrate me) works great on my old (non-pae) notebook.
Now in CrunchBang i just have to right-click to start applications, and manually have to add new applications to that menu, but that was surmountable.
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Not linear (Score:3)
Decline, but not fall (Score:3)
Ubuntu's been my default when I've needed to get Linux installed & working on a machine with minimal fuss for years.
I hate Unity, it's a dreadful UI. But hey, it's Linux - I install my preferred WM and copy my config files into place, and the UI is perfect again.
I dislike the package manager, but I install synaptic and stop caring.
I hate Upstart. I've never been able to use it for a single piece of software without having to jump through hoops (at best) or rewrite the code (at worst). Like Unity, it strikes me as a product designed with a philosophy of "It works pretty well for most cases, and everything else can get stuffed". But I don't often have to make anything work with it, so I can mostly just ignore it.
There was a time when Ubuntu was a distro I genuinely liked and was happy to recommend. That's no longer the case, and appears to be a common attitude. So they've definitely gone into a decline.
But I still reach for the latest Ubuntu when I need a new Linux box. I just take a few more minutes to work around the warts, whereas once I didn't have to. It's still very good at being an easy-to-install Linux distro that mostly JFW. So long as it keeps that, and doesn't screw up by preventing me from working around the crud, it'll do pretty well.
And hey, maybe eventually they'll get back to doing stuff that people like, instead of avoid.
Weird positionning (Score:2)
Hate unity? There are other *buntus. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I just wiped my Ubunutu box after a drive failure and went Kubuntu. It's early days but so far I love it. It's very polished, responsive and easy to get "functional" IE with binary NVIDIA driver, non-free codecs etc. It feels like a premium product I should have to pay for.
Downsides - not many.... I haven't found an easy way to mount and unmount drives through the GUI but I'm sure its there. Menues feel a bit too nested but again- there's a fix or I get used to it.
Quality assurance, I tells ya (Score:4, Informative)
The Unity desktop has for years suffered of terrible stability and performance issues. Part of the blame goes to Compiz, which makes for a quite heavyweight graphics stack for simple desktop effects. On certain computers Compiz also crashes every now and then. If you put the vanilla Ubuntu desktop to a small Atom / Bobcat laptop, you can easily see that even the basic functions are painfully slow and thus the desktop unusable. When we go up to relatively fast Core 2 Duo machines, even then opening the Dash is laggy and also dragging shortcut icons from Dash to taskbar is a jerky experience. Just try it.
Additionally there are some weird issues that seem to linger from release to another, some of which would be easy to fix: /sys/module/video/parameters/brightness_switch_enabled to 0 can be used as a workaround. .local domain, which is incompatible with the Avahi network service and not recommended" popup. This just creates a bad out-of-box experience. What is Avahi? Why must I even care about it? Why did not the installer configure my hostname better then?
* Brightness is changed in two steps at a time. Apparently the button press event gets handled by both OS and BIOS. Setting
* Hibernation is disabled by default, while in practice it works just fine on most machines. (how to enable it manually [ubuntu.com])
* Bluetooth adapter on/off state is not remembered across reboots.
* I always get that "Your current network has a
Its the linux 7 year itch... (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems every 7 years a distro rises from the ashes becomes popular and then implodes. Redhat, Mandrake, now Ubuntu.
I just wish the Gnome team would pull their heads out of their asses and work on functionality instead of ohh shiny.
Community and OS declined, I switched to OSX. (Score:5, Insightful)
I switched from WIndows to Ubuntu years ago after evaluating many distro communities and distro directions. At the time, Ubuntu appeared to have a good vision, and good balance between "it just works" (my computer is vital to my professional life and MUST work with minimal effort) and "power users will be at home" (my first jobs were on UNIX systems decades ago, this was very important to me).
From a technical perspective, Ubuntu was just a little ways ahead of others, IMHO.
From a community perspective, it was miles ahead! Fewer trolls, easy to participate, easy to grow, good tools and sites for the community. Most other distro sites and fora were, well, slapdash, poorly conceived, for the cognocenti, and full of the usual Linux aggressive bullshit ("well, just do cmd-alt-bang-fork-shift-nano-vim, you stupid goof, it's obvious!").
That made the switch easy, and I recommended Ubuntu many times and used it for years.
Then Shuttleworth slowly became less benevolent, community tools became harder to use, information that had been easily available began to disappear, and the distro itself became muddled. There was just no way to be a comfortable power user anymore, at least not without major effort.
And if I'm going to spend major effort, why use a system I don't like? So I started switching.
I tried Mint, I tried pure Debian, I made mistakes and learned a lot. Great. But.
I enjoy being able to configure as desired and be a power user occasionally, but I don't want to have to be one all the frikkin' time. And Mint and Debian required way too much hand-holding. Eventually, because too many things didn't just work, I went back to Ubuntu. But it was nasty and ugly and difficult to use and didn't support my 4 year old laptop as well as it used to and just wasn't fun.
I caved. I bought a Mac a few weeks ago, a 13" Air. Wow. What a beast! It's fun to use, easy to use, I can get work done without pain. LibreOffice on this thing screams!
Sure, I don't power use much anymore, but you know what? That fun is gone. Life is too short to spend so much time tweaking config files, and too short to use ugly, obtuse, opaque systems like Unity. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I love OSX.
All the philosophical and principled reasons for using Linux have largely been abandoned by Ubuntu, other distros are way behind, and if I'm going to use a commercial OS - which Ubuntu clearly wants to be - I might as well use a nice one that works well on insane kick-ass hardware. I'll be on OSX on this Air for years. Goodbye Ubuntu.
Re:Community and OS declined, I switched to OSX. (Score:5, Funny)
I think you've nailed this ridiculous TFA on the head. The people who want to hack config files all the time are those people who have no lives.
For the rest of us, we want power and convenience without being boxed in by geeks or corporations. Ubuntu is fulfilling its role for large numbers of people who don't want to hack config files or search for obscure libraries to get shit done.
The operating system is there for a purpose. I do not live to make the OS happy.
As for the idiots who went to Slackware: "Good luck with losing your virginity".
Lubuntu! (Score:3)
I used Ubuntu for a couple of years, until Unity came along. My history is all Microsoft, all the way back to DOS 3.3. I still earn my paycheck on C# and SQL Server. When I began using Linux, Ubuntu made the transition easy for me. And then they introduced Unity, and tried to pretend my laptop was a tablet. After trying a couple of others, I settled on Lubuntu and have been extremely happy with it ever since. I hope that train keeps rolling for a long time.
Decline? (Score:5, Interesting)
While I am not an Ubuntu fanboy, exactly in what arena is the "decline" occurring? Is Ubuntu more well known today than before? Yes. Is Ubuntu available preinstalled on more hardware today than before? Yes. Is the Ubuntu brand branching into more markets than before? Yes. The only metric, if it is even is one, is that Ubuntu has upset die hard linux users, many of which weren't Ubuntu users anyway.
Case point 1. Ubuntu didn't like the direction Gnome 3 was going so they came out with their own Unity desktop. Well, evidently most Linux users agreed they didn't like where Gnome 3 was going. Whether they like Unity or not is a moot point as every other desktop is still available under Ubuntu.
Case point 2. Ubuntu, having problems with x.org, along with everybody else, needed a new display server. They could have gone with Wayland, but they chose to go their own way (much like Redhat and OpenSuse have done with various core technologies). Can people still use/install x.org or Wayland, yes. Should Ubuntu be faulted for wanted to streamline the display server to work on various platforms? Evidently many people think so, but why?
Case point 3. Ubuntu has announced several products that never caught on or never made it past the technology preview stage. Does that mean they've lost their focus or are they just like all other "real" technology companies exploring new technologies that ultimately don't make it to market?
Case point 4. Desktop computing, while not dead, is not what it was just a few years ago. Does Ubuntu's trying to compete in mobile markets, while still maintaining desktop support mean that they are lost or that they are trying to stay current?
Now, I can also argue many points where Ubuntu blew it. But I can do the same for Apple, Microsoft, Google, Redhat, Suse and most every other tech company. The reality is that for every tech idea that succeeds, there a many good ones that never make it to market. That's the nature of the game. Ubuntu isn't declining, they are in the game, albeit as a small player compared to Apple and Microsoft and Google. However, unlike the big three, with Ubuntu, you still get freedom.
So, if the question is "Has Ubuntu as a desktop Linux only offering declined?" Then the answer is yes. But has Ubuntu as a brand and a technology company (really Canonical) declined? Well, that answer is not at all.
Death by Unity (Score:3, Interesting)
While there are many arguable points that have resulted in Ubuntu declining popularity, I can't help but think the biggest of them by a long shot is the awful Unity desktop. Everyone I know that used Ubuntu has switched specifically because of that desktop. Most have gone to Mint with Cinnamon or MATE, and some to xbuntu or other OS's. Unity, much like the Windows 8 shell, is just too App-centric and confusing.
They've done a lot to make Linux more mainstream, and that's great. Their rise led to many other flavours of Linux which are a more polished product though (like Mint Linux) and people are starting to migrate towards something that suits their tastes. Now with Valve's recent announcement about the SteamOS, I can see more folks moving away from Ubuntu and to a Linux flavour that fits their needs.
My work pattern has been stomped on (Score:5, Interesting)
For a decade, I've set up a server with listening VNC servers for remote access through our switched network. Yes, it is somewhat undesirable from a security point of view, and we require SSH tunneling or VPN for machines off the immediately local network.
I can tell that less emphasis is going into "remote" use of X11 and more going into the "desktop" experience, because this work pattern is almost entirely broken of late. I can't find a display manager to reliably work with XDMCP (and supply session switching, language choice, etc.) under the most current update.
Crazy stuff is broken. The menu option of KDM just doesn't work (i.e. the widget is just broken). Some incompatibility with the new X11 apparently. LightDM is so unstable as to not be usable. WDM has an upstart bug that prevents the computer from booting (though this is the manager I use--I edited the rules in the script to fix the boot). GDM has the annoying 'Super-D' bug so no one with a D in their username can login (yes, this can be fixed and the session startup scripts are still a problem on my platform).
It's absolutely insane that you can't find a display manager that actually works properly over VNC. It breaks a straightforward work pattern that I've used for a long long time.
These people think they can make a phone. In my experience with Ubuntu that viewpoint is absolutely self-delusion.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:My work pattern has been stomped on (Score:4, Informative)
Does mdm work? (It presume it stands for "mint display manager"). From the description, it says it support XDMCP. It's like everything went rogue or DE-specific, so Mint wrote a replacement that can do everything. The current version has crazy eye candy too :
http://segfault.linuxmint.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mdm.png [linuxmint.com]
Using HTML, which sounds crazy at first but the thing just shows up and it must mean anyone can give it any look.
People forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
People forget that not everybody lives in the US or Western Europe. There are millions, if not billions of people on this planet without computers and probably when they do get access to them, they won't be able to afford Macs and Windows PCs. Ubuntu (or maybe some other linux distro) is in a position to tap those markets when they open up.
Face it, their desktop, tablet, phone offerings, aren't going to make a dent in the West. They don't have to. It's in the 2nd and 3rd world countries, that future growth is going to occur and there, things could be very well be different.
Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
At least in my world it's been declining. I was once an Ubuntu fanatic. "It's so easy," I would tell people. It passed my girlfriend test. It passed my parents test. I used Ubuntu every day for years. After 10.04 LTS, things started going downhill. Once 12.04 LTS hit the streets, things started going downhill faster. I have since switched to Ubuntu's upstream parent, Debian, with LXFE for the desktop. Clean, simple, elegant. I'll keep this.
Ubuntu is suffering the same problems as GNOME (Score:3)
In the last few years, Ubuntu and GNOME stepped beyond the useful compromise Unix made between suitability for technical people and suitability for average people, and leaned towards the latter with generally no good reason. Sure, Ubuntu was pushing for an alternative to the X Window System, but so were the Wayland folk, supported by GNOME. The GNOME folk have been toying with the idea of making systemd a requirement for GNOME, making GNOME infeasible on other platforms.... because apparently your window manager should have a dependency on your init scripts? GNOME has removed all the options that make it usable in GNOME3, while at the same time embracing unreasonable defaults and suggesting the community write extensions to make it usable again? And so on.
I suppose if we want everyone eventually running KDE on FreeBSD, we're well on our way there.
There's always still Linux MINT :) (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
> I mean c'mon, just make it f-in work out of the box.
You are addressing the hardware manufacturers, right? because they have the power to do that, all the others have to hack support into their drivers.
Re: (Score:3)
experimental has not got all debian packages, unstable does. /home from backup.
I suggest a backup, install debian on usb for a couple days to test it out, install on hd and restore
Re:Not just ubuntu, all of Linux is in decline (Score:5, Insightful)
Between Windows 8.1, which is revolutionary, and OS X there is simply no room left for Linux any more.
Bullshit. I don't see a single server box running Windows 8.1 neither OS X. ;-)
On the Desktop, however, you can be right (with that "revolutionary" put aside - that bunch of scraps put together IS NOT revolutionary - it's just a tablet dumbed down to be used on a Desktop, and then hammered further to get the Desktop back).
I used to know half a dozen people who used Linux and now ALL of them have switched to something better.
I am one of these. But not because the options tuned better, but because what I was using became worse.
Windows is a bag of shit. Nuff said.
Mac OSX *is good*, very good. But not THAT good. There's nothing (eye candies aside) that my MaxOS Box do now that I didn't did at least so fast and conveniently with my (correctly configured) OpenSUSE 11.4 box running Gnome 2. The *BEST* professional box I ever used (and it's utterly missed).
People are tired of recompiling kernels, looking at crappy fonts, having NO drivers for common hardware, and all the general stupidity and uselessness of Linux.
It's almost 10 years since I compiled a kernel for the last time (Gentoo doesn't count - it does all the job alone, freeing you to see PR0N all night!). And I *am* a Linux heavy user. It just happened that I know some guys (like OpenSUSE) that thought it could be a good idea doing that for me, and then charging me with support when I want to do something unusual. Guess what? This model works fine for me (not that sure for them, however).
The lack of device drivers for Linux *IT'S YOUR FAULT*. Stop buying shitty devices, and go for ones that Linux already supports. I don't see anyone buying Booster or any other shitty Stereo to install on their Mercedes, Porsche or whatever. WHY IN HELL people spend a lof of hundred of dollars on I7 computers with tons of RAM and SSD, and then go cheap on video, sound and ethernet?
You got what you pays for. Stop bitching about it, and grow up. You are the stupid and useless here. ;-)
And I haven't even begun with the security, performance and privacy flaws inherent to ALL open source software!
You haven't begun with it because there's no way to start with, at first place.
Every piece of software has flaws and insecurities. Open Source ones just happens to allow you to see for yourself.
Take *ANY* Windows update. Do you can see what they're fixing? No? Me neither. And one of these updates fucked up a entire country this year. [google.com.br]
Yeah, I know you're just trolling. I know you're, at best, being paid to astro turf against open source (but chances are that you are just a moron doing it for free - some people just love to be slaved for free, what we can do?).
But it happens that I am in the mood today. :-)
Re: (Score:3)
(Ironically, I'm writing this on my Ubuntu laptop because Debian can't get over its non-free phobia long enough to install any functioning wifi/graphics drivers. But at least I managed to replace Unity.)