Ubuntu Linux Review

JimLynch writes "Pardon me while I pimp one of my own stories. We've got a review of Ubuntu Linux up on ExtremeTech. Check it out. Overall we had quite a positive experience with it, we think it's going to be a good distro as it matures. If you're looking for an easy-to-install debian distro, give it a download." Update: 09/27 23:25 GMT by T : Eugenia writes with another review from USALug, and a 6-page comprehensive Ubuntu preview at OSNews, writing "Gnome's & Ubuntu's release manager Jeff Waugh also had an interesting interview detailing lots of interesting tidbits. The final version of Ubuntu is expected mid-October."

Comments

Re:I've just got to ask..

[jcr]

One large benefit is the fact that every distro is different, has different goals and aspirations.

That's a feature, not a benefit. These are not the same thing. A benefit would be something like "not all distros are susceptible to the same failure modes", or the like.

So, what is the benefit of many distros, as opposed to (say) switches I can flip in a standard distro?

-jcr

Re:I've just got to ask..

[Jahf]

I don't see anywhere in the quote you quoted that says anything about building anything into the OS in the manner that IE is built into Windows.

"Some people want a server", doesn't imply that

"some people want a desktop", doesn't imply that

"some want to run an FTP server", while redundant, doesn't imply that.

Unless you are saying that the distributions shouldn't even bother to include Mozilla, Konqueror or whatnot in their binary builds??

There is a key difference between building a browser -with- an OS and building a browser into an OS in such a way that it (supposedly) can not be easily removed.

You've been marked as +1 Insightful, but I have a feeling I just fed a troll.

Re:Not Debian

[dschl]

They contribute changes to the upstream Debian package. Some of their developers overlap. They have a page clarifying their relationship to Debian, and they recognize that they are a subset. It would take a profound level of arrogance to imagine replacing a distro as broad as Debian, and arrogance appears to be absent from Ubuntu, from the name on down.

You seem pretty hung up on the potential for a fork - odds are, we define the word "fork" differently. I view Ubuntu as a short-term, temporary fork, similar to the branches in the Mozilla project, where every new release is effectively a short-term departure from a frozen snapshot of the trunk, which returns to the trunk to refresh and renew on a regular basis. I also do not view it as the end of the world. Unlike rpm based distros, most Debian-based ones (or at least those that lasted, anyway, progeny, etc) do not appear to fork to the same degree as RedHat / Mandrake / ten thousand others.

You might find the following blog entries from Jeff Licquia (a Progeny developer) interesting. He's got a lot better perspective on the issue than most:

• Being Debian
• Ubuntu and Progeny

Ubuntu universe is a snapshot taken twice a year, without any security fixes or updates. I have run sid for several years now, and quite like living on the bleeding edge - I do not plan on updating only every six months, and I also don't worry too much if anything breaks beyond my repair skills - that is why /home and /var live on their own partitions. But Ubuntu fills a gap for someone who is not ready to deal with sid on a regular basis - who wants a different compromise of stability and freshness than the regular Debian release cycle.