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Mad Penguin on Ubuntu 5.10 Preview

Posted by Zonk on from the frothy-birds dept.

atrebuse wrote to mention a preview of the Ubuntu 5.10 Preview release, on Mad Penguin. From the article: " Every community has its heroes. From the beginning of time, we've all needed that special something to grasp onto and worship in one way or another. The Linux community is no different. Sure, there are a handful of people known as leaders or visionaries that people look up to, but what other altars do they worship at? The Altar of the Distro. That's the one I'm referring to. According to the DistroWatch page hit ranking sidebar, Ubuntu Linux has held the title of '"most worshiped distro' for quite some time now. So why is that? Is it because Ubuntu is just that good? Is it because the Ubuntu followers are just sitting there hitting their browsers refresh button on the DistroWatch Ubuntu page? What is it about Mary? "

15 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Refresh Button by hawkeye_82 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...... Ubuntu followers are just sitting there hitting their browsers refresh button on the DistroWatch Ubuntu page......

    You mean just like we do here on Slashdot?

    1. Re:Refresh Button by CuriosityKilledWHAT · · Score: 5, Informative
      Seriously, from Distrowatch's FAQ:

      What is this "Page Hit Ranking"?

      It is a lighthearted way of looking at a popularity of any given distribution. Since each distribution has its own page, I decided to track the number of visitors viewing individual web pages. The HPD figure represents hits per day by unique visitors, the emphasis being on the word unique; the uniqueness is determined by the visitor's IP address. This prevents those visitors, not disciplined enough, from rigging the results by reloading the pages multiple times. The idea is to identify which distributions attract most attention and to rank them accordingly. This also introduces an element of competition and competitions are fun, aren't they? Admittedly, the page clicks by themselves may not always reflect the popularity correctly. They are also "seasonal", meaning that distribution currently in beta testing will often receive much more clicks than the one past the stable release. All in all, these numbers should, over time, provide an indication about the popularity of Linux distributions.

      These rules have been implemented to prevent various counter reloading schemes:

      Repeated page and counter reloads in short or regular intervals are not allowed. If you are inclined to set up cronjobs to repeatedly wget your favourite distro's page counter, then please do yourself a favour and go to see a psychologist. You need help.
      All suspicious page hit counts will be investigated and any regularly reloaded counts will be deducted from the total count.
      The repeat offender's IP address will be banned from accessing all areas of DistroWatch, including mirrors, for a period of 30 days.

  2. I don't use Ubuntu... by RiotXIX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But, the impression I got, through reading forums to help me get some obscure devices to work (ubuntu it seems comes shipped with a patched X11 for enablding evdev -> logitech MX700 mice, even though it hasn't made the xorg official release stream yet), is that ubuntu seems to have a really decent and helpful community base of users (with some pretty sharp ones too), & the community you share a distribution with can be a sincere reason for picking it. If mandrake's TOO newbie & gentoo's too zealot or redhat's too coorporate then pick one you like - a distro is just a kernel with apps.

    --
    "You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
  3. IMHO by Vermyndax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IMHO, Ubuntu is scoring well because of the QA efforts they are making. Even the preview release of Breezy Badger had less bugs that most pay-for-released versions of Linux that I've used. The community is also outstanding... brimming over the top with help, suggestions and just plain good nature. They really are doing an oustanding job to make the Linux experience as painless as possible.

  4. Why doesn't distrowatch include Windows pagehits? by Associate · · Score: 5, Funny

    My opinion is that it would be a little more tale-tell of who's visiting their site. Granted the intention is to indicate which is the more popular Linux distro. But still, it might show how many wannabees like me there are. Actually, I had SuSE and RH running here at work for a while. But the local IT manager got pretty pissed when he couldn't log into my machine as administrator. They reimaged my machine shortly thereafter. :(

    --
    Someone hates these cans.
  5. What is it about Mary? Mary's Mother. by jgaynor · · Score: 5, Informative

    What is it about Mary?

    Mary's genes. I (and Im sure Im not alone here) use ubuntu primarily because it's essentially Debian.

    Ubuntu should just rename itself to debain-desktop, and not just for the 'under the hood' reasons. A base debian system is just that - a very basic linux install (plus SSH); Ubuntu has done a damn good job of doing the same thing in desktop form. Office apps, gaim, not much more. My mother could probably figure out how to do basic email/internet/word processing with ubuntu without much coaching. Just compare the program menus on ubuntu with those of say, knoppix and you'll know what I mean.

    Besides the good base app choices there's solid driver support, ease of install, damn good UI, and great marketting. Only thing I would change is out-of-the-box in-browser media support (vlc-plugin or mplayer-plugin that works).

  6. I am above my own review by Zed+Lopez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the author is so immune to hype, and into telling it straight, why is a full page of a 3 page review about the release names?

  7. People on the street... by realbadjuju · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have no idea if this is why, but I was walking down the street two weeks ago in Cambridge MA and some guy just handed me an Unbuntu cd. Two actually, one live cd and one install. I didn't even realize what it was until I had walked 50 feet past him. That's never happened to me with any other distro...

    1. Re:People on the street... by bheer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Probably because Ubuntu encourages users to give away CDs (and the liveCD+installCD in one package thing is pure genius, it encourages people to give it a try). Get your own and spread them around.

      --
      Go somewhere random
  8. Bubuntu is good because by Ceriel+Nosforit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ubuntu is good because it took me a moment while reading the replies here to remember that I'm using Ubuntu Breezy. Tech is usually only noticed when something is wrong, so the hallmark of good tech is that it goes unnoticed.

    Ubuntu can do eveyrthing Windows did, and thanks to programs such as Cedega, I an even play Guild Wars. The era of Linux on the desktop is NOW.

    --
    All rites reversed 2010
  9. I Switched recently by asv108 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I moved my laptop from gentoo unstable to Ubuntu development for a few reasons. First off, Ubuntu seems to adopt new releases quicker that any other distribution, yet somehow manages to have excellent Q&A even on their unstable releases. The second major reason was that Ubuntu has made an effort to adopt many of the latest mono based applications. If you look around for the most exciting new desktop applications being developed for Linux, most of them are mono based. F-spot, Banshee, and Beagle are in Ubuntu's packaging system.

    Thirdly, Community based distros make it so much easier to find support answers. I deal with RHEL systems at work, good luck finding support answers on the web. How sad is it that its the year 2005 and Redhat still doesn't have an online support forum? Ever search for a Redhat support issue on google? Most of results that come are rh9 issues.. Its so much easier to use online resources with community based distributions, when I'm scouring for Redhat answers I find myself asking a simple question, "What the hell are we paying for?"

  10. Re:FAD by Slashcrunch · · Score: 5, Informative

    Normally I don't feed the trolls, but the narrow mindedness regarding what is good for everyone else (in Distro's, Window Managers, blah blah blah) is often not just limited to Trolls, so I'll bite.

    Compilation is not silly for everyone. The 2 biggest problems I had with Fedora and RH was that although with apt and yum I had a nice updated system, I often needed features in packages (particularly the Kernel, PHP and Apache, from memory...) that were not compiled into the RPM's that were in the repositories. So I'd end up hand compiling these anyway... With Gentoo I set the USE flags I want when I emerge it, and thats it.

    With RH and Fedora, upgrading was also a big annoyance to me. You can't just upgrade to a new release. With Gentoo I just point at a new portage tree and I've upgraded.

    Community support is also excellent.

    Each and every distro has its strengths, these are a couple of Gentoo's.

    Just don't tell me compilation is silly, it suits my needs right down to the ground.

    Yeah, yeah, I know. This site represents every Gentoo user, right? http://www.funroll-loops.org. Just thought I'd get that out the way for you.

  11. Re:Why Ubuntu? by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ubunutu is nice, but installing Fedora or others takes no longer if you do a standard desktop or workstation install (which only requires the first and possibly second cd). If you do a full install then yes you'll need 4 cds and an hour or so depending on your system, but your getting a hell of alot of more software then with Ubuntu (arguably a good or bad thing depending on who you talk to). Fedora is designed with both the server and the desktop in mind and so it caters to both crowds, Ubuntu however leans far more toward the desktop crowd (but being based on debian is usually just a few apt commands away from a good server too).

    Fedora from a security point of view though is significantly better. Fedora implements SELinux, execshield with NoExecute and PIE (position independant executables), and programs compiled with FORTIFY_SOURCE. Those features greatly increase security while also helping to prevent future unknown attacks.(Note, I dont believe all programs use those features for performance reasons, only those likely to be attacked like public facing services) Fedora also gives you easy access to XEN (virtualization), GFS (Global File System), and the Fedora Directory Server. Both Ubuntu and Fedora are nice, and people must choose based on their needs, but in many environments Fedora offers, what I feel, are certain benefits. Fedora also tends to get out security updates as quickly as 4 days faster then the others in some cases. Just my 2 cents on the issue.
    Regards,
    Steve

  12. Re:Naked People by nmb3000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Those guys at mirrors.playboy.com have to be careful.

    For anyone that missed the jest, check out mirrors.playboy.com (it is WS). One of my favorite places to suggest when somebody asks where they should grab one of a few Linux distros. It's also a handy way to explain to your boss why you were visiting the playboy.com domain.

    That and hey! When you support Playboy, you're supporting Linux! Go Tux! (He just got more than most Slashdotters I'm afraid... :)

    --
    "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
    /)
  13. Re:Naked People by Omicron32 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I always find it amusing how American's call us British people "reserved", yet they freak out at a nipple on TV, or, gasp, a few "naked" people showing nothing but a bit of skin and hugging each other.

    Then again, I've seen some American TV, and it's awful. "Reserved" isn't the word for us Britons, it's "not making a tit out of ourselves" that is. :p

    (I'm not painting all American's with the same brush here, btw. I'm already OT so getting modded troll as well...)