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Ubuntu: Desktop Linux's Success Story
Johhny writes "What is it about Ubuntu that has enabled it to grow so much? This distribution has clearly built on Debian's success but it has more than a few other things going for it. Ubuntu has become one of the most popular versions of desktop Linux despite its many differences from some of the other popular versions out there, including its scheduled releases and its counterpart, Kubuntu. The article takes a look at this distribution and tries to find out how Ubuntu defied the odds. This article generated a really informative comments page at OSnews."
I think the real success story here is the presence of an informative comments page at OSnews
Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
One of the things that i think might have been a key to Ubuntu's success is the very fact that they didn't ship with the various multimedia libraries necessary. Yes it's all true that it installs easily on almost any hardware, and yes the chocolate coloured theme is quite pleasant. But i think there was a real magic trick to leaving out mp3's and avi's.
let me put it this way: you get a fresh clean install and there's nothing at all to configure or fuss with. seems great but you can't play mp3's. hunh? it's a small thing, you can figure it out. so you go and do a little search at Ubuntu and they explain that it's not free. you're a newbie to linux and you don't understand how it's different here than on your windows box. so you drift over to GNU and do a little reading. maybe you learn about free-as-in-beer vs free-as-in-speech.
then you go back to the friendly forums and find a nice step by step on how to add in extra repositories. wow, all this stuff is free, and hey look how much there is in the Universe, and then in the Multiverse. yoiks! this linux thing is amazing. and it's not so tough.
and i think that might be the whole point. someone waltzing into a full distro with everything in the world (even a program that will time how long your tea steeps) is a lot more intimidating than most of us really think. and of course the exact same goes for a distro that you're compiling from scratch. if there is any single thing i think Ubuntu has going for it, it is that it gives you everything a complete OS really needs to have (office, web, photos) but somehow sneaks in just a small lesson here and there about what the linux world is really about. if your parents can read a help menu (and the Breezy Badger help is one of the best i've ever read) they can figure out those little things that will eventually convert them to being true penguin lovers for life
It seems that the choice of software is less important. ubuntu is gnome by default (as far as I know) if you want kde it is called kubuntu and since in general KDE seems to be more popular (/me runs from an angry mob of Gnome fans + assorted fans from the gazzilion other desktops out there) it is odd to see a gnome distro score so high.
... People are all focused on making a nice system for you no matter what you happen to prefer. It's the idea that things should work well together, be cooperating, not competing.
Well, usually both Ubuntu and Redhat are very high on any use list; on distrowatch, Gnome-based distros have frequently been at the top. The vocal people - the ones that are very visible and audible - are a fairly small group, and not representative for the large group of users. You have to be both passionate and fairly knowledgeable to bother to vote or fill in survey results about such arcane things as the choice of desktop. Most people just don't care that strongly either way.
And I think that is exactly what Ubuntu is getting right. Yes, apt is nice, the distro has a lot of spit and polish applied, and it has a wide and current selection of packages to choose from. But most important, Ubuntu is inclusive. People on the mailing lists and forums really _don't_care_ if you're running Gnome or KDE; or if you prefer Vi or EMACs, or
Since that attitude is fairly pervasive on everything from mailing lists to Wiki docs, people feel welcome, they feel appreciated. It's easy to get help because it's easy to _ask_ for help; you can feel nobody is going to call you an idiot for asking a dumb question. I think that is really what sets it apart and what makes it so popular.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I agree, and I think this is important and is often overlooked. Ubuntu people I've chatted with on IRC are among the most friendly and helpful people I've experienced online or off. This really matters, and it matters at least as much as, (and to a newbie, especially, quite a bit more than,) the technical merits behind differences between distros or desktops. I've always respected Debian, but I can't say I'll be going back to their IRC channels.
Is it successful because of the number of downloads or ordered CDs? We all know that is not a very reliable measure of success. The number of searches on Google? The number of positive articles submitted on the web? Doesn't say anything about actual usage, as we all know.
For most companies support is important. You can't afford to have a desktop no one can fix if something goes wrong. Which is why Xandros could be attractive to companies, or maybe Fedora/Red Hat/SuSE. Ubunto might be solid as a rock and work out-of-the-box, but I doubt companies would use it unless you have people that can support in in-house, or from a company (that you've actually heard of before). Which is basically why people use Windows. It "works" and you can easily get support if something goes wrong. And you've got Office. (Again something most people think is exclusive to Windows).
As for users .. For most users "Linux" is just like "Windows", just more isoteric (read: difficult) .. but free. (Free is not always a good thing, remember that. Free means crappy and unsupported to some.)
The distro names have no meaning to them, just like the difference between "Windows XP" and "Windows 2000" might be lost to them (except that they might know XP is newer than 2000, and newer means better .. right?). What is important to most is that they can read their mail, surf the web, write documents and play an occational game (raise your hand if you've heard of someone that don't like Linux because "games don't work").
What it all boils down to is .. this "success story" seem an awful lot like preaching to the already converted. It's "successful" to a limited community. Just like Gentoo was "successful" a while back (and still is, except that no one's talking about it anymore). Next year something else will be "successful". And people will still use Windows .. :\
(K)Ubunto is a nice distro. No need to hype it.
/* Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana */