Ubuntu Continues to Grab Market Share

slasher writes "MadPenguin.org discusses the future of Ubuntu and confirms Ubuntu's growing market share in the Linux market. Author Matt Hartley writes, "Now, for the biggest question: do high numbers mean that Ubuntu is the best distribution out there? Some will argue that this is an impossible point to make, as each person has different needs from their distribution. But for the sake of this article, we will be considering the average user, not the Slackware crowd, who is obviously much more comfortable within a command line environment than mainstream users."

Comments

My Opinion

[CastrTroy]

Personally, I've been using Mandriva/Mandrake for about 5 years, and I don't see anything that Ubuntu has that Mandrake didn't have 3 years ago. I'm not sure why Ubuntu is catching all this attention. Maybe I'm missing something really big, but I seriously don't see what makes Ubuntu so much better than Mandriva, or most other desktop oriented distros. I actually prefer Mandriva, because I find that the Admin tools are much better.

Re:My Opinion

[McDutchie]

I'm not sure why Ubuntu is catching all this attention.

Simple: Ubuntu has a charismatic millionaire behind it. That's really all there is to it. Marketing is everything.

Re:My Opinion

[zebslash]

Mandriva has always provided free updates...

Re:My Opinion

[Wylfing]

I'm foregoing modding you (it would have been +1 Insightful) in order to reply.

I used to be a Mandrake "subscriber." I paid my yearly dollars, because Mandrake was really the best distro out there that I had tried. Even when Fedora came around, I gave that a whirl and it wasn't up to the Mandrake level in my opinion.

It is true that Mandrake pioneered most of the user-friendliness that Ubuntu now capitalizes upon. However, in my time with Mandrake there was always something that didn't work right. It changed from release to release, but it was always something. Like they had 98% of everything nailed down, but that one thing just bugged me to death, because it would be something like, oh, printing. I frequently built custom kernels under Mandrake in order to get things to work, and even then there were often a few things that were broken beyond my ability to repair. Now when Ubuntu came around, I installed on a test machine (I do this often with new releases of distros I'm not using just to see how they fare). I was so happy -- there was nothing that didn't work, straight out of the box. No fiddling, no custom kernels. They had closed that last 2% of functionality. It was almost zero configuration for printing and wireless networking, two things that historically have been a problem.

So yes, Mandrake was (and is) a leader in making an easy-to-use desktop distribution. But Ubuntu blew the doors off with its "it just works" quality. That's why people love it, and that's why it's on all my desktops to this day.

Re:My Opinion

[Oldsmobile]

Simple: Ubuntu has a charismatic millionaire behind it. That's really all there is to it. Marketing is everything. No, you are simply wrong. I've been an off-and-on linux user for a few years now, but I've always gone back to XP due to never coming to grips with using the command line and hating it when you have get something to work it's a pain in the ass to get working.

Also installing programs was always so easy with XP and a pain with most linux distros.

Now with Ubuntu, I've for the VERY FIRST TIME ran into a distro that is in many respects better than XP! I'm astounded by how much better the usability is.

Not only that, but it's the first distro that's totally agreeable to the "don't click that, computer will explode" -crowd.

Re:My Opinion

[zebslash]

This is FUD. No need to download and install. urpmi --auto-select will do this for you, as much as apt-get can do it. Very soon you are going to say there is dependency hell with rpm, which has been solved for years with urpmi. And I know Ubuntu users for whom the update did not go as smoothly as you claim (just have a look on support forums).

Re:My Opinion

[greg_barton]

That's really all there is to it. Marketing is everything.

That's a load of horse hockey.

I started out using Mandrake, back in '98 or so. I wanted a distro that "just worked" and it was fine in that respect...until it wasn't. Once I was comfortable enough with linux I used Gentoo for a few years. Then it started crashing and burning, even on the "stable" configuration. After that, Ubuntu was the choice for a distro that "just worked," and it's served that purpose for me for the last few years. Marketing had nothing to do with my decision to use Ubuntu. Zippo. It has value on it's technical merits alone. Just because it's publicized and wrapped in a pretty package does not mean it's value is decreased. Marketing and technical merit are not mutually exclusive.

Re:My Opinion

[Just Some Guy]

Simple: Ubuntu has a charismatic millionaire behind it.

Umm, no. For a lot of us, Ubuntu has Debian behind it. It's like the pretty, desktop-oriented version of Debian for people who want relatively recent software without running "unstable". Should Ubuntu cease to exist today, I'll point my sources.list to debian.org and crossgrade back to the parent system.

I like Gentoo and Slackware and FreeBSD and OpenBSD, but Ubuntu is what I use when I want a Debian system with a little bit of polish. It really hit the sweet spot for a lot of people.

Re:My Opinion

[ancientt]

I'm posting this from a Mandriva install that shares a drive with a Gentoo install and used to be where I had an OpenBSD install. The other disk has CentOS on it and probably will have OpenSUSE shortly. I try new distros and new releases of old distros on a regular basis. I'll probably try Ubuntu again in a couple months.

Mandrake tried to do what Ubuntu does, but it tried to do it years and years before Ubuntu existed. It did a decent job of starting on the path toward a newbie friendly desktop Linux distribution. Unfortunately, it has had times where the entire system was unstable, where the hardware either didn't work as expected or didn't work at all. I don't recommend Mandriva because I don't trust it to stay as stable as it appears to be in it's current incarnation and also because I know that people have an easier time finding other users with similar questions and issues if they use Ubuntu.

I think that Ubuntu sits where it does in terms of popularity because it came on the scene at the right time with the right goal, make it easy and got the interest because it was new and shiny. It isn't at the top because it is necessarily better in terms of software or functionality, but it is the best in terms of community for the new Linux user right now and that is what sets it apart.

Is it the best distribution?

[the_humeister]

That's the question posed. Well, we only have to look at the market penetration of Windows to know that question is rather meaningless. Ubuntu is a good distribution. "Best distribution" is a bit presumptuous as people who would be interested in a Linux distribution have different needs.

Average user?

[siwelwerd]

What does average user even mean? For the average Windows user, I'd say Ubuntu would be the best for them without hesitation. For the average Linux user, the question becomes trickier. I don't know that there is a well-defined "average Linux user".

Yes, the best distribution.

[An Ominous Coward]

For this particular situation, yes, Ubuntu's popularity does mean it is the best distro. Ubuntu is the first Linux that's had "mass market" appeal, bringing in people from outside the *NIX world, due to its easy of install and use, but also for being "hot" at the right time: when Microsoft is trying to shove a slow, bloated, DRM-filled downgrade called Vista on its users.

So even if Ubuntu isn't ideal for all Linux users, it has the opportunity to greatly increase the Linux user population, bringing more and wider-ranged development to the OS, which will benefit us all regardless of our distro of choice.

Re:Slackware crowd?

[Otter Escaping North]

This is kind of confusing to me that the excluded the 'Slackware crowd's preferences. If there exist Linux distros that the 'Slackware crowd' prefers (not rhetorical - I really am not aware of Linux user preferences), then isn't there scope for improving the user interface of these distros to make them more accessible to the common user and trump Ubuntu?

Being an Ubuntu user who is also part of the "Slackware crowd" (you insensitive clod!), I think there's also a danger in running too far with the notion that a particular distro suits a particular number of users. I am but one user with multiple tasks to perform; I don't have requirements - my tasks do. I use Slackware on my servers, because I have evaluated it to be the best tool for the jobs I need the platform to do. I use Ubuntu on my desktop workstations because I think it is the best tool for those jobs.

I understand the need for simplification when doing an article like this, and maybe that's why the author just wanted to start by moving pains-in-the-ass like me off the table and stick with ye-average-joes who have perhaps one PC that they use. It drastically limits the complexity of the issue; but it inexorably limits the relevance of the article at the same time.

Why I use Ubuntu

[loconet]

I've been using Linux for about 8 years (desktops and servers) and have tried numerous distributions (Redhat, SuSe, Mandrake/Mandriva, Slackware) as a desktop OS. As far as the desktop goes, here are some things off the top of my head that Ubuntu offers me that other distros did not at the time of my experience with them (which may have been several years ago).

#1: No nonsense software manager. Ubuntu's Add/remove programs system just works. No dependency nightmare, rarely the need for command line, no need to compile/mock around with make files (although I'm comfortable with the process) but if there is the need, the option is there. Don't need to signup to get updates, it just works.
- All of my hardware works. ATI card, LCD (minimum tweak needed to get native res), ipod, firewire card, cellphone through USB, digi cams, cd/dvd writers, etc, etc.
- Relative cutting edge and stable software versions, I don't remember the last time I had x/gnome crash on me.
- Great software selection through their reps.
- Sane directory structure/menus setup.
- Excellent community support / forums.
- Ease of installation (although most distros offered this as well)

Never been happier with a Linux desktop.

What does Ubuntu have that Mandrake doesn't?

[metamatic]

You won't like the answer, but it's in TFA.

It's more that Mandriva has something Ubuntu doesn't, something that drives people away. RPM-based distributions are not popular with users. That's because in spite of band-aids like Yum, the user experience for RPM still sucks.

Lots of people have been saying so for years, but the denial in the RPM camp is amazing.