Examining gOS With Its Ubuntu Origins In Mind

An anonymous reader writes "The history of computing is that of giants being toppled. Right now, Ubuntu is the giant of the Linux world but some have been suggesting that gOS' latest release — 3.0 "Gadgets" Beta — might be a serious challenger. Can this be true? The truth is a little more complicated, as the Ubuntu Kung Fu blog explains in its review of the new release."

Comments

Serious challenger?

[Mistshadow2k4]

Any other distro could be as long as the devs put enough work into it, listen to their user base and -- especially -- get a little marketing. The real question is, will they?

Re:Serious challenger?

[Bandman]

Probably not?

Seriously, the reason Ubuntu has been as successful as it has is because Shuttleworth can pay people to work on it.

Free open-source developers who are volunteering their time work on problems that are fun, or are hard.

Paid developers work on what someone tells them to.

In the minds of most programmers I know, there's no glory or bragging rights in building a unified user experience. .

Re:Serious challenger?

[pembo13]

Does their marketting team have anything to do with their success?

Re:Serious challenger?

[joelholdsworth]

In the minds of most programmers I know, there's no glory or bragging rights in building a unified user experience.

Fortunately, there are a few of us around who believe in getting the little things just right.

Re:Serious challenger?

[KillerBob]

Does their marketting team have anything to do with their success?

Certainly. In my mind, Zenwalk is, hands-down, a better distro. Faster, lighter, equally compatible, large library of pre-built software, easy to maintain. Running Zenwalk makes Ubuntu feel like Windows... it really *is* that much zippier. And there's probably other distros that are of the same calibre, but I simply haven't felt any need or desire to go looking.

But Zenwalk doesn't have nearly as large a marketting weight, nor does it have the collection of fanbois touting how great it is to anybody who doesn't tell them to fuck off. As a result, an overrated distro is the big dog in town, while a better product is underappreciated. *shrugs* all things come to an end, eventually. Something will eventually topple Ubuntu, and something else will eventually topple that.

Marketing

[Enderandrew]

Shuttleworth does a great job marketing and pushing Ubuntu. He signs deals with the right vendors. People who know nothing about Linux have heard of Ubuntu.

Yet, it is my least favorite distro I've ever tried. Popularity does not necessarily equate to quality.

That being said, I'm glad people are starting to realize that alternatives exist, and Ubuntu might be a gateway to other (better) distros. I hope Ubuntu doesn't turn people off though. I wish there was more of a coordinated effort to market other distros as well as Ubuntu is marketed.

Anyone remember the GetFirefox.com campaign?

I'd like to see a similar campaign for GetOpenSUSE or GetKDE or GetMandriva, or whatever.

Re:Marketing

[Enderandrew]

1 - Gnome only
2 - Fairly vanilla packages
3 - Really ugly themeing
4 - Basically zero options in the install process. I get the default packages, and that is it.
5 - I could never get the ATI drivers to work well with Ubuntu on my wife's laptop, but they worked great with Sabayon and openSUSE.
6 - I compiled a custom kernel by hand, but then I couldn't get the ATI driver to load at all, because Ubuntu demands that there be a restricted module package for the kernel, and I couldn't make one for a custom kernel.
7 - Never could get madwifi to work on Ubuntu well, when it worked out of the box with openSUSE and Sabayon.
8 - When I asked for support in the forums I was repeatedly flamed in PMs, and on the IRC support channel. I was told that I needed to install the 32-bit version, even when I asked for help the in the 64-bit forums. I was repeatedly told the 64-bit version is unsupported, even though Cannonical sells commercial support for it.
9 - Asking about restricted formats also provoked several flames, and Ubuntu fights methods that allow people to easily install them.
10 - I eventually tried out Kubuntu to find arguably the single worst KDE desktop I've seen in a distro.
11 - I was repeatedly instructed not to install a toolkit or attempt to compile anything manually. "I might screw something up, and frankly you shouldn't ever try to to do things on your own."
12 - At every turn Ubuntu removed choice. It was the most simplistic, straight-forward distro I've ever tried. There is a target audience for that, and it isn't me.
13 - Ubuntu supposedly "simply works" just like Apple. Fans would like you to believe neither Apple nor Ubuntu ever have problems, and yet Ubuntu has had some serious bugs with their last four releases I've witnessed.
14 - Kubuntu is a bastard child that not only receives little developer attention, but it is usually a release behind Ubuntu on *buntu features.
15 - A forum moderator actually told me I was an idiot for owning ATI hardware, to which I replied "it is the laptop my wife bought" to which he later replied "then you should divorce the bitch." I expect better from moderators. It is the single worst community I've ever dealt with. I really got spoiled on the Gentoo forums. I really love reading those.

Re:Marketing

[Bandman]

You know, Robert Kiyosake, who is 99% full of crap, had a gem of wisdom in one of his books.

He told the story about how he met with a reporter who wanted to become an author, and she asked him for advice, since he had been published numerable times. His advice to her was to learn marketing. "You'll notice", he said, "that the cover of the book says 'best selling author', it doesn't say 'best writing author'".

There's a lot of truth in that statement.

Best is such a subjective term, but Ubuntu is the most successful distro in recent memory, in terms of users, name recognition, and having a unified interface.

It's certainly not perfect, but for usability and bringing Linux to the masses, it's a damn bit better than everything else out there

Sorry to all the Mepis, RedHat, Mandrake, Gentoo, Slack, and other distro fans.

Re:Marketing

[Serious Callers Only]

Since I'm impatient, even on binary distros I compile my own kernel and manually patch in drivers rather than wait for distros to releasing updated packages.

You are not the target market for Ubuntu, why would you expect it to conform to your expectations (which frankly are pretty extreme)? Most of the things which you quote as disadvantages for you, are advantages for someone who just comes fresh to Linux, and has no idea what a kernel is, and doesn't want to read distro forums and linuxtoday every day, they just want things to work with no tinkering.

I hope Ubuntu doesn't turn people off though.

I seriously doubt it will turn people new to Linux off in any way. The only people it will turn off are those like yourself who like to tinker and customise, which is fine because there are many other specialised distros for you.

Blogspam?

[HeavensBlade23]

Is this blogspam? Such a sensational summary for an article that basically says 'Meh, I guess it's kinda cool'

Re:gOS....

[bill_mcgonigle]

The main page for gOS nowhere mentions Ubuntu or even Debain, heck, Linux isn't even mentioned! The main page for Ubuntu clearly states that it is A) Linux and B) made from Debian, as of now it even has a banner celebrating Debian.

You mean like Apple's homepage talks about Darwin and BSD, or Microsoft's homepage talks about NTOSKRNL? Or Motorola sells its linux phones with strong LiMo branding? (game: count the number of times the work 'Microsoft' appears on that page)

Ubuntu may garner some geek cred there, but it's not going to be helpful with their marketing to the Windows user base. Linux has a bad reputation for ease of use. gOS users can find out they're using Linux after they've been happy with it for a while.

How gOS behaves towards the community is an entirely different matter, and I don't know anything about that.

Why I use Ubuntu and not others like Zenwalk

[KWTm]

In my mind, Zenwalk is, hands-down, a better distro. Faster, lighter, equally compatible, large library of pre-built software, easy to maintain. Running Zenwalk makes Ubuntu feel like Windows... it really *is* that much zippier. And there's probably other distros that are of the same calibre, but I simply haven't felt any need or desire to go looking.

Without thinking any less of Zenwalk, I would say that the reason I chose Ubuntu, and the reason I hope most people choose Ubuntu, is for the critical mass effect. Although it's perfectly alright for there to be an unlimited number of Linux distributions, I hope that one can emerge to be the flagship distribution, the de facto standard, so that the non-Linux world --vendors of Other Operating Systems, hardware manufacturers, and the lay public-- can have a standard distribution to see, experience and understand. If a hardware manufacturer decides that it can't possibly support all Linux distributions, at least it can say "we support Ubuntu Linux" and the other distro's can take it from there. If some noob-to-Linux goes crying for help, at least s/he there's a chance that some not-quite-geek has heard of the distro and can offer some help and support --including emotional support, where appropriate.

Red Hat had the chance to be that one flagship distro. They decided to cut it loose and focus just on big companies. Debian never really focused on the end-user experience. Mandrake (now Mandriva) came the closest to Ubuntu, in my opinion, but I guess they were missing a millionaire benefactor.

So, I hear you, and I don't think Zenwalk is any less because everyone's talking about Ubuntu. But I think Ubuntu has its place, and I think all the Linux distros benefit from Ubuntu's standing.

Having said that, can you tell me a bit more about Zenwalk and how easy it is to maintain? I briefly checked out the web page and couldn't tell if it was based on the Debian system, like Ubuntu. If it's not too far off from Ubuntu and it's able to benefit from ports to Ubuntu, then I might check it out. Because I find that one necessity in a Linux distro is the existence of a strong package maintenance institution, so that I can be confident that new software will be packaged and made available for (and compatible with) my distro.