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The Secret Lives of Ubuntu and Debian Users
jammag points out a look at statistics from the Popularity Contest projects on Debian and Ubuntu. These projects track the download and upgrade habits of their respective distributions' users, revealing — no surprise here — that Ubuntu users are more likely to be newbies than Debian users. The numbers reveal, for instance, that 86 percent of Ubuntu machines use the proprietary NVidia driver, where only a mere sliver of Debian machines do. Likewise, Debian users are far more eclectic in their software choice, less likely to use any default options. The article concludes with a look at the limits of what conclusions can be drawn from statistics like these. "In general, Debian users seem more eclectic in their use of software than Ubuntu users, and less likely to use an application simply because it is included by default. Debian users also seem more likely to be concerned to maintain a free installation than Ubuntu users — a conclusion that is hardly surprising when you consider Debian's reputation for freedom, but is still interesting to see being supported by statistics. ... To what extent last week's figures are typical is uncertain. Very likely, studying the figures over a longer period would produce different results. Possibly, too, those who participate in the Popularity Contests are not typical users of either Ubuntu or Debian. "
Seriously, do you /really/ want to know what they do behind closed doors?
Because I certainly don't.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Ubuntu and Debian cannot hold a candle to Ninnle Linux on the desktop. Ninnle is far more configurable, yet far more user friendly than either of these other two.
I use ubuntu and love it. Some of us aren't worried about free as in whatever debates and more interested in usable *nix, and for that ubuntu is fantastic.
"GNOME is installed on 85% of Ubuntu installations and 50% of Debian installations, and has been used recently by 78% of Ubuntu users and 55% of Debian users."
Does this mean that they track per user rather than per box?
I'd also be interested in architectures, does Ubuntu support anywhere near the same range?
I'm a bit of a die-hard debian user because for me it works well and doesn't try to hide settings and operations like ubuntu sometimes does. This is one of the things that put me off windows and I don't like it replicated on Linux in the name of ease of use. I also realise this puts me firmly in the "geek that likes to tinker" category.
Using the proprietary nVidia driver makes you a "newbie"? When you consider that the open-source driver doesn't fully support a lot of modern cards (last I checked, everything from the 8-series on), and provides inferior performance to the proprietary one on most of the cards it does support, I'd have to wonder how you figure people who haven't yet replaced the included driver aren't the "newbies." Or perhaps it's buying nVidia cards that makes you a "newbie"? Real nerds use Intel GMA 900s!
Have you joined #ubuntu and #debian on irc.freenode.net? The former talks so much that my 24" screen can barely handle the message throughput.. kudos to those brave souls that give support in that channel. 50% of those questions are, why doesn't ubuntu work like windows.. :(
In my firm we've used Debian for 10 years or so for all our servers. Clearly the choice of packages is a big part of keeping the systems clean and secure, and the most exotic hardware issues were with RAID disks.
Contrast that with my last desktop install where a fresh Kubuntu can't do better than 800x600 until the Nvidia drivers were activated.
The main advantage of Ubuntu is the speed which which it adapts to new hardware, but non-free drivers is part of the price to pay for that. (Another part is the instability in new versions.)
My blog
These guys do the same stuff that everyone else does, except they do it with style because they use Linux.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Not partecipating.
slashwhat?
Since 2009 is the Year of the Linux Desktop (!), the number of Ubuntu users is probably going to continue to grow. While this is great, these statistics show that an Ubuntu user is not (yet) as useful to the community as a Debian user.
It would be good if statistics like this could be used to start grooming the next generation of contributors to these projects. Just because they're n00bs (and not necessarily programmers) doesn't mean they can't be useful in reporting bugs, testing new features, amending documentation, suggesting UI improvements and so on.
Knowing what activities people engage in will help decide where to aim appeals for help and how to improve and facilitate contributions at the first level. The larger this group of low level helpers, the greater the number who can be converted into more serious contributors.
86% of Ubuntu users use the NVidia driver, whereas Debian users do not. To me it means Debian users are the newbies since they can't install the better driver for their card.
I run Debian on my server and Ubuntu on my laptop. I have no need for NVidia drivers or a web browser for my server. I also use more manually installed software on my server as there is no default server software configuration that will meet anyone's needs, while the default Ubuntu installation serves most of my productivity needs.
I know when I install Debian, I don't even bother with any of the major metapackages. I just install a base system, and apt-get whatever I need. That way, I know everything that is on the machine, and it's all stuff I use. Of course, doing this in Ubuntu would defeat the whole point, which is to have a well managed set of applications preinstalled for you. So it seems obvious that Ubuntu users would use a lot more of the same software than Debian users.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The relatively low number of Debian [Gnome] users is probably explained by the fact that [...] users are more likely to choose one of the dozens of alternative desktops.
No, it's probably explained by Debian's heavier use in reliability-focused server environments where a desktop is a waste of resources.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
> Debian users are far more eclectic in their software choice, less likely to use any default options.
When most of your experienced users think your default options are crap and refuse to use any of them, perhaps it is a good time to change those defaults, eh?
Cool to know that's where they are pulling their package ratings info. This has been tremendously useful in my family - I just tell the wife "I dunno, install the one with the most stars and see how it works for you." I'll have to install the Popularity Contest package so I can add to their data, even though I don't subscribe to idea of having a "contest" at all.
df -h
[...] Ubuntu users are more likely to be newbies than Debian users. The numbers reveal, for instance, that 86 percent of Ubuntu machines use the proprietary NVidia driver, where only a mere sliver of Debian machines do.
How does that classify a user as a newbie instead of just someone interested in playing games through WINE, or someone interested in graphics performance?
the coolest club on
Regular people just want their computers to fucking work.
It's also why Apple keeps selling computers.
If you can't understand that, then you're clueless.
Using the NVidia driver gives me more freedom, not less. It gives me the freedom to run 3d apps, while the open source driver gives me no extra freedom as I have zero intention of fiddling with its source code.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Seriously, *1/8th* across both the *buntus *and* Debian? Wow.
So therefore nVidia drivers are irrelevant to me - does that get factored in, or am I "a debian user who does not use nvidia drivers" ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I really wish that the RPM vs. DEB debate. I wish it would be settled. I have Mandriva machines and I have Ubuntu machines. I really wish that I could install RPMs or DEBs on both distributions transparently. It doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be the exclusion of RPMs or DEBs, I just wish that I didn't need to use utilities like Alien to convert one package type to another. I wish I could use both package formats, at least for non-critical systems interchangably, and if Ubuntu has a DEB for something Mandriva has no RPM for, then let the Mandriva box install Ubuntu's DEB.
The numbers on the official NVidia driver must be skewed. When using Debian, I've found it far easier to download the installer from nvidia.com rather than through apt-get, which would bypass the whole Popularity Contest project, I think.
All modern desktop distros are as functional and easy to use as Ubuntu. We have moved past the days of dicking about with autoconf and makefiles for hours just to get X11 to start up. Ubuntu is not really special; the Ubuntu team just got lucky, because Mandriva was on the verge of collapse right at the time when Ubuntu was getting started, so they rushed in to fill the void of "easy desktop linux." Fedora also works out of the box now (and yes, before someone gives me an Ubuntu-worked-Fedora-didn't story, I have plenty of stories of Ubuntu not working when Fedora did; so what?), Mandriva is back on its feet, OpenSUSE is less of a pain, etc. Seriously, why do people focus on Ubuntu?
Palm trees and 8
Ubuntu presents much lower voting percentages (quoted) than Debian. "Votes" are known to be highly inaccurate becuase it depends on atime, which can be disabled (noatime) or updated artificially from popcon's perspective by backup software. I wonder whether this is some systematic thing such as Ubuntu defaulting to mounting drives with noatime.
These issues are discussed at Debian bug 298760.
/usr/share/doc/popularity-contest/FAQ points out that the popcon uses atimes to determine when software was last used (indeed, what could work for this other than atimes?) It won't report usage stats if /usr is mounted noatime. This could skew usage statistics quite a bit.
Penny - plain text accounting
Too bad Ninnle is the only distribution that rivals WinME for BSODs. BSODs! In a linux distro for fuck's sake!
What's the problem of using the proprietary NVidia driver? I don't use Ubunty, nor Debian (but Archlinux), and of course I use the proprietary NVidia driver. It rocks! It works! I can play DirectX 9 games released in 2008, in Wine! What has this got to do with being novice or not?
Ubuntu has been marketed for years as a friendly, more entry-level type of linux for the average user. Of course they're more likely to keep more of the default options.
The popularity-contest tool depends heavily on filesystem access time (atime) to detect recently used and recently upgraded.
And most of us mount things noatime or relatime nowadays... which will royally screw up some of the numbers...
It's in Ubuntu main component. I do my part.
And I've installed Ubuntu precisely _because_ it has pretty much everything pre-installed...
I find this "research" about as surprising as any investigation where you'd find that people who own a truck often need to transport stuff, and people who in stead own a smaller vehicle often also don't transport a lot of goodies. (We need to exclude Americans from this comparison).
*Yays* for preinstalled programs, and for the packagemanager with its limited options but ease of use :)
> Debian users are far more eclectic in their software choice, less likely to use any default options
Which could also mean that the Ubuntu default choices and/or options are more usable or at least acceptable than the Debian ones. Without a much more thorough analysis, the conclusion can't be supported as strong as it is proposed.
Marc
-- PGP keyID: 0x4C95994D
Anyways, yep I use Ubuntu, but I'd hardly call myself a n00b. Anyways I use it because I'm semi-lazy and like the relatively large collection of pre-compiled installable applications, and have an incredibly healthy dislike of RPM based systems from a descent into dependency hell about 10y ago on an RPM based distro. Slackware got old (been there, did that in '93, but it's a decade later now!).
Use GNOME, well, because I have a machine that can handle it without suffering perfomancewise to any real extent. Have used xfce and others on lesser machines, well, because they WERE LESSER machines and really needed every cycle that they could get, but I didn't want to go spastic CLI only.
Used to have KDE on one desktop (Ubuntu), but the latest version is just plain awful, so off it went.
GPU drivers: why on earth would you have an extremely (or even relatively) power 3D GPU and use craptacular 2D support only "free" drivers? So, I regularly install the nvidia proprietary which in the past have worked VERY well. Better than ANY of the various other "fre" drivers that I've used for nv and other GPUs. Even on ATIs I'd opt for the proprietary drivers even though they are reportedly crap, they've got to be better than the current "free" ATI driver although I'm expecting that to eventually change with the release of more and more info from ATI.
Still bottomline, I'm not an FSF wanker whinging about how "free" GPL is, and will use whatever piece of sw/hw fits the bill with whatever licensing rather than whinging continuously and putting up with whatever crap is shovelled down my throat.
BTW: BSD and other licenses are truly free as they do NOT place arbitrary restrictions on products.
...Duh!
Ubuntu is designed to be installed and used by normal humans.
Debian is designed to be installed and used by robots from Rigel II.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
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ubuntu has a penchant for BREAKING things in the name of usability, and making a gazillion changes to debian so that must be no easy task to maintain. If you are going to use Debian (and thats what Ubuntu mainly is) then use the real one, one that doesn't have huge gaping bugs in things they ship as stable.
Lives of linux users? Sounds like a short book.
I use SuSE, after using Debian, Mandrake, Redhat (old), Slackware, etc... take that muthafukers!
Seriously though, the flavour matters not, it's the intent that matters. I do use Ubuntu on my EEEPC as it's better than the abomination that's on it. Horses for courses.
*waits for the "die hard" (hard dire?) *nix freaks to start barraging him about SuSE*
I don't understand why some people feel the need to tag every story that involves statistics with "correlation is not causation." The writer of the article gave generalizations about the two sets of users based on the data, but he clarified those generalizations saying,
"To what extent last week's figures are typical is uncertain. Very likely, studying the figures over a longer period would produce different results."
It is perfectly fine to discuss an existing correlation. The problem is when that correlation is used as the only basis for making a definitive conclusion between the two.
I use the nvidia proprietary driver because the open-source one is freaking SLOW. Newbie? Hardly... Been using/administering *nix systems since the late 80s.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People *want* to pay for software, because you get what you pay for! With LinSux, it's nothing. You get nothing. Nothing but shit code from shit devs who couldn't code a simple batch file. TORVALDS SUCKS, LINSUX SUCKS, THE OSS FANBOYS SUCK AND SLASHDOT REALLY SUCKS.
Real ops use FreeBSD. poser faggot fanboys who miss their Microsuck tit use LinSux.
Here at work, I use ubuntu, So does everyone else, We chose it because its easy to use and learn, My workstation is heavily modified, barely resembling anything of ubuntu now adays. 90% of our workstations are using ubuntu. All the sales Staff has been converted, only a few boxes here and there have not been mostly the front office.
SimonTek
Back in my day, we didn't have all this fancy distribution stuff. We compiled our kernels by hand, our shell was ksh and the only app we had was vi - and we liked it!
And likes to wait for others to find the biggest bugs before installing? I tend to wait about 2 months after an LTS release comes out before upgrading myself. Heck, I don't always bother. I've got two 7.04 systems running right now that I'll probably wait until June or July of this year to move to 9.04. Assuming that I don't just let them coast as is for another year.
Note: I've also got 2 8.04 systems that I'll probably upgrade in May or June as I tend to spend more time on the keyboards of those.
Having used primarily Debian at home for years, I installed Ubuntu a couple of days ago (a switch from Windows, as I tend to run side-by-side but lost the use of one PC about a year ago).
Ubuntu dropped me right into a nice desktop with zero configuration, then asked me if I wanted to install the nvidia driver.
I seem to remember that every time I installed Debian, it left me on the console or failed to start X despite trying, after asking a bunch of configuration questions. I usually ended up doing everything by hand and installing only what I wanted, because whenever I asked for "the defaults" they just didnt work. Debian certainly never asked me to install the Nvidia driver- the only way to do so would be to go get it myself. Lack of a working 3d driver is why I was on Windows for so long, and I only went back to Linux because I was sick of trying to get cygwin to do what I wanted.
Now I'm in Linux, with 3d and sound working perfectly. It only dropped me to console once (and once is enough to mean I'd never recommend it for ANYONE). Using default options for nearly everything. Tablet still doesn't work correctly, I've yet to meet a Linux where it does, but I can live without pressure sensitivity for a week or so.
In short: people don't use defaults in debian because they are broken and suck. People use proprietary software in Ubuntu because they're given the option.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
> Possibly, too, those who participate in the Popularity Contests are not typical users of either Ubuntu or Debian.
I don't know about Debian, but the Popularity Contest (listed in the Software Sources window as 'Submit statistical information') is turned off by default in Ubuntu, and I don't expect many people turn it on given people's wish for privacy. So indeed, I don't think the results will be from typical users.
Surely, they must have determined that 'real' Debian users run emacs for the games.
I installed Ubuntu a month ago. When it installed the nVidia driver (at my request), it gave me a status bar that never updated, and then the bar just vanished. It gave no indication anything at all had happened, and no message to restart my X session. Of course it was done - it just never told me.
Then I used the control panel to adjust my settings. Next time I logged in, it was back to defaults. Found out I had to execute the control panel with sudo in order for the change to be permanent, rather than from the menu.
Now that those problems are fixed I would LOVE to know why it takes about ten minutes to shut the system down. In the meantime I stare at a blinking cursor. If I reset it Ubuntu insists an unclean shutdown was done, so it takes forever to boot next time.
I've got an Asus P5B with 4GB memory, and quad core Q6600 this time. You know, in 15-odd years of installing linux once every year or two I have NEVER had a smooth installation, no matter how many HCL's I check, or how much prep work I do. I always end up searching high and low for solutions to ridiculous little problems. This time was far better than last time, but just once I would like a basic install to work properly right after installation.
If Ubuntu has more newbies than Debian, then I have to ask, "Is Ubuntu just doing a better job at introducing Linux to more people?" A new user is going to use the Nvidia driver because that's what they know from Windows, and they're going to use default settings because they're new to the whole experience.
Newbie != bad. Especially in this case.
I, personally, use Linux Mint, an offshoot of Ubuntu, but far better equipped than its parent. I, a proclaimed newbie, think Mint is the winner in the battle for user-friendly systems.
I think we both have similar backgrounds, since I did computer engineering and computer science in school. I have a slightly different view of this though.
I've been using Linux for probably 8 years, and I've used about every major flavor around. SuSE, Mandrake/Mandriva, Debian, a large amount of time in the Red Hat and later Fedora distro, and a large amount of time on the gentoo distro, but I just put Ubuntu on my desktop a few days ago, and after seeing it I decided I'm going to stick with it for a while. I have two reasons for this:
So that's just my 2 cents, and why I enjoy tinkering on a "hidden" operating system as much as on the open ones.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
The only reason they need the RJ45 to get wireless working is because they need to download the drivers, can't ship them on CD.
If they didn't have to download them, I'm certain wireless would pop up right from the start.
The statistics systems in both OS-es are voluntary and mainly activated by the people who don't have a clue about what they are doing.
Most people using Debian/Ubuntu (like myself) who do regular updates have the feedback function deactivated because of privacy concerns (yea, we tend to think about such trivial matter).
Now the 'just works' crowd does not. Of course I would favor if the just works crowd would ask a professional to install their systems and activate the automatic download (because they tend to ignore the update notification anyway), but well, thats not the way the world is spinning around.
What I wanted to say is, that this statistics are moot / only tell about a limited subset of the userbase.
at least these people can have secret lives
Nullius in verba
Started with RedHat while in college to do programming assignments in Unix because the computer labs at school were always full.
Switched to Debian after a few years, as I got more into the GNU open source religion/philosophy. Been using Debian ever since.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Where's the secret? The title said "secret" but nothing is mentioned of a secret. Even in the article the only use of the word "secret" is in the title. Bogus.
Somehow along the way I made a bad choice in life and now must live with 0 Karma.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's a chore to remember to log in to a privileged account periodically and click on the update button. (Sudo is disabled on my regular account.) I haven't looked into this, but it's got to be trivial to configure a linux machine to update itself automatically (without needing to log in at all). That is not the default setup (in ubuntu). Should it be?
Never underestimate the power of laziness.
Wait a minute? Are you telling me not everyone prints out the kernel source, compiles it in their head and jots down the instructions in binary? What do they do, rely on GCC or *gasp* pre-compiled distributions?! What is this world coming to?
:wq
First of all, Debian is _not_ free. It's free-er than Ubuntu, but that doesn't make it free.
Secondly, how does using the nvidia drivers make one a newbie? For compositing and very useful window-managing effects that I get with compiz, I _have_ to run the nvidia drivers.
Not only that, but my video cards won't let me run 4 monitors without using twinview.
:(){
I've think I've hit upon a very simple thing holding back consumer excitement over Linux - it's the naming.
In the dot-com days, Linux was getting public attention - I've no doubt that many here got on board due to that furor. (Not everyone, not me either, 'em kay? I go back to the early or mid 90s, I honestly can't remember - pre-CD at any rate - so no flames please.)
It was easy - it was in the news.
Now for those that really remember the dot-com crash there was a name associated with it by analysts and it was in the news - VA Linux, whose initial stated price was to be at $30/share (on par with other IPOs) but really didn't trade the first day until it was at an order of magnitude above that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewsForge
At that point, the word "Linux" was in the mainstream televised news in a very negative way. IPO fever, AFAIR, died the day of the VALinux IPO.
I no longer follow Linux as religiously as I once did and as a result, today, reading this thread, I've heard of more installations by name than I could imagine.
This is simple marketing - name goes from unknown to known, whateveritis is in the news in a positive way, then it's back in a negative way. The stage is set for consumer confusion.
Consumers as a pack may be reasonable enough to ignore stock issues when choosing a product - every surviving company in the tech sector is proof (MS and Apple are sufficient to illustrate the point).
But consumers as individuals need clarity. Google for Linux - my top hit was linux.org where one is treated to a non-consumer page. The best they do is a link to "Distributions" and from there, a bit more of technology-oriented stuff.
All well and good in and of itself and necessary for the community.
But I submit that consumers want to consume an OS - one doesn't look for an MS Win distribution or an Apple distribution - they go to get an OS. Go to http://www.linux.org/dist - enter some choices - I did English, Mainstream, Intel - and look at the list you get.
Go to Linux.com and it's a blog page to many initiates. The google factoid for ubuntu.com is: ...
Official site; Commercially sponsored Debian-derived Linux distribution that focuses on usability, a regular 6-month release cycle, and a commitment to at
I want to be clear - I am in no way, shape or form ragging on Linux.org or any of the other orgs- I am trying to point out a marketing reality.
If we want any year to become the year of the Linux desktop, then my opinion is to get away from the "distribution" mem entirely.
For me, today's issue isn't whether or not the reporting in TFA was immature or not (I didn't RTFA, I picked that up from other posts) - but to ask how anyone expects the mainstream news to get anything right about Linux?
And please don't Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu me to death - today it's Ubuntu, yesterday it was Mandrake, the day before it was RedHat.
There's no appearance of stability to the outside world and there's no easy way to know how to enter Linuxdom.
Until those things are solved, we get news as interesting as distribution breakouts with references to Facebook (of all things!).
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
In my experience, the "propietary NVidia driver" & Ubuntu organs simply couldn't handle multiple monitors, let alone docking/undocking a laptop while handling the multiple monitor situation, even remotely gracefully.
Thus, even as a 'computer tinkerer', I decided to figure out how to make Vista less annoying, since it already works, rather than spend another week of time I don't have to get Ubuntu to handle basic things I need to do for my work.
I really did give it a shot (4 days of spare time between actual work each day), but it was so far from easy or obvious, and every config file had a different format, it really just wasn't worth my time to figure out. A couple friends who told me to go with Ubuntu (since I was hoping to usurp Vista on the new work Laptop) were not surprised that it wasn't remotely easy to get docking/undocking with multiple monitors to work.
I'm sure if your work actually requires you to be in front of a computer all day it's not so painful to fix it up, but if you just need your computer to work correctly for the hour or two you use it during the work day, it's much more difficult to justify the time investment.
btw, that article about linux users being jerks to someone who accidentally got Ubuntu was hilarious. But thus is the nature of posting comments: people tend to be as nasty as possible, since they'll probably never meet the poster face to face.
Car version : "Why doesn't my Toyota taste like an apple?" If you want to taste an apple, eat an apple not a Toyota.
I think this is more a reflection of computer users, or even people, than Ubuntu users. People that know and understand Linux, use Linux. I have used a variety of distributions, but I am pretty happy with Ubuntu. I have used Ubuntu exclusively for only a few years now, but I can still see where I am far behind in my understanding of many things based on the forums I visit. Ubuntu irc had been a fun place I would go to get help, and often spend some time helping others. It was very civilized, though there were a lot of new people. Years later, now, it might be hard to distinguish from 4chan or Barrens chat. I don't go there any more AT ALL.
But honestly, I think this is just what happens when popularity increases with anything. I remember when the majority of people on the Internet (if you would really call it that) were between intelligent and highly intelligent individuals discussing a wide range of topic (though usually leaning towards the nerdy side) in a civilized manner.
Going from telnet to web browsing changed everything! The number of people online was approaching a million! The number of servers you could connect to or 'sites' you could now 'browse to' was skyrocketing! People starting making their own web sites and hosting forums at home, and there were just tons of people all excited to be involved in this new medium, despite the fact they had no idea what they were doing.
And then AOL came along, and Geocities. Soon everyone had a web page for their cat, and flame wars seemed to be the thing in every chat room. It was just like the parlor times a million! This was about the time I stopped going into chat rooms at all, because it was just intolerable.
But eventually we got slashdot, google, ebay, wikipedia, archieve.org, eff, findlaw, loc.gov, youtube, hulu, piratebay, thinkfree, change.gov and so many others both recently and over the years.
I miss the days when every person I knew that had a computer had taken it apart and put it back together many times, they all had some minimal programming skill, and nerdy groups of people would be going around to business or telling our non-nerd friends "you could do that so much better if you had a COMPUTER!", to which they would reply, "that stuff is for nerds, I am doing just fine with my typewriter". "There's nothing I can do with a computer I can't do on my typewriter", and "computers just make it more complicated and expensive".
There was no convincing them. You would try to explain, but they wouldn't listen.
Then one day they would come you you and be all like "Hey, guess what? I got one of those Pentium things! Isn't that cool!" and all you could do is smile and sigh. And after that, it was the endless phone calls for little things that you didn't mind, because it was exactly what you had been pushing for in the first place. But sometimes it made you wonder.
Soon, the round table discussions over new technologies in the library were replaced with sheep-dip seminars (thank you Andy Hunt), row after row of zombies watching someone explain what a mouse was for, and how to put things in the trash. Soon you had all these 'experts' saying that they knew more about computers than anyone because they had taken a class. Oh, the humanity...
So what a surprise that after all these years, we are still seeing the same type of revolution. Yes, I miss the 'Internet' when it was between 10,000 and 100,000 users, but those times are gone, and in the big picture, the new even more nerdy stuff is worth it.
They say that Linux userbase / marketshare (or whatever way Microsoft feels like measuring it one day to the next) is about 1%, but it is easy to see it is the top 1%. Maybe it is just me, but I don't see an even distribution be user base as a whole of computer experts between exclusive Linux users and exclusive Windows users. It is the same one percent 20+ years ago trying to get people to use computers because it was the futu
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
And we wonder why Linux can't seem to make inroads onto the desktop, when the headline and no small number of posters here are not at all subtle about looking down their noses at anyone who isn't dedicated enough to an ideology to intentionally cripple their machine's 3D performance.
Face facts: 95% of people who use X do not and never will care about the ideology behind X for all X in Software. If you insist on demeaning them or inconveniencing them with your ideology, they won't use your software. I'm going to go play a 3D game that's not a slideshow now...
I use Ubuntu because I was able to shove the CD in my XP Pro system and have it create a nice dual boot environment, can see and work with files over on windows and let me get back into using linux rather painlessly. Put me in the "Just Works" camp but still likes to tinker. As for the Nvidia driver... I have a "Windows Vista Capable" laptop so of course I don't have Nvidia hardware... I have the Intel video hardware. If I had Nvidia hardware I would actually be able to run Vista (assuming I ever wanted to).
Lurchicus - For Sig, see other side.
would have? They do track usage, and they do ask first. It is right above the "Click here if you accept the terms of the End User License Agreement".
:)
I think a lot of people don't necessarly get that. So many people are like "I don't have to follow the EULA", but that isn't what a lot of it is about. You are USING an operating system that is still THEIR'S. People talk about the the EULA not being legally binding if you break it, but a lot of the EULA is informed consent about what they are doing that you might not otherwise assume. When I used Windows long ago, when I actually read the EULA one day, I wasn't really worried... but you got to admit that the overall theme is pretty odd. In a way, it is like the government taking away rights of criminals. Why should I care, I am not a criminal
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
Many Debian users like to tweak their systems just for fun, not because it's useful. They like the feeling of control when they know everything that's installed. They like the feeling of understanding how everything fits in their systems. And that's good. It's fun and you learn a lot.
But these things about "ubuntu hiding things" just mean that some of them are becoming obsolete. They miss the times when Linux was simple: kernel, userland, X server, applications. All clearly separated, all easy to grasp. With all these "new" things like udev, hal, upstart ("how do they dare to remove /etc/inittab?!?!?") ... they feel they're losing control. They no longer know everything. So the first reaction is refusal: Ubuntu must be bad.
Ubuntu is great. I've used Debian for more than ten years, and I'm still using that for work. I love it: it works and it's rock solid (usually). It's well thought and sysadmin-friendly. I was a (bad) debian developer. But Ubuntu is good too. It works. And it's still Debian. All Debian goodies are there.
And if many people are switching to Ubuntu, if the level of Ubuntu users is not so "elite" like Debian users, that's a good sign. It's new blood.
We complain for years and years saying that Linux can be used by "normal users" (when, let's face it, we were pretty far from it), and now that it's becoming true, we are fearful of losing our aura of eliteness. We attack the ones that are achieving it because they're not "pure enough". What a band of jerks we are. How much insecurity lies in the bottom of the Linux community?
We can't live in our ivory tower of perfect freedom and simplicity forever. Get out a bit and talk to real people. Ubuntu is Debian for real people.
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In my case, my wireless card is based on Broadcom(m?). Which has...issues. Once the driver was downloaded and installed, though, it worked just fine.
I agree, though. It'd be nice if they provided this detail upfront.
Lots of mandatory desktop packages you have to download from sources other than the official Debian repositories. I'd be curious to know how they register on the popularity contest.
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I think it has to do with a kind of intelligence. Fanboys are almost by definition irrational, which is not high intelligence or adherence to truth. They also are usually not the best at things, technical or otherwise.
Just like digitalgiblet, I also use Mac, Windows, and Linux. I have several computers of each right in my house. Each has good points and bad ones -- I enjoy the customization that linux allows, while I love the remote control and Front Row on my Mac.
What I (used to) love is that Linux was a great substitute for a knowledgeable fellow computer nerd, similar to being on the internet was from 1990-1995 or so. Once 1996 or so came around, it was Eternal September.
The way I see it, knowledge of linux was a quick way to know somebody was a nerd, able to program, etc., from 1992-2006. From 2006-2009, running Debian was that same substitute, while Ubuntu Linux has a lot of newbies. Maybe one day Debian will go mainstream with a billion configure-gui's and I will get frustrated and switch to something else. I hope not, and I doubt it.
Note, I don't think that it is BAD to run Ubuntu, and several of my non-technically inclined family members do. But, I would guess that most of those people that got all hot and bothered by portrayal of Ubuntu in a bad light are not highly skilled, technical people.
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
In my experience there are Debian admins and Ubuntu users - hence explaining why more Ubuntu users use proprietary drivers and why Debian admins tend to avoid default groups of packages, choosing only the ones they need.
Is this another study created by Microsoft as an effort to try to drive a stake between various distros?
No matter. This is mostly a farce anyway and impossible to prove and full of conjecture.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Perhaps because we can't get a driver that works either via distro or via binary from the nvidia website? I've been using VESA for the last year because after 169.* or so, they simply failed.
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Linux netbooks are selling by the millions.
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I take it you haven't been around long enough to remember Usenet.
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I care most about "just works". I write for money these days, and if my computer doesn't work, neither do I.
My main computer runs Debian, my netbook runs Ubuntu.
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If I had modpoints I'd throw you some. Funny.
I just can't be bothered.
"The numbers reveal, for instance, that 86 percent of Ubuntu machines use the proprietary NVidia driver, where only a mere sliver of Debian machines do." What do most people use for a server? Debian workstation? Ubuntu. Servers don't need fancy graphics no need for nvidia binary!
Sure byteboyz deserve to play-in-traffic. Play byteboyz play. SMASH! Less longwinded self-aggrandizing spew .
They prefer us being stupid. Otherwise the infamous Nvidia driver would not install itself in every release I do remember since Breezy Badger (if I recall correctly).
Since I did not pay for this OS, I cannot really complain, an keep breaking core applications while I try to remove firefox from my system.
This way I guess Debian users feels smarter and have a blob of practice targets.
However, thanks to Debian devs because w/o them most of us would still use Microsoft and ICQ.
That was a very very insightful comment. Good job!
So next time you're in getting your car fixed and you don't know what a lower control arm is, I hope they call you an idiot.
If I didn't know what a lower control arm was or its functions then I would not get on TV and talk about one. The thing that bothered me is what always bothers me about the news. Its all bull shit. Someones slant on something they have no idea about. No research on the subject just a 30 second spin of FUD. The title should have been "Woman Doesn't Know How To Use A Computer".
Hell the thing bothered me and I don't even use Ubuntu.
This is true. The former are clueless idiots and the latter are pompous assholes.
on the Net in the early 90s. Moderated tech forums are generally civilized whether they're Usenet *.moderated groups in 1992 or webforums now. While I was on some of those, I spent most of my time on alt.tasteless ... not exactly a civilized sort of place. Fun, though.
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I use windows 2003 to run my as the vm platform. ON it I have XP, Vista Home Premium, Windows 7, and Ubuntu. I have a separate Mac Mini on my KVM switch and a laptop with Ubuntu. For the evil that I might want to do on the internet I will do minor evil on the Mac and the major evil will be done with Linux. I do no evil on Windows. As for Ubuntu it's seems to have whatever I want and has a great package installer. I have tried Kubuntu, I like the K desktop but I have been stiking to Ubuntu as of late. The Kubuntu lags behind the Ubuntu in feature sets. For me an OS is just an OS and it's what you want to get out of it I guess. It's not religion. If I want to play games and brows porn then Windows is great. If I want to download porn and hack pay sites then I would want to use Linux or the Mac OS because there are better IP spoofing tools needed for such activities with those. Plus with Linux there is less of a chance to get a root kit installed. Of course if you do all this from a VM session all you got to do is wipe the session and start over again. Also it's a good idea to keep putting a different virtual MAC address on the router that's plugged into the cable modem so as to change up the assigned IP address and keep the cable company guessing.
Paul E. Bahre