Ubuntu: Where Did the Love Go?

inkscapee writes "Used to be Ubuntu was the big Linux hero, the shining knight that would drive Linux onto every desktop and kick bad old Windows to the curb. But now Ubuntu is the Bad Linux. What's going on, is it typical fanboy fickleness, or is Canonical more into serving their own interests than creating a great Linux distro?"

Comments

What's going on?

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's going on, is it typical fanboy fickleness, or is Canonical more into serving their own interests than creating a great Linux distro?"

Yes

Re:What's going on?

[amicusNYCL]

I'm thinking that this is a loaded question, due to the fact that the only link in the "summary" is on the text "Canonical more into serving their own interests".

Slashdot summaries are frequently a bunch of opinions stated as if true, followed by pointless questions, submitted by people with a vested interest in the topic. Is this actual journalism, an opening for debate, or does this suggest another purpose?

Re:What's going on?

[h4rm0ny]

Actually, have we established that something actually is going on? Maybe I've been too busy to notice the tides of distro-politics, but asking why people are turning on Ubuntu is the first I've heard of people turning on Ubuntu. So is there somewhere else that would back this up and show it's not just someone muck-raking?

Re:What's going on?

[pixelpusher220]

did you miss 2000-2008? truth was pretty well damned to the circular file...

Re:What's going on?

[roc97007]

Try to use, and be constantly frustrated by ipads, wait in vain for an affordable and usable Android tablet, eventually go back to Windows on laptops.

Re:What's going on?

[semi-extrinsic]

Some of Canonical's choices of recent are not synergistic to my goals.

I regret to inform you that the remainder of your statement was rendered void by your use of the (non-)word "synergistic".

Re:What's going on?

[PopeRatzo]

Slashdot summaries are frequently a bunch of opinions stated as if true, followed by pointless questions, submitted by people with a vested interest in the topic.

Exactly so. It's funny that within a few hours we had a story with a single link in a summary that posited an inexorable decline for Google because of a "slew" of "negative stories" and then another summary, with a single link, that describes Ubuntu's decline. Somebody took the time to post these stories, to post those single links and to wrap them in a summary with an air of inevitability. Google's run is "finished". Ubuntu is "done" These links were not posted with summaries saying "This is what so-and-so said" but rather "This is the truth". Faits accomplis.

A rapidly increasing amount of our "news" is driven by press releases put out by astroturf specialists which get polished by lazy journalists into stories that serve the interests of their bosses. In the last few days, I've read at least a half-dozen news stories about the "over-privileged" schoolteachers of Wisconsin, whose average "gold-plated" pensions of $20k/year makes them "bottom-feeders", "pigs" and "fat cats". The peaceful protests are characterized as "riots". Who stands to benefit from these mis-characterizations?

When such a large portion of the information that people consume is agenda-driven, and barely concealed agit-prop in support of groups with the resources to saturate the media, what chance do we have to make decisions, to act based on reliable data? But I guess that's the whole point.

Re:What's going on?

[BitZtream]

Summaries are assumed to be true, not opinion. Comments are assumed to be personal opinion, though they may state facts.

We assume the summaries are true because we want to use slashdot to save ourselves the time of tracking down and debunking every story on the Internet. We get annoyed when topics like this happen where its clear that its a opinionated TROLL.

We get even more pissed off when its done by someone like Taco, who through the years most of us have come to expect will have done a basic sanity check on the summary/story. We expect stupidity from kdawson and timothy, hence why half of slashdot has their stories not listed on the front page.

What has happened however is that it appears that slashdot has become completely unconcerned with presenting facts and truth and more concerned with not 'censoring' any submission and just letting the shit flow in.

I have uncensored Internet, I really don't want it, I have things to do, I use sites like slashdot to avoid having to do basically what it seems you have to now do for every slashdot story regardless of which person posted it to the front page.

Re:What's going on?

[pixelpusher220]

Obama has the high distinction of carrying on many of the policies GWB implemented. He should get plenty of criticism for that. And does.
But starting A WAR under false pretenses stands out pretty damned far ahead of *anything* Obama has or has not done.

Re:What's going on?

[Darkness404]

If you use GNOME and use only GNOME programs (or, to a lesser extent, KDE and only KDE programs) you get a clean minimal interface (yes, Linux still sucks on the games department), but really, Windows isn't much better. (see http://origin.arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.media/vista-small.png ). The problems with graphical inconstancy comes when people choose programs for their features rather than their UI and different people have different preferences.

There are two barriers to widespread Linux adoption the first is niche software support. Things like professional audio and photography programs and games. And the second is that people expect it to work just like Windows. OS X avoids this because people are getting a brand new computer when they get OS X and they expect it to be different. People don't know what an operating system is and assume that if its running on the same box it should be the same if its running Linux or Windows.

Re:What's going on?

[PopeRatzo]

the only acceptible solution is that people develop better bullshit detectors and participate more in the pruning of submissions.

I've met some very powerful minds in my life, but none of them, not one, was capable of completely making themselves immune to the science of well-funded marketing or public relations. Even though we all laughed at those poor losers who majored in "Communications", it seems that they are having the last laugh. Using the extremely potent psy ops weapons at their disposal, they can convince you of nearly everything, sell you almost anything, and make you doubt your most strongly-held beliefs. They can't do it perfectly, but they can do it well enough to turn our world to shit.

Honestly, I'm starting to believe that we need serious regulations on advertising, public relations and commercial media. Even though that goes against everything I believe (back to those "most strongly-held beliefs") I'm watching the society in which I live turned against itself to satisfy the urges of a very few powerful folks. Net Neutrality would be a step, but you've got those poor simpletons driving around in their cars listening to the radio and buying into the most shameful propaganda since The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Every day. And they come home and pop on Fox News and that stuff beams straight into their heads, into their reptile brains, bypassing judgment, bypassing morals, even bypassing the survival instinct.

I don't mean to sound so pessimistic. I'm not really so. But I think we're at a point where we're going to have to write off huge sections of our society and prepare for some very very bad times ahead.

And that's just my reaction to about an hour of channel surfing. If I had to watch an entire evening of reality shows or Fox News I'd probably be driven to do a great deal of damage, probably to myself.

Re:What's going on?

[PopeRatzo]

A $20k/year pension with $0 contribution over your lifetime isn't just gold-plated it's adamantium-plated. It is EXTREMELY over the top, as excessive as a king's ransom

You bonehead, three decades ago, a whole lot of private sector workers got pensions just like that.

Then Ronald Reagan happened and now you see a $20k/yr pension after a lifetime of hard work as excessive.

You poor, dumb bastard. You can't even see the number that's been done on your head.

Free software

[devxo]

Freedom means you should also be able to make money and act selfishly with your distro or open source project. I really don't get why it's always such a problem for open source advocates. If you want truly free software you let everyone do whatever they want with it.

Re:Free software

[Bob9113]

> Freedom means you should also be able to make money and act selfishly with your distro or open source project. I really don't get why it's always such a problem for open source advocates. If you want truly free software you let everyone do whatever they want with it.

You are confusing "Free" with "Laissez-Faire". America is "free" because the government is prohibited from certain actions. The "free market" requires government inhibition of monopolies, trusts, cartels, false advertising, and various forms of payola/kickbacks/bribery (see Adam Smith, among others). Freedom of expression requires that communities be barred from passing blue laws. Racial freedom requires that stores and employers be barred from discrimination.

"Free" and "Laissez-Faire" are not equivalent. "Free" is more complex, more subtle, more difficult to achieve, and -- on the upside -- vastly more beneficial to long-term GDP growth.

Re:Free software

[Alex Belits]

Microsoft fanboys/marketing people are at it again. The link you shown counts SALES of operating systems. I am sure, in some other comment you foam at the mouth about "not being able to sell software" if it is free.

The rest of your comment is a mix of trolling and recommending things that would be between stupid and suicidal.

what?

[Tumbleweed]

Since when is Ubuntu the 'bad linux'?

Re:what?

[SpeedStreet]

Since when is Ubuntu the 'bad linux'?

Since a blogger blogging for a blogging website blogged about it. Also, blog.

Re:what?

[Lord Ender]

Since when is Ubuntu the 'bad linux'?

... since some blogger realized he gets more attention by writing inflammatory nonsense than by being honest.

Re:what?

[Ironchew]

"It's popular, so it sucks" is the mantra here.
Some fanboys just want to make their e-penis bigger by saying they use obscure, obfuscated distro X all the time. Nothing new here.

Re:what?

[jedidiah]

I dunno.

There's nothing more obscure sounding than dumping the standard GNOME desktop and X along with it.

It doesn't get much more set apart from Linux and Unix in general than that.

Re:what?

[ebuck]

Yeah, a real tragedy that you have to go switch the side the buttons are in the settings.

They changed it without writing the simplest of gui configurable dialog to set it (or set it back). Instead you had to work around the default configuration with gnome's own command line configuration hacking. Then in the same breath you mention that Ubuntu is a "desktop" distro, meant for the masses while your CEO then takes the time to lambast the complaining user base that "free doesn't mean you get what you want, you get what we want".

Technically, Ubuntu didn't do a thing wrong; however, people go out of their way to avoid such behavior in friends, associates, or even strangers.

Re:what?

[grcumb]

>You can change the button_layout string to reflect that ordering

"Grandma, quit calling me, just change the button_layout string with vi. Sheez. No lets do it the easy way, type menu:maximize,minimize,close in the earlier box."

"No, Granma, everything's fine. I just logged into your machine using ssh and made the change from here.... No, I'm not in your house, Granma. I just connected to your computer through the Internet. The Internet. It's a... a series of tubes... no, not so much like a truck. Granma, look. Everything's fine now, your buttons are on the right side again and they'll stay that way.... Okay, love you too."

Yeah, I wonder why Ubuntu isn't at 99% marketshre.

I don't give a shit about market share. I give a shit about my granma. And if using Ubuntu means I can manage her PC from a continent away, then yeah, I like it.

flamebait

[bsDaemon]

I don't even particularly care for Ubuntu (as if my nick name wouldn't be a tip off), but even I think this is probably the most flamebait summary I've seen on Slashdot in a while... wtf?

Huh

[Anrego]

I admit I’m not a ubuntu fan, but I don’t take the fact that the entire FOSS community hasn’t immediately dropped everything to fall in line with Ununtu as a sign of hate.

Ubuntu seems to be as popular as ever. In fact a lot of my fellow die hard “ew, ubuntu” friends are now using it (not me though.. never.. NEVVERRRR!!!).

I think much like the google article earlier, ubuntu has gone from young upstart to just “there”. Still strong and doing it’s thing.. but everything they do is no longer news worthy, and they have attracted the usual amount of criticism and people who just plain don’t like them. This is normal.

Amongst the Linux veterans at least ...

[SpooForBrains]

Ubuntu has always been the villain. Or, you know, the thing that you watch other people use in bemusement and begrudging appreciation that your goals at least are getting served even if it's not by methods of which you approve.

The old joke was that Ubuntu is Swahili for "can't install Debian". I may even have heard it here.

Re:Amongst the Linux veterans at least ...

[Dutchmaan]

Ubuntu has always been the villain. Or, you know, the thing that you watch other people use in bemusement and begrudging appreciation that your goals at least are getting served even if it's not by methods of which you approve. The old joke was that Ubuntu is Swahili for "can't install Debian". I may even have heard it here.

I have the distinct feeling that because Ubuntu is viewed as a distro 'for the masses', and die hard Linux users tend to view themselves as 'above the masses', it makes perfect sense that Ubuntu was/is seen as the 'villain' distro. After all, if the masses started using Linux then all the die hards would have to go somewhere else to feel superior.

Wow, terrible article

[raddan]

The author seems to intentionally conflate normal differences of opinion as "controversial", and he clearly sees forking as a bad thing. Anybody who's spent time on github knows that forks are a sign that a project is interesting enough to attract eyeballs... Anyway, as a regular (and satisfied) Ubuntu user, this is the first I've heard that I'm not happy...

Re:Did I miss something?

[jedidiah]

Deciding to make a mobile interface the default desktop for 28" monitors was probably somewhere close to the turning point.

The Linux "Community" (gack!) can be embarrassing

[sgage]

Perhaps this trolling story has accomplished its goal: I'm about to abandon all Linux Distros forever just to avoid being considered a part of such an assholish "community" (gag). Seriously, people were down on Ubuntu the minute it became popular. If Ubuntu was successful, obviously it must be evil. And if their distro is coherent, easy to install, use and update, well then it's for the newbie masses, and must be ungood.

Or they set up defaults in a way that didn't please you, though you can easily configure it any way you wanted. No, they were "ramming their dictatorial decisions down my throat". Godz, how many times have I heard that! Oh, but asking someone to configure something is too hard for the newbies. But wait a minute, I thought Ubuntu was bad because it was too newbie-friendly.

A bunch of confused, hypocritical, self-contradictory, whining assholes. If you don't like a distro, FFS don't use it - it's really quite that simple. There's a distro out there for everyone.

Re:Totally! Journalists should...

[SomeJoel]

So journalists should find information they do not care about and heartlessly report about it?

Yes, they should. It's called "being objective", and is one of the tenets of good journalism. It's odd that you think otherwise; perhaps you are hiding some sort of agenda?