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Ask Slashdot: Are We Witnessing the Decline of Ubuntu?
jammag writes "'When the history of free software is written, I am increasingly convinced that this last year will be noted as the start of the decline of Ubuntu,' opines Linux pundit Bruce Byfield. After great initial success, Ubuntu and Canonical began to isolate themselves from the mainstream of the free software community. Canonical, he says, has tried to control the open source community, and the company has floundered in many of its initiatives. Really, the mighty Ubuntu, in decline?"
Ubuntu is still one of the most convenient ways to install and use GNU/Linux. I'm using it daily for everything. The point is that Ubuntu is great despite Shuttleworth's and Canonical's stupid ideas and decisions. It's great because of the community and forums. For example, my girlfriend uses Ubuntu, and when there is a problem I (who else?) have to fix it. Right now, I just take a quick look at the Ubuntu forums and helpdesk, and it's done. I don't want to imagine what would happen if she used Gentoo. :O
Regarding the Desktop/GUI: The desktop is not a reason to switch away from Ubuntu. People who give a fuck can install another window/desktop manager, for example I give a fuck and use XFCE.
Ubuntu to arch seems a drastic step (still it is possible and productive). To those who don't like it I suggest to pick among the dozen ubuntu derivatives you find at distrowatch so you can keep using your ubuntu knowledge. Mint comes to mind. Or fall back to debian.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I have no idea what all of you are going on about, I LOVE Unity, why? Because its not Windows 7/8 and its closer to XP, but its Linux!
This is the first time in 13 years of trying out Linux Desktop variants whereby I can actually feel in control of my system and feel like its my friend, instead of my "RTFM" enemy.
I have no idea what all of you are going on about, I LOVE Unity, why? Because its not Windows 7 and its closer to XP, but its Linux!
This is the first time in 13 years of trying out Linux Desktop variants whereby I can actually feel in control of my system and feel like its my friend, instead of my "RTFM" enemy.
Yes, I am aware of the myriad of problems involving proprietary drivers not being open and running proprietary code, Yes I realise that Ubuntu steps on the toes of the FSF movement. But you know what? I don't care. I've finally kicked the Windows habit and I'm loving it because this is the longest time that I have been off Windows, ever.
I say well done with the Unity interface and well done with the "It just works" functionality of installing/uninstalling apps, and if I dont want to bother sudo'ing in terminal I can choose to use USC.
To top it off, it runs Steam, what the hell happened? Why did everyone abandon it? Please dont.
Yes, I am aware of the myriad of problems involving proprietary drivers, Yes I realise that Ubuntu steps on the toes of the FSF movement. But you know what? I don't care. I've finally kicked the Windows habit and I'm loving it because this is the longest time that I have been off Windows, ever.
I say well done with the Unity interface and well done with the "It just works" functionality of installing/uninstalling apps, and if I dont want to bother sudo'ing in terminal I can choose to use USC.
To top it off, it runs Steam, what the hell happened? Why did everyone abandon it? Please dont.
To use a car analogy, Ubuntu is the Camry or Celica of the car world now, and if I want to change the oil filter I finally can because its right up on the front of the engine and easily acessible.
They're making incredibly unpopular design changes without giving people any real option to do things their own way and driving their own userbase away. Unity and other ass backwardsness pissed me off SO MUCH that I learned to use Arch Linux just to get away from it.
Its the "we're going our own way" decisions - like Mir instead of Wayland, etc. This leaves you thinking - If I keep with Ubuntu I will be out on a limb, forced to use Unity, etc.
Ubuntu got popular because the ordinary people who cannot figure out how a command line works could use it.
Hardly. It got popular because it was debian based and didn't require knowledge of every part of the system to get it up running acceptably - you installed it and most stuff worked without hours of research and hair-pulling.
They're making incredibly unpopular design changes without giving people any real option to do things their own way and driving their own userbase away. Unity and other ass backwardsness pissed me off SO MUCH that I learned to use Arch Linux just to get away from it.
Its the "we're going our own way" decisions - like Mir instead of Wayland, etc. This leaves you thinking - If I keep with Ubuntu I will be out on a limb, forced to use Unity, etc.
How is anyone forced to use Unity in Ubuntu? There's still Kubuntu, lubuntu etc. And even with straight Ubuntu, you can still install whatever desktop you want, and select it at login.
I personally don't mind Unity, I can pretty much work with whatever desktop is installed by default, as I use the apps and not the shell. So long as I can switch easily between apps, who cares.
And I guess most none-technical people just don't care either way. If it works, it works.
I tried Unity and didn't get on with it, so I just carried on using XUbuntu instead. If you don't like the desktop environment, it's trivial to replace it with a different one.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
This opinion piece is based on the faulty, or at least debatable, claim that Ubuntu needs to satisfy "hard core linux users" to be relevant. The core of Ubuntu users are more typically ex-Windows users trying linux for the first time. A large share belongs to casual gamers and that is likely to increase as Steam on Linux gains traction.
How is anyone forced to use Unity in Ubuntu? There's still Kubuntu, lubuntu etc. And even with straight Ubuntu, you can still install whatever desktop you want, and select it at login.
And I guess most none-technical people just don't care either way. If it works, it works.
The thing is, the users aren't just SysAdmins or idiots. There are people who have used computers for ages, but have chosen not to learn to code or compile themselves. The computer-savvyness of youth means this group is growing fast. Ubuntu has turned its back on this group.
I used the Gnome Ubuntu earlier and it was fine. Then came Unity. I tried to use the built-in KDE/Gnome, but they were buggy and slightly broken - no point to a distro if it doesn't work with itself.
Oh well, tried Unity instead. The main interface element (dock) has NO configuration options. Nothing. Basically: I'm supposed to either be their slave or install a working interface myself. No thanks. Too bad Ubuntu still appears to have a superior update system: I don't feel like going to Mint's "good until you have to hack your upgrade". I had enough of that with the earlier Ubuntus.
Chinese government and Steam as clients and you dare to say there a decline in Ubuntu? The fact you write an article about Ubuntu in DATAMATION means there must be some validity in its rising popularity. In Germany, they are giving away Ubuntu CD's for all Windows XP users. That doesn't sound like a decline in fact the author didn't even mention that aspect. Gnome is still available as an alternative session along with other Window Managers(twm,KDE) from the Ubuntu repos although it isn't the default. Users that don't like Unity can simply change the session.
My clients are seeking alternatives to windows. When I show them Ubuntu, they are impressed and it's like a breath of fresh air for them. They didn't know they could do that. Even more important, they are starting to use Ubuntu to do their DATA BACKUPS. Does that indicate a sharp decline in Ubuntu? I would say quite the contrary.
With all the NSA distrust recently, people are actually going out of their way to familiarize themselves with gnupg, enigmail and tor in Ubuntu and other GNU/Linux distros which provide digital privacy/anonymity. I have been getting other clients wanting to learn about this aspect also.
He's right with respect to some decisions the users may disagree with the benevolent dictator now and then. That's why I also use Debian GNU/Linux because the other distros have their strengths and for each user to discover those themselves.
One last aspect, Ubuntu is part of the bigger GNU/Linux community. It does function as a separate business entity, but the backup plan is the source code remains available to the global GNU/Linux community forever through forks. The author's fear of jumping onto an Ubuntu sinking ship is bullshit. In fact it's far from sinking. The Ubuntu phone will be popular. It's just that not everyone wants to buy non-existant product without having experienced the touchy-feely try-before-you-buy aspect. I'm one of them. I have faith in Ubuntu's direction, but I prefer to see to product made before buying it. The hardware is coming and GNU/LINUX and all its flavors will rise and not just ubuntu.
Ok the desktop isn't going to die, but it is becoming more of a workstation than a personal computer.
That said, Windows, OS X, and Desktop based Linux distro's are going to take a hit.
All the big players are trying to make their OS more tablet like. However the desktop is becoming more niche in its use, so they really should focus their UI on what people need for desktops now aday.
Programming, Number crunching, CAD... Less sexy, but a move away from happy friendly OS for grandma to a serious work OS with work productivity in mind is important. I am not saying we should go back to all the old ways. There is a lot of new design work that needs to be done. But it is needs to be more business centric and less home centered.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Being popular as a distribution does not mean they are evil. And the comparison with Windows is just plain _stupid_
Microsoft promotes software patenting.
Microsoft embraces and extends open standards to break them - allows importing of data but only crappy exporting.
Now, I do agree that Ubuntu made some less popular decisions to make money.
While I don't like it either, they are easily apt-get removed.
Ubuntu also does their software development in OpenSource fashion.
I think some of the ubuntu-bashing is unjustified and unconstructive.
Ubuntu has a certain amount of critical mass which is very interesting and which leads to a better quality experience than for example with Fedora.
While I don't agree with all the 'dumbing down', it still allows power user to dive as deep as they want into the system and into the code. And I like the fact that it's not required for novice users.
s/-do were/-do was/
And just for clarification, I've been using Unity for only around a year because I waited as long as I could before I had to upgrade libraries and stuff. The upgrade to Gnome/gtk 3 broke all my gedit plugins, and I didn't have time to adapt them. Recently I decided to try Pluma (MATE's version of gedit), and it was a piece of cake to make plugins work.
So I can't thank you enough, MATE crew, you guys are awesome!
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Been running Xubuntu (XFCE4 desktop instead of Unity) even since Unity was shoved down my throat. Could not be happier.
Tomorrow is another day...
What turned me off Linux based OSes 10-12 years ago was the amount of text file hacking that was required to get a usable system.
Thank god for modern concepts like ,,Registry'' and non human-readable binary file formats. Yay:)
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
I switched from WIndows to Ubuntu years ago after evaluating many distro communities and distro directions. At the time, Ubuntu appeared to have a good vision, and good balance between "it just works" (my computer is vital to my professional life and MUST work with minimal effort) and "power users will be at home" (my first jobs were on UNIX systems decades ago, this was very important to me).
From a technical perspective, Ubuntu was just a little ways ahead of others, IMHO.
From a community perspective, it was miles ahead! Fewer trolls, easy to participate, easy to grow, good tools and sites for the community. Most other distro sites and fora were, well, slapdash, poorly conceived, for the cognocenti, and full of the usual Linux aggressive bullshit ("well, just do cmd-alt-bang-fork-shift-nano-vim, you stupid goof, it's obvious!").
That made the switch easy, and I recommended Ubuntu many times and used it for years.
Then Shuttleworth slowly became less benevolent, community tools became harder to use, information that had been easily available began to disappear, and the distro itself became muddled. There was just no way to be a comfortable power user anymore, at least not without major effort.
And if I'm going to spend major effort, why use a system I don't like? So I started switching.
I tried Mint, I tried pure Debian, I made mistakes and learned a lot. Great. But.
I enjoy being able to configure as desired and be a power user occasionally, but I don't want to have to be one all the frikkin' time. And Mint and Debian required way too much hand-holding. Eventually, because too many things didn't just work, I went back to Ubuntu. But it was nasty and ugly and difficult to use and didn't support my 4 year old laptop as well as it used to and just wasn't fun.
I caved. I bought a Mac a few weeks ago, a 13" Air. Wow. What a beast! It's fun to use, easy to use, I can get work done without pain. LibreOffice on this thing screams!
Sure, I don't power use much anymore, but you know what? That fun is gone. Life is too short to spend so much time tweaking config files, and too short to use ugly, obtuse, opaque systems like Unity. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I love OSX.
All the philosophical and principled reasons for using Linux have largely been abandoned by Ubuntu, other distros are way behind, and if I'm going to use a commercial OS - which Ubuntu clearly wants to be - I might as well use a nice one that works well on insane kick-ass hardware. I'll be on OSX on this Air for years. Goodbye Ubuntu.
I'm here EdgeKeep Inc.
HOLY SHIT.
Mystery solved. I've been dealing with that weird crap forever without realizing what keys I accidentally hit.
At least in my world it's been declining. I was once an Ubuntu fanatic. "It's so easy," I would tell people. It passed my girlfriend test. It passed my parents test. I used Ubuntu every day for years. After 10.04 LTS, things started going downhill. Once 12.04 LTS hit the streets, things started going downhill faster. I have since switched to Ubuntu's upstream parent, Debian, with LXFE for the desktop. Clean, simple, elegant. I'll keep this.
Ubuntu to arch seems a drastic step...
His preference is probably Gentoo but it's still compiling.