Why is Ubuntu so popular?

[Coolio10]

I really don't understand Ubuntu's continually rising popularity. I have used Ubuntu before, but i usually get bored of it because i can't find anything special about it. What makes it special to you?

Mandriva - MCC
openSUSE - yast, zypp, kickoff
Fedora - Latest versions of everything + server tech
Ubuntu - Gnome + ?

Even Linux Mint adds lots of cool features.

[Sputnik]

I'm not really sure, I think it's a combination of being Debian based, hype and quite straight forward functioning. The only thing that really stand out in Ubuntu is their amazing font quality out-of-the-box.

[pandlouk]

-{ Quote: "I really don't understand Ubuntu's continually rising popularity. I have used Ubuntu before, but i usually get bored of it because i can't find anything special about it. What makes it special to you?

Mandriva - MCC
openSUSE - yast, zypp, kickoff
Fedora - Latest versions of everything + server tech
Ubuntu - Gnome + ?

Even Linux Mint adds lots of cool features." }-
Maybe because of wubi?

Anyway, neither I understand its popularity.
Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Opensuse are better.

Panagiotis

[Sputnik]

-{ Quote: "
Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Opensuse are better.
" }-
Not always, it depends and who uses them and what for.

[Coolio10]

-{ Quote: "Not always, it depends and who uses them and what for." }-
I understand its easy to use, but what about those who understand everything and have nothing to play with. Do they just stick with it?

[pandlouk]

-{ Quote: "I understand its easy to use, but what about those who understand everything and have nothing to play with. Do they just stick with it?" }-
Those stick debian and/or fedora. ;)

Panagiotis

[lodore]

IMO fedora is just as easy to use as ubuntu.
The only reason i currently have ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop is because fedora 11 doesnt work on my laptop so im waiting for 12 to come out. plus debian lenny doesnt support my wireless card. so soon enough fedora 12 will be on my laptop and desktop.

tbh I dont think Ubuntu contributes enough to Linux. its debian with a few things to make it easier to use.

[Sputnik]

@Coolio10
Any Linux distribution gives you enough room to play with. Ubuntu is based on Debian so there are plenty of packages (and config files ;D ) to play around with. Personally I think you just end up with the distro that you're "used to".

@lodore
Please let us know your experiences with Fedora 12. Will you use the GNOME or KDE desktop?

[lodore]

-{ Quote: "@Coolio10
Any Linux distribution gives you enough room to play with. Ubuntu is based on Debian so there are plenty of packages (and config files ;D ) to play around with. Personally I think you just end up with the distro that you're "used to".

@lodore
Please let us know your experiences with Fedora 12. Will you use the GNOME or KDE desktop?" }-

Ok and I will be using Gnome.

[Sputnik]

@lodore
Yup, best choice for Fedora. Looking forward to it :)

[Meriadoc]

I suppose it became popular because it was easy, while Debian based.

Fedora 12 can't be long now...since the last time I looked.

edit: yah lands in 8 days. I've been using the fedora 12 beta bagvapp but I will install as soon as its released.

[steve161]

Ubuntu was my first linux distro so there is an attachment and a certain comfort level. Also, it never gave me a reason to give it up. Unlike (too) many people, I coming to the opinion that 9.10 is the best distro I've used.

[Judge Dee]

-{ Quote: " Unlike (too) many people, I coming to the opinion that 9.10 is the best distro I've used." }-
Now that my problems with Kernel errors have disappeared, I'm coming to the same conclusion.
There's a simplicity to using it, yet as I've started learning to use the command line, there's also complexity.
And there's certainly plenty of software.
I got rid of Vista in order to dual boot with openSUSE, yet I seem to stick with Ubuntu for daily stuff. It just seems, IMO, more intuitive.
Just a newbie's thoughts.

[wilbertnl]

There was a time that Ubuntu was ahead with hardware support. It seemed to run on systems that other distro's had problems with.
With the .30+ kernels of current major distro's this advantage of Ubuntu has disappeared.

[Windchild]

I think Ubuntu is popular because it mostly just works, caters to not-so-advanced Windows users looking for an alternative, and because there's a lot of hype and help out there that makes it an easy choice. It's kind of like Firefox - the popularity doesn't follow from the software being technologically vastly superior to anything else, but rather from the software working at least decently and getting a lot of press, talk and support. When I know that Ubuntu is fairly easy to use, gets lots of support and generally does what the average non-gamer needs, why wouldn't I recommend it? :)

[steve161]

-{ Quote: "and because there's a lot of hype and help out there that makes it an easy choice" }-

That is probably why I started with ubuntu. After hearing about it and googling it, it didn't appear to be some obscure techie hobby. Oh, and the free as in beer thing.

[chronomatic]

I use Ubuntu exclusively and consider myself a rather advanced Linux user with years of experience. After using all the distros, I find Ubuntu to be the least hassle, the best supported, the largest community, and it has the most packages. It just works.

As for Fedora, I like a lot of what they do with it, but it's just so slow. This is because of the hardened compiles they do with many packages as well as SELinux which also slows the system down on its own. But I guess there will always be a trade-off for security.

[Mrkvonic]

I agree with chronomatic ... mostly, it works. I'm past the stage where I want to waste time tweaking things. I just want them to work so I can do what I need. In that regard, Ubuntu provides the most complete solution, with fast package management and rich repos, lots of good info, good community support, and good stability.

Cheers,
Mrk

[Nick Rhodes]

Back when Ubuntu was young, it offered more upto date software, promoise of 6 monthly upgrades, better hardware support and a great liveCD. Dowloading and trying it out was a so quick and simple compared to other Distros, it also had the easiest installer going.
Overall it worked far better than any other distro for the desktop user.
At the time Suse had the software, hardware support, maybe a little bloated next to Ubuntu but Yast was not very good and suffering from stability and bloat/usability issues.
Debian was stable, but mostly had to be configured by commandline and software on it was very stale.
Fedora/Redhat Core suffered from a coherent UI.
Mandrake was having stability issues and upgrading was frequently painful.

The only thing holding Ubuntu back in this time was it had a lot of ground to catch up in the popularity stakes, but it was quickly gaining a good reputation (even if not considered the best distro about) and as we know it did'nt take long for it to prove its 6 monthly releases were going to work (after many people said it would lead to big packaging and stability problems). The LiveCD idea became popular and others struggled to get as good a quality LiveCD, in a few years Ubuntu was amongst the favourites of Linux Desktops and become the Newbs favourite.

So why is Ubuntu so popular still - because Ubuntu seems to be unique in the niche for newb-user friendly distro. Fedora continues to focus on bleed edge technologies, Suse seems a bit more geared towards the more experienced/power user, Debian/Centos the sys admins friend, all the major distros seem to have carved their niches.

Cheers Nick.

[aigle]

Ubuntu is most user friendly distro IMO. I tried so many distros and I feel most comfortable with Ubuntu. MAy be it,s just Gnome as I did feel a bit similar with PCLOS_ Gnome.

Also you can get a lot of help on google. I think hardware detection of Ubuntu must be better than others.

[Kerodo]

It seems to me that Ubuntu has for years now always led the way in terms of ease of use out of the box, and I think that's what has captured such a following. It's also typically one of the most bug/issue free distros from my experience. And it pretty much has all that you need as well. Also excellent support. Really, it's hard to beat.

[axle00]

I've always wondered about this myself.

I tried Linux Mint about six months ago, and at first I loved it because it required almost no tweaking etc, and it was just so easy to use!

After using it for about 3 months though, I was extremely bored with it, and happily switched back to Arch, which is by far my favourite distro.

[Kerodo]

-{ Quote: "I've always wondered about this myself.

I tried Linux Mint about six months ago, and at first I loved it because it required almost no tweaking etc, and it was just so easy to use!

After using it for about 3 months though, I was extremely bored with it, and happily switched back to Arch, which is by far my favourite distro." }-
Guess it depends on what you want. Some people are extremely happy to be bored by their OS. :)