Ubuntu is NOT a part of community

Maybe you got it wrong, openSuSE does not need that, but the enterprise variants. Just like when you compare Fedora to Red Hat which got it's free enterprise clone called CentOS. U does not support all packages in the same level anyway, so even LTS is restricted to a relatively small amount of packages - only those which are used by the server flavour will be supported the longest time. When you compare that to Debian you get at least free security updates for oldstable when a stable release is out. Combined time for stable + oldstable support it could be a really long time.

For the moment I have no intend on switching distro anyway. I'll probably give Fedora a spin in VirtualBox.

You may want to try this

curl -O http://kanotix.com/files/install-vbox-addons.sh
su -c "sh install-vbox-addons.sh"

that works even with fedora in live mode. Basically it was written for Kanotix and similar distros including *buntu. Purpose it that it allows mouse integration and nice res switching without need of a hd install. You could use snaphots with vbox too if you don't want to run it everytime.

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Originally Posted by yotambien

I'll give you that automatic installation of media codecs is a great thing. It must be one of the most recurring questions among newcomers. Having said this, Kaffeine in OpenSuse does something similar, although I haven't tried it because I don't have admin rights to install rpm packages at work. Things like font rendering is another plus, although I don't see how it can be any different than Debian, which also includes the bytecode interpreter. Hardware working properly depends on the kernel (and on idiotic decisions of not including certain firmware, OK), the GUI apps to configure say, networking, aren't Ubuntu's exclusivity, apt is a Debian thing and I don't think it's any better than rpm nowadays...

But seriously, is this what makes the difference? Does this explain the difference in 'market share' Ubuntu has over other distros? According to those wikimedia stats, there are more Ubuntu users than the rest of the distros combined together, _surely_ it's not a font rendering issue(*).

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Not just a font rendering issue. But things like that do help.

One very important thing to note:

SIMPLE THINGS SHOULD BE SIMPLE TO ACCOMPLISH

Before Ubuntu was released, there didn't seem to be as much emphasis on this.

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Originally Posted by yotambien

This is what I meant. What fiddly bits? I'm not saying it's not true, but I don't know what you are referring to. Also, I don't know what you understand by polished. For me, my tiling window manager with zero window decorations is the epitome of polished. Is this an aesthetic, and therefore subjective thing?

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It's mostly being able to achieve a satisfying desktop experience by users who don't wish to pour over source code in order to work out how to get something enabled or working.

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Originally Posted by yotambien

But how? Gnome is Gnome in every distro. What is it so different? The point about the Ubuntu forums full of people having problems is a fair one. Somehow it doesn't turn out as easy as usually sold. My biggest qualm about Ubuntu is that it's not all that different to Fedora when it comes to add new stuff. I understand that there's a lot of enthusiasts that want to try the very latest software developments, kernel, X server, what have you. That leads the distribution to exactly the opposite direction that they claim it goes. It's nice that you don't have to e.g. use the command line to connect to your WPA wireless AP, but what advantage is that when later you have some major breakage because they add largely untested bits everywhere?

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I don't know of any disto that's in a position to fix every flaw in every package. If Linux has broken software, that's not a distros fault. A distro is there to package a software suite to provide a digestable user experience for end users. Otherwise, why isn't everyone doing the Linux from scratch thing?

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Originally Posted by yotambien

What about adding desktop effects by default and thus breaking desktops with drivers that are not up to the task, what about the first round of KDE 4.0, or introducing a broken new audio layer, inclusion of Intel drivers in bad shape, premature transition to libata subsystem, a beta version of Firefox in a LTS...

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KDE 4.0 was a preview. 4.1 was the release version. ANyone not wanting to go with 4.0 could've stayed with their current distro.

Also, compiz is almost always enabled where the drivers will support it, and it's pretty easy to disable.

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Originally Posted by yotambien

My point is that either the distro aims at one thing or at the other. If it's a distribution for people wanting to try out new stuff--as it seems--then it's not the stable user friendly distro you say it is. Having the system downloading codecs for me is of no use if sound if screwed because of irresponsible decisions from the developers.

(*) I'm the only real life person I know who cares about font rendering.

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I don't think any of that reflects the true nature of the situation. PulseAudio was initially no cure all, but it's pretty good now. I can find corner cases for all sound solutions that are unsatisfactory one way or another. For the most part it now just works.

They also don't "sail as close to the wind" as Fedora.

Ubuntu is net positive for Linux as a whole, and there really is no argument with that. There are valid complaints about Ubuntu not doing more to integrate their huge community into other communities and share the popularity and focus in that way, but at the end of the day Ubuntu has come closer to producing a true competitor to Windows or any other similar OS than any other distribution to date. In order to do what Ubuntu has done up to this point, they have had to stand on the shoulders of giants while picking their battles going forward. The very fact that some complain Ubuntu isn't doing enough to help other projects shows that Ubuntu is in the position to possibly help those projects in a major way, and they have in both direct and indirect ways. Many distributions can't say the same thing, and not because they are necessarily inferior or hard to use, but they just don't have the full package of resources, community and polish that Ubuntu most definitely has for better or worse. And for better or worse, whether some of you like or not, Linux as a whole is better for it.

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Originally Posted by WhiteRabbit

While I have used ubuntu in the past it never really appeals to me. The fact is that while I can click to install the proprietary drivers for say an ati or nvidia card, I'd much rather just go and download the driver from ati or nvidia. While you may say that's stupid, I present to you this point:

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I don't say that's stupid. That's exactly what I do. They sometimes have more up to date drivers on their sites.

But now go and watch a new Linux user try to install the nVidia drivers.

Log out
CTRL-ALT-F1
sudo stop kdm
enter password
chmod +x NVidia-Driver-Blaa-Blaa.bin
sudo ./NVidia-Driver-Blaa-Blaa.bin
follow prompts. Expect users to know whether to update xorg.conf or not.
hopefully the kernel module compiled correctly
sudo start kdm
Cross fingers and see whether we get a login screen or some breakage.

For anyone capable of being comfortable with that, well good for them.
For a Windows user, they see that as crazyness. Watch a Windows user install nVidia drivers on Windows.

Navigate to nVidia.com and download driver.
Double click, next, next, next. With Windows 7 you don't even need to reboot anymore. And hey presto, it just works.

I would argue that the Ubuntu method is superior to both the above cases for the vast majority.

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Originally Posted by WhiteRabbit

You have a computer and you install Windoze on it, what is the first thing any windoze user does? Goes to the website or google and searches for the driver. So that little nice-ity that ubuntu provides isn't even something that most converts would think about.

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Exactly, and they can keep their brain in a bucket while they install the Windows driver. Just like it should be for all O/S's.

The command line installation of drivers however is nothing like that.

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Originally Posted by WhiteRabbit

I prefer fedora to any other distro I've used. Why? My answer: It's always growing always improving and they try to stick to the newest code, while maintaining stability. Contrary to popular belief fedora is no longer a test bed for rhel. Fedora has become it's own distro and some of the changes find their way into rhel, and many other distros. Sure the changes they make may seem dumb at first, but after a little while they mature and bug fixes are made and then you end up with things like Network Manager(which when it came out was a pain in the butt for me) that are a great nice-ity.

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And you're completely allowed to keep using whichever distro you want to.

If you want to know why most users select Ubuntu, look at usability.

Again, if you're completely comfortable with a command line, building packages, know how the different packages inter-operate in the Linux eco system, and can select compatible versions of each, not only are you a candidate to develop you're own distro, you're also in a position most users aren't, and most importantly, shouldn't be just so that they can view a move, a web page, type a document, edit a video file, etc, etc.

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Originally Posted by next9

I tried every version of ubuntu since 5.04, and in my opinion it strongly sucks, often fail to boot on my hardware and has plenty of bugs. But. This is my opinion, and have nothing to do in these discussion, like every other good/bad opinions.

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I've had various versions and distros fail to boot due to the kernels default state not being happy with the particular hardware I'm testing at the time. Often boot-time arguments to the kernel will make it happy till an update comes along. This is absolutely not an exclusive to Ubuntu.

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Originally Posted by next9

Maybe you never saw that video. At some moment/moments Greg suggests to use RedHat. (and Never suggest Novell). And as you well know, RedHat is main competitor for Novell. Thats why any hogwash about attacking competitors is idiotic, kid.

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Exactly. To attack a competitor without a fair reason seems to me ridiculous. However unfair statements seem to be the basis for most of the anti Ubuntu sentiments in this thread.

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Originally Posted by next9

And i would appreciate sign of non-free SUSE. I can easily prove, that ubuntu is far more non-free than Opensuse.

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Why? because Ubuntu provides an easy avenue for their users to use closed code where it makes sense?

I want the freedom to use my hardware the way it's supposed to work. If the free code to do that isn't available then what do I do? Throw away my graphics card?

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Originally Posted by BlackStar

Bug report, status triaged, patch available. I'd suggest pinging for inclusion in lucid and, if possible, in karmic.

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Originally Posted by tormod

Lucid has synced the Debian version 2.10.0-1 so I guess it is already fixed.

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This is not a bug accidentally appeared in Ubuntu, this is feature!

Canonical designed it purposely and it had never been in Debian! So this is sign of non-free trend in Ubuntu.

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Originally Posted by Kano

Well the SuSE things are a bit more "non-free" as you have to register to get updates from the official repository.

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SUSE and Ubuntu are not comparable and you can't watch it from Ubuntu point of view. Ubuntu support only actual version, even backports are problematic a unofficial. LTS version are just ugly joke, because they does not repair ugly bug, just bugs marked as a security bugs.

SUSE actually supports 10.3 11.0 11.1 11.2 and factory through Opensuse Build Service a you have no problem to use latest packages (lets say KDE) with the oldest Opensuse.

So Yes. Maybe you should register for SLES/SLED. But:
1) Even then Ubuntu support does not match Opensuse support at-all.
2) Money from SLES/SLED goes to upstream development. Even ubuntu parasites on SLES/SLED!

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Originally Posted by Kano

Other distros do not let the users pay for (security) updates, no matter how long they are provided. You still could get sell support for other things.

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Yes. Thats true. But they does not provide support on they own. They depends on Novell and others who develop upstream a fix bugs in upstream. I know, for example Debian guys have long support, but how many patches a fixes they create/send?

It is fair to say that almost non compared to Novell or RedHat. So even Debian benefit from SLES/SLED. It would be hypocrisy to criticize that Novell stuff.

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Originally Posted by Kano

When you compare that to Debian you get at least free security updates for oldstable when a stable release is out. Combined time for stable + oldstable support it could be a really long time.

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As a Debian user, you use a lot of Novell, RedHat and other companies work. And they did that work, because they earned money on enterprise products. So Debian is OK, they does work, send patches, creating a popular distro, but they they are not on their own. Most of the patches wrote somebody else, who was pay for it. So you can't criticize Novell for earning money, because even Debian depends on it strongly too. So Maybe all those enterprise distros are great and necessary for everyone (even free Debian).

Nothing against earning money, just the way it is done is not really nice. You can try the enterprise versions only partly - you can not really decide if you want to help yourself (or from somebody else) or buy support from Novell when want to use it for more than testing purpose. Basically the extra GUIs from SuSE makes it like a Win like Linux version - almost every step configurable in one big tool - the famous YaST. Mandrake aims for the same but maybe not that advanced. That's nothing bad yet, but the thing changes when you know how new Linux admins are instructed. The beginner courses only show the guis. Well done... Those ppl can not configure any other distribution which will clearly incease Novells revenue sooner or later. The funny thing is when you ask em what they used the answer is something like Linux 10 or so, maybe they live in the future ;)

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Originally Posted by Kano

Nothing against earning money, just the way it is done is not really nice. You can try the enterprise versions only partly - you can not really decide if you want to help yourself (or from somebody else) or buy support from Novell when want to use it for more than testing purpose.

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Really? What is the problem? You have the whole source available. You can compile the updates yourself. RedHat does the same thing, and community clone it as CentOS. Obviously you can do the same with SLES/SLED. I don't think it is fair demand everything free of charge without your own endevour.

There are some ideas on SUSE comunity, to create CentOS-like derivative from SLES/SLED, but up to the present day, nothing have happed. Why?

The difference among Opensuse and SLES is exaggerated. I don't see any remarkable difference except the support duration. For longer support, lets pay. If you don't want to pay, do some work on your own. Many popular distros even don't have such a good support Opensuse does. I think this is OK and for more? Here is the huge possibility for community.

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Basically the extra GUIs from SuSE makes it like a Win like Linux version - almost every step configurable in one big tool - the famous YaST. Mandrake aims for the same but maybe not that advanced. That's nothing bad yet, but the thing changes when you know how new Linux admins are instructed. The beginner courses only show the guis. Well done... Those ppl can not configure any other distribution which will clearly incease Novells revenue sooner or later. The funny thing is when you ask em what they used the answer is something like Linux 10 or so, maybe they live in the future ;)

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Do you suppose Novell to teach its customers to use competitive products? Are you silly? This is Opensource world. Everybody can offer a better solution without no barriers. Better software, better support, better courses. Go and do it better. In the whole OSS world Novell does work, and it is one of those, who work and contribute the most. I don't think it is the right way to blame them. You should blame others who does not work, or does not contribute so well. Everywhere is possibility to improve.

Yast itself is GPL software, and can be ported anywhere. I saw some successful attempts to port it to Ubuntu. Everybody can use it.

As a Employer it is up to you, whether you employ Linux admin with Yast-only knowledge or not. Again. I don't see problem. Opensuse wiki is full of CLI how-to. there is usually easy-way and hard-way approach and you can choose. You don't have to use Yast at all!