Reader Questions: The [Visual] History of Ubuntu

[Michael]

Later this week we will be posting an article entitled The Visual History of Ubuntu. This article will look back at all of the Ubuntu releases to date from the Warty Warthog to the upcoming Feisty Fawn release.

A few questions will be posed to the readers in this article, and we look forward to seeing your thoughts on the matter in prelude to Mark Shuttleworth's interview.

To what do you attribute Ubuntu's success?

Where do you think Ubuntu is heading in the next year?

Do you use Ubuntu, why or why not?

[glussier]

To what do you attribute Ubuntu's success?

1- Small download size
2- lots of publicity
3- Mailing a free installation cd
4- The huge package list
5- Livecd, including fairly easy install
6- Now that it has a huge user's community it is still easier to graw faster and faster.

Where do you think Ubuntu is heading in the next year?

Now that Ubuntu has a desl with freespire/linspire to use CNR, they might end-up eating most of that 3-5% o/s desktop share that linux has. It will kill other linux distros before it eats into windows market share. Vista is like winxp when it was released, it's on a relatively slow start till driveers and more software is ready for it. To eat into windows market share, there will be a need for a few killer applications.

Do you use Ubuntu, why or why not?

No I don't, I tried lts and edgy and none of them stayed installed more than 2 days. I've been a Slackware and Redhat/Fedora user for more than 10 years, and I intend to keep using these distros.

[d2kx]

To what do you attribute Ubuntu's success?

1. Many developers, everyone knows it is a project which isn't going to die soon
2. NOW there's a big community, so it's maybe easier for newbies to get help
3. has no real problems and is easy to use

Where do you think Ubuntu is heading in the next year?

It will get more popular, maybe some pc builders start shipping Ubuntu with new PCs, that would "help" it to become more popular too, of course.

Do you use Ubuntu, why or why not?

No, because I always want to be uptodate when it comes to software. Ubuntu only has security updates...

[joshuapurcell]

To what do you attribute Ubuntu's success?

Ubuntu has made using Linux easy, which has been great for the vast majority of users (from Windows-only users to Linux gurus). The installation is as painless as possible, and once installed you have the most popular applications already there, with thousands of other applications available from the repositories. Mark Shuttleworth has also been a major reason for Ubuntu's success... it would be great if more people who are in similar situations as he would back similar new or existing projects.

Where do you think Ubuntu is heading in the next year?

I see it gaining more ground in the corporate world, which seems to be a big push for Canonical. Ubuntu has taken steps towards this for quite a while, with a few being the release of Ubuntu LTS and becoming IBM DB2 certified. I think Vista's launch will help further adoption of Linux in the corporate world, and Ubuntu is becoming a top choice for this.

Do you use Ubuntu, why or why not?

Ubuntu is currently my primary desktop, and the main reason for this is because it does a good job of selecting default packages while making it mind-numbingly easy to install almost anything else you could want. There isn't any other distribution that delivers such a good set of default packages, but there are others that have a similarly easy way of installing additional packages. Ubuntu has both, and on top of that it has the many of the latest packages available for use. Like others in this thread, I also like to stay as updated as possible on the software I use to take advantage of new features. I'm running the Feisty development release, which has Gnome 2.18, kernel 2.6.20, and Nvidia drivers 1.0-9742 (only because I've been too lazy to upgrade to 1.0-9755). That's only a few major package versions, and it doesn't get much more up-to-date than that. I use the official repositories for security updates to any software that I haven't already upgraded myself.

[Michael]

While Debian has been around for over a decade, Gentoo for five years, and Mandriva/Mandrake for nearly nine years, in less than three years of existence Ubuntu has received the most attention and generated the greatest amount of publicity in the Linux limelight. Why is that? In this article we will be taking a look back at all of the Ubuntu releases to date and exploring how this Linux distribution has evolved so quickly over its short lifespan.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=9205

[The Pinny Parlour]

To what do you attribute Ubuntu's success?

Ease of use. (Except when X crashes)
HUGE forum support. Amazing.

Where do you think Ubuntu is heading in the next year?

I hope they continue to implement changes that benefit it's uses. I won't pretend to know what they could be but I am happy when a new release becomes available and I can better use those features.

I also am looking forward to an easier way of setting up and using desktop enhancements like Compiz and Beryl. In addition gaming support needs to be improve dramatically.

Do you use Ubuntu, why or why not?

Yes. I have been a ubuntu user since Breezy. It is actually my first venture into Linux and I am VERY happy with the migration from windows. Currently looking at Puppy Linux too as it loads directly to RAM.

[DarkFoss]

I have installed several incarnations of Ubuntu but none lasted more than 48 hours before I wiped the HD.
Mainly because I prefer KDE to Gnome.. I've tried Kubuntu but it is nowhere near as polished as Mandriva's
KDE desktop, it seemed rather pedestrian actually...not much different from Xandros.