Why is Ubuntu the most popular Linux?
Full-disclosure, back in the day I used to love playing with Linux. Hell I still remember Mandrake Linux and Corel Linux. But once I discovered FreeBSD, I've moved and never went back.
But recently part of a tech project I was working now with involved me coming back to the GNU/Linux world. But now I see Ubuntu being the most popular, and often used now in servers / docker / etc. I thought it was a desktop only GNU/Linux.
How did all this happen?
Canonical sold their souls to satan for a larger market share.
Their price was to make their distro as shitty and windoze/mac like as possible.
They have a marketing budget and ooga-booga memes. Everyone else is just too obsessed with enterprise to compete for the masses.
I literally installed Ubuntu last night and am using it for the first time instead of Windows.
People like it because it has all the drivers and software you need. I can apt-get literally-anything and have what I need in seconds.
I don't know why it's popular for servers though. I use Debian 8 as my server distro. I'd like to start using FreeBSD for simple setups too.
It's not like it's the end of the world. If it makes you feel better, think of Ubuntu as a containment distro and continue on using whatever the fuck you want.
I actually kind of like Unity, but it was a pain in the ass installing it on Arch and I still completely failed at getting it to work. Xfce still the best.
i can finally do this
Actually, this was he conclusion I was about to make! I am investigating Docker and Ubuntu is the most popular OS of use; furthermore, I want to use Dokku to replace even using the non-free/non-open source Heroku. But Dokku only works with Ubuntu! Yikes!
Can you point me to some courses?
Thanks for the replies Anons.
Its not you silly little plebian, Android is the most popular Linux, Ubuntu is the most popular GNU/Linux
You wish you were the caliber of human being Dexter Douglas was.
Looks like you were born in the wrong generation.
I remember using Ubuntu for the first time back in 2006. It was super easy to install. I was an idiot and still able to get it to run.
IIRC it was the most recommended (desktop) user friendly OS at the time.
Ubuntu
(1) is backed by a large company
(2) has long term support
(3) has a large package base
(4) makes it trivial to add non-free package repositories
On top of that, it's been pretty easy to adopt.
If you think about it, why wouldn't it be?
It's the most visually appealing of all of the normie friendly distros and has the most advertising. And since its the most popular most program binaries are packaged for it now
You got that right
They organized and actually put serious effort into marketing themselves and networking their business. Most distros don't. Simple as that, no big mystery.
if you don't know how to uninstall ubuntu spyware and shitty unity then you deserve your pozzed system tbh
Well if you're such a fucking 1337 pro who can't bear casuals in your FLOSS, why don't you just recompile Dokku for the system you prefer, and write any code it needs to run without Ubuntu-specific resources?
Or are you actually a massive stuffed shirt who's never written a line of code in your life but still bitches about what OS other people use because it's not counter-intuitive enough for you?
...
That's pretty stupid. Anything resembling commercial Linux/GNU makes their money in the server market.
Ubuntu server is fairly similar to Debian server, but with well-defined life cycles rather than "until we can't be arsed" like Debian.
Ubuntu using faggot here. I just want to sit down to a computer that I know works, and do what I need it to do. I'm a lazy fuck who can't be assed ricing, fixing or installing drivers. When I install Ubuntu it just werks, and it keeps werking until the new version comes out, with minimal effort on my part. Other distros can just werk as well, but I got fed up of distrohopping and decided to stick to one system.
If I wasn't using Ubuntu I'd be using OpenSUSE, Debian or Slackware. If AMD doesn't step up and make their new driver work like the one they deprecated I might end up switching anyway
My first Linux was Mandrake back in 2004. I installed the first Ubuntu when it came out but it was too nigger/SJW for my liking and haven't used it since. Also that ugly shitbrown everywhere.
Mostly used Arch/Debian since but now Manjaro which is breddy gud.
Because
and above all
Somethings not right here
The first Ubuntu came out in 2004. What was so nigger/SJW about it? genuinely curious
I always wonder why openSUSE isn't more popular. It just werks and Novell has a big incentive to keep it stable and good because it's what they base their enterprise edition on. Every time I've used openSUSE I've been impressed. It also has the best and most stable KDE implementation, which is perfect for new arrivals from wangblows.
calm your tits, it got removed in 16.04 anyway.
No, it was changed from opt-out to opt-in. Still progress, but not removal.
Does FreeBSD even have any software?
All Linux software
It's not just marketting.
Ubuntu actually made linux useable for a large number of normal people who cannot, will not and do not know how to install codecs. When you look at something like Fedora or OpenSUSE, it is going to be very hard to convince a person to use that if they cannot immediately play their songs and watch videos on the web. That and word processing by the way, is all normies use computers for.
The second big think Ubuntu did was fix the linux font rendering. Fonts would always look absolutely awful because the nicer anti-aliasing technology was heavily patent-encumbered.
Why would you use FreeBSD on a desktop or laptop? What advantage does it give you over running a linux based os?
due to the large support base.
BSDs have "all Linux software" in the same way Linux has "all Windows software" because of Wine.
i.e. BSD HAS NO APPS.
It can run 32-bit and now 64-bit x86 binaries through a compatibility layer, if they don't use any really special Linux features and you install half a GNU userland. "All Linux software" is an exaggeration.
I've never used BSD, but why can't it run "linux software"?
Wouldn't it just be a matter of getting all the libraries you need, or am I missing something here?
Every Sony console game released in the last 22 years runs on top of BSD. Your argument is invalid.
Yast is awesome since... Well, i used it first time in 2003 and set up the printer with few clicks (Suse was my first os, not just Linux). The main problem with openSUSE can that, it's not obvious to set up for multimedia usage, thanks to codec policy. BTW openSUSE leap is the best os for workstations and for testing bleeding edge stuff thumbleweed is great and (relatively) stable too.
The userspace still utterly different and closed source, so the FreeBSD community can't profit anything but a tiny media coverage from PS4.
reminder that Mageia/Mandrake/OpenMandriva will NEVER EVER become relevant again
;_;
Yeah. If the installer had a button for codecs the way Ubuntu does, I imagine it would do a lot better. Such a shame, Yast is one of the best configuration tools out there.
Feels bad, man.
You make it sound like BSD is the cause and not a symptom. Remind us again how much Valve has "contributed" to Linux in return for the hype hurricane it used us for.
FreeBSD has a huge ports tree rivaled only by debian, iirc they're in the 25,000 programs now.
They have a linux compat layer that is not like wine as it actually works, it replicates a full linux system call table with binary compatibility, so you can use that on top of the 25k progs already.
zfs, dtrace and jails mostly, if you're not a developer there's not really going to be a perceptible difference other than having more reliable storage.
steam brings Linux more games and graphics drivers (also they are promoting cross platform gaming which will lead to more developers using cross platform APIs like villain).
console developers are usually not interested in developing for the desktop seeing how pc ports always suck, and games that are not ported will obviously not contribute to the pc ecosystem. it's also proprietary, so the only ones benefiting from using bsd is sony.
Sony, Netflix, Whatsapp, Toyota and various server providers.
Out of all of these I think Netflix are the ones doing the most contributions back as they run all their servers on current and push fixes back, apparently it's preferable than doing an upgrade every 6 months.
Netflix runs their CDN for serving the ridiculous bandwidth on FreeBSD, but their other servers on Linux, I think.
also, my only personal gripe about Ubuntu almost entirely consist of their useless wheel reinventions called Mir, Unity, and Bazaar; all of which helping to shit on the standards that the majority of users were conjoining into.
this. i was there at the time ubuntu was kicked off by shuttleworth. jonobacon, the crew. fun times back then. hyper integration into 'just works' and push to adoption markets, both real and imagined. achieved real results, actual delivery of promises, driven by oldfags and the blood of new comers.
but that was not all fine and dandy. redhat was in fierce free-mode competition, suse was getting bought. sunmicro was going all bananas. sco was getting funded to kill as much as possible with their court case idiocy. and behind it all, a grand infestation was founded straight out of the same debian base: systemd and pottering. pottering was a godless heathen white knight, redhat loved that failed apprentice newblood and used him like none other. and of course, he and his ilk rapidly sank debian behind the scene, which only surfaced years later. systemd single handedly turned off all the oldfags and their knowledge, and skull-kike-fucked every dev alive. fucking insanity. and sure enough, time ticked away, and now all the lies and stupid have/are killing everything.
but the legacy/momentum of those times is still here. and ubuntu got the visibility. shuttleworth is still pushing dollars into ubuntu, and with redhat infested, debian hyperinfested and fractured, and systemd ever expanding, shuttleworth has no real opposition (other than the endless internal idiots on staff, sending commits, and clogging up devcons with drama puke). in the land of the blind, the one eye'ed man, etc.
ubuntu does still push the integration and just works angles the hardest, and drift of users into server space aids in ubuntu getting server time. some times the wrong tool for the job, but the newbiangods don't know any better. or don't care. it does 'just work', and few outside the giants need true server-client, grid, parallel these days.
ubuntu is a containment distro now. shuttleworth knows it. his crew know it too. all the trees and co-sanguine incests of debian/systemd are the cannon fodder buffer zones. there are (some) new hope(s).
where some hope, for ubuntu, used to lie, was with the steambox and jetison from wintel. it still has some momentum, and again, integration and kike-ads are key.
KILL YOURSELF
Thank you for this.
Probably because among all the shitty meme distros, it's one of the more user-friendly ones.
You know.
The thing that's necessary for more than (((< 1.5% of the global marketshare))) to even CONSIDER using it.
They had the best desktop distro ~10 years ago and Mark Shuttleworth was shipping Ubuntu CDs worldwide for free.