Ubuntu as the New Standard
Friday, June 5th, 2009
Initially the emergence garnered a lot of criticism from Linux die hards as many claimed it was insulting to mistake Ubuntu for Linux and claimed it was too buggy and bloated. Ubuntu has stayed the course and usurped the competition year by year. As a Linux purist (build your own kernel, make your own packages when needed etc), I am personally now willing to make the change to Ubuntu on any of my new systems and when I upgrade my server, I will use Ubuntu and there are many reasons for it. Here are the problems which are now myths that Ubuntu has endured and some of its strengths and why it is most likely the best distro for just about anyone to use (zealots excluded).
Too bloated – Ubuntu now comes in many flavors and for anyone who is at least at an intermediate level, turning off or even removing unneeded services or applications should not be an issue.
Slow compared to other distros – aside from the previous point, Ubuntu has also sped up its boot time quite a bit with the Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release.
Not enough packages available – with the usage of universe and multiverse, you can obtain just about any application you need.
Bloated default kernel – Ubuntu has improved its core kernel quite a bit over the years and there is a way to recompile the default Ubuntu kernel to suit your needs if you are that picky (if Im not doing it, you probably don’t need to).
Not flashy enough – Ubuntu’s use of compiz and it’s improved grub splash image are sleek and seemless.
64 bit – Ubuntu’s 64 bit version is as polished as any other distros these days.
Community – Ubuntu has a wealth of information on their forums that is useful not only for Ubuntu for other Linux distros.
Benchmarking – when anyone does benchmarking, Ubuntu is the version that just about everyone uses so you get to see what your OS can do and how it compares.
Safe upgrading – Although Ubuntu doesn’t have a rolling release style of upgrading, it does have a graphical upgrade tool (update-manager) which makes moving to the next major release quite painless. I have thoroughly used Ubuntu through alpha, beta and offical releases and I can say that by the time the official release comes around, there are fewers issues upgrading with Ubuntu than even its own derivatives.
I’ve been a long time user of a distro that afforded me all of the control I wanted over the years, but ultimately, now after several years of Ubuntu polishing, that control is no longer an advantage. It’s time to make the switch. At this time, there is no other distro that meets the mark on as many levels as the product of Canonical. It’s clear that they are here to stay and have conjured up a well oiled machine that continues to glide smoothly across the Linux landscape. Ubuntu is not just worthy of converting Windows users, it is worthy of converting most Linux users.