Ubuntu sux?

M

Mitt Green

Guest
I found the article after hearing from a lot of people saying "Linux sucks" without arguments, so here we have them.

It's from October, 2010, but I think some points are still relevant.

http://delogics.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-ubuntu-sucks.html

Ok, despite the popularity that Ubuntu has got I'm posting a rant on it; that's cause it really deserves it. Earlier when I used to use Ubuntu 8.04... no issues, but things have been degrading since then and at the current state and as a system admin, I can confirm that Ubuntu or it's variants are no longer in production quality.
This happened possibly cause of the Windows migrants (or normal users) who just preferred the GUI and next next finish crap but they are actually a part of the community... they are willing to help, unfortunately their help and their opinion causes more problems and myths than solutions. As a result we had more such people adding up in the community and now the state is that almost everything about Ubuntu is complete trash.
Why I decided to write this today is cause one of my clients said “Linux sucks” thanks to Ubuntu (yeah I know it's Ubuntu's fault not upstream).
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1. Community - the author said that majority of people in Ubuntu community are still under the impression that Ubuntu differs from Windows, being its alternative.
...judging from the GUI and doing everything from the GUI; they dont even know the difference between Linux and Ubuntu
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2. Next point derives from previous - the author is shocked watching threads like "what is the root directory", "how to add a new user", "how to install software" and so.
I can agree, as I said once, one should better read documentation and wiki pages - they exist for this purpose.

3. Third one is about package quality, though using Xubuntu I have never had any problems with it. If you had - let us know.

4.
Horrible dependency of preinstalled package – apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop;apt-get autoclean; nothing more gets removed. If you wanna remove a preinstalled package in Ubuntu, probably you have to check the dependencies manually to get the job done. I do it for around 10 packages.
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5.
Buggy dependency resolution of apt – This is not a major issue, but at times, apt-get autoclean just won't work as expected, and you gotta remove a bunch of orphan packages manually.
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6.
FS corruption – Since the Ubuntu's ''super speed'' bootup/shutdown started, at times the FS does get an unclean unmount; it shows up in the next boot.
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Well, as we can see now, no problems with it.

7. Hardware incompatibility. For me, everything works just fine, if you have something - let us know.

8.
Ubuntu seems extra slow – All other distros are faster in comparison. You can see the benchmarks.
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I was using some Windows systems, Ubuntu is very fast I think.

So, I posted it to know opinions. Personally, I like Ubuntu, I don't really like Unity, but it depends on your taste of course. I don't think it sucks.
 
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I know . . .
this may be the wrong forum in which to place too much criticism on Canonical and 'buntus, judging by the lack of response and a bias in a certain mod or whatever.

When Capitsalism and FOSS collide, what occurs? Ubuntu and Fredhat and Zorin!
 
I think most of Linux sucks. Sorry to say it is "ok" for servers, but so far as client users are concerned it sucks!!! most people just want things to work. They don't want to have something that goes and is slooooooowww. Also seeing all that cryptic crap. It feels like I am stuck in the seventies. Come on! Unless if you are computer inclined than you are most likely to pay extra to get that Windows or Apple junk. Just as I would have some one just change my tire 'cause I don't know or want to know how to.
 
Right up until Canonical forced the horror of Unity onto the community, I'd never had a problem with Ubuntu. Back when it used Gnome 2, it was great!

Sure, compared to some distros, it is a little bloated, but I've been happy to live with that. For an everyday, general-purpose distro that is designed to just work on almost any hardware with minimal interaction from the user at install-time, you kinda expect a bit of that. You don't have as much control over what gets installed in the initial install, but you get a sane set of default programs and a sane configuration that is good enough for most ordinary users and most hardware. After completing the installation, there is nothing to stop you from modifying/optimising the system to suit your needs.

WRT speed: I haven't really noticed that it is much slower than any other distros.
Sure, if you are running something like Arch, which you essentially build from the ground up to suit your needs, then you can get a system with a lot less cruft and perhaps get it running a little faster than a default *buntu based system. Especially if you use a lighter WM/DE. But I don't think that any speed up will be particularly noticeable!
And again, with the *buntu family of distros, if there are any services running by default that are slowing the system down; you can either try to reconfigure them; or if they are not needed, you can simply disable them and uninstall them. So there are ways of optimising your *buntu experience after the initial installation!

Package management with aptitude, apt and dpkg on any Debian derived distro is a doddle. I've never had a problem with this on ANY Debian derived distro. In fact, I've had far more problems WRT software dependencies and failed software installs when running distros using Red Hat/rpm package management. Really not sure why, but I've always found the rpm system to be more flaky and error prone! Even when using yum. But then my last experience with a Red Hat based system was a number of years ago, so that situation might have improved! Either way, my experience back then put me off using distros with rpm based package management. Probably should try something like Fedora or Suse again at some point though!

The privacy concerns with Ubuntu are related to the search lenses in Unity - The simplest thing to do to counteract that is to either disable the shopping lenses in Unity or install a different desktop environment. Personally, after a year or two of distro-hopping after Unity was unleashed, I eventually switched to Kubuntu and I also installed dwm - I used to have dwm installed alongside Gnome 2. I LOVE dwm!

I only ever seem to use the KDE/Plasma desktop when I am demonstrating Linux nowadays. Most of my time is spent in a dwm desktop session!

The only other niggle I've had with the *buntu family of distros over the years is that sometimes new releases are shipped with some show stopping bugs. As a result, I usually hold back on upgrading to the next version until at least a month or two after its initial release. That way, by the time I upgrade my systems; most of the major bugs have been fixed/resolved!

And I've never had any problems WRT hardware support (on any Linux distro). But that's probably down to the fact that I own fairly common, low-end hardware which is (fortunately) very well supported. If I was able to afford more cutting edge hardware, perhaps I might have experienced more problems.... Who knows! All I know is, it works for me! Heh heh!

Much as I like Arch, Gentoo, Slackware and their ilk; For my work machines, I like to use anything Debian based (including the *buntus) because they allow me to quickly get my preferred environment and toolset installed and get working. Basically they allow me to be more productive. But I always have a spare machine or two for tinkering with one of the more intricate distros that require more work to configure/install!
 
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I like blue things...and Linux

I have used it since I tried Red Hat back in 1990
 
Can we please refrain from starting a flame war? Ubuntu has its uses as does RHEL, Zorin, SUSE, etc.

For some people Unity is awesome, for others terrible. These opinion based threads can give all of GNU/Linux a bad name. :(
 
ryanvade said:
Can we please refrain from starting a flame war? Ubuntu has its uses as does RHEL, Zorin, SUSE, etc.

For some people Unity is awesome, for others terrible. These opinion based threads can give all of GNU/Linux a bad name. :(
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Relax! I see no flame-war here. Just a fairly even headed, balanced discussion so far!

Op has posted some dated criticisms of Ubuntu from another article on the web, some people have put up their opinions. And then I have posted a TLDR about my experiences with Ubuntu and Linux in general and some of my current preferences (and I think this is going to turn into a TLDR too!). Nobody has called another person a naughty word for the thoughts they have shared. And everybody has an opinion. You can't stop people from expressing opinions, otherwise what kind of forum is this? ;)

Also, everybody involved with free-software at any level (developers, managers, sys-admins, users etc) have their own opinions - sometimes very strong opinions. And it is these many different opinions that really drives the innovation and evolution/development of Free software. If somebody really doesn't like something that the devs from one project have done, they can either create a fork of the project and implement their ideas/improvements, or they can create their own software from scratch.

Generally speaking the good projects/ideas tend to grow. And it's not unheard of for forks which have made significant improvements to be merged back into the project they were originally spawned from. And on the flip-side of that - the not so good projects eventually just die off - it's like natural selection! So yes, some members of the Free-software community have some very strong opinions, but without these highly opinionated people, the free-software eco-system would be a lot different. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that without them, it probably wouldn't exist at all!

Taking things back to the context of this thread. As long as opinions can be discussed rationally without it degenerating to trading insults, where is the harm? However, if somebody starts saying things about other peoples mums, that's probably about the time to consider closing the thread! Hee hee!

I apologise if any of my comments in my previous post seemed in some way offensive or overly negative, that was not my intention. It was just an account of my opinions and the experiences that fostered them!

As stated previously, my bad experiences with rpm based distros were a long time ago and I really should try CentOS, Fedora and/or Suse again at some point. There was no judgement on anybody there, simply an account of my experiences! And again, the problem there could have resided between the keyboard and the chair! Wouldn't be the first time!

As for my irrational hatred of Unity (and Gnome 3). Like many old-school Gnome 2 users from back in the day, I just don't like Unity or Gnome 3 and didn't like the way they were rolled out to users at the time. I can see how some (or even many) users might like them, but they aren't for me. Again, I'm not going to judge somebody for their choice of DE/WM - Whatever works for you and floats your boat! Heh heh! :) So Unity and Gnome 3 lovers, please ignore my heretic opinions and carry on Unity-ing (or Gnome 3-ing).

At the end of the day, I am a huge fan of all Linux distros (and free software in general). It always amazes me to see how all of these seemingly disparate bits of free software can be brought together with the Linux kernel in different combinations and with different configurations. And although many distros look and even behave differently (at the GUI level at least), it is still the same operating system underneath. They are all amazing, free resources that we have at our disposal. I personally owe a huge debt of gratitude to the many thousands of developers worldwide who have worked on, and/or are still working on free-software and making my life easier; allowing me to be more creative and productive.

As an aside, I'm currently looking to join a free software project as a developer. The problem is there are just too damn many of them to choose from! Heh heh! XD

EDIT: Damn all of those highly opinionated people! Tee Hee!
 
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So, so, so, here we have the first point "judging from GUI". If you don't like it - change it. Linux is freedom, but as Linus said, people care too much about GUI. Yes, there are some that are pretty and slow, like KDE GNOME, and even those that are light-weighted like Xfce, LXDE don't "bring us to the seventies".
Computer is a big toy.
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I know a lot of people enjoying working with shell scripts, compiling from the kernel and such things.
 
Mitt Green said:
So, so, so, here we have the first point "judging from GUI". If you don't like it - change it. Linux is freedom, but as Linus said, people care too much about GUI. Yes, there are some that are pretty and slow, like KDE GNOME, and even those that are light-weighted like Xfce, LXDE don't "bring us to the seventies". I know a lot of people enjoying working with shell scripts, compiling from the kernel and such
things.
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Exactly!
 
I too must apologize if I have offended any one. I was drunk and stupid. I think Linux is great. Just think it can be better. I got a lot of distros on a VM. I like the idea of variety too. I just like to complain like Linus. Though I am not as smart as he :p
 
Just please notice I said not to "start" a flame war. Not that you have yet.

Basically, just a reminder. Noting more. ;) These things get out of hand very quickly.
 
Me and my bro use ubuntu ... and it JUST never sucked. Remember if MacOS and windows are puppies, then linux/Ubuntu are Wolves. U hv to know the way to use it ... ;)
 
Basically put these Ubuntu or that distro sucks threads are waste of time.

It comes down to if you like something support it if not fork and improve it.

If you don't have the skills to do that then move on to another distro, as Ryanvade wisely said these threads can lead to flame wars, which is bad for the community and quite frankly shows the community in a bad light.

I must admit there are times I was fustrated by the direction of the Puppy community on which my retro Distro is based so I forked the 4 series and heavily updated it enough to be useful and set myself a vision of what I wanted it to be and stayed true to it rather than rant and use up my energy in a negative way.

As for Ubuntu - good things and bad things have come out of it, so I can only say good luck to the Ubuntu team and other distro devs.
 
To avoid "flame war" you should read not only the name but also the content.

I didn't say, "Ubuntu sucks" or "it's a crap", I even said "I like it", I just put other's thoughts with my comments, desiring to hear yours.

:confused:
 
Agreed you didn't but unfortunately I see many Ubuntu is crap kind of comments or other distros and it really grieves me to see those things.

I thank you for your comments but ryanvade was wise in what he said.

I also think to those who like to pull distros down I know a lot of hard work and sweat goes in to all the distros that exist and I for one am thankful for having free software and choices especially with all the NSA and malware dramas.

So in a word thank you to all the Dev's out there, especially those doing it tough with their solo efforts - that is a lot of sweat and cups of coffee and beer.
 
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