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Is Ubuntu becoming the generic Linux distro?
Over the past year or so I’ve noticed an increasing number of newbies (a term which I use affectionately) interested in taking Linux for a spin - for example, the number or emails I’m getting on the subject from zero a year ago to several dozen a week. The reasons for their interest in Linux are many and varied, as is the level of commitment to making the switch from Windows or Mac. However, one thing stands out from all the conversations - the number of people who seem to confuse Ubuntu for Linux. I can tell because they will either use both terms interchangeably or be using the name Ubuntu in a generic sense. Moreover, it seems to be confined to Ubuntu. I’ve not seen the name of another distro used in the same way. |
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Comments (21)
1 earlier comment in the full thread.
Yup. Some new shiny distro with huge corporate backing will come along and steal the spotlight for a while.
Meanwhile the rest of us will just keep using what we use.
Yes, I remember that - it was a common complaint about red hat for sure. That said, I think ubuntu is pretty nifty, and I'll be checking out 8.04 on a newish laptop soon.
Fedora was The Hawt Linux for a time. Before that, it was about even between Debian and Red Hat. I couldn't even say nice things about Fedora without getting flamed. But no more, they've all lemminged to Ubuntu. Though if I had only Fedora and Ubuntu to choose from, I would go with Ubuntu.
"Though if I had only Fedora and Ubuntu to choose from, I would go with Ubuntu."
Being inherently lazy on some levels I tend to agree... more things just seem to work right for me under (k)Ubuntu than Fedora. FWIW, if I had to deal with Red Hat-ish stuff on a regular basis I'd probably go with CentOS.
Being inherently lazy on some levels I tend to agree... more things just seem to work right for me under (k)Ubuntu than Fedora. FWIW, if I had to deal with Red Hat-ish stuff on a regular basis I'd probably go with CentOS.
Ubuntu could lose its top spot, for sure, but at the moment, I don't see any red flags (or red hats) that will topple Ubuntu from its currently lofty pedestal.
Right now, if Ubuntu keeps the momentum going and gets more hardware vendors to a) support Linux, especially as it is implemented in Ubuntu and b) to roll out PCs with Ubuntu preinstalled, it'll just further cement the average person's association of Linux with Ubuntu.
It's curious that the Eee PC uses a derivative of Xandros, and the Everex Cloudbook, at last glance, is sticking with a GNOME-ized version of the Ubuntu-based (and by extension Debian-based) gOS.
While many Linux distros are rolling out UMPC-ready spins of their main project, I do expect to see Ubuntu preinstalled in this space in the near future.
Right now, if Ubuntu keeps the momentum going and gets more hardware vendors to a) support Linux, especially as it is implemented in Ubuntu and b) to roll out PCs with Ubuntu preinstalled, it'll just further cement the average person's association of Linux with Ubuntu.
It's curious that the Eee PC uses a derivative of Xandros, and the Everex Cloudbook, at last glance, is sticking with a GNOME-ized version of the Ubuntu-based (and by extension Debian-based) gOS.
While many Linux distros are rolling out UMPC-ready spins of their main project, I do expect to see Ubuntu preinstalled in this space in the near future.
Ubuntu has an interesting business model. Shuttleworth is shelling out I would guess for 20-30 full time developers at 50-100K per year so with other costs (infrastructure promotion etc) must be flushing about $5-10 million a year on this. He has huge visibility now and deals with Dell and possibly Sun.
Seems like he is running a race here. Can he get enough revenue from the visibility before the $5-10mil per year kills him? Even money bet???
Ubuntu's popularity is a good thing. Sooner or later the noobs who think Ubuntu = Linux will learn there is a whole universe to explore. Shuttleworth has said that Canonical needs to become a paying proposition because he can't fund it forever. I have no idea how he's going to do that, but he's done pretty well so far with promotion and building a big community.
That's the main challenge for ubuntu and Mark Shuttleworth. He has to continue to introduce something new every six months or he loses momentum. And at the annual price tag of $5-$10 Million per year, he'll quickly lose altitude if he loses any forward momentum.
Why?
Because the Linux community has grown to expect a radical new release with new bells and whistles every six months. And as long as Canonical delivers people are fine. But if the pace slows, people may defect to other distros.
Meanwhile, distros like Slackware (my personal favorite) keep chugging along delivering quality without the marketing hype.
Oh yeah, distros like Slackware have nothing to lose because they don't have as much overhead as Canonical at the moment. (and probably never will).
And it still remains to be seen whether Canonical's revenue model will work or is working.
Why?
Because the Linux community has grown to expect a radical new release with new bells and whistles every six months. And as long as Canonical delivers people are fine. But if the pace slows, people may defect to other distros.
Meanwhile, distros like Slackware (my personal favorite) keep chugging along delivering quality without the marketing hype.
Oh yeah, distros like Slackware have nothing to lose because they don't have as much overhead as Canonical at the moment. (and probably never will).
And it still remains to be seen whether Canonical's revenue model will work or is working.
Quoting:Seems like he is running a race here. Can he get enough revenue from the visibility before the $5-10mil per year kills him? Even money bet???
Plenty of time then. I reckon he has about 200 million left from his 575 million so it should be good for 20-40 years :-)
5 % return on $200 milion is $10 million per year. From what I've heard, the "normal" return on a diversified account can be expected to be more like 8%. That's $16 million a year. He can fund Ubuntu forever and still have $6 million per year to live on. We should all have such problems.
I don't really understand how paid support in the enterprise works. Red Hat charges a bundle, and Canonical charges even more. If they get clients, they'll make a ton of money, but who has that kind of money to spend? If you can somehow run a roomful of boxes with no people on site while getting a lot of help from the support team at Canonical, that's one thing, but if you do have a "knowledgeable" person on site, why would you pay thousands per box per year for support?
I know that in mission-critical applications, people feel better having Red Hat behind them, but can Canonical promise the same kind of support?
I know that in mission-critical applications, people feel better having Red Hat behind them, but can Canonical promise the same kind of support?
[quute]can Canonical promise the same kind of support?[/quote]
Sure. Why not? They have the money to hire the people to do it. Besides, if Canonical would not be worth their money then they'd loose all those support contract pretty quickly.
Sure. Why not? They have the money to hire the people to do it. Besides, if Canonical would not be worth their money then they'd loose all those support contract pretty quickly.
The other side of this coin: If Canonical support is more expensive than Red Hat's -- and that seems to be the case -- why would an enterprise player run Ubuntu Server rather than RHEL?
> why would an enterprise player run Ubuntu Server rather than RHEL?
Or SLES for that matter, which is even less expensive than RHEL...
Or SLES for that matter, which is even less expensive than RHEL...
Come on now, I am sure you all see the parallels across time here. When I first started my venture into Linux I thought Red Hat was Linux. I didn't know any better at that time. Obviously I have learned different since those long lost days of blissful ignorance. HAH! I wish!
And now it is Ubuntu. When I meet new people and I mention what I do, one of several things happens.
1. They have no idea what I am talking about.
2. They have heard of Linux, but only after I mention Ubuntu and they think that Linux is another term for Ubuntu.
3. They have heard of Linux and maybe actually tried it themselves.
4. They know more about it than I do. Actually, I am still waiting for that one, just kidding! LOL!
There are a couple more but those are the biggies. Now replace Ubuntu with Red Hat and you will immediately be transported back to the year 2000, give or take a year or two, maybe three. ;-)
And now it is Ubuntu. When I meet new people and I mention what I do, one of several things happens.
1. They have no idea what I am talking about.
2. They have heard of Linux, but only after I mention Ubuntu and they think that Linux is another term for Ubuntu.
3. They have heard of Linux and maybe actually tried it themselves.
4. They know more about it than I do. Actually, I am still waiting for that one, just kidding! LOL!
There are a couple more but those are the biggies. Now replace Ubuntu with Red Hat and you will immediately be transported back to the year 2000, give or take a year or two, maybe three. ;-)
Quoting: Red Hat charges a bundle
I don't get this...$800 a year with phone support and unlimited incidences for the Standard product is pretty blasted good. And the Standard Workstation (which includes Samba so a small/medium office could use it nicely for a file server) is only $299 a year with phone support and unlimited incidences. If you are in need of the advanced platform then you probably won't flinch at the prices, which are not bad all things considered. Yes, CentOS is free, but you're on your own.
Quoting: I don't see any red flags (or red hats) that will topple Ubuntu from its currently lofty pedestal.
If either Novell or Red Hat would get their topends removed from their backends and give away the full desktop version of the OS, I think Ubuntu could be knocked down quite a few pegs quickly. Yes, Ubuntu is free from top to bottom, but Red Hat and SUSE have name recognition in the enterprise and I think could steal a lot of thunder from Ubuntu...not that they will, mind you, just that they could.
What I like about Ubuntu's popularity is that it has made the deb packages as important as rpm packages. Although Ubuntu is not fully binary-compatible with Debian and although I rather use Debian than Ubuntu, it's great that there are now more deb-packaged software and drivers available than there was before Ubuntu. In practice, most deb packages built for Ubuntu work just fine in Debian and vice versa.
Before Ubuntu, rpm was the default binary package format in Linux. Many software makers thought it's enough to offer their product in rpm binary packages and in source tarballs. And if hardware manufacturers decided to support Linux, they offered only rpm-packaged drivers. OK, there's alien that can change most rpms to debs but it doesn't always work. It's much nicer to be able to download a deb package and then just use dpkg to install it.
Debian is the second oldest of the current distros but it doesn't offer paid support for enterprise customers, like Red Hat does. Linspire and Progeny were commercial distros based on Debian but they never became very popular. Ubuntu offers commercial support and it's also very popular. This combination has clearly changed how many software and hardware makers consider the binary package formats for Linux, and deb packages have now become as well-known as rpm packages.
Still, popularity isn't everything. My favourite distro, right after Debian, is Source Mage GNU/Linux that doesn't fit into the top 100 on DistroWatch's page hits ranking. Nevertheless, I swear that Source Mage is one of the very best distros available -- at least for us advanced users. ;-)
Before Ubuntu, rpm was the default binary package format in Linux. Many software makers thought it's enough to offer their product in rpm binary packages and in source tarballs. And if hardware manufacturers decided to support Linux, they offered only rpm-packaged drivers. OK, there's alien that can change most rpms to debs but it doesn't always work. It's much nicer to be able to download a deb package and then just use dpkg to install it.
Debian is the second oldest of the current distros but it doesn't offer paid support for enterprise customers, like Red Hat does. Linspire and Progeny were commercial distros based on Debian but they never became very popular. Ubuntu offers commercial support and it's also very popular. This combination has clearly changed how many software and hardware makers consider the binary package formats for Linux, and deb packages have now become as well-known as rpm packages.
Still, popularity isn't everything. My favourite distro, right after Debian, is Source Mage GNU/Linux that doesn't fit into the top 100 on DistroWatch's page hits ranking. Nevertheless, I swear that Source Mage is one of the very best distros available -- at least for us advanced users. ;-)
Source Mage! I remember a name like that from somewhere. I'll check it out!
Source Mage GNU/Linux.
Source ---> So[u]rceror Apparently, Source Mage GNU/Linux came about through developers' splitting-off from Kyle Sallee's Sorcerer Linux, http://sorcerer.aakin.net/
Sorcerer ---> Wicca-like So[u]rcery. Magic ---> Mage Source Mage is a source-based GNU/Linux distribution based on a Sorcery metaphor of "casting" and "dispelling" programs, which we refer to as "spells", and a package manager called "Sorcery". ( from http://www.sourcemage.org/ )
--- Debian and Ubuntu. A GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian and Ubuntu, with sponsorship from the Free Software Foundation, is the purist gNewSense, main website http://www.gnewsense.org/ As described on its website, gNewSense is
Source ---> So[u]rceror Apparently, Source Mage GNU/Linux came about through developers' splitting-off from Kyle Sallee's Sorcerer Linux, http://sorcerer.aakin.net/
Sorcerer ---> Wicca-like So[u]rcery. Magic ---> Mage Source Mage is a source-based GNU/Linux distribution based on a Sorcery metaphor of "casting" and "dispelling" programs, which we refer to as "spells", and a package manager called "Sorcery". ( from http://www.sourcemage.org/ )
--- Debian and Ubuntu. A GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian and Ubuntu, with sponsorship from the Free Software Foundation, is the purist gNewSense, main website http://www.gnewsense.org/ As described on its website, gNewSense is
Quoting:A GNU/Linux distribution, that takes all the non-free blobs out of a rather popular distribution and makes it free.gNewSense's "pure" mission statement that it strictly adheres to the FSF:
Quoting: gNewSense is Free Software, its mission is to deliver these freedoms to you:( from http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/Mission )
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose. * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.[1] * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour. * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public.[2]
[1] Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
[2] This allows the whole community to benefit.
Like most, I used Ubuntu before I tried Debian. For sure, Ubuntu gets a lot of things right. From default package mix to marketing, they're pushing the proverbial envelope and reaping the benefit. And yes, it's a lot of marketing, but they're giving users something they want, and that's very important.
Depending on what you want and need to do with Linux, running Debian very well could be better -- that's why I run it on some boxes. Some are so old that standard Ubuntu/Xubuntu won't even install. Debian goes on them fine, however. And in many configurations, Debian can be quite a bit faster.
Ubuntu's focus on the new Linux user means that they're going to be bringing a lot of people into the FOSS world that know little about it or the way it works. That's great. And other projects -- even Debian -- can learn something from the way Ubuntu operates. They can choose to go in a different direction, but most projects -- again, even Debian -- will eventually get noticed by at least some of the people Ubuntu is bringing into the tent.
However, as the others have said, Ubuntu will have to continue fighting to keep itself being thought of as the No. 1 desktop Linux distribution. Right now I don't see anybody else coming close. As good as PCLinuxOS is, I don't think they've got the same traction. And Red Hat is seemingly never going to get its "World Desktop" (or whatever it's called) distro out there. Novell didn't do itself many favors by aligning with Microsoft.
But again, these things can change overnight ...
Depending on what you want and need to do with Linux, running Debian very well could be better -- that's why I run it on some boxes. Some are so old that standard Ubuntu/Xubuntu won't even install. Debian goes on them fine, however. And in many configurations, Debian can be quite a bit faster.
Ubuntu's focus on the new Linux user means that they're going to be bringing a lot of people into the FOSS world that know little about it or the way it works. That's great. And other projects -- even Debian -- can learn something from the way Ubuntu operates. They can choose to go in a different direction, but most projects -- again, even Debian -- will eventually get noticed by at least some of the people Ubuntu is bringing into the tent.
However, as the others have said, Ubuntu will have to continue fighting to keep itself being thought of as the No. 1 desktop Linux distribution. Right now I don't see anybody else coming close. As good as PCLinuxOS is, I don't think they've got the same traction. And Red Hat is seemingly never going to get its "World Desktop" (or whatever it's called) distro out there. Novell didn't do itself many favors by aligning with Microsoft.
But again, these things can change overnight ...
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