On Thu, 2006-08-31 at 11:23 -0400, Amadeus W. M. wrote: > > > > And, why not? It's an excellent distribution. It's not just users who > > think this; reviewers have also labeled it the Desktop Linux Champ. > > > > I'll never understand what Ubuntu has that other distributions > don't. I've never seen a head to head comparison between Ubuntu, > and FC, say. Yes, there's critics and users reviews but they > don't compare Ubuntu to anything else. Overall it's their subjective > "it felt good" or "I liked that feature", but that doesn't do it > for me. I'd like to see what's unique in Ubuntu, that I might > have a use for. Is Ubuntu more stable? Is it faster? Does it > have better hardware detection? Does it have a different update > policy? I think what most people hope for in a distribution is that 'middle-of-the-road' balance between new features and stability so you aren't too far behind current desktop applications where things are evolving rapidly but you also aren't likely to be the first person to have to deal with a bug no one else has seen yet. That is what makes for a great user experience but doesn't come across very well in reviews focusing on the extremes of stability or features. My example of this in the fedora world is that it is what you see near the end of a version cycle except that bugs in the installer don't get fixed until the next release is cut. Ubuntu has at least put some effort into trying to hit that balance where the fedora/RHEL split forces you to choose an extreme - or stay a rev behind on the fedora side. There is also another layer of this balance that I'd like to see addressed. That is, that once you have a kernel with working device drivers installed on a particular machine there should be no reason to ever change it again - ever. However, you do want to stay up to date with changes in applications, and if you install on a new machine you may want access to new device drivers. It would be great if some distribution focused on keeping the OS portion stable while providing current updates to applications. To go back to the fedora/RH split, if you want a well tested kernel, you get a years-old version of evolution and firefox. If you want current destop apps, you get an experimental kernel and a fair chance of crashes. It wouldn't have to be that way, but it is too soon to know if Ubuntu will get that part right. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
