Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends
I've been doing a little prep for my keynote at Ubuntu Live next week, as well as my on-stage interviews of Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, at the O'Reilly Radar Executive Briefing on Open Source and on the main stage at OSCON. In the course of my homework, I took a look at the various web tracking sites to see how Ubuntu is doing against sites for other Linux distributions. Here's how Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSuse stack up in terms of site visitors according to compete.com:
Update: A number of folks commented that I'd mistakenly used fedora.org rather than fedoraproject.org in my graphs. Sorry! The corrected graph (above) shows growth for Fedora, but it's still well below Debian and Ubuntu.
Clearly, Ubuntu is catching up with Red Hat, at least in terms of the number of visitors to its website, and Debian (on which Ubuntu is based) continues to be the community distribution of choice, blowing away Red Hat's Fedora and Novell's OpenSuSe.
Here's the corresponding graph from hitwise.com, which shows Ubuntu ahead of Debian, and Fedora catching up. Obviously, web tracking sites have different results based on the contents of their panel, but the trends at least are consistent from one to the other:
Google Trends makes an even more compelling case for interest in Ubuntu:
Clearly, Ubuntu is gaining heavily on Red Hat (though this says nothing about Red Hat's penetration of the enterprise.) I'm curious. Do Radar readers have any thoughts about the rise of Ubuntu? Is it just better fit and finish for the desktop? Is Ubuntu the "it" distribution of the moment, with a moment that could easily pass? Is it the more rapid development cycle? The closer ties with the free software ideals of the Debian community? I have my own ideas, but I always learn a lot from your comments.
In addition, what do you think of Ubuntu's Launchpad, a site for collaboration across open source projects? Mark Shuttleworth described it to me as a "Wikipedia for bugs," but it's clearly more than that -- a platform for services between open source projects. It could perhaps even be described as a fusion of open source and Web 2.0 -- a data and social network for open source developers.
Finally, if you were me, or were in the audience next week, what would you want to ask Mark Shuttleworth about Ubuntu? (And yes, we could also talk to Mark about his sojourn on the International Space Station, if that's of interest. Let me know.)
tags: open source
| comments: 43
| Sphere It
submit: 
0 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blogs.oreilly.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/5694
Comments: 43
Ubuntu (well in my case, Kubuntu) is definitely a better fit for the desktop -- but I'm yet to be convinced it's a -complete- fit for the average Joe User. Case in point: my father has been using computers as long as I have (since I was 8, so worryingly, almost 29 years), but there's still stuff he would struggle with. None of it's insurmountable, but there's a definite learning curve. And a particularly difficult learning curve if you've never used anything other than DOS/Windows (as he has).
From my point of view, I've used RedHat (horrible), Mandrake (mild improvement), Gentoo (not just bleeding edge, but an arterial gusher), and now Kubuntu. In the distant past I also played with a bunch of other distros (such as Slackware, and the monstrosity that was the Corel distribution). Kubuntu has been the most satisfying environment I've ever worked in... out of any operating system... ever.
Yes, the 6 monthly release cycle is nice. But the fact that stuff works (generally) at the end of those cycles is nicer.
I would go deep with Mark on the past and future relationship between Ubuntu and Debian. Specifically, will remaining separate be necessary down the road? What are the benefits of remaining separate versus, for example, using the Ubuntu brand for the desktop (and other client machines) and the Debian brand for servers?
Tim, the correct domain for Fedora is fedoraproject.org, not fedora.org (which is unrelated to the Linux project). You have bad data.
Very interesting, although we use RHEL almost exclusively and I never visit redhat.com. We have a satellite server for updates and I get info from local docs and mailing lists. I did have to visit ubuntu.com a lot when trying it out.
from fedora.org:
"as always, we are not affiliated with red hat or the fedora project or people who like to wear hats while using linux or any other entity
this is a private system
any images, media, or text that appear here are for our own amusement"
I definitely think that the 6 month release cycle helps a lot. Twice a year there is this new round of buzz, reports, blogs and such. It's big enough to be mentioned in the 'mainstream' press. It's not often enough to become a completely routine event that nobody wants to write about.
It's a very clever strategy, which has served them well: Every 6 months they get people reviewing the 'new Ubuntu', comparing it to the latest Microsoft offering, and so on.
Personally, I have been using Ubuntu on different laptops since 5.04 (Hoary) and I like it very much. It just keeps getting better and better.
The nicer desktop experience helps; that the Debian package system works better than RPM helps; that Ubuntu hits a sweet spot between speed of development and stability helps. But I don't think that's it.
Red Hat and Novell segment their user bases, into "Enterprise" and "Community", each with its own software base. One has to pay to use the "real" Red Hat. But Ubuntu is Ubuntu is Ubuntu; the people paying for support use the same software as the people downloading the ISO for free. You don't have to pay admission to sit at the grownups' table.
It may not be rational, and it's unfair to the people who maintain openSUSE and Fedora and CentOS; but I suspect that that is a big part of Ubuntu's rise in popularity.
I think that most of Ubuntu's appeal is the fact that it combines Debian's superb package management and unmatched number of packages with a simpler install from a live CD, concentration on the desktop experience, and a reputation of being the desktop distro of choice for new users.
I think Ubuntu is more accessible to the general population as RedHat has become stiffled in their attempt to charge after (and win) corporate customers. It means they're slower to add new functionality and slower to release new versions (which the guys like Oracle actually like).
If you've used RedHat in the past, I think there's also a matter of trust regarding the updates and patches. I moved away from RedHat as it became harder and harder to get patches installed on my systems without shelling out some significant cash for the up2date built in system (which otherwise worked well). I moved to Debian and it's ever-pervasive "apt-get" and from there into Ubuntu, which has done a wonderful job packaging to boot. I know there's YUM now that's resolved some of these issues, but I don't really want to go learn that new thing just to go back to an OS packager/supplier which I perceived as "screwed me" when I've got Ubuntu to leverage for my every-day needs.
I'd ask Mark Shuttleworth what his vision for launchpad actually is, and why is concerned about open sourcing it.
I agree with Kevin above that one release gets to attract the eyeballs better.
Ubuntu is sexier, with blog momentum, there is no negative image like Novell has, nor the unsexy Redhat business image, or the alternative non-desktop Debian image.
Easy to install for a newbie (Doesn't apply to me ;) ).
Importantly on install the binary drivers 'just work', even though they are EVIIIIIL.
The size of the installed base with a lot of desktops is very nice and come to think about it it is quite new for me (I had no experience with Mandriva).
Easy network update has finally come of age with the pretty gui front ends for apt.
Not confusing the non-technical user with extreme choice of software, but allowing technical people to still have that choice. Examples are web-browsers, mail clients etc. Red Hat gave me thousands of choices that left me confused and angry.
And obviously Ubuntu and other Linux have benefited from the improved auto-hardware detection led by Klaus Knopper and Knoppix.
So Debian derivatives are finally winning after a very long gestation period.
Check www.distrowatch.com
Also, take a look at Mepis6.5.
I began "messing with" linux distros some 10+ years ago. Must have tried 50 or more of them.
In 2003 I discovered Mepis. Keep trying others - including SuSE (beginning with 8 and going now thry 10.2), Ubuntu and others - but keep coming back to Mepis. Give it a try. I bet you like it.
Stephen
Well Fedora Project website is http://fedoraproject.org. fedora.org is a unrelated website and the comparison is flawed.
Ubuntu is just popular now because it is the new kid on the block. Remember how all this happened when Gentoo was new on the scene, and where are they now? I think people will start to eventually realize that Ubuntu really doesn't offer any true advantage over Fedora at all. Fedora has been pushing the innovation envelope for the past 2 years. The only thing Ubuntu is good at doing is pulling from the upstream which Fedora heavily contributes to, mixing in evil closed source bits and slapping it into a nice package. I really can't see how someone using Fedora 7 can ever even consider Ubuntu. Plus now with Revisor, you can create your own custom Fedora version--INCLUDING LIVECDs which they now distribute through their torrent and mirror sites.
To Recap: Ubuntu - great at marketing and buzz. Fedora - great at what really matters.
As a person who cut my teeth on Redhat 9, and FC4, and have drifted to Ubuntu, i'd say, that you can, with a little imagination, make any linux distro look sexy, Gnome, is not Ubuntu.. I personally belive, what has made Ubuntu, sucessful, has more to do with the support offered for it. Its a factor which keeps users running windows, average joe isn't stupid, he knows Windows is no more or less perfect than Linux, what he also knows, if he has a problem, the support network is out there, the kid next door, the company IT guys, can all help with Windows. With Linux, it used to be the case that you asked a question, and would get an answer an astophyisit would find confusing back, whats happened with Ubuntu and specifically Ubuntuforums, is a good support network has been built up, a "community" exisits, where people ry and answer problems with real english, and it makes a difference for any person new to anything to know that there is a good support infrastucture out there. Having recently looked into the "forums support" for the likes of SuSE, and Fedora, its not quite as good, Fedoras is probably the next best example of good forum support.
I'd like to ask Mark, if there are plans to create an Ubuntu Certification programme?
I think the transition to Ubuntu was mainly done by Debian users. Debian has a 18 months release cycle and when they were about to release Debian 4 they blew their deadline with 4 months. As the Debian packet manager APT is superior RPM/Yast their followers needed a similar distribution but with shorter release cycles and Ubuntu is actually just that. Ubuntu is "Debian on steroids". (It also didn't help Debian the internal quagmire and Ian Murdock that resigned from his project)
Your research on Fedora and OpenSuse is flawed: it must be fedoraproject.org for Fedora as others have already mentioned.
Also, OpenSuse.org is a wiki page with several languages - therefore www.OpenSuse.org is just an entry page like www.Wikipedia.org - no one really goes that way, most people usually access en.opensuse.org or de.opensuse.org or other languages specifc domains.
You should re-work the research in this regards - and re-think your conclusions. :)
Mark Shuttleworth posted an article some time back on the Ubuntu wiki which answers many of the questions frequently heard about Ubuntu's motivations and goals, finances, organizational structure, the political and technical relationship with Debian, etc. etc. It's at:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarkShuttleworth
In my view, one of the big differences that Ubuntu has brought (in addition to its noob-friendly community culture) is its strong emphasis on internationalisation and localization. The Ubuntu community is committed to doing much more than merely paying lip service to the notion. One of the core Ubuntu ideals is for a truly global OS and from where I'm sitting it looks like the Ubuntu community is doing more than most to achieve that.
I tend to be a fan of almost any linux.
Before I would considered Unbuntu for the a large server roll out, I would want to see a comparative product to Red Hat's RHN. I am not talking about the local piece that updates your single server, but the website piece that enables you to see what packages are installed on all your systems, and what updates you need to push to them. We are going to be approaching around 100 servers this fiscal year, and RHN has been an invaluable tool to us. Now if Unbuntu had something similar, perhaps even better, I would take a long look at deploying Unbuntu. I think RHN is one advantage that Red Hat has over Unbuntu when it comes to large server roll outs.
I agree with Niklas's comment above, that most Unbuntu users are probably former Debian users. They are probably people who love apt-get and have their own ways of utilizing that tool for all their updates and may not want a pre-packaged solution like RHN to control all the package management in a data center.
If Unbuntu does have a similar solution to RHN, please correct me, because I would love to see it.
Garbage in, garbage out. Please correct your graphs to use fedoraproject.org and NOT fedora.org. Of course you fine zero hits for a website that does not exist.
Perhaps you should include Clark Connect, SME7, SmoothWall, Centos, and Oracles's unbreakable Linux just to name a few.
I just like Fedora for a home system but I also like a lot of others. Fedora and Ubuntu are both in my top 10 list. I can still do everything I need with Fedora and Centos is the one I use for servers. I would not use anything but a Red Hat Distro for work. ( but thats just me) A couple of years ago I tried Ubuntu and Debian side by side. It was my first use of Debian as it came on a CD. At the time I liked it much more than the Ubuntu Flavor. Also the Ubuntu has an unfair advantage with multimedia since it is located outside the U.S. Now just to be a hippo-critter I am currently letting (forcing my wife) to use Ubuntu on her pc.
As noted several times, you used a website for Fedora that has nothing to do with the ACTUAL FEDORA PROJECT.
Where's the correction and apology? Or at least the acknowledgement in big letters at the top that your data is inaccurate?
Ubuntu has a raft of sites, but the main site isnt as interesting as many of the others as it isnt refreshed as often.. I would suggest that comparing the forums might be more informative.
While I believe openSuSE is a better distribution is easier to install at the 2 months after a release (to allow Yast to be fixed) and in history it was a far better distribution, it's release schedule is once a year frustrating.
For example with Open Office SuSE has me stuck at 2.04. I can go to other repositories now and get things but Yast2 hates it, sometimes the "unofficial" repositories are pooched. Smart package manager works and I really need "snd_intel_hda" updated sound driver that is not in 2.6.18.8-.5 and has not been backported.
So the point is especially with SuSE build service working for every distro. Is kunbuntu getting ahead of OpenSuSE?
By the way imho Kunbuntu actually is the better version largely due to KDE's, Linus's and SuSE's work.
To all who complained about my incorrect use of fedora.org rather than fedoraproject.org, I apologize. I fixed the graphs this morning. The biggest difference is that Fedora is showing nice growth, but it's still well below Ubuntu. Hitwise shows a decline in Debian, while Compete still shows it as very strong.
liquidat: compete.com compares the top level domain, so en.opensuse.org and www.opensuse.org and de.opensuse.org are all included, I believe. There may however be regional bias in the data (i.e. more US customers in the panel.) So I'm well aware that this is so-so data. That's why I showed two different sources (and checked Alexa as well -- it was consistent in the overall rankings of the sites so I decided not to show it.)
The real numbers Compete.com numbers show Ubuntu ahead with Fedora and OpenSUSE very close:
http://staff.washington.edu/joshuadf/misc/fedoraproject.org+ubuntu.com+opensuse.org_uv.png
Regarding using en.opensuse.org, I think it's counting anything on that domain, not just the frontpage.
Does Ubuntu increase the total number of Linux users or does the Ubuntu cannablize on the current Linux installed base?
Tim, not sure if it helps your presentation any, but Ubuntu's also starting to move with the SMB crowd. Open-Xchange this week announced an appliance version of its e-mail server using Ubuntu as part of the foundation.
In my case, it was because I wanted a distribution for my laptop which "just worked" with wireless.
I think you're right that launchpad is important for the future, but not for the reasons you've stated above. It's a pure web 2.0 data lock in play -- data is the new Intel Inside.
Is this good? Good for Canonical if they can pull it off, but not good for all the other Linux vendors, and not good for Linux as a whole.
The great thing about the rapid rise of Ubuntu is that it was possible at all. If Red Hat had done an Amazon and locked up all the open source projects in a launchpad like system, the barriers to entry would have been artificially raised and we wouldn't be having this conversation.
It would be interesting to see the stats for centos added in to the above (recompiled RHEL). Red Hat actually have some quite nice customer segmentation going on: biz type go straight for RHEL; those on a budget go for free RHEL(CentOS, like super market vouchers); early adopters go for Fedora.
I think the real interesting question as far as future market share goes, is will the mindshare of Ubuntu overwhelm the solid performance of RHEL/CentOS/Fedora combined?
Please ask Mark: Would aggregating open source development under a Ubuntu controlled launchpad, with the lock-in that brings, be good for Linux as a whole?
Google Trends shows a lot of other fascinating info. Very high interest in Ubuntu in Spain, Fedora and Red Hat in Japan, and of course Suse in Central Europe.
Hello, you've clearly studied my Web 2.0 paper! I totally agree. But you have to remember that the other side of Web 2.0 "lock in" is the creation of collective value. ebay, amazon, craigslist, wikipedia, flickr, del.icio.us, all have a web 2.0 "data is the intel inside" lock in, but they also create enormous value for all their participants. I think Mark's hope is that Launchpad will do the same.
Heck, the Linux kernel has an architecture of participation that gives Linus and cohorts enormous "lock in" but they are creating value too. So the mere fact that someone is harnessing network effects to build shared value that they control isn't the issue. The key issue is whether they are creating more value than they capture (or hoard) for themselves.
Ubuntu is growing mainly because of dissatisfaction with Vista and Microsoft. Rather than make software that people actually want and need, Microsoft has increasingly become convinced that they can do more benefit to mankind by convincing us that we need whatever it is they have to offer than by offering us what we think we need. They are certain that they understand our needs better than we do. And they know that our lives will all be much better if we all go out and buy state of the art computers and all new software in order to do exactly the same things we're already doing with our current computers and software. The trouble for Microsoft is that this thinking runs contrary to the traditional thinking of corporate actuaries, and a few have begun to seek alternatives.
Vista has been a great boon to Ubuntu and to Linux in general (and, for that matter, also to Apple). Ubuntu benefits because it is seen by people outside the Linux community as an easier Linux for beginners to adopt.
The slow, steady growth of Linux is inevitable, since it provides a much better fit for what users of every stripe want and need in an operating system than does Vista. Whether or not Ubuntu continues to grow disproportionate to other distros will depend on two factors: Canonical, Ltd.'s ability to provide support for the OS, and their ability to make it ever easier for the uninitiated to install and use.
I think there have been both technical and operational reasons for the "rise of Ubuntu."
Technically, Ubuntu works and is visually appealing. Plus, it is easy to install. It's fast and functional - and interoperates nicely with other existing platforms. It's reliable. Installing and upgrading applications is easy through a nice GUI.
In the two years I've been using it, they've made steady progress with hardware compatibility. My first few installs had no working sound. Back then, it was difficult to get standard displays working. More recently, I've installed Ubuntu on a variety of machines without even a hiccup.
In an operational sense, Canonical's early offer of free CDs helped encourage adoption. Canonical financial strength has helped organize development resources and get the word out about the distro. Plus, it seems the Ubuntu "brand" represents a mission a lot of people identify with.
Ubuntu has a well organized planning process and talented, committed developers. They do a great job with release management - showing steady progress with each new release. The support forums are plentiful, friendly and helpful.
They've done a great job selecting and packaging useful applications - it's easier to get going with a few new applications that work well, rather than swimming through a sea of difficult-to-use applications.
Ubuntu nicely leverages open source in a way that showcases the great work of the development community (which is, afterall, the heart of the Ubuntu release.) Meanwhile, the Ubuntu ecosystem is growing. Dell added a lot of value to the distro by offering systems - I gladly bought one.
With free installs and free upgrades it's an attractive value proposition! Overall, Ubuntu is a very nicely crafted operating environment that just works.
Hi Tim. Part of my "fame" is explaining to people how to make dual boot laptops with Windows and Ubuntu (for example, my "Creating a Dual-Boot Windows XP and Ubuntu Laptop" article continues to attract attention 14 months after it was published). At the same time, my programming focus is high-performance computing, parallel processing, algorithms, etc.
One of my huge annoyances about Ubuntu is the "Universe" package. Ubuntu provides a basic set of apps you can readily install onto your Ubuntu system, but there are many apps which, if you want them, you are required to install this massive, fairly unstable, block of operating system Ubuntu calls "Universe". It's a huge step to ask people who want a relatively stable Linux system to take the risk of installing this "Universe" upgrade, which is admittedly unstable. Just to get 1 app I like, I have to load my system with a zillion unstable Debian packages? Debian itself seems to do a better job at this, I think. I'd be interested to find out if Mark has thought about this issue.
But, on the positive side: Mark very much deserves to be congratulated for Ubuntu's incredible automated hardware recognition and configuration utilities. I have sometimes installed Ubuntu onto a system just to be able to copy its hardware configuration settings files for use when I install a different Linux distribution. Ubuntu makes "having Linux" possible for the general user, because it has installation automation akin to Windows. You install it, and you're instantly brought into a windowed environment. That just doesn't happen with most other Linux distributions.
Ubuntu is great for users who want an alternative to Windows. For specialists like me, it's not quite ideal -- but I genuinely respect the Ubuntu product, and wish other Linux distributions would catch up to its hardware recognition and configuration mastery.
From my perspective, as one relatively new to Linux, with exposure to only four distros (though the ones my research said were best), Ubuntu works because of it's common-sense approach. They're dumping the silliness (like pages of arguments about how to pronounce things and unfriendliness to newbies) and the techie-elitism. They're making it easy to use and install. They're offering plenty of help and support and a new release every 6 months. They aim to keep the techies and users happy. They are adding a new level of professionalism and vision to the Linux world. It works, it's stable, it's fun and it has so much going for it. It's the best all-rounder out there, the best, "full package."
I switched to Ubuntu from SUSE shortly after Novell's deal with Microsoft. I have been very pleased with Ubuntu. It installed without any problems on my Thinkpad, and everything "just works". I'm also running it on several desktops, and I specifically asked my dedicated hosting company to install it on my server (this was before Debian 4.0 was available, and I needed newer packages).
Having said that, there have been a few major update glitches that IMO would have been extremely confusing for non-technical folks. I believe that getting to the point where one can click the update button (even with kernel updates) without any hesitation is priority number one for "Linux on the desktop". I also have a Mac, and it has never occurred to me that clicking software update would trash my system.
So, my question to Mark would be what are they doing to make software updates bulletproof?
I purchased then used an RH8 CD long enough to realize that RH had designed their "automatic update" mechanism to pressure for more money, then they dumped all us home users. I had obtained RH to run on my "home server" to do tasks that were extremely difficult in Windows, but I used Windows (98/2K/XP) for my daily work.
When my server HD failed, after I had been reading about Ubuntu and SUSE, I decided to reconstitute the server using one of those. Downloaded the SUSE suite, but then tried Hoary for a while. A bit tekkie for a Windows user, but a godsend for a semi-tekkie who just wanted certain server tasks to work without weeks of tweaking. It still took days, but so did making my new Windows Media Center edition do all the things my old XP could do.
Then Novell got into bed with the ever- more- threatening Microsoft, so I deleted my SUSE ISOs. Now, in addition to my upgraded Dapper server, I run a dual-boot Win/Feisty setup, going to Win only for a small number of apps for which Linux has no quality alternative.
Upgrading and installing (tried on four different older machines plus my new HP Dual 64) of Edgy and Feisty took about 2 hours clock, 3 minutes of my time, all using simple GUI aids (Feisty lost my Edgy network printer upon upgrade, that's what took the 3 min).
My question to Mark would have been how high on his priority list is working with anyone to get certain key Win apps or equivalents working on Grumpy Gibbon (or 8.04 or whatever) so that more of us can toss Windows completely. I have two apps which don't work at all on my Feisty system, plus Google Earth is unusable and the OOPowerpoint "equivalent" is terrible. Nothing that is said to be "gold" under Wine is of any interest to me.
I have heard many grumblings about The Gimp (which I personally like) and that the video editing tools are primitive (I dunno). It would be nice to see a list of things that need to but don't work along with voting lists of how many folks truly need each. However, it would only be interesting if someone like Shuttleworth would put some weight behind solving a large portion of them.
Red hat is not going anywhere but up for some time. Sitting in the corporate world the Red Hat edge is the infrastructure that supports corporate IT. Big IT will not go anywhere near unsupported products (this is corporate law). Sure, lots of GNU/Linux exists across big IT shops but when it goes into production it MUST be supported.
I just started usin linux so i cant really say anything about the different versons ive never used anything besides ubuntu and so far its really nice for starters and thats the main thing im lookin for instalation took about 20 minutes and only needed 7 clicks once installed everything worked great installed all the updates redid the desktop changed the log in screen setup a cool lookin splash screen and it all was done with in an hour. keep in mind this is my first time usin linux so i think thats pretty good all in all ubuntu is super user friendly and to me thats what really matters
I think Ubuntu is very easy to use,and adopt for a newbie.This is what people need from Linux.Still, there is a lot of scope for improvement with regard to making it more user friendly.
Many Linux users don't like it ,but being user friendly is not a crime.Linux is for everybody.If it gets well accepted on desktop,then there is nothing wrong with it.
Historically, Unix systems came before Windows.Still ,Windows won because they provided attention to the general purpose user's requirements.
Interestingly, Unix systems are made to work in network and multiuser environment.But, more people are connected to internet from Windows.(I know that at server side Linux rules and Windows is not Multiuser system)
Unix developers never provided attention to the user at home.They went on adding features to Vi editor.(Vi editor is just an example.It is perfectly right to do so.) But, they didn't pay attention to the mass waiting for the computer at their home.
If Ubuntu is becoming user friendly then it must be.
We can see that Red Hat is more concerned with it's paid version on server side.It is their business.But, there are thousands of people who want to use Linux , become part of Linux community.They want Linux on their desktop, so it must be user friendly.Who is going to fulfill their requirements.If Ubuntu is trying to that ,then it is good for Linux ultimately.
Acceptance of Linux at grass root level is more important for Linux, than superiority of particular distribution.
I offer the average lifetime MS user perspective to this conversation. I have never used a linux anything before Ubuntu. And, I must say, I am surprisingly thrilled with it. It installed quickly and easily and,surprisingly, it had the necessary sound and Ethernet drivers built in. I was again pleasantly surprised to see that it could and did automatically share files with my MS XP network. It made the old outdated slow laptop that I installed it one work much faster and smoother than Xp ever did. Problems include setting up a printer and getting the dvd player to work as well as it did in XP. Those aside, it is a real winner to me.
Post A Comment:
STAY CONNECTED
RECENT COMMENTS
- CSSteve on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: I offer the average lif...
- Amit Shah on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: I think Ubuntu is very ...
- Mr. Jomes on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: I just started usin lin...
- Chris Wong on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: Red hat is not going an...
- Lynn West on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: I purchased then used a...
- Brian Adkins on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: I switched to Ubuntu fr...
- Grant on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: From my perspective, as...
- Kevin Farnham on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: Hi Tim. Part of my "fa...
- Brian on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: I think there have been...
- Trent on Ubuntu vs. Red Hat on Compete.com, Hitwise, and Google Trends: Ubuntu is growing mainl...
RADAR TOPICS
Andrew Kasper [07.17.07 02:43 PM]
I imagine that it's gaining primarily because it's the Linux distro of choice for the new Linux Dell machines. Just a WAG, though.