What's all the hype over Ubuntu?

[Da Rock]

If you guys don't mind, I'll add my 2c here...
On Fri, 2008-03-28 at 08:07 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
> Tom Horsley wrote:
> 
> > Naturally, I turned to google, and all the top hits I
> > got were (mostly pretty informative) pages from
> > either ubuntu or gentoo web sites.
> > 
> > I have had this same experience on different searches
> > many times before.
> > 
> > I can imagine folks who constantly find descriptions
> > of how to solve their problems on ubuntu web pages
> > might at some point be tempted to just go ahead and
> > run ubuntu so they don't have to track down any
> > differences between the distros in order to follow the
> > advice.
> > 
> > Of course they might get the same idea about gentoo,
> > but comparing the install process of gentoo and ubuntu
> > would send most folks screaming to ubuntu every time :-).
> 
> Bit of Devil's Advocate here....
> 
> If the answers to the problems are found on ubuntu web pages doesn't that 
> mean the problems also exist in ubuntu?  If ubuntu handled the problem 
> directly then there would be no point in asking how to do it...  :-)
> 
> Do the results/resolution to the problem translate to other distros or are 
> they specific to ubuntu?

Actually 90% of the time they do correlate. If Ubuntu does nothing else,
it does help newbies work out linux- even on other distros. If the user
gets stuck trying to work out how to sort it on their own distro they
can can get (although usually curt, hence why they would ask Ubuntu) a
response from the distro's team of players.

> 
> FWIW, I have ubuntu installed on a VM and do play with it from time to time. 
>   Probably need more time to learn its quarks.  But the one thing I noticed 
> is that the folks on their mailing lists, IMHO, tend to be greener than 
> average and the amount of bad advice or misinformation is greater than other 
> lists that have insufferable geeks.  :-)

This is true as well, but the Ubuntu lists appear to have real techs
roving the lists to fix issues.

Love it or hate it, Ubuntu does appear to be here to stay, and it does
appear to be doing some good in the war against M$ as many (even
hardcore) M$ users will at least try it out for usability. My personal
opinion is to put complete newbies on it so they're not thrown in the
deep end- at least they have floaties! ;) Once they've gained their feet
then put them on something more reliable and stable. I find Ubuntu is
not as stable or functional as other linux distros, but easier to use.
It is of course far more stable than Windows at least- and
tougher/solid- while offering pretty much the same functionality they're
used to.

Ok I'm done. Hope I don't start something with this- I tend to agree
with the sentiment that this could get ugly here.