Ubuntu Archive

Two years ago, Linux guru Caitlyn Martin argued that "Ubuntu is a Poor Standard Bearer for Linux" due to reliability issues. She said that "Other distributions have problematic releases but other major distributions do not have significant problems in nearly every release. Ubuntu does." In her follow-up piece "How Canonical Can Do Ubuntu Right: It Isn't a Technical Problem," she explained how "...the problem I am describing is probably rooted in policy or business decisions that have been made..." and she offered specific ideas on how Canoncial could address the situation. Are these criticisms valid today? Does Ubuntu offer good reliability? Does it deserve its mindshare as the representative of PC Linux?

This shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Jonathan Riddell, lead developer of the Kubuntu project and the only person paid by Canonical to work on the KDE variant of the popular distribution, has announced that after the 12.04 release, Canonical will no longer be funding him, effectively putting Kubuntu on the same level as other Ubuntu variants like Xubuntu.

Ah, it's that time of the year again. We already had this up on the sidebar, but I figured we'd turn it into a proper front page item - mostly because I want to discuss the move by the Ubuntu team to no longer install GNOME 2 as the 'classic' desktop option - which pretty much ends any and all involvement for me with Ubuntu (KDE 4 here I come). There's more to this than just that, of course, so those of you who do like Unity still have enough reason to upgrade.

Canonical Ltd., the company behind Ubuntu Linux, estimates that the product has over 12 million users worldwide. And why not? Ubuntu is free and it runs more than ten thousand applications. It has a vibrant user community, websites covering everything you might ever need to know, good tutorials, a paid support option, and more. Yet I often hear friends and co-workers casually criticize Ubuntu. Perhaps this the price of success. Or is it? In this article I'll analyze common criticisms and try to sort fact from fiction.

"One of the benefits of the direction that's been taken with the next release of Ubuntu is that there is no longer a need for a separate netbook edition. The introduction of the new shell for Ubuntu means that we have a user interface that works equally well whatever the form factor of the PC. And the underlying technology works on a range of architectures including those common in netbook, notebooks, desktops or whatever you choose to run it on. Hence the need for a separate version for netbooks is removed"

Ubuntu Linux has millions of fans. What's not to like? A free operating system with ten thousand free applications, websites covering everything you might ever want to know, tutorials, active forums, and more. Yet for all these benefits, situations pop up when you want a faster, lighter operating system. Perhaps you have an older computer, or maybe a netbook or a mobile device. Wouldn't it be great to have a lightweight Ubuntu? That day has finally arrived. Lubuntu offers a way to stay in the Ubuntu family -- with a product that performs better and uses fewer resources.