The biggest similarity with Windows is that it isn't a community run project. In my opinion they tried very hard to represent themselves as an open source community in the early days and downplay Canonical's role. There is nothing wrong with Ubuntu as a first introduction to Linux but if people are looking for a project to join and make contributions there are many better options.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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I use Ubuntu, I’ve used Arch, Debian, Fedora, Pop and many others too. I use Ubuntu because all my hardware works out of the box. Snaps are inoffensive imo. I have just as many issues with abandoned debs or flatpaks and I usually just use whatever package is more maintained.
The most annoying thing about Ubuntu is how slow the packages are sometimes to make it to a release.
Ubuntu is fine. Drivers are annoying on all distros (nvidia updates for me mainly, I don't update hardware often).
I have daily driven various distros and tested a lot since the 90s and I pay close attention to time spent on customizing and fixes, and ubuntu just isn't worse than other distros. I make setup scripts and have custom dockerfiles for webtops.
I want to like nixos or whatever fork will prevail, but it's more work than people want to admit. I personally don't want to have to pay that much attention to my operating system. It's why i ditched gentoo almost 20 years ago. I don't want to lurk forums for fixes and tweaks. I also make sure hardware I buy doesn't have glaring compatibility issues.
If Ubuntu rubs you the wrong way but you are fine with most of it, just use debian.
Professionally/commercially they're MILES ahead of Red hat, Oracle, or Suse.
Personally/free they do weird shit that usually doesn't seem make sense on its surface if you're not getting paid to learn it.
Take snaps for example: flatpak/app image/whatever makes more sense if you only care nothing beyond getting/running the software; but in a professional setting where you need third party info for something like an sbom or some sort of industry compliancy, snaps make it easy.
Ub(loa)tu tries to cater to everyone whilst ending up in pleasing no one -- it has too much unnecessary clutter.
Most crashy breaky mainstream distro there is and always has been.
It's barely tolerable.
But I did used to like the departure from blue themes like nearly everyone else.