Comments on: One Linux to Rule Them All?

By: David

David — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:15:03 +0000

Yeah, who needs freedom and choice anyway? What we really need is another wannabe, proprietary ripoff in the pc world.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:06:45 +0000

I certainly hope ubuntu becomes the dominant player in the Linux arena. Options are good, but confusing to people who aren’t familiar with Linux.

I’m going to be selling used computers with Linux. I’m going to exclusively use Ubuntu. Of course people have the choice to install something else after buying, but it makes sense to have a single Linux option so that people can recognize the “brand name”.

I’ll check back on this blog regularly and let you know how successful I am at selling computer with Ubuntu.

By: aikiwolfie

aikiwolfie — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:46:35 +0000

Standardisation is good for many reasons. The least of which is hardware and software developers really like standards. Standards mean they can develop their products with a tangible target market in sight. Which allows them to predict the likely hood of a profit or loss in “X” amount of time.

While Ubuntu is king of the Linux desktops at the moment it’s throne isn’t anywhere near secure. Novelle are ramping up their openSuSE desktop efforts and even have OEM installation deals with HP and Dell. Dell in particular are targeting the likes of China with Novelles enterprise version of openSuSE.

This is a threat to Ubuntu because SuSE has been a very polished distro since about 9.3. The installer is not only easy to use. It is more flexible than the Ubuntu installer and it has some pretty decent recovery tools built in. Obvious methods of disaster recovery are something Ubuntu still lacks.

Novelle are also a more powerful company than Canonical. They already have many industry partners they can leverage to gain the upper hand as well as an established server market share.

Then there’s openSolaris. It’s taken a while to get established. But that is more down to Sun Microsystems inability to properly grasp what open source is all about rather than the quality or desirability of the Solaris OS.

openSolaris is in the running because like openSuSE, Solaris has an established corporate presence. Admittedly not on the desktop. But in the server rooms, on mega high end workstations and on industrial equipment like Xeroxs range of industrial printers from their basic models all the way up to the iGen product range.

More importantly Sun Microsystems and Solaris are names corporate suits know and trust. Which should help Toshiba shift laptops pre-loaded with openSolaris.

Which means mainstream Linux might remain a netbook/appliance/server OS. To stop that from happening Canonical need to bust a move and do something to get decently polished consumer level applications out there. If that doesn’t happen it won’t matter who the competition is and it won’t matter how easy and reliable Ubuntu is. Without applications Ubuntu as an OS is useless.

By: Zac

Zac — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:29:32 +0000

devilhorns: Absolutely. With humans, being what they are, there is no chance of that, nor do I advocate it. I always try many new distros/versions that come out. For me, nearly all of them technically do what I want them to do, even with Windows and Mac. So, technical abilities are not usually part of the equation.

By: devilhorns

devilhorns — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:58:13 +0000

Greg: AHMEN !!!
Zac: The same could be said of you to become more open and try something else besides debian.

I for one would have to switch to a BSD or a Mac if Ubuntu became the only distro.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:06:11 +0000

Greg: I realize that none of what I wrote is very original, but I thought it was worth bringing up again in light of Allison’s comments. I also think that I wasn’t arguing what Ubuntu *should* do as much as I was observing what it *is* (by chance more than design) doing–building a sufficiently dominant base of users and developers to become the chief representative of the Linux community for those who don’t understand all the intricacies of Linux distributions. My goal was not to bash other distributions–I still use and like Red Hat sometimes–but rather to discuss what Ubuntu’s unprecedented dominance might mean for bringing Linux to mainstream desktops.

By: Wesley

Wesley — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:29:56 +0000

LinuxCanuck: I don’t know I think it is possible to have your cake and eat it too. I think that’s one of the thing Ubuntu has done really well. Yes, it is simple and using it as it comes is a very good OS, my mom uses it, but it also has the capability to be customized or to do with it whatever you please. So, isn’t the possibility there to have that “blan” operating system but have the option to spice it up however you want?

By: LinuxCanuck

LinuxCanuck — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:15:44 +0000

I am an Ubuntu user and if anything would kill Ubuntu for me would be any attempt to go mainstream. For me that means bland.

To be everything to everybody is impossible. To appeal to a wide range of people means to water things down and make decisions that are going to alienate a lot of users. What you gain, you will lose.

On one hand you have Apple with its DRM and proprietary everything and on the opposite side you have Linux which embraces freedom, flexibility, choice and user control. Both extremes give us a good OS. In the middle is mainstream. It is boring, bland and offers little choice.

Most people who advocate this, are thinking about getting a retail presence, more drivers, and pre-installations without thinking of what it actually means.

To appeal to the masses you need to dumb it down and take away choice, so that it is easy for the lowest common denominator. Is this what you mean?

A better option is for Linux to enable desktop users to quickly get on to the internet and to play games which is what most mainstream users want to do and to have Linux embedded in motherboards and devices. I don’t see this as a one distro to rule them all approach, but rather a broad based approach with each distro having a niche and a role to play.

By: Zac

Zac — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:59:40 +0000

There is only one winner when the open source world has hassles within itself, it’s Microsoft. I really like Ubuntu but there will always be others. Everyone contributes something.

Want I want is some standardisation that enables any developer to write applications and have it installable/upgradable/removable/accessable in any linux distro or any version of a linux distro.

Greg: You say you would never use Debian. This is the type of absolutist attitude that halts linux growth. Please become more open.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:29:17 +0000

Why even write something like this? Are you a naive fanboy or simply a flamebaiter. I realize this is an ubuntu blog but there is really no benefit to posting this again. Its been said ad nauseum and never get a good response. You have to keep in mind that there are many of us who would never use deian or any debian based distros and would most likely go back to windows if that were the only choice. To sum up try and write something more productive and helpful to your readers and leave the flamebaiting to 12 year olds.