Why does everyone use Ubuntu?

[Baldur2630]

So, oldcpu thinks that anyone who doesn't instantly get to know all the different things that Novell and SuSE have put into their offering is some kind of cretinous "noob".

I started working with UNIX back in the early 70's sunshine and just because I get p****d off with some of the strange things and strange places that Novell in their infinite wisdom have introduced into SuSE; - like making their "updates" crash the system, having updates that have zillions of dependency problems, window title bars vanishing etc., (and looking at the hundreds of pages of problems in this Forum and the SLES and SLED forums, only God knows what other horrors lurk around the next corner); this does NOT make me some kind of moron, nor does it give you any excuse for insinuations that I don't know what I'm doing.

I've worked with UNIX when it had no graphics, I've worked for a long, long time with Red Hat, Centos and Fedora and I've NEVER had problems OR the number of problems that I'm having with SuSE 11.

It's people like you, who would rather slag others off because there are problems with their pet distros, than offer any good advice, that drive people away from these forums and AWAY from SuSE rather than towards it.

You can't make excuses for the inexcusable and I really don't like your "holier-than-thou" attitude. I've used the Red Hat, Centos and Fedora Forums and I have NEVER been slagged off or called a "newbie" by anyone before, because I've found a problem with something (and I have to say the problems have been few and far between). In fact I had far less problems with Fedora 3 than I have with SuSE 11.

The bottom line is that in future I'll try to find a different place where people are more helpful and less big/pig-headed than here. I suppose you were born with a deep understanding of SuSE Linux and never, ever had to learn where the differences were between it and other mor 'standard' (I use that word reservedly) distros

Thanks for nothing!

[richyf89]

Wow, this thread has spun off into some other directions here.

Peace people

[fallenstar]

The suse community has been soo helpful to me as a newbie, and when I moved to Ubuntu studio for it's realtime kernel (I use my computer for music production), their forums were hopeless. People either didn't reply to plea's for help at all, or were rude.

The drivers weren't as good as suse, crashing my graphics card constantly, and no one wants to help sort it out. Modem problems too, amonst lots of other things. So I'm back with suse and it feels all warm and fuzzy, and I know there are lots of nice friendly people who are more than happy to help when things go a bit tits up.

[kgroneman]

Baldur2630,

> Thanks for nothing!

Wow! Where did this rant come from? I've been reading oldcpu's posts ever
since we opened these forums and I must admit I've never found him with a
holier-than-thou attitude, condescending, or driving people away from here.
On the contrary, in my opinion, he's one of the most level headed, polite,
and helpful people in these forums. Yea, like all of us, once in a while
we get annoyed with people that push our buttons, but from what I read,
your criticism of him is confusing to me.

> The bottom line is that in future I'll try to find a different place
> where people are more helpful and less big/pig-headed than here

I'm sorry you perceive our forums as a bad place with unhelpful staff but I
have to say, the feedback I've been receiving is 98% in disagreement with
you.

[dragonbite]

Originally Posted by kgroneman

Baldur2630,

> Thanks for nothing!

Wow! Where did this rant come from? I've been reading oldcpu's posts ever
since we opened these forums and I must admit I've never found him with a
holier-than-thou attitude, condescending, or driving people away from here.

+ 1 (in OldCPU's side)

OldCPU has been helpful in many threads, Balder2630 on the other hand has 5 posts! If he thinks that the error messages don't mean anything since he's been using since the 70s then this "holier-than-thou" attitude is directed in the wrong direction!

And as for all this "CentOS/RHEL/Fedora forums are great", I beg to differ. I've run across posts in the CentOS forum where somebody asked a legitimate question and was jumped on by TWO other posters who never did answer his question.

[oldcpu]

Baldur, read your post again. Then read mine. Read the adjectives in yours. Then read mine.

May I recommend everyone else do the same. ... then draw their own conclusions as to the attitudes of those involved.

[Sagemta]

Still another post in defense of Oldcpu: He is one of the greatest assets this forum has. He has helped me both directly & indirectly many times not once being insulting or condescending. He even has stated that he was glad to see I got something working,whether I used his advice(most times) or not(very few times). This is something that doesn't happen too often in other forums. You rock Oldcpu I hope that you keep on advising us penguins of all sizes for a long time.
Baldur,
All I have to say for you regards your experience with the RHEL forums is LUCKY YOU! When I went there I was told "that its people like you(meaning me) that are dumbing down Linux get your butt out of here and go back to windows where you belong!"

[conram]

Originally Posted by kgroneman

Baldur2630,

> Thanks for nothing!

Wow! Where did this rant come from? I've been reading oldcpu's posts ever
since we opened these forums and I must admit I've never found him with a
holier-than-thou attitude, condescending, or driving people away from here.
On the contrary, in my opinion, he's one of the most level headed, polite,
and helpful people in these forums. Yea, like all of us, once in a while
we get annoyed with people that push our buttons, but from what I read,
your criticism of him is confusing to me.

> The bottom line is that in future I'll try to find a different place
> where people are more helpful and less big/pig-headed than here

I'm sorry you perceive our forums as a bad place with unhelpful staff but I
have to say, the feedback I've been receiving is 98% in disagreement with
you.

The rant came from here:
openSUSE Forums - View Single Post - Why does everyone use Ubuntu?
Maybe it is good to abide or mentioning the word noob even to the real noobs
because sometime it sparks the fire from the ego of some. Just my two cents.
oldcpu had been always a good member of this community and the two others before the merger.

[JopSway]

Originally Posted by Baldur2630

with some of the strange things and strange places that Novell in their infinite wisdom have introduced into SuSE; - like making their "updates" crash the system

Heh, I don't know what update(s) are you talking about, maybe some update I missed, which is possible but if you listen very hard you can still hear the echo in cyberspace of that infamous Ubuntu update that crashed X not that long ago... oh, wait! Fedora did just that too!... oh, wait! and Windows with the SP3 update too!

As for the rest of your problems, did you ask in these forums for help so you can get a better idea of how helpful people are here? Ah, no, sorry, my mistake, no-noobs ask no questions.

I'm not going to defend oldcpu explicitly since I don't think there's a need to, his mileage talks for itself. (Uhm, I think I just did it.)

[foxmg]

I'm a Mac user who has been experimenting with Linux over the past year, but I actually started with Linux about 10 years ago with the purchase of a boxed version of SuSE 6.5. I installed it, played with it for a few weeks and then removed it and forgot about Linux for years - not user friendly enough at the time and no compelling programs that would entice me to switch.

I came back to Linux a year ago as a result of frustration with the limited Apple hardware options. I use both Ubuntu (8.04.1) and openSUSE (11.0), but on different platforms because of different things each does well on a particular platform. When I decided to try Linux again, I started out with Ubuntu (recommendation from a Mac forum), but I also tried openSUSE 10.1-10.3 because I had used SuSE before. Both were installed on virtual disks running on my Intel Macs. I abandoned 10.x quickly because I couldn't get the virtual tools packages installed on it and also, I didn't care for the menu system (KDE at the time). In addition, I was having difficulties getting repositories to load. openSUSE 11 seems to have fixed the repository difficulties, improved the menu structure (in Gnome) and the appearance is much nicer than previous versions. Also the virtual tools packages have much improved in VMware Fusion and VirtualBox, and they install easily now with openSUSE.

Virtual disks are a good for checking out features, but where I really use Linux now is on my PowerBook G4 (aluminum) and a non-Mac netbook I recently bought (MSI Wind). openSUSE 11 and Debian Lenny are my distros of choice for the PowerBook because both provide excellent support for the PowerPC platform and the program Mac-on-Linux (MOL) works on these (a virtual program giving access to the Mac OS, similar to QEMU or VirtualBox on a PC). Ubuntu no longer provides official support for the PowerPC platform, and it shows with the lack of support for MOL and small video glitches you don't have on the other distros. But for the Intel platform, current versions of Ubuntu and openSUSE are excellent distros. Here are what I think are their strengths and weakness, based on my experience.

Ubuntu 8.04.1
Strengths

• easy to install and use
• senses when something you need is missing and offers to get it for you (in particular, wireless firmware extractor and non-free codecs)
• great repositories; I have almost never had to compile an application for Ubuntu
• synaptic/apt system is very intuitive and easy to learn, even from the command line
• very active forums; easy to get questions answered (except for PowerPC platform where there aren't many knowledgeable people available)
• because of its popularity, virtually all open source developers make binary versions of Ubuntu software
• derived from Debian, which I think explains some of the strengths I listed above
• publicly available version for netbooks (Ubuntu Netbook Remix); not yet tweaked for the processor, but the windowing system is a real innovation for small displays!

Weaknesses

• default themes and backdrop not very aesthetically pleasing (although they can easily be replaced)
• installs more programs by default than any other distro I've tried, requiring more HD space. (Removal of unwanted programs can be difficult due to dependency problems for apps you want to keep.)
• minor video glitches I haven't experienced with other distros

openSUSE 11
Strengths

• nicest looking installer I've ever seen in a distro; works well for the most part
• default desktop is beautiful; everything about it. This community must have the equivalent of a Jonathon Ives working for it!
• beauty extends to customized splash screens (e.g., openOffice) and on my PowerBook, the background changes colour with the time of day (another wow-factor!)
• default application suite more logical and more streamlined than that of Ubuntu. (Exception Banshee is inferior to Rhythmbox in my opinion.) Uses less HD space.
• one-click is a nice option
• good support for the PowerPC platform. openSUSE 11 was the first relatively new distribution that patched Mac-on-Linux to work with a new kernel.
• good wireless support (though not as effortless as Ubuntu)

Weaknesses

• loading of repositories is often very slow
• problems installing non-default options from the DVD (e.g., KDE along with Gnome)
• repositories less well supplied than those of Ubuntu, requiring more compiling to get some programs readily available as binaries for Ubuntu. (Note that most of my experience with this applies to the PowerPC platform and I have seen examples of openSUSE programs available for x86 but not PPC.)
• no publicly available netbook version of openSUSE

I am looking forward to the final release of openSUSE 11.1. I also hope that openSUSE releases a netbook version; I would certainly give it a try if they do.