Why does everyone use Ubuntu?

[jengelh]

Originally Posted by mhh91

i like it here,but over there it's more crowded,people get answers a lot faster

And a lot more uneducated nonsense inbetween.

[khelben1979]

I don't and I have no plans in installing it either for myself. I'm not sure about Open Suse. The last time I tried to install it I failed. Installing Ubuntu (not for myself) was possible on the hardware that I was on at the time (ASUS laptop AMD X2).

The Ubuntu community is excellent though and I have been inside there as well as of november 2007. Trying to help out as much as possible.

[67GTA]

I have used both several times. The reasons I've stayed with Ubuntu so far are:

Ability to keep downloaded packages for other machines. (Non issue since 11.0 with zypper cache and gui option in 11.2)

Easier to set up restricted multimedia. With Opensuse I had to track down everything I needed one at a time, and also reinstall apps like amarok and kaffeine from another repo because they are intentionally crippled by Novell. I understand the "open" part, but do they have to go that far? Does any one else cripple their packages like this? Ubuntu has a package called "ubuntu-restricted-multimedia" that pulls in everything you will probably ever need, and your done!

Ubuntu includes firmware that Opensuse doesn't like firmware for my hauppauge 1600. The cx18 module is supplied by hauppauge for the kernel by default in every distro, but needs restricted firmware to work. With Opensuse I have to download 300MB package to strip out 3 firmware files.

Easy upgrade path from one release to the next. When 9.10 goes final the update manager will tell me it is available and upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 without user interaction.(This is being talked about for opensuse 11.2)

Apt used to be a plus for Ubuntu, but zypper has at the very least caught up, if not slightly surpassed it. This is no longer an issue. The availability of popular apps is no longer an issue since OBS hit the streets.

Reasons I want to use Opensuse:

Aside from the restricted media/firmware and upgrading issues, I think Opensuse is superior in every other category.

Bugs get fixed, if there are any. The devs don't wait for fixes to float downstream.

Opensuse/Novell developers just kick ass. They seem to be smarter/more advanced. I see actual code where Ubuntu/Debian just has the default system text files.

The Suse installer is second to none. I can buy the DVD version, and almost have my system tailored to my liking (except for the multimedia parts) right after installing.

I have always been a KDE fan. KDE doesn't get any better than here. I ran away to Gnome when KDE 4 first came out. I think KDE 4.3 will finally cause me to overlook the multimedia mess and come back to Opensuse.

I see alot of people say we all need to get along, but not every distro is created equal. I think if Opensuse had a few more of the small "creature comforts", they could be #1.

[microchip8]

Originally Posted by 67GTA

Easier to set up restricted multimedia. With Opensuse I had to track down everything I needed one at a time, and also reinstall apps like amarok and kaffeine from another repo because they are intentionally crippled by Novell. I understand the "open" part, but do they have to go that far? Does any one else cripple their packages like this? Ubuntu has a package called "ubuntu-restricted-multimedia" that pulls in everything you will probably ever need, and your done!

This is done to avoid any legal issues. It may seem good at first sight that Ubuntu provides by default multimedia apps which are licenses/patented, but Canonical is walking on a very thin ice. Also, Novell, being an US company, is very much aware of the mess it can get if it was to provide such things. The UK, where HQ of Canonical is, is a different story. Luckily, we have packman where you can get all the stuff you may want. It's just a matter of adding the repo and searching for the bits you want

[RedDwarf]

Originally Posted by 67GTA

Easier to set up restricted multimedia. With Opensuse I had to track down everything I needed one at a time, and also reinstall apps like amarok and kaffeine from another repo because they are intentionally crippled by Novell.

Amarok only lacks MP4 container support. And Kaffeine isn't crippled at all.

Originally Posted by 67GTA

I understand the "open" part, but do they have to go that far?

If someone has a patent you can't legally distribute it without a (costly) license from the patent holder. Isn't an option, Novell must do it.

Originally Posted by 67GTA

Does any one else cripple their packages like this?

Fedora does (has RPMFusion), Mandriva also (has the Penguin Liberation Front)... every free important distro with a company behind with enough money (what patent trolls want) does. All of them but the one that behind has a company registered in a fiscal paradise (Ubuntu).

Originally Posted by 67GTA

Ubuntu has a package called "ubuntu-restricted-multimedia" that pulls in everything you will probably ever need, and your done!

Since they aren't worried about patent laws I don't know why the multimedia support isn't installed by default, without the need of any "ubuntu-restricted-multimedia" package.

Originally Posted by 67GTA

Ubuntu includes firmware that Opensuse doesn't like firmware for my hauppauge 1600. The cx18 module is supplied by hauppauge for the kernel by default in every distro, but needs restricted firmware to work. With Opensuse I have to download 300MB package to strip out 3 firmware files.

You can't distribute software from others without its permission. Can you say me the name of the Ubuntu package that contains the firmware so I can see the license?
What happens is one of these:
- The firmware can't be redistributed and Ubuntu is violating the copyright of the author.
- Ubuntu obtained permission to distribute the firmware, but only for them and others can't redistribute it.
- The firmware is freely redistributable. Then openSUSE doesn't has it only because none of the openSUSE users that owns a hauppauge 1600, and so know about the problem, took five minutes from their lives to open a bug report in openSUSE bugzilla.

Originally Posted by microchip8

This is done to avoid any legal issues. It may seem good at first sight that Ubuntu provides by default multimedia apps which are licenses/patented, but Canonical is walking on a very thin ice. Also, Novell, being an US company, is very much aware of the mess it can get if it was to provide such things. The UK, where HQ of Canonical is, is a different story.

Isle of Man, where Canonical Ltd. is registered, is even a more different story. Clever guy this Shuttleworth...
Still, I would not want to be a US mirror hosting Ubuntu repositories...



Anyway, note that I have been doing black magic to be able to have a lot of multimedia related packages in the OBS. In home:RedDwarf:multimedia and home:RedDwarf:multimedia:* I have Amarok with MP4 support, K3B with full multimedia, sox, opencv, aegisub, audacity, funguloids, scummvm... If you know of a package **that uses a library** to have multimedia support then it can be packaged there. Note that if the multimeda comes from the software itself (ffmpeg, VLC, mplayer, xine, gstreamer...) can't be hosted in the OBS at all.

[67GTA]

The last version of Opensuse I fully tried was 11.0. Amarok and kaffeine wouldn't play any restricted media even with the codecs installed. I had to install the packman versions of them to get them to play MP3, WMV, etc. That what I meant by "crippling" and "have to go that far". The vanilla versions of amarok and kaffeine don't exhibit that behavior. I never understood why that was done. I understand the open stance, but isn't just shipping Opensuse without the patented/restricted codecs not enough without crippling the multimedia apps? Do they just compile them without the restricted codec support enabled? Would shipping multimedia apps that can play MP3/WMV without the codecs be infringing? I checked on the firmware and now know why Opensuse doesn't have it by default. The Ubuntu devs take the three firmware files out of the windows .exe package that hauppauge distributes and renames them to work with V4L. This was actually done by the Mythbuntu team, and was sucked into Ubuntu by default. I guess my only complaint left is multimedia, but as I stated earlier, I can live with that

[TaraIkeda]

Originally Posted by microchip8

This is done to avoid any legal issues. It may seem good at first sight that Ubuntu provides by default multimedia apps which are licenses/patented, but Canonical is walking on a very thin ice.

Not so, they actually made deals with some companies like adobe to put stuff like flash close at hand but not preinstalled to avoid patent ****.
The "Partner" repository allows Ubuntu to dance around the legal BS.
I know at least Adobe gives almost full support to Ubuntu and despite the bugs people have with flash its getting better thanks to the partnership.

But technically you have something simular to Ubuntu restricted extras on OpenSuse, it just doesnt have as many codecs.

[microchip8]

Originally Posted by TaraIkeda

Not so, they actually made deals with some companies like adobe to put stuff like flash close at hand but not preinstalled to avoid patent ****.
The "Partner" repository allows Ubuntu to dance around the legal BS.
I know at least Adobe gives almost full support to Ubuntu and despite the bugs people have with flash its getting better thanks to the partnership.

I was not aware of that but still, do they pay the MPEG LA for royalties for offering an encoder which produces H.264 video? Do they pay the Fraunhoffer institute for royalties for offering MP3 support? I don't think so...

But technically you have something simular to Ubuntu restricted extras on OpenSuse, it just doesnt have as many codecs.

what do you mean by "it just doesn't have as many codecs"? You do realize that the same "codecs" are offered by openSUSE and others distros, and those being mplayer/mencoder/ffmpeg which offer libavcodec (besides being encoders) which provides *all* the decoders and encoders (if not taking x264 into account which is a separate encoder for H.264 video) and libavcodecs in the Linux world is *the* most important library used by many front-ends like Xine, Kaffeine, MPlayer, MEncoder, FFmpeg, Transcode, etc. Also all distros offer xvid and x264 with its separate libraries, LAME, FAAC/FAAD2, libdca (for DTS audio), Aften (for AC3 audio), etc. Your claim is absolutely not true. Go to packman and see how many "codecs" they offer and come back and tell me again that Ubuntu offers more "codecs". Which ones? The Linux world of codecs is basically built around two very important libraries and those are libavcodecs from ffmpeg/mplayer and gstreamer, both available on all Linux distros

I think you're very biased in claiming that Ubuntu somehow has more codecs (No wonder as you're an Ubuntu lover and thus is superior) while having no clue as to what codecs the Linux world offers

[caf4926]

The Linux world of codecs is basically built around two very important libraries and those are libavcodecs from ffmpeg/mplayer and gstreamer, both available on all Linux distros

Absolutely correct. Well said!

[RedDwarf]

Originally Posted by 67GTA

The last version of Opensuse I fully tried was 11.0. Amarok and kaffeine wouldn't play any restricted media even with the codecs installed. I had to install the packman versions of them to get them to play MP3, WMV, etc. That what I meant by "crippling" and "have to go that far".

I have always installed the Packman version of Amarok because of the MP4 support, but I have also always used the original openSUSE version of Kaffeine... and Kaffeine, once Packman's Xine was installed, has always played anything supported by Xine. Now, in openSUSE 11.1, that still applies.
I don't know why you couldn't, but that would be a configuration problem. openSUSE has never crippled Kaffeine and only removed MP4 support from Amarok.

Originally Posted by microchip8

I was not aware of that

And without a good source I would not trust that so much. Ubuntu probably has a license for redistribution, as openSUSE probably does (since the default license* doesn't allows to put it in public repositories). But that has nothing to do with patents.

* Adobe - Player Licensing