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I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux community. Canonical is doing great job of putting, fairly reliable system on massive

by 8draco8 10y ago

I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux community. Canonical is doing great job of putting, fairly reliable system on massive number of devices, something that other distributions can just dream about. In my opinion, currently, Ubuntu is the best general purpose Linux distribution for new and semi advance users.

digi_owl 10y ago
CLAs and a history of going their own way i suspect. Then again the "majority" way is largely dictated by a few big projects in and around Fedora, with developers largely on Red Hat payroll. And the shit slinging didn't really take off until they up and created Unity after a spat with Gnome over the latters future course (afaik). Closely followed with Canonical starting Mir after misrepresenting/misunderstanding where Wayland was going. So who really knows whats going on...
- funnyfacts365 10y ago
  And you know what, Unity is great.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    I like it too. And the funny thing is all beginers I gave unity to liked it better than gnome. Only power users complain about it, which is lame given they are precisely the ones able to install another desktop whenever they want.
  - vetinari 10y ago
    Unity from a user's point of view is great. Too bad it requires patched upstream libraries, so it does not run on other distributions.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Do wonder why those patches are not accepted upstream...
  - tracker1 10y ago
    I'm pretty happy with it as well... although I swear several times a year I have to fiddle with stuff after updates. Even now, my ~/.cache/upstart/unity.7.log file fills up the disk every few days, and I can't catch what's doing it before it happens... so I just rm -rf ~/.cache every now and then. Since I'm unable to tail it, and don't have a thumb drive to fit a 90GB log file. And it seems to happen if it's in sleep (not off) and I turn off the tv/avr. I'm actually considering switching my HTPC back to Windows, or trying Debian proper. I don't spend much time in unity there, mostly Kodi, and sometimes Chrome, but the DE matters little to me. I run Windows, mac, and linux (ubuntu unity) regularly. Sorry for veering off into a rant... All around I actually do like Unity though.
    - funnyfacts365 10y ago
      I had the same problem with some Kodi addons being the culprits. Updated python-openssl and python-cryptography to the packages from the debian repo, disabled some theme/addon helper that was running in the addons settings and the unity7.log stopped filling my disk. Let me see if I find the link to the bug on Launchpad. Edit: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/447828 https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/447828 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1636573 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1636573
  - Grue3 10y ago
    I find it completely unusable. The first thing I do after installing Ubuntu is installing XFCE or Cinnamon. Just the fact that you had to sacrifice a newborn to start two instances of the same application, an extremely common user action (I don't know if it's still the case now) shows that whoever designed it is incompetent.
- sjellis 10y ago
  > So who really knows whats going on... Pretty much all of the conversations and disputes have happened on the Internet, so if you are interested you can read the mailing lists, Google+, blog posts etc. in each case. There's no reason why anyone should unless they are interested, but everybody really is free to do so, and then draw their own conclusions.
mmjaa 10y ago
I agree with you. I've been using Linux since the day Linus announced it on minix-list, and for the last 12 years Ubuntu has been my daily-driver system .. and it is amazing. I'm a musician, so when people see that I'm using Ubuntu Studio for my DAW, I usually hear a few chuckles .. until I fire up Ardour, show them my plugin list, the standard suite of synths and effects I use, and so on .. that usually shuts them up at least. But what gets them really curious is when I show them how easy it is to break out the source code for any of these powerful tools, make modifications, re-install and maintain my system with very, very powerful techniques. There simply isn't any operating system as conducive to creative tinkering and progressive enhancement of key software as Ubuntu Studio. Its way, way ahead of the pack in this regard, and I think anyone who scoffs at the idea needs to be taught the lesson that Ubuntu - and of course, Linux and the ecosystem it promotes - is really worth the effort to know, learn and understand.
- tehwalrus 10y ago
  Do you have a link to a blog post about your setup? If not, would you consider writing about it?
  - pawadu 10y ago
    I am also interested in this! It would also be great to see some audio latency numbers for ubuntu vs the rest on common hardware
    - Cephlin 10y ago
      I also would like to know your setup! I'd be very interested! I was looking into whether I should purchase Windows or buy a Mac to run a DAW, but if you're saying that Ardour is good enough, then I can just install that this weekend!
      - mmjaa 10y ago
        Just do it! BUT! Commit to using JACK for everything, and get rid of PulseAudio.
bryanlarsen 10y ago
I think it's Ubuntu the corporation that gets criticized more than Ubuntu the OS. They get compared to Red Hat, which from a hacker or open source point of view virtually always takes the high road and does the 'right thing'. They open source everything, they track down licenses, they sponsor the community, they insist on the purity of their own products, they're seen as being very co-operative when joining a project, et cetera. It's a high bar and Ubuntu doesn't quite reach it. They're angels compared to pretty much any corporation but Red Hat, but it's Red Hat we compare them to.
- marcoms 10y ago
  *Canonical
- digi_owl 10y ago
  I'm not sure if RH should really be considered an angel as such. It is just they are the grand old man of the Linux world and a massive employer of project developers.
- sametmax 10y ago
  The linux community is giving more shit to canonical than the Mac community is giving to Apple. Worst things that does Apple ? Delegating slavery, blatant monopoly, consumer lock up, patent trolling, killing small businesses for their profits, etc. Worst things that does Canonical ? Doing some technical mistake, making controversial design choices, spending less resources than some people would like to help FOSS in specific ways. Yeah, they totally deserve the shit storm.
  - nickik 10y ago
    Different values. That comparison is pointless.
    - sametmax 10y ago
      It's not. The point is, the FOSS community value fairness a lot, but they are not fair at all with their champions.
Frogolocalypse 10y ago
I love ubuntu, but I always view an upgrade with extreme trepidation. v14 broke vmware, and it took so long to find a solution, that I removed it, and simply ran ubuntu from within a vm. I'd love to try it again, I really would, as my host OS. But I just can't bring myself to do it again... yet.
- pawadu 10y ago
  From my experience, vmware is what breaks vmware under linux.
  - wila 10y ago
    Works fine with 16.04.2 LTS so far though.
    - Frogolocalypse 10y ago
      What about host shares in the guest OS? That stopped working at 14, and I haven't seen it work since.
      - wila 10y ago
        Host shares should work, but might not be if you use the open-vm-tools. At least in ubuntu 14 it got broken and while upstream fixed it, Ubuntu did not care to fix it in their repo.
  - Frogolocalypse 10y ago
    So upgrading your OS breaks your applications? Kind of my point.
    - pawadu 10y ago
      Yes, if you application was coded to only work with a specific version of the kernel.
pjmlp 10y ago
Fully agree with you. My first UNIX was Xenix and I got introduced to GNU/Linux with Slackware 2.0. Ubuntu is the only reason I still have a netbook with GNU/Linux. All other my computers at home run Windows nowadays. At the office our computers are a mix of Windows and Mac OS X, GNU/Linux installations only exist as VM instances.
AsyncAwait 10y ago
> I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux community. That's a complex topic, but over the years, a couple of reasons come to mind; Outdated packages and broken PPAs giving a bad impression to new users, slow and bloated in many respects, aggressive community behavior, CLAs, passive-aggressive blog posts and stances by the project leads towards alternative distros like Mint or any criticism whatsoever, Mir when everyone standardizes on Wayland, Unity is very hard to get working properly on non-Ubuntu distros, aggressive push for Snaps, reluctant to adopt systemd, not really part of the community, unless they want to push their own tech, (a bit like Apple), lack of kernel contributions compared to ie RedHat, distancing from the term Linux, using only Ubuntu as much as possible.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  ...reluctant to adopt systemd... Ubuntu weren't alone in that.
  - AsyncAwait 10y ago
    No and I did not say they were, just that it was one of the things that some people took issue with. There are others I didn't mention, like the opt-out Amazon Lens integration some time back for example, the point is that they have done some questionable things over the years that left the wider community with a sour taste towards Canonical.
    - sangnoir 10y ago
      > No and I did not say they were, just that it was one of the things that some people took issue with Who were those people taking issue with the lack of eagerness on adopting systemd and were they in Raleigh?[1] Systemd is a rather radical shift from the "*nix philosophy". I don't have patience for RH "UX contributions don't count" saltiness when they intentionally abandoned desktop Linux in favor of chasing the enterprise market (successfully!). No, I'm not bitter about RHEL[2] at all. 1. Tongue firmly in cheek 2. I do know Fedora exists, I read the very 1st announcement. It's not the same
oelmekki 10y ago
There are many factors, IMO (probably all wrong). First, ubuntu was initially seen as "noob's linux", debian users especially not taking the fork well, nor the fact that the numbers of linux users was raising in some kind of OS version of eternal september. Then there was the fact that ubuntu was OK to mix up proprietary code in their repos, like proprietary drivers. It was (it is) a big fight for debian to sacrifice ease of use to enforce non-proprietary software. Third, there was the massive success of ubuntu, making all other distros the challengers. This always tends to attract criticism. And finally, there was the perception of canonical pushing their agenda on their users, leaving them no choice, like when ubuntu migrated to unity or with the whole amazon lens debate. The mix of all of this makes this linux distro having the easiest setup and the more compatibility/support being looked at with disdain, which is a shame, really.
- sametmax 10y ago
  Yeah but that's the game isn't it ? Free open source licence means authors gave them permissions to do it. Complaining about something you authorized to do is not fair play. And it's not like they became apple or microsoft. Their mistakes are minor at worst compared to other competitors. What they brought to linux, however, is huge.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Because there is a loudmouth sub-set of the community that think a single look and feel of the DE would bring about "the year of the desktop". This while they keep CADTing the APIs and ABIs, thus making third parties weary of developing for said desktop.
- sbuk 10y ago
  >>"debian users especially not taking the fork well" This never sets well with me, especially when OSS groups are involved. Is it not fundamentally the whole point of the software freedom movement?
stymaar 10y ago
I agree with you that Ubuntu had a really positive impact on Linux adoption by providing a polished operating system. That being said I think they somewhat deserve the bad opinion the Linux community has about them: Canonical decided to play solo on several critical subject instead of cooperating with others, in particular I'm thinking about upstart (a competitor for systemd) and Mir a competitor of wayland). Their marketing is also pain point, because they brand everything as Ubuntu and don't refer to Linux at all in many of their statements (for instance, you cannot find a single occurance of the word «Linux» on their landing page[1]). [1] https://www.ubuntu.com/ https://www.ubuntu.com/
- Longhanks 10y ago
  I know what you're trying to say, but to the average user (which Ubuntu probably targets), does it matter? If you look at the whole product, there's much more to it than Linux. Linux is 'just' the kernel, I doubt the average Joe cares what kernel his device runs. Most probably don't know that their Android phone is powered by Linux, too. Also, this leads to the old "GNU/Linux" discussion. Where would Canonical stop acknowledging important parts of the OS? Ubuntu GNU/Linux/systemd/libinput/Mesa/Qt... I'd also love to see Canonical mention that Ubuntu uses Linux, but I understand that for their product and their target group, it doesn't really matter (and it may seem more important to push forward the brand "Ubuntu").
  - abdulmuhaimin 10y ago
    thats why its hated by the "Linux community". Casual Linux user like you mentioned(me included) doesnt care much about these behind the scene stuff.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Mops will be mops...
  - stymaar 10y ago
    > I know what you're trying to say, but to the average user (which Ubuntu probably targets), does it matter? I'm not trying to make a point here, I just wanted to give some context to someone asking a question. I'm not an Ubuntu user, but I'm not an Ubuntu hater either: the distribution I use (Linux Mint) wouldn't even work without Ubuntu.
johnfn 10y ago
Amazing how it works, isn't it? no Linux distribution is popular All Linux users: "everyone should be on Linux! Linux is amazing! Yay Linux!" ubuntu becomes very popular All Linux users: "everyone should be on Linux! Ehhh... but maybe not that Linux..."
- simosx 10y ago
  This would be really funny if it was not that depressing.. :'(
- sametmax 10y ago
  So true. The linux community is full of idealists that are unable to compromise. They would anyway not be able to live up to their own standards if they had to both ship software that new comers use and respect their ideals.
  - drdaeman 10y ago
    Wasn't Free Software Movement and GNU Project (which are the foundation for this whole GNU/Linux distros thing) born because of a certain idealist who was unable to compromise?
    - Qub3d 10y ago
      Ahh, RMS. I listened to a recording of one of his recent talks (the Grand Rapids one, IIRC). I regard Stallman the way Randall Munroe regards Ayn Rand: "I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'"
    - sametmax 10y ago
      You got a point :) But none of GNU is what I would call user friendly or mass-market ready. As a professional, I love it. But without canonical and his compromises, my mother wouldn't be able to use it today. I'm glad I have a solid base, but creating something less radical on top of it will not destroy it.
  - 10y ago
sjellis 10y ago
I think that the most charitable answer is that Ubuntu changed it's basic premise, and some people don't like the newer approach. Back when Ubuntu started, it was explicitly a variation of Debian with a GNOME desktop, plus some custom parts to make a "Linux for Human Beings", such as an easy-to-use installation process. Mark Shuttleworth had been a Debian developer, Canonical hired it's technical people from Debian contributors, and everybody was sensitive to the need for Ubuntu to work with the upstream projects (and vice versa). Linux is a complicated system of components, and desktops are far more complex than servers, so it's essential for developers with different employers to cooperate to get things done. Important decisions require developers from multiple organizations to reach a consensus. It can be a slow and frustrating process, and it's easy for awkward people to cause a lot of hassle for everyone else. In practice, Canonical always struggled to work well with others, and eventually they switched to developing their own convergence stack (to span desktops, smart TVs and mobile) that happens to use Linux components but shares increasing less common ground with the rest of the community: using their own graphics systems, desktop environment, and their own software packaging systems. In other words, Ubuntu has been morphing from community-friendly Debian variant to an Android-style single-vendor system. Google can do this with Android and not take the same level of flak because Android has always been a commercial product that happens to have FOSS components, and they seem to cooperate reasonably well with the rest of the community in areas of shared interest. (All IMO).
- moo 10y ago
  I've stopped letting these people lead me by the nose. For the community support and staying compatible I'm currently sticking with an Ubuntu upgrade path, but I've long left the default user interfaces behind. For a window manager I use openbox with tint2. I don't find much utility in the Debian/Ubuntu derived distros like Linux Mint, jumping from being based on Ubuntu,to Debian, then back to Ubuntu and breaking compatibility along the way.
- zeptomu 10y ago
  I think that building a good UI for the desktop is only possible if UI developers agree on "look-and-feel" and that may be simpler for Canonical than for a community like Debian and they came to the conclusion that building their own is just the way to go. AFAIK their home-grown desktop is FOSS, so it's not like you are buying into a proprietary system and this is tremendous. When I started with Linux I used a distribution like Mandrake with a KDE Desktop and by default you got several text editors, browsers and other tools (the drop-down menu was huge) and for me as a starter (I did not know any programming then and just wanted to play with a different OS coming from a Microsoft stack) I was overwhelmed and although I could appreciate the customization it was hard to get started as there were too many options. Ubuntu changed that and they really thought a lot about how to improve the Linux Desktop experience and IMHO they did very, very well. E.g. I use Ubuntu as you can find lots of documentation, it is supported well in cloud infrastructure and they (re)distribute a lot of packages. In particular I do not get critics about the Desktop Environment. In no way made Ubuntu your Desktop less customizable and I use e.g. xmonad as my WM which is totally straight-forward and it just works. My mom uses the default Desktop and is pretty happy with it. That may be controversial, but I think there are often just 2 points of users; those that want it to just-work without any configuration and those who want to customize everything. I think Ubuntu is doing pretty well (currently, I hope that never changes) in both camps.
VeejayRampay 10y ago
Isn't it just a very common and boring case of "Ubuntu has gotten too mainstream"? People like to be niche.
- sametmax 10y ago
  Kinda. Dev are hipsters that lack of fashion sense after all.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    And sense of humour apparently. I'm a dev guys.
giancarlostoro 10y ago
Ubuntu is a distro I always know will just work for the most part on my system, I usually go for Kubuntu, though I may try Ubuntu Budgie once it's officially released alongside the other official flavors. The only other distro I have tried that I've enjoyed anywhere near Ubuntu was openSUSE, but I couldn't get my D compiler to cooperate for whatever reason.
paulddraper 10y ago
> I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux community 12.04: System V 14.04: Upstart 16.04: System D 18.04: ??? Gahh...stick with something. I'm tired of learning an entirely new init system every couple years. To be fair, this is a problem with Linux stuff in general; I just wish Ubuntu could lead the pack in picking something and sticking to it.
- binarymax 10y ago
  Yes this!!!! I develop lots of side projects that I always host in Ubuntu. They are web projects that require knowledge of configuring, stopping, and starting services on the box with ease. I am fully comfortable with upstart - but to learn systemD adds a huge amount of overhead to someone like me with little time who just wants to enjoy coding and shipping fun projects. I don't want to be a fulltime sysadmin just so I can launch a demo or game that nobody will ever use!
  - slitaz 10y ago
    Actually the move to systemd is quite easy. There are cheatsheets available.
- problems 10y ago
  > Gahh...stick with something. I'm tired of learning an entirely new init system every couple years. I had this problem too - I gave up and moved to runit. It's basically an improved version of DJB's daemontools, you write very simple scripts, it monitors their output, handles logging, and service management and that's it. Very minimalist, but quite capable. And, quite importantly, it's capable of running on top of another init system, it doesn't need to be PID 1, so I'm able to run it on FreeBSD with rc, Linux with sysvinit and Linux with systemd with the same script. It makes it so easy to write service scripts I went from running my personal stuff inside a tmux script to runit in about an hour.
- simosx 10y ago
  Here is the corrected table: 4.10: System V (in 2004), first release, adopted from Debian 6.10: Upstart (in 2006), see http://upstart.ubuntu.com/index.html http://upstart.ubuntu.com/index.html 16.04: systemd (in 2016) and it was gradual. This is part of the natural evolution of software. There are new requirements and new software is needed to implement them.
ergo14 10y ago
My main problem is that ubuntu is not as reliable as it was few years before as a desktop distribution. I still use it but it has bugs, I would so love for them to just stick to gnome and focus efforts on that :(
falcolas 10y ago
In my opinion, this falls under the old adage of "There are two kind of [Linux distros]: the ones everyone complains about, and the ones that nobody uses." As someone who likes his free time for doing things other than fiddling with configuration files, Ubuntu is quite nice. It's not perfect, it's strayed from its original vision; but it's still my Linux desktop distro of choice.
rocky1138 10y ago
I totally agree. I recommend KDE Neon for newbies (up-to-date KDE on top of stable Ubuntu core) or Xubuntu if their computer is older.
laumars 10y ago
> Canonical is doing great job of putting, fairly reliable system on massive number of devices, something that other distributions can just dream about [edit] I'm getting lots of downvotes from people talking about off-the-shelf laptops and other generic x86-based projects. Lets be clear that the following post is in the context of other CPU architectures and other platforms a little more exotic than your typical PC or laptop. [original post] I'm not here to bash Ubuntu as I couldn't care less what platform people choose to run - even if that's Windows - just so long as I can run whatever I choose to run. However with that said, I still have to disagree with your statement above (re other distros only dream of supporting a massive number of devices). Ubuntu supports less hardware than their originating platform, Debian. Less than Suse, Redhat, and derivatives. Even Slackware and Arch support a considerable number of alternative architectures through 3rd party ports. And stepping away from GNU/Linux for a moment, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD all too official support more platforms than Ubuntu. Support for multiple devices and architectures isn't something unique to Ubuntu - it's pretty typical in the FOSS community. In fact back in the 90s and early 00s there used to be a running joke about people installing Linux on a whole plethora of odd devices just for kicks; talking kettles, toasters, stuffed animals(!!!), all sorts of things (baring in mind this was before the IoT revolution).
- Thaxll 10y ago
  It's bs, it supports more hardware since the kernel is more recent, good luck running Debian / *BSD like on modern laptops.
  - laumars 10y ago
    > it supports more hardware since the kernel is more recent Kernel ABIs are pretty static so drivers can be backported for earlier kernels more easily than recompiling the entirety of Ubuntu Server for an unsupported CPU architecture - such as SPARC. That's what I meant when I said Debian supports more architectures. However going back to your previous point about the age of Debian, you don't have to run the default repositories. If you run "testing" or "sid" then you can be just as up-to-date as Ubuntu or even more bleeding edge. In fact it wasn't that many years ago when Ubuntu was effectively just a reskinned Debian + testing repositories (I'm talking pre Unity, upstart, etc). But at the end of the day, it's all FOSS so anything Ubuntu runs can also be run on Debian, Arch, etc. It's just Debian already ships compiled binaries for more alternative CPU architectures can Canonical do with Ubuntu. Which is why I said supporting different platforms isn't anything new to Linux nor unique to Ubuntu. > good luck Debian / BSD like on modern laptops.* I have done. They worked fine. In fact FreeBSD was my primary OS for a period of time and Debian has always been my primary "debian-like" platform for all bar media centres (which do run vanilla Ubuntu). I have also ran officially supported variations of Ubuntu as my primary OS for short periods of time as well. I've tried them all before I finally found what OS I felt right for me. So I do have considerable experience backing up my claims :)
cft 10y ago
For servers, their choices are often bad. I recall how we had database failures in the middle of the night on the first of each month, until we figured out that a monthly chron was running slocate indexing all files and IO jumped to 100% under load. I have many anecdotes like this. Also they don't seem to understand that during the update, rebooting a server is the last resort, unlike a laptop. In the server distribution patch instructions, it often says "reboot your computer", whereas one can just restart the services like in the latest openssl security update.
- mwpmaybe 10y ago
  Are you sure that was specific to Ubuntu and not general to Debian?
- acdha 10y ago
  locate has been a standard feature on Unix boxes for decades – it's certainly not specific to Ubuntu and the only way it causes I/O problem is either if the system is already close to breaking but nobody had been paying attention or the local configuration has been customized to do something like crawl NFS mounts. > In the server distribution patch instructions, it often says "reboot your computer", whereas one can just restart the services like in the latest openssl security update. It seems like a bad idea to criticize them for taking the safest tack in generic documentation intended for a wide audience. Some Ubuntu servers are run by veteran sysadmins but others run by people who are learning, primarily working on other things, etc. Restarting processes requires a decision per-patch to understand all of the affected components and safe restart strategies for all of them – e.g. in the case of OpenSSL, the library will be loaded not only by services but also other long-running jobs – cron tasks, anything a user has been running, etc. Yes, you can script looking for open file-handles and try to restart everything but if that goes wrong in any way, you're running with a known security hole which people will incorrectly think has been patched and may even claim that a scanner must be reporting a false-positive (I've personally seen that). If I was writing documentation to give to non-experts for operations, I'd make the same choice every time because it's simple and fails safely. Experts probably aren't going to read that documentation anyway and have enough knowledge to understand when they can make optimizations based on local knowledge.
nailer 10y ago
A lot of it is historical. In the beginning, they ignored patented stuff compared to Fedora. Then they had various issues with their upstream at Debian. Then they used upstart in 14.04 at a time where it was clear this was a dead end and everyone was moving to systemd (as 16.04 did).
jandrese 10y ago
I generally like Ubuntu, but it has its share of problems. For example, they will prefer to keep a package broken than fix it if fixing it means a version bump. This can be really frustrating for long term releases where things are broken in really obvious ways. An example includes gmplayer core dumps instantly in Ubuntu 14, with a known issue that requires the user to either hand tweak some files or just not use it. zsh users get no manual pages due to a slight flaw in the package, which won't be fixed. Some other things are made much harder than they need to be. Back in the old days making a network bootable image involved compiling a custom kernel and setting up a DHCP server and NFS. These days it seems to require a flock of chickens to sacrifice. Hint: you need to pass a boot option that is entirely undocumented, except for down on page 15 of a discussion topic somewhere on the internet. The README is wrong/obsolete. Other annoyances come from the system trying to be "smart", like when you try to dump a bootable image on a USB stick with dd, only to have the operation killed shortly after start because the OS detected a new bootable image on the stick and tried to mount it partway through the write, changing out the file descriptors from under DD. Or when you're trying to diagnose a network problem by upping an interface and putting an IP on it, only to have NetworkManager go LOLNOPE and kick you straight in the balls. Or when the system fails to boot because some message wasn't passed from some startup script somewhere and good luck tracking that down. That's nearly impossible to debug. Heaven forbid you select the nVidia binary blob driver for your video card and then let Ubuntu install a new kernel. Ironically the only time the kernel upgrade goes smoothly is when I tell Ubuntu to leave it alone and install the driver directly from nVidia. This is extra fun when Ubuntu is deciding to upgrade the kernel twice a week. Even more fun when you've let it partition the disk for you and it creates a 256MB boot partition that fills up after 3 kernels. Overall Ubuntu is easier to use than the old systems, but when it breaks it takes 10 times longer to fix it.

by 8draco8 10y ago

digi_owl 10y ago

CLAs and a history of going their own way i suspect. Then again the "majority" way is largely dictated by a few big projects in and around Fedora, with developers largely on Red Hat payroll. And the shit slinging didn't really take off until they up and created Unity after a spat with Gnome over the latters future course (afaik). Closely followed with Canonical starting Mir after misrepresenting/misunderstanding where Wayland was going. So who really knows whats going on...

funnyfacts365 10y ago
And you know what, Unity is great.
- sametmax 10y ago
  I like it too. And the funny thing is all beginers I gave unity to liked it better than gnome. Only power users complain about it, which is lame given they are precisely the ones able to install another desktop whenever they want.
- vetinari 10y ago
  Unity from a user's point of view is great. Too bad it requires patched upstream libraries, so it does not run on other distributions.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Do wonder why those patches are not accepted upstream...
- tracker1 10y ago
  I'm pretty happy with it as well... although I swear several times a year I have to fiddle with stuff after updates. Even now, my ~/.cache/upstart/unity.7.log file fills up the disk every few days, and I can't catch what's doing it before it happens... so I just rm -rf ~/.cache every now and then. Since I'm unable to tail it, and don't have a thumb drive to fit a 90GB log file. And it seems to happen if it's in sleep (not off) and I turn off the tv/avr. I'm actually considering switching my HTPC back to Windows, or trying Debian proper. I don't spend much time in unity there, mostly Kodi, and sometimes Chrome, but the DE matters little to me. I run Windows, mac, and linux (ubuntu unity) regularly. Sorry for veering off into a rant... All around I actually do like Unity though.
  - funnyfacts365 10y ago
    I had the same problem with some Kodi addons being the culprits. Updated python-openssl and python-cryptography to the packages from the debian repo, disabled some theme/addon helper that was running in the addons settings and the unity7.log stopped filling my disk. Let me see if I find the link to the bug on Launchpad. Edit: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/447828 https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/447828 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1636573 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1636573
- Grue3 10y ago
  I find it completely unusable. The first thing I do after installing Ubuntu is installing XFCE or Cinnamon. Just the fact that you had to sacrifice a newborn to start two instances of the same application, an extremely common user action (I don't know if it's still the case now) shows that whoever designed it is incompetent.
sjellis 10y ago
> So who really knows whats going on... Pretty much all of the conversations and disputes have happened on the Internet, so if you are interested you can read the mailing lists, Google+, blog posts etc. in each case. There's no reason why anyone should unless they are interested, but everybody really is free to do so, and then draw their own conclusions.

mmjaa 10y ago

I agree with you. I've been using Linux since the day Linus announced it on minix-list, and for the last 12 years Ubuntu has been my daily-driver system .. and it is amazing. I'm a musician, so when people see that I'm using Ubuntu Studio for my DAW, I usually hear a few chuckles .. until I fire up Ardour, show them my plugin list, the standard suite of synths and effects I use, and so on .. that usually shuts them up at least. But what gets them really curious is when I show them how easy it is to break out the source code for any of these powerful tools, make modifications, re-install and maintain my system with very, very powerful techniques. There simply isn't any operating system as conducive to creative tinkering and progressive enhancement of key software as Ubuntu Studio. Its way, way ahead of the pack in this regard, and I think anyone who scoffs at the idea needs to be taught the lesson that Ubuntu - and of course, Linux and the ecosystem it promotes - is really worth the effort to know, learn and understand.

tehwalrus 10y ago
Do you have a link to a blog post about your setup? If not, would you consider writing about it?
- pawadu 10y ago
  I am also interested in this! It would also be great to see some audio latency numbers for ubuntu vs the rest on common hardware
  - Cephlin 10y ago
    I also would like to know your setup! I'd be very interested! I was looking into whether I should purchase Windows or buy a Mac to run a DAW, but if you're saying that Ardour is good enough, then I can just install that this weekend!
    - mmjaa 10y ago
      Just do it! BUT! Commit to using JACK for everything, and get rid of PulseAudio.

bryanlarsen 10y ago

I think it's Ubuntu the corporation that gets criticized more than Ubuntu the OS. They get compared to Red Hat, which from a hacker or open source point of view virtually always takes the high road and does the 'right thing'. They open source everything, they track down licenses, they sponsor the community, they insist on the purity of their own products, they're seen as being very co-operative when joining a project, et cetera. It's a high bar and Ubuntu doesn't quite reach it. They're angels compared to pretty much any corporation but Red Hat, but it's Red Hat we compare them to.

marcoms 10y ago
*Canonical
digi_owl 10y ago
I'm not sure if RH should really be considered an angel as such. It is just they are the grand old man of the Linux world and a massive employer of project developers.
sametmax 10y ago
The linux community is giving more shit to canonical than the Mac community is giving to Apple. Worst things that does Apple ? Delegating slavery, blatant monopoly, consumer lock up, patent trolling, killing small businesses for their profits, etc. Worst things that does Canonical ? Doing some technical mistake, making controversial design choices, spending less resources than some people would like to help FOSS in specific ways. Yeah, they totally deserve the shit storm.
- nickik 10y ago
  Different values. That comparison is pointless.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    It's not. The point is, the FOSS community value fairness a lot, but they are not fair at all with their champions.

Frogolocalypse 10y ago

I love ubuntu, but I always view an upgrade with extreme trepidation. v14 broke vmware, and it took so long to find a solution, that I removed it, and simply ran ubuntu from within a vm. I'd love to try it again, I really would, as my host OS. But I just can't bring myself to do it again... yet.

pawadu 10y ago
From my experience, vmware is what breaks vmware under linux.
- wila 10y ago
  Works fine with 16.04.2 LTS so far though.
  - Frogolocalypse 10y ago
    What about host shares in the guest OS? That stopped working at 14, and I haven't seen it work since.
    - wila 10y ago
      Host shares should work, but might not be if you use the open-vm-tools. At least in ubuntu 14 it got broken and while upstream fixed it, Ubuntu did not care to fix it in their repo.
- Frogolocalypse 10y ago
  So upgrading your OS breaks your applications? Kind of my point.
  - pawadu 10y ago
    Yes, if you application was coded to only work with a specific version of the kernel.

pjmlp 10y ago

Fully agree with you. My first UNIX was Xenix and I got introduced to GNU/Linux with Slackware 2.0. Ubuntu is the only reason I still have a netbook with GNU/Linux. All other my computers at home run Windows nowadays. At the office our computers are a mix of Windows and Mac OS X, GNU/Linux installations only exist as VM instances.

AsyncAwait 10y ago

> I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux community. That's a complex topic, but over the years, a couple of reasons come to mind; Outdated packages and broken PPAs giving a bad impression to new users, slow and bloated in many respects, aggressive community behavior, CLAs, passive-aggressive blog posts and stances by the project leads towards alternative distros like Mint or any criticism whatsoever, Mir when everyone standardizes on Wayland, Unity is very hard to get working properly on non-Ubuntu distros, aggressive push for Snaps, reluctant to adopt systemd, not really part of the community, unless they want to push their own tech, (a bit like Apple), lack of kernel contributions compared to ie RedHat, distancing from the term Linux, using only Ubuntu as much as possible.

jessaustin 10y ago
...reluctant to adopt systemd... Ubuntu weren't alone in that.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  No and I did not say they were, just that it was one of the things that some people took issue with. There are others I didn't mention, like the opt-out Amazon Lens integration some time back for example, the point is that they have done some questionable things over the years that left the wider community with a sour taste towards Canonical.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    > No and I did not say they were, just that it was one of the things that some people took issue with Who were those people taking issue with the lack of eagerness on adopting systemd and were they in Raleigh?[1] Systemd is a rather radical shift from the "*nix philosophy". I don't have patience for RH "UX contributions don't count" saltiness when they intentionally abandoned desktop Linux in favor of chasing the enterprise market (successfully!). No, I'm not bitter about RHEL[2] at all. 1. Tongue firmly in cheek 2. I do know Fedora exists, I read the very 1st announcement. It's not the same

oelmekki 10y ago

There are many factors, IMO (probably all wrong). First, ubuntu was initially seen as "noob's linux", debian users especially not taking the fork well, nor the fact that the numbers of linux users was raising in some kind of OS version of eternal september. Then there was the fact that ubuntu was OK to mix up proprietary code in their repos, like proprietary drivers. It was (it is) a big fight for debian to sacrifice ease of use to enforce non-proprietary software. Third, there was the massive success of ubuntu, making all other distros the challengers. This always tends to attract criticism. And finally, there was the perception of canonical pushing their agenda on their users, leaving them no choice, like when ubuntu migrated to unity or with the whole amazon lens debate. The mix of all of this makes this linux distro having the easiest setup and the more compatibility/support being looked at with disdain, which is a shame, really.

sametmax 10y ago
Yeah but that's the game isn't it ? Free open source licence means authors gave them permissions to do it. Complaining about something you authorized to do is not fair play. And it's not like they became apple or microsoft. Their mistakes are minor at worst compared to other competitors. What they brought to linux, however, is huge.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Because there is a loudmouth sub-set of the community that think a single look and feel of the DE would bring about "the year of the desktop". This while they keep CADTing the APIs and ABIs, thus making third parties weary of developing for said desktop.
sbuk 10y ago
>>"debian users especially not taking the fork well" This never sets well with me, especially when OSS groups are involved. Is it not fundamentally the whole point of the software freedom movement?

stymaar 10y ago

I agree with you that Ubuntu had a really positive impact on Linux adoption by providing a polished operating system. That being said I think they somewhat deserve the bad opinion the Linux community has about them: Canonical decided to play solo on several critical subject instead of cooperating with others, in particular I'm thinking about upstart (a competitor for systemd) and Mir a competitor of wayland). Their marketing is also pain point, because they brand everything as Ubuntu and don't refer to Linux at all in many of their statements (for instance, you cannot find a single occurance of the word «Linux» on their landing page[1]). [1] https://www.ubuntu.com/ https://www.ubuntu.com/

Longhanks 10y ago
I know what you're trying to say, but to the average user (which Ubuntu probably targets), does it matter? If you look at the whole product, there's much more to it than Linux. Linux is 'just' the kernel, I doubt the average Joe cares what kernel his device runs. Most probably don't know that their Android phone is powered by Linux, too. Also, this leads to the old "GNU/Linux" discussion. Where would Canonical stop acknowledging important parts of the OS? Ubuntu GNU/Linux/systemd/libinput/Mesa/Qt... I'd also love to see Canonical mention that Ubuntu uses Linux, but I understand that for their product and their target group, it doesn't really matter (and it may seem more important to push forward the brand "Ubuntu").
- abdulmuhaimin 10y ago
  thats why its hated by the "Linux community". Casual Linux user like you mentioned(me included) doesnt care much about these behind the scene stuff.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Mops will be mops...
- stymaar 10y ago
  > I know what you're trying to say, but to the average user (which Ubuntu probably targets), does it matter? I'm not trying to make a point here, I just wanted to give some context to someone asking a question. I'm not an Ubuntu user, but I'm not an Ubuntu hater either: the distribution I use (Linux Mint) wouldn't even work without Ubuntu.

johnfn 10y ago

Amazing how it works, isn't it? no Linux distribution is popular All Linux users: "everyone should be on Linux! Linux is amazing! Yay Linux!" ubuntu becomes very popular All Linux users: "everyone should be on Linux! Ehhh... but maybe not that Linux..."

simosx 10y ago
This would be really funny if it was not that depressing.. :'(
sametmax 10y ago
So true. The linux community is full of idealists that are unable to compromise. They would anyway not be able to live up to their own standards if they had to both ship software that new comers use and respect their ideals.
- drdaeman 10y ago
  Wasn't Free Software Movement and GNU Project (which are the foundation for this whole GNU/Linux distros thing) born because of a certain idealist who was unable to compromise?
  - Qub3d 10y ago
    Ahh, RMS. I listened to a recording of one of his recent talks (the Grand Rapids one, IIRC). I regard Stallman the way Randall Munroe regards Ayn Rand: "I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'"
  - sametmax 10y ago
    You got a point :) But none of GNU is what I would call user friendly or mass-market ready. As a professional, I love it. But without canonical and his compromises, my mother wouldn't be able to use it today. I'm glad I have a solid base, but creating something less radical on top of it will not destroy it.
- 10y ago

sjellis 10y ago

I think that the most charitable answer is that Ubuntu changed it's basic premise, and some people don't like the newer approach. Back when Ubuntu started, it was explicitly a variation of Debian with a GNOME desktop, plus some custom parts to make a "Linux for Human Beings", such as an easy-to-use installation process. Mark Shuttleworth had been a Debian developer, Canonical hired it's technical people from Debian contributors, and everybody was sensitive to the need for Ubuntu to work with the upstream projects (and vice versa). Linux is a complicated system of components, and desktops are far more complex than servers, so it's essential for developers with different employers to cooperate to get things done. Important decisions require developers from multiple organizations to reach a consensus. It can be a slow and frustrating process, and it's easy for awkward people to cause a lot of hassle for everyone else. In practice, Canonical always struggled to work well with others, and eventually they switched to developing their own convergence stack (to span desktops, smart TVs and mobile) that happens to use Linux components but shares increasing less common ground with the rest of the community: using their own graphics systems, desktop environment, and their own software packaging systems. In other words, Ubuntu has been morphing from community-friendly Debian variant to an Android-style single-vendor system. Google can do this with Android and not take the same level of flak because Android has always been a commercial product that happens to have FOSS components, and they seem to cooperate reasonably well with the rest of the community in areas of shared interest. (All IMO).

moo 10y ago
I've stopped letting these people lead me by the nose. For the community support and staying compatible I'm currently sticking with an Ubuntu upgrade path, but I've long left the default user interfaces behind. For a window manager I use openbox with tint2. I don't find much utility in the Debian/Ubuntu derived distros like Linux Mint, jumping from being based on Ubuntu,to Debian, then back to Ubuntu and breaking compatibility along the way.
zeptomu 10y ago
I think that building a good UI for the desktop is only possible if UI developers agree on "look-and-feel" and that may be simpler for Canonical than for a community like Debian and they came to the conclusion that building their own is just the way to go. AFAIK their home-grown desktop is FOSS, so it's not like you are buying into a proprietary system and this is tremendous. When I started with Linux I used a distribution like Mandrake with a KDE Desktop and by default you got several text editors, browsers and other tools (the drop-down menu was huge) and for me as a starter (I did not know any programming then and just wanted to play with a different OS coming from a Microsoft stack) I was overwhelmed and although I could appreciate the customization it was hard to get started as there were too many options. Ubuntu changed that and they really thought a lot about how to improve the Linux Desktop experience and IMHO they did very, very well. E.g. I use Ubuntu as you can find lots of documentation, it is supported well in cloud infrastructure and they (re)distribute a lot of packages. In particular I do not get critics about the Desktop Environment. In no way made Ubuntu your Desktop less customizable and I use e.g. xmonad as my WM which is totally straight-forward and it just works. My mom uses the default Desktop and is pretty happy with it. That may be controversial, but I think there are often just 2 points of users; those that want it to just-work without any configuration and those who want to customize everything. I think Ubuntu is doing pretty well (currently, I hope that never changes) in both camps.

VeejayRampay 10y ago

Isn't it just a very common and boring case of "Ubuntu has gotten too mainstream"? People like to be niche.

sametmax 10y ago
Kinda. Dev are hipsters that lack of fashion sense after all.
- sametmax 10y ago
  And sense of humour apparently. I'm a dev guys.

giancarlostoro 10y ago

Ubuntu is a distro I always know will just work for the most part on my system, I usually go for Kubuntu, though I may try Ubuntu Budgie once it's officially released alongside the other official flavors. The only other distro I have tried that I've enjoyed anywhere near Ubuntu was openSUSE, but I couldn't get my D compiler to cooperate for whatever reason.

paulddraper 10y ago

> I don't understand why Ubuntu is receiving so much bad comments from Linux community 12.04: System V 14.04: Upstart 16.04: System D 18.04: ??? Gahh...stick with something. I'm tired of learning an entirely new init system every couple years. To be fair, this is a problem with Linux stuff in general; I just wish Ubuntu could lead the pack in picking something and sticking to it.

binarymax 10y ago
Yes this!!!! I develop lots of side projects that I always host in Ubuntu. They are web projects that require knowledge of configuring, stopping, and starting services on the box with ease. I am fully comfortable with upstart - but to learn systemD adds a huge amount of overhead to someone like me with little time who just wants to enjoy coding and shipping fun projects. I don't want to be a fulltime sysadmin just so I can launch a demo or game that nobody will ever use!
- slitaz 10y ago
  Actually the move to systemd is quite easy. There are cheatsheets available.
problems 10y ago
> Gahh...stick with something. I'm tired of learning an entirely new init system every couple years. I had this problem too - I gave up and moved to runit. It's basically an improved version of DJB's daemontools, you write very simple scripts, it monitors their output, handles logging, and service management and that's it. Very minimalist, but quite capable. And, quite importantly, it's capable of running on top of another init system, it doesn't need to be PID 1, so I'm able to run it on FreeBSD with rc, Linux with sysvinit and Linux with systemd with the same script. It makes it so easy to write service scripts I went from running my personal stuff inside a tmux script to runit in about an hour.
simosx 10y ago
Here is the corrected table: 4.10: System V (in 2004), first release, adopted from Debian 6.10: Upstart (in 2006), see http://upstart.ubuntu.com/index.html http://upstart.ubuntu.com/index.html 16.04: systemd (in 2016) and it was gradual. This is part of the natural evolution of software. There are new requirements and new software is needed to implement them.

ergo14 10y ago

My main problem is that ubuntu is not as reliable as it was few years before as a desktop distribution. I still use it but it has bugs, I would so love for them to just stick to gnome and focus efforts on that :(

falcolas 10y ago

In my opinion, this falls under the old adage of "There are two kind of [Linux distros]: the ones everyone complains about, and the ones that nobody uses." As someone who likes his free time for doing things other than fiddling with configuration files, Ubuntu is quite nice. It's not perfect, it's strayed from its original vision; but it's still my Linux desktop distro of choice.

rocky1138 10y ago

I totally agree. I recommend KDE Neon for newbies (up-to-date KDE on top of stable Ubuntu core) or Xubuntu if their computer is older.

laumars 10y ago

> Canonical is doing great job of putting, fairly reliable system on massive number of devices, something that other distributions can just dream about [edit] I'm getting lots of downvotes from people talking about off-the-shelf laptops and other generic x86-based projects. Lets be clear that the following post is in the context of other CPU architectures and other platforms a little more exotic than your typical PC or laptop. [original post] I'm not here to bash Ubuntu as I couldn't care less what platform people choose to run - even if that's Windows - just so long as I can run whatever I choose to run. However with that said, I still have to disagree with your statement above (re other distros only dream of supporting a massive number of devices). Ubuntu supports less hardware than their originating platform, Debian. Less than Suse, Redhat, and derivatives. Even Slackware and Arch support a considerable number of alternative architectures through 3rd party ports. And stepping away from GNU/Linux for a moment, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD all too official support more platforms than Ubuntu. Support for multiple devices and architectures isn't something unique to Ubuntu - it's pretty typical in the FOSS community. In fact back in the 90s and early 00s there used to be a running joke about people installing Linux on a whole plethora of odd devices just for kicks; talking kettles, toasters, stuffed animals(!!!), all sorts of things (baring in mind this was before the IoT revolution).

Thaxll 10y ago
It's bs, it supports more hardware since the kernel is more recent, good luck running Debian / *BSD like on modern laptops.
- laumars 10y ago
  > it supports more hardware since the kernel is more recent Kernel ABIs are pretty static so drivers can be backported for earlier kernels more easily than recompiling the entirety of Ubuntu Server for an unsupported CPU architecture - such as SPARC. That's what I meant when I said Debian supports more architectures. However going back to your previous point about the age of Debian, you don't have to run the default repositories. If you run "testing" or "sid" then you can be just as up-to-date as Ubuntu or even more bleeding edge. In fact it wasn't that many years ago when Ubuntu was effectively just a reskinned Debian + testing repositories (I'm talking pre Unity, upstart, etc). But at the end of the day, it's all FOSS so anything Ubuntu runs can also be run on Debian, Arch, etc. It's just Debian already ships compiled binaries for more alternative CPU architectures can Canonical do with Ubuntu. Which is why I said supporting different platforms isn't anything new to Linux nor unique to Ubuntu. > good luck Debian / BSD like on modern laptops.* I have done. They worked fine. In fact FreeBSD was my primary OS for a period of time and Debian has always been my primary "debian-like" platform for all bar media centres (which do run vanilla Ubuntu). I have also ran officially supported variations of Ubuntu as my primary OS for short periods of time as well. I've tried them all before I finally found what OS I felt right for me. So I do have considerable experience backing up my claims :)

cft 10y ago

For servers, their choices are often bad. I recall how we had database failures in the middle of the night on the first of each month, until we figured out that a monthly chron was running slocate indexing all files and IO jumped to 100% under load. I have many anecdotes like this. Also they don't seem to understand that during the update, rebooting a server is the last resort, unlike a laptop. In the server distribution patch instructions, it often says "reboot your computer", whereas one can just restart the services like in the latest openssl security update.

mwpmaybe 10y ago
Are you sure that was specific to Ubuntu and not general to Debian?
acdha 10y ago
locate has been a standard feature on Unix boxes for decades – it's certainly not specific to Ubuntu and the only way it causes I/O problem is either if the system is already close to breaking but nobody had been paying attention or the local configuration has been customized to do something like crawl NFS mounts. > In the server distribution patch instructions, it often says "reboot your computer", whereas one can just restart the services like in the latest openssl security update. It seems like a bad idea to criticize them for taking the safest tack in generic documentation intended for a wide audience. Some Ubuntu servers are run by veteran sysadmins but others run by people who are learning, primarily working on other things, etc. Restarting processes requires a decision per-patch to understand all of the affected components and safe restart strategies for all of them – e.g. in the case of OpenSSL, the library will be loaded not only by services but also other long-running jobs – cron tasks, anything a user has been running, etc. Yes, you can script looking for open file-handles and try to restart everything but if that goes wrong in any way, you're running with a known security hole which people will incorrectly think has been patched and may even claim that a scanner must be reporting a false-positive (I've personally seen that). If I was writing documentation to give to non-experts for operations, I'd make the same choice every time because it's simple and fails safely. Experts probably aren't going to read that documentation anyway and have enough knowledge to understand when they can make optimizations based on local knowledge.

nailer 10y ago

A lot of it is historical. In the beginning, they ignored patented stuff compared to Fedora. Then they had various issues with their upstream at Debian. Then they used upstart in 14.04 at a time where it was clear this was a dead end and everyone was moving to systemd (as 16.04 did).

jandrese 10y ago

I generally like Ubuntu, but it has its share of problems. For example, they will prefer to keep a package broken than fix it if fixing it means a version bump. This can be really frustrating for long term releases where things are broken in really obvious ways. An example includes gmplayer core dumps instantly in Ubuntu 14, with a known issue that requires the user to either hand tweak some files or just not use it. zsh users get no manual pages due to a slight flaw in the package, which won't be fixed. Some other things are made much harder than they need to be. Back in the old days making a network bootable image involved compiling a custom kernel and setting up a DHCP server and NFS. These days it seems to require a flock of chickens to sacrifice. Hint: you need to pass a boot option that is entirely undocumented, except for down on page 15 of a discussion topic somewhere on the internet. The README is wrong/obsolete. Other annoyances come from the system trying to be "smart", like when you try to dump a bootable image on a USB stick with dd, only to have the operation killed shortly after start because the OS detected a new bootable image on the stick and tried to mount it partway through the write, changing out the file descriptors from under DD. Or when you're trying to diagnose a network problem by upping an interface and putting an IP on it, only to have NetworkManager go LOLNOPE and kick you straight in the balls. Or when the system fails to boot because some message wasn't passed from some startup script somewhere and good luck tracking that down. That's nearly impossible to debug. Heaven forbid you select the nVidia binary blob driver for your video card and then let Ubuntu install a new kernel. Ironically the only time the kernel upgrade goes smoothly is when I tell Ubuntu to leave it alone and install the driver directly from nVidia. This is extra fun when Ubuntu is deciding to upgrade the kernel twice a week. Even more fun when you've let it partition the disk for you and it creates a 256MB boot partition that fills up after 3 kernels. Overall Ubuntu is easier to use than the old systems, but when it breaks it takes 10 times longer to fix it.