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Ubuntu works great for me and has done on every machine I have installed it on over the last decade or so. I find that the support for drivers is much better th

Ubuntu works great for me and has done on every machine I have installed it on over the last decade or so. I find that the support for drivers is much better than with Windows except for when it comes to wi-fi. This means I have a drawer full of external wi-fi dongles and miscellaneous folders full of drivers that don't quite work. Despite this I find Ubuntu to be a much more productive OS than the alternatives available. What I do not understand is why people are so willing to give Ubuntu a hard time. On any discussion there are people from Windows or OSX that point out their negative experiences of Linux whilst being blind to the deficiencies of their own paid-for OS. It seems as if it is easy to write 'yeah I tried Linux for a couple of weeks five years ago and I thought the start menu was naff plus I couldn't get x to work' or to moan about the command line aspect. It is much harder to write constructively so any discussion of Linux comes down to many subjective judgements.

rbanffy 8y ago
When was the last time `apt dist-upgrade` did delete all your files? Oh... Never ;-) It's hard to read all these opinions when my own experience with Windows is that I won't touch it with a pole. And God help me if the wireless fails (my wife's corporate issued Windows laptop could connect with the Starbucks across the road, but not with the stock D-Link at home) because there are at least 3 vendor specific control panels in addition to the Windows one, all showing conflicting information (and nothing on what actually failed). Windows users are so shenanigan-tolerant when it comes to Windows it's a bit surprising they don't like rock-solid distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  > When was the last time `apt dist-upgrade` did delete all your files? Oh... Never ;-) On the other hand, I have had it brick the package manager to the point that only reinstalling the OS from scratch would fix it, or break perfectly functional existing applications by replacing their libraries with incompatible versions. I think if you look around you'll find that Linux Desktop users are also remarkably tolerant of shenanigans. Editing poorly documented text-based config files by hand, having to compile some applications from source to get an updated version because it isn't in the repo, having to containerize applications because of the interdependency mess, setting kernel boot parameters because of strange driver behavior, etc. Modern OSs just kinda all suck and it's more or less subjective which ones suck more than the others.
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    I don't remember when was the last time I had to edit a config file on a workstation or compile a program from source or set a kernel boot parameter (other than because I wanted my console to default to green on black). I'm pretty sure the last time was before 2010, possibly before 2005. We containerize apps for a multitude of reasons, one of which is for ease of integration. Security is also an interesting reason for that. And, once you get the API stable, it's conceivable to replace it with VMs or off-board processors.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      > I don't remember when was the last time I had to edit a config file on a workstation or compile a program from source or set a kernel boot parameter (other than because I wanted my console to default to green on black). I'm pretty sure the last time was before 2010, possibly before 2005. Therefore it doesn't happen, right? I had to hand edit config files just the other day, because the distro I was working with exposed no other mechanism to work with cron. Change the distro and you just change which parts make you dive into the config files. > Security is also an interesting reason for that. True, but the prevalence of Docker and its lackluster security reputation suggests that it is not the primary reason. Where else are containers used? Oh, right, Snap and Flatpak, because it's considered a reasonable way to make a single application build work across distros.

rbanffy 8y ago

When was the last time `apt dist-upgrade` did delete all your files? Oh... Never ;-) It's hard to read all these opinions when my own experience with Windows is that I won't touch it with a pole. And God help me if the wireless fails (my wife's corporate issued Windows laptop could connect with the Starbucks across the road, but not with the stock D-Link at home) because there are at least 3 vendor specific control panels in addition to the Windows one, all showing conflicting information (and nothing on what actually failed). Windows users are so shenanigan-tolerant when it comes to Windows it's a bit surprising they don't like rock-solid distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
> When was the last time `apt dist-upgrade` did delete all your files? Oh... Never ;-) On the other hand, I have had it brick the package manager to the point that only reinstalling the OS from scratch would fix it, or break perfectly functional existing applications by replacing their libraries with incompatible versions. I think if you look around you'll find that Linux Desktop users are also remarkably tolerant of shenanigans. Editing poorly documented text-based config files by hand, having to compile some applications from source to get an updated version because it isn't in the repo, having to containerize applications because of the interdependency mess, setting kernel boot parameters because of strange driver behavior, etc. Modern OSs just kinda all suck and it's more or less subjective which ones suck more than the others.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  I don't remember when was the last time I had to edit a config file on a workstation or compile a program from source or set a kernel boot parameter (other than because I wanted my console to default to green on black). I'm pretty sure the last time was before 2010, possibly before 2005. We containerize apps for a multitude of reasons, one of which is for ease of integration. Security is also an interesting reason for that. And, once you get the API stable, it's conceivable to replace it with VMs or off-board processors.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    > I don't remember when was the last time I had to edit a config file on a workstation or compile a program from source or set a kernel boot parameter (other than because I wanted my console to default to green on black). I'm pretty sure the last time was before 2010, possibly before 2005. Therefore it doesn't happen, right? I had to hand edit config files just the other day, because the distro I was working with exposed no other mechanism to work with cron. Change the distro and you just change which parts make you dive into the config files. > Security is also an interesting reason for that. True, but the prevalence of Docker and its lackluster security reputation suggests that it is not the primary reason. Where else are containers used? Oh, right, Snap and Flatpak, because it's considered a reasonable way to make a single application build work across distros.