3 ms·

Q: What do you think? Is Linux Mint a Ubuntu killer? Or Is Ubuntu killing itself?

by elboru 15y ago

kijin 15y ago
I don't think Ubuntu is killing itself. Ubuntu is just targeting a different demographic from some of the "power users" who frequent HN. Grandma and Grandpa don't care whether or not it's possible to open three windows of the same app and switch between them with one keyboard shortcut. Give them a browser, IM, and a decent media player, and that's it. This demographic is also many times larger than the subset of power users who hate Unity. One question that remains to be answered is: If Ubuntu continues to alienate power users, will this have a noticeable effect on the quality of the user community? One of the major benefits of Ubuntu is that it's very easy to find help online. If power users stop using the default edition of Ubuntu, high-quality help for the default edition might become harder to come by -- with detrimental effects on everyone else. I've already encountered a few cases where I wanted to troubleshoot an Ubuntu issue and found the answer in the Mint forum instead.
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  What's ubuntu plan of accessing the grandma & grandpa audiences? You see, one need a delivery method and a payload. They do have the payload. What's their delivery? Last time I checked, they didn't have one. The only audience really using Ubuntu was one consisting of coders and geeks. There's a famous russian chinese saying: When a rhino stares at the moon - he is wasting his spleen flowers.
  - kijin 15y ago
    Last time I checked, Canonical was trying pretty hard to get PC manufacturers in various parts of the world to ship their machines with Ubuntu installed.
    - guard-of-terra 15y ago
      Are they successful? There used to be this practice when a PC manufacturer would put a free or cheap Linux or eve DOS on its PCs to reduce its price by a 50-100$. Everybody just erased whatever was on HDD and installed a pirated Windows. But these days, with WGA and OEM Windows being really cheap, I guess it's unfeasible.

Q: What do you think? Is Linux Mint a Ubuntu killer? Or Is Ubuntu killing itself?

by elboru 15y ago

Q: What do you think? Is Linux Mint a Ubuntu killer? Or Is Ubuntu killing itself?

kijin 15y ago

I don't think Ubuntu is killing itself. Ubuntu is just targeting a different demographic from some of the "power users" who frequent HN. Grandma and Grandpa don't care whether or not it's possible to open three windows of the same app and switch between them with one keyboard shortcut. Give them a browser, IM, and a decent media player, and that's it. This demographic is also many times larger than the subset of power users who hate Unity. One question that remains to be answered is: If Ubuntu continues to alienate power users, will this have a noticeable effect on the quality of the user community? One of the major benefits of Ubuntu is that it's very easy to find help online. If power users stop using the default edition of Ubuntu, high-quality help for the default edition might become harder to come by -- with detrimental effects on everyone else. I've already encountered a few cases where I wanted to troubleshoot an Ubuntu issue and found the answer in the Mint forum instead.

guard-of-terra 15y ago
What's ubuntu plan of accessing the grandma & grandpa audiences? You see, one need a delivery method and a payload. They do have the payload. What's their delivery? Last time I checked, they didn't have one. The only audience really using Ubuntu was one consisting of coders and geeks. There's a famous russian chinese saying: When a rhino stares at the moon - he is wasting his spleen flowers.
- kijin 15y ago
  Last time I checked, Canonical was trying pretty hard to get PC manufacturers in various parts of the world to ship their machines with Ubuntu installed.
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    Are they successful? There used to be this practice when a PC manufacturer would put a free or cheap Linux or eve DOS on its PCs to reduce its price by a 50-100$. Everybody just erased whatever was on HDD and installed a pirated Windows. But these days, with WGA and OEM Windows being really cheap, I guess it's unfeasible.