13 ms·

With all the ads on the page it looks more like a scam then a Linux distro to me. On mobile half the page size is filled with ads. Ad, some content, donation li

by seedie 3y ago

With all the ads on the page it looks more like a scam then a Linux distro to me. On mobile half the page size is filled with ads. Ad, some content, donation links, some content, ad, some content... I just can't take it seriously

alrlroipsp 3y ago
[flagged]
- Takennickname 3y ago
  I dare you to visit the site without an ad blocker and say the same thing. It's worse than gizmodo
- seedie 3y ago
  If open source makes money thats great. But if your site contains more ads than content I don't spend my time finding out how you differ from other linux distros. Being "Free" is definitely not enough. But I get it, that was no constructive criticism so I try to do better. - the ad/content ratio is way to high - too many unnecessary animations and the choice of colors make me think its bad design. And i transfer this opinion on the main product. - its not clear at all to me why I should choose this distro over all the other free, easy to use linux distributions - all of the above points drive me away from spending more time on the site to find out more about the project This is highly subjective, but it seems like I'm not the only one struggling to find the information I want in a time I'm willing to spend. (Edited to fix formatting and typos)
KSPAtlas 3y ago
That reminds me of that "Windows 12" OS someone made by basically slapping a theme onto Linux lite and trying to sell it (Michael MJD made a YouTube video about it)
- RuggedPineapple 3y ago
  Are you old enough to remember Lindows? in like 2000/2001 it was a straight Windows ripoff, even used the old Win 9x/2k theme iirc, and had WINE built in, preconfigured and would intercept windows programs automatically and run them via that. It was blatant enough MS actually took them to court, ended up settling by buying the Lindows trademark from them for 20 million and getting a pinky promise they wouldn't be so confusing to consumers by trying to pass it off as a Windows equivalent. The product was eventually renamed Linspire and continued as a noob-friendly distro with less 'Hey, we're actually Windows!'.
  - anthk 3y ago
    Lycoris Desktop->Lindows->Linspire. Yes, we remember. You could bypass the instalation prompt by setting up the APT repos by hand.
    - RuggedPineapple 3y ago
      Lycoris didn't become Lindows, those were two separate products from two different companies. Lycoris/Redmond Linux was bought out by Mandrake/Mandriva, Lindows went on to be bought by Ximian. Same end goal though, make a blatant Windows ripoff lol.
      - anthk 3y ago
        Ah, sorry then. I always tought Lycoris became Linspire.
  - housemusicfan 3y ago
    Wasn't Lindows the MP3.com guy? Another company that got sued out of existence, only to be "reinvented" by Apple a decade later as iTunes Match.
2Gkashmiri 3y ago
Give these guys a break. If I'm being honest, why the hell are you surfing internet without ubo? I guess you said mobile so its most likely chrome so guess what? Firefox mobile has ubo and heck even Firefox focus has decent ad blocker. Even on iOS you have some content blockers so you really don't have any reason to use chrome on phones. If they are making money regardless of my using ubo, that's good for them.
- gabereiser 3y ago
  Sure, blame the user… This is why we have distros with ads like the OP. It’s our fault for seeing the propaganda you shove down our throats. Give me a break.
  - sheepscreek 3y ago
    There’s no such thing as a free beer. Someone is paying for it. As long as it’s not some kind of spyware, I’ll take the ads and donation prompts. If we’re discussing annoyance, Wikipedia’s campaigns are a great deal more annoying (but it works).
    - SahAssar 3y ago
      > There’s no such thing as a free beer. Except there is. Many linux distros are exactly free as in beer besides being free as in speech.
      - Dalewyn 3y ago
        A better analogy might be there's no such thing as a free lunch. All those distros you mention either have commercial support (eg: Red Hat, Ubuntu) or substantial recurring donations. Someone somewhere is paying even if you specifically aren't.
        uwagar 3y ago
        im yet to pay a dime for mx linux and its freaking fast and awesome.
montroser 3y ago
Yeah...but the adverts do kinda make it on brand. It's catering to Windows refugees, so maybe for those folks it just feels like home! In all seriousness, if you're actually looking for a Linux distro for a less-techincal audience, check out ElementaryOS.
- sheepscreek 3y ago
  After being a GNOME fanboy for decades, v3.0 and beyond left me disillusioned. I took to ElementaryOS and Mate, which was alright. Then I discovered KDE Plasma (thanks to Steam Deck) and absolutely fell in love with it. Well, well, well…how the turn tables[1]. 1. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=How%20the%20turn%20tables https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=How%20the%20...
  - Infernal 3y ago
    So you use ElemantaryOS with the KDE Plasma desktop? Or Plasma on a different distro now?
    - sheepscreek 3y ago
      Ubuntu with KDE, or you can go for Kubuntu which comes with KDE pre-installed. Works with Wayland too.
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  Obligatory reminder that elementaryOS, "the easiest to use Linux distro" made as a knockoff of macOS, expects users to format and reinstall every year when a new version is released. I can't recommend it.
  - Santosh83 3y ago
    This is the case for most Linux distributions, except for LTS and rolling release, and the latter isn't newbie friendly, which leaves the only good experience newcomers have with Linux are the LTS releases with increasingly outdated userspace apps. I hope immutable distributions take off, which will make major upgrades easier and pristine rollback easy. The Linux space really needs a newbie friendly, immutable distro. I know of Vanilla OS, OpenSUSE Aeon & Fedora Silverblue... hope we get more competition.
phendrenad2 3y ago
Well, that's illogical. Lots of serious things have ads. Youtube, the Wall Street Journal, Highway 1. Take your pick.
- seedie 3y ago
  It's not about having ads or not. As I explained elsewhere it is the ad to content ratio. There are so many ads and they sometimes blend with the content that it's hard to find information. That was my experience. YMMV
- hordehamhill 3y ago
  I wouldn't trust any of those things you list with my data, so I think it in fact seems logical.
- Enginerrrd 3y ago
  Not illogical at all. It gives you information about the creators and is atypical for open source folks to commercialize in user-hostile ways. It's like a moral version of code smell. The examples aren't very good analogies.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    So how are they supposed to commercialize given that most Linux users are generally a bunch of cheapskates? Donations seldom amount to enough to pay for hosting costs and supporting the developers and their families. Nobody buys physical discs anymore. Selling swag can have some limited success if you can come up with a really cool design, mascot, and/or logo A few companies have had success selling hardware, but that's a pretty small market overall with quite a bit of competition already. Subscriptions generally only work if you're providing commercial support contracts. Valve and JetBrains are the only companies I can think of that are making any significant amount of money selling closed source software to Linux users. I'm not surprised at all that they are using ads to monetize their distro, as it's one of the few ways they can.
    - KronisLV 3y ago

by seedie 3y ago

alrlroipsp 3y ago

[flagged]

Takennickname 3y ago
I dare you to visit the site without an ad blocker and say the same thing. It's worse than gizmodo
seedie 3y ago
If open source makes money thats great. But if your site contains more ads than content I don't spend my time finding out how you differ from other linux distros. Being "Free" is definitely not enough. But I get it, that was no constructive criticism so I try to do better. - the ad/content ratio is way to high - too many unnecessary animations and the choice of colors make me think its bad design. And i transfer this opinion on the main product. - its not clear at all to me why I should choose this distro over all the other free, easy to use linux distributions - all of the above points drive me away from spending more time on the site to find out more about the project This is highly subjective, but it seems like I'm not the only one struggling to find the information I want in a time I'm willing to spend. (Edited to fix formatting and typos)

KSPAtlas 3y ago

That reminds me of that "Windows 12" OS someone made by basically slapping a theme onto Linux lite and trying to sell it (Michael MJD made a YouTube video about it)

RuggedPineapple 3y ago
Are you old enough to remember Lindows? in like 2000/2001 it was a straight Windows ripoff, even used the old Win 9x/2k theme iirc, and had WINE built in, preconfigured and would intercept windows programs automatically and run them via that. It was blatant enough MS actually took them to court, ended up settling by buying the Lindows trademark from them for 20 million and getting a pinky promise they wouldn't be so confusing to consumers by trying to pass it off as a Windows equivalent. The product was eventually renamed Linspire and continued as a noob-friendly distro with less 'Hey, we're actually Windows!'.
- anthk 3y ago
  Lycoris Desktop->Lindows->Linspire. Yes, we remember. You could bypass the instalation prompt by setting up the APT repos by hand.
  - RuggedPineapple 3y ago
    Lycoris didn't become Lindows, those were two separate products from two different companies. Lycoris/Redmond Linux was bought out by Mandrake/Mandriva, Lindows went on to be bought by Ximian. Same end goal though, make a blatant Windows ripoff lol.
    - anthk 3y ago
      Ah, sorry then. I always tought Lycoris became Linspire.
- housemusicfan 3y ago
  Wasn't Lindows the MP3.com guy? Another company that got sued out of existence, only to be "reinvented" by Apple a decade later as iTunes Match.

2Gkashmiri 3y ago

Give these guys a break. If I'm being honest, why the hell are you surfing internet without ubo? I guess you said mobile so its most likely chrome so guess what? Firefox mobile has ubo and heck even Firefox focus has decent ad blocker. Even on iOS you have some content blockers so you really don't have any reason to use chrome on phones. If they are making money regardless of my using ubo, that's good for them.

gabereiser 3y ago
Sure, blame the user… This is why we have distros with ads like the OP. It’s our fault for seeing the propaganda you shove down our throats. Give me a break.
- sheepscreek 3y ago
  There’s no such thing as a free beer. Someone is paying for it. As long as it’s not some kind of spyware, I’ll take the ads and donation prompts. If we’re discussing annoyance, Wikipedia’s campaigns are a great deal more annoying (but it works).
  - SahAssar 3y ago
    > There’s no such thing as a free beer. Except there is. Many linux distros are exactly free as in beer besides being free as in speech.
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      A better analogy might be there's no such thing as a free lunch. All those distros you mention either have commercial support (eg: Red Hat, Ubuntu) or substantial recurring donations. Someone somewhere is paying even if you specifically aren't.
      - uwagar 3y ago
        im yet to pay a dime for mx linux and its freaking fast and awesome.

montroser 3y ago

Yeah...but the adverts do kinda make it on brand. It's catering to Windows refugees, so maybe for those folks it just feels like home! In all seriousness, if you're actually looking for a Linux distro for a less-techincal audience, check out ElementaryOS.

sheepscreek 3y ago
After being a GNOME fanboy for decades, v3.0 and beyond left me disillusioned. I took to ElementaryOS and Mate, which was alright. Then I discovered KDE Plasma (thanks to Steam Deck) and absolutely fell in love with it. Well, well, well…how the turn tables[1]. 1. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=How%20the%20turn%20tables https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=How%20the%20...
- Infernal 3y ago
  So you use ElemantaryOS with the KDE Plasma desktop? Or Plasma on a different distro now?
  - sheepscreek 3y ago
    Ubuntu with KDE, or you can go for Kubuntu which comes with KDE pre-installed. Works with Wayland too.
ComputerGuru 3y ago
Obligatory reminder that elementaryOS, "the easiest to use Linux distro" made as a knockoff of macOS, expects users to format and reinstall every year when a new version is released. I can't recommend it.
- Santosh83 3y ago
  This is the case for most Linux distributions, except for LTS and rolling release, and the latter isn't newbie friendly, which leaves the only good experience newcomers have with Linux are the LTS releases with increasingly outdated userspace apps. I hope immutable distributions take off, which will make major upgrades easier and pristine rollback easy. The Linux space really needs a newbie friendly, immutable distro. I know of Vanilla OS, OpenSUSE Aeon & Fedora Silverblue... hope we get more competition.

phendrenad2 3y ago

Well, that's illogical. Lots of serious things have ads. Youtube, the Wall Street Journal, Highway 1. Take your pick.

seedie 3y ago
It's not about having ads or not. As I explained elsewhere it is the ad to content ratio. There are so many ads and they sometimes blend with the content that it's hard to find information. That was my experience. YMMV
hordehamhill 3y ago
I wouldn't trust any of those things you list with my data, so I think it in fact seems logical.
Enginerrrd 3y ago
Not illogical at all. It gives you information about the creators and is atypical for open source folks to commercialize in user-hostile ways. It's like a moral version of code smell. The examples aren't very good analogies.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  So how are they supposed to commercialize given that most Linux users are generally a bunch of cheapskates? Donations seldom amount to enough to pay for hosting costs and supporting the developers and their families. Nobody buys physical discs anymore. Selling swag can have some limited success if you can come up with a really cool design, mascot, and/or logo A few companies have had success selling hardware, but that's a pretty small market overall with quite a bit of competition already. Subscriptions generally only work if you're providing commercial support contracts. Valve and JetBrains are the only companies I can think of that are making any significant amount of money selling closed source software to Linux users. I'm not surprised at all that they are using ads to monetize their distro, as it's one of the few ways they can.
  - KronisLV 3y ago