Ubuntu Linux losing popularity fast.

[bill]

Interesting to watch the fanbois fight it out in the comments. However, this article did make me wish I had a bit more time to play around with Mint.

Ubuntu Linux losing popularity fast. New Unity interface to blame?

Don't panic Ubuntu fans but your favorite desktop Linux distribution has fallen to fourth place in DistroWatch's latest ranking.

Ubuntu has been overtaken by Fedora, Mint, and openSUSE. Mint now holds the number one spot in all of DistroWatch's rankings going back at least a year, which leads us to wonder why.

One reason behind this reversal of fortune for Ubuntu could be the change of default interface in version 11.04 or "Natty Narwhal", released in April 2011. With the new Ubuntu came Unity, an interface previously seen in Ubuntu Netbook Edition, and Gnome was relegated to an option.

There has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Unity. Now it seems like Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, may be paying the price for the change. Let's look at the numbers.

[jetboy]

There's a decent article on the background to this here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/08/ubuntu_on_trial/

Whether Unity's the right or wrong choice, Ubuntu had to make some sort of move away from Gnome 2. According to the article, (Ubuntu based) Mint is due to move away from Gnome 2 on the next release.

Only using Ubuntu Server here, so happily unaffected.

[4Eyes]

However, this article did make me wish I had a bit more time to play around with Mint.

It doesn't take much getting used to really - its Ubuntu made more user friendly.

I love it - never been happier with an OS

[ukgimp]

My unity fixes the woes

http://m.lifehacker.com/5868752/myunity-tweaks-every-dark-corner-of-ubuntus-unity-interface

[4Eyes]

I have just switched from Mint to Ubuntu 11.10

Nothing wrong with Mint as such, their efforts to make Ubuntu more acceptable to long time 'Gnome' users are entirely praise-worthy, but I suspect that they are probably trying to turn back the tide, so I thought I should give Ubuntu itself another try.

It didn't take me long to work out that the 'Unity' desktop is not for me, and probably never will be - however, they have made it very easy to use Gnome 3 instead, and this is actually pretty good now - the gnome-extensions they have just added allowed me set things up pretty much as I want them to be.

All in all, very impressed.

BTW, if any of you Mac types want to try a Ubuntu type linux, there is a distro called 'Luminux' which supposedly does a good job of making it less painful. I gave that a try too - nice, but all the window controls are in the wrong place for me

[bill]

What does Ubuntu do better than Mint?

I'm about to drop Linux onto a friend's laptop and was leaning toward Mint for the noob-friendly factor. This guy keeps bypassing all the security I put on his Windows installs and continually gets powned. I thought he'd be less able to screw things up if I got him off Windows.

[4Eyes]

What does Ubuntu do better than Mint?

Not much really - Mint is based pretty closely on Ubuntu, but with their own desktop placed on top.
You get to be slightly ahead of the Mint version when there is an upgrade, as Mint needs to code its mods etc.

At the moment, they are both at Ubuntu 11.10 - but I can try out 'Unbuntu 12.04 testing' if I wish.

I installed Ubuntu as I was reformating a PC anyway, and if I was going to use the Gnome 3 interface, I might as well have the option to play around with the latest testing version of the OS.

If I was installing for a noob, I would go with Mint, Luminux... or even Zorin (Zorin is based on a slightly older version of Ubuntu, but is designed to replicate MS Windows as closely as it can). The Gnome 3 and Unity desktops are NOT very intuitive for someone coming from Windows - arguably, they are better than Windows, but nothing is where you expect it to be.

[bill]

> Zorin

I had not seen that distro before. I think I'll go with that for the noob-machine for starters. You can switch it to look like Win2K, XP, Vista, Win7, Mac, or even Gnome. That alone would be a lot more intuitive and cut down on the amount of assistance I'd have to provide. Thanks for the tip!!

[littleman]

Any Linux user here not really into Gnome or KDE and prefers to have a simple window manager?  I've been using fluxbox for years.

[4Eyes]

Fluxbox

I am 'having a play around' with different DEs at the moment - just trying out E17 at the moment (after being impressed with the way Bodhi linux uses it - Bodhi is great, but not 64bit version )

Haven't tried Fluxbox since my last Linux spell - 4 years ago or more - thanks for reminding me, will give it a blast later today.

[BoL]

>fluxbox

been using that in an Xvfb server, it's very light on memory. Blackbox is quite similar.

[ukgimp]

I don't understand this fascination with playing with the latest distro or as today new thing Window 8. It take fucking hours to sort a PC to get it how you want, why mess with that!

[4Eyes]

It take f###ing hours to sort a PC to get it how you want, why mess with that

Cos with linux it is far easier - I can log out and log back in using anyone of a number of different Desktop Environments (not the same as Distros) - eg. I now have:
* cinnamon
* gnome (2 and 3)
* XFCE
* LXDE
* Fluxbox
* E17
... and could add a couple more.

'Desktop Environments' determine how your desktop works, windows, launchers etc etc

I have recently installed Ubuntu instead of Mint - not a major change compared to changing versions of MS Windows - now I am playing around with the various DEs until I find one that I can configure to work exactly the way I want it to.

My main laptop is away for repair at the moment, so I can play around as much as I want with this system, then copy the set up on when my lappy comes back.

[Zwart]

Hehe.

Never been happier...

New distro/envir...

I feel there's a slight discrepancy.
Apparently, the "never been happier" status is rather short-lived when it comes to Linux. Funny.

[ukgimp]

>>Apparently, the "never been happier" status is rather short-lived when it comes to Linux. Funny.

hehe

Yes, next week there are 16 more linux versions out, can't wait for Windows 8, 9,15 and the 2020 edition (i made these up)