Ubuntu Is Not the Only Linux

Ubuntu Myopia

December 30, 2010
By Matt Hartley

To many people, Ubuntu is Linux. Which means that their perception, for good or ill, is determined by Ubuntu. Matt Hartley reminds us there is more to Linux than just Ubuntu.

Go ahead and try a Google search for ��Linux�� in the news feeds. In fact, try looking up ��Linux�� in any news search engine and see what you come up with.

Notice a pattern yet? For some reason that seems to escape most people, Ubuntu "owns" the Linux headlines with very few exceptions. Obviously Chrome OS and Android are in the top news headlines as well, however generally it's Ubuntu that shows up as most popular in open source news these days.

This trend is even more severe among blogs and forum sites. Clearly the Ubuntu way of offering Linux to the masses has caught on to such a degree that it's amazing when new users even realize other distributions exist.

Confusion abound

At the risk of sounding like I��m bashing on Ubuntu here, I've seen numerous incidents where poor experiences with the distribution have colored opinions of other Linux distributions without any cause. This trend reflects something that I've been concerned about for sometime now: people perceiving Ubuntu as "the" Linux desktop operating system.

Not enough Ubuntu users appear to realize that not every distribution of Linux out there is doing things the "Ubuntu way" with regard to buggy releases and a need to look like OS X, among other issues. Many other Linux distributions out there have varying release schedules and some Linux distributions even wait until their releases are stable before releasing them. Clearly a bold move, as much of Ubuntu's success might be attributed to the "release no matter what mentality" we see these days.

Newbie friendly non-Ubuntu distributions

Need some of the niceties of a new user friendly distribution but would rather avoid Ubuntu's way of doing things? Nothing to fear, alternative distributions are indeed available.