Ubuntu - My Favorite Linux Distro
Written by: Jeff
I’ve been tinkering around with Canonical’s Ubuntu (Oo - boon - too) since the first release 4.10 “Warty Warthog” all the way up to their latest release 8.04 “Hardy Heron.” Since then I’ve flirted with other distributions, but I always end up back with Ubuntu for several reasons. The top three are as follows:
1. Nice package management and abundant repositories.
Ubuntu uses APT, which means getting thousands of applications is as easy as a simple apt-get from the shell, or for GUI lovers, there are nice options for any desktop environment you choose. Adding support for multimedia codes and proprietary hardware is a snap as well, it will prompt you if it detects you need it and ask you if you would like to install support for it.
2. Consistency and reliability.
I’ve only really gotten burned once with a bad Ubuntu update, which was resolved immediately (xorg.config bombed, not good). In my experience, other distributions that offer the breadth of software and updates that Ubuntu does typically break and require a lot of forum searching and manual tweaks to fix. Which is about the time I say screw it and reinstall Ubuntu.
3. Excellent community.
Be it forums, IRC, or user groups - Ubuntu has a great following and a lot of good people willing to help you out with any issues.
So, I guess I could wrap things up by saying Ubuntu is easy to work with and provides me the least amount of headaches of any Linux distribution. I can get up and running quickly with out the stupid little things breaking like they do on a lot of distributions while maintaining the freedom to pop under the hood and be a nerd with it too, because after all it is Linux!
Tags: distribution, Linux, Ubuntu
