Wednesday, September 18, 2013

the view from here

It just seems to me that when it comes to Ubuntu, Canonical, and Shuttleworth, quite a few people only see, and only talk about, what they perceive as bad, evil, stupid, or whatever. Nothing positive, nothing good.

Canonical and Shuttleworth are supposed to be so awful, so terrible, and yet when I sit down to my computer, their distro seems to me to be as good as anything else out there. I don't have problems with it crashing, or with things breaking when I bring updates in; I'm able to install it on just about anything; the documentation is great; I can get the apps I want or need; I can run just about any environment on it that I want; I can tweak it to my heart's desire.

And, it's free. I can use it to get my work done. If there's anything I don't like, I can turn it off or change it.

Just like any other distro.

It isn't perfect, but I'm not looking for perfection. I just need for it to be something that I can use, for it to be good enough to make me want to keep using it. And it is.

Having both Debian and Ubuntu running here, I feel, is to my benefit. One is better in some respects, the other is better in other ways. I feel like I have more freedom, more flexibility, using both than I'd have if I used only one or the other.

You know what, just like a lot of other Ubuntu users, I may not be the most knowledgeable guy out there, but I'm not stupid, either. I read what's written about Ubuntu, Canonical, and Shuttleworth. I understand their commercial intentions, and I'm not blind to the implications. I get it.

But I also see the other side. The positives. I see what I've got in front of me, and what I can do with it.

Just like anyone else, I weigh things out. I'd drop Ubuntu just like I've dropped other distros if I didn't think that it remained advantageous for me to keep using it.

I guess I wouldn't mind it so much if most of what I hear (or, rather, read) was like, "Here's the good, here's the bad, try it for yourself, maybe it'll work out for you, maybe it won't." But so many people only write about the bad, as if there's nothing good about Ubuntu at all, and it makes me want to say, "Wait a minute, I've been using it here for, what, something like seven freakin' years! What kind of idiot would I be to keep using something for that long if it was as awful as you say it is? I'm not the only one, and a lot of Ubuntu users are much more intelligent than I am and know a lot more about Linux than I do. So what's really going on here?"

Is Mark Shuttleworth going around pissing in everybody's coffee, or what? Why so much hatred and anger towards a distro that's free to use or to not use? If some people don't like Ubuntu, that's fine, but why do so many people who don't even use Ubuntu, or who quit using it years ago, seem to keep going out of their way to criticize it and ridicule it (and, in too many cases, its users)?

Rip the other guy to pieces -- there's nothing good about them. From where I sit, that's what's wrong with Linux: Tribalism, jealousy, elitism. End rant, I'm finished.

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