[Cialug] RE: UBUNTU

[albus]

I hate to say it, but it installs as easy or easier than winders.
And it found everything without having to tweak the hell out of it.


Joel


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "D. Joe Anderson" <deejoe@raccoon.com>
To: <cialug@cialug.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 10:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Cialug] RE: UBUNTU


> On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 03:59:17PM -0600, Korver, Aaron wrote:
>> What is it's "catch"?  Gentoo's is compile it to optimize it, Knoppix is 
>> run
>> from CD, anything special about UBUNTU?
>
> It's a commercial distribution.  So, unlike Gentoo, Knoppix, and
> Debian, its release engineering isn't entirely up to volunteers.
>
> It's aimed squarely at the desktop/laptop, newbie,
> non-technical, non-server market (though I think they do have a
> server version or install set or something, since in the end its
> still GNU/Linux underneath).  The disabled root account is just
> one example of this--the "right way" to do administrative stuff
> is to use sudo rather than to drop into root.  If the install
> "just works" no one should *have* to use root, anyway.  I think
> the closest comparison here in terms of target market is the
> MacOS X desktop market.
>
> It's a Debian derivative.  So, compare in that regard to Knoppix
> or Lindows or <insert a bazillion other Debian derivatives
> here>.
>
> The billionaire astronaut backing is no joke.  The money behind
> the company behind Ubuntu comes from the South African moneybags
> who paid for a ride on the Soyuz or something like that.  He
> started the Thawte commercial certificate authority back in the
> days before Network Solutions bought it up.
>
> That money pays several people who were already participants in
> free software development, including some folks from the GNOME
> project, I think.
>
> Release cycle:  Their plan is to follow the same kind of release
> schedule as GNOME, which is to have a release every six months
> come hell or high water.  This is supposed to help
> everybody--developers and users--to plan better, I think.  If
> someone wants to make it into the next release, they know what
> their timeline is.  If they don't, not such a huge deal, because
> the next one is 6 months away.  Contrast this with Debian's
> very, uh, deliberate "when its ready" release plan.  Ubuntu's
> first 6 month release date isn't until later this spring, so I
> guess we'll see how it goes.  Works great for GNOME, or so they
> tell me.
>
>
> -- 
> D. Joe Anderson         www.etrumeus.com/~deejoe
> "DRM [...] is to copyright law as a machine gun on
> a motion detector is to real estate law"  -- Don Marti
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