Well Sir…I suppose we will have to agree to disagree about this one. I feel that you are grossly exaggerating the underdeveloped state of desktop Linux before Canonical and underestimating the contributions that other large organizations (like Red Hat) have had (and do have) on desktop Linux as well. But, this is also coming from someone who install their Linux disto. with the minimal option (if available), boots into the new distro. to be greeted by a terminal prompt and installs the software I need…Like a pre-Canonical Caveman!!! ;p
Disclaimer: Just an opinion. (from another caveman who learned programming on punch cards and used HP-UX in production for a decade)
Having watched the birth and growth of Linux and Red Hat I can honestly say they changed my life and for that matter the world. I am in awe daily and could never begin to thank the countless people that grew Linux to what it is today. That said I don’t think I could have started moving the number of non technical friends and relatives of all ages I have to a smooth, productive, trouble free desktop experience before the inception of Ubuntu. Maybe if it hadn’t been them it would have been someone else but for me personally Mark Shuttleworth has taken a place among my tech heroes.
3 Likes
Yes we will likely have to agree to disagree because I don’t believe I am exaggerating at all. I used Linux for many years prior to Ubuntu and it was always a chore and sometimes a nightmare to use it so when Ubuntu came in that all changed. This is why I give them so much credit because Red Hat and SUSE did do a lot for Linux but not much for Desktop Linux specifically in my opinion. SUSE didn’t make openSUSE until after Ubuntu and Red Hat only started Fedora about 6 months or so prior to Ubuntu so they never really had a focus on the Desktop.
I agree with this for sure
Some of the early Redhat and SuSE boxed products were an absolute bear to get working properly - and those were paid-for commercial releases, unlike Ubuntu. Honestly the only thing that kept me off of Ubuntu when it first came out was my lack of broadband at the time. Early Ubuntu relied pretty heavily on downloaded things to be useful to me since it was free software only (codecs being a sticky wicket for a long time). The boxed sets typically had extra CDs with optional packages I could install without spending days downloading.
Thinking back, SuSE and Mandrake had the best home user boxed sets in the late 90s for my buck.
1 Like
- Before Ubuntu, for some of us, there was SUSE (no open) and RPM Hell…
- and then we discovered Simply Mepis, but it went away…
- and then along came the Warty Warthog, it was a bit ugly but was the start of long relationship…
- until 17.10 broke my BIOS…
- and now I have MX (spiritual descendant of Mepis… the circle of life).
To be honest, Red Hate, SUSE, Debian, Canonical (and others) have all played their parts in where we are today, different focuses, but all making Linux what it is, and being the seeds for the smaller distros that have their own visions (even Arch has spawned some nifty distros in Arco, Manjaro and Endeavour).
Have fun trying to decide who contributed the most, who was most important to Linux development, I don’t care, I’m just happy being where we are today.
1 Like
I came to Linux way late to have an opinion on that but yours is a healthy one 
watching this debate made me think about endless arguing about sports and who’s the greatest and all that. Could be fun but also pointless 
Nice one 
First off, I do not hate Canonical. I recogize the tremendous amount of work and effort that they have provided and from that the tremendous amount of growth and impact
it has had on the Linux desktop community. Had Canonical not been around, I’m sure the Linux desktop would have evolved, but I am of the opinion that it would
not have evolved as quickly. Canonical is an icon and have a well deserved place in history for their impact to the Linux community.
That is my considered opinion.
1 Like
Some here have stated that Ubuntu is not tracking users.
Here is a webpage from a Canonical owned domain that shows the results of the data collected from Ubuntu users. I am quite aware that it is possible to track
application and repo usage from the backend, but this clearly shows that data was collected from users because there is no backend way to track the architecture
type of a users computer without that information being sent from the users computer.
EDIT: I’m new to Discourse, but I thought that replying to a message would have ‘quoted’ or otherwise included the original message. I see that is not the case here. Perhaps someone could enlighten me on how they are quoting messages.
They can potentially track architecture because the system pulls packages from different repositories based on the system architecture.
Ubuntu on Raspberry Pi pulls packages from an armhf repository. Ubuntu on a traditional desktop pc pulls from a x86_64 repository.
1 Like
An excellent point !!!
I stand corrected.
Red Hate must be a Freudian… it’s another RPM based distro and the trauma of those early days of RPM Hell linger on 
I have tried Fedora a couple of times in the last year - 18 months and it worked fine, no more RPM madness, but it still makes me twitchy.
2 Likes
I seem to remember they did announce BEFORE one release they intended to have an opt-in survey of anonymized data about what hardware people were installing on (processor, RAN, screen resolution, and such) which was both instructive for them (and I expect other distros) as well as users when it was published. It allowed them to know their audience and better focus their efforts.
It was hardly harvesting personal info, being opt-in people were effectively donating their info - what’s so bad about that? it was a small contribution to the software they were enjoying using.
There’s nothing right or wrong with it, it’s a purely personal choice as to whether or not you want your information included.
popcon was an optional anonymous reporting tool (which we get from debian) - see https://popcon.debian.org/
It’s been switched off for a long time. The data isn’t useful or reliable, so we don’t use it.
Even if someone chooses to use it, it’s not personally identifiable anyway, so it’s not tracking people.
1 Like
I agree with all of that. I was just offering my opinion. I doubt there is remotely a way to quantify who did the most but that’s not what I intended. I think Ubuntu/Canonical deserves a done of respect and I offered my opinion as to why I think that.
easy, Michael Jordan 
Indeed
As Popey said, this is not a tracking thing because it has to be manually activated and it’s also something Debian made and uses. I don’t think there is any complaint for popcon other than the data being rather useless in how skewed it is but if there was something to complain about it should be directed to Debian.
To Quote someone all you have to do is highlight the text with your mouse and then a Quote button pop ups, click that and it will inject the Quote to wherever your cursor is in the comment field.
This is kind of weird and unintuitive but the benefit is that you can quote only specific things much easier unlike other forums where you have to quote everything and then remove pieces from the quote.
There is a way to track architecture sure but when people use mirrors that are not in control of the distro they have no ability whatsoever to see any data because they aren’t providing the packages. So yea, it is possible to use architecture data in a way but due to the mirror system it makes that data so skewed that it essentially isn’t worth much.
Yea, this started with Ubuntu 18.04 and is included in all releases after as well. I think this approach is great and every single distro should do it. Even Fedora does data collection but they arent Canonical so somehow they skipped the hate train on that.
I’m not saying Fedora should get hate for it, none of them should and all of them should have this kind of data info because that is one of the reasons Linux has been held back in the mainstream. No one having any idea how many users there actually are.
Exactly
2 Likes
Got it, thanks !!!
Funny enough I was precisely thinking of that debate 
1 Like
Ubuntu I detected it on a CD in 2005 and I was impressed after installing it on a Pentium II with two 2GB SCSI HDDs using lvm or something comparable. But on my work and on my Pentium III desktop I used Windows XP, so basically I was a Windows fan boy. In 2008 after buying Windows Vista (32-bits) on a 64 bit Dell laptop with a very slow HDD, I remembered Ubuntu and installed it in double boot with Windows Vista. In 2010 after changing that horrible slow HDD and installing the service packs, Vista became really usable. However Microsoft lost me as a fanboy and after retirement on 1-1-11, I completely switched to Ubuntu 
I only have been disloyal to vanilla Ubuntu twice:
- During the introduction of Unity, I switched for half a year to Xubuntu, because I had a problem with my video card,
- During the introduction of Gnome in 18.04, I switched for say 1 year to Ubuntu Mate. I was running VMs on a maxed out 8 GB HP dc5850 from 2008, so memory size of the Host OS was very important!
Now with a 16GB Ryzen I’m back in vanilla Ubuntu and I’m almost completely happy. I’m happy that I can use the same snaps from the same snap-store for many of my 50 VMs and they are updated automatically independent of the distro and if I detect a problem, I can rollback that snap-update.
My GOAT’s - Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Bo Jackson (pick a sport) and Larry Bird/Magic Johnson because they made each other better.
As for distro’s, Ubuntu set the scale. When Ubuntu would lag then along came Xubuntu. Then I discovered rolling releases.
As for Snaps, welcome to the future, until the next best thing. Nothing wrong with Flatpaks either.