Ubuntu Sucks? or just me?

mezoko · 2007-09-09 02:41:50

Everybody, or so it seems worship ubuntu but I've always ran into random problems and it really bugs me that people recommend this piece of garbage.

I have been running linux systems for over 2 years now. I know my shit pretty well. Now ubuntu is suppose to be an easy going distro for people who have never used linux before, right? Well whenever I've tried ubuntu I've always run into the strangest bugs that I don't have on any other distro.

1. Installed Ubuntu on a HP laptop, when I installed the Nvidia drivers using synaptic, screwed up X
2. Installed Ubuntu on a desktop when installed cvs from a brand new system, it hosed apt-get (apt-get broke)
3. Installed Ubuntu and then ndiswrapper, ndiswrapper would not work, no solution on internet to fix the problem
4. Installed Ubuntu and the build tools (system messed up, can't remember results, to long ago)
5. Installed Xubuntu, installed updates, try to launch terminal, crashed X (just recently)

I wasn't even doing anything unsupported. Everything was done from apt-get / synaptic package manager. Now I didn't spend a whole lot of time fixing this issues, I just said screw and moved on. The thing that I don't understand though is that everyone recommends ubuntu, but everytime I try ubuntu and run into this bugs. This would not be a n00b friendly experience. I currently run arch, have ran gentoo, and learned slackware in my begging Linux days, so it is not like I'm a lost Linux User.

Am I just unlucky? Crazy? Dumb?
It just bugs me so much that so many people recommend such a piece of crap!!! Grr!!!

Allan · 2007-09-09 02:52:28

A bit of flame bait there...

Well I used it on several computers and had no problems at all. In fact I've had far more problems trying to setup Arch on my laptop. Linux on a laptop is a whole new ball game!

mezoko · 2007-09-09 02:53:53

I wouldn't call it flame bait, just more frustration. I've never once had ubuntu work right out of the box like its suppose and yet everyone recommends it. I guess I have really shitty bad luck with ubuntu

iBertus · 2007-09-09 03:02:11

I've had some issues with Ubuntu and my laptop just because it's packages are not always as fresh as what Arch offers. So, in that direction Arch is better. I've not tried Ubuntu on a desktop so I can't comment.

F · 2007-09-09 05:00:43

take this shit to the ubuntu forums. damn.

MRiGnS · 2007-09-09 05:28:42

mezoko wrote:

I have been running linux systems for over 2 years now. I know my shit pretty well.

Yeah, having been running linux for about 2 years makes you like the uber pro! lol

This thread is sooo pointless, go to the ubuntuforums and complain there to help them...

shining · 2007-09-09 09:10:52

mezoko wrote:

Am I just unlucky? Crazy? Dumb?

All three.
As others said, it would make more sense to report each issue in a new thread on ubuntu forums, in a better tone, and with much more details.

Not sure what I would think of Ubuntu users who don't give a fair try to Arch, and then flame about it on their forums.

Warren Watts · 2007-09-09 10:03:49

I have installed Ubuntu on three different desktops and have never had any major problems. I frequent the Ubuntu forum, and I do see people that seem to have a lot of issues tho, especially with wireless networking and graphics cards. But those seem to be common issues with just about any Linux Distro tho.

I installed Arch on one of my computers yesterday (replacing an Ubuntu install), and I have nothing but good things to say. I did a fair bit of reading on Arch in other forums before I decided to undertake the install, and all in all, everything went smoothly.

In general, I have never seen Arch "trashed" on the Ubuntu forum or anywhere else for that matter. Everyone seems to have really positive things to say about Arch, actually.

iphitus · 2007-09-09 13:33:14

Naive to think any distro will be bug free, and even more naive to think all your problems were of the distro, rather than yourself. Years using linux counts for nothing, you still make mistakes, and it's no indication of what you've actually learnt during those years.

Ubuntu is a fine distro. I, like many others, have had no issues with it.

This is silly flamebait.

Last edited by iphitus (2007-09-09 13:34:44)

hussam · 2007-09-09 14:07:04

Ubuntu's problem has always been it's kernel. It's not that stable. Another thing is that I don't like desktop meta packages. I would rather install only the part of gnome I want. It is also easier to make pacman packages than Debian packages. Ubuntu's strength has always been in it's advertising.
The last time I tried to install Ubuntu on someone's new HP laptop from university, it gave weird kernel errors on boot like "no buffer space available" which scared him off back to windows.
In any case, I think OpenSUSE and Mandriva are better alternatives for new Linux users.

Last edited by hussam (2007-09-09 14:08:21)

dunc · 2007-09-09 14:48:14

I've never had any trouble with Ubuntu, but if it has a problem, it's that it takes the Windows/Mac approach to user friendliness/ease of use; ie, automate everything and hide it from the user. That's great when it works (I've lost count of the articles I've read where Windows users are astonished they don't have to do any setup at all with supposedly "hard to use" Linux) but when it fails, it actually makes things more difficult for a Linux newcomer because he's really dropped in at the deep end and left to fix things the "hard way", leaving a worse impression than if he'd had to to a small amount of setup in a SUSE/Mandriva-style GUI configuration tool.

Gullible Jones · 2007-09-09 16:57:46

I did a bit of experimentation with Ubuntu when I trying to make over my old desktop... It was very usable out of the box, but seemed to have some problems detecting all the hardware right. Also, I remember the fonts looking distinctly awful, but I think that had more to do with looking at a CRT monitor after a while using my laptop's higher res LCD screen.

(Yes, I know everyone says that CRTs look better, but in my experience they produce a blurrier image. I suppose CRTs are better in theory but in practice you just can't get all the damn settings exactly right. Anyway...)

I only came up against one really ugly bug. Actually I'm not sure if it was a bug or what... Whatever was going on, vi would not respond properly to inputs, not showing insert/replace/edit mode and inserting several characters whenever a key was pressed (even the arrow keys). Might have been some kind of problem with the keyboard layout, maybe.

chippy · 2007-09-09 17:36:25

Got to agree with shining on this one. Please keep stuff like this out of here.

mezoko · 2007-09-09 20:12:44

These were 5 problems at different times I encountered doing very basic things. That is why it bothers me. Its not suppose to be a flame bait. This problems did not occur in other linux distributions.

tomk · 2007-09-09 20:19:06

The reason it's being regarded as flamebait is because it should not be here. If you have problems with Ubuntu, post them in the Ubuntu forums.

pelle.k · 2007-09-09 21:05:28

It just bugs me so much that so many people recommend such a piece of crap!!! Grr!!!

I hope this quote can at least serve as an example, of what not to say. You know, people here at the arch linux forums are generally open about other OS:es, and use arch linux because it fits our "mind set", and not because "ubuntu sucks".
Furthermore, many of us are former (or still) ubuntu users and have much good to say about that distro, so i would refrain from this kind of comments. No hard feelings though...

MrWeatherbee · 2007-09-09 22:21:43

pelle.k wrote:

It just bugs me so much that so many people recommend such a piece of crap!!! Grr!!!
I hope this quote can at least serve as an example, of what not to say. You know, people here at the arch linux forums are generally open about other OS:es, and use arch linux because it fits our "mind set", and not because "ubuntu sucks".
Furthermore, many of us are former (or still) ubuntu users and have much good to say about that distro, so i would refrain from this kind of comments. No hard feelings though...

Pelle.k,

Your quote is also a pretty good example of how one might disagree with Mezoko while being helpfully critical and without being condescending or nasty about it.

There are several posts in this thread which are quite the opposite, and some of those come from high profile personalities in this forum.

Aside from the snideness, some of those posts seemed to purposefully ignore the fact that the OP was not seeking to solve any current issues (or previous issues, for that matter) with Ubuntu. It is very obvious that, in essence, he was wondering how a distro becomes so high-profile even in light of the fact that it is often no more user-friendly than a lot of lesser known / less popular Linux distributions. You may or may not agree with his assessment or his manner, but dismissing his pondering (which makes sense in the general "Linux Discussion" section), by suggesting he go to the Ubuntu forums looking for fixes is as off-point as one could possibly get.

Finally, and perhaps of larger import, I think the "How Old Are You?" thread should be mandatory reading for all forum members, especially devs and the older-hats, so they can be reminded just how young some of the Arch forum members are. I think some people posting in this thread might be embarrassed if they dug a little. Knowing someone's specific age is not important, as civility works quite well for all age groups, but being aware that you may be talking to someone who is very young may temper a desire to be so impatient.

I'm not looking to burn bridges or play the forum police as I'm likely to need some help from a lot of people in this thread somewhere down the line (and I'd like to reserve the right to be an ass when the situation really calls for it) ... but I just wanted to provide some food-for-thought about a growing irritation as I watched this thread progress.

Dusty · 2007-09-10 03:26:51

I don't think I'll lock this yet, but be careful. Its not really relevant to Arch. (We prefer to leave the distro-bashing to other distros -- you know, the more inferior ones. :-D) In my mind, the reason Ubuntu is an excellent distro is that its got a lot of good developers squashing a lot of bugs reported by a lot of users. If you're having trouble with it, I suggest asking at those forums, they may be able to help. Although... their forums are a pain to navigate.

I've been using Ubuntu for six months and have to say I'm impressed. I never thought a "easy to use distro" could be so... easy to use. But when it does break it is possible to fix it. Its just complex underneath. Which is why I have an Arch ISO sitting on my drive waiting to be installed as we speak. :-)

But all distros are quirky with certain hardware. For example, I NEVER had any luck getting Redhat working on anything (this was in the times before Fedora). But Mandrake (this was in the times before Mandriva too) always worked fine for me. I wondered at the time why everyone was recommending Redhat, and I especially wondered why I saw posts with the opposite statement -- Mandrake always sucks, but Redhat works flawlessly. Apparently I happened to have hardware configurations that were very better suited to Mandrake.

As for experience... I've had seven years with Linux now and there is still so much I don't know about it. But whenever it gives me a problem in any distro I try, I usually take the opportunity to try to fix it -- its a chance to learn. It sometimes takes hacking source code or even the kernel source, and sometimes I break more than I fix, but its an opportunity nonetheless.

Oddly, this isn't the case with Windows. When Windows doesn't do what I want, I get annoyed and start bashing Windows. I just don't have the patience to learn that OS. But I've had my eyes/mind opened on that front too -- I know a guy who can make Windows run about as smoothly as I can make Linux run, and I didn't think that was possible. But apparently its me that's being impossible. I just find Windows too annoying to bother tinkering with. It may well be you have the same issue with Ubuntu... I'm sure you can fix all the problems you note, but if the distro in general annoys you, you won't bother. I'm sure you have just as many problems with Arch (but they may be a totally different set of problems), but under Arch its more fun to fix em. (Yep, that's why I'm coming back!)

Dusty

shining · 2007-09-10 10:17:54

Dusty wrote:

Oddly, this isn't the case with Windows. When Windows doesn't do what I want, I get annoyed and start bashing Windows. I just don't have the patience to learn that OS. But I've had my eyes/mind opened on that front too -- I know a guy who can make Windows run about as smoothly as I can make Linux run, and I didn't think that was possible. But apparently its me that's being impossible. I just find Windows too annoying to bother tinkering with. It may well be you have the same issue with Ubuntu... I'm sure you can fix all the problems you note, but if the distro in general annoys you, you won't bother. I'm sure you have just as many problems with Arch (but they may be a totally different set of problems), but under Arch its more fun to fix em. (Yep, that's why I'm coming back!)

lol, that's exactly what I'm thinking when looking back at the time when I used windows.

hussam · 2007-09-10 12:52:16

hussam wrote:

Ubuntu's problem has always been it's kernel. It's not that stable. Another thing is that I don't like desktop meta packages. I would rather install only the part of gnome I want. It is also easier to make pacman packages than Debian packages. Ubuntu's strength has always been in it's advertising.
The last time I tried to install Ubuntu on someone's new HP laptop from university, it gave weird kernel errors on boot like "no buffer space available" which scared him off back to windows.
In any case, I think OpenSUSE and Mandriva are better alternatives for new Linux users.

I just wanted to point out that I'm not flaming Ubuntu here. I just mentioned a problem I saw while installing Ubuntu on someone's laptop. In fact, I even filed that bug to Ubuntu's bug tracker.

Last edited by hussam (2007-09-10 17:34:14)

Loke · 2007-09-10 15:13:58

In my opinion, you have just been unlucky with some stuff, but it certainly doesn't mean the distro sucks. I haven't had any problems with Ubuntu on those computers I have installed it on. Also if it did suck, like really, I doubt that so many people would use it.

kagerato · 2007-09-12 00:47:47

MrWeatherbee wrote:

It is very obvious that, in essence, he was wondering how a distro becomes so high-profile even in light of the fact that it is often no more user-friendly than a lot of lesser known / less popular Linux distributions.

The answer to that is pretty simple. It has a millionaire backing it. Being able to actually hire people to produce documentation, write code, and do promotions makes a huge difference.

MrWeatherbee · 2007-09-12 01:24:59

kagerato wrote:

MrWeatherbee wrote:
It is very obvious that, in essence, he was wondering how a distro becomes so high-profile even in light of the fact that it is often no more user-friendly than a lot of lesser known / less popular Linux distributions.
The answer to that is pretty simple. It has a millionaire backing it. Being able to actually hire people to produce documentation, write code, and do promotions makes a huge difference.

Just to be clear since you addressed me instead of the OP, I wasn't the one who was seeking answers to any questions.

I actually like Ubuntu, have had few problems with it aside from the usual Linux issues, and I like to believe I made my decision to use it (and sometimes recommend it) over the past few years separate and apart from any multi-million dollar backing or campaigns. I found Arch Linux without any of that, and it is my current preferred distribution.

ConnorBehan · 2007-09-25 02:52:38

I wouldn't say Ubuntu sucks, but it wasn't for me. Yes bundling loads of executables and libraries in the packages bothered me alot, the lack of "makepkg" and the "AUR" were annoying becuase it seemed like only ultra-professional developers could get anything into the repos and for some reason DRI/GLX would not work at all. I like Arch much better, although if I had started with Arch I'd be lost. I recommend either Ubuntu or Fedora to Linux newcomers but when they get a few years under their belt, I will say "go to Arch, it's much better "

Arch Linux

#1 2007-09-09 02:41:50

Ubuntu Sucks? or just me?

#2 2007-09-09 02:52:28

Re: Ubuntu Sucks? or just me?

#3 2007-09-09 02:53:53

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#4 2007-09-09 03:02:11

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#5 2007-09-09 05:00:43

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#6 2007-09-09 05:28:42

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#7 2007-09-09 09:10:52

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#8 2007-09-09 10:03:49

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#9 2007-09-09 13:33:14

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#10 2007-09-09 14:07:04

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#12 2007-09-09 16:57:46

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#13 2007-09-09 17:36:25

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#14 2007-09-09 20:12:44

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#15 2007-09-09 20:19:06

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#16 2007-09-09 21:05:28

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#17 2007-09-09 22:21:43

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#18 2007-09-10 03:26:51

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#19 2007-09-10 10:17:54

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#20 2007-09-10 12:52:16

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#21 2007-09-10 15:13:58

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#22 2007-09-12 00:47:47

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#23 2007-09-12 01:24:59

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#24 2007-09-25 02:52:38

Re: Ubuntu Sucks? or just me?

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