[Discuss] to Ubuntu or not to Ubuntu

[tmetro-blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
> I think I've decided to move away from Ubuntu. Maybe I'm a dinosaur, but
> I'm not liking the changes.
> 
> CentOS? OpenSuSE? Fedora?

I'm pondering the same question, but personally I plan to stay within
the Debian universe if I do stray from Ubuntu. The Debian frame is still
solid, even if the Ubuntu chrome on top has gotten too distracting.

It makes me wonder where community maintained distributions will find
technical contributors if they optimize their UIs for non-technical
people to the point that it drives them away. (Maybe not an issue for
Ubuntu, which has paid developers.)


William Ricker wrote:
> If I got totally alienated, I'd check out Mint...

That seems to be the alternative disto most frequently mentioned for
Ubuntu expats.


> ...How-To to replace Unity with traditional shell...

To me this comes down to which will be better supported: 1. running a
3rd tier distribution like Mint, or 2. substituting a major Ubuntu
component? Will most all Ubuntu packages still work with #2? Will
developers ignore your bug reports if you aren't running Unity? Will you
have to constantly switch back to Unity to test whether it makes an
observed problem go away? Which of these two options will have a larger
user community?

In the early days with Ubuntu, it was apparent how many layers you were
from a package's developer. It was "upstream" (original authors) ->
Debian package maintainers -> Ubuntu package maintainers. Most bugs had
to travel up that ladder, and faxes back down, which was slow. But over
time Ubuntu became embraced directly by more and more developers as they
adopted it for their personal use and the user base grew.

Either of the above options is likely to inject a step in that ladder again.


Matthew Gillen wrote:
> Note that if you're just mad about gnome3...

Although there are similarities and shared elements, Unity != GNOME3.
But it sounds like running even GNOME3 on Ubuntu 11+ will put you in the
minority. And I get the impression that neither option will not provide
a smooth transition if you have a well tuned and customized GNOME2
environment.

The question I'd put to the community is: If you have been using Ubuntu
since 10.4 or earlier, and you've upgraded or are planning to, what
option did you take?

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/