Posted April 30, 2010
Posting from my fresh 10.04 install right now! 
TheJoe: I am terribly, terribly disappointed with Ubuntu.
Things started going downhill from Hardy Heron, when things turned into "innovation". Things were changed to distract from consistency and usability, to make way for innovation and user friendliness.
This is something that should not be in Canonical's hands. Linux and OSS is about freedom, in both usability and license.
Social and cloud integration and moving the window buttons to the left hand side are just a few things that point to Ubuntu's impending total collapse. Innovation is eating the project up.
Ubuntu was made as a reguarly updated alternative to Debian, which has very infrequent updates and its packages are very old for usability instead of high version numbers. This system worked wonderfully until Canoncal felt that "new users" needed a bit of hand holding.
Yes. Ubuntu is a fantastic starting point for Linux users. Or at least, it used to be. It no longer is. There are no good choices for the new user anymore.
If I ever use Linux, I tend to use Arch which gives me 360 degrees of freedom with my system, and I like it that. 
tb87670: I feel the same, I remember the old days when Ubuntu was a project with promise. Now it's a sham of it's former self. I guess everything goes from good to bad after a long while, heck Windows started off as a decent program and now turned into the ugly M$ corporation that purposely annihilates all competition we see nowadays. Canonical really shouldn't have their hands on Ubuntu, I agree with you on that.
I've been with Ubuntu for several years now (since 2004, I think) and it always amazes me when people complain about it making the more complicated things about Linux a bit more obfuscated behind the UI. As I remember it, Ubuntu was originally "Linux for everyone", meaning that their goal was to make a Linux distro as user-proof as possible. I hate to say this, but their unstated goal was to make it as much like a Windows experience as possible, since that is what the vast majority of average PC users were used to. For Linux purists, this means an OS that doesn't openly let them do the things they want to do with it by default, like most other distros, but for the Linux newbie, it means an OS that "just works", unlike most other distros. Complaining about the fact that Ubuntu is very clearly reaching its goals is like complaining that the sky is blue; its supposed to be like that. Canonical has done a very good job of guiding Ubuntu along the path it has always been on from the beginning. Their recent push towards innovation, while I also don't necessarily agree with it (I have issues with "cloud computing") is just the next natural step in making Ubuntu not just comparable to Windows, but superior to it, from the perspective of the average user. That might mean they lose a few of the Linux enthusiast crowd, but so what, that isn't the people they were making Ubuntu for in the first place.
That being said, moving the window buttons over to the left side is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in my life.
Things started going downhill from Hardy Heron, when things turned into "innovation". Things were changed to distract from consistency and usability, to make way for innovation and user friendliness.
This is something that should not be in Canonical's hands. Linux and OSS is about freedom, in both usability and license.
Social and cloud integration and moving the window buttons to the left hand side are just a few things that point to Ubuntu's impending total collapse. Innovation is eating the project up.
Ubuntu was made as a reguarly updated alternative to Debian, which has very infrequent updates and its packages are very old for usability instead of high version numbers. This system worked wonderfully until Canoncal felt that "new users" needed a bit of hand holding.
Yes. Ubuntu is a fantastic starting point for Linux users. Or at least, it used to be. It no longer is. There are no good choices for the new user anymore.
If I ever use Linux, I tend to use Arch which gives me 360 degrees of freedom with my system, and I like it that.
I've been with Ubuntu for several years now (since 2004, I think) and it always amazes me when people complain about it making the more complicated things about Linux a bit more obfuscated behind the UI. As I remember it, Ubuntu was originally "Linux for everyone", meaning that their goal was to make a Linux distro as user-proof as possible. I hate to say this, but their unstated goal was to make it as much like a Windows experience as possible, since that is what the vast majority of average PC users were used to. For Linux purists, this means an OS that doesn't openly let them do the things they want to do with it by default, like most other distros, but for the Linux newbie, it means an OS that "just works", unlike most other distros. Complaining about the fact that Ubuntu is very clearly reaching its goals is like complaining that the sky is blue; its supposed to be like that. Canonical has done a very good job of guiding Ubuntu along the path it has always been on from the beginning. Their recent push towards innovation, while I also don't necessarily agree with it (I have issues with "cloud computing") is just the next natural step in making Ubuntu not just comparable to Windows, but superior to it, from the perspective of the average user. That might mean they lose a few of the Linux enthusiast crowd, but so what, that isn't the people they were making Ubuntu for in the first place.
That being said, moving the window buttons over to the left side is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in my life.
