Ubuntu rising

Note: This entry was written on 1/29/08 but was never scheduled to publish. Since it is now publishing as Ubuntu 8.04 LTS -- Ubuntu's second-ever long-term-support release -- has made its debut, there's a bit of added significance here (I hope). Thus far, I've had problems with the 8.04 beta, but at least some of that might hopefully melt away with the official release (and on Day 2 of the final 8.04, so far, so good). All I know is that I continue to be impressed with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, which is almost two years old at this point.

The original entry begins here:

Here's the deal: I run Debian (Etch and Lenny) and Ubuntu (formerly 6.10, 7.04, 7.10 and now 6.06 LTS), and while I've run into my share of problems with both, I'm starting to lean closer to Ubuntu as what I recommend to prospective desktop users and what I'll be using myself.

It's not a decision I'm arriving at lightly (and "arriving" means I'm not there just yet).

I've had my problems with Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10, but my experience with 6.06 LTS -- which I installed for a benchmarking test but have been using at the office over the past month or so -- has been very positive.

Say what you will about the brown desktop theme, but the way Ubuntu runs, the things it adds to Debian, the number of packages included in the default install, the way they work and the way they're presented in the menus -- I'm more impressed than I've ever been.

Wherever I am on the "geek scale," I do like the bigger default installation of Debian, and I like that it's just that much quicker, but the extra polish in Ubuntu makes for a better desktop experience. Sure, Ubuntu uses a lot of packages that Debian thinks too iffy to include in the Stable or even Testing releases, but I have to say that I've had more problems overall with packages in Debian than I have had in Ubuntu. That doesn't make up for the overall problems I've had with Ubuntu 7.10 (and which I couldn't attribute to a specific package because I'm just not anywhere near that knowledgeable).

While my Debian Lenny install is going great on my Gateway laptop, I have half a mind to give Ubuntu 6.06 LTS a try on the other partition, even though the machine has had trouble with Ubuntus 7.04 and 7.10. I hope the upcoming Ubuntu LTS works as well -- or better -- for me. Again, seeing and using is believing.